You click or select the send button and, in seconds, your email or post to a newsboard is transmitted halfway around the world. It's great. It is also not a secure way of sending confidential information. It has been stored on numerous computers and disks, in between. There are people in the American government, consular services, FBI, CIA, etc who are not only paranoid about "terrorism", but believe the USA has a "special realationship" with Britain and its government. If you live in Canada or Australia, your head of state is still the Queen.
And, even though you have probably never broken any major laws of your country of residence or never intend to, you should be aware of these things. The FBI thought nothing of breaking the law to sabatouge anti-war groups in the 70's.
There are people who want to preseve the British empire, who read the RBB, etc and they will do everything, in their power, to counter your letters, demonstrations, etc if they receive advanced notices.
The idea is not to become paranoid, just use common sense.
And even if you don't care one way or the other about your own privacy, please honour that of others who may. If you don't you may chase away helpful activists from working with yourself.
Suggestions
- Use snail mail rather than email to send confidential information.
- If you must use email, for confidential information, use encoded email.
- If you are a known activist or belong to certain Irish organizaations, do not use your residential phone for confidential information. Work phones in large companies are better and although pay phones are sometimes tapped, it is usually only local authorities looking for specific drug dealers, not activists.
- Rather than post information about your scheduled trip to Ireland or about a proposed picket, demonstration on bulletin boards, use snail mail or secure email to tell your friends.
Of course,if time does not permit, then use the bulletin boards.
- It's a good idea to use several, separate email addresses, one for personal, another for business, another for activism. The one for activism ought to be a nickname instead of your actual name. Also use different vendors, not the same one, because if they have a problem, you can use your alternate emails.
- Where permitted use nicknames, not real names, on bulletin boards. The RBB restricts you to one name, but it can be a nickname as long as you don't change it.
- However, if you have already used your real name, continue to use it. Don't switch to a nickname, you can use later on, at some other place.
- If your name is Terry O'Malley, don't call yourself Timmy O' Meara, or Terry _____ Be inventive, call yourself Kathy Smolensky! (Well, you may not want to "change" your sex or nationality, but you get the point.) Or Dark Falcon. (but not if you are dark or have black hair) If you were born in September don't call yourself "Virgo" call yourself another sign.
- Don't post anyone else's personal email address on a bulletin board without their permission.
- Although we are not encouraging the use of more than one nickname on a board, if you do, do that, make sure you log on and off from your internet provider, or turn your computer on and off, each time you "change identities". If you don't on some boards like the Deb Cen, readers can determine that different posts came from the exact same computer.
- If you are using a public library to post on boards, in some cases, the readers will be able to determine where your post came from, especially if you do not use Anonymizer.
- We highly recommend you subscribe to Anonymizer, it's only $15 for three months, you can use the free service but it can be very very slow at times. Or, better yet, you can make Anonymizer your ISP provider if you are in the USA or Canada, they have many local dial up connections.
- If you want tips on how to outsmart certain organizations, that flag and read your email when they contain references to certain groups, email us, and we'll snail mail you some ideas, providing we already know who you actually are.
- For your personal privacy, you can get a PO Box and have the majority of your mail, and subscriptions sent there. And you can get a second, actual local phone number for roughly only $10 dollars a month from Voice mail comapaines such as Discount Voice Mail. It gives you a second, phone number that you can give out as your "public" phone number, while not disclosing your actual home phone number to any but a small circle of friends. Your voice mail number is really a voice mail computer chip where your messagses go and you, with your password, can access from anywhere. Discount Voice Mail beats the regular phone companies' voice mail, offers a lot of extras, but in effect, gives you an extra pheone/phone number for $9 or $10 a month.
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