As a targeted individual, it is important to understand some of the fundamental behavior and organization of the NSA which is responsible directly or indirectly for a lot of computer hacking. The diagram below, which was released as part of the Snowden documents, shows some of the relationships between the NSA and private service providers, software, and hardware companies. These private sector company relationships are managed by the NSA’s Special Sources Operations unit.
As you can see, the relationships represented here is a larger network than just the PRISM system, which is the back-end data collection system for email, telecommunications, and social media companies.
Analysis: The diagram above gives us some better insight into the scope of the relationships between private companies and the US intelligence community. This does explain in-part the challenges of securing your devices and online accounts.
Some of the proactive actions that we can take based on this information are:
- Use software from companies such as Proton (Email, VPN, Storage, Password Management). Proton uses open source software and is based in Switzerland, which has strong security and privacy protections.
- Use open source software. This software’s source code is available online for anyone to view. This helps to ensure that there are no intentional backdoors, vulnerabilities, or suspicious behavior in the software. Linux is an open source operating system which includes several popular versions such as Ubuntu.
- Use service providers based out of countries with good privacy protections. (Switzerland, Panama)
- Use a VPN product such as Proton VPN and connect directly to a secure country (Switzerland). This can be used on both your phone and PC.
- If you already have a secure email account and are still being hacked, consider the use of a hardware authentication key, see my previous article for recommendations.
