5 Online Privacy Tools You Can Start Using Now To Bypass NSA Surveillance

[rgray222]

Now more than than ever, we need to be smart about how we communicate online. The NSA’s PRISM program is continuously collecting all of our personal data from the world’s top online services including Facebook, Skype, Google, and Apple. If we take no precautionary measures, we should assume that all of our communications are being stored and analyzed in real-time. This is a total violation of our privacy and it’s time we take back our online power and freedom by using some simple tools and expanding our technical awareness.


http://cdn1.collective-evolution.com/assets/uploads/2014/07/prism11-650x400.jpg

The ultimate goal of the NSA is nothing less than “total population control (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/07/19/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control-another-nsa-whistleblower/).” They want to know exactly how you live, what you think, what you’re interested in, what motivates you, who you associate with, what you really know, and what you are against. This occurs regardless if you have done anything wrong or not. Their motto and practice is simple: collect everything. This dragnet surveillance attempts to intercept all digital communications including emails, chat messages, phone conversations, video calls, text messages, browsing history, and more.

As a result, we really need to be vigilant about our browsing habits and our approach to using the internet. It would be wise to reduce and eventually eliminate our usage of all compromised services, especially when sharing sensitive personal information. In the meantime, here are some helpful and easy-to-use tools that can greatly enhance your online privacy and digital integrity.

Search Anonymously
Use StartPage (https://startpage.com/) or DuckDuckGo (https://duckduckgo.com/) for all your searches. They are both the world’s most private search engines, allowing you to search anonymously and securely. They do not collect or share any personal information about you, including your IP address. I recommend adding one or both of these search engines to your browser. StartPage even offers you one-click access to search results through a web proxy, giving you further anonymity.

Browse Anonymously
The easiest way to prevent anyone from learning your location and spying on your internet activity is by using the Tor Browser Bundle (https://www.torproject.org/). The Tor network is run by privacy-conscious volunteers all around the world and is an extremely effective tool against network surveillance. Even the NSA doesn’t like it. Using Tor allows you to access sites that have been blocked by certain ISPs and countries and also to hidden parts of the internet. It is important not to use Tor for sites that personally identify you like Facebook or Gmail, as this defeats the purpose of anonymity. The Tor Browser will block browser plugins like Flash, Quicktime, etc as these can be tricked into revealing your IP address. So be aware that you may have to change your browsing habits to maximize the use of this powerful software.

Use a VPN
Another easy way to browse anonymously is by using a VPN (virtual private network). This essentially encrypts your connection and gives you an anonymous IP each time you browse. There are many VPN providers available but they are not all created equal. What’s important is that the company does NOT keep traffic logs, as these can be turned over to the NSA and other courts upon request. Therefore, I recommend using PrivateInternetAccess (https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/how-it-works/), where you can sign up completely anonymously using Bitcoins and other payment methods. Alternatively, here is a solid list of other seriously private VPN providers (http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/).

Chat Anonymously
One of the best apps for private, encrypted chats is Cryptocat (https://crypto.cat/). It can easily be added to your web browser and even your iPhone. The app offers individual or group chat, file sharing and even Facebook chat — all encrypted. Keep in mind that both users need to be using Cryptocat for encrypted chat to work properly over Facebook Messenger. Also note that using Cryptocat does not anonymize your connection, so you’ll have to mask your IP address using Tor or a VPN to be truly anonymous. Check this list for more secure instant messaging options (https://prism-break.org/en/all/#instant-messaging). If you’re looking for Skype alternatives, I recommend checking out Jitsi (https://jitsi.org/) or Linphone (http://www.linphone.org/). See more voice & video chat options here (https://prism-break.org/en/all/#video-voice).

Store & Share Files Anonymously
One of the most popular file storage services in the world is Dropbox and, unfortunately, they are a “targeted wannabe PRISM provider”, according to Edward Snowden. This means their services have been potentially compromised and cannot be trusted. Fortunately, there is a better alternative. SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/) is a tool that enables you to have completely private file storage, backup, and syncing across all your devices. They have a “Zero Knowledge” policy — which means even their servers do not have access to the plaintext contents of the data being stored. They do not store your password and everything is encrypted. SpiderOak has been recommended by Snowden himself as a secure alternative. All new users are offered 2GB for free, a generous starting point.

Email Anonymously
Everyone uses email and these can be the most revealing and compromising communications. Using providers like Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail and Yahoo virtually guarantees that your emails are being recorded and stored against your will. Therefore, it is important to consider switching to a privacy-conscious email provider (http://prxbx.com/email/). Additionally, it is recommended to learn how to use encrypted email by using PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). Essentially, PGP uses public-private key cryptography, which allows you to send emails and files that only a trusted third party can open and view. You will need to generate a public and private key pair and have some technical knowledge to use it effectively. Here is an easy startup guide (http://www.deepdotweb.com/2013/11/11/pgp-tutorial-for-newbs-gpg4win/) and there are some good tutorials on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mvf8VwVjJY) that can show you how to get started. There is a nice Chrome extension called Mailvelope (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro3MSBS9w-A) that can integrate PGP with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo if you must continue using these. I also highly recommend using Enigmail (https://enigmail.net/home/index.php) if you use Thunderbird as an easy integrated PGP solution.

Source (http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/07/24/5-online-privacy-tools-you-can-to-start-using-now-to-bypass-nsa-surveillance/)

[DeDukshyn]

A well put together guide. Thanks rgray.

[linksplatinum]

Tor!
Works like a charm

[Daozen]

Solution thread. Nice.

On the other hand, I bet the NSA and IC own most of the proxies and privacy hacks out there.

What better way to keep track of everyone trying to fly under the radar.

They're 100 times more scared of us than we are of them. Their data centers are overwhelmed.

[countertheanimator]

Maybe there are any programmers here who can create an anti-spying chatting program?

[Frank V]

Maybe there are any programmers here who can create an anti-spying chatting program?

There's no need to, really. IRC is the oldest public chat protocol, and most IRC networks allow you to connect to their servers via SSL/TLS encryption. This means that all traffic between the IRC client on your own computer and the IRC server will be encrypted - at least, if you enable encryption.

Of course, chatrooms are themselves not encrypted, but one can opt for...


DCC connections ("direct client connection") which bypass the server for a given private conversation - this may be helpful for avoiding netsplits;
the standard private messaging system (PRIVMSG) provided by the server; or
setting up encryption in one's own IRC client - the person you're talking to would have to use the same encryption algorithm of course, or they wouldn't be able to read your messages.


Not all IRC client software supports all of the above, but KVIrc (http://www.kvirc.net) does, and although it was initially developed for UNIX (e.g. GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, et al) only, it has for a long time already been made available to Microsoft Windows and Apple OSX as well now. It's Free & Open Source Software, and it's very good - it's both user-friendly and powerful at the same time via a very intelligent script engine. I used to run an IRC network with a bunch of people and we had very good relations with the developers of KVIrc. They are awesome people. I myself have been using KVIrc ever since it was still in its 0.9 beta version, and I'm still using it today.

As for IRC networks, I recommend Freenode (http://www.freenode.net). It's one of the oldest and largest IRC networks, and it's the home of many (if not most) Free & Open Source Software projects. The Free Software developers use Freenode for their on-line conferencing, but of course, anyone can start a new chatroom, and Freenode allows one fine-grained (but optional) control over one's nickname and chatrooms via an IRC services add-on - for those in the know: NickServ, ChanServ, MemoServ, HelpServ and friends. ;-)

Connecting is a piece of cake. You download and install an IRC client such as KVIrc, you set it up with a nickname, alternate nicknames, a "username", a "real name", and you select a server in an IRC network such as Freenode. Large networks have multiple servers, and some of them are round robins, so that connecting to a particular server name will simply connect you to a random server within the same network, which evens out the load across the network. Along with the server name (or IP address), one also has to specify a port to connect to on the server. Usually this is a port in the range 6666-6669, but encrypted connections use ports higher up in the range. Details can usually be found on the website of the pertinent IRC network.

Of course, things like netsplits do happen because of the geographical location of the servers and the distances between them. The Internet is not free of glitches - far from it - but when a netsplit occurs, then you just wait until the servers sync again, or you join the server that the other ones were on before the split. You can also have "ping timeouts", which means that the connection between your computer and the server gets lost - this typically happens if there are a lot of junction points between yourself and the server, which results in a lot of lag - but then you can try reconnecting or picking another server in the list.

IRC was very popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, but was largely removed from the public attention through instant messenger clients such as ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN Messenger - the latter especially since it was installed in Microsoft Windows by default, so people wouldn't look for any alternatives anymore, or even be aware of the existence of such alternatives.

More information about IRC can be found in this Wikipedia article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC).

[Axman]

Thanks guys great info.

The Axman

[Joao]

Hello there,

Fist of all I wanted to thank rgray222 for creating this thread. I have read it twice and already installed 4 of those tools.
I am an amateur in these fields so it is nice to learn some tricks and to get some of my Online privacy back.
I just have two questions:

1. For example it is not a good idea to use Tor Browser Bundle while coming here on Project Avalon, because when I Log In here it just shows my IP right? ( Better if I only use that browser to search information or while I don't want anyone tracking what I am doing ) At least I think that is the basic idea of using that browser ....

2. This is probably a silly question, but here on Project Avalon, this site has a lot of protection right? And those agency's don't have an easy time to target a person over here or read our private messages right ?

Thank you very much for all the information shared here
Joao

[countertheanimator]

Just to tell you something. Even with using Tor, you can still get spied on.
I have witnessed and to be honest, did this.

Tor helps against simple tracking. For an example, you visit a site, and the site has amateur tracking system and they get your IP. The admin/owner of the site can see your IP and DDoS you, and even track you. Tor makes you immune to this, since your IP does not exist.

But the Internet, or the World Wide Web, as you prefer, is an exchange of information. Even if Tor tries to avoid such files, they can still be sent to you. That's why governments are against Torrents, since they are peer to peer transfer and privacy is conserved.

[Joao]

Hello again,
I am getting a bit interested in finding ways to protect my Online Privacy.
As you said countertheanimator Tor is just to help against simple tracking.
Do you have a better and more stronger alternative that can prevent anyone from learning my location and spying on my internet activity? (Like really hiding my IP from anyone) but free of charge?
And now talking about alternatives to Skype , which one any of you advice?
You talk about Cryptocat, Jitsi, Linphone ... Which one it is definitely the most bullet prove and safest to use on a daily basis?
Thank you very much
Joao

[lysander]

Modify some popular portable routers for automatically forcing all traffic over tor.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/14/portal-tor-router/

[countertheanimator]

@Joao

Unless you have strong knowledge in computer software, and even if you do, you can still be vulnerable.
The was this spying program, which is called Finspy, made by Gamma International, and it's used worldwide for spying on everything. It attaches to some system processes like: svchost.exe, explorer.exe etc etc
Basically, even if you find a way to protect yourself, you can still get spied on. As soon as you're on the internet, you're getting spied. ESET Antivirus can detect advanced spying viruses, but not for long, since nobody is immune.

I think you've already did a research on VPN, and you maybe found HotSpot Shield. That's a program that also hides your IP, but not only from simple tracking, but from advanced tracking too. It comes with an advanced antivirus system. Tor is only a browsing privacy program, while this protects your PC almost 90%. Get it from the pirate bay.

Skype is just as fine now. Teamspeaker is also a substitution to Skype.

I forgot to tell. Even if Avalon has some defense, it is weak. It can prevent DDoS, but it depends on the system which the host uses. If it's windows, the forum can get down in seconds. Linux is better, but you need to have more knowledge of computers and programming languages.

[Frank V]

@Joao

Unless you have strong knowledge in computer software, and even if you do, you can still be vulnerable.
The was this spying program, which is called Finspy, made by Gamma International, and it's used worldwide for spying on everything. It attaches to some system processes like: svchost.exe, explorer.exe etc etc
Basically, even if you find a way to protect yourself, you can still get spied on. As soon as you're on the internet, you're getting spied. ESET Antivirus can detect advanced spying viruses, but not for long, since nobody is immune.


After all, let's not forget how the Internet was born. It started off as a computer network for the US Department of Defense, called DARPAnet, and then it was later on opened up to the public by Al Gore, the very same guy who gave us the "carbon dioxides cause global warming" scam. Even to this very date, control of the Internet and its protocols is still in US American hands, and I don't think anyone really believes that the opening up of the Internet to public access was a purely humanitarian effort. ;-)



I think you've already did a research on VPN, and you maybe found HotSpot Shield. That's a program that also hides your IP, but not only from simple tracking, but from advanced tracking too. It comes with an advanced antivirus system. Tor is only a browsing privacy program, while this protects your PC almost 90%. Get it from the pirate bay.

And if you're really paranoid about your security, then get the hell off of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft actively sells zero-day exploits to the NSA before they issue a patch for those exploit mechanisms to their user base, not to mention that Microsoft has several long-term and big budget contracts with the US Department of Defense, the US Department of Homeland Security, and several of the other alphabet soup agencies. In addition to that, Bill and Melinda Gates are Bilderbergers, Bill Gates is a proponent of eugenetics and depopulation, and his father is an attorney for several Illuminati families - Rothschild, Bush, Carnegie, Morgan, et al.

All versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows NT 3.1 onward contain two deliberately built-in backdoors: one for Microsoft (so they can remove illegal software from your machine or install other software on it) and one for the NSA (so they can use your machine as a drone in a botnet for cyberwarfare). And don't even think about going with Apple either. While it's not as bad as Microsoft, Apple OSX too contains a backdoor which allows Apple to install software on your machine without your consent.

The best security and guarantee of privacy can be had with GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Dragonfly or another UNIX-family operating system such as OpenIndiana (formerly OpenSolaris). (Note: OSX is technically a trademarked UNIX but it contains proprietary elements and it's the least UNIX-like of all UNIX systems.)



Skype is just as fine now. Teamspeaker is also a substitution to Skype.


I wouldn't trust Skype. It has been bought up by Microsoft.



I forgot to tell. Even if Avalon has some defense, it is weak. It can prevent DDoS, but it depends on the system which the host uses. If it's windows, the forum can get down in seconds. Linux is better, but you need to have more knowledge of computers and programming languages.

As far as I know - but Paul and Ilie will be able to confirm or deny this - Avalon runs on top of a GNU/Linux platform. Statistically, 70% of the Internet's servers run off of GNU/Linux these days, and about 20% of the rest runs off of other UNIX systems. The remaining 5% is divided among other systems such as Microsoft Windows and the occasional Novell Netware or openVMS system still in use here and there.

The reason why Microsoft Windows is so popular on the desktop is primarily because of the bundle sales. Most brand-name computers come pre-installed with an OEM version of Microsoft Windows, whether the customer wants that or not. In the server market however, this is by far not true, because then you are dealing with people who actually know how these operating systems work. They know that Windows is unstable and insecure junk, and UNIX-family operating systems have already long proven their reliability, scalability, robustness, security and flexibility.

GNU/Linux, the various BSDs and OpenIndiana are all Open Source operating systems, which adds the extra bonus that the source code is open for everyone to scrutinize and improve. There is transparency, and in general, bugs get fixed and security holes get patched before the bad guys can write an exploit for them. Big IT corporations also don't have to dedicate too many of their resources to developing the operating system itself because that's all done by the community and the corporations can reap the benefits from that. Companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle all sponsor the development of the Linux kernel but still continue to develop their own proprietary UNIX versions, albeit that the latter are specifically designed to work with the even so proprietary hardware platforms sold by said companies. GNU/Linux supports those too, of course - it even runs on mainframes, and on the bare metal - but its primary platform is the open and much more affordable x86(-64) architecture.

P.S.: The operating system Edward Snowden used is called Tails and is a GNU/Linux distribution which can be installed on one's hard disk but which can also be used as a so-called "live CD" - you boot up from the CD and you have a complete and working system without having to install anything, but of course, running off of the optical drive, it's going to be slower than a hard disk installation. Tails also uses the Tor browser bundle by default.

[Joao]

Hello,
Thank you all for the information given !!
I am interested in switching from my Windows 8.1 to GNU/Linux if possible... At the moment I have a HP Pavilion 15 Notebook Laptop ( 15-n221sa ) but I am an amateur in this subject. My brother is quite god with PCs but he does not live near me at the moment. But he told me I should download GNU/Linux to a Pen ( and at the moment I just have a card with 2 GB ) and then Format my Hard-drive ( I think that's the name ) and then install GNU/Linux as its done with Microsoft after you Format a PC. But I also been searching on YouTube for tutorials and some people say Linux in a Laptop makes the wireless don't work on the PC and after installing Linux in the PC the only way to get Internet is by using cables ( That at the moment is not possible for me to use ... )
I am thinking in going for it but I bet I will do something bad to the PC and then get stuck without a stable software ( I don't even know how to install the right drives ... ) I am talking with my Brother at the moment about that, but he cant do much he is really far away. He his also advising me that most of the programs wont work with Linux, because it haves it own programs and so on...
Let us see what I will do now
Thank you all again
Joao

[pathaka]

Very good post, thank you.

The only thing that NSA possible can't read at this moment is 2048-bit PGP. If you want secure email you must use that. Some providers are harder for them to listen to, but google/ms/apple/yahoo they have already through the backbone. Use OpenPGP only. The Symantec for-paid version very likely has a backdoor for NSA.

Good, upcoming secure OUTSIDE USA email providers:

https://lavaboom.com/en/
https://protonmail.ch/

Outside USA crypto-chat:

https://threema.ch/en

Outside USA encrypted Cloud drive (dropbox/Onedrive/GoogleDrive competition):

https://tresorit.com/
http://www.younited.com/

Also, Tor browser component has (or at least _had_) a NSA usable vulnerability, so it's far from fool-proof. The makers have maybe removed this. However, be aware that NSA can fingerprint and audit tor traffic. They are actively seeking and trying to identify tor users (as per Bruce Schneier reporting). Also, Russia has put out a ransom for for-paid-hackers to identify and/or hack Tor.

This is of course all illegal, but as we already know, NSA is above the law and they don't care.

[Frank V]

Hello,
Thank you all for the information given !!
I am interested in switching from my Windows 8.1 to GNU/Linux if possible... At the moment I have a HP Pavilion 15 Notebook Laptop ( 15-n221sa ) but I am an amateur in this subject. My brother is quite god with PCs but he does not live near me at the moment. But he told me I should download GNU/Linux to a Pen ( and at the moment I just have a card with 2 GB ) and then Format my Hard-drive ( I think that's the name ) and then install GNU/Linux as its done with Microsoft after you Format a PC.

I think you will find very useful and detailed instructions and other information in this older thread here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?70292-Support-for-Windows-XP-ends). ;-)



But I also been searching on YouTube for tutorials and some people say Linux in a Laptop makes the wireless don't work on the PC and after installing Linux in the PC the only way to get Internet is by using cables ( That at the moment is not possible for me to use ... )


A while ago, there was indeed a problem with support for certain particular wireless adapters in GNU/Linux due to the fact that the manufacturer of those devices refused to either offer a driver for them or open up their specifications so that the Linux kernel developers could write their own drivers. This was most notably the case with certain Broadcom wireless adapter chips. Meanwhile however, Broadcom has opened up the specifications so that Linux drivers could be written for those devices.

All in all, the Linux kernel supports the greatest offer of hardware on the planet "out of the box", and one would really be hard-pressed to find computer hardware which does not work under GNU/Linux.



I am thinking in going for it but I bet I will do something bad to the PC and then get stuck without a stable software ( I don't even know how to install the right drives ... )

Again I refer to the thread to which I have provided the link higher up in this reply. It contains very important information about this subject.

In addition to that, GNU/Linux is a UNIX system, and UNIX is a multiuser platform. Therefore, there is a strict privilege separation between normal user accounts and the root account, which is the equivalent of an Administrator account under Microsoft Windows. One normally never uses the root account for any day-to-day work. It is intended for system administration only. By consequence, one normally works from an unprivileged account, and although it is possible to screw up one's own files and such by doing something stupid, one can never damage the files of the other user accounts this way, nor the system files. All of the system's own files are write-protected against unprivileged user accounts, and only the root account has write access to those areas.

Files are also not executable by default, regardless of their filename. In Microsoft Windows, the filename's suffix - e.g. ".EXE" - tells the system whether the file is an executable or not, and will allow the system to execute that file even from a memory buffer, as for instance is the case with an e-mail attachment. In UNIX systems, the filename is irrelevant, whether it has a suffix or not, and files have to explicitly be given execute permission in the filesystem layer, and this for three distinct user groups:


the owner of the file;
the user group to which the file is assigned;
"all others".

By consequence, an executable can never be executed from a memory buffer.

Each of the three designations above ("user", "group", "others") has three permissions which can be set or unset in the filesystem for each file and each directory:


read;
write;
execute.


Additional permissions do exist for specialized purposes, as well as additional access control mechanisms (via POSIX ACLs ("access control lists")) and protection mechanisms (via file attributes). Furthermore, it is possible to install the system in such a way that the directory hierarchy is spread out across multiple physical filesystems - read: disk partitions or even network shares - in a transparent manner, and each individual filesystem can then be mounted into the tree with specalized mount options, such as a read-only mount. This further increases security and limits file or filesystem damage.

Again, see the thread to which I have referred higher up. I have explained a lot of this in my posts there. :-)



I am talking with my Brother at the moment about that, but he cant do much he is really far away. He his also advising me that most of the programs wont work with Linux, because it haves it own programs and so on...
Let us see what I will do now
Thank you all again
Joao

GNU/Linux is an entirely different type of operating system, and therefore has its own set of applications, tools and utilities. It was never intended to be an alternative to Microsoft Windows, but much rather to proprietary UNIX systems. That said, a great deal of the Free/Libre & Open Source Software is also available for Microsoft Windows, so if you were already using such an application - e.g. Firefox - in Windows, then you will have no problem using the GNU/Linux-native version of Firefox either.

In addition to the above, there is also very limited support for Windows-specific applications via a Windows ABI ("Application Binary Interface") called Wine. Another way of thinking about this is that it's a Windows emulator, albeit that technically this is not a correct description. Again, the thread to which I have linked higher up in this reply has a lot of information on that subject. ;-)

[countertheanimator]

One thing i found somewhat ridiculous is when you said carbon dioxides bring global warming is a hoax. It clearly is not scam, but this is not the topic for it.

Linux, and most of the Unix systems were created, or their early beginnings were developed by Russians. Microsoft and Apple were made by Americans, so americans can use it for spying.
Linux was released as spy-proof system by the russians, but spy-proof only against American agencies, like the NSA. If the russian developers are good, they can eliminate the NSA's codes and scripts meant for spying.

The Linux system was initiated by a Finnish man, but he got funding and resumed working in Russia.

[Frank V]

One thing i found somewhat ridiculous is when you said carbon dioxides bring global warming is a hoax. It clearly is not scam, but this is not the topic for it.

Um, no. Carbon dioxides only make up for 0.04% of the atmosphere, which is negligible compared to the respective percentages of the other greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. Methane is far more dangerous in that regard, and even water vapor can act as a greenhouse gas.

In addition to that, in typical political spin tradition, statistics are being used like a drunken man uses a lamp post, i.e. for support, rather than illumination. Human arrogance by default dismisses any influences the sun may have on the climate - while it has already been proven that a powerful coronal mass ejection does seriously influence the climate - as well as the poisonous non-greenhouse emissions from the industry, or experiments done with HAARP and chemtrails.



Linux, and most of the Unix systems were created, or their early beginnings were developed by Russians.


Um, no. Linux, the kernel, was created by Linus Torvalds, at the time a Finnish student (from a Swedish-speaking minority) at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Torvalds owned a brand-new Hewlett Packard PC with an Intel 80386 processor in it. He was using Minix on that machine at the time, and Minix is a UNIX clone written specifically for educational purposes by Professor Andrew Tanenbaum, one of Torvalds' teachers.

However, at the time Minix was only a 16-bit operating system developed for the Intel 8086 processor, which meant that it ran in the so-called "real mode" - i.e. an 8086 compatibility mode - on anything more powerful, and Linus wanted to explore the power and possibilities of his 32-bit 80386 processor. In the meantime, Minix has become a 32-bit operating system and its license now also permits modifications, but at the time, it did not, and so Linus started writing specialized memory extension routines into his self-created terminal emulator, which he used for interfacing with the university's mainframe computer (which ran UNIX).

Eventually this led to him creating a fully-fledged UNIX-like operating system kernel, Linux. Linus then announced his project in the comp.os.minix newsgroup on Usenet (in August 1991) and was asking for help from anyone interested. As the GNU project had already been started in 1984 by Richard Stallman, who was working in the artificial intelligence labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time - GNU's purpose was to create a fully Free Software UNIX clone, but its native kernel, the HURD, was not (and still isn't) production-ready - the GNU developers jumped on the project and started porting the GNU userland, libraries and toolchain to the Linux kernel. This is how GNU/Linux was born.

Linus Torvalds now resides in the state of Oregon, in the USA, and although he has been employed for a while at Transmeta, a CPU manufacturer, he is now employed by the Open Source Development Labs.

As for UNIX, that was created by Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan and one or two other computer scientists at AT&T Bell Labs back in 1969. Said people were all in charge of developing and maintaining the Multics operating system on a mainframe. However, due to the batch-processing nature of Multics, they had some spare time, and used that to write and play games. These games took up CPU time from the Multics machine, so they decided to offload this onto an unused DEC PDP-7 minicomputer - a minicomputer at the time was still big enough to fill an entire wall, but much smaller than a mainframe, which would fill up an entire hall.

In order to be able to port their games to the PDP-7 machine, they wrote a new operating system which was loosely based on the experimental Multics system running on the mainframe, and this new system was dubbed Unics, later on re-spelled as Unix. They initially wrote the system in assembler code, but then later on, Dennis Ritchie created the C programming language - which was designed for portability across different hardware architectures - and rewrote Unix in C for a DEC PDP-11 machine.

Initially, Unix was used internally at AT&T only, because Ritchie, Thompson et al had been able to convince the AT&T brass that the system could be used for the processing of patent documents. And so that's what its official designation was. Later on, AT&T gave away copies of the source code to the University of Berkeley, who produced their own variant of Unix (called BSD Unix), based upon the code from AT&T.

This was 1970, and apart from BSD ("Berkeley Software Distribution"), who commercialized their Unix system, other manufacturers started taking out licenses and developing their own Unix variants. Some were based upon the AT&T design, and others upon the BSD design. Yet others showed deviations in design from either, which led to the infamous Unix Wars, and eventually a number of initiatives were formed to streamline the Unix versions and limit the design differences, so that UNIX could become a standard. This standard is currently owned as a trademark by The Open Group, to whom it was donated by the Santa Cruz Operations, a software company who previously owned the UNIX trademark and sold their own AT&T-based SCO Unix and UnixWare operating systems. The AT&T Unix copyrights and patents were sold to Novell, which has in the meantime been sold to Attachmate.

I don't see how you tie in the Russians with any of this, not to mention espionage or surveillance.



Microsoft and Apple were made by Americans, so americans can use it for spying.


That was certainly not the initial intent, as much as I dislike both companies. Both Microsoft and Apple had commercial-only intentions, albeit that Microsoft did not provide any hardware. They were a software-only company at the time, and as such, their primary market was the open x86 platform created by Intel. Traditionally, Microsoft has considered the x86 platform its property and has therefore set out to fiercely combat any perceived competitor. They did that with IBM's OS/2, with BeOS, and now with GNU/Linux. They are megalomaniacs.

The poor nature of the security and code quality in Microsoft Windows - which was never intended to be an operating system in the first place, as it started off as a graphical user interface and memory extender for MS-DOS - is what allows for so many exploits against this system, but at the same time it rules the x86 desktop and notebook market due to Microsoft's arm-twisting cartel deals with hardware vendors, through which brand-name computers come pre-installed with Microsoft Windows. The widespread nature of Windows and its easy exploitability are therefore an ideal platform for agencies like the NSA. The Stuxnet worm which attacked the Iranian nuclear installations was created by the NSA, Microsoft and the Mossad, and was successful because of the Iranian reliance on Microsoft Windows as the operating system on their computers.



Linux was released as spy-proof system by the russians, but spy-proof only against American agencies, like the NSA. If the russian developers are good, they can eliminate the NSA's codes and scripts meant for spying.


:bs:

I am very sorry to be so blunt, but the above is absolute nonsense, and I am very curious as to what your sources are for making such false claims. Please do yourself a favor and read up on both the history, nature and purpose of Free & Open Source Software.

The only project of which I know where Russians were involved was the reiserfs filesystem, and its potential successor reiser4. Only reiserfs was adopted into the Linux kernel - not reiser4 - and it is also available for Microsoft Windows. It was developed by an American company called NameSys, run by a developer named Hans Reiser. Due to financial difficulties and the fact that Reiser had been married to a Russian woman - whom he had met through a contact agency - he also hired some very cheaply paid Russian developers to work on reiser4.

However, Reiser's marriage failed, and during a heated argue a few years ago, he strangled his wife and hid the body. He was arrested and convicted of first degree murder, but given that his wife's body had not been found yet, he was sentenced to life instead. All the while he maintained his innocence, but eventually he conceded to a plea bargain in order to get a sentence reduction and admitted to having killed his wife in a fit of rage, and told the authorities where he had hidden the body. I've personally been closely monitoring all the hearings of his trial, up to the point where he confessed to manslaughter in the aftermath of the jury decision and led the authorities to the buried remains of his wife.

Hans Reiser is currently serving a 15-years-to-life prison sentence. NameSys was put up for sale but to the best of my knowledge, nobody seemed interested in buying the company. reiserfs is still being maintained by volunteers, and I presume that they may also be working on reiser4, but given that the latter was never included in the upstream kernel, I don't really know what the status on that project is.

In addition, I would also like to point out that while reiserfs is included as part of the upstream Linux kernel - and reiser4 is not - it is not the default filesystem in GNU/Linux. The Linux kernel supports many types of POSIX-compatible filesystems - POSIX is a superset of the UNIX standard - and its "native" filesystems are ext3, ext4, XFS (which was ported from the proprietary IRIX operating system, a UNIX variant from SGI), JFS (which was ported from the proprietary AIX operating system, a UNIX variant from IBM) and more recently Btrfs, a Free Software filesystem and integrated volume manager created by Oracle, and aiming to provide the same functionality as Oracle's (formerly Sun Microsystems) ZFS filesystem, which for licensing reasons cannot be included into the upstream kernel itself.

Most GNU/Linux distributions will recommend ext4 as the default filesystem. I myself have a preference for XFS, but I've briefly tested ext4 and I cannot find any faults with it. And it sure isn't Russian either. As a hint, I would recommend that you take a look at the very long list of individual contributors to the Linux kernel code.



The Linux system was initiated by a Finnish man, but he got funding and resumed working in Russia.

Again, this is blatantly false. Linus Torvalds was born into a Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, but after graduating, he moved to the United States, and currently still resides there with his family.

Also, the only thing that Linus Torvalds has created (and currently overviews as master developer) is the Linux kernel. People generally refer to the entire operating system as "Linux", but Linux is only the kernel of the system, i.e. the component which directly interfaces with the hardware, takes care of memory and process management, security policies and filesystem support, and which thus also runs in the highest privilege ring of the microprocessor. The rest of the system comes from GNU (which is an American-originated but international project) and from other projects, most of which are also US American, and some are European.

Ergo, the actual name of the entire operating system is GNU/Linux. Linux is the kernel, and GNU provides the userland. Likewise, the Android operating system running on smartphones and tablets is also based off of a (modified) Linux kernel, but nobody will call that "Linux". It's called "Android", period, and it doesn't contain any GNU components. It's a modified Linux kernel with a Java Runtime Engine on top of it, and the rest is written in Java, which is managed code (also known as "bytecode").

[Joao]

Hello,
I just wanted to thank you all for all the information shared here!
I have successfully installed Ubuntu into my Pc. And with that experience I have also learned how to Partition my Hardrive and boot into other Operation Systems.
Thank you once again,
Joao

[Joao]

Hello,
I have recently installed Ubunto 14.04 in my HP Pavilion 15 Notebook PC and I would like to install a program able to video call, call, and send written messages to Skype contacts ( most of them are family and old friends who don't want to switch for more private methods of conversation ) but I wouldn't like to actually have Skype on my PC ... Is that possible to do?
On the beginning of this thread some more secure messaging programs are mentioned like Cryptocat , Jitsi , Linphone and others but are they able to also communicate with Skype contacts ? And if yes how?
Thank you all once again and sorry for my Spam of questions in this thread,
Joao

[Frank V]

Hello,
I have recently installed Ubunto 14.04 in my HP Pavilion 15 Notebook PC and I would like to install a program able to video call, call, and send written messages to Skype contacts ( most of them are family and old friends who don't want to switch for more private methods of conversation ) but I wouldn't like to actually have Skype on my PC ... Is that possible to do?
On the beginning of this thread some more secure messaging programs are mentioned like Cryptocat , Jitsi , Linphone and others but are they able to also communicate with Skype contacts ? And if yes how?
Thank you all once again and sorry for my Spam of questions in this thread,
Joao

I personally have no experience with Skype or its alternatives, but from what I've been able to make up from a quick search, it would appear that in order to be compatible with your Skype contacts, you yourself actually do need to have Skype on your computer - it can be installed by way of Synaptic, by adding the non-free repository to your package manager - because Skype uses a proprietary protocol. So while there are alternatives - which do use open standard protocols - they are not actually compatible with Skype itself, or so it seems.

Of course, I could be wrong, and in that case, I hope someone will correct me in this matter.

[araucaria]

One thing i found somewhat ridiculous is when you said carbon dioxides bring global warming is a hoax. It clearly is not scam, but this is not the topic for it.

Um, no. Carbon dioxides only make up for 0.04% of the atmosphere, which is negligible compared to the respective percentages of the other greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. Methane is far more dangerous in that regard, and even water vapor can act as a greenhouse gas.

In addition to that, in typical political spin tradition, statistics are being used like a drunken man uses a lamp post, i.e. for support, rather than illumination. Human arrogance by default dismisses any influences the sun may have on the climate - while it has already been proven that a powerful coronal mass ejection does seriously influence the climate - as well as the poisonous non-greenhouse emissions from the industry, or experiments done with HAARP and chemtrails.


Off topic, but I agree. Even if you take CO2 as a temperature indicator, a thermometer if you will, the best fit is 800 years down the line, not contemporary. Check out this site: http://wattsupwiththat.com/