Travel Security: Digital Prey

My brick phone in Caucasus Georgia, June 2012.

After leaving Ferguson at the end of October, I've got an international trip planned. Ooo, yeah.

Since my last sojourn out of the country (well, other than walking over to Juarez from El Paso), an ugly law enforcement practice that's spread across our national body like a case of poison ivy: Border officials demanding to see communications and other data in travelers' phones and laptops without good cause. Putting travelers in untenable positions if they protest the exposure of their devices' contents to border officials.

Am I likely to be singled out for such attention? Probably not. But I object to abuses of power on principle.

So on my trip, I'll take with me:

• An old phone that is stripped of everything personal except the barest essentials I might need for travel; and
• Little Red, my sweet, childlike laptop with a toddler's memory. 

There's another advantage to the above decision. Although my complexion, dress, and accent might not trip the typecasting alarms of border officials, my gender, age, and solo traveling status might juice up the salivary glands of tourist hunters on the other side.

Hopefully, a penetrating gaze that suggests I can kick your ass, despite appearances to the contrary, will ward off attempts to cull me from the herd. But in case that fails, well,  I might get my phone or Little Red ripped off, and that would suck.

But they are my expendable Star Trek extras, and my lead actors will be safe at home.

My brick phone in Caucasus Georgia, June 2012.

A useful article about digital security: The traveler's guide to keeping electronic devices secure during international travel, published in Travel and Transport, February 2017

Airbnb: Goodbye, My Sweet

Derelict motel, Vaughn, New Mexico. July 2013.

From South Louisiana to Arkansas, on the way to Missouri. October 2017.


I can love someone but still break up.


Airbnb, I loved you, but we're finished.

You had my email address. You had my phone number. At our multiple rendezous, you had my credit card number. You had my photo.

But all of a sudden these weren't enough. You wanted government photo ID. You wanted a new photo. And then another. It didn't matter that I had a sterling track record of good references from past hosts.

Think about it, Airbnb. Do you take my security any more "seriously" than Wells Fargo? Than the IRS? Yahoo? Equifax? The National Fucking Security Agency?

Yet you want me to put all this juicy data in one convenient spot for hackers: photo, government photo ID (!), credit card, phone number, email?!

You haven't been hacked yet? Sweetie, it's only a matter of time. Or it's already happened, only you don't know it yet. Or haven't told us yet.

And it's not as if the sick man who shot and killed so many people in Las Vegas would have been stopped by your new requirements. Remember him? The guy who booked lodging through Airbnb?

What you're doing is, in fact, irresponsible, because in the name of security theater (like TSA confiscating my new tube of toothpaste), you're exposing all of your Airbnb hosts and renters to inevitable hacking.


I grieve for the loss of our years-long relationship, but you're just too risky for me.

Toronto: Airport: Livestock Management

Cattle crossing near Spaceport America, New Mexico. March 2010.

I took the last UP train of the night from Toronto's Union Station to the airport, which was 1:00 a.m. So that put me into the airport about 1:30 a.m.

My envisioned itinerary

1. Arrive airport.
2. Move through airport security.
3. Move through US Customs
4. Find departure gate.
5. Plop down til departure time circa 7:00 a.m.

Easy peasy. 



Reality

Clusterfuck.



The three tests

In the age-old tradition of having to pass three tests of one's character, fortitude, or wit to reach one's destination, so it was at the airport. In this case, fortitude was the necessary quality.


Test 1

Feeling pretty good upon arrival at the airport - stage one complete: uneventful trip to airport, timely arrival.

Stepped smartly down to the security area.

Ohhhhhhhhh.

Not open. Wouldn't be open for several hours.

Virtually no seating options in the vicinity, other than a handful of chairs or the shiny floor.

I joined a tiny family of earlier-than-I stalwarts at the short bank of chairs. Blessedly, the chairs were just outside a restroom.

So, here's one of the downsides of traveling solo. You can't just stake out your spot in the as-yet-to-be-formed queue and then wander off to sightsee in the airport or go get a cup of coffee or even go to the restroom. You've either got to make friends fast with your waiting neighbors, asking them to watch your stuff or your little turf, or you've got to tough it out with boredom.

When you've got a travel partner, you can tag team each other, which is quite nice.

Fortunately, the restroom in this staging area was right next to the little bank of chairs, and my neighbors were congenial. So I could leave my carry-on bag on my seat under their watchful eyes, and slip into the restroom as needed.

We were the earliest arrivals of the day, and at a certain point, airport employees raised a barrier strip that kept passengers from entering the area where my neighbors and I sat.

This resulted in some frustration to new arrivals, as they were stopped by the barrier strip, almost within touching distance, but on just the other side of the boarding-pass machines. Plus no seating. And no one available to answer questions. And no discernible precise spot to begin a queue.

Fortunately, my neighbors and I were not evicted.

Some scofflaws on the other side of the barrier crossed the border in search of answers to their questions. Power to the people, I say. As long as they don't get in front of me in the line that would eventually be born.

But why put travelers under unnecessary stress?

I can accept that an airport (even a large international airport in the largest city of Canada) doesn't  operate its security process 24 hours a day. But given that the downtime is the norm, and given that travelers act in predictable ways when they expect one experience and receive a different one, there is no excuse for the lack of:

• Useful signage about hours, when a door will open, where a line begins
• Seating for travelers, especially for those who have physical impairments, or who tire easily from standing, or who feel ill, or who are traveling with children
• Access to the nearest restrooms (which were on the wrong side of the barrier line)
• One employee in the vicinity who is ready to answer questions

Yes, I know that one employee costs money. But if that one employee can soothe anxious flyers, this will pay off down the assembly line when the queue does open, with more pleasant - and therefore more efficient - processing through airport security and customs.

Goats at market in Gonder, Ethiopia. April 2011.

Test 2

Eventually, the magic hour rolled around and we could line up outside the transportation security door.

There was a slight glitch for me when coming through, but it was quickly taken care of and because I was toward the beginning of the line, I popped through on the other side fairly soon.

Only to be poured into a blank corridor that ended in a locked door with no instruction about what to do or where to go next.

Hahahaha, you'd think that the Canadian airport transportation security and the US Customs folks would coordinate their opening hours, right?

Fuck, no.

Consequently, our herd found itself in a bottleneck paddock waiting for some cowboy to open the gate into the next pasture.

Test 3

Time passed slowly, as it always does in the land of uncertainty. When will this end? What if I need to use the restroom?

Furthermore, when trapped between airline security and border customs, we've got to mind our attitudes, body language, words, so as not to attract unwanted attention by The Man.

In due course, an official unlocked the door, opened it, and allowed us to clip-clop through.

To another corral, albeit with seats, a restroom, and a drinking fountain.

There was another locked door between us and US Customs, with no guidance about timing or process.

For awhile, we milled about curiously, while generally maintaining a cluster near the door that would lead us (hopefully) to US Customs at some unknown moment. You can be sure, no one of us wanted to lose our place in the line, when a line could, at some point, be permitted to form.

We emitted discreet baa's and moo's among ourselves about the whens, whats, and wherefores to come. We chewed our cuds quietly in a display of non-threatening compliance.

Presently an official arrived, who told us to find a seat while we waited. Some of us did so; others of us did not wish to give up our places in the as-yet-unborn queue, thus remained standing.

Shortly another official arrived who was kind of an asshole in her abruptness and lack of useful information.

Overall, the impression I had was that the officials acted as if this was a new and unusual scene for them, not one that happened every flipping morning.

In other words, no good signage, no good process, no respect for the human needs of the people passing through. All of whom have the basic need to urinate at various points in a day, some of whom have mobility challenges, some of whom have young children, some of whom have disabilities that affect interactions or movement or understanding.

No excuse for this.

Oh, so, finally that last door got unlocked and we could pass through to US Customs.

Tests survived.

Toronto complete. 

Toronto: To-the-Airport Travails

Flying geese, Bosque del Apache, New Mexico. November 2011.

After a splendid two weeks visiting friend Sandy in Toronto, it was time to return to the US.

Much to my friend's and my surprise, getting to the airport from downtown Toronto for an international 7:15 a.m flight requires creativity for budget travelers.

The UP train doesn't begin its daily operation until 5:30 a.m., arriving at the airport at 6:00 a.m. - far too short a time to negotiate both the transportation security maze and U.S. Customs (which occurs Canada-side for flights into the U.S.)

There used to be a downtown-airport bus which ran much earlier in the morning, but this ceased operation back in 2014.

Taxis cost about $60.

There were two options like this on craigslist's rideshare page:

Driving home from the cottage today. If you would like a FREE ride anywhere in the city, get back to me. This can be for anywhere from Barrie south to the Toronto Waterfront, even to the airport.
I will not charge for a ride, but hopefully open minded females can come up with another form of payment. Let me know if you're interested!

I chose to take the last UP train of the night preceding my departure, and just hang out at the airport til boarding time.

This would have worked out just fine if it weren't for the surprise I encountered at security. 

Antigua, Guatemala: Guard Flowers

A very protected point of entry, Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Security bars + attack flowers = evil-doers at bay.

A couple of articles on attack-guard landscaping below: 

• How to Add Security Plants to Your Yard
• Defensive Plants, Shrubs, and Trees

Guatemala: Dark Windows

Blue Car on Ware Street. Missouri.

My airbnb hostess and her daughter drove me to the airport in Guatemala City for my return trip to Missouri. An unexpected and gratefully appreciated kindness!

As we entered the city, I remarked on the number of vehicles with dark-tinted windows.

Ah, my hostess replied, this is for the security of the driver and passengers. Violent carjacking had become so common that drivers began routinely to have their windows tinted. This is to prevent potential attackers from seeing the gender or age of the driver or passengers and how many people are in the vehicle.

Attackers who operate from vehicles also use tinted windows.

Here is a sobering article about getting around in Guatemala (especially the city) from the US Department of States, Overseas Security Advisory Council.

Adventure of Driving in Guatemala notes the downside of driving with tinted windows.

Tinted Windows offers another view. (Get it?)

Guatemala: You Are a Random

Airport in Mestia, Svaneti, Georgia. 2012.

I was on the first leg of my flight journey to Guatemala. Columbia, Missouri.

"You are a random," he said.

On one level, I loved this. It was all science-fictiony, like I was an android. Immortally frozen at a good age, of course. Intelligent. Everything smooth and shiny.

I also got that it's a lazy term of art within a particular profession, in this case, the Transportation Security Administration. Like psych staff might call a patient with a certain affliction "the catatonic down the hall" or an automotive job "the oil change in bay 2." Humanity stripped off.

Hologram at Istanbul, Turkey airport. 2011.

There were no buzzers or bells or lights that I saw when I walked through the scanner portal. It was something whispered by the machine only to the TSA agent, I guess. "She is a random."

OK, no problem. I got the full-body pat down and then another TSA agent swiped the palms of my hands with a round wipe cloth. Fascinating.

Something on the palms of my hands set off an alarm.

It changed my status from a random to an alarm.

This meant a thorough-thorough search of all pieces of my luggage, including wiping down the insides of my carry-on bag with one of the round wipes. I felt some trepidation at this, trying to remember where I might have been and what I might have packed in the bag in prior trips, trying to imagine what could rattle the security sensors. Berbere from Ethiopia? That incredible fish seasoning I brought back from Caucasus Georgia, given to me by friend Sandy, who'd received some from a friend with family from west Africa, who had carried it to Georgia after a visit to her relatives there? Svaneti salt?

Bole Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 2011.

Final outcome: My brand-new tube of toothpaste was confiscated for being too large.

Security theater.

Airport cat at Baku Airport in Azerbaijan. 2012.

Rootless: Security

Outside Warrenton, Missouri

I've had short-term and long-term relationships with data protection schemes.

The past 

In October 2010, I explored Virtual Document and Data Storage, Part 1. I talked about how all systems fail, and the goal of protecting a system is to fail intelligently, and about safe sex.

Later the same month came Virtual Document and Data Storage, Part 2. I talked about buying a pig in a poke and the unknowables of the Big Cloud. Here was a follow-up on the unknowable part.   

Then came Virtual Document and Data Storage, Part 3. A discussion of external hard drives based on my teaspoonful of understanding.
 

In 2011, there were some mishaps. Amazon S3 stumbled via redundant redundancy. Dropbox lost my favor.

I've written about the ins and outs of what makes for a good password. Here. And here.

And on the perils of complacency.  And the cascade effect of system failure.

Key

The present

'tis January again, thus time for a review of my security tools and processes. Talked about this last January, too.

External hard drive versus cloud back-up

I've gone 'round and 'round about backing up my stuff on an external hard drive versus a cloud (or clouds) versus ... what?

More than a year ago, I terminated my relationship with Dropbox. Not trustworthy, in my opinion, at least not for the kind of relationship I seek. (See link above.) Mostly, I just want an easy-button way to back up my stuff  in a secure way on a secure place. I don't want to sync the data and I sure as hell don't want a public-sharing option with my back-up application.

In general, I was losing confidence in the cloud as a go-to for my important data. This squeamishness was reinforced when I talked with some of my EFL students who are techie professionals. Bottom line for them: They don't put important personal data on the cloud. Now, in the grand scheme of things, is my personal data so rivetingly important to attract untoward attention? Well, no. But gosh darn, it's my personal data, thus important to me.

In the past year, I've been using an external hard drive to back up my stuff. It's relatively easy, although I'm the one who has to calendar the back up and plug in the device. The dearth of user guidance that came with the device was irritating. Of course, I could keep the hard drive plugged in and then the back up would be automatic, but keeping the external hard drive with my laptop kind of defeats one of the basic tenets of security protection - keeping your stuff in different places.

Speaking of keeping my primary data storage segregated from my secondary storage (i.e. external hard drive), this is tough to do in my rootless life. I live in small spaces with minimal furniture, closets, and helpful nooks or crannies. Sure, I could rent a deposit box in an outside location, but that would make regular back ups a pain, ergo, they wouldn't happen regularly enough.

For a Plan B, I considered divvying up my stuff among various clouds, but that just made me feel tired.

Belt and suspenders

Sooooo, I revisited the idea of an online back-up service.

I chose the service whose primary focus was backup and not primarily online storage. (At least this is its stated focus.) In comparing services, I looked at:

• Straight cost + cost in relation to quantity of data that's included in that cost
• Techie and user reviews
• Ease of use

It took about 48 hours to back up my stuff for the first time. I'm in a free trial period, so I can opt out and go with a different service if I find a shinier penny somewhere else.

The service I'm test driving has a "sync and share" application. If I want to launch this application, I have to download it specifically. Frankly, I don't like a back-up service that I can also use as a collaborative-working application. This is mission creep as far as I'm concerned, and there are other applications out there with kick-ass collaboration tools. I heartily dislike that my trial back-up service has a Facebook link so I can share my backed-up photos with same.

We'll see how my relationship goes with this particular back-up service.

But if I stick with this service or go with another one, as someone whose life's footprint is almost exclusively digital, I feel better having both the external hard drive and the online back up service.

Rootless: On Getting a Puppy

It's not really a puppy, but kind of like a puppy

No, I haven't got a real puppy. But I have acquired something like a puppy. I've got to learn its ways, train it, and be trained by it.

I've got to keep track of it, so it doesn't get lost or stolen. I can handle it playfully, but not roughly.


It's not really a phone, but it's called a phone

It's a smart phone, my first. Only to call it a smartphone is a misnomer. It is a mini computer with a phone application.

This is not just semantics. How I view my new puppy affects how I socialize it with the world.

With my soon-to-be-old "dumb phone" - let's say my pet "turtle" - I could:

• Make and receive phone calls;
• Laboriously write texts and check email; and
• Make limited forays onto the internet. 

I had little concern about privacy boundaries or theft or malware because the dumb phone itself was like a turtle. A built-in shell for protection, by dint of its limited features, and thus easily monitored or caught if it meandered off, too humble to attract unwanted attention from strangers.

It's an entirely different story with my mini-computer.


Why did I get this puppy?

Being rootless, why would I want to be tied down with a puppy? Sheesh, now I've got to worry about dropping the damn thing or the glass will crack. It's cute and sweet and thereby attractive to strangers who might like to adopt it for themselves, so I've got to always have my radar on to make sure I know where it is. And it requires so much training - for the little one and me - to become true pals.

There are several reasons why I went this route: 

1. My turtle phone was on its last legs - that reliable, albeit limited, $30 phone I've had for years, with the cute little teeth marks on the top left-hand corner.  
2. My laptop is getting on in years and it could go belly up at any time, and I need a sophisticated, on-the-spot back-up to turn to for my work. 
3. I'll be headed out of the country again soon and I want an unlocked mini-computer that can run by wifi or a data plan. 

An invisible fence

When I bought my little puppy, I was still thinking of it as a phone. A phone with a lot of very cool enhancements. Consequently, I was startled by the decisions I had to make right away. Such as:

• What personal bits about myself - my data exhaust - did I want to have on this device? 
• What apps did I want to download - and what information was I willing to share in order to get these apps? 
• How could I enjoy all the benefits of a mini-computer without leaving a trail of personal me everywhere I went? 
• How many ads - if any - can I tolerate in exchange for a "free" app? 
• What data am I willing to lose if my mini-computer falls into the hands of strangers? 
• Like a puppy, I'm not willing to let my little device sit in a hot car for hours while I'm off canoeing or swimming or doing something else that puts it at risk. So do I change my habits and just leave it at home for such activities? 

Some decisions I've made (and it might make sense here to note that I've bought an Android device): 

1. Thank God, I have more than one email address (hehehe), so I chose one of my little-used accounts to be the email account on my device. I can put some distance between this account and me-central.
2. Do I really need to download a free game that requires access to my contact list? Hell, no! No games for you, little puppy! 
3. Do I need to download Kindle to my mini-computer? No, I've got a kindle e-reader, and I don't want to connect my Amazon account to my device. If I want to read, that's what my e-reader is for. Or an actual book. 
4. Do I want to stay signed in to my Skype account on my device? No; I've only got it on there as a back-up, and I don't ever want to make another mistake call to a work-related client.Whoops. (The lil' puppy is so eager to please, it tries to anticipate what you want by going to fetch somebody else's paper. Bad girl.) 

I'm trying to find the right balance between security and maximum fun + utility.

Again, it's all about safe sex.


What'd I buy? 

Short answer: Moto G 4LTE.

Longer answer: It was all about: 

• Excellent reviews;
• Budget; 
• Long battery life; 
• Unlocked and GSM for international use; and
• Android operating system. 

  

January - The Review and Refresh Month

Albeit the 30th, it is still January, that month of fresh starts. 


So I'm looking at this checklist of things that everyone, especially portable folk, needs to review and update regularly:

1. My resume - checking my online version and print version
2. File back-ups on my external devices, which in my case, are flash drives. Yes, I have cloud storage that automatically backs up my stuff, but cloud apps get compromised. And if it's not the cloud storage application that fails, it might be my internet access. And my PC. So it's best to also have a tangible back-up.
3. Password review - which passwords have gone stale and warrant replacement?
4. Speaking of password storage - yes, there are some good password management apps out there, but again, one must assume working access to the internet or to one's PC to enjoy the benefit. It's a good practice to store my passwords in hard copy, in a secure place, also. Some entries may fall out of date when I replace passwords, but at any given moment, most will still be valid, assuming I'm fairly vigilant about updating the hard copy. Note: When I'm traveling long term, then I'm not going to have a hard copy of all my passwords with me; I'm only going to carry the most critical ones, and protect that short list as rigorously as I do my money.
5. Access to my data assets in case of emergency or death. Just talked about this recently. Since then, yikes, I haven't yet had my will witnessed and signed, though I've created one. And I have selected a provider that facilitates the access to my data assets in the event of my death.

On Rootlessness and Death

Cemetery, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

A recent article in the New York Times reminded me I need to take care of some business.

Getting your shit together 

The article is A Shocking Death, A Financial Lesson, and Help for Others, which introduced readers to the article subject's website: Get Your Shit Together. As in, start getting your affairs in order now so you or your loved ones don't have a mess to deal with later.  The information that the author, Chanel Reynolds, shares is very basic, but it is a good starting point.    

Cemetery, Istanbul

That includes your online life ... and death

Back here, I mentioned some vendors that keep all of your passwords (and access to online "assets" in general) in one place and pairs that with instructions from you to share the passwords with designated beneficiaries upon your death or incapacitation.  That is a service I want, but have I followed up on this? No, I have not.

Cemetery, Mtatsminda, Tbilisi, Georgia

The Digital Beyond is "... a blog about your digital existence and what happens to it after your death. We’re the go-to source for archival, cultural, legal and technical insights to help you predict and plan for the future of your online content." This site lists and compares "digital death and afterlife online services" here.












What I do have in place ... 

Advance directive - appropriately signed and notarized, with originals distributed to appropriate people. (The link goes to a place where you can download your state's advance directive forms.) Done.


All of my financial accounts have designated beneficiaries. When I say designated, that doesn't mean I wrote a list of my accounts and entered a name beside each entry on a piece of paper and that was the end of it. No, it means the financial institutions have this information and will automatically transfer ownership of said funds to the designated beneficiary upon proof of my death. You don't need a will to make this happen and, in fact, if you do have a will, the designated beneficiaries on your financial accounts will supersede any conflicting direction you may have in your will. (You know that nightmare situation where a guy made his 2nd wife the beneficiary of everything in his will, but he didn't take his 1st wife's name off of the financial accounts as beneficiary? You got it - the 1st wife wins the jackpot.) Done.

Cemetery, Missouri

 What I don't have ... because I don't need it


Life insurance. I have no mate, minor children, business partnerships, or debt. I have enough money to pay the expenses related to the disposition of my remains.  I don't feel the need to create a legacy via life insurance. So I don't need life insurance.

Cemetery, Armenia

The will

Alllaw has a nice list of DIY resources on wills. For my simple situation, I felt comfortable copying and adapting the Basic Will Form at the bottom of the Alllaw's page. Here's another guide to get someone started on doing up a will - with or without help.

I don't have this in the Done section yet because I'm just now completing it.

I'm not entirely convinced one is necessary for me, but it's easy to make a will (for someone, like me, with an uncomplicated asset-and-beneficiary life), plus having one will remove even the slightest hesitation about who's in charge of taking care of my stuff when I'm gone. I mean, I don't have much stuff (like that printer I just bought), but I do have some. And somebody's going to have to deal with it.

Cemetery, Lalibela, Ethiopia

Rootless Weaponry

Weapons and rootlessness. What?

I do happen to be re-reading Friday, a Robert Heinlein favorite of mine (and for which there will be a Rootless Lit review later), in which defensive and offensive security techniques are prominent features.  

And there's the whole zombie apocalypse to consider. And the end of the world is coming up later this month.

But, really, it's all about mountain lions. 

Decision made: I'm going to buy a knife. It turns out one of my sisters, let's call her Xena, has been carrying a knife for years on her wilderness hikes, for the express purpose of self-defense. And with mountain lions specifically in mind. I have now consulted her and one of her sons (a master hunter) on this matter, and while her son was a little blase about the mountain lion thing, Xena got it immediately, and shared these thoughts: 

1. Once you make the decision to stab an animal in self-defense, then you need to go all the way, which means you need to: 1) stab many times - not just once and then wait to see what happens; and 2) stab and twist, stab and twist.
2. Get a 4.5" or 5" blade.
3. Get a knife with a good, non-slip grip.  
4. Don't carry your knife at your belt. Carry it over your chest so you can grab it with either hand. I always carry a pack when I walk, and it has a chest strap, so I thread the chest strap through the knife sheath's belt loop. 

Xena also had a good idea on light.

Now, I've got this flashlight that I love, but unless the great flashlight is in your gear when you need it, doesn't make any difference how great it is. Now that I'm temporarily rooted, it's easy for me to get sloppy and not move the flashlight among my three bags as I change them. Xena gets around this completely by always having on hand those lightsticks that you break open to create light. They are: 

• Inexpensive
• Don't have an expiration date (on further research, the manufacturers say up to 4 years)
• Are very packable

So that's another thing I'm getting. Some lightsticks to stash in each of my bags and in my car.

And mace or pepper spray. Because there are bears here, too. Yeah. 

I've got shopping to do.
 

Email Accounts Maintenance: Revisited

In January 2011, I confessed to having 11 email accounts. Too many?

Yes, maybe. After acknowledging this to myself, I was able to unload one.

So how am I doing today?

**Counting**

Ah, yes. Eleven. Wait, no, 12.

But two are on the way to becoming inactive.

Stop judging me.

The Rootless Undead

Real unreal life imitates art

Back in the 70s, Frederick Pohl wrote a terrific sci-fi series called the Heechee Saga.

As the saga unfolded, there were "meat" people and virtual people. If you were super-rich like Robin Broadhead, you could execute a brain dump into a computer application and live on in a sort of Second Life universe. (See how real unreal life imitates art?) Virtual Robin could communicate with meat people, including his wife, and with never-real, virtual personas such as his computer-generated psycho-analyst Sigmund.

I'm confident that some day, a monied few of us will become immortal in a virtual way, in that we can "live" an undead life out in the ether with other undead, perhaps continuing relationships with our surviving family and friends.

(Gosh, we think same-sex marriage is complicated. When we have the power to become undead, will there be constitutional amendments to clarify that marriage is between one living-in-the-flesh man and one living-in-the-flesh woman? Need to redefine the meaning of [end of] life? Allow voting privileges to the undead? Allow them to donate to political candidates? Retire the phrase "pull the plug"? .... I digress.)

Our undead selves in the cloud

In old-timey cartoons, when someone dies, we see them lounging on white fluffy clouds.


Google Docs (which has morphed into Google Drive). Dropbox. Amazon.  Skydrive. SugarSync.

Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Tumblr, email accounts ... .... 

Repositories of the data of our meat lives assumed into the cloudly heavens.

What happens to our undead, fluffy cloud selves?

And who 'owns' our undead, fluffly cloud selves?

Dave, over at The Longest Way Home, offered detailed instructions for handling undead email and other accounts in his article, What Happens to Your Online Digital Assets? in September 2011.   

Kindle library

Read the answers to Kyle Gerrard's question: Where Do E-Books Go When You Do? in his New York Times article.

"Planned departure" 

"Planned departure" is the name of a company: "Be in charge of your online and digital assets after your death and decide what should be deleted or transferred to someone you love and trust."

I imagine it won't be long before online/digital 'asset' providers will enable a beneficiary or "instructions upon death" feature, but in the meantime, here are some other products or services

Legacy Locker, the "safe and secure way to pass your online accounts to your friends and loved ones."

Lifehacker (or in this case, Deathhacker) writes about another company, Entrustet, here.

... ah, but Secure Safe recently bought both Entrustet and LifeEnsured for what it calls "data inheritance."

I haven't fully explored these services, but I intend to do so soon.


When the Rapture Comes: Guarding Digital Assets

This article, 10 Things IT Groups Need to Know About the Rapture, always makes me laugh.

Credit: CDC

Security: The Name of the Enemy is Complacency

My laptop has an application that allows me to encrypt documents. I can only open an encrypted document with a password or a swipe of my finger.

Since I supposedly know that all systems fail, I maintained a back-up of a particular encrypted document - in an unencrypted form - elsewhere. Except I got complacent and didn't continue to update the document in its unencrypted form. An important distinction, this. Because I do have an automatic back-up of said document in its protected form.

But what happens when the encryption application goes to hell? Right. Can't access the document that's sitting right there, ready to be opened. Doesn't matter that I've got its encrypted clone sitting prettily on a cloud.

So now, because the magic key isn't working, I've got to recreate the most recent version of the doc.

Security's supposed to protect my stuff from other people, not from me.

Lesson learned, finally? Hopefully.

Where Do I Live? Revisited

Awhile back, the question arose about how we define where we live versus visit.

(I know where I want to live in the future - some place warm. )


But this post isn't about that so much.

Instead, it's about a guy named Dave and his Longest Way Home. His "global quest in search of a place called home." 

After seven years on this journey, he has some thoughts on:

• Home
• Locals getting tired of you
• What if you die on the road*
• What happens to your digital life after your body dies**
• Five stages of long-term travel
• Ethical blogging

*I have a friend who selected a pre-paid funeral plan that includes an international clause, ensuring her body will either be cremated in the country where she drops (and the cremains shipped home) or her body intact gets shipped home, I don't remember which.  

**One of my brothers also wondered what happens to our digital life after we died, and he researched that with the service provider(s).

I like Dave's analytical and pragmatic approach to these subjects, even if I don't always have the same take.

Securing Data on Flash Drives

This afternoon, I officially threw up my hands in surrender. I've tried different ways to password-protect the flash drives I bought months ago, to no avail.

I downloaded TrueCrypt and carefully followed the directions numerous times -- from at least three sources -- on how to set up a flash drive for password protection. It just didn't happen for me. It's likely something really stupid, but I'm not taking it further for now.

Yes, I could throw money at the problem by taking the loss on the flash drives I already bought and buying, after all, pre-locked flash drives. Or I could, after all, buy an external hard drive that'd be easier to password-protect (I guess).

I'm at the classic decision-making point when one is lost on the road:

Do I turn around now and retrace my steps (ugh, boring, demoralizing, maybe expensive in time) til I reach that turn-off that I was supposed to take? Or do I keep moving forward, but at the risk of getting more lost, thus making it even more expensive in time or money? 

For now, I'm just going to think about it. Think about what problem I'm really trying to solve, define my goals, make a realistic assessment of my risks, and go from there.

Georgia (Republic of): More Preparations

Besides packing, and before I get out of Dodge, I need to:

1. Renew my driver's license (due July). Check. 
2. Renew my vehicle plates (due August). Check.
3. Renew my car insurance (due July). Check. 
4. Transfer $$ to my travel account, which I segregate from any other account. Check.
5. Notify my financial institution that I'll be using my card(s) outside the U.S. Check.
6. Remove my cell phone plan from monthly auto-pay; I'll end my service this month, a benefit of cutting myself loose from cell phone contracts (not to mention the seductive poison of "bundling" services such as internet access, TV, and phone). Check.
7. Organize my communication plans for Georgia, i.e. email, Google Chat or Voice, Skype, and Facebook, given unknown privacy, security, and access variables. For in-country, the government provides the teachers with a cell phone, which is a great benefit.    

Experience feels good. To know, based on past trials and errors, things to do before leaving; things to pack (and not pack). 

Not that experience prevents mistakes and mishaps. Those are going to happen. 

Credit: Wolverine

Experience frees me up to worry about this major dilemma: To address the much-vaunted mud and snow in Georgia, do I take my clunky, lace-up, waterproof Wolverine boots with me (which I would likely have to wear en route for God's sake, because of their bulk?)? Or leave them at home and spend probably quite a lot of money to buy boots in Georgia? Or maybe I won't need them at all?

Security: Uh, Oh. Dropbox Dropped It.

Dropbox is a cloud-based data storage service. 

My extremely sloppy, kindergarten definition of "cloud-based" (or "cloud computing") is that you've got stuff that belongs to you out on "the web," thanks to a service provider with enormous servers that are allegedly safe from various disasters, both intentional and unintentional, manmade or natural. Some of this stuff is static stuff, like files. Other stuff include applications that you ... Ok, now I'm getting myself a little lost.  For a more learned definition of cloud computing, go here.

Back here, I posted about Amazon S3's cloud-storage snafu. ... and back here I talked about the difficulty in making informed decisions about the integrity (in all senses of the word) of particular service providers. 

Dropbox, another cloud-storage provider, really, really blew it yesterday. It left all of its customers' files vulnerable for four hours.

Dropbox' statement here seems very weak to me:

This should never have happened. We are scrutinizing our controls and we will be implementing additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again.

Here's what Dropbox should have said:

This should never have happened. Because of our inadequacy, we failed our core mission, which is to protect our customers' data. We betrayed our customers' trust. To make things right, we will refund any fees paid by our customers in the last 12 months. In addition, we will provide all of our customers with written guidance on how to transfer their stored data from our service to a competitor's. Finally, we will leave no stone unturned in finding out what happened here and doing whatever we need to do to be worthy of our customers' trust again.

I'll be looking for a different data-storage provider. And I want my money back from Dropbox.

Confession: I Was A System Repair Disc Non-Creator

When I bought my laptop last September, I meant to create a system repair disc, but I didn't.

I kept on not creating one til today.

I probably only did it today because of two events that intersected in the universe:

1. I came across a virginal DVD-RW disc a few days ago, and
2. Cat just sent out a call for anyone who had a Windows 7 or Vista recovery disc. 

So I pulled out my pristine DVD-RW, followed the directions for creating a system repair disc, and now it's done.

Credit: Icon Archive

I tried to google on how many people are like me - who don't create a system repair disc, but I couldn't find any data. But I'm guessing lots of people are like me.