Governments, Corporations, Criminals & Creeps

I did it. I bit the bullet, and it hurts. I've decided to change my personal email address, again, and the transition is just what I expected; a pain in the arse.  But, I'm motivated. As a father, friend, businessman and simply a human engaged in life, I am no longer willing to let my email be scanned, sniffed, snooped and shared by governments, corporations, criminals and creeps, relentlessly, all day and everyday. I'm opting out of the madness, and I'm taking my family and my business with me. 

As security guru Bruce Schneier says, the metadata that rides along with your email today includes enough information about you to be classified as surveillance. To allow my personal information to leak, day in and day out, to some of society's most unseemly characters, is just not acceptable to me anymore. I know too well how inevitably deep the consequences are, and I see the increasing rate of connectivity between digital security and physical security. This is meaningful, I am a head-of-household and seriously accountable on several levels, and I have found a far, far better way to operate as consumers in the digital age.

Wikipedia on Metadata
@schneierblog Metadata = Surveillance

 So, I'm creating a digital domain, including our email accounts, that will protect and share our data, for as long as we like, generations for that matter, without undue influence, theft or loss. I will determine how it operates and what it shares, or doesn't, where it is physically located and how it is inherited. I don't trust "free", I don't trust the "system", and I value these digital assets more than ever. Actually, much of it I consider as irreplaceable, including 20,000 family photos, videos, scans, notes and what is the family's eternal scrapbook. Plus, it is ridiculously inexpensive to do this and as a professional risk manager for over 25 years, the risk/reward equation at this price is simply a no-brainer. Online security and privacy is now a serious consideration in everything I do, personally and professionally.


Why location of digital assets is important; Local law trumps everything, including technology and terms of service.

This is the Last Email Account I Will Ever Need./

My trusty, old personal email@mac.com account of the last 13 years did it's job very well. I know I feel better about the experience than many others that are on Yahoo, AOL, and some of the other "free" email services. But the game has changed, and it's time to think very differently about this now crucial aspect of our lives. The business of running an email service, especially the ones most popular in the U.S., have morphed, or been perverted, into business models that have little to do with your experience as a customer. Well, that's because you are not the customer. The buyer of your information is the customer, and you are their product. Guess who gets the short stick?


"If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product." George Greve +Georg Greve

Then, to add insult to injury, your information is used back on you in very clever ways in order to manipulate you to buy something or perhaps even better yet, give them more information about you! Then, I suppose, the business can perpetuate itself in an endless cycle of economic bliss. When you think about it, isn't that the business model that creates sub-25 year old billionaires today? And now, the NSA is exacerbating the problem by essentially gifting their tools and techniques to the worst characters in our global society. We are, literally at this moment, past the point of no return and, as Marc Cuban says so well, "I'm out".


Building My Own Digital Domain


Now, I have a domain for my family and business registered in Switzerland. We have our own private email service, there are no limitations or restrictions, and we have rid ourselves of IP address tracking, metadata scanning, content stealing and the host of abuses that are standard procedure, literally billions of times a day.  I'm operating on open-source software crafted for security, portability and long-term compatibility. I can synch across all my devices, I have webmail access and I use it's open-source groupware that is as hardy as Exchange or any of the other hairball email client solutions that are out there today (though I do like Thunderbird).

We have a Digital Family Vault, also based in Zurich and in a separate secure data storage facility away from our email servers. The facility is built by the people that built the same thing for almost every bank in the country. Switzerland that is. I can set access, restriction, and contribution levels across silos of data and my passwords have a named beneficiary. Digital assets are now represented as a slice in a family's wealth pie and being in control of it's operation and security, feels extremely satisfying right now.I created a permanent solution, one that will endure through my fully engaged and tech-levered life. My investment in digital security and privacy today, at this juncture of enormous change in our digital lives, will pay in ways we cannot even fathom yet. And, when you find out how absurdly inexpensive it is to do this, you will want to do precisely the same thing I did, and you can. 


Ok so now this is where the shoe pinches; it is not a seamless, brainless, painless process. But, honestly, it's manageable. Better than manageable really. The tools are better, and I'm better organized and prepared than I have been in my past email migrations. Don't get me wrong, I'm not done with the process, but I'm letting myself take the time I need to do this fully, completely and hopefully with as little disruption to me and the others that invariably have to adjust their records and such. The journey to total online security and privacy is never really over, there is not an end-point other than managing effective and adaptable defenses. But this approach to creating a family digital domain covers some of the most important and fundamental bases in the process, and in an enduring and scalable way.


Total Digital Security


In fact, I'm so pleased with the results and the value, I've created a business that will do the same thing for you, and we can provide online security and privacy solutions like these at rates as low as $10/mo. You can contact me personally of you would like to know more, at my Swiss email address:
brad@tdsw.ch


Some liken the use of online security software and services to buying insurance. It is, but for this particular moment in history, it's different. There is mega-storm on the horizon. Making sure your insurance policies are current, is not enough. It is time to batten down the hatches at home and work and to expect to emerge from the storm only stronger. The exponentially advancing clock of technology marches forward, and cyber-risk has now been fully democratized all the way to the capillaries of the Internet, where you and I reside. Email me and begin your journey to total online security and privacy, today, and subscribe to peace of mind.


Brad
brad@tdsw.ch

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