Security Cheat Sheet

Security Principles

  • Information wants to be free.
  • Security is built on trust.
  • Security is inversely proportional to convenience.

The three pillars of Digital Security

The ability to control the privacy of your data, actions, and identity.

From these principles, evaluate your security needs across the three pillars, combined with the trust you have in the systems you are using. Consider each pillar, by asking yourself the following:
  1. Is the content private, sensitive, or secret information? Ex: Should anyone be able to see your bank account credentials vs. a blog post you wrote?
  2. Do I care if the actions I take are made public, or should they be hidden? Ex: Should your parents know you are going skydiving vs. going to the gym?
  3. Is my anonymity important? Do I care if my identity can be revealed? Ex: Going public with your voting records vs. being a McDonald’s customer.

And never forget to ask,
Am I exchanging information with someone I trust?
Depending on your risk tolerance level you can take the appropriate security measures. Broadly,
  • If you don’t care, do nothing (please take basic security precautions).
  • If you want privacy, encrypt, or obfuscate, the information.
  • If you are paranoid (or the information is extremely sensitive), delete the information regularly; make it ephemeral.

More specifically, here are some tools for each level of precaution for common digital mediums:

Don’t Care
Want Privacy
Paranoid
Web Browsing
HTTPS Everywhere on any browser (ssl encryption)
Opera (HTTPS + VPN)
TOR (HTTPS + VPN + Delete)
Browser Cookies
Do nothing
Chrome Incognito / Privacy Badger (Ad blockers + delete)
TOR
Email
gmail.com (Any email provider over SSL)
gmail + PGP messages (e2e encryption)
ProtonMail (e2e encryption + delete)
Chat
SMS, google chat, Slack, etc.
Snapchat, WhatsApp, Signal (e2e encryption / delete)
(e2e encryption + delete)
Voice
Phone via any Telco
Google Voice, Signal (trustworthy VOIP providers / e2e encryption)
Signal (e2e encryption + VOIP + VPN + delete)

 More information security resources can be found at the EFF, and definitely check out the diagram on TOR and HTTPS.

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