Step 1 - Open at least one mail drop

Mail drops, for those unfamiliar with the term, are places where you pay someone to be able to use their address. Often these places will also give other services, like fax forwarding or telephone answering, but let's concentrate on this one first. Why do you need one? Well, it's a well-known fact that mail can be scanned, often without opening the envelope. Certainly, just because the law in some countries (like the UK) says that it is illegal to open mail, don't think that "unofficial officials" follow the law to the letter (pun intended!).

Regular mail is open to attack. Especially since the events related to September 11th.

Courier companies offer no greater guarantee of security. I know many people that have had mail opened by courier services. It's then handed to customs, which check through it and send it on with nice blue tape around it, so that you know it has been tampered with. One friend of mine had a courier package sent from a diplomatic embassy in Canada to Europe. When it arrived it had a sticker on it saying "Opened by US customs".

The outer envelope had been opened, and so had the inner envelope - even though this one had a diplomatic stamp on it. The reason for this was that it had been routed through the USA, where even the diplomatic protection had been ignored.

So, don't put your trust in international couriers.

Ordinary mail can easily be opened or scanned by officious bureaucrats wanting to see their bonuses rise. One way to make your letter hard to read through the envelope is to wrap everything inside in foil - which the scanner can't get through. But this then raises alarm bells. Why would you want to wrap something up in foil? You could place an outer letter over the foil-wrap, but this is unlikely to deter the bloodhounds.

You might consider taping up all the edges of your letter (remembering the sides). Or you might consider using an invisible ink such as lemon juice or urine, both of which are visible when held to a light. Alternatively, buy yourself an ultra-violet lamp and pen and run the pen round all the edges. Post the letter to yourself, and place it under the lamp when it arrives. If the ultra-violet from your pen is broken by white anywhere, you will know someone has opened your mail.

There are other techniques of discovering whether your mail is being opened and sent on.

Quite simply, if it looks as though you are receiving mail from a destination that is deemed to be "of interest" - then you will find yourself targeted. So, the solution is - don't receive any of this sort of mail. Use a mail drop.

Pay to have correspondence you really want kept secret sent somewhere else. You can then either have it forwarded on, or you can arrange for the mail to be collected. The first option is more convenient but more expensive. It also means that you are only putting one break between yourself and discovery. The second option is cheaper and more secure - but only as long as you have a trusted mail drop-provider.

Even then, you run the risk of being filmed collecting your mail. So, one option might be to have someone else collect it for you, and then post it either to your own address or to a second mail drop from where it will be forwarded to you.

Whatever you decide, open the mail drop in a different city, a different state or county from the one you live and do business in.

My advice is to have a minimum of two mail drops, at least one of which is not in the country where you reside. Always put in that extra break if you can. And remember, you won't be using these for everyday correspondence. It would look strange if you suddenly received no mail at all apart from the gas and electricity bill!

In essence, what you have to weigh up is the value of what you want to keep private. In my experience it has to be worth spending a few hundred dollars extra on safeguarding the privacy of your mail, especially if you are looking at saving yourself thousands, or hundreds of thousands, in the long run.

One point I must stress. If you are going to use an overseas mail drop and you don't have the time to go to the place physically to check it out, do one of two things. Send a trusted friend to check it out - or use a reference from someone who has had the experience. I would always recommend that you spend a little extra doing a search on the person running the drop. It could save you a fortune. If you can go and meet the people concerned and establish a personal relationship, so much the better.

Resource: The No ID Mail Drop Directory - Quickly get the contact details of mail drop providers who won't ask questions and definitely will never demand that you provide proof of identity or fill out some government form. Visit http://www.dangerousbooks.com/maildrops

Step 2 - Secure Your Telephone Calls

If you have not heard of Echelon, you need to know about it. Echelon is the system whereby each and every telephone call, fax and email is stored in a vast computer in the USA. Those of you who have seen the film Enemy of the State will know something about this. Believe me, the film is no exaggeration. The technology being used to make sure every call, fax and email is recorded is extraordinary. But what do they do with it?

Well, there are two things. If you use certain key words - words that are on a government hot list, then a file will be set up especially for you. If you don't use any of these words, the likelihood is that the recordings just get stored inside a different system.

Key words include - offshore, passport, banking, anonymous, encryption, government, taxes and so on - they also include the names of world leaders, the names of places where they live. Use any of these - and the list goes on - and you will have a file already being compiled on you, just in case they can use the information at some future stage.

What an amazing waste of time and money.

So, when it comes to telephone calls - you can never be too cautious. It is easy for the government to listen in to your conversations. In 1998, The US Congress set aside $500 million dollars to develop a system that would enable the FBI and other agencies to listen in on 50 thousand plus calls simultaneously. In fact, it is believed that this outrageous sum of money is not adequate for the proper development of this system. So, how much will they be willing to spend on eavesdropping?

For any truly sensitive conversations, use a payphone that is not close to where you live. And use coins. I know this can be cold and irritating if you need to make an international call in the middle of the night to get some business tied up - not to say expensive - but it is the only way to make a private call in America. Even then, be careful - a lot of call boxes are now filmed as a matter of course. So, don't use the same box very often; definitely not if your calls are late at night!

You might consider using a GSM mobile phone. (They are now legal in almost all countries).

GSM phones are mobile phones that have small SIM cards inside that can increase the chance of escaping detection. They are totally legal and very useful if you do business in Europe or beyond. A GSM phone will not give you entire privacy. It is possible to track down the user very fast and to a pinpoint location. But if you are using one that is not connected to you, and if you use it only when necessary, they can be a big help. Please contact us if you need more advice in this area. We have access to some excellent GSM cards that will make it look as though you are living or vacationing in prestigious parts of Europe.

Step 3 - A laptop computer

Another way that these phones can help you is if you get hold of a good laptop computer. With a modem, you can plug your mobile phone into the computer and send coded faxes or emails anywhere in the world. If you are going to do this, I suggest you use the Winfax Pro for sending faxes. But try to get your hands on the old issue - number 4 - rather than the recent one. Someone had the bright idea of removing the coding facility on the newer version. But the old one is out there - so make the effort to get hold of it.

A light laptop computer, a mobile phone and a connection cord. These are easy to take with you anywhere.

One thing I would ask you to do is to keep your laptop as a communications tool only. Don't have any of the information that is on your usual computer stored on your laptop. Remember what I said earlier - put in as many breaks as possible.

Step 4 - Remove the ID display from your fax machine

All communications by fax are subject to be intercepted. And nosy agency officials can easily reproduce fax messages.

So, remove the station identifier number and identifying phone number from your fax. This way the source of your fax transmission is not automatically known. You can at least choose whether or not to identify yourself on your messages - and how.

You can get some very good fax encryption systems now - Paperdisk is one that sends your faxes as indeterminate patterns on a page. As long as the recipient also has Paperdisk, you can encrypt and they can decrypt all messages. You might think also of sending your encrypted fax by mail, or of shrinking a hard copy version down and then sending it. This particular programme allows you to shrink messages to the order of 900 - 1. So, you can send 900 pages of 8.5" x 11" on only one sheet.

Another piece of advice is to encrypt ALL your electronic mail.

A lot of people have asked me about encryption, and many of them seem to think there is something shady about using it. Surely only criminals need that sort of thing? But, the simple way to look at it is this - would you send a love letter, or pay your electricity without enclosing it in an envelope? Of course not. You don't necessarily want the postman, and anyone else, being able to read all your letters.

Encryption is merely a way of putting an envelope around your email, so that people cannot read it. There is nothing wrong with it at all.

The most famous and widely used form of encryption is PGP. PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. It is a system of coding all messages that you send via your computer to anyone and everyone. Created by an American called Phil Zimmerman, it is now available all over the world, thanks to his magnanimity in making it so.

Most people might not be aware that as they browse the internet their every move can be traced and observed. Most people probably do not know that the email messages they send can be intercepted, read and then forwarded on without the sender or the recipient knowing anything about it. In fact, hackers can enter your computer quite easily and take a look at everything in it.

If you are doing any business on the internet, think very carefully about what you are saying - whomever it is to.

The good news is that you can take steps to make sure that there are as many breaks between you and unwanted prying eyes as possible. One of them is PGP.

PGP works like this. You are given two "keys" - a Public Key and a Private Key. If I want to send a message to someone on the net, I swap keys with him. I give him the code for my public key and he gives me his public key. Armed with both of these, I send an encrypted message to his Public Key number. He opens this with his private key - a key that only he knows about because he chose it in the first place.

To answer me, he uses the same system - his public to my public key. I open the message with my private key. At no stage should you tell anyone your private key. This is entirely private and, if you want to remain discreet, you should keep it that way.

As I said, PGP encryption is readily available. You can download it free. If you are not using it already, I suggest you begin as soon as possible. If you want more help on this one, please contact The Q. We can also assist you with using remailers, anonymisers, etc.

Step 5 - Use pre-arranged codes

If you want to be more private, you should develop some simple form of code that is decipherable only by you and the person you are contacting. There are plenty of ways of doing this, but the simplest is what I call the One Time Code. This is very straightforward, but very hard for any third party to crack.

Firstly, you just go to a bookshop and buy two identical books with cash. Make sure they are the same editions. It doesn't matter which book it is but they must be exactly the same. Keep one and give the other one to the person with whom you are going to communicate. (Don't make the mistake of sending it in the mail with a note!)

When you meet with your friend, develop a simple sequence of numbers and letters that allows you to look on a particular page, at a particular column and then for a particular word when you correspond. When you send your message, you can use a mixture of words and numbers if you prefer - the alphanumeric version - or you can use only numbers. When the recipient gets the message, he decodes it using his book and can answer you in the same way.

For each person that you use a onetime code with, I suggest you use a different set of books - even if you use the same code - so that no two correspondents ever have the same one time code. This is easy enough. I doubt if you will want to set up such a system with more than five or six different people, and you can always devise a system that makes it easy to remember which book applies to each if you are worried about forgetting!

If you want to be even more circumspect, change the books each few months or each year. Make them a regular birthday present! The code will stay the same no matter which book you use. Again, if you want help on this, we are here to give you assistance.

Step 6 - Buy a shredder

Why? Because going through your trash is the easiest way for someone to find out many things about you. A recent court case found that it was not unlawful to remove someone's garbage - as long as it is returned at a later stage. Lawyers and private detectives now use this method to try to pick up any information on you that might be difficult to find anywhere else.

So, don't put anything in the trashcan that you don't want anyone to see (and that means holiday tickets, invoices, and other apparently mundane pieces of paper as well as more obvious documents).

Buy yourself a shredder. These can be obtained cheaply and without difficulty. If you want to pay more and get yourself a shredder that crosscuts then do so. That way anybody wanting to stick the shredded bits of paper back together will have a hard job. And that is what a lot of being privacy-conscious is about - making it as hard as possible for anyone to keep records on you or follow your tracks.

For entire secrecy - shred and then burn.

Step 7 - Safety Deposit Box

I would always advise people to open at least one safety-deposit box. This is a space that is reserved for you inside a vault or highly protected building. If you have documents that you want to keep in another country rather than bringing home, opening up a safety-deposit box is almost essential. It may mean that you have to take an extra trip on a bus or cab to go and collect the contents, but this can be a real bonus if used well.

If possible, don't open the box in your own name. Use an alternative ID - more on that later - or use the name of a company. Use the box only for documents that you really cannot afford to shred. Many Offshore banks and private companies are more than willing to provide safe deposit boxes.

Step 8 - Install at least two safes

I know this is an old chestnut, but it is sensible to put valuables into a safe at home. You never know who might find their way in and when they may do it. If you have a safe, you can at least minimise the risk of losing everything. I would put in two - in different rooms and different locations.

I know someone who was continually being stopped at customs when he flew around the world. It didn't seem to matter where he was, which country he was leaving or entering, he almost always got stopped and strip searched. We referred him through to an associate who examined the document, which was totally legal and proper. But what the owner did not realise was that someone had written on it in ultra-violet the words "Suspected narcotics dealer - apprehend at customs". To this day, he does not know who wrote the message and this is not important.

What we can say is that it almost certainly would not have happened if he had put his passport into a safe rather than leaving it loose in his desk.

A tip - don't let the company you buy your safe from install it as well. Pay for it in cash and insist that you will get the delivery and installation sorted out yourself. The last thing you want is to be entered on a database somewhere that lists all the people who have bought domestic safes in the last ten years!

When you do install the safes - if you choose to have two - put one in an obvious place and one in a place that is unusual. For instance, put a small safe behind a picture or bookshelf. Keep very little in this one. If a burglar or unwanted guest manages to find and open this, he should discover enough to put him off from looking for further safes, but not enough to do you any real damage. In fact, you can use this safe to help your smokescreen.

A smokescreen is something you set up to deliberately put people off the scent. Create a false paper trail for someone to follow. If you have offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean, put some brochures or some easily-decodable messages about European banks into your first safe. It never does any harm to send the snooper off on a wild goose chase.

Put the second safe somewhere harder to access - in the floor under a carpet under a chest-of-drawers. Maybe not in the house at all. Make sure that this safe is moisture-proof and installed in such a way that it would take two men with a jack-hammer two days to unmount it and carry it away if it were ever found. Make sure nobody but you knows about this safe. And again, I repeat - nobody means no one at all.

It's common sense stuff, but worth bearing in mind.