On Friday, February 13, 2015, the POTUS was addressing Silicon Valley at a White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection. Those are both hot topics that involve your personal privacy and freedoms. You owe it to yourself to be concerned and do your own investigation on what can be done in a practical way to feel more safe when using the Internet.
We’ve written before about the topics of email encryption and computer security here at the Q Wealth Report. This is because our readers are very concerned how these issues affect them. You can read our article on “Are you ready to take control of your email now?” as well as “Are you ready to do something about computer security?” Both of these articles describe the practical steps you can take to increase your privacy by adding layers of security that are appropriate for your circumstances. That is true for email encryption and computer security.
What caught our eye this week is that, after the White House Summit, the POTUS granted a one-on-one interview with Re/code co-executive editor Kara Swisher. You can view and read the entire interview as well as a condensed version here.
In part of that interview here is a quotation from President Obama:
‘There’s No Scenario in Which We Don’t Want Really Strong Encryption’
Whoa! That is a very strong position to take. Now let’s look at the context of that statement. During the interview Kara Swisher was pressing the president on whether American citizens should be entitled to control their data, just as the president controls his own private conversations through encrypted email. Her question was, “You have encrypted email, shouldn’t everybody have encrypted email, or have their protections?”
Maybe you should read that question again. Here are two takeaways from that question. 1) The POTUS uses email encryption and 2) you can too.
If you choose the watch the video of the interview, or read part of the interview, you will find that Mr. Obama didn’t suggest any proposed solutions. What he did do is offer his own position on the topic.
“Ultimately everybody, and certainly this is true for me and my family, we all want to know that if we’re using a smartphone for transactions, sending messages, having private conversations, that we don’t have a bunch of people compromising that process. There’s no scenario in which we don’t want really strong encryption.”
What we can do is suggest to you some proposed solutions. If you seriously want to take control of your privacy while on the Internet then you can start to use the tools available to do so. Our sister web site, securelaptop.org, can help you to become familiar with the practical steps, steps that won’t break the piggy bank, to increase your privacy and security while on the Internet.
We suggest that you start with the post “How to Secure Your Laptop: Introduction“. Read the material on whether you would benefit from a totally secure laptop or whether it is appropriate to secure your own laptop. The important thing is to start to do something now. After all, the POTUS uses email encryption and you can too!