The Security Mentor

Security people may seem cynical sometimes. There's a reason.

A Connecticut man bought a computer with Compaq's "DriveLock" utility, and set Internet Explorer to delete his browsing history after five days. He apparently thought his activities were private.

Then he got arrested for selling a rifle with a silencer.

The post-arrest search of his computer turned up several embarrassing things, including his favorite porn sites and homemade Paris Hilton-style videos of him and his girlfriend.

Michael Alan Crooker then sued Microsoft and Compaq and Circuit City for selling defective security software.

It's easy to get distracted by the technical side of this. Distracted, that is, from one key point which is that a good way to protect your privacy is to be honest enough that you're less likely to get arrested.

The other thing to notice is that most off-the-shelf solutions for protecting your privacy are near-fraudulent junk. The only things a professional will trust are time-tested products from places that care, such as PGP and TrueCrypt. And I wouldn't depend on those if I were doing something illegal.

Circuit City and Compaq's parent company, HP, have already settled. The outcome of the suit against Microsoft will be very interesting.