The Investigatory Powers Tribunal keeps a watching brief over the intelligence agencies. A few days ago I made a formal complaint about the harassment campaign that has been waged against me for many years. It says on its web site that it acknowledges complaints but I'd heard nothing and I was beginning to worry that my letter had been intercepted by the intelligence services.
MI5 has a reputation for doing this and at one stage used to intercept and open every single letter sent to the Communist Party. I'm sure the gas bill made interesting reading. So I set up a temporary email address and sent IPT a copy of my complaint plus a request that the email be acknowledged. This IPT did by return with a plaintive plea that I be patient. No doubt they are busy.
Now I scan my correspondence (or if it is online make a pdf) and then keep it in an online directory. I used to use my Google Drive but extraordinarily I found this was being hacked. I say extraordinarily because Google is supposed to give you a report of all drive activity and since these people prize invisibility above all things, you would imagine that they would leave Google Drives alone. But they don't.
Slightly more secure is some web site space. If you run a web site you may not know that your drive space also includes areas that are not forward facing (ie bits that the public can not get to). I store my mail in one of these places because I have discovered a way to keep my ftp password relatively safe. I do this by generating a random password on one of the websites dedicated to this and then mess around with that (adding characters and deleting others). The idea behind this is to avoid the trap of the password being captured by keylogging software.
The disadvantage is that I can only enter the password into my ftp client once since I dare not record it. It might be discovered (that little round hole above your screen is a porthole that can be used by the intelligence services, blackmailers or pretty much anyone).
I use software on my Chrome Book that has to be downloaded to ftp my website. Still with me? This does have a point and I will get to it.
One of the things the hackers do is deny me access to my Chrome Book. My password mysteriously stops working.
I think they do this using a Bluetooth connection to my Chrome Book. I try very hard to turn off Bluetooth but it keeps coming back on.
I copied the email I got from IPT (remember them, the people who keep a watching brief on the intelligence services) and put it on my Google drive. I needed to shut down my Chrome Book and open a second laptop I use to ftp.
When I tried to open that it told me that my password was no good. Clearly my mistake? I don't think so.
On a Chrome book it is possible to login as a guest even if your password is rejected a dozen times (as mine had been). So I logged in as a guest and then tried to log in to Google.
Success first time, no problem. I even got a screen saying have you had problems logging in and was this you? Of course I said yes, logged out as guest and tried to log in to my own account. This time Google let me log in but required me to also give my old password. I don't know what that was. I have had so many passwords that I lose track.
So I was able to log in but all my stuff (my documents, the applications I have downloaded etc) were removed. This really meant that the IPT email I had copied to pdf got deleted. But no matter it was on my Google drive.
True but when Chrome Book wipes the drive it also insists on reloading a lot of applications I'm not really interested in. I once found a tick box that would enable me (in theory) to stop this but I have no idea where this is. So it just trundles on.
Never mind I go for a run. When I come back it is still doing this.
Even so I log into my website provider so that I can change the password (I have no record). My Chrome Book is still downloading stuff I don't want.
But eventually it completes the pointless task and I fire up my ftp client, enter the password details and bingo. Two minutes later the IPT email has been copied to a relatively secure place. All this took about 45 minutes, I think. 45 minutes of my life I am not going to get back.
Jonathan Brind