VeraCrypt Won't Encrypt my Entire System?

Are you saying GPG encrypts your email so even your email provider can't see them? I didn't know that was possible lol. I'll check out the thread. since you mentioned back doors and keyloggers I'm curious as to how to detect and get rid of such things. Once you're hacked to that extent aren't anti-virus programs pointless?

 

That really depends on the virus itself. Although most viruses are not properly built and can easily be removed with a good antivirus engine (like Avira, Kaspersky, etc), some are built so well that you can't tell they're even there, thus any kind of remedy isn't going to be fully effective.

To me, it's all about prevention. You don't wait to be hacked so that you can apply a vaccine; you try not to get hacked in the first place. And to tell you the truth, you can never be sure you're clean after the attack because you can't know what the infection did to your system.

If I get hacked, I'll revoke all my GPG Keys, fill my drive with zeroes, re-flash the BIOS and router, and start all over.

Correct. If you do everything right, not even the NSA will read your e-Mails

 

No, as @amarildojr says, not even the NSA. But then, they do see metadata, such as date and time, subject, recipient(s), perhaps IP address, etc. Even when your connection to the server is secure, connections downstream to the recipient may leak.

Using systems like CounterMail and ProtonMail, and only corresponding to other "local" users, perhaps metadata is secure. There's also a network of onion mailservers that never leaves Tor. Some do work with clearnet email, however. Maybe CounterMail, ProtonMail, etc could tap into that. But still, you're trusting third parties with metadata.

At the next level, there are various messaging systems built on Tor. Pond is cool, but apparently abandoned. BitMessage is OK too. I'm sure that there are many other fine examples, but I don't use that stuff very much.

 

I've been hacked on this machine before but didn't know what extent I needed to go to to clean it up. I just ran some scans and reinstalled the OS using boot "thing" that I downloaded onto a USB. If the time comes again when a restart is needed I'll ask you about your method!

Does GPG encrypted email effectmy email recipients? Do they need to encrypt or something? Once your email is configured and set up with GPG can you just forget about it and let it do its thing, or does it require regular attention?

 

You need to have the public key for each recipient. And you need to be at least somewhat confident that it's really theirs. For people whom you've never met, and will never meet, it's usually enough to know that whoever you're sending email to can decrypt what you're sending. One option is just to have multiple copies of your public key online, and ask correspondents to compare them. A simple option is https://keybase.io/ which I use. The link is in my signature.

 

I wish my life was exciting to the extent that I had a need for anonymous Tor messaging!

 

Ohhhhh, I knew your keybase account would make sense eventually. That's why I didn't bother asking you to explain it when I checked it out a while back.

So GPG is for certain recipients in certain situations only. I had some delusion that somehow all emails were encrypted while in transit, then magically became readable for the intended recipient...But no one else! haha

 

Yep

There has been talk of making it more automagical. Like DNS, sort of. You write an email to someone, and hit send. The client looks at public key repositories, and prompts to to accept, or maybe to choose from alternatives. Or maybe just reports that no public key was found. The KeyBase API could arguably evolve into that.

Edit: The mail list gnupg-users@gnupg.org is a good place to ask questions.

 

Thanks for the link I'll check it out.

It's funny you mention API's because last night was the night I finally decided to click on "API" while visiting a website. It only took a couple of years of seeing it on almost every site to get curious enough to look.

My interest was definitely sparked.

 

That might solve most problems, but remember that there are some very clever viruses which are located in the MBR, so even if you delete all partitions and format your HD, the virus can "re-activate" itself.

In addition to what @mirimir already said: once you have your keys setup and you configured your e-Mail client to use them, you can chose to encrypt each e-Mail upon sending, and each time you select "Encrypt" or "Sign" you will have to type your password.

I'd say use GPG whenever possible and not only on special cases. People need to use encryption, the masses need it. Otherwise, soon we'll be called terrorists, specially with all the (planned) terrorist attacks in which politicians will use against our privacy like they have in the past.

 

Funny you mention that. The media has been scaring me recently with how intensely they are pushing the govt's "encryption and privacy = terrorist attacks" agenda. Let's just hope that more citizens than not are able to see the big picture and understand what the consequences of "no privacy" would be.

 

I'm actually preparing to live in the woods. I have ZERO hope that people will regain their privacy, the masses are stupid and prefer convenience over security/privacy.