how to travel securely ?

hi everybody sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. i currently carry a lot of private info around with me on a USB pendrive. i use roboform portable for logins etc and the rest are archives encrypted with winrar. my question is am i taking enough precautions ? and can anbody suggest practical ways of improving security. thanks in advance.

Garry.

 

If all you want to achieve is keep your private data... private, I reccomend creating a TrueCrypt volume on your USB, and choose strong password for it.

Roboform is ok, in my opinion, but I like keepass better. You might wanna give it a try.

 

Depending on where you're traveling and the type, sensitivity and amount of data, you may also want to consider steganography. In the UK and US, and possibly other countries, officials may see encryption as a red flag and have the authority to demand your password if they believe you are hiding illegal data.

 

thanks for all the advice, i am a newbie concerning privacy and encryption methods and programs. at the moment i mainly use my USB pendrive for carrying useful programs and passwords/logins around. my main concern is if i were to lose the pendrive and all my info. i would like to think i can carry my info around without fear of it falling into the wrong hands my main concerns and criteria are :-

i want to carry my pendrive around and have a good degree of portability.

i have read a little bit about creating encrypted volumes or containers etc, but i am worried how this would work in practice bearing the above in mind.

how would truecrypt for example work if i created an encrypted container on my pendrive which i assume needs a keyfile ? wouldnt carrying a keyfile on the same drive pose a serious security risk ?

 

If it was me I would encrypt my files and upload them to a remote server on the internet or maybe 2 remote servers, 1 xtra for back up and when you get to your new country of destination simply download your files from the internet.

much better this way than having to put up with customs at airports asking you what are these encrypted files?

 

Encryption isn't the first thing to consider.

I encounter this question quite often, and the question is usually laced with something along the lines of, "I know I should probably encrypt my data right, but which software should I use?" The problem here is thinking that encryption is the first step; it's actually the second step. First, minimize the sensitive data that you're toting around on your mobile device. Determine whether or not it's necessary for functioning while on the go. Then, encrypt what survives the cut. Data that isn't there is data that's not at risk. Being on the go, the threat model is usually the lost or stolen laptop, so a full-disk encryption solution is usually the way to go.

Quoting from one of my more recent posts:

 

Re: Encryption isn't the first thing to consider.

Micro SD cards are quite small.
For them to get their hands on it they would have to find it.
They can be hidden almost anywhere. Silicon caulk it under your girlfriends fingernails, inside your cell phones battery bay, a slit in the rubber of your shoe, inside something from your toiletry kit, in a false bottom of your coffee thermos ( The Recruit ), inside your cigarette pack, tucked inside the rubber protector over your house key.

Scratch the girlfriend part if your doing any thing illegal, or never p**s her off!
It violates rule #1
Never tell your girlfriend what your doing that is illegal. When you make her mad she will rat you out for revenge.

 

Again, hiding storage devices on your person is an unnecessary risk unless there's absolutely no other way. You will almost certainly be, at the least, detained and questioned if it is discovered. If the amount of data you need to hide is small you can take a more setganographic approach by using an app such as gparted to create a separate partition to hold your sensitive data at the back of your camera's memory card so that the camera will operate normally when turned on.

 

Many people don't use the SDHC slots on their cell phones. I have heard of people encrypting their SDHC cards and putting them in those slots. You'll always have your data and it will always be encrypted. Just don't lose your phone.