Here are the tools Snowden used to encrypt his communications

Image courtesy of danjo paluska at Flickr.com

1. Tor

Formerly known as "The Onion Network", Tor is a free software to enable online anonymity. Tor redirects Internet traffic through a global network of volunteers consisting of more than three thousand relays that hide the activity or location of the user to anyone who is performing network surveillance or traffic analysis.

When Edward Snowden decided to take all the information he could and leak it to the media to publicly denounce atrocities against individuality and the right to private information, he focused on using his knowledge about encryption to make communications impossible to track or filter to his superiors or even other governments.

Snowden used a series of tools that anyone can access, which says a lot about security available to anyone.

We now see the importance of an open source project that is poorly funded. In the same way that projects like OpenSSL should have been supported, these are some projects that should also be funded:

2. Tails

Tails is certainly one of the tools that people who handle sensitive information should definitely use. It is a Linux distribution based on Debian Live and whose focus is security and anonymity.

Unlike other operating systems, Tails is designed to be used from a USB and so it never leaves any traces of usage in the memories of the computers you use to log in. It is the great strength of Tails, you do not need to have a PC, any PC that you find with a USB port and the option of booting from a USB drive, you can use it to have your own secure communications environment.

Tails uses Tor to anonymize your Internet connection, but not just web browsing: all communications are routed using this network, blocking any application that attempts to connect using a network other than Tor.

You can download Tails from the project’s site and install it on any USB drive.

3. Tor + Tor Browser

As we mentioned before, Tails is always connected through the Tor network. Tor Browser is the solution for those who want to surf the web without leaving any trace. First, because it is connected using a P2P network of Tor users anonymously and safely. Second, because the browser does not store any data, preventing passwords to be saved in the browser’s memory.

Tor is an anonymous and secure network, which is used both for good and for bad things. We know of famous sites like Silk Road that have given a bad name to this network, but it is clear that like any other tool, you can use it with good or bad intentions.

4. GPG and PGP

PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy and it’s an application created by Phil Zimmermann, which allows to encrypt contents based on public key cryptography. This means that, in order to read an email encrypted with PGP, the sender has to have a key to encrypt and the recipient must have another key to decrypt the message.

PGP has proven to be quite safe to share information via email. It is the system that Snowden used to communicate with Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian.

PGP is quite easy to use in your communications. If you use Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Outlook.com, you can use Mailvelope. For Windows users there is a plugin for Outlook 2010 and 2013 along with Gpg4win. Yahoo already encrypts the content of your messages even between servers.

5. Lavabit

Lavabit was the secure email service used by Snowden. Created and maintained by Ladar Levison, he decided to shut down the service and the company in August of 2013 due to the pressure of the US government. US Congress laws made Lavabit unable to share what was happening while they became accomplices in crimes against the United States.

Snowden used an email address with a lavabit.com domain to communicate with the media while in the Moscow airport. Nevertheless, the service was forced to close due to pressure by the US government.

Lavabit offered a webmail service with a focus on safety. They used advanced cryptographic methods to encrypt communications and emails in order to make them impossible to break into. In mid-2013, Lavabit had over 400,000 users with free and paid services, depending on the required storage space.

Today we can find many email services focusing on security, such as Hushmail or Resistemail.

6. Other tools

Image courtesy of Simon Waldherr at Flickr.com

All you have to do is search for a while to find many solutions that claim to be secure and encrypted for all types of communications. There are complete operating systems, email management solutions, mail encryption and secure web navigation. But there are many other services that can be used to ensure private communications.

Especially when it comes to instant ​​messaging, it is easy to find solutions with encryption. In the area of ​​mobile messaging, there are dozens of applications that claim to be safe. WhatsApp recently became one of those safe options, since they started implementing end-to-end encryption. BlackBerry Messenger is another safe alternative to hold encrypted, multiplatform conversations.