File Encryption, etc...

I have spent two days playing around with technologies that I have
around. To see what benefits there are for me on a day to day usage.
Not bad.

1) Airport Extreme wireless router
- the latest edition makes wireless connections faster for internal
network transfer
- I can isolate my wireless network so if there is a guest visiting
who wants to use my Internet, I can just give out a Guest network so
my own is protected.
- above all, I can plug a USB portable drive to the back of this
wireless router and wham, I can share this portable drive across all
my macs and PCs. I can have this connected portable drive expose to
the Internet so when I travel I can access files. This, I won't do.
That traffic is NOT encrypted. Need to setup extract secure tunnels.
Plus it opens up another can of worms for security. I unplug my
router when we are away anyway. *Note: don't upgrade the firmware to
7.4.2. Apparently, it causes USB drive not accessible.

2) USB drive encryption. Finally I have found one that is FREE,
endorsed by NSA and can be shared between Macs, PCs and LINUX
computers. If I keep using this, I might just donate some money.
It's open source and is adopted by IT professionals (some). So easy
to use. Took me a total of 20 minutes to download, install and try.
Pictorial explanation below. O, the name: TrueCrypt from www.truecrypt.org
. This might be helpful if the south of 49 parallel wants to inspect
your computer when you travel down south. And they can because it is
their rights to protect their "motherland". TrueCrypt can create a
hidden container that leaves no trace so they don't know your
important files are. Other than using this encryption tool, you can
"NOT" take your laptop with or put things in the "cloud". But
seriously, how secure is the "cloud" when your hosting company is
south of the border too ;-)

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