Internet Security, music, and Dad Jokes. And pets - it's a blog, after all.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Security advice: get paper statements from your bank
Everyone wants you to go paperless, because it saves them the cost of printing and mailing you a monthly statement. With your bank, this is a bad idea.
I download all of my statements and save them to disk. I scan all important correspondence and documents, and save them to disk as well. Once a month, I encrypt the important stuff that I can't afford to lose with True Crypt, then save that encrypted file onto two thumb drives. One, I keep in the car's glove box, the other I keep at work. I think that covers it.
I stick with paper statements because otherwise when I kick off, my kids would have a hell of a time finding all my accounts.
We went through that when Dad died. He did everything online, while Mom couldn't even figure out how to turn on a computer. Fortunately Dad was so obsessive about documenting things he had all his account numbers & passwords in the PDA he had in his pocket when he died. My brother was able to use that to get everything straightened out for Mom.
I download all of my statements and save them to disk. I scan all important correspondence and documents, and save them to disk as well.
ReplyDeleteOnce a month, I encrypt the important stuff that I can't afford to lose with True Crypt, then save that encrypted file onto two thumb drives. One, I keep in the car's glove box, the other I keep at work.
I think that covers it.
I stick with paper statements because otherwise when I kick off, my kids would have a hell of a time finding all my accounts.
ReplyDeleteWe went through that when Dad died. He did everything online, while Mom couldn't even figure out how to turn on a computer. Fortunately Dad was so obsessive about documenting things he had all his account numbers & passwords in the PDA he had in his pocket when he died. My brother was able to use that to get everything straightened out for Mom.
So what is the recommended replacement for TrueCrypt?
ReplyDeleteThat I don't know. I pretty much assume that all encryption software has been compromised by the NSA or FBI/
ReplyDeleteThe reason I asked is that TrueCrypt shut down.
ReplyDeleteArs Technica created a list of TrueCrypt replacements.
ReplyDeletehttp://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=1245367