Dear Ubuntu User Reader,

The title of this issue's Editorial section is a shameless rip-off of a section that used to run in Omni , the influential and very cool 80s magazine of "Science Fiction, Fact, and Fantasy ." The section in Omni talked about advances in science and technology and where they would lead us. The title played on the actual verbal tense – the word "will" was used a lot in the articles, and the fact that, well, it was about the future.

These pieces, if memory serves, tended towards the optimistic: advances in medicine would make us live longer, advances in engineering would take us to other planets, advances in computing would give us robot companions that would do dangerous and boring chores.

My use of the title is slightly more pessimistic. The future is not as rosy as imagined in the 80s, and you should feel tense about it. We have known for some time that government agencies systematically spy on all and every citizen that goes online. Even if you think your government is fair, even if you buy into the dubious adage of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear ," that only works for right now. A radical change of policy that can make legitimate activities suspect, or even illegal, can be passed from one day to another. Moving from a "respectable citizen" to "enemy of the state" is one inauguration away.

My advice to you is stop doing everything in the open, do not believe that, as you are safe now, you will always be safe in the future. Stop trusting that the powers that be will always do the right thing. The security you apply now may save you a lot of trouble down the line.

Consider ditching free, but leaky email services, and start paying for the service with a provider that can guarantee the privacy of your messages. Unfortunately, this means moving your business away from all and every service hosted in the US. Let me be crystal clear about this: NO American company can guarantee the privacy of your data. If you are citizen of the US, there may be a semblance of protection, not much mind, but you still do have some rights. If you are not a US citizen and are using the likes of Gmail, say, from Europe, you have NO rights whatsoever with regards to privacy.

The EU has more stringent privacy laws than the US, but they are far, very far, from perfect. You should research companies in countries with stable regimes and economies and that have very strict privacy laws and take your business there, even if it means forking out a small amount every month.

Consider not putting all your life on corporation-owned social networks. The owning companies have proven to be terrible at keeping your data private. Even if they did shape up on security and promised not to snoop on your content for marketing reasons, they all house their servers within the US or are under US jurisdiction, so the same thing as emails applies here.

Consider stopping using insecure, data-collecting messaging and conferencing services. These services not only do not guarantee your privacy, but contain blatant anti-privacy clauses in their licenses. Again, most of these companies save the messages that pass through them on their servers – servers often located in countries that have no respect for your privacy.

Do not use proprietary operating systems or, for that matter, other closed software. Even if the companies that peddle them promise privacy, they systematically and openly leak data to their headquarters and beyond. Closed operating-system providers have even been known to leave vulnerabilities open just so that government agencies could tap into their users' hard drives. And, anyway, you don't know what data they are leaking, because, you know, they're closed source. This is the opposite of "safe."

Even if any of the providers of the services and products mentioned above assure you they only collect metadata, that doesn't make it any better. You may consider yourself a model citizen according to the parameters of the current law, but how can you be sure of all your contacts? For an overzealous agency, knowing who you speak to, when you speak to them, how often, and for how long can be as incriminating as knowing exactly what you said.

Finally, proactively protect your data. Over the years, we have published articles on how to encrypt your emails [1], secure your network [2], and hide your files [3]. Go back and read these articles. Many are free online.

In this issue, we are going a step further and teaching you about how to encrypt the data on your hard disk, and we are giving you a rundown of secure and privacy-protecting messaging apps.

Use this information. Stay Safe.

Paul C. Brown,

Editor in Chief