Former Green Beret Sergeant Major (retired) Karl Erickson has over 25 years of military experience — he’s been in firefights, has led combined joint task force missions, and been trusted with the protection of important officials and top-secret information. In his decades of service, he has faced all kinds of weapons and seen how they can be employed to cause as much chaos as possible.
And, he says, that one of the most powerful weapons in the world that could be used against you is that last text you sent.
“You’re reading Entrepreneur, not Factory Worker Weekly,” says Erickson. “If you’re here, it’s because you want to be the boss, you want to be a leader and be at the top. And the truth is that once you get to the top, people are going to line up to knock you down. And the first thing they’ll come for is anything you’ve written in texts or emails.”
Secure communication, according to Erickson, should be at the top of mind for any entrepreneur. Here is his advice for what you can do now to protect yourself later.
The big secret is that there are no secrets.
“You can buy all kinds of encryption and anti-virus software, but that does not make your communications secure at all. Understand this: the U.S. military has the best encryption in the world, and the U.S. military accepts as fact that China is reading every top-secret email we send. I’ll say that again: Everything sent via email by the U.S. government is assumed to be read by China.
“Being a civilian, you need to have that same mindset. You have to assume that everything you send will one day be read by someone you don’t want to read it. Not because of spy agencies, but because when someone comes after you, they’re going to come with their lawyers and they’re going to subpoena your emails and texts. So if…