3 ms·

You should just assume a "real phone" is rooted by the FBI and functions to track your movements 24/7, accurate to the meter, is capable of remotely enabling mi

by titzer 5y ago

You should just assume a "real phone" is rooted by the FBI and functions to track your movements 24/7, accurate to the meter, is capable of remotely enabling mic/camera and all sensors, including WiFi, accelerometer, GPS, etc. Because even if it isn't, the software on it already (system software, apps, everything) already does a massive amount of snooping, distilling, and uploading. The feds "enabling" targeted surveillance on your phone will not look materially different from what it already does which has been purposely obfuscated to be undetectable. The surveillance state is already here. The dragnet is on for everyone, and if they miss anything it's because it's hidden in the noise, not that the signal isn't being sent. We're cooked, it's over. Forget being anonymous.

ethbr0 5y ago
I'd argue that real anonymity requires disconnection from digital networks in this age. I.e. cash, rural, paper letters for last mile The internet is by definition centralized and the government has privileged access, from a surveillance perspective. Luckily, the number of people who really need this level of anonymity (i.e. I am wanted by every world government as a top priority) is pretty low.
- syntheweave 5y ago
  Going analog is really more of an obscurity play than an anonymity one. In which case, you can go online and simply aim to be obscure, to never raise alarms, position oneself as a predatory target, or announce oneself as a threat. Explicit, true thoughts get pushed out to alt accounts, private diaries and the like. You may even allow some degree of linkage to take place, a "if you worked that hard to get here, you know exactly what you were doing" signal. I've done that for years. I think this is the only way to feel truly at ease with the state of things, really. Keeping a whole self in public or in private is asking a bit much.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    The way I look at it is a matter of attack surface and attack distance. Digital vastly increases both. You have layers and layers of technology in even the simplest modern computers, and core network infrastructure subject to tapping or worse. And much of this that can be done from anywhere on the planet. Analog requires physical proximity, a strength and a serious inconvenience. But it also has the property of being legacy, in that you are now immune to state of the art digital methods, and susceptible to older ones that may be out of institutional memory and practice.
Zircom 5y ago
Charles Stross has a book series about a family of people that can step between different timelines of alternate Earth's that explores this a little. **SPOILERS** Once the US that's basically our world discovers the existence of "world walkers" when they nuke the Whitehouse, it quickly steps into an authoritarian surveillance hellstate capable of realtime surveiling the population around the country to the point where they can track people entering their timeline because they were on camera exiting a building they were never recorded entering, or were flagged buying a plane/bus ticket from a city they shouldn't have been in according to previous records, or in one case for leaving a coffee shop with a noticeably empty backpack when she'd entered the shop with it completely full, having passed the contents to a world walker she was meeting. That irregularity automatically flagged everyone entering/leaving that building for review in their system and they backtracked all of these people through their paths that day until finding the gap where he'd stepped through to their world. That all happened in a matter of minutes and then quickly homed in on him. Anyhow,it goes into detail about the lengths they go to to avoid detection by these systems and honestly didn't strike me at as all farfetched. The technology and capacity exists and it's a concentrated effort on part of the government is all it would take to implement it.
sizzle 5y ago
Don’t carry a phone then?

by titzer 5y ago

ethbr0 5y ago

I'd argue that real anonymity requires disconnection from digital networks in this age. I.e. cash, rural, paper letters for last mile The internet is by definition centralized and the government has privileged access, from a surveillance perspective. Luckily, the number of people who really need this level of anonymity (i.e. I am wanted by every world government as a top priority) is pretty low.

syntheweave 5y ago
Going analog is really more of an obscurity play than an anonymity one. In which case, you can go online and simply aim to be obscure, to never raise alarms, position oneself as a predatory target, or announce oneself as a threat. Explicit, true thoughts get pushed out to alt accounts, private diaries and the like. You may even allow some degree of linkage to take place, a "if you worked that hard to get here, you know exactly what you were doing" signal. I've done that for years. I think this is the only way to feel truly at ease with the state of things, really. Keeping a whole self in public or in private is asking a bit much.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  The way I look at it is a matter of attack surface and attack distance. Digital vastly increases both. You have layers and layers of technology in even the simplest modern computers, and core network infrastructure subject to tapping or worse. And much of this that can be done from anywhere on the planet. Analog requires physical proximity, a strength and a serious inconvenience. But it also has the property of being legacy, in that you are now immune to state of the art digital methods, and susceptible to older ones that may be out of institutional memory and practice.

Zircom 5y ago

Charles Stross has a book series about a family of people that can step between different timelines of alternate Earth's that explores this a little. **SPOILERS** Once the US that's basically our world discovers the existence of "world walkers" when they nuke the Whitehouse, it quickly steps into an authoritarian surveillance hellstate capable of realtime surveiling the population around the country to the point where they can track people entering their timeline because they were on camera exiting a building they were never recorded entering, or were flagged buying a plane/bus ticket from a city they shouldn't have been in according to previous records, or in one case for leaving a coffee shop with a noticeably empty backpack when she'd entered the shop with it completely full, having passed the contents to a world walker she was meeting. That irregularity automatically flagged everyone entering/leaving that building for review in their system and they backtracked all of these people through their paths that day until finding the gap where he'd stepped through to their world. That all happened in a matter of minutes and then quickly homed in on him. Anyhow,it goes into detail about the lengths they go to to avoid detection by these systems and honestly didn't strike me at as all farfetched. The technology and capacity exists and it's a concentrated effort on part of the government is all it would take to implement it.

sizzle 5y ago

Don’t carry a phone then?