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One of my privacy techniques has been to build a container with a new network namespace, randomly select a VPN server from the set of ~5k that my VPN provider h

One of my privacy techniques has been to build a container with a new network namespace, randomly select a VPN server from the set of ~5k that my VPN provider has running across the globe and connect to it within that namespace, spawn a fresh instance of a web browser with no cookie history or anything of the sort, run DNS filtering and ad-blocking components, and then perform the individual task I want to perform with it before shutting the whole thing down. I have all of this scripted to launch trivially within a few seconds, and it reduces the effectiveness of most of the attacks this RFC describes.

fsflover 2y ago
Sounds like you reimplemented Qubes OS disposable VMs with a lower security level.
- steelframe 2y ago
  Qubes OS would work great too. I just prefer Debian, so I've hacked together a poor-man's sandbox on that platform. While it doesn't provide the degree of host-level isolation that Qubes does, I think it's pretty effective for what this RFC is about.
  - teleforce 2y ago
    Have you tried Firejail security sandbox: https://firejail.wordpress.com/ https://firejail.wordpress.com/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
contingencies 2y ago
That's a good effort, but unfortunately every second desktop app now bundles a browser (Electron), and most people now access the internet through phone apps, an environment which offers no such control. Furthermore, if your VPN provider is seized, hacked, issued with a warrant, or is a honeypot operation you're going straight to the top of the interesting critters list, and you've probably given them your identity with your payment information, or it's trivially available to multiple state or corporate actors through the crypto gateway you used to purchase the intermediary token. Either that or your IP will also provide your home address by extension, as well as your tax information, income level, telephone numbers, historic personal/family/financial network, employers current and past, registered vehicles, upcoming transport reservations, current physical location through either network activity or cellular network operator ping, etc. Just sayin'. Echelon was known by the late 1990s and has now been running for at least a third of a century. The European Parliament report came out in '01. Snowden and co, which this IETF document was presumably issued in response to, was a decade and a half later, a time in which offensive population-scale surveillance and targeted penetration as a service became open market products, secret global state-sanctioned kidnappings and assassinations became nominally normalized, literal constellations of surveillance satellites have been launched at ever-decreasing cost with ever-increasing capabilities, US 'instant global strike' capability is declared, drone warfare has not only been realized but is constant and in the popular consciousness, and every state actor worth its stazi-salt started playing. IMHO this document is therefore primarily of historical interest in demonstrating the apparent, unfortunate, well-meaning near-irrelevance of the IETF in the face of global internet commercialization and the ongoing shift toward normalized state surveillance. It could be seen as the conscience of the internet coming to terms with its failure. In Assange's words of 2012 (some 3 years prior): "The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization." This is all the more significant in mid 2024 as Assange has just escaped torture, China and Russia tighten their grasp after abandoning any open market pretense, Europe, at war, stands on the cusp of a popular authoritarian transition and the US election looms. What's a regular citizen to do? A shell script certainly won't save you, but it's something. It seems humanity has some organizational problems - its political systems no longer seem fit for purpose, and all of this while biodiversity tanks and global warming accelerates. Post industrial revolution we've built a machine, and it's no longer under our control. To Mars then? Perhaps not.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > mid 2024 as Assange has just escaped torture Maybe physical torture.
- steelframe 2y ago
  Mullvad takes cash, and if they are to be believed an attempt at a search warrant didn't work out for the authorities. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised https://mullvad.net/en/blog/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-sea... Regardless I'm not really trying to defend myself against state actors. If they target me, I know I'm screwed. What I am trying to do is reduce the amount of my private information non-government entities collect on me while raising the cost of mass surveillance.
- Qem 2y ago
  Could we at least leverage LLMs to create fake targets and feed spooks a lot of chaff? Perhaps surveillance can't be completely avoided, but at least can be made very expensive and wasteful.
  - squigz 2y ago
    Goodness, people really do see LLMs as the solution to everything, huh?
    - Qem 2y ago
      Once people get a new hammer, they see nails everywhere. The effect worns off eventually, unless all you have left is the hammer.

fsflover 2y ago

Sounds like you reimplemented Qubes OS disposable VMs with a lower security level.

steelframe 2y ago
Qubes OS would work great too. I just prefer Debian, so I've hacked together a poor-man's sandbox on that platform. While it doesn't provide the degree of host-level isolation that Qubes does, I think it's pretty effective for what this RFC is about.
- teleforce 2y ago
  Have you tried Firejail security sandbox: https://firejail.wordpress.com/ https://firejail.wordpress.com/
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

contingencies 2y ago

That's a good effort, but unfortunately every second desktop app now bundles a browser (Electron), and most people now access the internet through phone apps, an environment which offers no such control. Furthermore, if your VPN provider is seized, hacked, issued with a warrant, or is a honeypot operation you're going straight to the top of the interesting critters list, and you've probably given them your identity with your payment information, or it's trivially available to multiple state or corporate actors through the crypto gateway you used to purchase the intermediary token. Either that or your IP will also provide your home address by extension, as well as your tax information, income level, telephone numbers, historic personal/family/financial network, employers current and past, registered vehicles, upcoming transport reservations, current physical location through either network activity or cellular network operator ping, etc. Just sayin'. Echelon was known by the late 1990s and has now been running for at least a third of a century. The European Parliament report came out in '01. Snowden and co, which this IETF document was presumably issued in response to, was a decade and a half later, a time in which offensive population-scale surveillance and targeted penetration as a service became open market products, secret global state-sanctioned kidnappings and assassinations became nominally normalized, literal constellations of surveillance satellites have been launched at ever-decreasing cost with ever-increasing capabilities, US 'instant global strike' capability is declared, drone warfare has not only been realized but is constant and in the popular consciousness, and every state actor worth its stazi-salt started playing. IMHO this document is therefore primarily of historical interest in demonstrating the apparent, unfortunate, well-meaning near-irrelevance of the IETF in the face of global internet commercialization and the ongoing shift toward normalized state surveillance. It could be seen as the conscience of the internet coming to terms with its failure. In Assange's words of 2012 (some 3 years prior): "The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization." This is all the more significant in mid 2024 as Assange has just escaped torture, China and Russia tighten their grasp after abandoning any open market pretense, Europe, at war, stands on the cusp of a popular authoritarian transition and the US election looms. What's a regular citizen to do? A shell script certainly won't save you, but it's something. It seems humanity has some organizational problems - its political systems no longer seem fit for purpose, and all of this while biodiversity tanks and global warming accelerates. Post industrial revolution we've built a machine, and it's no longer under our control. To Mars then? Perhaps not.

hulitu 2y ago
> mid 2024 as Assange has just escaped torture Maybe physical torture.
steelframe 2y ago
Mullvad takes cash, and if they are to be believed an attempt at a search warrant didn't work out for the authorities. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised https://mullvad.net/en/blog/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-sea... Regardless I'm not really trying to defend myself against state actors. If they target me, I know I'm screwed. What I am trying to do is reduce the amount of my private information non-government entities collect on me while raising the cost of mass surveillance.
Qem 2y ago
Could we at least leverage LLMs to create fake targets and feed spooks a lot of chaff? Perhaps surveillance can't be completely avoided, but at least can be made very expensive and wasteful.
- squigz 2y ago
  Goodness, people really do see LLMs as the solution to everything, huh?
  - Qem 2y ago
    Once people get a new hammer, they see nails everywhere. The effect worns off eventually, unless all you have left is the hammer.