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The Wired Guide to Protecting Yourself from Government Surveillance

75 points by mdhb 2y ago

tonymet 2y ago
Best part of Trump’s win is that we can be openly suspicious of the government again without being slandered as a conspiracy theorist. All the old critiques are back in fashion: election tampering, pharma corruption, authoritarianism. Welcome back !
- krapp 2y ago
  Except the people who were openly suspicious of government tended only to be suspicious when a "leftist" was in power. You'll notice all of the worries about election tampering just vanished as soon as Trump won, and none of the people crying about government overreach and authoritarianism seem to care about the degree of arbitrary and unchecked power Trump and Elon Musk seem to want to wield. The upcoming administration is probably going to be neck deep in actual honest to God conspiracies and crimes and none of that lot are going to say a damn thing, but they'll probably still be harping on Hunter Biden's laptop or some other such nonsense.
  - jihadjihad 2y ago
    > You'll notice all of the worries about election tampering just vanished as soon as Trump won They didn't. On the right, his commanding win is seen as "evidence" that 2020 must have been illegitimate; on the left the fact that Democratic turnover cratered from 2020 is seen as "evidence" of some sort of foul play.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    No, plenty of people think Democrats tried to cheat in this one and failed. There are many states with no ID requirements, which is unthinkable in modern times. Let's actually secure the elections instead of making it partisan. >they'll probably still be harping on Hunter Biden's laptop or some other such nonsense. That is not and never was nonsense. It was censored heavily and subject to propaganda like the "51 intelligence officers" or whatever despite being totally true. That is a horrible offense against the people and heads have yet to roll for it.
    - krapp 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 2y ago
        Your account has been ratcheting up the guidelines violations lately and frequently crossing into personal attack. That's not cool. Can you please fix this? I don't want to ban you, but we're getting complaints and the people complaining aren't wrong. At some point we have to apply the rules semi-even-handedly instead of making grand exceptions. I'm not saying the comments you're flaming are any good either, but we can't have accounts doing this kind of thing with impunity. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42090460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42090460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41691032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41691032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41252307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41252307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40886721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40886721
        krapp 2y ago
        Ok, fair enough. I'll dial it back. I'm not apologizing for being rude to a nazi though.
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        [flagged]
        krapp 2y ago
        I was referencing a comment of mine on dang's list from a few months ago where some green account literally showed up calling themselves a white supremacist and a Nazi. And I wasn't replying to you. And since I'm being censured here, all I will say is time will tell, and I don't think it will tell you what you expect to hear.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    <meme> first time , huh?
webdoodle 2y ago
They actually think using encryption, designed by the NSA, will protect them. Laughs in lavabit....
- fooqux 2y ago
  You say lavabit, but that's actually an example of them needing the private keys... so I'm not sure what you're on about there. But regardless, I've seen this argument plenty of times. However, I don't know how much tinfoil is in that hat. On one hand, I would not be surprised to learn that some of the encryption standards have backdoors in them. I'd mostly be interested in how they kept it secret for so long. But does it even matter? You're worried about backdoors in the algorithm for encryption when that's just a single link in the chain. To my knowledge, backdoors in various NSA encryption types have only been suggested and theorized about. However, we already have real world proof that hardware and software backdoors not only exist, but have been used. So, worrying about encryption being backdoored while chatting on a smart phone chock full of chips like the modem which has direct access to your phone's memory and has internet access doesn't make sense to me. But on the other hand, unless you really piss off someone in the government, they are not likely going to be worried enough about you to use any of those tools. What we really need to be worried about is any aggregation of the data about you into groups. Most likely, they can already form these groups (and let's face it, likely already are) from freely available data we willingly post online. History has already shown they don't need to use their AES backdoor to discover you are likely an "undesirable" and should be deported / placed in a camp. But even if it was hard, an intern could probably slop together an AI to scan a person's online posts and develop a persona, and that's good enough.
  - webdoodle 2y ago
    > To my knowledge, backdoors in various NSA encryption types have only been suggested and theorized about. However, we already have real world proof that hardware and software backdoors not only exist, but have been used. Heart bleed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed > But on the other hand, unless you really piss off someone in the government, they are not likely going to be worried enough about you to use any of those tools. The government is made up of people, who will do illegal things, if they think they can get away with it. As there is essentially no auditing of NSA surveillance feeds (let alone other countries surveillance), so those folks can spy on almost anyone without repercussions. This all precludes the fact that most of the surveillance is actually done by private, for profit, companies that have a vested interest in keeping the surveillance beast running.
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
are there different styles of government surveillance for different systems of government, I wonder if there is a taxonomy.
jmclnx 2y ago
They mention these Cell Phone message apps, which may be OK. But to me you are better off using email with gnupg if you are really scared. Or better yet, tor or tails may be the best choice for people truly concerned. I thought it was weird they did not mention those.
- flaburgan 2y ago
  Tor is mentioned. But that will probably put a big red alert on you, and is anyway too slow and too blocked for daily usage. /e/ OS, an ungoogled Android by Murena with Firefox and ublock and using website instead of apps, and Signal for all your conversation, and you're already okayish.
- frontalier 2y ago
  gnupg is a foot gun and it does not encrypt the metadata with signal one gets e2ee and it's hard to fuck up
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    What metadata is exposed by GPG and not Signal?
    - Zak 2y ago
      Who is communicating with whom, when, and usually from what IP address. Signal writes about how they minimize the metadata they can access here: https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/ https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/
    - sudobash1 2y ago
      When using it over Email, all of the normal email headers are there on full display. The subject line, recipients, etc... Everything except the body is exposed.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    I wouldn't count on Signal to protect you. I suspect they've been compromised for a while, but at the very least they're not trustworthy. The very first sentence of their "Signal Terms & Privacy Policy" page is a lie. It states "Signal is designed to never collect or store any sensitive information." but for years now signal has been collecting and permanently storing sensitive information in the cloud (your name, phone number, photo, and most importantly a list of all your contacts). They've also refused to update their privacy policy to reflect their new data collection practices. For an app that markets itself to whistleblowers, human rights activists, and journalists whose freedom or lives could be at risk it's inexcusable to mislead people about what data is being collected. People with so much on the line need to be able to make informed choices about their risks, but Signal's communication surrounding their data collection has been extremely evasive, confusing, and dishonest. Further reading: https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-security-pins-are-too-easy-to-brute-force-sgx-is-not-reliable-enough/15096 https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-secu... https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-anything-stored-in-cloud/14057 https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-... https://community.signalusers.org/t/can-signal-please-update-its-privacy-policy/15323 https://community.signalusers.org/t/can-signal-please-update... https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/htmzrr/psa_disabling_pins_will_now_upload_nothing_to_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/htmzrr/psa_disablin...
fooqux 2y ago
For anyone in a group that is worried of being retaliated against due to Trump: it's too late to use any tips in this article. Even the most private among us likely have decades of data in various data centers about our typical travels, typical social circles, typical shopping practices, etc. They even mention this in the article, albeit at the very end. So, if you are the kind of person that Trump would want to remove via various means, it's likely already too late to suddenly install Signal. A far better article for the demographic the article is supposedly written for would have focused on how to request what data various services have on you, and how to request it be cleared before January.
- jayd16 2y ago
  One could argue there's still value in building connections in apps that can't easily ban you or silence you on mention of a protest.
  - fooqux 2y ago
    I agree, but I was talking about the supposed point of the article. This is taken from the first words in the article: > Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to evade it. My point was that if you're an enemy of Trump, that data is already out there. Preventing more from existing is important, sure, but I still think removing what is already out there is even more important. You can change your future behavior; it's impossible to change the past. Best you can hope for is erasing as much of it as possible.
joemazerino 2y ago
Wired used to be a magazine I subscribed and enjoyed reading. Too bad it is now yet another partisan piece. Government surveillance isn't ramping up under Trump. It was already here under Obama.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  The concern isn't about surveillance, as much as it is about what's being done with the data being collected.
  - burningChrome 2y ago
    Which has been happening for decades. I find it more troubling the relationships between the government and the media more than I do surveillance at this point. When you have news outlets publishing outright lies and propaganda to create a narrative for an election, I think that is a lot more dangerous. Like when Democrats were touting Liz Cheney's endorsement of Harris. The same person whose father they wanted to string up by his thumbs, called him a war criminal and all kinds of adjectives to describe his massive no bid contracts for Halliburton during the Iraq wars. Trump said he's like to see what happens when she is handed a rifle and goes out and has seven or eight guns pointed at her. This comment was then repackaged to say that Trump was endorsing the assassination of Liz Cheney. That's not misconstruing something. That's not leaving out a detail here and there. It was an outright lie and straight misinformation that was pushed all over the media for two days. Even liberal leaning outlets had to finally step in and say that, no, that's not what he said. When you cannot trust the media any more because they are no longer one of the last checks on government overreach and influence and instead have a relationship where the government dictates to the media what they can and cannot report? That to me, is far more dangerous than surveillance.
    - beej71 2y ago
      > When you cannot trust the media any more because they are no longer one of the last checks on government overreach and influence I'd argue you can't trust them because of the First Amendment. They have a lot of leeway to say whatever they want. Like with an individual, trust is either earned or theirs to lose. > instead have a relationship where the government dictates to the media what they can and cannot report? That to me, is far more dangerous than surveillance. It is very dangerous. Is this happening, though? I don't recall Biden calling for pulling news channels' permits. Did he revoke press corps passes?
Molitor5901 2y ago
I have bad news. There is really very, very little you can do to avoid government surveillance, and in the end it's almost entirely pointless. Between that amazing tracking device in your pocket that you feed all of your personal information to, data brokers, facial recognition, cameras everywhere, it's pretty much impossible to avoid surveillance. That said, I think it's important that we do try at least to corrupt that data set any way we can. I've got my local member of congress (and apparently other political organizations) thinking I'm a middle aged person of color; I'm not. Always falsify your information whenever possible and feasible, including tagging other people in photos as yourself, etc. There is no way to avoid surveillance, government or private, but we can do our best to screw with the data.
- lsh123 2y ago
  tin foil hat, that's the only way :)
- sourcepluck 2y ago
  I don't understand why one wouldn't also do whatever is within their means and energy levels to avoid surveillance, as well? Have you a reason for suggesting people don't do it? Sure, surveillance is very pervasive, and much worse than people seem to want to admit to themselves. But I don't really get why "oh well, give up" makes sense to you there, and you're so excited about providing false information. Why not both? Going outside for a day and leaving the phone fully off in the back of a drawer is good fun for the whole family, and can be done. Getting Tails onto a USB stick is easy for many and even fun for some, and you can make copies for your friends. Getting that old brick phone out of the other drawer, getting the old charger for it, and taking that out sometimes when you only need calls, can be good fun too. I don't get why it'd be so black and white, especially considering that's it's so empowering and interesting to learn more about privacy and get a bit more engaged, even on a small personal level.
  - DCH3416 2y ago
    The problem is government surveillance is useful. If your car gets stolen for example a plate reader camera can help find it. I think people know that and weight it against the trade off of decreased privacy and exploitation by corrupt government officials or other nefarious actors. To help justify that people come up with ways of gaming the systems, similar to with say people who cut coupons get that money saving rush. Essentially it's viewed as a necessary evil and folks leverage mechanism to get ahead instead of all out rejection.
nabla9 2y ago
> Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. Obama deported over 1.18 million people during his term. Trump tried but was not able to deport as much in his first term. It's not so easy as people think. Half of farm workers are illeagals. 40 percent of construction workers. 15% to 50% of food processing workers. All these businesses send their lobbyists screaming to Trump. Prices increase and citizen unemployment increases.
- Applejinx 2y ago
  So the thing is, if the lobbyists succeed, there will be much less deportation than promised (which, practically, ought to be OK). We do have TASS formally claiming that they won Trump his election, just the other day, and stating that he owes Russia and will make good on his obligations. I didn't see THAT coming, but it appears to be the real website. If the lobbyists fail and Trump does manage to deport all the workers and jail his enemies in spite of it hurting business, it might be an indication that the success of America isn't really the goal. Just saying, if Russia's not lying about owning Trump, he might be more useful to them as a wrecking ball, in a position to ruin the country and break the dollar as the world's reserve currency. This would be disastrous, but maybe Russia would like to see us experience a disaster. Some people will find that a useful motivator to endorse crypto.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    >We do have TASS formally claiming that they won Trump his election, just the other day, and stating that he owes Russia and will make good on his obligations. I didn't see THAT coming, but it appears to be the real website. Russian propaganda designed to piss off both sides of the aisle I'm sure. There is zero evidence that Russia ever helped Trump in any election. There is however lots of evidence of meddling in favor of Democrats by Ukraine and UK leadership.
    - Applejinx 2y ago
      I agree wholeheartedly on your first point, but can't agree that there's zero evidence of what you said. We do seem to agree that TASS's observation was really them. I think there are some metrics we can keep an eye on to know if Russia's claims here are true (which is hardly a given!). If it's true their motivations are clear, but there's also a motivation to make a real mess of things while both sides of the aisle fight each other as hard as feasible. Namely, if they can crash America, then America can be made poorer than Russia, and the balance of power shifts quite a lot. For that reason, I feel like there's a motive for Russia to have done this, and I can't agree with your assertion that there's no evidence Russia ever helped Trump. I suggest that instead, both parties in the USA had reason to not publicize that reality, because it was embarrassing to them. Not even the right wing want to think they were doing the whole thing not to make America great, but to break it beyond repair. They (and we) live here. Also, I know from working for Bernie Sanders in 2015 that the Democratic establishment is not eager to be directed by the grass roots, or to admit fault or misrepresentation on their part. I don't believe they would be eager to reveal how deep the rot went, and this reticence might have done us a great deal of harm.
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
Take a page out of organized crime's book. Do not mention real names, use code words for things, refer to places or events as proxies for other things, never talk over the phone or text if you can do it in person, use intermediaries and dead drops, leave your phone at home. Don't tell any more people than you have to. But the most useful tip: stay off their radar. If you start using a lot of encrypted solutions for things, attend meetings (that are probably surveilled), go to a protest march, etc you are now on their radar. Maybe you'll decide to do these things anyway, but just keep in mind you're making their job easier.
- throw__away7391 2y ago
  I was once on a jury for 6 weeks for the trial of the top members of a large multi-national drug trafficking organization in New York. A lot of that time was dedicated to hearing transcripts of the group's communication. These guys use code words and took all sorts of precautions to try to avoid surveillance, but in the end it looked like a joke. The government knew everything they were doing, where they were, where they were going and who they were talking to. They effortlessly followed their conversations across multiple channels, knew all their signals and the secret second apartments they paid cash for and all the other games they were playing. We listened to them plotting and talking about trying to conceal what they were doing and prevent being caught for nearly a year completely unaware the government knew exactly what was going on. They came across like naive children trying to blame their stuffed toy for eating all the cookies.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    You're witnessing a solved case among tens-of-thousands that never see a hearing. That's like saying safe's don't work because you saw a broken one.
    - throw__away7391 2y ago
      The context here is protection from government surveillance...but I have had similar experience dealing with immigration and to a lesser degree taxes where less resources could have been spent. The government has the ability to get massive amounts of data about you quite easily. What "protects" you from negative consequences of this is the processes, rules, and procedures baked into the government itself, not copying the communication style of some Hollywood mafia movie gangsters.
luxuryballs 2y ago
I always just operate under the assumption that anything digital may one day be public record, it’s actually way easier to think about. Like that Ben Franklin(?) quote: “three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead”, if you want something to be a secret just don’t put it on a computer at all, simple and effective.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
_sys49152 2y ago
Cell phone providers, internet providers, technology providers, license plate readers, ring cameras, mail package imaging, surveillance cameras, motion hunting cameras, private citizen agencies that can operate outside of law or structure, govt agencies that operate outside of law or structure, five eyes, shadow facebook networking, unlimited funds, dna gathering, thousands upon thousands of employees, including specialists who can interpret the smallest details about you and create an accurate psychological profile. "Nowhere to run to baby. Nowhere to hide."
wakawaka28 2y ago
This is incredibly fear-mongering and reads like hit piece on Trump while offering little actual advice. If you are only now caring about privacy you should reconsider your priorities.
lifeline82 2y ago
[dead]

75 points by mdhb 2y ago

Best part of Trump’s win is that we can be openly suspicious of the government again without being slandered as a conspiracy theorist. All the old critiques are back in fashion: election tampering, pharma corruption, authoritarianism. Welcome back !

krapp 2y ago
Except the people who were openly suspicious of government tended only to be suspicious when a "leftist" was in power. You'll notice all of the worries about election tampering just vanished as soon as Trump won, and none of the people crying about government overreach and authoritarianism seem to care about the degree of arbitrary and unchecked power Trump and Elon Musk seem to want to wield. The upcoming administration is probably going to be neck deep in actual honest to God conspiracies and crimes and none of that lot are going to say a damn thing, but they'll probably still be harping on Hunter Biden's laptop or some other such nonsense.
- jihadjihad 2y ago
  > You'll notice all of the worries about election tampering just vanished as soon as Trump won They didn't. On the right, his commanding win is seen as "evidence" that 2020 must have been illegitimate; on the left the fact that Democratic turnover cratered from 2020 is seen as "evidence" of some sort of foul play.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  No, plenty of people think Democrats tried to cheat in this one and failed. There are many states with no ID requirements, which is unthinkable in modern times. Let's actually secure the elections instead of making it partisan. >they'll probably still be harping on Hunter Biden's laptop or some other such nonsense. That is not and never was nonsense. It was censored heavily and subject to propaganda like the "51 intelligence officers" or whatever despite being totally true. That is a horrible offense against the people and heads have yet to roll for it.
  - krapp 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 2y ago
      Your account has been ratcheting up the guidelines violations lately and frequently crossing into personal attack. That's not cool. Can you please fix this? I don't want to ban you, but we're getting complaints and the people complaining aren't wrong. At some point we have to apply the rules semi-even-handedly instead of making grand exceptions. I'm not saying the comments you're flaming are any good either, but we can't have accounts doing this kind of thing with impunity. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42090460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42090460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41691032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41691032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41252307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41252307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40886721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40886721
      - krapp 2y ago
        Ok, fair enough. I'll dial it back. I'm not apologizing for being rude to a nazi though.
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        [flagged]
        krapp 2y ago
        I was referencing a comment of mine on dang's list from a few months ago where some green account literally showed up calling themselves a white supremacist and a Nazi. And I wasn't replying to you. And since I'm being censured here, all I will say is time will tell, and I don't think it will tell you what you expect to hear.
- tonymet 2y ago
  <meme> first time , huh?

webdoodle 2y ago

They actually think using encryption, designed by the NSA, will protect them. Laughs in lavabit....

fooqux 2y ago
You say lavabit, but that's actually an example of them needing the private keys... so I'm not sure what you're on about there. But regardless, I've seen this argument plenty of times. However, I don't know how much tinfoil is in that hat. On one hand, I would not be surprised to learn that some of the encryption standards have backdoors in them. I'd mostly be interested in how they kept it secret for so long. But does it even matter? You're worried about backdoors in the algorithm for encryption when that's just a single link in the chain. To my knowledge, backdoors in various NSA encryption types have only been suggested and theorized about. However, we already have real world proof that hardware and software backdoors not only exist, but have been used. So, worrying about encryption being backdoored while chatting on a smart phone chock full of chips like the modem which has direct access to your phone's memory and has internet access doesn't make sense to me. But on the other hand, unless you really piss off someone in the government, they are not likely going to be worried enough about you to use any of those tools. What we really need to be worried about is any aggregation of the data about you into groups. Most likely, they can already form these groups (and let's face it, likely already are) from freely available data we willingly post online. History has already shown they don't need to use their AES backdoor to discover you are likely an "undesirable" and should be deported / placed in a camp. But even if it was hard, an intern could probably slop together an AI to scan a person's online posts and develop a persona, and that's good enough.
- webdoodle 2y ago
  > To my knowledge, backdoors in various NSA encryption types have only been suggested and theorized about. However, we already have real world proof that hardware and software backdoors not only exist, but have been used. Heart bleed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed > But on the other hand, unless you really piss off someone in the government, they are not likely going to be worried enough about you to use any of those tools. The government is made up of people, who will do illegal things, if they think they can get away with it. As there is essentially no auditing of NSA surveillance feeds (let alone other countries surveillance), so those folks can spy on almost anyone without repercussions. This all precludes the fact that most of the surveillance is actually done by private, for profit, companies that have a vested interest in keeping the surveillance beast running.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

are there different styles of government surveillance for different systems of government, I wonder if there is a taxonomy.

jmclnx 2y ago

They mention these Cell Phone message apps, which may be OK. But to me you are better off using email with gnupg if you are really scared. Or better yet, tor or tails may be the best choice for people truly concerned. I thought it was weird they did not mention those.

flaburgan 2y ago
Tor is mentioned. But that will probably put a big red alert on you, and is anyway too slow and too blocked for daily usage. /e/ OS, an ungoogled Android by Murena with Firefox and ublock and using website instead of apps, and Signal for all your conversation, and you're already okayish.
frontalier 2y ago
gnupg is a foot gun and it does not encrypt the metadata with signal one gets e2ee and it's hard to fuck up
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  What metadata is exposed by GPG and not Signal?
  - Zak 2y ago
    Who is communicating with whom, when, and usually from what IP address. Signal writes about how they minimize the metadata they can access here: https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/ https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/
  - sudobash1 2y ago
    When using it over Email, all of the normal email headers are there on full display. The subject line, recipients, etc... Everything except the body is exposed.
- autoexec 2y ago
  I wouldn't count on Signal to protect you. I suspect they've been compromised for a while, but at the very least they're not trustworthy. The very first sentence of their "Signal Terms & Privacy Policy" page is a lie. It states "Signal is designed to never collect or store any sensitive information." but for years now signal has been collecting and permanently storing sensitive information in the cloud (your name, phone number, photo, and most importantly a list of all your contacts). They've also refused to update their privacy policy to reflect their new data collection practices. For an app that markets itself to whistleblowers, human rights activists, and journalists whose freedom or lives could be at risk it's inexcusable to mislead people about what data is being collected. People with so much on the line need to be able to make informed choices about their risks, but Signal's communication surrounding their data collection has been extremely evasive, confusing, and dishonest. Further reading: https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-security-pins-are-too-easy-to-brute-force-sgx-is-not-reliable-enough/15096 https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-secu... https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-anything-stored-in-cloud/14057 https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-... https://community.signalusers.org/t/can-signal-please-update-its-privacy-policy/15323 https://community.signalusers.org/t/can-signal-please-update... https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/htmzrr/psa_disabling_pins_will_now_upload_nothing_to_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/htmzrr/psa_disablin...

fooqux 2y ago

For anyone in a group that is worried of being retaliated against due to Trump: it's too late to use any tips in this article. Even the most private among us likely have decades of data in various data centers about our typical travels, typical social circles, typical shopping practices, etc. They even mention this in the article, albeit at the very end. So, if you are the kind of person that Trump would want to remove via various means, it's likely already too late to suddenly install Signal. A far better article for the demographic the article is supposedly written for would have focused on how to request what data various services have on you, and how to request it be cleared before January.

jayd16 2y ago
One could argue there's still value in building connections in apps that can't easily ban you or silence you on mention of a protest.
- fooqux 2y ago
  I agree, but I was talking about the supposed point of the article. This is taken from the first words in the article: > Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to evade it. My point was that if you're an enemy of Trump, that data is already out there. Preventing more from existing is important, sure, but I still think removing what is already out there is even more important. You can change your future behavior; it's impossible to change the past. Best you can hope for is erasing as much of it as possible.

joemazerino 2y ago

Wired used to be a magazine I subscribed and enjoyed reading. Too bad it is now yet another partisan piece. Government surveillance isn't ramping up under Trump. It was already here under Obama.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
The concern isn't about surveillance, as much as it is about what's being done with the data being collected.
- burningChrome 2y ago
  Which has been happening for decades. I find it more troubling the relationships between the government and the media more than I do surveillance at this point. When you have news outlets publishing outright lies and propaganda to create a narrative for an election, I think that is a lot more dangerous. Like when Democrats were touting Liz Cheney's endorsement of Harris. The same person whose father they wanted to string up by his thumbs, called him a war criminal and all kinds of adjectives to describe his massive no bid contracts for Halliburton during the Iraq wars. Trump said he's like to see what happens when she is handed a rifle and goes out and has seven or eight guns pointed at her. This comment was then repackaged to say that Trump was endorsing the assassination of Liz Cheney. That's not misconstruing something. That's not leaving out a detail here and there. It was an outright lie and straight misinformation that was pushed all over the media for two days. Even liberal leaning outlets had to finally step in and say that, no, that's not what he said. When you cannot trust the media any more because they are no longer one of the last checks on government overreach and influence and instead have a relationship where the government dictates to the media what they can and cannot report? That to me, is far more dangerous than surveillance.
  - beej71 2y ago
    > When you cannot trust the media any more because they are no longer one of the last checks on government overreach and influence I'd argue you can't trust them because of the First Amendment. They have a lot of leeway to say whatever they want. Like with an individual, trust is either earned or theirs to lose. > instead have a relationship where the government dictates to the media what they can and cannot report? That to me, is far more dangerous than surveillance. It is very dangerous. Is this happening, though? I don't recall Biden calling for pulling news channels' permits. Did he revoke press corps passes?

Molitor5901 2y ago

I have bad news. There is really very, very little you can do to avoid government surveillance, and in the end it's almost entirely pointless. Between that amazing tracking device in your pocket that you feed all of your personal information to, data brokers, facial recognition, cameras everywhere, it's pretty much impossible to avoid surveillance. That said, I think it's important that we do try at least to corrupt that data set any way we can. I've got my local member of congress (and apparently other political organizations) thinking I'm a middle aged person of color; I'm not. Always falsify your information whenever possible and feasible, including tagging other people in photos as yourself, etc. There is no way to avoid surveillance, government or private, but we can do our best to screw with the data.

lsh123 2y ago
tin foil hat, that's the only way :)
sourcepluck 2y ago
I don't understand why one wouldn't also do whatever is within their means and energy levels to avoid surveillance, as well? Have you a reason for suggesting people don't do it? Sure, surveillance is very pervasive, and much worse than people seem to want to admit to themselves. But I don't really get why "oh well, give up" makes sense to you there, and you're so excited about providing false information. Why not both? Going outside for a day and leaving the phone fully off in the back of a drawer is good fun for the whole family, and can be done. Getting Tails onto a USB stick is easy for many and even fun for some, and you can make copies for your friends. Getting that old brick phone out of the other drawer, getting the old charger for it, and taking that out sometimes when you only need calls, can be good fun too. I don't get why it'd be so black and white, especially considering that's it's so empowering and interesting to learn more about privacy and get a bit more engaged, even on a small personal level.
- DCH3416 2y ago
  The problem is government surveillance is useful. If your car gets stolen for example a plate reader camera can help find it. I think people know that and weight it against the trade off of decreased privacy and exploitation by corrupt government officials or other nefarious actors. To help justify that people come up with ways of gaming the systems, similar to with say people who cut coupons get that money saving rush. Essentially it's viewed as a necessary evil and folks leverage mechanism to get ahead instead of all out rejection.

nabla9 2y ago

> Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. Obama deported over 1.18 million people during his term. Trump tried but was not able to deport as much in his first term. It's not so easy as people think. Half of farm workers are illeagals. 40 percent of construction workers. 15% to 50% of food processing workers. All these businesses send their lobbyists screaming to Trump. Prices increase and citizen unemployment increases.

Applejinx 2y ago
So the thing is, if the lobbyists succeed, there will be much less deportation than promised (which, practically, ought to be OK). We do have TASS formally claiming that they won Trump his election, just the other day, and stating that he owes Russia and will make good on his obligations. I didn't see THAT coming, but it appears to be the real website. If the lobbyists fail and Trump does manage to deport all the workers and jail his enemies in spite of it hurting business, it might be an indication that the success of America isn't really the goal. Just saying, if Russia's not lying about owning Trump, he might be more useful to them as a wrecking ball, in a position to ruin the country and break the dollar as the world's reserve currency. This would be disastrous, but maybe Russia would like to see us experience a disaster. Some people will find that a useful motivator to endorse crypto.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  >We do have TASS formally claiming that they won Trump his election, just the other day, and stating that he owes Russia and will make good on his obligations. I didn't see THAT coming, but it appears to be the real website. Russian propaganda designed to piss off both sides of the aisle I'm sure. There is zero evidence that Russia ever helped Trump in any election. There is however lots of evidence of meddling in favor of Democrats by Ukraine and UK leadership.
  - Applejinx 2y ago
    I agree wholeheartedly on your first point, but can't agree that there's zero evidence of what you said. We do seem to agree that TASS's observation was really them. I think there are some metrics we can keep an eye on to know if Russia's claims here are true (which is hardly a given!). If it's true their motivations are clear, but there's also a motivation to make a real mess of things while both sides of the aisle fight each other as hard as feasible. Namely, if they can crash America, then America can be made poorer than Russia, and the balance of power shifts quite a lot. For that reason, I feel like there's a motive for Russia to have done this, and I can't agree with your assertion that there's no evidence Russia ever helped Trump. I suggest that instead, both parties in the USA had reason to not publicize that reality, because it was embarrassing to them. Not even the right wing want to think they were doing the whole thing not to make America great, but to break it beyond repair. They (and we) live here. Also, I know from working for Bernie Sanders in 2015 that the Democratic establishment is not eager to be directed by the grass roots, or to admit fault or misrepresentation on their part. I don't believe they would be eager to reveal how deep the rot went, and this reticence might have done us a great deal of harm.

0xbadcafebee 2y ago

Take a page out of organized crime's book. Do not mention real names, use code words for things, refer to places or events as proxies for other things, never talk over the phone or text if you can do it in person, use intermediaries and dead drops, leave your phone at home. Don't tell any more people than you have to. But the most useful tip: stay off their radar. If you start using a lot of encrypted solutions for things, attend meetings (that are probably surveilled), go to a protest march, etc you are now on their radar. Maybe you'll decide to do these things anyway, but just keep in mind you're making their job easier.

throw__away7391 2y ago
I was once on a jury for 6 weeks for the trial of the top members of a large multi-national drug trafficking organization in New York. A lot of that time was dedicated to hearing transcripts of the group's communication. These guys use code words and took all sorts of precautions to try to avoid surveillance, but in the end it looked like a joke. The government knew everything they were doing, where they were, where they were going and who they were talking to. They effortlessly followed their conversations across multiple channels, knew all their signals and the secret second apartments they paid cash for and all the other games they were playing. We listened to them plotting and talking about trying to conceal what they were doing and prevent being caught for nearly a year completely unaware the government knew exactly what was going on. They came across like naive children trying to blame their stuffed toy for eating all the cookies.
- tonymet 2y ago
  You're witnessing a solved case among tens-of-thousands that never see a hearing. That's like saying safe's don't work because you saw a broken one.
  - throw__away7391 2y ago
    The context here is protection from government surveillance...but I have had similar experience dealing with immigration and to a lesser degree taxes where less resources could have been spent. The government has the ability to get massive amounts of data about you quite easily. What "protects" you from negative consequences of this is the processes, rules, and procedures baked into the government itself, not copying the communication style of some Hollywood mafia movie gangsters.

luxuryballs 2y ago

I always just operate under the assumption that anything digital may one day be public record, it’s actually way easier to think about. Like that Ben Franklin(?) quote: “three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead”, if you want something to be a secret just don’t put it on a computer at all, simple and effective.

deleted 2y ago

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_sys49152 2y ago

Cell phone providers, internet providers, technology providers, license plate readers, ring cameras, mail package imaging, surveillance cameras, motion hunting cameras, private citizen agencies that can operate outside of law or structure, govt agencies that operate outside of law or structure, five eyes, shadow facebook networking, unlimited funds, dna gathering, thousands upon thousands of employees, including specialists who can interpret the smallest details about you and create an accurate psychological profile. "Nowhere to run to baby. Nowhere to hide."

wakawaka28 2y ago

This is incredibly fear-mongering and reads like hit piece on Trump while offering little actual advice. If you are only now caring about privacy you should reconsider your priorities.

lifeline82 2y ago

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