14 ms·

Mozilla, EFF, Reddit And 83 Other Organizations Launch StopWatching.Us

503 points by rhufnagel 13y ago

dataisfun 13y ago
Signed! Thank goodness organizations are stepping up to avert the slow creep of total surveillance.
pvnick 13y ago
I love Mozilla
- ndesaulniers 13y ago
  Mozilla loves all. See the Mozilla Story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmk43_2dtn0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmk43_2dtn0
hkmurakami 13y ago
love the (I think?) backhanded slap against FWD.us (maybe I'm reading too much into this)
IAmAI343 13y ago
It would be great if they started promoting e-mail, video, chat with built in idiot proof encryption. So easy to use that your average joe could use. That is the only way we can be sure the government cannot easily see what we are doing. The slogan could be "You are not a terrorist, so why should the government be able to snoop on your private life?" Or "Somebody in a dark government office could be listening to all your phone conversations, reading your e-mail and text message, and watching your videos. Are you really OK with that?" One more: "You are not OK with people spying you in your house, why should you be OK with people spying you in your private digital life" Just like with your house, the walls do not allow people to peak into what you are doing [1]. Encryption will fulfill the same purpose. [1] Somebody using some form of x-ray radiation or infrared technology could still spy on you, but that is still fixable by building walls specifically designed to defeat this type of snooping technology.
fiatmoney 13y ago
Instead of a "campaign", how about some technical countermeasures? They're the only thing that actually has a chance of working. You simply can't rely on the political process as it exists when the response of the security establishment is to a) wait for an arbitrary crisis to dust off a naked power-grab, b) secretly "reinterpret" the law beyond recognition, and c) flatly ignore the law as they did with their "Terrorist Surveillance Program".
- jafaku 13y ago
  What technical countermeasures do you suggest? Check out what this guy has to say about resistance: http://youtu.be/3ftfEXxFC4Q?t=28m53s http://youtu.be/3ftfEXxFC4Q?t=28m53s
  - fiatmoney 13y ago
    Frankly, I'm hoping that they can come up with some, and some other people can come up with ways to make such measures socially accepted and encouraged. The examples he gives are specifically the kinds of things that there are social solutions to - eg making it Not Socially Acceptable to wear mobile face recognition systems around in public. If you're going to devolve into a DDR-style police state, there's very little technically that can prevent that from happening. What can happen is that you force an enormous investment of resources to maintain it, instead of giving the ability to a tiny cabal. If you're forcing the recruitment of a demographically significantly portion of the population (somewhere 2.5% to 7% in the case of the Stasi) in order to maintain the security apparatus, there's much more room for debate over whether to build it or dismantle it than if it just requires a few billion dollars and a fistful of NSLs.
  - visarga 13y ago
    I have thought about it. We can't make use any more of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Twitter and FaceBook. We need a new system, one built with anonymity and lacking a central point of failure. Let's say we invent a protocol and write some software clients for it. It should do anonymous search, browsing, messenging, social networking, video calls and video streaming. It would hide the origin of a request and make it uncertain about who does what. For example, if 1000 people use a common VPN server to access Google, and they all come out as the same IP address, it can become more difficult to know who searched for what. All that is needed then is to browse in Safe Mode without logging in. This kind of ideas and other (distributed hash table, using bittorrent like systems for moving data around) could make a nice private communication tool. We just need to make a clear separation between what can be said on FB and what can be said on Anonymous net.
kunai 13y ago
Just the fact that we have to start websites like these, and march Capitol Hill to make the government realize its mistake is depressing, infuriating, and is gently, gradually tapping at a hot, steaming teapot of rage within every rational individual's psyche. What is the root cause? How did this get so incredibly bad? Is it the fault of the public? Is it the public's fault we are in an Orwellian state of Soviet-era Germany? Or does Hanlon's Razor apply here? In any case, there needs to be more action than just bandage measures like petitions and phoning your Congressman. This level of government negligence deserves an uproar, and sadly we're not getting it because many trust government, and are not skeptical in the slightest about it. We have those animals called "politicians" to blame for that. So, if people really want to change, lead a march on Capitol Hill. Be attention-seekers, make a change for the better, not for the worse. Let your life have value, and use that value against the worthless individuals sitting at their desks in Washington. Just do something worthwhile, not sitting behind that sRGB display of yours. Painless encryption, countermeasures, protests, whatever -- we need to do something.
- barret907k 13y ago
  Make sure you're marching is very peaceful. Don't want the government to label you a 'terrorist'. You may never seen sunlight again.
  - kunai 13y ago
    I'm young, foolish, and I honestly don't care if I'm labeled a terrorist. Although, my ethnicity doesn't particularly help my cause...
    - lepht 13y ago
      Interesting sentiment, and I can't help but think this is why the government seems to fear the youth the most/ships them off to wars in other countries.
      - pyre 13y ago
        Was there a time when wars were only fought by old men?
infographic- 13y ago
Link to actual thing: https://www.stopwatching.us https://www.stopwatching.us EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet-companies-demand-end-nsa-spying https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-gro...
bradenb 13y ago
Here's where I get depressed about this whole thing: how will we know change has occurred? I mean, say in the best case scenario the government admits it was wrong and promises to stop the monitoring programs. How exactly are we supposed to know it has happened? I don't see why they couldn't simply start up a new secret program using the exact same resources and keep it from the public eye.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  Which they have done repeatedly, as in the case of the "Total Information Awareness" program.
- nano111 13y ago
  companies should never have to lie on the spying statistics (but maybe need to hide some specifics)
- milhous 13y ago
  A good way to do it would be to radically downsize the federal government and return back to limited constitutional government. The less money they have, the less stuff they can do. Return power (and tax revenues) back to the states so that the people of that state can have a more powerful influence in state/local politics instead of everyone pleading, fighting, and begging at the national level in Washington. And since radical downsizing won't happen voluntarily, as both political parties are corrupt and incompetent, the only way I can see this happening is for the government to continue borrowing and spending money into oblivion, which will ultimately trigger an economic default. At that point, there will be no money for new secret programs.
  - dripton 13y ago
    The US national debt is denominated in dollars. The US government decides what a dollar is. There's no way they can default. Just trigger hyperinflation.
    - Pwnguinz 13y ago
morroccomole 13y ago
Not too many Silicon Valley software companies on that list
tomasien 13y ago
I think it's funny that this was on the front page this morning, and with "Mozilla, EFF, and Reddit" in the title, the TechCrunch article about it blows straight to the top. Titles matter y'all, titles matter.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
This is going to be about a redefinition of privacy. It was ok for governments to spy on other countries governments (and so their citizens). In this name we put satellites over us all. The problem with this is the satellites spied on everyone, and governments were supposed to ignore the right bits. But now if a government wants to spy, it mostly needs to watch what people do or do not do online (I will bet real spies have some really odd online "tells") So if its ok to spy on another government, it's going to be necessary to spy on everyone everywhere, and then ignore certain bits. Like satellites but much more finer grained. Oh and if you want to catch a spy in the USA, you need to spy on all US citizens to watch for those "tells". What we want is not for governments to pretend the Internet does not exist, but rather to ensure that they cannot use the information found for anything we do not specifically legislate. I am pretty sure this is something like an extension of the fourth amendment in US terms. It's a redefinition of privacy - not that no-one knows, but that no-one is allowed to make use of knowing. That's the trade-off we face. We get the Internet, we give up what we currently think of as privacy.
- pyre 13y ago
  1. The machinery being put into place is a dictator's wet dream. By creating the infrastructure, we are putting a gun to our heads, and trusting the person holding it (the government) to not pull the trigger. The government may be benevolent now, but that may not always be the case. 2. Once the machinery is in place, it makes it that much easier to change directions. Just look at how all of the powers granted by the PATRIOT Act are used to non-terrorism related investigations like the War on Drugs, or the War on (Paid) Sex. Look to the censorship programs in Europe / Australia. They were put into place to block supposedly 'only' child pornography. Now they are used to block other things. 3. How are we supposed to make sure that things aren't being abused when everything happens behind closed doors, and the members of Congress cleared to see more specifics aren't allowed to see very much of hte system.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    > dictator's wet dream I expect the same was said about satellites, telephone tapping, etc Our defence against dictators does not lie in technology but in the ballot box. 2. Again the ballot box is the defence, but the reason it gets used is people are educated about the technology and the implications of abuse. I doubt that a US to ernment that took away a right to silence would suffer a few outcries from geeks. They would get roasted. (Unlike the UK) 3. Secret courts are banned for that reason. I think I would like to see a definition of national security like "ten thousand dead" or 3 % loss of GDP. Then when. That gets invoked we can make a sensible guess about how often it's likely. Otherwise, you put it in open court Individuals are not the only ones to lose privacy in the coming years. Go ernment a will lose more
mayneack 13y ago
I wonder how often freedom works (the infamous tea party group supposedly funded by the koch brothers) is listed right next to greenpeace and on the same list of supporters as the PCCC and moveon.org. It can't be often
- jdp23 13y ago
  Privacy is one of those issues that cuts across the spectrum. With Stop REAL ID, we had transgender people and biblical literalists on the same side. A friend of mine was telling me about a coalition meeting a few years ago where the lobbyist for the Quakers was sitting next to -- and agreeing with -- the people from the NRA. Strange bedfellows indeed.
Qantourisc 13y ago
I still wonder why humans outside the US are of less value then the peaple inside it... Or aren't we humans ? Also where is StopWatching.eu ? Cause the site is made for us :p
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mseebach 13y ago
  Stop complaining, start building. You're welcome.
- ryusage 13y ago
  To be fair, part of the US government's job is to protect its citizens against outside threats. Given that, I can't imagine anyone inside the US arguing that they should stop spying on other countries' citizens. I'm pretty sure that's the NSA's actual job. And anyway, there's a huge difference between being spied on by a foreign government versus your own. My own government actually has some amount of authority and influence over me and my community, whereas some place like the UK has little to none, so it's less of a big deal.
  - danbruc 13y ago
    The distinction should definitely not be US vs foreign country citizens but unsuspicious vs suspicious people. Spying at unsuspicious foreigners is absolutely no better than spying at your own citizens - it's still a human rights violation.
ekianjo 13y ago
Members of US Congress who signed this... click None. Hmm.
_pmf_ 13y ago
Protesting against surveillance by providing personal information online ...
- bargl 13y ago
  I think the idea is that in this case we have willfully divulged our information versus the government gathering our personal data without consent.
dzhiurgis 13y ago
And there was the ultimate test - submit your personal details in order to fight your freedom. Odd, isn't it?
defuzz 13y ago
Just an intresting observation and question: why is this linking to techcrunch and not directly to https://optin.stopwatching.us/ https://optin.stopwatching.us/ ?
pinaceae 13y ago
May I ask to expand this request to all the advertisers, and other consumer trackers? Google, Facebook, 99.9% of all Internet consumer stuff basically? Plus Banks, Credit Card companies, TelCos? The fact that PRISM is so cheap (20mil) is only possible because the NSA does not need to actually snoop at all - it is just taking data from Google, etc. that they already collected on us (which for some fucking reason is ok if it is a commercial entity). So if I ever get slammed for using AdBlock, I'll cite this NSA bruhaha and the stopwatching.us initiative. Or, as the genius Onion put it: Area Man Outraged His Private Information Being Collected By Someone Other Than Advertisers http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-outraged-his-private-information-being-co,32783/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-outraged-his-priva...

503 points by rhufnagel 13y ago

dataisfun 13y ago

Signed! Thank goodness organizations are stepping up to avert the slow creep of total surveillance.

pvnick 13y ago

I love Mozilla

ndesaulniers 13y ago
Mozilla loves all. See the Mozilla Story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmk43_2dtn0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmk43_2dtn0

hkmurakami 13y ago

love the (I think?) backhanded slap against FWD.us (maybe I'm reading too much into this)

IAmAI343 13y ago

It would be great if they started promoting e-mail, video, chat with built in idiot proof encryption. So easy to use that your average joe could use. That is the only way we can be sure the government cannot easily see what we are doing. The slogan could be "You are not a terrorist, so why should the government be able to snoop on your private life?" Or "Somebody in a dark government office could be listening to all your phone conversations, reading your e-mail and text message, and watching your videos. Are you really OK with that?" One more: "You are not OK with people spying you in your house, why should you be OK with people spying you in your private digital life" Just like with your house, the walls do not allow people to peak into what you are doing [1]. Encryption will fulfill the same purpose. [1] Somebody using some form of x-ray radiation or infrared technology could still spy on you, but that is still fixable by building walls specifically designed to defeat this type of snooping technology.

fiatmoney 13y ago

Instead of a "campaign", how about some technical countermeasures? They're the only thing that actually has a chance of working. You simply can't rely on the political process as it exists when the response of the security establishment is to a) wait for an arbitrary crisis to dust off a naked power-grab, b) secretly "reinterpret" the law beyond recognition, and c) flatly ignore the law as they did with their "Terrorist Surveillance Program".

jafaku 13y ago
What technical countermeasures do you suggest? Check out what this guy has to say about resistance: http://youtu.be/3ftfEXxFC4Q?t=28m53s http://youtu.be/3ftfEXxFC4Q?t=28m53s
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  Frankly, I'm hoping that they can come up with some, and some other people can come up with ways to make such measures socially accepted and encouraged. The examples he gives are specifically the kinds of things that there are social solutions to - eg making it Not Socially Acceptable to wear mobile face recognition systems around in public. If you're going to devolve into a DDR-style police state, there's very little technically that can prevent that from happening. What can happen is that you force an enormous investment of resources to maintain it, instead of giving the ability to a tiny cabal. If you're forcing the recruitment of a demographically significantly portion of the population (somewhere 2.5% to 7% in the case of the Stasi) in order to maintain the security apparatus, there's much more room for debate over whether to build it or dismantle it than if it just requires a few billion dollars and a fistful of NSLs.
- visarga 13y ago
  I have thought about it. We can't make use any more of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Twitter and FaceBook. We need a new system, one built with anonymity and lacking a central point of failure. Let's say we invent a protocol and write some software clients for it. It should do anonymous search, browsing, messenging, social networking, video calls and video streaming. It would hide the origin of a request and make it uncertain about who does what. For example, if 1000 people use a common VPN server to access Google, and they all come out as the same IP address, it can become more difficult to know who searched for what. All that is needed then is to browse in Safe Mode without logging in. This kind of ideas and other (distributed hash table, using bittorrent like systems for moving data around) could make a nice private communication tool. We just need to make a clear separation between what can be said on FB and what can be said on Anonymous net.

kunai 13y ago

Just the fact that we have to start websites like these, and march Capitol Hill to make the government realize its mistake is depressing, infuriating, and is gently, gradually tapping at a hot, steaming teapot of rage within every rational individual's psyche. What is the root cause? How did this get so incredibly bad? Is it the fault of the public? Is it the public's fault we are in an Orwellian state of Soviet-era Germany? Or does Hanlon's Razor apply here? In any case, there needs to be more action than just bandage measures like petitions and phoning your Congressman. This level of government negligence deserves an uproar, and sadly we're not getting it because many trust government, and are not skeptical in the slightest about it. We have those animals called "politicians" to blame for that. So, if people really want to change, lead a march on Capitol Hill. Be attention-seekers, make a change for the better, not for the worse. Let your life have value, and use that value against the worthless individuals sitting at their desks in Washington. Just do something worthwhile, not sitting behind that sRGB display of yours. Painless encryption, countermeasures, protests, whatever -- we need to do something.

barret907k 13y ago
Make sure you're marching is very peaceful. Don't want the government to label you a 'terrorist'. You may never seen sunlight again.
- kunai 13y ago
  I'm young, foolish, and I honestly don't care if I'm labeled a terrorist. Although, my ethnicity doesn't particularly help my cause...
  - lepht 13y ago
    Interesting sentiment, and I can't help but think this is why the government seems to fear the youth the most/ships them off to wars in other countries.
    - pyre 13y ago
      Was there a time when wars were only fought by old men?

infographic- 13y ago

Link to actual thing: https://www.stopwatching.us https://www.stopwatching.us EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet-companies-demand-end-nsa-spying https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-gro...

bradenb 13y ago

Here's where I get depressed about this whole thing: how will we know change has occurred? I mean, say in the best case scenario the government admits it was wrong and promises to stop the monitoring programs. How exactly are we supposed to know it has happened? I don't see why they couldn't simply start up a new secret program using the exact same resources and keep it from the public eye.

fiatmoney 13y ago
Which they have done repeatedly, as in the case of the "Total Information Awareness" program.
nano111 13y ago
companies should never have to lie on the spying statistics (but maybe need to hide some specifics)
milhous 13y ago
A good way to do it would be to radically downsize the federal government and return back to limited constitutional government. The less money they have, the less stuff they can do. Return power (and tax revenues) back to the states so that the people of that state can have a more powerful influence in state/local politics instead of everyone pleading, fighting, and begging at the national level in Washington. And since radical downsizing won't happen voluntarily, as both political parties are corrupt and incompetent, the only way I can see this happening is for the government to continue borrowing and spending money into oblivion, which will ultimately trigger an economic default. At that point, there will be no money for new secret programs.
- dripton 13y ago
  The US national debt is denominated in dollars. The US government decides what a dollar is. There's no way they can default. Just trigger hyperinflation.
  - Pwnguinz 13y ago

morroccomole 13y ago

Not too many Silicon Valley software companies on that list

tomasien 13y ago

I think it's funny that this was on the front page this morning, and with "Mozilla, EFF, and Reddit" in the title, the TechCrunch article about it blows straight to the top. Titles matter y'all, titles matter.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

This is going to be about a redefinition of privacy. It was ok for governments to spy on other countries governments (and so their citizens). In this name we put satellites over us all. The problem with this is the satellites spied on everyone, and governments were supposed to ignore the right bits. But now if a government wants to spy, it mostly needs to watch what people do or do not do online (I will bet real spies have some really odd online "tells") So if its ok to spy on another government, it's going to be necessary to spy on everyone everywhere, and then ignore certain bits. Like satellites but much more finer grained. Oh and if you want to catch a spy in the USA, you need to spy on all US citizens to watch for those "tells". What we want is not for governments to pretend the Internet does not exist, but rather to ensure that they cannot use the information found for anything we do not specifically legislate. I am pretty sure this is something like an extension of the fourth amendment in US terms. It's a redefinition of privacy - not that no-one knows, but that no-one is allowed to make use of knowing. That's the trade-off we face. We get the Internet, we give up what we currently think of as privacy.

pyre 13y ago
1. The machinery being put into place is a dictator's wet dream. By creating the infrastructure, we are putting a gun to our heads, and trusting the person holding it (the government) to not pull the trigger. The government may be benevolent now, but that may not always be the case. 2. Once the machinery is in place, it makes it that much easier to change directions. Just look at how all of the powers granted by the PATRIOT Act are used to non-terrorism related investigations like the War on Drugs, or the War on (Paid) Sex. Look to the censorship programs in Europe / Australia. They were put into place to block supposedly 'only' child pornography. Now they are used to block other things. 3. How are we supposed to make sure that things aren't being abused when everything happens behind closed doors, and the members of Congress cleared to see more specifics aren't allowed to see very much of hte system.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  > dictator's wet dream I expect the same was said about satellites, telephone tapping, etc Our defence against dictators does not lie in technology but in the ballot box. 2. Again the ballot box is the defence, but the reason it gets used is people are educated about the technology and the implications of abuse. I doubt that a US to ernment that took away a right to silence would suffer a few outcries from geeks. They would get roasted. (Unlike the UK) 3. Secret courts are banned for that reason. I think I would like to see a definition of national security like "ten thousand dead" or 3 % loss of GDP. Then when. That gets invoked we can make a sensible guess about how often it's likely. Otherwise, you put it in open court Individuals are not the only ones to lose privacy in the coming years. Go ernment a will lose more

mayneack 13y ago

I wonder how often freedom works (the infamous tea party group supposedly funded by the koch brothers) is listed right next to greenpeace and on the same list of supporters as the PCCC and moveon.org. It can't be often

jdp23 13y ago
Privacy is one of those issues that cuts across the spectrum. With Stop REAL ID, we had transgender people and biblical literalists on the same side. A friend of mine was telling me about a coalition meeting a few years ago where the lobbyist for the Quakers was sitting next to -- and agreeing with -- the people from the NRA. Strange bedfellows indeed.

Qantourisc 13y ago

I still wonder why humans outside the US are of less value then the peaple inside it... Or aren't we humans ? Also where is StopWatching.eu ? Cause the site is made for us :p

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mseebach 13y ago
Stop complaining, start building. You're welcome.
ryusage 13y ago
To be fair, part of the US government's job is to protect its citizens against outside threats. Given that, I can't imagine anyone inside the US arguing that they should stop spying on other countries' citizens. I'm pretty sure that's the NSA's actual job. And anyway, there's a huge difference between being spied on by a foreign government versus your own. My own government actually has some amount of authority and influence over me and my community, whereas some place like the UK has little to none, so it's less of a big deal.
- danbruc 13y ago
  The distinction should definitely not be US vs foreign country citizens but unsuspicious vs suspicious people. Spying at unsuspicious foreigners is absolutely no better than spying at your own citizens - it's still a human rights violation.

ekianjo 13y ago

Members of US Congress who signed this... click None. Hmm.

_pmf_ 13y ago

Protesting against surveillance by providing personal information online ...

bargl 13y ago
I think the idea is that in this case we have willfully divulged our information versus the government gathering our personal data without consent.

dzhiurgis 13y ago

And there was the ultimate test - submit your personal details in order to fight your freedom. Odd, isn't it?

defuzz 13y ago

Just an intresting observation and question: why is this linking to techcrunch and not directly to https://optin.stopwatching.us/ https://optin.stopwatching.us/ ?

pinaceae 13y ago

May I ask to expand this request to all the advertisers, and other consumer trackers? Google, Facebook, 99.9% of all Internet consumer stuff basically? Plus Banks, Credit Card companies, TelCos? The fact that PRISM is so cheap (20mil) is only possible because the NSA does not need to actually snoop at all - it is just taking data from Google, etc. that they already collected on us (which for some fucking reason is ok if it is a commercial entity). So if I ever get slammed for using AdBlock, I'll cite this NSA bruhaha and the stopwatching.us initiative. Or, as the genius Onion put it: Area Man Outraged His Private Information Being Collected By Someone Other Than Advertisers http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-outraged-his-private-information-being-co,32783/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-outraged-his-priva...