5 ms·

While I understand and sympathise with the compulsion to resist surveillance in this practical, technological way, I think it might be the wrong reaction to the

by h2s 13y ago

While I understand and sympathise with the compulsion to resist surveillance in this practical, technological way, I think it might be the wrong reaction to the information. It's typical of techie people to seek technical solutions to social problems, and this is one such case. It may well be possible to mitigate their ability to watch you by wearing enough tin-foil hats. Even if you succeed, all you've achieved is to protect one solitary person at the cost of considerable personal inconvenience. Worse, once you consider yourself "safe enough" from prying eyes, your incentive to actually act on what they're doing will be diminished. I think that we should try not to be meek about this issue, passively hiding ourselves and then getting on with our lives saying "Fuck you, got mine". Why should the tech community flee the very Internet that it has played such a crucial role in building? Is the idea that our democracies could eventually fix this situation really beyond all hope? If you live in the UK, write to your MP (http://www.writetothem.com/ http://www.writetothem.com/). Support PPUK (http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/ http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/) if you feel strongly enough, as they're seemingly the only political group treating this matter with the seriousness it deserves.

danenania 13y ago
I don't think the idea is to 'flee', but to lead by example and use secure technologies so they become better and more convenient and spread faster. If everyone used tools like this, it would be much more difficult for governments to trample on privacy rights. It seems like a worthy goal.
- sharkweek 13y ago
  But let's also be realistic -- if this technology reached mass adoption, the predictable outcomes are either 1) The government outlaws it or 2) They figure out ways to work around the security
  - Joeboy 13y ago
    Mass adoption is a bulwark against legislation, not a promoter of it. Eg. alcohol is legal because it's popular, not because it's safer than drugs which are illegal.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      But even so, a large percentage of developed countries did prohibit alcohol for a few years, both despite and because of its popularity, and it took years of people being turned into criminals before those laws were rolled back. Popularity provides some protection, but it also creates a more desirable target for legislation amongst those who oppose it.
      - Joeboy 13y ago
        It seems to me that, for example, PGP is much more vulnerable to legislation than SSL, simply because of the latter's popularity. Not that I think either are currently particularly likely to be legislated.
- h2s 13y ago
  That's a very fair point. There's certainly nothing bad about making privacy conscious technology choices. I also think that the very URL of this project - http://prism-break.org/ http://prism-break.org/ - invokes a certain over-focus on NSA's PRISM. As a UK citizen, however, my Internet traffic itself is being stored and monitored by GCHQ. So to me it seems especially futile switching from Chrome to Firefox, or from Google to DDG, or from Facebook to Diaspora.
  - peng 13y ago
    Unfortunately, https://prism-break.org/ https://prism-break.org/ was registered before Snowden's revelations about Tempora. I'm working on adjusting the site's wording to apply equally to all governmental surveillance.
bdcravens 13y ago
People still puts locks and alarms in their house, even though they could avoid being burglarized through community watches and educating the public about the morals, ethics, and long term costs of stealing people's stuff.
- marcloney 13y ago
  Locks and Alarms are the lowest common denominator of security - it stops people from walking in but more than anything just gives an illusion of security.
  - polskibus 13y ago
    More importantly, they make the distinction between a welcome entry and forced entry much clearer, which is very important from the legal point of view. It's not an illusion of security, but a precondition for a safety and recovery framework to kick in (police action, insurance, etc.)
- h2s 13y ago
  I don't think the analogy works. This is using consumer-grade retail padlocks to keep out the world's richest and most well-equipped criminal organisation. The fact that the shops don't sell strong enough padlocks to stop them isn't the real problem: the deep-seated corruption in law enforcement allowing them to steal with impunity is.
- lifeguard 13y ago
  Is it a crime for a hungry man to steal bread? None of your proposed solutions would address his needs. America's government is so corrupt it is no longer democratic. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
  - n09n 13y ago
    ...yes, it is.
Homunculiheaded 13y ago
I'm starting to think people should begin to create "crypto-selves". I've seen a lot of talk saying essentially "get off facebook! get off gmail!" But that's a lot of persistent effort even for fairly technical people. Plus even in secure, anonymous environment interacting with your real life friends, purchasing your favorite books on amazon etc will reveal who you are anyway. In non-web life we have private and public spaces and there's plenty of study on how these two play together and how important they are. Most people have erroneously thought that because your computer is in your private physical space that it's also 'private', but that's clearly not the case. What people need is the education to create the technological equivalent of locking yourself in your bedroom for the afternoon to clear your head. Gmail is like sending a postcard, facebook like chatting with friends at the mall or park. Tor/truecrypte/pgp etc for parts of your life you want private. Separate usernames, interests, tones of voice, etc in this private space. Trying to hide your real (ie public) self is silly as should you become a target of the nsa & co. they'll find a way to dig up something even if you've been completely hidden from july 2013 on. What people need is a reasonably benign public self and a hidden crypto-self. Also I'm all for fighting the surveillance state, but I'm extremely cynical of it's success. I see no feasible way to reduce the power and authority of the militarized aspects of our government(s). I can't think of a single example of where public knowledge and outcry has changed anything other than getting a few puppets punished anywhere except the non-militarized parts of government.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  >I see no feasible way to reduce the power and authority of the militarized aspects of our government(s). I partly think it's because people are asking for the wrong things. People say things like "stop NSA surveillance" which is vague and impractical. What needs to happen is to hit them where it hurts: Reduce total defense spending to 50% of what it is now. That should be the demand from everyone. Money is power. If you want them to have less power, stop giving them so damn much money. And besides, who can't get behind massively lower taxes?
  - MisterWebz 13y ago
    If you want them to have less power, you need other powerful entities to tell them to stop abusing their powers. Boycott the tech giants and you'll see it happen. it's way more effective than any protest or online petition.
mrbrownstone 13y ago
True.Read something very recently about 'voice' and 'exit' - two responses to situations like this - http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/13062... Hirschman pointed out the ways in which “exit” failed to send a useful message to underperformers. Weren’t there cases where monopolists were relieved when their critics left? “Those who hold power in the lazy monopoly may actually have an interest in creating some limited opportunities for exit on the part of those whose voice might be uncomfortable,”
kimlelly 13y ago
You're right in the sense that tech will never be the "final" solution. But we need to use all the privacy-enhancing tools we can get our hands on, on the way to "real" solutions: You can't organize activities and exchange your thoughts freely while being watched by the government. The fear of being put on "the list" will stifle free speech and therefor sabotage the creation of any meaningful movement. It's called "self-censorship" and I've been told it's the worst form of censorship. So yes, migrate all of your communication towards encryption and use an open-source operating system.
Rustan 13y ago
This is a very strange way to think. In an ideal world it could be enough to just continue to use insecure services. But we are clearly not living in an ideal world, and even if all governments could be stopped from doing this type of thing there would for sure be others that would take advantage of the information. Just acting politically is not enough. I strongly disagree with your statement that using encryption will make you passive. Instead it is the other way around: if you continue to use compromised services despite knowing the dangers you will become passive and lose your ability to think clearly about the issues at stake.
mike_esspe 13y ago
Cryptopunk's response to this is: write code, not law. Law writers and enforces are corruptible, while code is not.
- roc 13y ago
  > "code is not" ... what exactly have we uncovered with PRISM and the NSA bulk wiretapping, if not code having been corrupted from its original purposes in ways and extents unforeseen at the outset? One has to write anonymizing p2p proxies because the old stack was corrupted. It's hardly different than the reason one would want new laws to address the way the old ones have been corrupted. And our new p2p proxies? They're also (going to be) subject to corruption, by unforeseen things like Sybil attacks. Just as any new law is subject to possible future corruption.
mainevent 13y ago
> If you live in the UK, write to your MP (http://www.writetothem.com/ http://www.writetothem.com/) Does anyone have a suggested template letter for this?
- tfgg 13y ago
  Don't use template letters -- put your thoughts in your own words. MPs/their staff tend to weight template letters lower as they indicate less effort and thought, and writetothem blocks them if it detects them.
Joeboy 13y ago
> I think that we should try not to be meek about this issue, passively hiding ourselves and then getting on with our lives saying "Fuck you, got mine". Why should the tech community flee the very Internet that it has played such a crucial role in building? Who is "the tech community"? I'm in the tech community, and I'm pretty sure I didn't create The Internet, or Facebook, or the NSA. I think the goal here is to provide people with resources so they can the internet more safely, and to normalize safety measures in order to guard against their demonization or prohibition. Edit: However I absolutely agree that it's important to fight on social and political fronts as well as technological ones.
gurkendoktor 13y ago
For Europeans, writing letters to foreign politicians is obviously pointless. And given the ongoing TSA facepalmery, I don't think my tourism boycott has made a difference in the US either. What else can we do?
- grey-area 13y ago
  Talk to your own government and local representatives and let them know you're not happy with their collaboration with the NSA. It's very unlikely they don't collect and share your information already, and very likely they're breaking local laws to do so. Agitate for laws to be passed banning this sort of surveillance and for the repeal of those authorising it. There's lots we can do, it's just that some of it is hard, time-consuming and probably frustrating. I do know that this will be the first question on my lips when a politician next asks me for a vote.
sanukcm 13y ago
> Is the idea that our democracies could eventually fix this situation really beyond all hope? Of course not. We should vote these creeps out of office and elect someone that really stands for privacy and civil liberties - like this promising young man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4
- mr_spothawk 13y ago
  "The FISA court works. The separation of powers works." 'works' for who, buddy?
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
There are a number of flaws in your argument. The first is that we can do two things at once. Using privacy-protecting technologies is not mutually exclusive with promoting privacy-protecting legislation. We can, and should, do both. But the more significant point is that using this stuff, as an individual, isn't really going to cut it without more, but who says that's the idea? We need to be creating things like this. What we have here is a list of open source projects you should all be contributing to and promoting to anyone you have influence over, and a list whose holes and shortcomings provide opportunities for creating new things. I mean what good is Diaspora if everyone you know is still on Facebook anyway? But if you create an account and use it regularly, and convince as many people as you can to do likewise, that's how change ultimately happens. And what you can do is: Read Facebook, write Diaspora. Don't shut off your Facebook account if all your friends still use it. Not enough people are sufficiently purist for that to scale. Just stop posting anything to Facebook that doesn't consist of "I just posted something you might be interested in to Diaspora" and then let all your friends wonder what they could be missing.
bch 13y ago
I think these things are not mutually exclusive. You raise good points that aren't addressed at Prism Break though.
etherael 13y ago
> your incentive to actually act on what they're doing will be diminished. Because you already have acted on it, they attempted to violate your privacy and you solved the problem, there's no point wasting time with useless political solutions that are largely ignored. That is the route which could more fairly be described as "not actually acting on what they're doing"
summerdown2 13y ago
> If you live in the UK, write to your MP I tried that, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, got no reply. I suspect that is because the main parties share one policy here. > Support PPUK Potentially, also, the green party: http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2013/07/05/eu-has-an-obligation-to-arrange-a-safe-haven-for-edward-snowden/ http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2013/07/05/eu-has-an-obligatio...

by h2s 13y ago

danenania 13y ago

I don't think the idea is to 'flee', but to lead by example and use secure technologies so they become better and more convenient and spread faster. If everyone used tools like this, it would be much more difficult for governments to trample on privacy rights. It seems like a worthy goal.

sharkweek 13y ago
But let's also be realistic -- if this technology reached mass adoption, the predictable outcomes are either 1) The government outlaws it or 2) They figure out ways to work around the security
- Joeboy 13y ago
  Mass adoption is a bulwark against legislation, not a promoter of it. Eg. alcohol is legal because it's popular, not because it's safer than drugs which are illegal.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    But even so, a large percentage of developed countries did prohibit alcohol for a few years, both despite and because of its popularity, and it took years of people being turned into criminals before those laws were rolled back. Popularity provides some protection, but it also creates a more desirable target for legislation amongst those who oppose it.
    - Joeboy 13y ago
      It seems to me that, for example, PGP is much more vulnerable to legislation than SSL, simply because of the latter's popularity. Not that I think either are currently particularly likely to be legislated.
h2s 13y ago
That's a very fair point. There's certainly nothing bad about making privacy conscious technology choices. I also think that the very URL of this project - http://prism-break.org/ http://prism-break.org/ - invokes a certain over-focus on NSA's PRISM. As a UK citizen, however, my Internet traffic itself is being stored and monitored by GCHQ. So to me it seems especially futile switching from Chrome to Firefox, or from Google to DDG, or from Facebook to Diaspora.
- peng 13y ago
  Unfortunately, https://prism-break.org/ https://prism-break.org/ was registered before Snowden's revelations about Tempora. I'm working on adjusting the site's wording to apply equally to all governmental surveillance.

bdcravens 13y ago

People still puts locks and alarms in their house, even though they could avoid being burglarized through community watches and educating the public about the morals, ethics, and long term costs of stealing people's stuff.

marcloney 13y ago
Locks and Alarms are the lowest common denominator of security - it stops people from walking in but more than anything just gives an illusion of security.
- polskibus 13y ago
  More importantly, they make the distinction between a welcome entry and forced entry much clearer, which is very important from the legal point of view. It's not an illusion of security, but a precondition for a safety and recovery framework to kick in (police action, insurance, etc.)
h2s 13y ago
I don't think the analogy works. This is using consumer-grade retail padlocks to keep out the world's richest and most well-equipped criminal organisation. The fact that the shops don't sell strong enough padlocks to stop them isn't the real problem: the deep-seated corruption in law enforcement allowing them to steal with impunity is.
lifeguard 13y ago
Is it a crime for a hungry man to steal bread? None of your proposed solutions would address his needs. America's government is so corrupt it is no longer democratic. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
- n09n 13y ago
  ...yes, it is.

Homunculiheaded 13y ago

I'm starting to think people should begin to create "crypto-selves". I've seen a lot of talk saying essentially "get off facebook! get off gmail!" But that's a lot of persistent effort even for fairly technical people. Plus even in secure, anonymous environment interacting with your real life friends, purchasing your favorite books on amazon etc will reveal who you are anyway. In non-web life we have private and public spaces and there's plenty of study on how these two play together and how important they are. Most people have erroneously thought that because your computer is in your private physical space that it's also 'private', but that's clearly not the case. What people need is the education to create the technological equivalent of locking yourself in your bedroom for the afternoon to clear your head. Gmail is like sending a postcard, facebook like chatting with friends at the mall or park. Tor/truecrypte/pgp etc for parts of your life you want private. Separate usernames, interests, tones of voice, etc in this private space. Trying to hide your real (ie public) self is silly as should you become a target of the nsa & co. they'll find a way to dig up something even if you've been completely hidden from july 2013 on. What people need is a reasonably benign public self and a hidden crypto-self. Also I'm all for fighting the surveillance state, but I'm extremely cynical of it's success. I see no feasible way to reduce the power and authority of the militarized aspects of our government(s). I can't think of a single example of where public knowledge and outcry has changed anything other than getting a few puppets punished anywhere except the non-militarized parts of government.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
>I see no feasible way to reduce the power and authority of the militarized aspects of our government(s). I partly think it's because people are asking for the wrong things. People say things like "stop NSA surveillance" which is vague and impractical. What needs to happen is to hit them where it hurts: Reduce total defense spending to 50% of what it is now. That should be the demand from everyone. Money is power. If you want them to have less power, stop giving them so damn much money. And besides, who can't get behind massively lower taxes?
- MisterWebz 13y ago
  If you want them to have less power, you need other powerful entities to tell them to stop abusing their powers. Boycott the tech giants and you'll see it happen. it's way more effective than any protest or online petition.

mrbrownstone 13y ago

True.Read something very recently about 'voice' and 'exit' - two responses to situations like this - http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/13062... Hirschman pointed out the ways in which “exit” failed to send a useful message to underperformers. Weren’t there cases where monopolists were relieved when their critics left? “Those who hold power in the lazy monopoly may actually have an interest in creating some limited opportunities for exit on the part of those whose voice might be uncomfortable,”

kimlelly 13y ago

You're right in the sense that tech will never be the "final" solution. But we need to use all the privacy-enhancing tools we can get our hands on, on the way to "real" solutions: You can't organize activities and exchange your thoughts freely while being watched by the government. The fear of being put on "the list" will stifle free speech and therefor sabotage the creation of any meaningful movement. It's called "self-censorship" and I've been told it's the worst form of censorship. So yes, migrate all of your communication towards encryption and use an open-source operating system.

Rustan 13y ago

This is a very strange way to think. In an ideal world it could be enough to just continue to use insecure services. But we are clearly not living in an ideal world, and even if all governments could be stopped from doing this type of thing there would for sure be others that would take advantage of the information. Just acting politically is not enough. I strongly disagree with your statement that using encryption will make you passive. Instead it is the other way around: if you continue to use compromised services despite knowing the dangers you will become passive and lose your ability to think clearly about the issues at stake.

mike_esspe 13y ago

Cryptopunk's response to this is: write code, not law. Law writers and enforces are corruptible, while code is not.

roc 13y ago
> "code is not" ... what exactly have we uncovered with PRISM and the NSA bulk wiretapping, if not code having been corrupted from its original purposes in ways and extents unforeseen at the outset? One has to write anonymizing p2p proxies because the old stack was corrupted. It's hardly different than the reason one would want new laws to address the way the old ones have been corrupted. And our new p2p proxies? They're also (going to be) subject to corruption, by unforeseen things like Sybil attacks. Just as any new law is subject to possible future corruption.

mainevent 13y ago

> If you live in the UK, write to your MP (http://www.writetothem.com/ http://www.writetothem.com/) Does anyone have a suggested template letter for this?

tfgg 13y ago
Don't use template letters -- put your thoughts in your own words. MPs/their staff tend to weight template letters lower as they indicate less effort and thought, and writetothem blocks them if it detects them.

Joeboy 13y ago

> I think that we should try not to be meek about this issue, passively hiding ourselves and then getting on with our lives saying "Fuck you, got mine". Why should the tech community flee the very Internet that it has played such a crucial role in building? Who is "the tech community"? I'm in the tech community, and I'm pretty sure I didn't create The Internet, or Facebook, or the NSA. I think the goal here is to provide people with resources so they can the internet more safely, and to normalize safety measures in order to guard against their demonization or prohibition. Edit: However I absolutely agree that it's important to fight on social and political fronts as well as technological ones.

gurkendoktor 13y ago

For Europeans, writing letters to foreign politicians is obviously pointless. And given the ongoing TSA facepalmery, I don't think my tourism boycott has made a difference in the US either. What else can we do?

grey-area 13y ago
Talk to your own government and local representatives and let them know you're not happy with their collaboration with the NSA. It's very unlikely they don't collect and share your information already, and very likely they're breaking local laws to do so. Agitate for laws to be passed banning this sort of surveillance and for the repeal of those authorising it. There's lots we can do, it's just that some of it is hard, time-consuming and probably frustrating. I do know that this will be the first question on my lips when a politician next asks me for a vote.

sanukcm 13y ago

> Is the idea that our democracies could eventually fix this situation really beyond all hope? Of course not. We should vote these creeps out of office and elect someone that really stands for privacy and civil liberties - like this promising young man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4

mr_spothawk 13y ago
"The FISA court works. The separation of powers works." 'works' for who, buddy?

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

There are a number of flaws in your argument. The first is that we can do two things at once. Using privacy-protecting technologies is not mutually exclusive with promoting privacy-protecting legislation. We can, and should, do both. But the more significant point is that using this stuff, as an individual, isn't really going to cut it without more, but who says that's the idea? We need to be creating things like this. What we have here is a list of open source projects you should all be contributing to and promoting to anyone you have influence over, and a list whose holes and shortcomings provide opportunities for creating new things. I mean what good is Diaspora if everyone you know is still on Facebook anyway? But if you create an account and use it regularly, and convince as many people as you can to do likewise, that's how change ultimately happens. And what you can do is: Read Facebook, write Diaspora. Don't shut off your Facebook account if all your friends still use it. Not enough people are sufficiently purist for that to scale. Just stop posting anything to Facebook that doesn't consist of "I just posted something you might be interested in to Diaspora" and then let all your friends wonder what they could be missing.

bch 13y ago

I think these things are not mutually exclusive. You raise good points that aren't addressed at Prism Break though.

etherael 13y ago

> your incentive to actually act on what they're doing will be diminished. Because you already have acted on it, they attempted to violate your privacy and you solved the problem, there's no point wasting time with useless political solutions that are largely ignored. That is the route which could more fairly be described as "not actually acting on what they're doing"

summerdown2 13y ago

> If you live in the UK, write to your MP I tried that, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, got no reply. I suspect that is because the main parties share one policy here. > Support PPUK Potentially, also, the green party: http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2013/07/05/eu-has-an-obligation-to-arrange-a-safe-haven-for-edward-snowden/ http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2013/07/05/eu-has-an-obligatio...