7 ms·

Living Surveillance Free for a Day

30 points by kaa2102 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
JonFish85 13y ago
So this seems like an odd statement: "Bitcoins are, in many ways, the ultimate underground currency. They’re even better than Visa gift cards, since they don’t involve a credit card company or a bank at all, and since they exist only as untraceable strings of letters and numbers." (keyword being "untraceable"). Especially as this person specifically mentions Tor as only doing a "fairly good job of keeping its users anonymous."
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. What's odd about that statement? I got big into Bitcoins about two years ago, meeting a random stranger in a bar to buy $9,000 worth in cash, but the statement is true unless I've missed something (I haven't kept up with the state of Bitcoin so perhaps I am?).
  - JonFish85 13y ago
    I meant that if you're going to call out Tor as "reasonably safe", it seems that you'd want to have the same warning for Bitcoins. My impression has been that Bitcoin isn't "untraceable" simply because of the public ledger that is out there. I just found it interesting that he called out Tor but lauded Bitcoin's security more. Not a big deal.
    - jlgaddis 13y ago
      Gotcha, thanks.
jlgaddis 13y ago
I've been doing this for the last month and a half, to an extent. I've got a spare laptop running a relatively minimal installation and it connects only to other Wifi networks (never any of my own). Thanks to iptables, I can restrict outgoing traffic to only that which is running over Tor. Yes, it's slow as molasses but for general web browsing I've gotten used to it (just don't try to create an HN account over Tor -- a nice little hellban will quickly follow). I've got a new e-mail account that I registered while connected over some random hotspot several miles away using a Visa gift card I'd purchased a few months before. It's this account that I use (only over Tor, of course!) to participate in various public mailing lists. My iPhone (which I hope to trade in fairly soon) is off more than it's on. I often simply leave it at home while I'm gone for the day. I haven't really missed it and, on the few occasions I've actually needed to get ahold of someone, it hasn't been difficult to find someone to let me borrow their phone for a moment or deliver a quick message for me. I barely even text anymore, who knows who is reading the messages I do send. I work for an ISP and I have some things I want to do there too. I've pretty much got free reign to do whatever I want (as long as it doesn't cost my boss anything!) so I'll be bringing up a Tor exit node in the near future as well (I'm aware of the implications -- I don't care). I'm hoping to have a talk with my boss (who is 100% driven by the almighty dollar) about offering up anonymous VPN services and accepting Bitcoin to pay for that. On the ISP network, I've now gotten ~1200 residential customers (to whom it doesn't make a difference) using private IP addresses and hope to add many, many more to that figure. A Cisco ASA5520 performs NAT but doesn't log NAT translations. If I get a "who had this IP at this time?" request, well, I don't know, sorry. Deal with it. I "get a check" from Google every month for the ads on my blog (okay, technically it's a direct deposit). That was basically just a bit of extra money that sits in my business account. It's been going to the EFF recently. I've stopped paying for things with debit/credit cards. If I pull up my account history, I can count the number of transactions in the last 45 days on one hand and nearly all of them are ATM withdrawals. Hell, I stopped using my "loyalty card" at the supermarket and had a random stranger get me a new one that isn't tied to anyone's identity. These recent revelations, thanks to Snowden, have completely changed my behaviors. I'm not a "tinfoil hat" type or paranoid in the least, but I am completely pissed off. I may only be one person and there's only so much I can do but I will do everything I can to throw the smallest wrench possible into this unconstitutional surveillance that's going on. It's already a slippery slope and the NSA has been doing the equivalent of pouring 55 gallon drums of Astroglide on a slip-and-slide that's laid out on a steep hill. (Sorry for the rambling wall of text.)
revscat 13y ago
> I have to switch my iPhone to airplane mode This doesn't work. The iPhone still tracks your location even when in airplane mode. To test: 1) Turn on Airplane mode 2) Take a picture 3) Turn off Airplane mode 4) Go to Photos app, "Places" tab. Note that the picture you took has been correctly geolocated. The only way to not be tracked by your smartphone is to leave it in a Faraday device of some kind, like a refrigerator. EDIT: Ok, not a fridge. Thanks, Titanous.
- Titanous 13y ago
  A refrigerator isn't a Faraday cage. http://makezine.com/2013/06/26/edward-snowden-can-a-refrigerator-function-as-a-faraday-cage/ http://makezine.com/2013/06/26/edward-snowden-can-a-refriger...
- icebraining 13y ago
  Airplane serves to avoid transmitting; GPS receivers (like smartphones) don't transmit, therefore airplane mode doesn't disable it. That said, it should be enough to switch to Airplane mode and disable the GPS. But cellphones is general are tracking devices par excellence. One-way pagers are safer, but the message is transmitted in clear-text.
  - revscat 13y ago
    I'm not sure that's correct. Phones don't talk to satellites for geolocation, they talk to towers. If they are talking to towers then they are not passive, but active. That means that even in airplane mode you are still being actively tracked if the phone can see a tower.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      Phone with GPS - such as the iPhone - don't need to talk to anything to geolocate, they just need to listen to the incessant signals sent down by the GPS satellites. Talking to cell towers can assist the GPS receiver[1], but it's not required. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS
jdp23 13y ago
Pro tip: setting up an auto-responder on your regular email account pointing people to your surveillance-free account is not generally regarded as best practices. Inaccurate headline aside (the author is candid about the limitations of what he's doing), it's a good illustration of how hard it is to cut down your profile significantly, and the kind of trade offs you have to think about.
pessimizer 13y ago
http://www.techweb.com/news/231602248/lulzsec-suspect-learns-even-hidemyass-com-has-limits.html http://www.techweb.com/news/231602248/lulzsec-suspect-learns... hidemyass logs everything.
gnosis 13y ago
"I also cover the cameras on my laptop, desktop, and cell phone with snippets of electrical tape, since savvy hackers can gain control of them remotely." One thing he missed is the built-in microphone on his laptop and cell phone. That can also be controlled and listened-in to remotely, and it's usually harder to completely disable (unlike a webcam). Yes, you could epoxy it shut, but even then it could still function (though with greatly reduced fidelity). Disabling it completely would require opening up your laptop/cellphone case and unplugging the mic: something that would probably void your waranty and could be a nightmare to reassemble, depending on your hardware skills and the laptop/cellphone model you own.
gr-eg 13y ago
This reminds me of the documentary "Erasing David": "After anonymously setting up private investigators Cerberus Investigations Limited to trace him, he tries to disappear." http://erasingdavid.com/ http://erasingdavid.com/
peter303 13y ago
The author sounds like a way over-wired gearhead to start with. He every latest gadget and app. No wonder it takes an effort toget off the grid.

30 points by kaa2102 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

So this seems like an odd statement: "Bitcoins are, in many ways, the ultimate underground currency. They’re even better than Visa gift cards, since they don’t involve a credit card company or a bank at all, and since they exist only as untraceable strings of letters and numbers." (keyword being "untraceable"). Especially as this person specifically mentions Tor as only doing a "fairly good job of keeping its users anonymous."

jlgaddis 13y ago
I'm not sure I understand. What's odd about that statement? I got big into Bitcoins about two years ago, meeting a random stranger in a bar to buy $9,000 worth in cash, but the statement is true unless I've missed something (I haven't kept up with the state of Bitcoin so perhaps I am?).
- JonFish85 13y ago
  I meant that if you're going to call out Tor as "reasonably safe", it seems that you'd want to have the same warning for Bitcoins. My impression has been that Bitcoin isn't "untraceable" simply because of the public ledger that is out there. I just found it interesting that he called out Tor but lauded Bitcoin's security more. Not a big deal.
  - jlgaddis 13y ago
    Gotcha, thanks.

jlgaddis 13y ago

I've been doing this for the last month and a half, to an extent. I've got a spare laptop running a relatively minimal installation and it connects only to other Wifi networks (never any of my own). Thanks to iptables, I can restrict outgoing traffic to only that which is running over Tor. Yes, it's slow as molasses but for general web browsing I've gotten used to it (just don't try to create an HN account over Tor -- a nice little hellban will quickly follow). I've got a new e-mail account that I registered while connected over some random hotspot several miles away using a Visa gift card I'd purchased a few months before. It's this account that I use (only over Tor, of course!) to participate in various public mailing lists. My iPhone (which I hope to trade in fairly soon) is off more than it's on. I often simply leave it at home while I'm gone for the day. I haven't really missed it and, on the few occasions I've actually needed to get ahold of someone, it hasn't been difficult to find someone to let me borrow their phone for a moment or deliver a quick message for me. I barely even text anymore, who knows who is reading the messages I do send. I work for an ISP and I have some things I want to do there too. I've pretty much got free reign to do whatever I want (as long as it doesn't cost my boss anything!) so I'll be bringing up a Tor exit node in the near future as well (I'm aware of the implications -- I don't care). I'm hoping to have a talk with my boss (who is 100% driven by the almighty dollar) about offering up anonymous VPN services and accepting Bitcoin to pay for that. On the ISP network, I've now gotten ~1200 residential customers (to whom it doesn't make a difference) using private IP addresses and hope to add many, many more to that figure. A Cisco ASA5520 performs NAT but doesn't log NAT translations. If I get a "who had this IP at this time?" request, well, I don't know, sorry. Deal with it. I "get a check" from Google every month for the ads on my blog (okay, technically it's a direct deposit). That was basically just a bit of extra money that sits in my business account. It's been going to the EFF recently. I've stopped paying for things with debit/credit cards. If I pull up my account history, I can count the number of transactions in the last 45 days on one hand and nearly all of them are ATM withdrawals. Hell, I stopped using my "loyalty card" at the supermarket and had a random stranger get me a new one that isn't tied to anyone's identity. These recent revelations, thanks to Snowden, have completely changed my behaviors. I'm not a "tinfoil hat" type or paranoid in the least, but I am completely pissed off. I may only be one person and there's only so much I can do but I will do everything I can to throw the smallest wrench possible into this unconstitutional surveillance that's going on. It's already a slippery slope and the NSA has been doing the equivalent of pouring 55 gallon drums of Astroglide on a slip-and-slide that's laid out on a steep hill. (Sorry for the rambling wall of text.)

revscat 13y ago

> I have to switch my iPhone to airplane mode This doesn't work. The iPhone still tracks your location even when in airplane mode. To test: 1) Turn on Airplane mode 2) Take a picture 3) Turn off Airplane mode 4) Go to Photos app, "Places" tab. Note that the picture you took has been correctly geolocated. The only way to not be tracked by your smartphone is to leave it in a Faraday device of some kind, like a refrigerator. EDIT: Ok, not a fridge. Thanks, Titanous.

Titanous 13y ago
A refrigerator isn't a Faraday cage. http://makezine.com/2013/06/26/edward-snowden-can-a-refrigerator-function-as-a-faraday-cage/ http://makezine.com/2013/06/26/edward-snowden-can-a-refriger...
icebraining 13y ago
Airplane serves to avoid transmitting; GPS receivers (like smartphones) don't transmit, therefore airplane mode doesn't disable it. That said, it should be enough to switch to Airplane mode and disable the GPS. But cellphones is general are tracking devices par excellence. One-way pagers are safer, but the message is transmitted in clear-text.
- revscat 13y ago
  I'm not sure that's correct. Phones don't talk to satellites for geolocation, they talk to towers. If they are talking to towers then they are not passive, but active. That means that even in airplane mode you are still being actively tracked if the phone can see a tower.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Phone with GPS - such as the iPhone - don't need to talk to anything to geolocate, they just need to listen to the incessant signals sent down by the GPS satellites. Talking to cell towers can assist the GPS receiver[1], but it's not required. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

jdp23 13y ago

Pro tip: setting up an auto-responder on your regular email account pointing people to your surveillance-free account is not generally regarded as best practices. Inaccurate headline aside (the author is candid about the limitations of what he's doing), it's a good illustration of how hard it is to cut down your profile significantly, and the kind of trade offs you have to think about.

pessimizer 13y ago

http://www.techweb.com/news/231602248/lulzsec-suspect-learns-even-hidemyass-com-has-limits.html http://www.techweb.com/news/231602248/lulzsec-suspect-learns... hidemyass logs everything.

gnosis 13y ago

"I also cover the cameras on my laptop, desktop, and cell phone with snippets of electrical tape, since savvy hackers can gain control of them remotely." One thing he missed is the built-in microphone on his laptop and cell phone. That can also be controlled and listened-in to remotely, and it's usually harder to completely disable (unlike a webcam). Yes, you could epoxy it shut, but even then it could still function (though with greatly reduced fidelity). Disabling it completely would require opening up your laptop/cellphone case and unplugging the mic: something that would probably void your waranty and could be a nightmare to reassemble, depending on your hardware skills and the laptop/cellphone model you own.

gr-eg 13y ago

This reminds me of the documentary "Erasing David": "After anonymously setting up private investigators Cerberus Investigations Limited to trace him, he tries to disappear." http://erasingdavid.com/ http://erasingdavid.com/

peter303 13y ago

The author sounds like a way over-wired gearhead to start with. He every latest gadget and app. No wonder it takes an effort toget off the grid.