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Holy shit... Apparently, the only way to ensure privacy is to go Stallman. Funny how yesterday's "conspiracy crackpot" became today's visionary.

by znowi 13y ago

jacquesm 13y ago
Stallman never was a conspiracy crackpot, he always was a visionary. The only thing that changed is some people's judgment of him.
- griffordson 13y ago
  Exactly. It has been obvious and widely understood for years to anyone who has ever used a network analyzer that systems like this could be built. The question was always would they be built. Stallman, and others, bet correctly based on their better reading of history and human nature.
- astrodust 13y ago
  You can be completely correct and still be a crackpot. What we need is strict limitations on what can and should be collected, and how it's used, plus better methods of securing what's being exchanged. For example, sending email as plain-text, leaving it on the server as plain-text, maybe that's a bad idea. The NSA isn't necessarily the only reason you'd do this. Foreign governments are going to take an interest in this, too, and it's only a matter of time before someone gets access the data the NSA is hoarding. No program of this scale is ever 100% secure.
  - blueprint 13y ago
    > You can be completely correct and still be a crackpot. This is very important. What do you mean by "crackpot"?
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      It's not feasible for the average person to restrict their lives to the point that RMS does and advocates for. * Reading the web via email only * Using completely free software and hardware (which as far as I can tell, limits you to a very small subset of Linux on a single Chinese-made netbook) * Not carrying a cellphone * Not using any social networks. Stallman's principled stand is admirable, but untenable for most. I need to violate every single one of these tenets in an average day at work. And that's before we even enter the realm of entertainment, which is even worse as far as the FSF's definition of freedom goes.
      - jacquesm 13y ago
        Principled != crackpot. Crackpot is an insult intended for the feeble minded and is used to reduce any opinions a person might hold on a subject as reject-able out of hand. Over unity energy generation from the vacuum is rightly labeled as 'crackpot' imo, Stallman's position, while extreme should (again, imo) not be labeled as such.
        Karunamon 13y ago
        Where Stallman breaks from admirable principle and dives into untenable crackpottery, IMO, is where he calls proprietary software evil.
        jacquesm 13y ago
        Crackpot => unsupported by evidence. Calling proprietary software evil is an opinion, and there are plenty of examples of evidence that proprietary software was created in ways that one could label as evil. Give it a while and there might be some revelation which will cause lots of people to go 'oh, that Stallman was such a visionary, calling proprietary software evil'. Now on this particular aspect of Stallman's reasoning I find him hard to follow because that would mean a whole class of something is bad whereas I believe it should only apply to instances on a case-by-case basis. But I'm going to hedge my bets here and sit it out for the next decade or two (assuming I have that much time remaining) to see if he might not be on to something again that is still hard to see from where we are standing right now. One way in which this could play out is that in order to avoid certain societal fates is to have nothing but open source for certain classes of application (for instance, voting computers, software in use by the government in general or software that is used to power network infrastructure). Don't be too quick to judge, Stallman has been right more often than I'm comfortable with on some of his most 'extreme' views.
    - astrodust 13y ago
      An example of a crackpot is Glenn Beck, that is, someone who is drawing incorrect, incoherent conclusions from the facts they observe. Suggesting that people abandon social networks, never own cellular phones, avoid using the web almost entirely, these are extreme positions. What makes them crazy is when he's an advocate that everyone should follow these edicts. Surely it's some kind of "geek social fallacy" that's being applied here. Stallman has come up with what he perceives as the optimal strategy and anyone who diverges from this is doing it incorrectly, just as how free, open-source software is the only kind of software that's acceptable, and everything else is "evil".
  - kudu 13y ago
    I think the free access to the data once it's mined is worse than the collection. Such access should require a warrant, if not a wiretap order, not a justification one-liner.
  - danenania 13y ago
    "You can be completely correct and still be a crackpot." Not really. At that point, you are just using the term as an ad hominem in a childish attempt to ward off cognitive dissonance. You don't win an argument by calling the other guy a weirdo.
    - astrodust 13y ago
      His observations are correct, but his conclusions are incorrect, just as people like Glenn Beck start out with facts and end up with paranoid delusions and fantasies. I think Stallman's observations are valid, but his method of dealing with the implications of those observations are impractical, if not completely wrong.
      - lazyjones 13y ago
        When you are done attacking Stallman with a false analogy, would you care to name a few of his invalid conclusions? More specifically, what is so impractical or "completely wrong" about not using smartphones?
        astrodust 13y ago
        He's not opposed to smartphones, he's opposed to cellular phones as these can serve as a tracking beacon, following your movements. Given that the cellular providers are capturing and archiving location data, this is fact, his conclusion is we should avoid using these sorts of phones completely. Why? The reasoning here is a awfully thin, but has something to do with "being tracked = bad" and then goes into crazy territory from there. It's the same thing with credit and debit cards. They can be tracked, therefore bad, therefore nobody should use them. If he's concerned about remaining invisible, then this must be applied rigorously across all aspects of his life. Does he wear dazzle face-paint or glasses with bright IR LEDs on them so that CCTV cameras can't pick him up? Does he only use methods of travel that require no identification? If the FBI wanted to retrace Stallman's activity on any given day, it'd take hours at most to piece it together. The sign that someone's a crackpot is in how inconsistent they are in applying what they've concluded. It means they're missing something important. For example, there are people that have a genuine need for absolute secrecy, that need to remain invisible, yet they still use cellular phones, email, and social networks. They're aware of the same risks as Stallman, but they take precautions instead of avoiding them completely. It's notable that Osama Bin Ladin was taken down because he'd gone to such great lengths to avoid being tracked that he stood out as an anomaly, an approach that proved to be self-defeating. He had this large house, but a paranoia about electronic snooping so severe that he had no internet connection, and that alone made that house highly suspicious. If you're that affluent, you have an internet connection, even if you barely use it. Everything Stallman advocates to avoid detection just makes him an even bigger target.
  - laxatives 13y ago
    You make crackpot sound more like a personality trait than a status.
peterwwillis 13y ago
How does browsing the web via e-mails and cron jobs make for more privacy?
- runn1ng 13y ago
  No javascript tracking. Very strange behaviour (therefore, less behaviour tracking). That's what I can think of.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    Honestly, if the NSA wanted to know what Stallman was up to, they'd apply the $5 wrench technique (http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/). All the tin-foil in the world can't prevent them from getting what they want if you're suddenly a Person of Interest.
    - griffordson 13y ago
      Is there no difference between specifically targeting a suspect and gaining physical access to their hardware vs. any number of government employees/contractors sitting at their desk browsing through anybody's data with little to no technical limits and little to no oversight? One of the slides literally says that users must be careful to and their query with another parameter to avoid running afoul of the law.
      - astrodust 13y ago
        At this point the only difference is cost and scale. What the NSA is doing needs to be reeled in big-time, probably even shut down completely, but that doesn't mean being all tin-foil hat will somehow make you immune to what they're doing. I'm sure they know everything they need to know about Stallman, just as they do about everyone else, apparently. Unless he's sitting in a cave writing EMACS source on goat hides, they'll have a window into his activities.
        lazyjones 13y ago
kristofferR 13y ago
This is by far the best guide I've found to do exactly that: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=24722 http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=24722
- kudu 13y ago
  I haven't read all of it, but I'd recommend using LUKS instead of TrueCrypt.

Holy shit... Apparently, the only way to ensure privacy is to go Stallman. Funny how yesterday's "conspiracy crackpot" became today's visionary.

by znowi 13y ago

Holy shit... Apparently, the only way to ensure privacy is to go Stallman. Funny how yesterday's "conspiracy crackpot" became today's visionary.

jacquesm 13y ago

Stallman never was a conspiracy crackpot, he always was a visionary. The only thing that changed is some people's judgment of him.

griffordson 13y ago
Exactly. It has been obvious and widely understood for years to anyone who has ever used a network analyzer that systems like this could be built. The question was always would they be built. Stallman, and others, bet correctly based on their better reading of history and human nature.
astrodust 13y ago
You can be completely correct and still be a crackpot. What we need is strict limitations on what can and should be collected, and how it's used, plus better methods of securing what's being exchanged. For example, sending email as plain-text, leaving it on the server as plain-text, maybe that's a bad idea. The NSA isn't necessarily the only reason you'd do this. Foreign governments are going to take an interest in this, too, and it's only a matter of time before someone gets access the data the NSA is hoarding. No program of this scale is ever 100% secure.
- blueprint 13y ago
  > You can be completely correct and still be a crackpot. This is very important. What do you mean by "crackpot"?
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    It's not feasible for the average person to restrict their lives to the point that RMS does and advocates for. * Reading the web via email only * Using completely free software and hardware (which as far as I can tell, limits you to a very small subset of Linux on a single Chinese-made netbook) * Not carrying a cellphone * Not using any social networks. Stallman's principled stand is admirable, but untenable for most. I need to violate every single one of these tenets in an average day at work. And that's before we even enter the realm of entertainment, which is even worse as far as the FSF's definition of freedom goes.
    - jacquesm 13y ago
      Principled != crackpot. Crackpot is an insult intended for the feeble minded and is used to reduce any opinions a person might hold on a subject as reject-able out of hand. Over unity energy generation from the vacuum is rightly labeled as 'crackpot' imo, Stallman's position, while extreme should (again, imo) not be labeled as such.
      - Karunamon 13y ago
        Where Stallman breaks from admirable principle and dives into untenable crackpottery, IMO, is where he calls proprietary software evil.
        jacquesm 13y ago
        Crackpot => unsupported by evidence. Calling proprietary software evil is an opinion, and there are plenty of examples of evidence that proprietary software was created in ways that one could label as evil. Give it a while and there might be some revelation which will cause lots of people to go 'oh, that Stallman was such a visionary, calling proprietary software evil'. Now on this particular aspect of Stallman's reasoning I find him hard to follow because that would mean a whole class of something is bad whereas I believe it should only apply to instances on a case-by-case basis. But I'm going to hedge my bets here and sit it out for the next decade or two (assuming I have that much time remaining) to see if he might not be on to something again that is still hard to see from where we are standing right now. One way in which this could play out is that in order to avoid certain societal fates is to have nothing but open source for certain classes of application (for instance, voting computers, software in use by the government in general or software that is used to power network infrastructure). Don't be too quick to judge, Stallman has been right more often than I'm comfortable with on some of his most 'extreme' views.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    An example of a crackpot is Glenn Beck, that is, someone who is drawing incorrect, incoherent conclusions from the facts they observe. Suggesting that people abandon social networks, never own cellular phones, avoid using the web almost entirely, these are extreme positions. What makes them crazy is when he's an advocate that everyone should follow these edicts. Surely it's some kind of "geek social fallacy" that's being applied here. Stallman has come up with what he perceives as the optimal strategy and anyone who diverges from this is doing it incorrectly, just as how free, open-source software is the only kind of software that's acceptable, and everything else is "evil".
- kudu 13y ago
  I think the free access to the data once it's mined is worse than the collection. Such access should require a warrant, if not a wiretap order, not a justification one-liner.
- danenania 13y ago
  "You can be completely correct and still be a crackpot." Not really. At that point, you are just using the term as an ad hominem in a childish attempt to ward off cognitive dissonance. You don't win an argument by calling the other guy a weirdo.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    His observations are correct, but his conclusions are incorrect, just as people like Glenn Beck start out with facts and end up with paranoid delusions and fantasies. I think Stallman's observations are valid, but his method of dealing with the implications of those observations are impractical, if not completely wrong.
    - lazyjones 13y ago
      When you are done attacking Stallman with a false analogy, would you care to name a few of his invalid conclusions? More specifically, what is so impractical or "completely wrong" about not using smartphones?
      - astrodust 13y ago
        He's not opposed to smartphones, he's opposed to cellular phones as these can serve as a tracking beacon, following your movements. Given that the cellular providers are capturing and archiving location data, this is fact, his conclusion is we should avoid using these sorts of phones completely. Why? The reasoning here is a awfully thin, but has something to do with "being tracked = bad" and then goes into crazy territory from there. It's the same thing with credit and debit cards. They can be tracked, therefore bad, therefore nobody should use them. If he's concerned about remaining invisible, then this must be applied rigorously across all aspects of his life. Does he wear dazzle face-paint or glasses with bright IR LEDs on them so that CCTV cameras can't pick him up? Does he only use methods of travel that require no identification? If the FBI wanted to retrace Stallman's activity on any given day, it'd take hours at most to piece it together. The sign that someone's a crackpot is in how inconsistent they are in applying what they've concluded. It means they're missing something important. For example, there are people that have a genuine need for absolute secrecy, that need to remain invisible, yet they still use cellular phones, email, and social networks. They're aware of the same risks as Stallman, but they take precautions instead of avoiding them completely. It's notable that Osama Bin Ladin was taken down because he'd gone to such great lengths to avoid being tracked that he stood out as an anomaly, an approach that proved to be self-defeating. He had this large house, but a paranoia about electronic snooping so severe that he had no internet connection, and that alone made that house highly suspicious. If you're that affluent, you have an internet connection, even if you barely use it. Everything Stallman advocates to avoid detection just makes him an even bigger target.
- laxatives 13y ago
  You make crackpot sound more like a personality trait than a status.

peterwwillis 13y ago

How does browsing the web via e-mails and cron jobs make for more privacy?

runn1ng 13y ago
No javascript tracking. Very strange behaviour (therefore, less behaviour tracking). That's what I can think of.
- astrodust 13y ago
  Honestly, if the NSA wanted to know what Stallman was up to, they'd apply the $5 wrench technique (http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/). All the tin-foil in the world can't prevent them from getting what they want if you're suddenly a Person of Interest.
  - griffordson 13y ago
    Is there no difference between specifically targeting a suspect and gaining physical access to their hardware vs. any number of government employees/contractors sitting at their desk browsing through anybody's data with little to no technical limits and little to no oversight? One of the slides literally says that users must be careful to and their query with another parameter to avoid running afoul of the law.
    - astrodust 13y ago
      At this point the only difference is cost and scale. What the NSA is doing needs to be reeled in big-time, probably even shut down completely, but that doesn't mean being all tin-foil hat will somehow make you immune to what they're doing. I'm sure they know everything they need to know about Stallman, just as they do about everyone else, apparently. Unless he's sitting in a cave writing EMACS source on goat hides, they'll have a window into his activities.
      - lazyjones 13y ago

kristofferR 13y ago

This is by far the best guide I've found to do exactly that: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=24722 http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=24722

kudu 13y ago
I haven't read all of it, but I'd recommend using LUKS instead of TrueCrypt.