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When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

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Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#251

Post by KSteffensen »

tzs wrote: post #217
igravious wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If jury duty is random why not political duty? I think your idea (is it your idea?) deserves a lot of attention. Maybe 2 years of service. 4 is a lot. That combined with Swiss-style direct democracy would go a long way I feel. And universal basic income.

> If jury duty is random why not political duty? Jurors are asked to do a couple fairly common tasks that most people do frequently throughout their lives: (1) listen to different sides of a story and decide which side to believe, and (2) decide the motives for a person's acts. A legislator is asked to judge complex policy questions often requiring extensive specialized knowledge. The arguments for and against are of…

Why should a career in party politics improve your ability to make these decisions?

Do current law makers have to pass some kind of knowledge based test to be allowed to make the decisions?

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#252

Post by alethiophile »

barrkel wrote: post #186
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People downvoting you are probably taking your statement as normative, whereas it's purely positive. It's not about what the govt should do. It is what it does. For example, the police, the IRS, DHS etc etc. (and hence the state) WILL be helped in their jobs by increasing surveillance, and so will always be trying to increase its scope. Whether it's _worth_ the loss of privacy is of course a valid debate.

It is not a positive statement. It sounds like one, by it's actually a judgement about how effective government is. I'm quite certain that it is false.

It would certainly be interesting to hear some evidence or justification for this position, given that the record of governments with respect to privacy over the Internet era (at least) has been uniformly dismal and getting worse.

It certainly seems like the positive statement "government is not motivated to protect individual privacy and will not effectively do so" is well-supported by current experience.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#253

Post by wmeredith »

Gys wrote: post #89
Chardok wrote: post #60

"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety." This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it…

The comparison that Bruce Schneider makes is not correct. Governments are likely to control food pathogens and airline risks because they need living, productive, happy voters. But governments have also a fundamental distrust for all individuals and therefore want as much surveillance as possible. By allowing big companies to collect that, they have access as well. Therefore I think governments are not motivated to i…

In a less cynical world, what the government actually needs is the mandate of the people to rule. Therefore protecting their personal interests could be of interest if it was demanded by the people.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#254

Post by dickbasedregex »

Chardok wrote: post #60

"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety." This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it…

I've given up on people being outraged or even informed. Maybe I should just say I've given up on people.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#255

Post by drukenemo »

fundabulousrIII wrote: post #141

No one I know in my world uses Facebook and we only use Google for search because the experience with other engines are lackluster. Give me a better search engine and I'll use that if the obvious abuses aren't too egregious. There is another way to opt out of data collection and that is to deep packet rewrite every communication out of your computer from every application (where suddenly encryption is your enemy) :P

Use www.startpage.com, you search Google via a proxy.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#256

Post by ethbro »

KSteffensen wrote: post #250
ethbro wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who agrees with the idea, here's some arguments against it. 1) By taking the average, you are risking compounding educational decreases in the populace. Bad public education policy is enacted, chosen politicians become less educated, worse public policy is enacted, etc etc. 2) By using less experienced politians, you lessen the efficiency of the entire political process. 3) By not having the possibility of…

1) This mechanism is already present in the current electoral system and is very evident in the election of Trump. 2) This is the reason to only replace 25% if the parliament per year so that not all experience is lost. It gives more power to non-elected public officials which can be good or bad. 3) By removing reelection you also remove career politicians and reduce corruption. No need for campaign contributions or…

1) Not nearly to the extent it would be. Unless you'd like to take the viewpoint that the upper class don't buy better educations than the rest of the country.

2) You still have a maximum 4 year experience level. As someone who grew up in a college town, I'd estimate having to explain the basics to 1/4 of the elected body every year would require significant resources.

Additionally, handled incorrectly, you imperil the stability of the legislature. Imagine if every year were Trump election year: Mr. John and Ms. Jane Doe go to Washington intent on toppling the system as it stands because they're unhappy with the way things are.

3) Fair, but the social censure of being judged is a few orders of magnitude smaller than the power these people would wield while in office. If you think politicians are corrupt now, imagine if Exxon offered $x million in bribes to an average person off the street to approve oil drilling in wilderness refuges.

There is a lot wrong with the wealthy monopolizing political power, but at least it semi-insulates them against outright financial persuasion.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#257

Post by throwaway1232-4 »

Gys wrote: post #89
Chardok wrote: post #60

"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety." This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it…

The comparison that Bruce Schneider makes is not correct. Governments are likely to control food pathogens and airline risks because they need living, productive, happy voters. But governments have also a fundamental distrust for all individuals and therefore want as much surveillance as possible. By allowing big companies to collect that, they have access as well. Therefore I think governments are not motivated to i…

This is a non sequitur. He's not talking about government motivation.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#258

Post by goialoq »

mirimir wrote: post #228
Chardok wrote: post #60

"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety." This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it…

It's impractical to opt out, yes. But one can compartmentalize. So I have a rich online life using my real name. But it's not in English. Everything that Mirimir does online is interlinked. But it's not at all linked to my real name. Or to my other online personas. For sure, I'm a zealot about this. I use nested VPN chains and Tor, and multiple VMs on multiple hosts. But anyone can use a VPN service that respects pri…

insufficient.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/fbi-cr...

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#260

Post by mirimir »

goialoq wrote: post #258
mirimir wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impractical to opt out, yes. But one can compartmentalize. So I have a rich online life using my real name. But it's not in English. Everything that Mirimir does online is interlinked. But it's not at all linked to my real name. Or to my other online personas. For sure, I'm a zealot about this. I use nested VPN chains and Tor, and multiple VMs on multiple hosts. But anyone can use a VPN service that respects pri…

insufficient. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/fbi-cr...

It was stupid mistakes that led to takedowns of Silk Road, KickassTorrents, The Love Zone, Sheep Marketplace, AlphaBay, and Sabu de LulzSec.

However, Operation Onymous did rely on Tor deanonymization data provided by CMU researchers to the FBI. The CMU group had exploited a bug in Tor to get ISP-assigned IPs for numerous users and onion servers.

Even so, Operation Onymous would arguably have failed if those users and onion servers had accessed Tor through nested chains of at least three VPN services. And used firewall rules, and isolated VPN and Tor gateways in separate machines/VMs. Isolated from workspace machines/VMs. Also, operators and users of those onion servers would have remained safe if they had done the same.

In a few other cases, such as Freedom Hosting and Playpen, the FBI used NIT malware to deanonymize users of onion sites that had already been confiscated. The malware bypassed Tor to send IPs and other information to FBI servers. But only Windows users were affected, because the NIT only ran on Windows. Also, users that used firewall rules and/or separate Tor gateway machines (such as Whonix) were unaffected. And finally, even Tor browser users would have remained safe if they had accessed Tor through nested chains of at least three VPN services.

So yes, use nested chains of at least three VPN services to access Tor. And watch your OPSEC. Compartmentalize, compartmentalize, compartmentalize!

So, the approach is insufficient only if you're sloppy.

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