41–49 of 49 posts
Before recommending Ubuntu (when the issue is, to an extent, one of privacy), let's remember this: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/richar... The discussion around it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4888851 Also, a better alternative to Skype would be Jitsi: https://jitsi.org/Main/Features
Anything better than Ubuntu?
Does switching to Ubuntu really help you that much? Unless there are secret NSA backdoors in Windows/OS X. Hell even under Ubuntu they could just backdoor my nvidia drivers. I would really struggle to recommend using Tor as a "daily driver" for web browsing as well. Unless we want to go back to the 56k web. Most of the others (bitcoin,social networks) rely on network effects anyway.
I'd recommend VPNs that route out of the US.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Security through obscurity is never a great mindset, but neither is the mindset that security doesn't come without significant tradeoffs, tradeoffs that may reveal you inadvertently. And you misunderstand the analogy. They don't need to watch you having an affair (through the windows). They only need to see that you're driving to an out-of-the-way B&B. They don't even have to interrogate you directly, just any one el…
I guess the point I'm making is there is no obscurity to be gained by throwing your actions in with a pool of others' because it is all itemized and catalogued. So what's better? A detailed account of everything you did, or the knowledge that you went to a place, but nobody knows for sure what happened there. EDIT: To answer your question about Petraeus - "The fact that he used Gmail" is enough. You can stop there.
Well, this is where you and I will have to disagree. Assuming there wasn't a more ordered conspiracy (i.e. Petraeus was outed because of world-level politics), then Petraeus's exposure had nothing to do with the email service he used. His mistress drew attention to herself by sending anonymous threats that made reference to him and did not do enough to separate herself (such as using a different IP) from those messages.
The point is, surveillance is not solely something in the digital domain, and so making a service change is not automatically a beneficial tradeoff. People used these popular services for a reason: mostly because of their ease and power. When they switch to a less powerful version, that may introduce behavior changes that cause slip ups.
And I thought this could go without saying, but we all know that social engineering is by far the biggest cause for security breaches. And if the teenage script-kiddies can exploit that with ease, what makes you think the NSA can't? The relevant part to this discussion is that, again, less-used services have less-built in precautions against such identity attacks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the point I'm making is there is no obscurity to be gained by throwing your actions in with a pool of others' because it is all itemized and catalogued. So what's better? A detailed account of everything you did, or the knowledge that you went to a place, but nobody knows for sure what happened there. EDIT: To answer your question about Petraeus - "The fact that he used Gmail" is enough. You can stop there.
> EDIT: To answer your question about Petraeus - "The fact that he used Gmail" is enough. You can stop there. Well, this is where you and I will have to disagree. Assuming there wasn't a more ordered conspiracy (i.e. Petraeus was outed because of world-level politics), then Petraeus's exposure had nothing to do with the email service he used. His mistress drew attention to herself by sending anonymous threats that ma…
It doesn't matter what causes the NSA to go looking, what matters is what they find. Edward Snowden makes this point himself in the original interview. They have collected data on you for years, just sitting there waiting to be scrutinized for whatever reason.
Your second and third paragraphs are irrelevant to the point of condescension. We're talking about warrantless digital surveillance of US citizens not possible maybes and what-ifs.
The problem can't just be solved by simply pointing people to (random?) open source software. We still need servers as rendezvous points, and we can't expect everybody to run their own services. Properly setting up a mail server is hard. So, everybody who can should run XMPP and/or SIP servers and hand out accounts to their friends. Both telephony/messaging protocols have inherent capabilities for federating with oth…
What could be done about this? Running a server on someone else's platform makes you more vulnerable and ISP port blocking can be an impediment to running a server at home. So I start thinking about relatively inexpensive dedicated microservers with integrated solid state storage. Power consumption optimized single board solutions that could just be shoved into a rack and that someone could build hosting plans around. I don't know if anyone has tried to do that.
How far could we go in terms of protecting the microserver from the hosting provider and anyone that may try to pressure them for client data? Maybe provide a bare bones executive that allows them to get it up on the network and from there the client can connect and instruct it to install (from the hosting provider's repository or some other repository) pre-built images that are hardened and optimized for the services they want to run and which would include easy to use provisioning tools to help with post install config? Maybe it could run with fully encrypted storage and the executive could provide the hosting provider with an interface to backup that strongly encrypted storage? Thereby allowing for backups which could be restored by the hosting provider (in the case of a hardware failure for example) but without them having access to the OS and data stored on it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> EDIT: To answer your question about Petraeus - "The fact that he used Gmail" is enough. You can stop there. Well, this is where you and I will have to disagree. Assuming there wasn't a more ordered conspiracy (i.e. Petraeus was outed because of world-level politics), then Petraeus's exposure had nothing to do with the email service he used. His mistress drew attention to herself by sending anonymous threats that ma…
You are arguing about what shows up on the NSA's radar that causes them to go searching, I'm talking about limiting what they can easily find. You're right about Broadwell's actions triggering the investigation, I'm saying his email wouldn't have been part of that investigation if he hadn't used Gmail and instead opted to secure the messages. And let's be honest: The director of the CIA should know better! It doesn't…
Sorry, but I disagree with that. It is very much about what causes them to go looking, because NSA analyst time is finite. If you remember from Snowden's interview, he said this:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/edwa...
> “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the President, if I had a personal e-mail,”
Note the qualifier at the end. He's claiming that the NSA can read the emails of anyone once they know the address. The implications are that investigation and surveillance are done when a target is specified. If President Obama doesn't use barack.obama@gmail.com from a known IP address, then his emails are essentially hidden from the NSA.
If you are in a situation where the NSA knows of the identities you are using, no matter what service, and they choose to target you, then you are screwed no matter what.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are arguing about what shows up on the NSA's radar that causes them to go searching, I'm talking about limiting what they can easily find. You're right about Broadwell's actions triggering the investigation, I'm saying his email wouldn't have been part of that investigation if he hadn't used Gmail and instead opted to secure the messages. And let's be honest: The director of the CIA should know better! It doesn't…
> It doesn't matter what causes the NSA to go looking, what matters is what they find. Sorry, but I disagree with that. It is very much about what causes them to go looking, because NSA analyst time is finite. If you remember from Snowden's interview, he said this: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/edwa... > “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or you…
Those certainly are not the implications. He explicitly explains that all data from all people is always ingested by default. The surveillance is already happening right now. He needs the email address (or other information, note Snowden's reference to a "selector") in order to query the already monumental database of information and possibly to pull in future collections. But this isn't magical. Knowing an email address doesn't mean you can decrypt secured messages. It does mean they can access information gathered from their sources of which Gmail is a known source.
And re: Why They Go Looking - Snowden says this:
It’s getting to the point, you don’t have to have done
anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under
suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then
they could use this system to go back in time and
scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend
you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on
that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent
life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.
Exactly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are arguing about what shows up on the NSA's radar that causes them to go searching, I'm talking about limiting what they can easily find. You're right about Broadwell's actions triggering the investigation, I'm saying his email wouldn't have been part of that investigation if he hadn't used Gmail and instead opted to secure the messages. And let's be honest: The director of the CIA should know better! It doesn't…
> It doesn't matter what causes the NSA to go looking, what matters is what they find. Sorry, but I disagree with that. It is very much about what causes them to go looking, because NSA analyst time is finite. If you remember from Snowden's interview, he said this: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/edwa... > “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or you…
This example doesn't really work with Obama though. There's no chance that he has any online accounts or connections which aren't thoroughly monitored, I would expect the NSA and CIA to be reading the President's emails, and the emails of congress, senators, generals, and have everyone's social media logins, et cetera.
I don't mean to be a pedant, I just think the analogy breaks down using him as an example. For you or me, maybe.
Is there a good WhatsApp alternative? I mean a messenger which is Open Source; secure; available on Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, OS X. At best, even the little features like group chat. http://www.kontalk.net/ seems on the way, but not immature so far.
XMPP. I'm not sure about iOS, but there are secure XMPP clients for the others.