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Prism Break

prism-break.org

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Re: Prism Break

#81

Post by danenania »

h2s wrote: post #76

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 t…

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.

Re: Prism Break

#82

Post by sharkweek »

danenania wrote: post #81
h2s wrote: post #76

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 t…

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.

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

Re: Prism Break

#83

Post by znowi »

I praise this effort. Whatever the criticism may be, it's a useful site and it educates people. Folks like them do a lot more than us ranting here in the comments :)

Re: Prism Break

#84

Post by jafaku »

tptacek wrote: post #65
jafaku wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cute how many people think nobody can break free from gmail. Also, what's the point of having a "carefully guarded TLS connections on the Internet", if at least one of the ends is completely compromised?

My comment didn't say "nobody can break free from gmail", but I'm happy to provide a coat rack on which to hang that argument.

Then my comment didn't say your comment said that. But I want to add that I remember very few nicknames from HN, and yours is one of those. I remember it because you once said that Google takes their users' privacy very seriously, which is hard to forget. Ever since, I saw you defending Google, no matter what. Something isn't right...

Re: Prism Break

#85

Post by fauigerzigerk »

comex wrote: post #8

Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking, as reflected in the labels "Proprietary" and "Free alternatives". In particular: - None of the proprietary browsers will track you - well, beyond what's specified in the privacy policy. Two of the alternatives are Tor applications, but the other two are Firefox (which provide…

"In the claims that proprietary software won't track you, I am assuming that the NSA will not compel (or has not compelled) these companies to modify their software to include secret tracking."

The assumption that the NSA would never compel software vendors to include tracking code seems completely unjustified to me. It makes no sense at all to accept all the inconvenience that comes with avoiding NSA tracking and then use closed source software.

But I think many of the suggestions on this list are completely unworkable. Using Tor isn't just a little slower. It's unusably slow for regular browsing. Using noscript is nonsense. It breaks almost all websites nowadays.

Re: Prism Break

#86

Post by bdcravens »

h2s wrote: post #76

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 t…

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.

Re: Prism Break

#87

Post by antocv »

There is no easy secure way of having audio and/or video chats? Like we had with skype before microsoft stepped in.

XMPP is here, and we have no real good clients either for desktop and for Android we got basically none that supports Jingle.

Re: Prism Break

#88

Post by h2s »

danenania wrote: post #81
h2s wrote: post #76

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 t…

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.

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/ - 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.

Re: Prism Break

#89

Post by marcloney »

bdcravens wrote: post #86
h2s wrote: post #76

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 t…

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.

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.

Re: Prism Break

#90

Post by SmokyBorbon »

wyck wrote: post #74

Let's pretend I'm the NSA. I don't care right now about what your saying, I just care about who you associate with and where you are hanging out. If those raise my suspicions then I will also track the where/who connections and create a map of activity. Those dots might start to line up and create further interest. If suspicions are founded as actual threats I will do anyone of the following and probably more. FISA r…

You completely missed the point. The NSA is tracking everyone. They're building a database of everyone's activities. Nobody knows who the "terrorists" are going to be 20 years from now. The moment you become a suspect, they can bring up everything they've recorded you saying or doing and use it against you.

The NSA is above the law and the rules they follow are set by a secret court appointed by a single man who has his position for life.

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