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Prism Break

prism-break.org

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Re: Prism Break

#91

Post by h2s »

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.

I don't think the analogy works. This is using consumer-grade retail padlocks to keep out the world's richest and most well-equipped criminal organisation. The fact that the shops don't sell strong enough padlocks to stop them isn't the real problem: the deep-seated corruption in law enforcement allowing them to steal with impunity is.

Re: Prism Break

#92

Post by lifeguard »

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.

Is it a crime for a hungry man to steal bread? None of your proposed solutions would address his needs.

America's government is so corrupt it is no longer democratic.

Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g

Re: Prism Break

#93

Post by Homunculiheaded »

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'm starting to think people should begin to create "crypto-selves". I've seen a lot of talk saying essentially "get off facebook! get off gmail!" But that's a lot of persistent effort even for fairly technical people. Plus even in secure, anonymous environment interacting with your real life friends, purchasing your favorite books on amazon etc will reveal who you are anyway.

In non-web life we have private and public spaces and there's plenty of study on how these two play together and how important they are. Most people have erroneously thought that because your computer is in your private physical space that it's also 'private', but that's clearly not the case.

What people need is the education to create the technological equivalent of locking yourself in your bedroom for the afternoon to clear your head.

Gmail is like sending a postcard, facebook like chatting with friends at the mall or park. Tor/truecrypte/pgp etc for parts of your life you want private. Separate usernames, interests, tones of voice, etc in this private space.

Trying to hide your real (ie public) self is silly as should you become a target of the nsa & co. they'll find a way to dig up something even if you've been completely hidden from july 2013 on. What people need is a reasonably benign public self and a hidden crypto-self.

Also I'm all for fighting the surveillance state, but I'm extremely cynical of it's success. I see no feasible way to reduce the power and authority of the militarized aspects of our government(s). I can't think of a single example of where public knowledge and outcry has changed anything other than getting a few puppets punished anywhere except the non-militarized parts of government.

Re: Prism Break

#94

Post by peng »

h2s wrote: post #88
danenania wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unfortunately, https://prism-break.org/ was registered before Snowden's revelations about Tempora. I'm working on adjusting the site's wording to apply equally to all governmental surveillance.

Re: Prism Break

#95

Post by mrbrownstone »

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…

True.Read something very recently about 'voice' and 'exit' - two responses to situations like this - http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/13062...

Hirschman pointed out the ways in which “exit” failed to send a useful message to underperformers. Weren’t there cases where monopolists were relieved when their critics left? “Those who hold power in the lazy monopoly may actually have an interest in creating some limited opportunities for exit on the part of those whose voice might be uncomfortable,”

Re: Prism Break

#96

Post by polskibus »

marcloney wrote: post #89
bdcravens wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More importantly, they make the distinction between a welcome entry and forced entry much clearer, which is very important from the legal point of view. It's not an illusion of security, but a precondition for a safety and recovery framework to kick in (police action, insurance, etc.)

Re: Prism Break

#97

Post by antocv »

tzury wrote: post #46

It is important to mention that "self-hosted" by itself, does not make one Prism-Free. In most cases, if the hosting platform provider will be asked to provide access to the infrastructure, it is most likely that SSL private keys that stored on the virtual machine will be taken along with other data.

Self-hosted means you run it on your own servers/Pis at your own home.

When did "self-hosted" take the meaning of "remotely hosted/virtualized/web hosting" for you?

Re: Prism Break

#98

Post by kimlelly »

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…

You're right in the sense that tech will never be the "final" solution.

But we need to use all the privacy-enhancing tools we can get our hands on, on the way to "real" solutions: You can't organize activities and exchange your thoughts freely while being watched by the government. The fear of being put on "the list" will stifle free speech and therefor sabotage the creation of any meaningful movement. It's called "self-censorship" and I've been told it's the worst form of censorship.

So yes, migrate all of your communication towards encryption and use an open-source operating system.

Re: Prism Break

#99

Post by jayfuerstenberg »

chrischen wrote: post #50
Raticide wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google will track your IP and probably store the searches you made alongside it. These can easily be linked back to your google accounts. Duckduckgo claim not to log your searches.

Yes but how much is a claim worth? Anything centralized is at risk to be tracked by the government. It's not as if Google put in the TOS that the NSA is monitoring their data.

I wonder if there is a decentralized P2P crawler system that shares IP addresses of at least major domains/hosts.

With that you could run a node and search locally against your machine without anybody knowing.

Re: Prism Break

#100

Post by tzury »

lifeguard wrote: post #75
tzury wrote: post #46

It is important to mention that "self-hosted" by itself, does not make one Prism-Free. In most cases, if the hosting platform provider will be asked to provide access to the infrastructure, it is most likely that SSL private keys that stored on the virtual machine will be taken along with other data.

Sorry, this is a fallacy of false equivocation. Not all hosting platforms are the same, especially in terms of jurisdiction. Switzerland and China do not respond to Secret Service or FBI orders.

China?

What makes you think this is not the case there by default?

I am talking about local authorities ofcurse.

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