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Prism Break

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Re: Prism Break

#151

Post by glogla »

The listed software is usually a good idea, but there should be a bit more explanation. Using TOR to access non-SSL website for example, might be bad idea.

Also, noticing TextSecure, it's great, but I have personal gripe with it -- you can't use it without using Google play, and that means irrevocably pairing your phone with Google account and therefore some identity. Would it be that much of a hassle to put APK on f-droid? Software that's supposed to be secure but requires you to have Google account is a sad view.

EDIT: of course, after the (de)cryptocat debacle, using TextSecure without reading the source code might not be a good idea. Homepage of "security" software like that should always include page about security: what algorithms it uses, stuff like that.

Re: Prism Break

#152

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Homunculiheaded wrote: post #93
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 publ…

>I see no feasible way to reduce the power and authority of the militarized aspects of our government(s).

I partly think it's because people are asking for the wrong things. People say things like "stop NSA surveillance" which is vague and impractical. What needs to happen is to hit them where it hurts: Reduce total defense spending to 50% of what it is now. That should be the demand from everyone. Money is power. If you want them to have less power, stop giving them so damn much money. And besides, who can't get behind massively lower taxes?

Re: Prism Break

#153

Post by antocv »

sdfjkl wrote: post #107
antocv wrote: post #87

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.

Jitsi supports ZRTP and Jingle (experimental).

Ive tried it, it sucks and crashed too many times, bugs reported, but gave up.

Jitsi also doesnt run on our phones last time I checked.

Basically we have these smart-phones, awesome hardware, good devices, but we cant use them to talk confidentially with our friends.

Re: Prism Break

#154

Post by skore »

rahoulb wrote: post #120
SmokyBorbon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Also extremely likely - the NSA/GCHQ/Whoever siphon off all "metadata". At the next Boston bombing, or whatever, they analyse that metadata for the perpetrator. And the next one. And the next one. And build a profile of what a "terrorist's" communication patterns look like. And then they single out everyone matching that profile and stick watches on them, or bring them in. It's Minority Report without the psychics. G…

> It's Minority Report without the psychics.

Wow, that never occurred to me. Analyzing Metadata really is a lot like "pre-crime".

Sure, in a sense all police or intelligence work can be looked at in a way that makes it seem "like pre-crime" - after all, crime prevention does have its merits. But putting every single citizen on the list is something different entirely and really does smack of "psychics".

Re: Prism Break

#155

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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…

There are a number of flaws in your argument. The first is that we can do two things at once. Using privacy-protecting technologies is not mutually exclusive with promoting privacy-protecting legislation. We can, and should, do both.

But the more significant point is that using this stuff, as an individual, isn't really going to cut it without more, but who says that's the idea? We need to be creating things like this. What we have here is a list of open source projects you should all be contributing to and promoting to anyone you have influence over, and a list whose holes and shortcomings provide opportunities for creating new things.

I mean what good is Diaspora if everyone you know is still on Facebook anyway? But if you create an account and use it regularly, and convince as many people as you can to do likewise, that's how change ultimately happens.

And what you can do is: Read Facebook, write Diaspora. Don't shut off your Facebook account if all your friends still use it. Not enough people are sufficiently purist for that to scale. Just stop posting anything to Facebook that doesn't consist of "I just posted something you might be interested in to Diaspora" and then let all your friends wonder what they could be missing.

Re: Prism Break

#156

Post by mr_spothawk »

sanukcm wrote: post #147
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…

> Is the idea that our democracies could eventually fix this situation really beyond all hope? Of course not. We should vote these creeps out of office and elect someone that really stands for privacy and civil liberties - like this promising young man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fnfVJzZT4

"The FISA court works. The separation of powers works."

'works' for who, buddy?

Re: Prism Break

#157

Post by mr_spothawk »

skore wrote: post #154
rahoulb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also extremely likely - the NSA/GCHQ/Whoever siphon off all "metadata". At the next Boston bombing, or whatever, they analyse that metadata for the perpetrator. And the next one. And the next one. And build a profile of what a "terrorist's" communication patterns look like. And then they single out everyone matching that profile and stick watches on them, or bring them in. It's Minority Report without the psychics. G…

> It's Minority Report without the psychics. Wow, that never occurred to me. Analyzing Metadata really is a lot like "pre-crime". Sure, in a sense all police or intelligence work can be looked at in a way that makes it seem "like pre-crime" - after all, crime prevention does have its merits. But putting every single citizen on the list is something different entirely and really does smack of "psychics".

>Wow, that never occurred to me. Analyzing Metadata really is a lot like "pre-crime".

I thought that's why everybody's freaking out. I mean... that's why I'm freaking out. I haven't even seen the movie.

Re: Prism Break

#159

Post by schrijver »

sondr3 wrote: post #101
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…

I'm at a bit of a crossroad, and I'm not entirely sure whether it's worth it; I've converted to Firefox from Chrome, moved to Piwik from Google Analytics, moved from Google Reader to Fever and so on. But it's just that it doesn't feel like it'll make a difference in the long run because nothing I'm doing will stop them if they actually do go after me. It might help against tracking and such, but I feel like it's just…

On an individual level you’re probably right, if the government wants to track you, they might find a way—so this is more about doing the right thing because you hope more people do it. Google analytics, for example, is mainly problematic because everyone uses it, which creates a graph where at Google’s end, ip numbers can get a very detailed surfing history, as users hop from GA using server to GA using server. One person using Piwik changes nothing, many people using it will.

Re: Prism Break

#160

Post by MisterWebz »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #152
Homunculiheaded wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 publ…

>I see no feasible way to reduce the power and authority of the militarized aspects of our government(s). I partly think it's because people are asking for the wrong things. People say things like "stop NSA surveillance" which is vague and impractical. What needs to happen is to hit them where it hurts: Reduce total defense spending to 50% of what it is now. That should be the demand from everyone. Money is power. If…

If you want them to have less power, you need other powerful entities to tell them to stop abusing their powers. Boycott the tech giants and you'll see it happen. it's way more effective than any protest or online petition.
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