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Defending Against Surveillance?
Extrudedaluminiu asks: "With the recent news about domestic spying by the NSA, American citizens are put in a very difficult situation. Citizens in other countries, around the globe, also find themselves in situations where their lives can be examined by government agencies or other groups of questionable ethics. What can people in this kind of world do to defend themselves? Are there any approaches to thwarting or mitigating surveillance that will work on a mass scale? What technologies can people use to hold on to their freedoms, in a difficult world?"
For Gods sake people, what's wrong with you?! Write your Senators & Reps, and if they don't do anything, then vote these assholes out of office when the elections come! Donate money to the ACLU.
Seriously people, technologies won't help you hold on to your freedoms. There's no silver bullet. You have to do it for yourselves!
Move to Canada. I hear they still have a few remaining civil liberties here.
I'm sorry, but if they want you, they pretty much have you. Your only hope is to be so utterly dull that nobody wants you. You pretty much have to have no life whatsoever. Since you're asking for advice on Slashdot, I'd say you're safe.
There's a super secret high-tech black box invented by the ancient g(r)eeks that is designed to protect your freedoms. It's regular, educated use will prevent survellience. I suggest everyone learn to use one.
It's called a "ballot box."
You trust the system of a country with cameras on every corner, and a government that wants to hold you for 90 days so they have enough evidence to charge you with something?
Our judicial system on this side of the pond may have once been similar to yours, but you guys seem to be going down the 1984 route a lot faster than we are.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
OK, I'll start. I believe the following people have been acting suspiciously, and may represent a serious danger to our fundamental way of life here in the UK. I suggest that they be arrested and put on trial as soon as possible.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Get fat and walk around naked.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Encrypt everything. Don't make it obvious what is important and what isn't and force "them" to waste lots of processor cycles to get Aunt Betty's cobbler recipe. I'm planning to convert all my web sites to HTTPS.
Also, help throw up smoke screens. Spare bandwidth can be used to send random garbage - some of it should be truly random so no amount of work will allow someone to conclude that they have successfully decrypted usless data but rather that they still have work to do.
Educate yourself so you know how to protect your rights in the event that you become an unjust target.
Donate to the EFF, ACLU or other rights-defender of your choice.
Write your legislators, support those who will defend your freedoms, fight those who don't, and vote.
And remember to separate the people, the goals and the techniques. There really are "bad guys" out there and we have many smart and dedicated people defending us against them. Help them where you can. But remember that they are all sworn to defend the Constitution (here in the U.S.) and it's up to us to make sure they remember and abide by that pledge. The ends do not always justify the means.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
"Are there any approaches to thwarting or mitigating surveillance that will work on a mass scale?"
Poison their databases.
Plan and publicize, but don't hold, activities which fall under their "threat" category but aren't actually threatening, ie. protests at military related sites.
Call a flash mob that happens to be at such a place, but don't let that fact on when calling it.
Make sure to be at grandma's for Sunday dinner when such things do or do not occur.
Put up a web site for a bogus anti-something organization and encrypt the hell out of the pages, those being fair use snippets out of "Cryptonomicon" or some such.
There's far more potential spookees than spooks.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
weeping the room with an AM radio,while switching channels.... hello? other frequency ranges?
Actually, this used to work with early miniature transmitters. In an effort to keep them small, very little attention was paid to what undesirable RF was being thrown off by the device.
.sig: Now legally binding!
> Coat Hangers in the ceiling does nothing, nor does the tinfoil/aluminum foil hat.
Sure they do. After spending a few hours watching you putting up the hangers and making the hat, they'll write you off as a kook and spend their time spying on someone else.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> How about just not doing anything wrong in the first place and putting some belife in the judicial system, im not sure about you yanks, but i know that i generally trust the judicial system over here in the good ol' UK.
Yeah, the worst they'll do if you're innocent is chase you through the subways and shoot you six times in the head.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Encryption isn't a sure-fire solution for all privacy problems. Its an easy word to throw around, but the question that is more important is what to encrypt and how to handle the infrastructure around that.
For example, I could encrypt all my email, ever. But then who would be able to read it? A lot less people than now. I could encrypt or hide all traffic to/from my computer (Tor, stunnel, etc.), but those won't solve everything.
Also, what about getting data from organizations? Like asking universities, bookstore, online data vendors, phone companies, and more? Dropping off the "grid" entirely is a difficult option. But those services could hold enough data about you to drive massive holes through any comprehensive privacy policy.
Bzzztttt!
Appeal to Fear.
Well known logical fallacy.
You lose. Try again.
Other examples:
"You know, Professor Smith, I really need to get an A in this class. I'd like to stop by during your office hours later to discuss my grade. I'll be in your building anyways, visiting my father. He's your dean, by the way. I'll see you later."
"I don't think a Red Ryder BB rifle would make a good present for you. They are very dangerous and you'll put your eye out. Now, don't you agree that you should think of another gift idea?"
"You must believe that God exists. After all, if you do not accept the existence of God, then you will face the horrors of hell."
"You shouldn't say such things against multiculturalism! If the chair heard what you were saying, you would never receive tenure. So, you had just better learn to accept that it is simply wrong to speak out against it."
Make yourself a cap visor and shoulder pads festooned with infrared LEDs. Cameras are sensitive to infrared radiation, and this will cause a bright halo around your face so you won't be identified by the cameras, yet people will not see the obstuctive light.
Want to read my stuff? Go ahead and crack it - no warrant necessary.
Get the rabbit installed on a machine behind your firewall
==> http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
Faster than freenet
==> http://www.i2p.net/
Encrypt Jabber
==> http://www.vanemery.com/Linux/Jabber/jabberd.html
Onion Routing
==> http://tor.eff.org/
Emerging Network To Reduce Orwellian Potency Yield
==> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
Free Internet telephony
==> http://skype.com/
GNU-ified P2p
==> http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/
DO NOT DENY yourself about 2 hours @ InfoAnarchy.org
OMG! ==> http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Pag e
LearnLearnLearnLearn ==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography
=================EMAIL ENCRYPTION===============
GPG (Free PGP)
==> http://gnupg.org/
Integrated with Thunderbird
==> http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
Mutt can't be beat as a mailreader and integrates GPG wonderfully.
==> http://mutt.blackfish.org.uk/
==> http://www.mutt.org/links.html
==> http://wiki.mutt.org/index.cgi?UserPages
!!! Please do not immediately send newly created keys to the keyservers (as many HOWTOs instruct new users to). They are already overflowing with "test keys" and other people's experiments from over the years THAT HAVE NO EXPIRATION and will never be deleted. These keys are "orphans" and most will never be used. As keyservers sync together, and most keys are never deleted once submitted - GET YOUR KEY SETUP CORRECTLY AND HAVE PRACTICE WITH IT BEFORE SENDING IT OFF TO THE KEYSERVERS!!! Otherwise storage requirements will continue to grow and using these in the future will become more difficult FOR ALL. Please, if you are just starting out with PGP or GPG or GnuPG or anything similar (the last two are in fact the same thing) use manual key distribution to begin (ascii armor your public key with
$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org
and copy and paste it into an email body or attach it to an email
$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org > myPubKey.txt
to gain practice with GPG before uploading your key. This way if you need to create another you won't have uploaded your mistakes. Many choices need to be made and it's worth getting things right before "going public" with your new digital ID. Experiment with yourself and a few different email accounts or with some friends first.)
SET AN EXPIRATION OF 2-5 YEARS OR SO AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR PREFERENCES THE WAY YOU LIKE THEM BEFORE SENDING TO A KEYSERVER! Better yet is to HOST YOUR
Fill USENET with garbage? I was pretty sure that was already happening...
-Splat
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He wasn't chased at all. De Menezes *walked* through the station, broke into a trot on the platform to get into the train and then sat down. Next thing he knows a man who had accompanied him onto the train (a police officer, but Charles couldn't have known that because at no point did they identify themselves to him. Also at least 2 other surveillance officers were on the train with him) physically restrains him and pins him down into his seat, while two or more special ops police officers (or possibly soldiers..) come running along and then shoot him *eleven* times, no questions asked, over a 30 second period.
Course, he lived in the same building and had vaguely the same skin colour as a suspected terrorist, and he went from that building to a tube station, so you can't really blame the police.
The man reported by witnesses as running through Stockport station and jumping over the barrier was not Charles but one of the police officers (or SAS squaddies possibly, we don't know yet - MoD confirms military were involved, though they deny they were directly involved) running to go execute Charles.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.