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Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist
schwit1 passes on this snippet from Public Intelligence: "A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity. The document, part of a program called 'Communities Against Terrorism,' lists the use of 'anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address' as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity. The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using 'software to hide encrypted data in digital photos' or other media. In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone 'overly concerned about privacy' or attempting to 'shield the screen from view of others' should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities. ... The use of PGP, VPNs, Tor or any of the many other technologies for anonymity and privacy online are directly targeted by the flyer, which is distributed to businesses in an effort to promote the reporting of these activities."
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." - Eric Schmidt, Google CEO
"[There's an] error in logic that leads to short-sighted conceptions of privacy like Schmidt's. ... Google, governments, and technologists need to understand more broadly that ignoring privacy protections in the innovations we incorporate into our lives not only invites invasions of our personal space and comfort, but opens the door to future abuses of power." - EFF
Can you believe that the Internet was once considered a place to escape identity? Where anonymity reigned? It's pretty amazing in retrospect how quickly that changed, and the way people are now trained to reveal everything on Facebook and Twitter is creating a society that doesn't understand the value and the power of their personal information. They're willing to reveal all, to act as better products for advertisers and to avoid suspicion from overbearing governments.
These might be signs of someone being a terrorist. It's just that 99.9% aren't and you're basically taking away privacy from everyone by treating the use of such tools as being suspicious. It's exactly what terrorists want to achieve.
"Like privacy? You may be a terrorist!"
It's thinking like that which risks turning me into a terrorist.
Welcome privacy advocates to the Accused of Being A Terrorist While Doing Nothing Wrong Club. Take a seat over there next to the Photographers (because terrorists will really cart around a DSLR and tripod in their terrifying terroristic travels).
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The sad thing is, people still believe the US government has their best interests at heart and is not trying to oppress them.
They seem to think a tyranny is impossible in the USA.
"Suspicious communications using VOIP or communicating through a PC game" Seriously!? Communicating through a videogame? By that definition every single child who plays online computer games that allow them to talk to others is a potential threat. I wonder what that means for all those who play Modern Warfare and the like? Maybe they're TRAINING to be terrorists! The US lawmakers sicken me.
This is why everyone should use such tools and practices, all the time.
.... for I relish in my privacy rights. I always try to hide what I do from others. I refuse to have an account on Facebook, or other social media tools. I guess this makes me suspect.
Forget that my Civil Liberties are being stripped away one chip at a time, and my right to privacy is a pursuit to my life, liberty and happiness, which is in the Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,[75] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
So I guess our founding fathers were Terrorists then....
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
"Suspicious or coded writings, use of code word sheets, cryptic ledgers, etc"
To the average citizen, most programming languages would fit this.
To the average (US) citizen, simple declarative English sentences would fit this.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Anyone accessing any kind of sensitive information (like reading email) at an internet cafe is exposing themselves to the possibility of every type of electronic snooping by criminals, up to and including laptop theft. It would be folly not to employ strong security measures when accessing the net under such circumstances.
This is like claiming people who lock their front doors fit a criminal profile, because they are trying to keep people from seeing what they have or are doing in their houses.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Rights become crimes, making more criminals out of thin air. Suddenly there's a lot of crime going on, so we strip more rights, to deal with all the crimes. It's pretty damn circular.
Porquoi?
**Potential** Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Internet Café
All they say that is that if someone goes long out of his way to hide something, then what he/she is trying *might* be related to terrorism.
Simple as that.
I'd like to point out that I was, indeed, using a computer (with privacy tools) in an Internet Cafe in California (an airport, no less!) only last month, after having traveled an illogical distance and despite having robust residential Internet access.
While doing so, I did download content with extremely violent themes and military tactics. Indeed, the material enthusiastically described the ruthless, near-extermination of a freedom-loving people by a warlike, non-Christian foreign power bent on world conquest. The material was written by leader of these warlike people, and frankly I was rooting for him.
If I have to go to prison for reading Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, so be it. Sic Semper...wait a minute...
Advice: on VPS providers
All of the above, together, are lawful conduct and behavior. You don't just get the rights in the Constitution one at a time -- you get them all at once, as much as you want.
Does anyone pay attention to history?
Seriously?
I had a public school education, yet i know how this ends.
Be seeing you...
Let me introduce everyone to those two important concepts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity
The problem is that while terrorists may indeed exhibit those behaviors, a massively larger number of people who are not terrorists also do. Like, oh, doctors, nurses, your insurance company, finance companies, any company that has trade secrets, any individual who has a sense of privacy, etc.
In other words, the positive predictive value of that test is extremely low. Nearly every time you report someone, you're reporting someone who is not a terrorist. In fact, I seriously doubt the pool of suspects generated by this would be any higher in actual terrorists than random selection would get you.