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NZ Professor Advocates Civil Disobedience Against Mass Surveillance

Posted by samzenpus on from the fight-the-power dept.

nut writes "We're all aware of how much surveillance we are under on the internet thanks to Edward Snowden. Gehan Gunasekara, an associate commercial law professor at Auckland University in New Zealand, wants us all to start sending suspicious looking but meaningless data across the internet to overload automated surveillance systems. Essentially he is advocating a mass distributed Bayesian poisoning attack against our watchers."

16 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Need to Do More by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just sending a bunch of keywords in email isn't enough - emacs has had a spook function since the 80s so they are kind of used to that stuff by now./ You'll have to act like a crazy-pants terrorist.

    To make it really work we need to bring the eternal september to the islamic extremist websites. Everybody go post on those arabic jihadi websites. Uh, does anyone know of any arabic jihadi websites? Or how to read and write arabic?

    1. Re:Need to Do More by jamesh · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just sending a bunch of keywords in email isn't enough - emacs has had a spook function since the 80s so they are kind of used to that stuff by now./ You'll have to act like a crazy-pants terrorist.

      To make it really work we need to bring the eternal september to the islamic extremist websites. Everybody go post on those arabic jihadi websites. Uh, does anyone know of any arabic jihadi websites? Or how to read and write arabic?

      Even that's not enough. Everyone needs to buy backpacks, pressure cookers, and explosives, so the authorities have no hope of finding the actual terrorists. Also take lots of flying lessons but deliberately skip the parts about landing and taking off. And bring a knife and a gun with you _every_ time you fly. They can't lock us all up right?

    2. Re:Need to Do More by rts008 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't forget to download the US Army publication (available many places online, in various formats) :
      "TM 31-210: Improvised Munitions Handbook".
      I was issued this TM (Technical Manual) when I was in the US Army in 1977. Instant science geek Massive Woody! The actual printed manual even had many blank pages, with a note at the beginning of the book on how to construct an effective, simple balance scale, and the info that each page of the book weighed one gram!

      After the intro of the 'MacGyver' TV series, it became 'the MacGyver Bible' by the troops.

      I highly recommend the book for the potentially useful info, and the entertainment value.

      DISCLAIMER:
      Most of the recipes/procedures are dangerous and risky!
      Keep in mind the context of this manual. Alarmingly, the context is for a would be terrorist, guerrilla fighter, insurgent, etc.....go figure...

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    3. Re:Need to Do More by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Under UK Law, downloading this could result in a prison sentence.

    4. Re:Need to Do More by bdwebb · · Score: 5, Informative

      I was at two of the Occupy protests in downtown LA and one in San Francisco and they were ALL exactly as the media reported - there was no real organization or structure to them that all or even most of those involved participated in, the message each 'group' was trying to deliver was highly divergent, and many of the 'protesters' were just assholes on bikes with bandanas covering their nose and mouth being dicks to passersby and drivers alike.

      I hate organized media organizations for the travesty that they have become to unbiased reporting but my personal experience with the Occupy protests were that they were spot-the-fuck on. Also, in each of the three that I traveled hundreds of miles to go to, the police didn't stamp out shit...they showed up in strength but they didn't bother me or anyone I knew of who wasn't purposely trying to cause problems. Again, I'm not fond of the establishment but I was fairly impressed at the restraint shown by the 'peace-keepers'.

      Things may be different in NYC; however, in other parts of the country, at least in the two cities I visited during the Occupy protests, there was local and national media coverage all over the place and things were as fair as could be expected.

    5. Re:Need to Do More by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In high school, I got in interested in explosive chemistry, so I had a local bookstore order The Anarchists Cookbook for me. The easiest recipes are the most dangerous. I asked my grandfather to get me the materials for the easiest and most-powerful thing to make (because he knew everyone, and could get anything), and he basically told me I was crazy. I was asking to make the detonator that he loaded into howitzer shells during the war. The stuff was so sensitive, they tested it by firing shells through PAPER. I was still determined to make SOMEthing that exploded.

      Then my chemistry teacher (who I was very close to) caught wind of what my best friend and I were up to. One day, he didn't lecture or give us a lab. He did a demo. While he talked about the weather, or some other nonsense, he very calmly distilled a couple of drops of 100% nitric acid. He didn't explain any of this; I just knew enough about it to know what was going on. He then poured HALF of that couple of drops into a fire tube and stuffed a wad of test tube straw packing material into it. He continued to talk while the nitric acid effused into the straw. He then started a wood splint on fire, and held it towards the open end of the fire tube, which he had placed at a 45-degree angle. The straw ignited, and the wad shot about 12 or 15 feet across the room. I understood that he had just made very weak dynamite, and saw how powerful that was, and immediately resigned to not screw around with trying to make explosives. He never explained why he did it, to me, or the rest of the class, but I learned the lesson as clearly as I ever learned any.

    6. Re:Need to Do More by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In general one problem is that when these NSA/Google and Edward Snowden cases are forgotten in the popular media, the discussion about the wiretap agencies cools down and we forget about them after some months. At the same time they continue to do their job, silently in the background. Thus it is important to keep the discussion alive and keep developing aggressive methods to protect our privacy.

    7. Re:Need to Do More by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Informative

      Keep in mind the context of this manual. Alarmingly, the context is for a would be terrorist, guerrilla fighter, insurgent, etc.....go figure...

      Not sure why you're surprised by that ... the US has funded insurgencies against governments they don't like for decades.

      A lot of nasty, vicious people were funded because they were opposed to the Soviets. In fact, Bin Laden and many of the people in Afghanistan were funded by the US.

      The US used to fund what they'd now class as terrorists to overthrow democratically elected governments they didn't like the ideology of -- which in no small part is why there's a lot of resentment in Latin America against the US.

      Don't act like the last decade or so has been in a vacuum. These types of groups were actively (and sometimes secretly) funded and trained over a large number of years, and often some of the more appalling things they did were overlooked because of Cold War ideology.

      That the US literally wrote the book on how to do this is of no surprise to anybody else. If you train attack dogs, you better be damned sure you can control them or they'll turn on you.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. Suspicious looking but meaningless data? by korbulon · · Score: 5, Funny

    What does that even mean?

    Death metal to America!

  3. You first! by Seumas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fifteen years ago, I'd have been all for causing a disruption. Exercising my self-evident liberties and thwarting The Man, when he came down on me for it.

    Now, I have a fucked up back from a car crash, a fucked up knee from wrestling, a mortgage, people depending on me, a professional career, and neighbors. The amount of ways they could absolutely obliterate my life at their slightest whim are uncountable. As much as I'm all about people doing something and not just playing "Reddit-pretend-rebel/protestor", we are beyond the time of, say, the 90s -- where civil disobedience and voicing your dissent or even just being a vocal weirdo just got you either a knock on the door or a two hour trip into and out of your local lockup. We're in a time where you become an instant "child molester" or you just disappear or your finances go all permanently wonky, or you get "investigated" and now your neighbors and employer and coworkers all wonder what you've been up to that has raised the interest of The Man.

    1. Re:You first! by musth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So this is what fear looks like.

    2. Re:You first! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The man has won. People are too afraid to do anything that gets any attention since the over reactions are a clear and present danger. In a sense the terrorist won too since America seem to be loosing all the rights defined in the constitution. It saddens me that the tools that can be used to increase communication and understanding around the world have turned inward to monitor, cower and censor us.

    3. Re:You first! by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While we were jerking ourselves off in the streets over finally nailing Osama, we forgot to consider that he had already achieved what he wanted the better part of a decade before he was snuffed out. He's bogged us down in military action on at least two fronts that has gone on for over a decade and shows no signs of resolving (or gave certain government agents the justification to carry out actions they already desired in the first place), he's given politicians the tool of fear to leverage the American people into accepting the erosion of every vital liberty that we were founded on, and he has contributed to significantly speeding along our national debt to astronomical new heights.

      The saddest part is that everyone playing Reddit-liberator in 2013 couldn't have given the slightest fuck when everyone else was screaming about what was being done the dozen years prior to this. Thus, we end up with things which dwarf The USA PATRIOT Act (which was to have sunsetted years ago, but like inch you give the government, will never be given back).

      Frankly, I don't even know that any amount of dissent and disapproval from the citizens will ever amount to anything. If principles, law, and opinion mattered, they wouldn't have been doing these things in the dark to begin with. At best, a wave of overwhelming disapproval will scurry them all back into the dark (where they'd rather be, anyway) to carry on as they have for years with total disregard for the public.

      Meanwhile, those who would risk exposing the government or make their dissent a focus of their attention wind up with the IRS being thrown at them like a rabid dog. They end up on no-fly lists. They end up on watch lists. They end up being investigated. Their entire histories end up being investigated. Their every association investigated. Intimidated. Threatened. They end up charged with espionage and treason. They end up running to other nations for their lives, for exposing those within a free government who are working to squelch the very freedom that government is meant to protect. The sad thing is, these are not the lunatic ravings of a paranoid conspiracy nut. Not any longer. These are documented incidents and practices in the mainstream press (and until the press were the victims of targets of these investigations, surveillances, intimidations, and threats -- even they weren't bothering to report on these stories). What was once the unthinkable fantasy-land of paranoid guys who see black helicopters everywhere is now both real and, apparently, accepted.

      And that is why I say "you first" in response to the urging for civil disobedience, dissent, and political activism (at least as far as constitutional issues go). Because, when you take that bold step forward, most of your fellow citizens are taking a giant step back. Hell, half of them are flat out against you.

    4. Re:You first! by aralin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The amount of ways they could absolutely obliterate my life at their slightest whim are uncountable. We're in a time where you become an instant "child molester" or you just disappear or your finances go all permanently wonky, or you get "investigated" and now your neighbors and employer and coworkers all wonder what you've been up to that has raised the interest of The Man.

      This is to a dot the same justification my father gave me for joining and staying in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia back in 1985. I was taught early on in my adolescence not to stick the head out, mind my own business and ignore the governemt abuses of power.

      --
      If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
  4. Re:Excellent Idea by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We should do this, and make user-friendly encryption tools more widely available to the non-geek community as well.

    Tools are not the problem. The problem is that at a certain scale you need some infrastructure to distribute and authenticate encryption keys and at that point you'll run into the same problem we're at now

    Oh if only there were some decentralized trust management system like PGP!
    If only someone from the 1970's could travel Half a Century into the future to tell us about Diffe-Hellman key exchanges.
    If only Six Degrees were about level of separation required to link all humanity to an Erdos Number of One.

    WHY! Oh Why? Why have I wound up trapped in this Math Forsaken Timeline AGAIN?!!
    Please, sir! Tell me they haven't outlawed plotting the series of Zn+1=Zn*Zn+c too?!
    Security be damned, I just couldn't live in a world without beauty...

  5. WTF??? Was "Re:Need to Do More" by ifdef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, maybe this is just whooshing over my head, but ... "so the authorities have no hope of finding the actual terrorists"?

    But, but, I WANT them to find the "actual terrorists".

    I DON'T want them to accuse innocent people of being terrorists. I don't want them to break down doors with guns blazing because someone didn't answer the door fast enough. I don't want them to frighten young children (or adults that have the mental capacity of young children) at airports. I don't want the police to pay a visit to people just because someone Googled "pressure cookers" while his wife Googled "backpacks". I don't want them to arrest people for wearing suspicious T-shirts, or kick people off of airplanes because they are speaking Russian (or Arabic, or Spanish) to each other. I don't want them to shoot to kill because someone dark-skinned is running for the train. I do not want the police to act on false positives.

    But I definitely DO want them to catch the "actual terrorists" before they can commit their acts of terrorism!