[governance] Opt out of PRISM

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 13.06.13 10:03, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
> Kalchev
>
> While some call me a conspiracy nut, this sounds conspiratorial... and 
> I am afraid you are quite serious.

I am of course not writing any of this with sarcasm. However, you need 
to understand I in no way set or suggest any policy -- merely apply 
common sense and point out where wishful thinking in the area of "I 
won't use (say) Microsoft's products so I will be safe from spying, 
because Microsoft is participating in the NSA program" is not really 
helping anyone not being tracked. I myself don't use Microsoft products 
for completely different reasons.

> Are you certain about this view? The reason I ask is because then we 
> need T&A (and Science and Technology more generally) to be 
> democratised so that this kind of spying is limited or difficult to do.

It is only logical I am certain of my own view and opinion. If you ask 
me, whether I am merely relaying someone else's view, my answer is no.

There is one very tricky aspect about "democracy". It provides and 
protects both rights "to spy on someone" and "to not be tracked". In 
essence, as the thousands of years human history has recorded, the 
stronger will always prevail ("stronger", having multiple dimensions).

The classical interpretation of this is the never ending competition 
between armor and weapons. When you invent an armor that resists any 
known weapon, a new weapon that defeats your armor will be invented, and 
so on.

> This is what could be called a social cost (i.e. bilateral 
> arrangements that have third party implications which are negative) 
> and which need to be internalised into the technology (i.e. go to 
> design issues) to minimise them... otherwise it is Bentham's 
> Panopticon...

The social cost is very obvious: you give up privacy and security in 
exchange to the ability to socialize with other people. If you don't 
want others to know where you are, what you do etc there is a simple 
solution - go live "in the woods", give up any communication technology 
and contacts with others. If you are willing to pay this price, then 
chances that someone will be spying on you will be reduced. Never 
eliminated, though.

Observing others and staying aware of the situation around you is an 
intrinsic human instinct. Structures like NSA will always exist, both 
government and private.

I don't believe any technology can be forced into designs that prevent 
"spying", because that might sort of make the technology less useful. It 
also definitely makes it "non-democratic".
Case at point (a bit technical, I am afraid): Apple's iOS that runs 
their mobile devices is designed in such a way, that applications are 
always forcibly sandboxed and can access only their very own data. What 
this in essence means is that it is not possible to write any kind of 
"antivirus" or "anti-malware" application for iOS, because that 
application by definition needs access to "everything", which in essence 
means "being able to spy". Now, iOS is designed so no application can 
spy on another.
If you open the slightest possibility for such applications to be 
written for iOS, you open the door to malware and viruses.
While very valuable from end-user security standpoint, and protecting 
the device from the end-user lack of security, this is a form of 
"dictatorship", not "democracy".
Whether it is any good, it all depends on the circumstances. At the end, 
this design does not prevent the OS itself to spy on it's users.

> And it just means that unless one is air gapped, people could be 
> Swartzed... I mean the statements thus far deal with many Human 
> Rights, but the spying covers even attorney client privilege (they do 
> this Guantanamo and have done it with Bradley Manning) without which 
> there is no justice, no law, and a peculiar order... Was info used by 
> NSA etc to squeeze Swartz etc all become relevant... He was broken by 
> a state that seemed to have inordinate power...
>

This is all obviously outside of my field of expertise. Nothing in 
technology is related to Human Rights. With a kitchen knife you can both 
slice bread and kill a man, or many.
Power balance is important in nature and no matter what our desires are, 
it all happens. If NSA is too strong today, this only means it will have 
balancing power at least that strong of not stronger.

Which is more appropriate for the society, to have few extremely 
powerful entities, potentially competing with each other, or to make 
sure power is distributed wider at lower levels is perhaps the primary 
question. But, I don't believe the US will give up on NSA being "the 
most powerful", ever. As long as they can.

Daniel

>
> On 2013/06/13 09:46 AM, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
>>
>> On 12.06.13 20:17, parminder wrote:
>>> "Opt out of PRISM, the NSA’s global data surveillance program. Stop 
>>> reporting your online activities to the American government with 
>>> these free alternatives to proprietary software."
>>> http://prism-break.org/
>>>
>>> Interesting!!
>>>
>>
>> Yes, interesting. Interesting how people will believe anything, that 
>> they might think would solve their "problem".
>>
>> The issue here is that NSA collects data in transit and at the server 
>> side. Not so much on your own computer. They don't have to, actually. 
>> So even if you use Linux, accessing Facebook, or even mailing to this 
>> mailing list (or any other mailing list that you believe is "closed") 
>> still gets intercepted and processed.
>>
>> By avoiding Windows, you simply cut off Microsoft. By avoiding OS X 
>> you cut of Apple. But you never cut off NSA. You also hardly cut off 
>> Google significantly, as they already bribed millions of web site 
>> maintainers to include their spyware on their sites, in exchange of 
>> money.
>>
>> If you need to do things securely, you need to understand the process 
>> and build your own tools and environment -- in the process 
>> "restricting" your possibilities. Then, you should be prepared to 
>> deal with all the intelligence and counter-intelligence that will get 
>> thrown at you.
>>
>> In short, "normal people" can do very little "against" NSA spying on 
>> them, as this involves spending more than NSA spends. Which is hardly 
>> doable. Even for most governments.
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>
>
>



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