“Cryptography is the ultimate form of nonviolent direct action. While nuclear weapons states can exert unlimited violence over even millions of individuals, strong cryptography means that a state, even by exercising unlimited violence, cannot violate the intent of individuals to keep secrets from them. Strong cryptography can resist an unlimited application of violence. No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem.”
—Julian Assange, A Call to Cryptic Arms “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet”
I just started reading this book, which includes discussions with Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn & Jérémie Zimmerman. You can buy a copy here!
For more on cypherpunks, WikiLeaks & internet freedom, watch this episode of The Julian Assange Show Part 1 & Part 2.
Cypherpunk Rising: WikiLeaks, Encryption, And The Coming Surveillance Dystopia
Klint Finley
R.U. Sirius wrote:
If, in 1995, some cypherpunks had published a book about the upcoming “postmodern surveillance dystopia,” most commentators would have shrugged it off as just a wee bit paranoid and ushered them into the Philip K. Dick Reading Room. Now, it is more likely that people will shrug and say, “that ship has already sailed.”
Full Story: The Verge: Cypherpunk rising: WikiLeaks, encryption, and the coming surveillance dystopia
'Quit Google, Facebook' suggests tech expert as surveillance scandal deepens (Wired UK)
wired.co.ukA best-selling author and technology expert has said that web users should boycott internet giants like Google and Facebook if it is confirmed they were involved in a US surveillance programme referred to as Prism.
In an interview with Wired.co.uk, Professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law School suggested that consumers had a responsibility to leave social networks found out to be collaborating secretly with intelligence services such as the US National Security Agency:
“Quit Facebook and use another search engine. It’s simple.” He added, “It’s nice to keep in touch with your friends. But I think if you find out if it’s true that these companies are involved in these surveillance programs you should just quit.”
Wu cautioned that he felt many facts were not yet verified but admitted he was not surprised to hear of the existence of Prism. News of the programme was, he said, “shocking and dispiriting”.
“When you have enormous concentrations of data in a few hands, spying becomes very easy,” said Wu. “So Facebook and Google were always obvious targets for any government that wants to know stuff about people.”
Wu was speaking after giving a keynote speech to delegates of ORGCon2013, an Open Rights Group conference held in London on Saturday 8 June. Appearing to refer to Prism during his address, Wu asserted that the current situation was one of “crisis”.
As part of his keynote, Wu described several historical examples of technologies having been used as tools of oppression or societal control, such as enforced propaganda radio broadcasts by the Nazi regime. He also commented that he felt web users ought to have a “visceral” sense of ownership over their online data.
In further comments made during interview, Wu criticised the track record of the Obama administration on civil liberty issues, saying that the Justice Department under Obama had, in his opinion, been, “a colossal disappointment in this respect”.
Responding to remarks made by President Obama immediately following revelations on Prism, Wu said, “I think he is underestimating the degree to which people want to feel safe and secure from eavesdropping.” Wu added, “I’m not relieved by his comments at all.”
Wu is known for his views on “network neutrality”, a phrase he coined in the title of a 2003 academic paper which argued that internet service providers and governments should give equal treatment to all data transmitted via telecommunications networks.
According to a leaked PowerPoint presentation, Prism is a secret intelligence programme created to enable members of the NSA to retrieve user data from co-operating technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and Skype.
Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group, told Wired.co.uk: “I think people need to seriously consider quitting [these] services and moving to ones which are located within Europe. But also the government needs to insist that legal rights and privacy rights should be applied to non-US citizens. After all, European governments respect the rights of US citizens. Why shouldn’t they do the same?”
Referring to the breaking of the Prism story two days before ORGCon2013, Killock said, “It focused the minds of everyone at the conference.” He added that many members of ORG believed “they had to do their part to stop such abuses”.
DHS Watchdog OKs ‘Suspicionless’ Seizure of Electronic Devices Along Border
wired.comThe Department of Homeland Security’s civil liberties watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronic devices seized and their contents reviewed for any reason whatsoever — all in the interest of national security.
And by “travelers”, they mean anyone who lives within 100 miles of the coast. That includes the entire state of Florida.
“The new world of the internet, abstracted from the old world of brute atoms, longed for independence. But states and their friends moved to control our new world -- by controlling its physical underpinnings. The state, like an army around an oil well, or a customs agent extracting bribes at the border, would soon learn to leverage its control of physical space to gain control over our platonic realm. It would prevent the independence we had dreamed of, and then, squatting on fiber optic lines and around satellite ground stations, it would go on to mass intercept the information flow of our new world -- its very essence even as every human, economic, and political relationship embraced it. The state would leech into the veins and arteries of our new societies, gobbling up every relationship expressed or communicated, every web page read, every message sent and every thought googled, and then store this knowledge, billions of interceptions a day, undreamed of power, in vast top secret warehouses, forever. It would go on to mine and mine again this treasure, the collective private intellectual output of humanity, with ever more sophisticated search and pattern finding algorithms, enriching the treasure and maximizing the power imbalance between interceptors and the world of interceptees. And then the state would reflect what it had learned back into the physical world, to start wars, to target drones, to manipulate UN committees and trade deals, and to do favors for its vast connected network of industries, insiders and cronies.”
—Julian Assange, A Call to Cryptographic Arms
Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily
guardian.co.ukThe National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.
The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
Read more at the link.
