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On 15/04/13 17:24, bad apple wrote:
On 15/04/13 16:41, Simon Avery wrote:
You're a commodity, any information about you is bought and sold legally,
what is known about you will be surprising to most, and the conclusions and
models based about what they do know, and what they can predict about you
will surprise even more. Facebook and Google didn't get rich out of
providing free services without any catches. Tesco doesn't give you loyalty
cards out of loyalty. Starbucks doesn't give you free coffee for free.
I don't doubt the government, MI5/6, the police and others have far more
information about you and me than I could expect. We're tracked in a
hundred ways every day and if nobody's pulling together these strings in
some huge Orwellian system already, then it won't be long. And if it's not,
I would put it down to the incompetence usually shown by any contract
involving the government and computers, especially when it comes to gluing
different systems together. Yes, the Human Rights laws may prevent what's
legally tracked about us, but I don't doubt laws are broken every day at
this level. And if you've got a healthy skin tan and a beard, well, almost
anything can be justified under the "what if..."
So you have three choices, as I see it:
1) Sacrifice the ease of modern living and the comforts associated and live
truly off grid. Good luck, and you shouldn't be here at all if that's the
case.
2) Know it's going on and spend your life worried and feeling... Well, I
was going to say paranoid, but it's not if they really are out to get you,
is it?
3) Accept it and get on with life, knowing you're monitored to a greater or
lesser degree. (That crime still happens and goes unsolved suggests I'm
painting an overly pessimistic view - unless that's what you're *meant* to
think! Maybe "crime" only exists to disprove suggestions like this?)
I even think the time has passed where an investigative journalist could
"expose" the system. It's already accepted, here, and doing very well.
(If you never hear from me again, I might just have been onto something)
I think Simon has pretty much nailed it here - I'd argue that the
only realistic option to pursue is an enlightened mix of options 2
and 3, that is to say, accept the situation as it stands (and
worry about it, because it's decidedly non-ideal), do NOT go out
of your way to make things any easier for them and try and set an
example by trying to make things better. Even if it's hopeless,
it's a noble goal to not accept the status quo when it sucks and
try to improve the situation for everyone.
Unsurprisingly, I don't have Twitter/Facebook or any other kind of
social media accounts. Unlike everyone else here, I only use my
real name in the few situations that actually require it -
typically IRL stuff. Technically, I use adblocking, proxies,
encryption, disposable accounts and most of the other tricks in
the book to stay untrackable on the internet: even now, googling
my real name has zero results (except for some conspicuous false
positives, I share a name with a vet in New Zealand apparently).
Where possible, I try to educate other people about these options
as well, and show them how to effectively deploy them: it's not
much, but it's something real and concrete I can do myself to try
and help change the surveillance society we have sleepwalked into.
I am under no illusions about this magically changing everything
though.
Generally speaking, I carry cash and very rarely use a trackable
plastic form of currency - I'm about as below the radar as is
possible for a normal, functioning member of society. However,
medical records, tax returns, my cell phone and ISP contracts and
a whole mass of other data out there does exist on me, and there's
nothing I can do about it. The only thing stopping MI5 or whomever
compiling a terrifyingly accurate and complete picture of my life
from my multiple discrete data trails is an easily obtained
warrant and as Simon rightly pointed out, the inherent
incompetence of monolithic governmental agencies.
We are all very much in the same boat here, just don't give up and
roll over no matter what. As the famous Burke quote goes:
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do
nothing."
I am totally open for suggestions as to what we 'good men' should
actually be doing, I'm not even going to pretend I have all the
answers. But to directly reply to Neil's original only direct
question "should I use GPG" the definitive answer is yes, yes you
should. Use encryption *everywhere*, and teach other people how to
use it as well, properly. One of the few things that can protect
against governmental and corporate over-arching snooping into our
lives is the awesome power and beauty of cold hard maths and solid
cryptographic principles.
Regards
My attitude to this stuff is a big "so what", "what do you expect".
Encryption, can't be bothered with that. The content of my e-mail is
so mundane, repetative and uninteresting to anyone else going to the
hassle of encrypting it and getting everyone I send it to having to
de-crypt (yes sure you can book the holiday cottage, just install
PGP first) it is just a major pain. Anyhow can PGP actually be used
with gmail on a smart phone?
Yes I could use an ad blocker, but I'd have to turn it off every
time I read The Guardian on-line, often, as I like The Guardian and
with falling print readership etc. ads and targeted ads is what
keeps it going. I don't want them to have to move to a subscription
model or even worse go bust.
This weekend I went to Krakow. I booked an apartment using
booking.com and gmail. After I land at Krakow JPII I start getting
"google cards" (android 4.2.2 feature) with links to google maps
that I can use to walk from the main station to the apartment, links
to websites about the old town and targeted ads for local peirogi
restaurants. This is actually useful and a whole lot easier than
asking Polish speakers how do I get to Ulista blahblahblah. I want
them to know where I am.
It's the internet! That is a public method of communication owned by
private companies and why anyone expects it to have the same level
of privacy as whispering to a friend in the bathroom with the taps
turned on and tin foil headgear in place really staggers me.
CCTV, well I'm not a huge fan, but if it might help if I'm beaten up
by some f-wit pre-loaded on vodka and then full of happy hour shorts
come Saturday night in some small town hell hole I'm not exactly
complaining.
This said I am not happy that Theresa May wants an archive of all
the mail I've ever sent my significant other (if for no other reason
than it's my tax quid that would be paying some public servant to
keep track of this vital stuff).
And of course if I lived in Belarus, Iran or North Korea of course I
wouldn't even dream of using the net for voicing my dissent. But
even then monitoring the internet is amongst the less disgusting
things these regimes inflict on their unfortunate citizens.
And yes, if I was plotting something fiendish then disposable phones
and encryption. But then I think you'd be pretty dumb to leave an
evidential trail of any sort if you were doing this. And if you're
sending commercially sensitive info encryption is probably a good
idea, even though industrial espionage is illegal.
If it gets to the point where the possibility of having our e-mail
read is a problem, then that will be the least of our problems....
proportionality....
(having googled NZ vets my guess is Bad Apple's name is "Gribbles" -
http://www.gribblesvets.co.nz/
:-) )
S
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