You Are Being Watched – Protecting Yourself from the Surveillance State

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You Are Being Watched – Protecting Yourself from the Surveillance State

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watched

A presentation I gave on NSA spying.

On Github tvanantwerp / watched

You Are Being Watched

Protecting Yourself from the Surveillance State

By Tom VanAntwerp, Presented at American Univeristy on 9/19/2013

Follow Along

www.TomVanAntwerp.com/watched

Privacy Is Dead

Get over it.

Digital Footprints

  • You Use Web Services, Purchases, Phone Calls, and more
  • Nearly Every Physical Action Leaves Digital Traces
  • Combined, Digital Footprints Record Your Physical Actions

Your Footprint

The NSA Steals Your Data

  • Innumerable Programs Exist to Get Your Data
  • Data is Intercepted at Routers and Undersea Cables
  • Companies are Forced to Surrender Data, Bound by Gag Order
  • Cryptography is Made Intentionally Weak
  • Good Old Fashioned Surveillance

You Do Have Something to Hide

  • Laws and Regulations are So Numerous, Most Americans Commit 3 Felonies Per Day
  • Total Surveillance Reduces Marginal Costs of Law Enforcement
  • Computing Power - and, by Extension, Surveillance - Increases Exponentially
  • Your Guilt + Ease of Proof = Control
Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded. ...you don't have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis...Edward Snowden

But Surely They Won't...

...except that they have.

  • The FBI's COINTELPRO program infiltrated and surveilled "subversive" groups, including Dr. Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights activists
  • Occupy groups have also faced infiltration and surveillance

Four Coping Strategies

Sell Out

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! The NSA is always hiring!

Selling Out

Pros

  • Comfortable Life
  • Probably Not a Target

Selling Out

Cons

  • You're Evil
  • You May be a Target Anyway
David Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA in disgrace after the FBI unintentionally discovered his affair with Paula Broadwell by reading his emails.

Go Luddite

Technology is the enemy. Live a life apart from the world with only the basics. Forsake the digital life.

Becoming a Luddite

Pros

  • Off the Grid, Off the Graph
  • You Will Probably be Left Alone

Becoming a Luddite

Cons

  • You Exist Outside of Society
  • Harder Life, Shorter Life, Lonlier Life
  • No Allies, No Impact
  • You're Suspicious
Ted Kaczynski, AKA The Unabomber, was a PhD mathematician who believed technology threatened freedom. He moved to the woods and started mailing bombs to people. He was identified by family after they recognized his writing style from his manifesto.

Live in a Glass House

You are so extremely public and without shame such that spies have no leverage.

Living in a Glass House

Pros

  • Cannot be Coerced Based on Secrets
  • No Need for Secrecy

Living in a Glass House

Cons

  • You May Have No Secrets, But What About Loved Ones?
  • Publishing All of Your Data is Hard
Nicholas Felton, a designer at Facebook, lives publicly by recording data on all his daily activities and publishing it annually in the Feltron Report.

Compartmentalize

Determine which threats you realistically face, take appropriate precautionary measures.

Compartmentalization

Pros

  • Changes to Lifestyle are Relatively Minor
  • Allows Some Security, Some Anonymity, and Social Life

Compartmentalization

Cons

  • Hard to Know Exactly Which Threats You Face
  • Difficult to Implement, Easy to Screw Up

Let's Compartmentalize

Security vs. Anonymity

Security is making yourself a difficult target to attack. Anonymity is disguising yourself to avoid targeting.

Know Your Weak Spots

  • Networked Computers
  • Cell Phones
  • Transportation
  • Financial Transactions
  • Physical Surveillance
  • Humans

Cyberspace vs. Meatspace

We live in the physical world - Meatspace - and are surveiled through the digital world - Cyberspace. In Meatspace, force rules. In Cyberspace, math rules.

It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics.-Bruce Schneier

Security with Cryptography

Cryptography uses math that is ease to solve in one direction, but hard to solve in the other direction, to scramble information.

Strong cryptography can resist an unlimited application of violence. No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem.-Julian Assange in Cypherpunks

How Key Exchange Works

Caveats to Crypto

Anonymity

Spies can identify you as a target by profiling your digital footprint. Minimize the footprint to avoid detection.

You are a Unique Snowflake

See for yourself.

You May Remember Me From...

  • IP Address
  • Common Username or Email
  • Tracking Scripts and Cookies
  • Unique Computer Details
  • Style of Writing
  • Your Face

More Secure, Less Anonymous

Atypical actions change your profile and make you stand out. This includes strong cryptography and the use of anonymization tools. Tradeoff.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.-Albert Camus

Resources

Resources Continued

Bruce Schneier's Blog For fun, Cory Doctorow's Pirate Cinema, Little Brother, and Homeland
Our task is to secure self-determination where we can, to hold back the coming dystopia where we cannot, and if all else fails, to accelerate its self-destruction.-Julian Assange