Laura Poitras Reveals Her Own Life Under Surveillance
wired.com
wired.com
That line really highlighted the fallacy that "mass surveillance is effective" for me.
They were actively spying on her concurrently while she was "the subject of a grand jury investigation" and still were unable to deduce that she was actively conspiring with Edward Snowden which would ultimately decimate their reputation worldwide.
We could try to bet on technology-first approach. That means rewriting of all the stacks, create automated solutions that hack and/or patch systems (see DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge), hardening systems and protocols, etc. Now, this leaves us with dumb users that need to be retrained. And that can't be done.
And there is other side of things. While we wait for thing that may not happen (dark internet),
a) public money are being wasted
b) surveillance is creating chilling effect TODAY
c) wars with US involvement are raging, fuelling ranks of radicals in Arab world
Since we don't control all the stack(processors, maps ,cellular towers, etc ), and we'll probably won't be allowed to control all the stack , the technology-first approach is just wishful thinking.
Unfortunately, we're not there in the US yet. I believe it will come, in the same way that the search warrant became necessary for tapping someone's phone, say, but it will take time for society to catch up.
PGP doesn't necessarily protect against replay attacks either and when sent via email, the email the headers and subject lines are, of course, unencrypted and unprotected. Accordingly never put sensitive information in mail headers and, by extension, the subject line.
You can use a well-known strongset key for rendezvous but once contact is established always rotate PGP identities with every communication and discard target keys with the throw-keyid(s) option. PGP/GPG can keep you safe but it takes a significant amount of work to use correctly and one screw up can bring it all crashing down.
If you need it to keep you alive you must practice, practice and practice some more. Develop your own tools and filters to catch mistakes and always consider the metadata trail you might be leaving. Metadata can convict. Remember, the United States Government targets people for execution based on metadata alone.
Consider posting crypted/signed messages to Usenet instead of using email to obscure your communications. Sign and encrypt your messages on an offline system and distribute them online using a different and preferably public computer you don't own and only use once. Distribute and collect your correspondence via ToR if at all possible. Keep your keys offline on encrypted storage. Set up a duress key, always chain different keys (never thread messages with the same key) and always plan for failure, because if it can fail it will.
Only then will PGP/GPG have a chance at helping you stay alive and free.
You're post just came off as unnecessary negative on what was one of only two recommendations that worked consistently per the leaks. Anyone reading it wouldn't have known about its successes and would've assumed people just got busted all the time with it.
> That line really highlighted the fallacy that "mass surveillance is effective" for me.
Ohh it is so much worse than that. For me eye opening moment was CCC 2015 talk "What does Big Brother see, while he is watching?".
The main takeaway. People engaged in surveillance are not "evil", "villainous", "dark", "shadowy" or "dangerous", or even "malicious". They are bunch of very sad, very pathetic wankers. Their job has less meaning than any other job I can think of. (Even TSA airport checks may be more meaningful)
This is a powerful talk. And it frames global surveillance just as it should be framed. As a waste of money, people going through soul killing, democracy killing, privacy killing motions. Without any chance of getting closer to declared goal, using methodology that if anything, hurts their declared goals.
Unless their real goal is control! But in such case they should be called out on that and de-funded.
"What does Big Brother see, while he is watching? [32c3]"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Teu5qXJDFow
The site of the presenter:
However the reality is neither "evil" nor "pathetic" - they are us, the people reading this article, they are techies, hacker news readers, hackspace users, friends, geeks. They believe what they are doing is right, or they like being challenged by the mathematics, or they want to make a difference for their country, or they want to be at the leading edge of crypto.
That's the reality - the people engaged in the technical side of surveillance are hacker news readers.
So, for an example, the analyst might be monitoring aspects of the situation in Syria, including comms of Assad's people, to forward to people who make decisions to compete with that regime. The analyst will know there's others, esp various terrorist groups, trying to topple that regime. The analyst may or may not know CIA and British are giving support to those terrorist groups without regard for blowback that will murder their own. So, their work is indirectly supporting and fueling terrorist organizations that will kill those they claim to protect.
I doubt they knew that. Or their ideology of "protecting" their country was very different than they'd project publicly.
" But I'd be willing to be they're selected for being intelligent and true believers in what they do."
Bingo! That's how the dirtiest stuff remains secret for the longest time. They have to be smart, true believers. They can also be among the most effective given how long they're typically in the game. I like using an easy, fictional example to illustrate this to people. Favorite is the "operator" on Serenity:
I would love to solve the problems that one would encounter in this industry if I did not have to avoid it for moral reasons.
In High School I read and gave a report on David Brin's The Transparent Society [2] and that still has an impact on how I see some of these topics.
That said there is an obvious use for it in helping stop attacks and pretending there isn't is weird to me.
> That line really highlighted the fallacy that "mass surveillance is effective" for me.
Specific evidence of success is likely to be classified. It's possible attacks have been stopped - the classification of information makes it hard to know either way.
Though mass collection can help, if you have intel of suspicious people you could look through the entire history of their communication - see what they've been saying and to whom. When you newly learn that a person is a part of ISIS (for example) you can look through their entire communication stream retroactively. Since the attackers are not always that sophisticated (they used SMS in Paris) you can potentially learn a lot of information by doing this (their network, maybe plans).
They're posting videos of themselves on youtube showing off weapons and locations - I suspect there's a lot of information available in their communication that's useful for stopping attacks. It's a tool you would obviously want if you had to do the job.
That said I think the secrecy is dangerous because it prevents the public from being able to determine what level we'd accept (and legal recourse against abuse). It also is more likely to encourage abuse and since James Clapper lied to congress about it we can't trust the organizations that have tasked themselves to do it.
Thinking long-term, it took a long time to get relatively benign governments - consolidating this much power in one place (especially in secrecy) is something we probably shouldn't do.
It's not that obvious to me. Can you explain why you think this is obvious? Because in order to stop attacks, you need specific, actionable intelligence. Indiscriminate collection of data just muddies the water.
I was going to do a simple calculation here, but wikipedia already has a nice illustration from Cory Doctorow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox#Discuss...
It's not likely to reveal much alone (too much noise - like you suggested), but given a lead from some other means you can use it as a tool to look through the recent communications of that suspect and their close network.
This would be a tool that would be useful to have and since people planning violence are likely communicating about plans - looking at comms could lead to actionable intelligence.
Is this potential intel worth the risk of abuse? I think probably not, but that should probably be decided by the society being surveilled. Either way it definitely should not be done in secret.
I worry that trying to argue surveillance is entirely useless will do more harm overall because to those 'in favor' of surveillance it's a dumb position.
Where is your evidence for that claim? This article is an example which should be PERFECT to detect. Poitras was under targeted surveillance. And she was still able to communicate with Snowden without detection. The security industrial complex has a terrible track record of success.
I wish I could apologize to her for what she went through. It probably is better for the world that she went through it, was then an even more effective journalist, and then in contact with Snowden, but it was a huge sacrifice I'm sure.
The whole thing should be viewed as a horrific embarrassment, but I think it reveals quite a bit about our actual (as opposed to our rah rah freedom) principles.
But of course refugees are not known for having the social status points we call "money" and obsess over, so the vast majority of us instead work to improve some dude's social point score. Truly a silly system.
Even if her problems are something which can easier provoke empathy in readers here (as in "I could be her") they are insignificant compared to the problems of the people in Iraq in which they are as the effect of the political decisions of the government for which we assume that it did what its duty is and which got the wide support for the war: the US government which according to their own press statements did this "to bring democracy" and "because of WMD" in Iraq. It turned out there were no WMD there and that the "proofs" were a lie.
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/20/george_w_bushs_cia_briefer_a...
The US soldiers who were there are probably the most credible source to talk about what they've actually brought there. For the current results just look at the map that includes ISIS controlled territories:
https://pietervanostaeyen.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/img_50...
And the statistics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraqi_insurg...
Not to mention neighboring Syria and what's left from the country there.
Are we able to have empathy for the people there too?
US has no business meddling in other soverign nation's affair. That nation has people who will bring about a change if they really want change. US doesn't need to force democracy on those people as it ends up only destabilizing the whole region. Trying to change too much at once never flies. Not to forget democracy isn't even the ideal form of govt, especially when US itself isn't improving its own democratic process. First improve things at home.
Its real pity some citizens had to go through this much pain to bring to light illegal mass surveillance activity. I fail to see any difference between an oppressive govt and us govt now a days. This is becoming an orwellian nightmare.
People are not their "nation"!
When we built Umbrella, we had in mind the example of Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras meeting Edwards Snowden. Initially Snowden tried to make contact but Greenwald found the process of digital security too cumbersome and awkward. Poitras however was more persistant. Also, when Greenwald and Poitras went to Hong Kong, they knew little or nothing about physical security. We wanted to change that and make it easier to have everything a journalist like Glenn Greenwald would need to do to meet a source in their pocket - everything from sending a secure email to meeting a source in a high risk location where they may be under surveillance from a regime which may threaten their vital work. So we launched an open source Android app called Umbrella -
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...
https://github.com/securityfirst/Umbrella_android
It's still a long way from being perfect but hopefully will make the life of future Laura Poitras, just a little bit easier.
You gotta go back to the drawing board. Also, best to leverage components you know they can't beat or have trouble with. GPG and Tor are only two I remember them mentioning by name in leaks as stopping them from reading and tracing respectively. Build a user-friendly tool around that or use its key code in your app to get leverage. Avoid anything they hack easily.
Poitras and others being surveilled by people in the US and other governments represent an extreme point on a spectrum. Lower down the spectrum are many more people who each have one or more busybodies from government, academia, the media, business, entertainment/sports, or religion, etc after them for some reason/s. Those busybodies often discover and collude with each other. The resulting surveillance and interference against us is probably quite tame compared to what the US govt has done against Poitras, but intense enough that we can extrapolate to more easily appreciate what she's gone through.
Peculiar. There's a decent chance that it wasn't related to espionage. There's also a smaller chance that it was espionage gone awry, but I highly doubt state level actors are that clumsy.
If it was espionage it was probably intentional. To what end I'm not sure. Attempts to interfere with the interview seem pointless at best, at least for the sake of interference itself. Probably some sort of psychological game or intimidation. A unit like TAO likely has encyclopedic manuals dedicated to the art of using their capability to mess with people's heads.
On the bright side, it's at least comforting that we aren't seeing privacy activists being locked away due to planted evidence that appears forensically legit. State actors have the capability to do this if they want.
Yet.
As far as we know, anyways.
The unintended consequence of the surveillance may have hardened her resolve to be a privacy advocate, but it certainly didn't do her mental health much good.
It's the old idea of the Panopticon as envisioned by Jeremy Bentham: Achieve compliance not by watching everybody all the time, but by creating a system where everybody could be watched at any time.
What may save us from a dystopic totalitarism is the freedom and agency we get through our devices and networks. Certainly software freedom, use of cryptography and uncensored, inclusive basic communications infrastructures are needed.
That said, my own thinking along these lines is very similar to yours. Having a persistent cryptographically secure live stream would go a long way towards protecting one against a wide range of false accusations.
The way TAO and FBI are structured, "messing with people's heads" is considered outside of the acceptable risk threshold. That usually means the malware would be reported and then blacklisted by anti-virus vendors. Not mention, risk blowing a criminal case. If the FBI infected her computer with malware, it would just quietly do its job.
Journalists have an incredibly difficult time avoiding spear phishing emails when their job depends on them reviewing documents sent to them . I don't envy the level of risk they take every day just checking their email.
This is a problem that can only be solved if the vast majority of the population gets involved and cares about the pressing issues in the world.
One of the great side effects of the explosion of the internet is that it has created a potential medium for everyone to participate in the process of democracy and law making. With the awareness and the right tools to enable participation of the masses in every decision that the Government makes, we can limit the power that the Government and corporations have in the process of democracy and law making.
And with participation of the common man,we can finally move towards a democracy in the true sense of the word.
Part of my theory is that it just took them a little while to understand exactly how dangerous the internet is to them, but now they have fully realized this it has almost forced the implimentation of the surveillance state so that later the cat can be walked back on dissidents.
Its what William Binney and Thomas Drake call the "turn key totalitarian state". It may not be turned on yet, but the structure is being put in place. All it takes is a martial law enabling event and a potus willing to turn the key.
Which is why I think everyones going to be amazed when Jeb gets the nom and steals the election.
The parent doesn't imply that Obama was president when events in the article took place.
Also; Trump 2016. Make America Great Again.
Trump said his position in favor of the NSA data
collection had been the same since before last
month's terrorist attacks in Paris, which stoked fears
of international terrorism and revived debate over
government surveillance measures.
"I assume when I pick up my telephone people are
listening to my conversations anyway, if you want to
know the truth," Trump told Hewitt. "It's a pretty sad
commentary."
[..]
Trump said Tuesday that he would be "fine" with
restoring provisions of the Patriot Act to allow for the
bulk data collection, something candidates such as
former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have also called for that
was banned with the passage of the USA Freedom Act,
which Cruz supported.
"As far as I'm concerned, that would be fine,"
Trump said.
The HN guidelines ask you not to comment like this:
fyi I didn't mod you down
Actually the opposite is true. In many (Western) countries the head of state has zero actual power. The US president has some actual power, e.g. limited veto right on bills.
But compared to other countries that's still relatively few powers.
Also the power of Veto is one thing - but the power only to maintain the status quo is a pretty limiting thing.
A lot of people new to the US political process (that is, get consistently involved beyond simply voting, even more involved than voting in primaries), do not understand the slow pace of change is a deliberate feature designed-in from the start, not a bug. Normative slow policy change means it is just as slow to implement adverse policies as well, giving time for citizens to put in the effort and time to roll it back just as slowly. Hence Benjamin Franklin's "...if you can keep it" quip.
What we see as alarming, fast-paced changes today are the culmination of generations of dogged efforts at policy changes frequently made opportunistically rather than specifically goal-directed, incubating emergent adverse behavior given rise by generations of insufficient citizen participation assiduously maintaining the republic's edifice.
The US political arena has its version of Usenet's Eternal September, where newcomers arrive (often timed to presidential elections) in a fresh, eager batch putting in tons of time and effort, then ebb like the tide when they don't see the results they anticipated (forgetting Bismarck's dictum that "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.") within 1-4 years. Only a smattering remain to welcome the next batch. When life changes (job-related moves, children, extended family medical issues, etc.) enter the picture, it filters out even more (interesting relationships to explore here between most citizens unable to find stability navigating those life changes, and political participation). It's a stamina-oriented sport with results often measured in decades, and the work that produces real results is often very tedious and distinctly lacking glamor.
People generally don't like being reminded that they have been duped into believing the hype, even when believing it was actually the best thing.
It's also a human psychological trick that we cannot easily imagine what would have happened if we did not believe or did not have "hope".
So there is fact that things didn't get rectified as much as promised, the fact that many people believed that would happen, and the probable actuality that things got much better than if they didn't believe.
He later told the Army investigators that he “strongly
believed”—but without apparent evidence—“POITRAS had
prior knowledge of the ambush and had the means to report
it to U.S. Forces; however, she purposely did not report
it so she could film the attack for her documentary.”
If she has a lot of small files she might have run out of inodes [0] which will report "no space left on device" when trying to create a new file, although there's still space left. Inodes store a file's attributes. In ext4 they're limited to total disk space / 16Kb, so a lot of files <16kb will cause trouble.
You can check inode usage via `df -i`.
Can anyone recommend any other similar books in the meantime?
Both are useful. In this case, it is providing an explicit, human narrative for the harm that surveillance can inflict. Many people respond more strongly to emotional anecdoes than to hard data (pretty much the reason why low-probability terrorist attacks are disproportionately feared over more common ways to die), so having a more emotional, anecdotal account of the actual effect of surveillance on people is also important.