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Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

US government won't seek encryption-backdoor legislation | Ars Technica UK [# ! Note] - 0 views

arstechnica.co.uk/...ncryption-backdoor-legislation

US government says no seek encryption backdoor legislation privacy defense propaganda 2016 elections trust

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 11 Oct 15 - No Cached
    • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.
      Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 11 Oct 15
       
      # ! Presidential Elections 2016 coming...
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 11 Oct 15
     
    "FBI Director James Comey told a congressional panel that the Obama administration won't ask Congress for legislation requiring the tech sector to install backdoors into their products so the authorities can access encrypted data."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 11 Oct 15
     
    "FBI Director James Comey told a congressional panel that the Obama administration won't ask Congress for legislation requiring the tech sector to install backdoors into their products so the authorities can access encrypted data."
Paul Merrell

ExposeFacts - For Whistleblowers, Journalism and Democracy - 0 views

exposefacts.org

transparency whistle-blowers resources Wikileaks Tail

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Launched by the Institute for Public Accuracy in June 2014, ExposeFacts.org represents a new approach for encouraging whistleblowers to disclose information that citizens need to make truly informed decisions in a democracy. From the outset, our message is clear: “Whistleblowers Welcome at ExposeFacts.org.” ExposeFacts aims to shed light on concealed activities that are relevant to human rights, corporate malfeasance, the environment, civil liberties and war. At a time when key provisions of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments are under assault, we are standing up for a free press, privacy, transparency and due process as we seek to reveal official information—whether governmental or corporate—that the public has a right to know. While no software can provide an ironclad guarantee of confidentiality, ExposeFacts—assisted by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and its “SecureDrop” whistleblower submission system—is utilizing the latest technology on behalf of anonymity for anyone submitting materials via the ExposeFacts.org website. As journalists we are committed to the goal of protecting the identity of every source who wishes to remain anonymous.
  • The seasoned editorial board of ExposeFacts will be assessing all the submitted material and, when deemed appropriate, will arrange for journalistic release of information. In exercising its judgment, the editorial board is able to call on the expertise of the ExposeFacts advisory board, which includes more than 40 journalists, whistleblowers, former U.S. government officials and others with wide-ranging expertise. We are proud that Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was the first person to become a member of the ExposeFacts advisory board. The icon below links to a SecureDrop implementation for ExposeFacts overseen by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and is only accessible using the Tor browser. As the Freedom of the Press Foundation notes, no one can guarantee 100 percent security, but this provides a “significantly more secure environment for sources to get information than exists through normal digital channels, but there are always risks.” ExposeFacts follows all guidelines as recommended by Freedom of the Press Foundation, and whistleblowers should too; the SecureDrop onion URL should only be accessed with the Tor browser — and, for added security, be running the Tails operating system. Whistleblowers should not log-in to SecureDrop from a home or office Internet connection, but rather from public wifi, preferably one you do not frequent. Whistleblowers should keep to a minimum interacting with whistleblowing-related websites unless they are using such secure software.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jun 14
     
    A new resource site for whistle-blowers. somewhat in the tradition of Wikileaks, but designed for encrypted communications between whistleblowers and journalists.  This one has an impressive board of advisors that includes several names I know and tend to trust, among them former whistle-blowers Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, Thomas Drake, William Binney, and Ann Wright. Leaked records can only be dropped from a web browser running the Tor anonymizer software and uses the SecureDrop system originally developed by Aaron Schwartz. They strongly recommend using the Tails secure operating system that can be installed to a thumb drive and leaves no tracks on the host machine. https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html Curious, I downloaded Tails and installed it to a virtual machine. It's a heavily customized version of Debian. It has a very nice Gnome desktop and blocks any attempt to connect to an external network by means other than installed software that demands encrypted communications. For example, web sites can only be viewed via the Tor anonymizing proxy network. It does take longer for web pages to load because they are moving over a chain of proxies, but even so it's faster than pages loaded in the dial-up modem days, even for web pages that are loaded with graphics, javascript, and other cruft. E.g., about 2 seconds for New York Times pages. All cookies are treated by default as session cookies so disappear when you close the page or the browser. I love my Linux Mint desktop, but I am thinking hard about switching that box to Tails. I've been looking for methods to send a lot more encrypted stuff down the pipe for NSA to store. Tails looks to make that not only easy, but unavoidable. From what I've gathered so far, if you want to install more software on Tails, it takes about an hour to create a customized version and then update your Tails installation from a new ISO file. Tails has a wonderful odor of having been designed for secure computing. Current
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

A basic encryption strategy for storing sensitive data | ITworld - 0 views

www.itworld.com/...trategy-storing-sensitive-data

basic encryption strategy storing sensitive data

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 21 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 21 Aug 14
     
    "To safely store your data in a database, you'd start by generating a strong secret key value in a byte array. This is best generated programmatically. This single key can be used to encrypt all of the data you'd like to store. "
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 21 Aug 14
     
    "To safely store your data in a database, you'd start by generating a strong secret key value in a byte array. This is best generated programmatically. This single key can be used to encrypt all of the data you'd like to store. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

KickassTorrents Goes Secure, Encrypts Traffic For All Visitors | TorrentFreak - 0 views

torrentfreak.com/traffic-for-all-visitors140831

bittorrent over SSL KickassTorrents beginning

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 01 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 01 Sep 14
     
    " Ernesto on August 31, 2014 C: 50 News KickassTorrents is the first large torrent site to bump up its security and force SSL encryption for all visitors. This makes it impossible for outsiders, Internet providers included, to monitor page visits or snoop on data being sent."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 01 Sep 14
     
    " Ernesto on August 31, 2014 C: 50 News KickassTorrents is the first large torrent site to bump up its security and force SSL encryption for all visitors. This makes it impossible for outsiders, Internet providers included, to monitor page visits or snoop on data being sent."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 01 Sep 14
     
    " Ernesto on August 31, 2014 C: 50 News KickassTorrents is the first large torrent site to bump up its security and force SSL encryption for all visitors. This makes it impossible for outsiders, Internet providers included, to monitor page visits or snoop on data being sent."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Hard drive encryption in Linux | Linux User & Developer - the Linux and FOSS mag for a ... - 0 views

www.linuxuser.co.uk/...hard-drive-encryption-in-linux

drive encryption linux gnu foss

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 09 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 09 Feb 15
     
    "by Nitish Tiwari TrueCrypt is no more, but dm-crypt and LUKS are great open source options for setting up and using data encryption Follow @LinuxUserMag"
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 09 Feb 15
     
    "by Nitish Tiwari TrueCrypt is no more, but dm-crypt and LUKS are great open source options for setting up and using data encryption Follow @LinuxUserMag"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

How to Generate/Encrypt/Decrypt Random Passwords in Linux - 0 views

www.tecmint.com/rypt-random-passwords-in-linux

how to generate encrypt decrypt random passwords privacy security learning warning

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Apr 15
     
    "In this article, we will share some interesting Linux tips and tricks to generate random passwords and also how to encrypt and decrypt passwords with or without slat method."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 02 Apr 15
     
    "In this article, we will share some interesting Linux tips and tricks to generate random passwords and also how to encrypt and decrypt passwords with or without slat method."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Let's Encrypt May Improve Security for Regular People More Than Any Other Initiative Th... - 0 views

www.linux.com/...y-other-initiative-this-decade

Let's Encrypt encrypt security regular people initiative linux

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 05 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 05 Dec 15
     
    "Let's Encrypt May Improve Security for Regular People More Than Any Other Initiative This Decade"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Three ways to easily encrypt your data on Linux | howtoforge.com | [# ! Note] - 0 views

www.howtoforge.com/...ily-encrypt-your-data-on-linux

encrypt data linux GNU_Linux encryption security networks storage

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 10 Dec 15
     
    "Data encryption is one very solid security measure/precaution that everyone who owns data with significant personal or objective value should perform."
Paul Merrell

U.S., allies urge Facebook for backdoor to encryption as they fight child abuse - Reuters - 1 views

www.reuters.com/...-abuse-terrorism-idUSKBN1WI22L

encryption backdoors Facebook Apple Google Microsoft Signal

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have called on Facebook Inc to not go ahead with end-to-end encryption across its messaging services unless law enforcement officials have backdoor access, saying encryption hindered the fight against child abuse and terrorism.
  • The United States and United Kingdom also signed a special data agreement that would fast track requests from law enforcement to technology companies for information about the communications of terrorists and child predators. Law enforcement could get information in weeks or even days instead of the current wait of six months to two years. The latest tug-of-war between governments and tech companies over user data could also impact Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Microsoft Corp, as well as smaller encrypted chat apps like Signal.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

French Government Wants A 'Global Initiative' To Undermine Encryption And Put Everyone ... - 1 views

www.techdirt.com/...yption-put-everyone-risk.shtml

french government wants undermine ban encryption

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Aug 16
     
    "from the this-is-a-bad,-bad-idea dept Some bad ideas never seem to die. It appears that the French government is working to enlist other countries to try to undermine encryption and put us all at much greater risk. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Call for Papers | thinktwice.com | Creativity, Human Rights, Hacktivism [# Vi... - 0 views

thinktwice.co/...cfp

thinktwice.com call papers creativity Human Rights hacktivism

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Jun 14
     
    "Call for Papers CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS We are looking for session submissions from Pirates, NGOs and Academia to following tracks: (other topics are allowed as well) Creativity: copyrights, patents, collaboration, citizen journalism, media, DRM, open access, FOI, public licensing, policy reform, education, etc… Human Rights: security, data protection, surveillance, FOI, basic income, emigration, voting rights, drones, non-proliferation, dual use technology, encryption, anonymity, transparency, net neutrality, open data, egovernment, society, whistle blowing, political science, etc… Activism|Hacktivism: Future, innovation, liquid democracy, transhumanism, cyborgs, startups, vision, 3d-printing, crowdsourcing, big data, participation, pirate parties, artificial intelligence, globalization, space travel, social networks, freemanning, freehammond, hacktivism, activism, civil disobedience, hacker culture, cyberpunk, cypherpunk, wikileaks, surveillance, digital activism, etc..."
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Jun 14
     
    "Call for Papers CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS We are looking for session submissions from Pirates, NGOs and Academia to following tracks: (other topics are allowed as well) Creativity: copyrights, patents, collaboration, citizen journalism, media, DRM, open access, FOI, public licensing, policy reform, education, etc… Human Rights: security, data protection, surveillance, FOI, basic income, emigration, voting rights, drones, non-proliferation, dual use technology, encryption, anonymity, transparency, net neutrality, open data, egovernment, society, whistle blowing, political science, etc… Activism|Hacktivism: Future, innovation, liquid democracy, transhumanism, cyborgs, startups, vision, 3d-printing, crowdsourcing, big data, participation, pirate parties, artificial intelligence, globalization, space travel, social networks, freemanning, freehammond, hacktivism, activism, civil disobedience, hacker culture, cyberpunk, cypherpunk, wikileaks, surveillance, digital activism, etc..."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 15 Jun 14
     
    "Call for Papers CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS We are looking for session submissions from Pirates, NGOs and Academia to following tracks: (other topics are allowed as well) Creativity: copyrights, patents, collaboration, citizen journalism, media, DRM, open access, FOI, public licensing, policy reform, education, etc… Human Rights: security, data protection, surveillance, FOI, basic income, emigration, voting rights, drones, non-proliferation, dual use technology, encryption, anonymity, transparency, net neutrality, open data, egovernment, society, whistle blowing, political science, etc… Activism|Hacktivism: Future, innovation, liquid democracy, transhumanism, cyborgs, startups, vision, 3d-printing, crowdsourcing, big data, participation, pirate parties, artificial intelligence, globalization, space travel, social networks, freemanning, freehammond, hacktivism, activism, civil disobedience, hacker culture, cyberpunk, cypherpunk, wikileaks, surveillance, digital activism, etc..."
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 16 Jun 14
     
    [# Via FB's Francisco George x Arif Yıldırım] Deadline July 18th 2014 "Call for Papers CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS We are looking for session submissions from Pirates, NGOs and Academia to following tracks: (other topics are allowed as well) Creativity: copyrights, patents, collaboration, citizen journalism, media, DRM, open access, FOI, public licensing, policy reform, education, etc… Human Rights: security, data protection, surveillance, FOI, basic income, emigration, voting rights, drones, non-proliferation, dual use technology, encryption, anonymity, transparency, net neutrality, open data, egovernment, society, whistle blowing, political science, etc… Activism|Hacktivism: Future, innovation, liquid democracy, transhumanism, cyborgs, startups, vision, 3d-printing, crowdsourcing, big data, participation, pirate parties, artificial intelligence, globalization, space travel, social networks, freemanning, freehammond, hacktivism, activism, civil disobedience, hacker culture, cyberpunk, cypherpunk, wikileaks, surveillance, digital activism, etc..."
Paul Merrell

Exclusive: U.S. tech industry appeals to Obama to keep hands off encryption | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...cryption-idUSKBN0OP09R20150609

surveillance state NSA encryption backdoors Obama industry privacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • As Washington weighs new cybersecurity steps amid a public backlash over mass surveillance, U.S. tech companies warned President Barack Obama not to weaken increasingly sophisticated encryption systems designed to protect consumers' privacy.In a strongly worded letter to Obama on Monday, two industry associations for major software and hardware companies said, "We are opposed to any policy actions or measures that would undermine encryption as an available and effective tool."The Information Technology Industry Council and the Software and Information Industry Association, representing tech giants, including Apple Inc, Google Inc, Facebook Inc, IBM and Microsoft Corp, fired the latest salvo in what is shaping up to be a long fight over government access into smart phones and other digital devices.
Paul Merrell

China Pressures U.S. Companies to Buckle on Strong Encryption and Surveillance - 0 views

theintercept.com/...strong-encryption-surveillance

surveillance state China backdoors

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits President Obama, he and Chinese executives have some business in Seattle: pressing U.S. tech companies, hungry for the Chinese market, to comply with the country’s new stringent and suppressive Internet policies. The New York Times reported last week that Chinese authorities sent a letter to some U.S. tech firms seeking a promise they would not harm China’s national security. That might require such things as forcing users to register with their real names, storing Chinese citizens’ data locally where the government can access it, and building government “back doors” into encrypted communication products for better surveillance. China’s new national security law calls for systems that are “secure and controllable”, which industry groups told the Times in July means companies will have to hand over encryption keys or even source code to their products. Among the big names joining Xi at Wednesday’s U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum: Apple, Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft.
  • The meeting comes as U.S. law enforcement officials have been pressuring companies to give them a way to access encrypted communications. The technology community has responded by pointing out that any sort of hole for law enforcement weakens the entire system to attack from outside bad actors—such as China, which has been tied to many instances of state-sponsored hacking into U.S systems. In fact, one argument privacy advocates have repeatedly made is that back doors for law enforcement would set a dangerous precedent when countries like China want the same kind of access to pursue their own domestic political goals. But here, potentially, the situation has been reversed, with China using its massive economic leverage to demand that sort of access right now. Human rights groups are urging U.S. companies not to give in.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Obama advisors: Encryption backdoors would hurt cyber security, Net infrastructure vend... - 0 views

www.infoworld.com/...et-infrastructure-vendors.html

Obama cyber-security advisors warn against encryption backdoors

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 17 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 17 Sep 15
     
    "Leaked National Security Council advisory report weighs pros and cons of laws to make encryption keys available to law enforcement"
Paul Merrell

F.B.I. Director to Call 'Dark' Devices a Hindrance to Crime Solving in a Policy Speech ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...indrance-to-crime-solving.html

surveillance state FBI Comey encryption

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • In his first major policy speech as director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey on Thursday plans to wade deeper into the debate between law enforcement agencies and technology companies about new programs intended to protect personal information on communication devices.Mr. Comey will say that encryption technologies used on these devices, like the new iPhone, have become so sophisticated that crimes will go unsolved because law enforcement officers will not be able to get information from them, according to a senior F.B.I. official who provided a preview of the speech.The speech was prompted, in part, by the new encryption technology on the iPhone 6, which was released last month. The phone encrypts emails, photos and contacts, thwarting intelligence and law enforcement agencies, like the National Security Agency and F.B.I., from gaining access to it, even if they have court approval.
  • The F.B.I. has long had concerns about devices “going dark” — when technology becomes so sophisticated that the authorities cannot gain access. But now, Mr. Comey said he believes that the new encryption technology has evolved to the point that it will adversely affect crime solving.He will say in the speech that these new programs will most severely affect state and local law enforcement agencies, because they are the ones who most often investigate crimes like kidnappings and robberies in which getting information from electronic devices in a timely manner is essential to solving the crime.
  • They also do not have the resources that are available to the F.B.I. and other federal intelligence and law enforcement authorities in order to get around the programs.Mr. Comey will cite examples of crimes that the authorities were able to solve because they gained access to a phone.“He is going to call for a discussion on this issue and ask whether this is the path we want to go down,” said the senior F.B.I. official. “He is not going to accuse the companies of designing the technologies to prevent the F.B.I. from accessing them. But, he will say that this is a negative byproduct and we need to work together to fix it.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Mr. Comey is scheduled to give the speech — titled “Going Dark: Are Technology, Privacy and Public Safety on a Collision Course?” — at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
  • In the interview that aired on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Mr. Comey said that “the notion that we would market devices that would allow someone to place themselves beyond the law troubles me a lot.”He said that it was the equivalent of selling cars with trunks that could never be opened, even with a court order.“The notion that people have devices, again, that with court orders, based on a showing of probable cause in a case involving kidnapping or child exploitation or terrorism, we could never open that phone?” he said. “My sense is that we've gone too far when we've gone there.”
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Oct 14
     
    I'm informed that Comey will also call for legislation outlawing communication by whispering because of technical difficulties in law enforcement monitoring of such communications. 
Paul Merrell

Inside the NSA's War on Internet Security - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...ternet-security-a-1010361.html

surveillance state NSA encryption-vulnerabilities must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • US and British intelligence agencies undertake every effort imaginable to crack all types of encrypted Internet communication. The cloud, it seems, is full of holes. The good news: New Snowden documents show that some forms of encryption still cause problems for the NSA.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 14
     
    A must-read. Identifies which encryption methods the NSA has cracked, which they can't, and which they  have difficulties with.
Gary Edwards

Out in the Open: Hackers Build a Skype That's Not Controlled by Microsoft | Enterprise ... - 0 views

www.wired.com/tox

tox skype

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • The main thing the Tox team is trying to do, besides provide encryption, is create a tool that requires no central servers whatsoever—not even ones that you would host yourself. It relies on the same technology that BitTorrent uses to provide direct connections between users, so there’s no central hub to snoop on or take down.
  • Tox is trying to roll both peer-to-peer and voice calling into one.
  • Actually, it’s going a bit further than that. Tox is actually just a protocol for encrypted peer-to-peer data transmission.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Tox is just a tunnel to another node that’s encrypted and secure,” says David Lohle, a spokesperson for the project. “What you want to send over that pipe is up to your imagination.”
  • For example, one developer is building an e-mail replacement with the protocol, and Lohle says someone else is building an open source alternative to BitTorrent Sync.
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Sep 14
     
    "The web forum 4chan is known mostly as a place to share juvenile and, to put it mildly, politically incorrect images. But it's also the birthplace of one of the latest attempts to subvert the NSA's mass surveillance program. When whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that full extent of the NSA's activities last year, members of the site's tech forum started talking about the need for a more secure alternative to Skype. Soon, they'd opened a chat room to discuss the project and created an account on the code hosting and collaboration site GitHub and began uploading code. Eventually, they settled on the name Tox, and you can already download prototypes of the surprisingly easy-to-use tool. The tool is part of a widespread effort to create secure online communication tools that are controlled not only by any one company, but by the world at large-a continued reaction to the Snowden revelations. This includes everything from instant messaging tools to email services. It's too early to count on Tox to protect you from eavesdroppers and spies. Like so many other new tools, it's still in the early stages of development and has yet to receive the scrutiny that other security tools, such as the instant messaging encryption plugin Off The Record has. But it endeavors to carve a unique niche within the secure communications ecosystem."
Paul Merrell

Proposed changes to US data collection fall short of NSA reformers' goals | US news | T... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-data-collection-nsa-reformers

surveillance state NSA-reform DNI Clapper voluntary-reforms

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The US intelligence community has delivered a limited list of tweaks to how long it can hold information on ordinary citizens and hide secret trawls for data, responding to Barack Obama’s call for reform of its surveillance practices in the wake of revelations about NSA practices. Published by the office of the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, just six days before a recently announced visit to Washington by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the report is the culmination of a year-long effort to respond to revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
  • But the report does not appear to address the role of telecommunications companies in collecting metadata and the use of encryption to prevent hacking, and privacy critics were quick to pounce on a year of promises with little reform to show. “It’s hard to see much ‘there’ there,” Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. “When it comes to reforming intelligence programs and protecting Americans’ privacy, there is much, much more work to be done.” The outline from the intelligence community also appears to fall short of the legislative changes attempted by campaigners in Congress, focusing instead on measures to tighten internal guidelines and provide foreigners with some of the protections allowed for US citizens. These measures include:
  • Other measures outlined in the new report include steps to clarify the protection given to whistleblowers if they follow internal rules and a requirement that “any significant compliance incident involving personal information, regardless of the person’s nationality” be reported to Clapper.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Limiting how long personal data gathered from non-US citizens can be held to five years, so long as it is deemed not relevant to ongoing intelligence investigations. Asking Congress to provide some foreign nationals access to legal redress if their private information has been wilfully disclosed by US intelligence agencies. Limiting to three years how long the FBI can prevent disclosure of its surveillance activities using so-called national security letters, unless a special agent deems otherwise.
  • The official results of Obama’s call for surveillance reform also appear to have failed to address encryption. The FBI director, James Comey, and other officials have been highly critical of the use of encryption by tech companies such as Apple to protect their users’ information. Comey has argued that stronger encryption, baked in to some technology after the Snowden revelations, will aid criminals and terrorists and shut out law enforcement.
  • The intelligence report itself acknowledges that further reforms called for by the president, such as ending the collection of bulk data by the government, have not been implemented, possibly due to stalled legislative efforts in Congress.
Paul Merrell

Edward Snowden Explains How To Reclaim Your Privacy - 0 views

theintercept.com/...ns-how-to-reclaim-your-privacy

surveillance state Snowden operational-security advice must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Micah Lee: What are some operational security practices you think everyone should adopt? Just useful stuff for average people. Edward Snowden: [Opsec] is important even if you’re not worried about the NSA. Because when you think about who the victims of surveillance are, on a day-to-day basis, you’re thinking about people who are in abusive spousal relationships, you’re thinking about people who are concerned about stalkers, you’re thinking about children who are concerned about their parents overhearing things. It’s to reclaim a level of privacy. The first step that anyone could take is to encrypt their phone calls and their text messages. You can do that through the smartphone app Signal, by Open Whisper Systems. It’s free, and you can just download it immediately. And anybody you’re talking to now, their communications, if it’s intercepted, can’t be read by adversaries. [Signal is available for iOS and Android, and, unlike a lot of security tools, is very easy to use.] You should encrypt your hard disk, so that if your computer is stolen the information isn’t obtainable to an adversary — pictures, where you live, where you work, where your kids are, where you go to school. [I’ve written a guide to encrypting your disk on Windows, Mac, and Linux.] Use a password manager. One of the main things that gets people’s private information exposed, not necessarily to the most powerful adversaries, but to the most common ones, are data dumps. Your credentials may be revealed because some service you stopped using in 2007 gets hacked, and your password that you were using for that one site also works for your Gmail account. A password manager allows you to create unique passwords for every site that are unbreakable, but you don’t have the burden of memorizing them. [The password manager KeePassX is free, open source, cross-platform, and never stores anything in the cloud.]
  • The other thing there is two-factor authentication. The value of this is if someone does steal your password, or it’s left or exposed somewhere … [two-factor authentication] allows the provider to send you a secondary means of authentication — a text message or something like that. [If you enable two-factor authentication, an attacker needs both your password as the first factor and a physical device, like your phone, as your second factor, to login to your account. Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, GitHub, Battle.net, and tons of other services all support two-factor authentication.]
  • We should armor ourselves using systems we can rely on every day. This doesn’t need to be an extraordinary lifestyle change. It doesn’t have to be something that is disruptive. It should be invisible, it should be atmospheric, it should be something that happens painlessly, effortlessly. This is why I like apps like Signal, because they’re low friction. It doesn’t require you to re-order your life. It doesn’t require you to change your method of communications. You can use it right now to talk to your friends.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Lee: What do you think about Tor? Do you think that everyone should be familiar with it, or do you think that it’s only a use-it-if-you-need-it thing? Snowden: I think Tor is the most important privacy-enhancing technology project being used today. I use Tor personally all the time. We know it works from at least one anecdotal case that’s fairly familiar to most people at this point. That’s not to say that Tor is bulletproof. What Tor does is it provides a measure of security and allows you to disassociate your physical location. … But the basic idea, the concept of Tor that is so valuable, is that it’s run by volunteers. Anyone can create a new node on the network, whether it’s an entry node, a middle router, or an exit point, on the basis of their willingness to accept some risk. The voluntary nature of this network means that it is survivable, it’s resistant, it’s flexible. [Tor Browser is a great way to selectively use Tor to look something up and not leave a trace that you did it. It can also help bypass censorship when you’re on a network where certain sites are blocked. If you want to get more involved, you can volunteer to run your own Tor node, as I do, and support the diversity of the Tor network.]
  • Lee: So that is all stuff that everybody should be doing. What about people who have exceptional threat models, like future intelligence-community whistleblowers, and other people who have nation-state adversaries? Maybe journalists, in some cases, or activists, or people like that? Snowden: So the first answer is that you can’t learn this from a single article. The needs of every individual in a high-risk environment are different. And the capabilities of the adversary are constantly improving. The tooling changes as well. What really matters is to be conscious of the principles of compromise. How can the adversary, in general, gain access to information that is sensitive to you? What kinds of things do you need to protect? Because of course you don’t need to hide everything from the adversary. You don’t need to live a paranoid life, off the grid, in hiding, in the woods in Montana. What we do need to protect are the facts of our activities, our beliefs, and our lives that could be used against us in manners that are contrary to our interests. So when we think about this for whistleblowers, for example, if you witnessed some kind of wrongdoing and you need to reveal this information, and you believe there are people that want to interfere with that, you need to think about how to compartmentalize that.
  • Tell no one who doesn’t need to know. [Lindsay Mills, Snowden’s girlfriend of several years, didn’t know that he had been collecting documents to leak to journalists until she heard about it on the news, like everyone else.] When we talk about whistleblowers and what to do, you want to think about tools for protecting your identity, protecting the existence of the relationship from any type of conventional communication system. You want to use something like SecureDrop, over the Tor network, so there is no connection between the computer that you are using at the time — preferably with a non-persistent operating system like Tails, so you’ve left no forensic trace on the machine you’re using, which hopefully is a disposable machine that you can get rid of afterward, that can’t be found in a raid, that can’t be analyzed or anything like that — so that the only outcome of your operational activities are the stories reported by the journalists. [SecureDrop is a whistleblower submission system. Here is a guide to using The Intercept’s SecureDrop server as safely as possible.]
  • And this is to be sure that whoever has been engaging in this wrongdoing cannot distract from the controversy by pointing to your physical identity. Instead they have to deal with the facts of the controversy rather than the actors that are involved in it. Lee: What about for people who are, like, in a repressive regime and are trying to … Snowden: Use Tor. Lee: Use Tor? Snowden: If you’re not using Tor you’re doing it wrong. Now, there is a counterpoint here where the use of privacy-enhancing technologies in certain areas can actually single you out for additional surveillance through the exercise of repressive measures. This is why it’s so critical for developers who are working on security-enhancing tools to not make their protocols stand out.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    Lots more in the interview that I didn't highlight. This is a must-read.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

While US and UK governments oppose encryption, Germany promotes it. Why? | ZDNet - 0 views

www.zdnet.com/...yption-germany-promotes-it-why

US UK vs Germany else encryption issues countries spy others beyond security but competitive gain :(

shared by Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 31 Oct 15
     
    "Germany wants to become global encryption leader -- but the reasons for its stance are complex."
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