Privacy Category Archives

eat this!

19 July 2015 | Jurisprudence, Politics, Privacy | No Comments

наконец-то дошло:

Surveillance legislation the government considered “vital” and rushed through parliament last year has been struck down by the High Court.

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, which compels telecoms providers to retain user data for 12 months and make it available to public bodies, was inconsistent with European law, the court ruled.

  

conventions only become conventions if they work

14 July 2015 | Cryptography, Privacy, Security, Software | No Comments

или, например, хороший Мокси Марлинспайк о GPG:

Eventually I realized that when I receive a GPG encrypted email, it simply means that the email was written by someone who would voluntarily use GPG. I don’t mean someone who cares about privacy, because I think we all care about privacy. There just seems to be something particular about people who try GPG and conclude that it’s a realistic path to introducing private communication in their lives for casual correspondence with strangers.

Increasingly, it’s a club that I don’t want to belong to anymore.

все так. вот и получается, что с одной стороны криптогфрафия жизненно необоходима каждому, а с другой — что пользоваться этими продуктами нет совершенно никакой возможности.

  

V for Vendetta

14 July 2015 | Politics, Privacy, Security | 3 Comments

в Германии не лучше:

The president of the German domestic secret service has filed criminal charges with the public prosecutor because of two of our (netzpolitik.org — me) articles. The accusation: leaking state secrets. We have learned that from a brodcast on public broadcasting radio station Deutschlandfunk on Saturday.

The investigation’s cause are the articles „mass data processing of the Internet’s content“ and „a new unit for expanding internet surveillance“ executed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution whereof we had reported with the aid of the original documents.

We have reported on this matter because we deem it necessary to start a social debate. Two years after after Snowden’s revelations, the Federal Government has no better ideas than spending more and more money and responsibilities on largely uncontrolled secret services instead of ensuring a better control of secret services and reducing the system of total surveillance.

  

метадата и все-все-все

5 July 2015 | Internet, Jurisprudence, Politics, Privacy | 1 Comment

еще одно королевство, кстати:

Dutch intel bill proposes non-specific (‘bulk’) interception powers for “any form of telecom or data transfer”, incl. domestic, plus required cooperation from “providers of communication services”.

so it goes.

  

утро красит нежным светом стены древнего Кремля

21 May 2015 | Culturology, Politics, Privacy, Security | No Comments

к слову о Старших братьях:

The Center for Research in Legitimacy and Political Protest claims to have developed software that will search Russian social media posts for signs of plans by political opposition to the government to stage unapproved protests or meetings. Described by an Izvestia report as “a system to prevent mass disorder,” the software searches through social media posts once every five minutes to catch hints of “unauthorized actions” and potentially alert law enforcement to prevent them.

кто в космос, кто по грибы, а кто — и дальше трястись в извечном страхе за свою мерзкую шкуру.

  

it’s about us

20 May 2015 | Politics, Privacy, Security | 1 Comment

круговорот событий:

Two weeks ago, a federal appeals court ruled that the first N.S.A. program [Edward Snowden] disclosed, which collects the phone call records of millions of Americans, is illegal. Last week, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to transform the program by keeping the bulk phone records out of government hands, a change President Obama has endorsed and the Senate is now debating. And Apple and Google have angered the F.B.I. by stepping up encryption, including on smartphones, to scramble communications and protect customers from the kind of government surveillance Mr. Snowden exposed.

<...>

He was edged out by Pope Francis as Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2013, and a campaign on Facebook and by Norwegian politicians to put him forward for the Nobel Peace Prize fell short. But he has given a hip, young face to the abstract anxiety shared by many people in the United States and beyond about the menace posed by government snooping when it is fully empowered by technology.

или вот из подборки его высказываний в Esquire:

Мы постоянно слышим фразу «национальная безопасность», но когда государство начинает следить за нашим общением, фиксируя его без веских подозрений, юридического основания и без какой-либо видимой цели, мы должны задать себе вопрос: они и в самом деле защищают национальную безопасность или они защищают свою собственную?

<...>

В девяти случаях из десяти аналитикам совершенно не важно, что именно было сказано по телефону. То, что их интересует — это метаданные, потому что метаданные не могут врать. Даже невинный поиск результатов спортивного матча в Гугле способен многое о тебе рассказать. Так, вы владеете английским. Возможно, американец. Интересуетесь этим видом спорта. Посмотрим, из какой точки мира вы этот запрос отправили. Отправили ли вы его, находясь в поездке? Или отправили, сидя дома? Где вы сейчас? Когда просыпаетесь? Когда ложитесь спать? Какие телефонные номера сейчас рядом с вами? Вы сейчас с кем-то, кто не является вашей женой? Или вы сейчас там, где вас не должно быть?

а дальше изгнание в логове убийц, в одной из самых оруэллианских стран мира, без какой-либо обозримой перспективы вернуться домой.

вообще, говоря про Эдварда Сноудена, неизменно вспоминаю o Джей-Ди Шейпли — глупо сравнивать живого человека и даже не персонаж, но обстановку в одном из романов, смешно искать какие-то параллели в столь разных жизнеписаниях, но дело, в общем-то, и не в них самих, но в нас — в том, как старательно мы пытаемся убить тех, кто приходит нас спасать.

  

function or expose

28 April 2015 | Fashion, Lifeform, Privacy | 1 Comment

плюс, в том же интервью Гибсон напоминает еще и о другом:

“Authenticity” doesn’t mean much to me. I just want “good”, in the sense of well-designed, well-constructed, long-lasting garments. My interest in military clothing stems from that. It’s not about macho, playing soldiers, anything militaristic. It’s the functionality, the design-solutions, the durability. Likewise workwear.

<...>

There’s an idea called “gray man”, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. They assume, actually, that the bad guys will shoot all the guys wearing combat pants first, just to be sure. I don’t have that as a concern, but there’s something appealingly “low-drag” about gray man theory: reduced friction with one’s environment. Arc’teryx Veilance had a lot of that in its original DNA, and I also find it, though probably for different reasons, in Outlier. Nothing worse than clothing that gets in its wearer’s way.

и чуть под другим углом:

I know a man in London who wears Savile Row suits the way some people wear hoodies, and he says the greatest thing about them is that “nobody knows what you’ve got”. They actually have no labels. Very Cayce.

функциональная одежда дня сегодняшнего, от балахона Дурова до блокирующих облачений новых служек ордена святого Криптономикона? что ж, мода всегда использовала страхи и желания, управляла ими. как окружение формирует мысли человека, навязывая тюремную ли робу, обмундирование охранника или униформу робота, так и fashion, точно вода с гор, неизменно отыскивает кратчайший путь на прилавок — под тем или другим предлогом: точно организм-паразит растет, уничтожая нашу безмятежность и равновесие; игра, которая порабощает игрока, облачение стремлений — именно так общественное бытие, инкапсулированое в этих частных столкновениях, от пары джинс до военной куртки, и в самом деле определяет сознание.

что же тогда на самом деле происходит сейчас, пытаемся ли мы избавиться от этого влияния, или, наоборот, создаем очередной симулякр? социум формирует моду, или — пока иные заигрывают псевдоархеологическими раскопками на блошиных рынках — мода формирует нас?

  

голосуй или проиграешь

22 March 2015 | Politics, Privacy, Security | No Comments

Брюс Шнайер в очередной колонке снова пишет, что не бывает выборочной безопастности:

The thing about infrastructure is that everyone uses it. If it’s secure, it’s secure for everyone. And if it’s insecure, it’s insecure for everyone. This forces some hard policy choices.

<...>

We can’t choose a world where the US gets to spy but China doesn’t, or even a world where governments get to spy and criminals don’t. We need to choose, as a matter of policy, communications systems that are secure for all users, or ones that are vulnerable to all attackers. It’s security or surveillance.

кто бы сомневался, разумеется. вот только выбор этот за нас давно уже сделали.

  

fucking huge

10 March 2015 | Jurisprudence, Politics, Privacy | No Comments

now, this is it:

The Wikimedia Foundation, the not-for-profit behind the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, has announced it’s suing the U.S. National Security Agency and Department of Justice over the “large-scale search and seizure of internet communications” — aka the dragnet digital surveillance programs detailed in documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

  

под колпаком

4 March 2015 | Crime, Jurisprudence, Privacy | No Comments

или вот так:

The Supreme Court on Monday let stand the conviction of a rapist[1] whose prosecution rested on DNA swiped from the armrests of an interrogation-room chair.

Without comment, the justices refused to review a 4-3 decision from Maryland’s top court that upheld the life sentence and conviction of Glenn Raynor.

трое несогласных судей из вышеупомянутого решения, однако, смотрят немного чуть дальше:

The Majority’s approval of such police procedure means, in essence, that a person desiring to keep her DNA profile private, must conduct her public affairs in a hermetically-sealed hazmat suit.Moreover, the Majority opinion will likely have the consequence that many people will be reluctant to go to the police station to voluntarily provide information about crimes for fear that they, too, will be added to the CODIS database. <...> The Majority’s holding means that a person can no longer vote, participate in a jury, or obtain a driver’s license, without opening up his genetic material for state collection and codification. Unlike DNA left in the park or a restaurant, these are all instances where the person has identified himself to the government authority.

как и EFF:

“As human beings, we shed hundreds of thousands of skin and hair cells daily, with each cell containing information about who we are, where we come from, and who we will be,” EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch said. “The court must recognize that allowing police the limitless ability to collect and search genetic material will usher in a future where DNA may be collected from any person at any time, entered into and checked against DNA databases, and used to conduct pervasive surveillance.”

 


  1. пожалуйста, детали из жизни полицейского государства:

    After 22 suspects were eliminated, the victim thought of Glenn Joseph Raynor. When Raynor told police he had nothing to do with a rape, they told him to give them a DNA sample. He stated he would do so if they could assure him his DNA would not go into a database. When police told him his DNA would go into a database, he refused to give a sample. Police then asked to talk with Raynor, who complied. After the conversation, as soon as Raynor left the police barracks, police swabbed the chair where he had been seated, obtained a DNA sample, analyzed it without a warrant and made a match. Raynor was convicted in the rape.

     ↩