CMoore.com

Give what you can, share where you may. Hopeline.

What with the appletistas taking over and all, I thought some of them might like to learn how to hide their files from casual snooping. Obfuscation isn’t security, but it might, say, keep your friend who is borrowing your laptop to check their webmail from opening your private full-frontal photoshoots featuring yourself, three goats, and a couple jars of peanut butter.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

… unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles.

Police launched the future of law enforcement into the smoggy Los Angeles sky in the form of a drone aircraft, bringing technology most commonly associated with combat zones to urban policing.

The unmanned aerial vehicle, which looks like a child’s remote control toy and weighs about five pounds (2.3 kilograms), is a prototype being tested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police say the drone, called the SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions.

“This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone,” said Commander Sid Heal, head of the Technology Exploration Project of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

I’m sure that the realization the the drone can also be used to silently observe private individuals on non-public land (and public) never occurred to anybody. Nev-er. Because it’s about the children!

The existence and use of the drones is effectively no different than having a bunch of helicopters flying around – and cheaper too! – so you’ve got nothing to worry about. I mean what’s to worry about when you’ve got a mini-Predator roaming your skies? What? It’s not like UAV’s have been used to assassinate people before, like, ever, or that pushbutton video game violence dehumanizes the event and lowers the barriers to pushing the trigger or anything.

Yes, I realize it’s too small to carry a weapon… but it’s not too small to carry a laser designator. And if you’ve got spotters, why not have a full Predator around? You know, just in case. Just in case you spot the terrirrrists en flagrante terrrristo! In case Jack Bauer needs an assist. In case you see a Sikh running from a building and into a panel van?

FSM, I love technology! Woohoo! When I thought of the future, I thought of living in a police state under constant surveillance where the government pays no heed the laws as written in the books. Didn’t everyone?

via Apostropher

Because the whole internet is being tapped.

In 2003 AT&T built “secret rooms” hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company’s popular WorldNet service and the entire internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the internet and analyze exactly what people are doing. Documents showing the hardwire installation in San Francisco suggest that there are similar locations being installed in numerous other cities.

Seriously, people. Encryption + obfuscation == you maintain your privacy

Zimmerman brings Zfone. Zimmerman was behind PGP, and for which he was also investigated and sued. This must feel like groundhog’s day to him.

Philip R. Zimmermann created a program to encrypt e-mail. His Zfone will do the same for Internet calls.

He has found out once already. Trained as a computer scientist, he developed a program in 1991 called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, for scrambling and unscrambling e-mail messages. It won a following among privacy rights advocates and human rights groups working overseas — and a three-year federal criminal investigation into whether he had violated export restrictions on cryptographic software. The case was dropped in 1996, and Mr. Zimmermann, who lives in Menlo Park, Calif., started PGP Inc. to sell his software commercially.

Now he is again inviting government scrutiny. On Sunday, he released a free Windows software program, Zfone, that encrypts a computer-to-computer voice conversation so both parties can be confident that no one is listening in. It became available earlier this year to Macintosh and Linux users of the system known as voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP.

Or, it’s not a lie when Duhbya and John “death squad” Negroponte say you don’t have to tell the truth.

Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security. (See 15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A))

Though it’s not considered one of the signs of fascism, an obsession with secrecy is certainly a hallmark of a despotic government.

If the Executive issues an ad hoc presidential memorandum that authorizes corporations to violate laws passed by the Legislative, how are we not in the middle of Constitutional crisis right now?

What would you say about a country with an unaccountable, secret police force? A secret police force that spies on its own citizens – all of them – under the guise of “searching for terrorists”? A police force unburdened by the Rule of Law in its own country. A police force that uses financial coercion and physical intimidation in order to bully non-State actors into complying with their (illegal, if the Rule of Law is in effect) activities. A police force that is answerable only to the Executive, and an Executive who does not feel the Rule of Law applies to him at that? Is it the KGB? Is it the Gestapo? The whatever it is the Chinese are using these days?

Possibly. But it’s also certainly our own NSA.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest’s foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest’s lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA’s explanation did little to satisfy Qwest’s lawyers. “They told (Qwest) they didn’t want to do that because FISA might not agree with them,” one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest’s suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general’s office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

So, kudos to Qwest, for being the only telecomm to refuse to comply with the NSA’s illegal requests absent a court order. If you can switch, by all means do so. Or better still, Working Assets, the only telecommunications company to sign on with the ACLU to stop the illegal wiretapping of US Citizens.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the NSA is doing is collecting an immense database of the behaviors and activities of American citizens. Without a warrant. Without probable cause. Outside of the law. This is a shadowy group that even the CIA lifers think are right wing. A group completely amoral, devoted to black ops, and in favor of authoritarianism at every step of the way.

If anyone imagines for even one second that the data the NSA is collecting here is not going to be used or already used for such things as domestic spying, intimidation of protest groups, disruption of reporters who may be investigating actions embarassing to the administration, exposing whistleblowers and the like, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Remember, at first they said they didn’t spy. Then they said they spied only with court approval. Then they said they spied only on international calls, not your calls to your girlfriend or your parents or your fellow little league coaches. And now, they’re spying on we domestic citizens. Outside of the Rule of Law, with no legal authority outside of an authoritarian state.

At each new revelation, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders said if you didn’t like what was happening, you loved the terrorists. At each step, they gave tortured justifications or credulously believed the administrations patently absurd legal justifications. At each step, these cowardly bedwetters begged for the paternalistic administration to come tuck them in and save them from the bad people. Well, now they’ve met the bad people, and the bad people wear US Government ID cards.

See also, Greenwald, Glenn. Side note: I can see Glenn’s point that the Constitutional and legal issues aren’t exactly bright lines here (primarily resting on privacy grounds, as in lack thereof in PEN registers), but I think the burden is upon the administration to prove the legality of monitoring citizen activities, using coercion against businesses, and essentialing Taking corporate assets for government use. I should point out that, legally speaking, I think the Constitutional issues are probably non-starters, but that statutory issues are almost ironclad in prohibiting the NSA’s actions here. I’ll try to remember to look up the USC sections later.

Further questions I have:
1) internet – are they tracking our browsing/usage behavior? Are they capturing emails? For those of you not already using encryption such as PGP or GnuPG, ferchrissake, what the hell are you waiting for? For those of you not using Tor, what are you waiting for?

2) VOIP too? If yes to internet, then yes to VOIP.

This may not be the America that I knew, but going forward anyone who contacts me should be under the assumption that the communication is monitored and possibly able to be read if in text format.

… Unless you use encryption. Which is both useful and necessary for our privacy. It’s also super easy to use and install. I’m tired of trying to get people to use encryption. You may be forcing my hand here, but by FSM, I’m going to start encrypting everything I send and if the recipients can’t figure it out… tough. My public key is linked to at the bottom of every page on this site. GnuPG + enigmail (two plugins for Thunderbird). All of this is Open and Free. Learn it, live it, love it.

Tor is the other leg to the encryption side. If your packets aren’t encrypted, they can read them. If they are, they can still do packet analysis to see where you are going. Tor eliminates the packet analysis leg. Use it. If you have spare bandwidth, please donate that as well.

Remember the right wing saying how if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns? Well, if my government suspects me of being a criminal, then only my government is suspect.

Update: the telcos could be liable for many billions in damages (see also: ACSBlog). Now, who wants to be the first attorney to form a class for a Class Action?

not with a bang, but with a whimper. As the media and corporate interests collude to hand over the citizenry’s fundamental rights to the government (even though the media and the corporations are composed of the People, the decisionmakers are not of the People). The latest: AT&T forwards all Internet traffic into NSA

“The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston.

“More than just threatening individuals’ privacy, AT&T’s apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans’ Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now,” said Bankston.

Easy Fourth Amendment violation right there. Well, it was a violation until the busheviks took over and smilin Sammy scAlito was mortared into place using the hooves of the traitorous Dem sellouts, that is.

You know, when my back’s against the wall, I’ll think on all of the quislings and cowards that let us inch into this situation. Then I’ll track them down in whatever afterlife they’ve chosen and kick ‘im in the nether regions.

Also, in case it’s not too late, you can still join the EFF and the ACLU (the ACLU has a companion case going against the NSA). Oh, and if you aren’t using Tor, you should be.

Hunter-killer drones and remote CIA assassinations coming to a town near you

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

Now UAVs may be landing in the United States.

A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday heard testimony from police agencies that envision using UAVs for everything from border security to domestic surveillance high above American cities. Private companies also hope to use UAVs for tasks such as aerial photography and pipeline monitoring.
Click for photos

“We need additional technology to supplement manned aircraft surveillance and current ground assets to ensure more effective monitoring of United States territory,” Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner at Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection Bureau, told the House Transportation subcommittee.

This is Hoover’s America, not mine.

and the further destruction of privacy.

The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city – and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a “ring of steel” that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday.

The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

I know practices such as these have been going on in Europe for years, but watching as our country becomes increasingly totalitarian and fascist is depressing. The State always couches new information/tracking mechanisms in the cloth of “safety,” and given the current bedwetting climate seeking a Big Brother to watch over them, I don’t think they’ll meet any resistance. Next will be the RFID trackers with the lights to correllate citizen movement with permitted and proscribed activities. Show us your papers!

Wolcott has more.

In Minnesota this time.

A story by Minnesota Public Radio reveals a disturbing new way that a political party is secretly grabbing sensitive personal information about voters.

This week the Minnesota Republican Party is distributing a new CD about a proposed state marriage amendment. Along with flashy graphics, the CD asks people their views on controversial issues such as abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, and so on.

The problem – the CD sends your answers back to headquarters, filed by name, address, and political views. No mention of that in the terms of use. No privacy policy at all.

What happened to Sony in the DRM fiasco needs to happen to the Panoptic GOP.

It’s good to dream.

And thus autonom, privacy, and individual rights end not with a bang, but with a whimper.

A Cincinnati video surveillance company CityWatcher.com now requires employees to use Verichip human implantable microchips to enter a secure data centre. Until now, the employees entered the data centre with a VeriChip housed in a heart-shaped plastic casing that hangs from their keychain.

The VeriChip is a glass encapsulated RFID tag that is injected into the triceps area of the arm to uniquely identify individuals. The tag can be read by radio waves from a few inches away.

I just want to be clear on this… a company thought it was a good idea to force their employees to be injected with RFID tags for access to their datacenter and at least some of those employees acquiesced? Why not just brand them? Worker 3B116-Z would look great with a CityWatch brand on his forehead. What kind of simpering fool would agree to be tagged by their employer? Idiots. Idiots and authoritarians… they’re like peas and carrots.

And the copout that people will not be fired if they refuse is a fig leaf, that further ignores the coercive effects within a work environment, particularly in a tight labor market. What if the person’s only job is within the data warehouse? At that point they are being faced with a situation of acquiesce or quit. No court in the land would hear this case in favor of the workers of course, but that’s more of a condemnation of our country’s massively pro-management legal and social framework than addressing the merits of the worker’s position.

I mean, really, who needs them when your cell phone records are being publicly sold.

The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts.

Bush doesn’t need FISA, he just needs to pay these evil little fuckers $160 and he’ll have everybody Amanpour has called on her cell. Well, my cell phone usage is already miniscule, but this is yet another disincentive to its use.

How is it legal? You have no privacy right in your pen records and there is no countervailing law overriding that with regards to actions such as those described in the article. Hopefully Schumer will get his legislation passed. Oh yeah, GOP control so nothing except for pork and tax cuts for the top 1%. Nevermind.

Like the title says, here’s how you can cut down on anonymous spying and decrease your privacy vulnerability in one fell swoop. Somehow, I don’t think this is going to be a hit with the ladies.

With the proliferation of RFID devices and related privacy concerns, it seemed due time to create the RFID Blocking Duct Tape Wallet. There are many ways to prevent Radio Frequency ID tags from being transmitted from devices. I often use my work badge and school ID which both contain RFID tags. With drivers licenses, credit cards, and cash now beginning to contain RFID tags, why not create the wallet.