Fwd: GNU hackers discover HACIENDA government surveillance and give us a way to fight back

[Mirimir]

On 08/23/2014 08:08 PM, dan at geer.org wrote:
> 
>  | On 2014-08-23 at 12:16, dan at geer.org wrote:
>  | >> On 2014-08-22 at 21:13, Rejo Zenger wrote:
>  | >> Open data and transparency should only be about what concerns everybody,
>  | >> like government actions, trains schedule, etc. not private information.
>  | >
>  | > Is this not the core of the question?  In a world of social media
>  | > and sensor-driven everything, does not the very concept of private
>  | > information fade, per se?  I believe it does.
>  | 
>  | It will be when any kind of authority (thus hierarchy) or intolerance
>  | (thus ignorance/inconsciousness) would have *perfectly disappeared*.
>  | Whenever it's possible or not, we can still see that today it isn't so,
>  | therefore privacy still has importance.
> 
> 
> Given that
> 
>     Philosophical and legal analysis has often identified privacy
>     as a precondition for the development of a coherent self.
>        -- Phil Agre, "The Architecture of Identity," 1998
> 
> one must conclude that it is a mortal peril to give up privacy,
> at least before, as you said, evil has disappeared from the face
> of the Earth.
> 
> My point was and is simply that nearly everything is now observable
> IN PUBLIC.  Technology makes this possible but it social media and
> sensor networks through which that technology brings observability
> of the heretofore unobservable to the attention of whomever wants
> it.  That trend cannot be undone, ergo, I said in the speech,
> 
>     [W]e are becoming a society of informants.  In short, I have
>     nowhere to hide from you.
> 
> This being the gnupg list, we are likely now in a rat hole, but if
> we are not yet there, then let me ask a question:  Many's the member
> of this list who posts under a pseudonym.  Is pseudonymous posting
> a privacy-preserving tactic or something else?
> 
> --dan

Pseudonymous posting is (of course) a privacy-preserving tactic. I'm not
sure what you mean by "or something else". Privacy is rather orthogonal
to good vs evil, if that's what you're getting at.

My response to the panopticon involves fragmenting my observable
activity among multiple personae. Each persona has its unique set of
interests and activities. Some, such as mirimir, are stable and very
public. Others are very transient, and private. Each is appropriately
isolated from my true identity, and from the other personae, through
such technologies as virtual machines, VPN services, Tor and JonDonym.

It's true that none of my personae use smartphones and other tracking
devices. But that's just because relevant technologies for spoofing
identity, location and so on are too immature. I have faith in the
Guardian Project.