Bitcoin Forum

Ok, we all know what's going on with spying on the Internet by now. Getting the information out was just the first step. The heroic effort made by Edward Snowden won't go too far if we the people do nothing and just forget about it in a week or two.

Here is a segment of a weekly Linux Action Show titled "Privacy Under Linux" which offers a few practical advices (conveyed in an easy to understand and entertaining manner) on how to keep your communications secure. Among other tools they mention BitMessage and TorChat which seem to be the easiest and more powerful tools to use even for non-techie people.

"Privacy Under Linux | LAS s27e04"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vihXlw6Yw-E
(on-topic stuff starts closer to the middle of the video)

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You can also check out a few episodes of their new weekly show dedicated solely and completely to Bitcoin, which they ingeniously called "Plan BTC"

"90 Days or Bust | Plan B 10"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdd8lCIX3FY

"Bitcoin Will Disrupt Big Media | Plan B 9"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKfS2v6P-B8

"Then They Fight You | Plan B 8"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDqVqhXHeDU

i would like to see ways to taint the NSA data, not illegal ddos or hacking, just things that would muddy the data they collect. false things that co-mingle with their 'real' data to make them unsure of the accuracy of the 'truth' they think they are finding from their illegal spying on peoples

if many of us could run a distributed computing network of a program that would inject false information into the meta data they collect, perhaps that would provide a smoke screen against the illegal data mining NSA does

so, using encrypted email is analogous to flying a stealth airplane through their radar, they do not see it

i am talking about this analogy, where you use a smoke grenade to provide cover for a squad to pass through a watched chokepoint

this would be  a way to do activism, civil disobedience in cyber space, by reducing the accuracy of PRISM, making their data less useful to them

It will take a long time before people get fed up with it, but this revelation should be long-term beneficial to services like TorMail or any other anonymous e-mail/web browsing service.  VPNs should also see increased customers.

It depends, to avoid being tracked by most people? Use VPN or a similar service, usually the only time people would be able to find you through an internet connection is if they were particularly determined. What I do for instance is use a fake username like this that everyone can contact me on on the internet and keep my personal information separate, so even if I say, order something online, I use a different username to this one or use my real details and no one is going to know what I've been up to. Oh and if you really want to minimise your internet activity then of course Bitcoin is always an extremely good option, the only problem is not many normal services are accepting it just yet but as I've suggested in other threads you could buy Gold/Silver anonymously and then trade that in real life for cash.

As for PRISM? Like people are saying all over, it's the most hilariously flawed and fucked up surveillance program ever created, if it is automated, chances are you're going to have it setting off more false flags than an anti-virus on pirated software. There's that much information and communication out on the internet now it can and will fuck up systems like that so unless they're putting in a quantum computer then it won't be able to properly keep track of anything never mind an actual terrorist. This is probably going to be one of those programs that the U.S government will refuse to admit that it was wrong on until the bitter end knowing them.

Watson

http://prism-break.org/

Nice. Thanks.

Also, LIE. LIE like a MF. You do not have to be truthful on the internet. Junk up the databases with useless lies. Is your phone in your name? Why? I have not had a phone in my real name in forever. Use a variety of fictitious identities for your phone. Talk to your drug dealer, he/she will know how to do this.
Stop using spyware like windows or apple. You don't want that crap anyway. Try Linux and you will never go back to an untrustworthy proprietary OS.

Last and most importantly. Complain to your representatives. Politicians only care about money and votes. Call them out in public! If we are vocal enough we can take back some of our freedoms. 
 

Nice site! I notice it takes BTC donations (yea) but it doesn't have a "currency" category in its list of substitutes (boo). Seems a missed opportunity, now that fiat has become Bernanke's proprietary software.   :)

Edit: Yikes, it's there now, large as life. I don't know how I missed it. Maybe it just got changed (he whimpered).

The Bernanke does what the Bernanke wants

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k

Good one. I love a well-done xtranormal clip. That's a keeper!

The guy has a whole series that made its rounds across trading desks a few years back. They are both hilarious and painfully accurate.

Yup,

DISINFO, PEOPLE!!

You see, not everyone is in contact with their local drug dealer.

>:(  I want to bang my head against a wall ...

And last but not least,
use the word "FUCK" very liberally in all correspondence... ;D

What I am really annoyed about is that it was not confidential because it would tell the enemy what the government is doing.  The information was classified so that the America people would not be informed of the program and thus could not sue on constitutional grounds.  The courts have said secret programs cannot be found to be unconstitutional because they are secret and no one knows if they are actually occurring and no one knows who they are occurring on.

The point of it being confidential is so the public does not know and does not stop the program from occurring.

One interesting thing that I heard on the radio discussing privacy is that as the world becomes more connected and information is digitized privacy of the public becomes less but secrecy also becomes less of these programs.  In he past information was in hard copy and thus hard to disclose.  Now that many people have more access to information because it is digitized and keeping networks has become more specialized the secrecy of these programs is less easy to conceal.

Remember...
the People's Republic of China has been monitoring THEIR internet even tighter
for over 10 years now, with lackluster results.

It's not even true that they would know anything.
I could not resist some wise-assery in my remarks.  :)

I think that would depend on who you ask :-X

well, they've evolved from outlawing WoW gold tasking to cnc[chinacoin].

OPs and MODs:

I'd like to suggest a fixed topic about PRISM surveillance and inside that topic some info like that available at http://prism-break.org/ (http://prism-break.org/)

And freedom for all!

If you go on Reddit, you've probably seen this about 20,000 times, but here goes:

Don't ask your government for your Privacy, take it back:

    Browser Privacy: HTTPS Everywhere, AdBlock Plus + EasyList, Ghostery, NoScript (FireFox), NotScript (Chrome)
    VPNs: BTGuard (Canada), ItsHidden (Africa), Ipredator (Sweden), Faceless.me (Cyprus / Netherlands)
    Internet Anonymization: Tor, Tor Browser Bundle, I2P
    Disk Encryption: TrueCrypt (Windows / OSX / Linux), File Vault (Mac).
    File/Email Encryption: GPGTools + GPGMail (Mac), Enigmail (Windows / OSX / Linux)
    IM Encryption: Pidgin + Pidgin OTR
    IM/Voice Encryption: Mumble, Jitsi
    Phone/SMS Encryption: WhisperSystems, Ostel, Spore, Silent Circle ($$$)
    Google Alternative: DuckDuckGo
    Digital P2P Currency: BitCoin
    Live Anonymous/Secure Linux: TAILS Linux

If you have any problems installing or using the above software, please contact the projects. They would love to get feedback and help you use their software.

Have no clue what Cryptography is or why you should care? Checkout the Crypto Party Handbook or the EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense Project.

Just want some simple tips? Checkout EFF's Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy.

If you liked this comment, feel free to copy/paste it.

I understand the disgust at these "official findings" but unless you provide the service for yourself it can never be secure like farming, internet, etc. So, unless you're going to start a gigantic intranet based medium to provide information than I say do what you can but always know somebody out there if they really wanted to could spy on us...it's the price we pay when we aren't the producers of our consumption.

I don't know how secure it is, but Ostel.co (https://ostel.co/) seems to work as advertised, and I trust Zimmerman's ZRTP more than I trust any of the NSA creations.

I think if everyone starts using that kind of technology wherever they can, it will be prohibitive for the Washington District of Criminals to spy one everyone.

Good list. However, VPN + Tor or I2P Darknet are vulnerable to traffic analysis. Even with encrypted communications, these do not reliably obscure your identity from your IP address if the adversary is determined and has the resources to see all traffic.

Also we have no way of knowing which VPNs are backdoored.

Voice, chat, and email encryption obscure the content, but not the identities of whom is communicating. Thus you've just categorized yourself for the concentration camps coming.

Unfortunately you neophytes do not realize that details matter much.

Essentially what you all are doing by using these technologies and Bitcoin is labeling yourselves in the small minority that are anti-government. Not good for you.

Bitmessage (though it could use improvement) does not have open metadata the way simple encrypted email does.

Even with snail-mail, it is possible to obfuscate the sender (although not the receiver.) And there are ways to make content tampering (e.g. steaming envelopes) difficult to do without its being obvious.

However: if you choose to protect some communications but not others, that is itself a form of metadata that is subject to analysis. And if some persons but not others choose to protect communications, that is also metadata. Communication protection is hence most effective if adoption is widespread (built into most systems by default.) This alone would truly erase these issues.

Bitmessage type of anonymity is in theory (if done correctly) not susceptible to timing analysis as Tor and I2P are. The latter use onion routing where it is known which encrypted packets are intended for which IP addresses. In Bitmessage, in theory no one knows which packets are intended for which destinations.

Unfortunately Bitmessage can't scale because everyone receives every (encrypted) message. Perhaps this can be addressed with subsets, but this might compromise the anonymity.