Privacy

[dflatline]

While we're talking about privacy I'm going to promote Scryptmail:

http://www.scryptmail.com

Source: https://github.com/SCRYPTmail/scryptmail

 

[levi]

The OMAP 5 processor at least the one on the devboard doesn't even have a CPU serial number:

Hidden Content

My Intel PC doesn't report a serial number if I cat procinfo either, but I'm pretty sure it does have one.

FWIW, I'm not sure in the value of a firewall on a portable device.  It shouldn't have any open ports by default anyway.  I'm not sure if a firewall running as an application can obscure ICMP control messages processed in the IP stack, but that's the only way you can talk to a machine not exposing any ports (not that you can do much useful with it).

 

[TrashyMG]

 Ok but I doubt evildragon would record serial numbers from the device into a database or some other kind of storage where you could be traced back to the individual user.

 

[Urben]

 Ok but I doubt evildragon would record serial numbers from the device into a database or some other kind of storage where you could be traced back to the individual user.

This happens very often without any bad motives. One just thinks "Hey such a list might come in handy some times for me!".

 

[TrashyMG]

 Ok but I doubt evildragon would record serial numbers from the device into a database or some other kind of storage where you could be traced back to the individual user.

This happens very often without any bad motives. One just thinks "Hey such a list might come in handy some times for me!".

I doubt EvilDragon himself would have the time to do such a thing, at most the only thing that may be logged by him would be the serial number on the sticker in the battery compartment. There would be nothing stored on hardware or software that would relate to that number. This project doesn't the people a major corporation would have working round the clock, it's still ran by basically himself and a few helpers.

 

[rSl]

hey cool, a privacy topic!

in general i think it's important to be aware of the
fact that any electronic communication is stored and
most likely searched through automatically these days.
this is a sad thing, because politicians and the industry
formed this super-orwellian system we are living in now.

technically we can selfdefend us with crypto right now
(eg. tor and gpg)
and politically we have to peacefully show 'em hell in the
next election. going to the streets and raising awereness
is key here i think.

on the other hand its super frustrating to see so much
people saying things like "i have nothing to hide, so what"
and such stupid stuff.
privacy may come in verry handy when the next regime is
going door to door to get unwanted persons. be it for race,
their political views or whatever.
for example, in germany there was that "reichsradioregister"
they used to get the jewish people.

i think anonymity is power for the "normal" people and
because of this "they" really hate it.
so we have to empower ourselfes and try to get that
democratic structures back we thought we had some time ago.

 

[Kev2442]

http://www.scryptmail.com

Link not working. There it is.

I'm not particularly working on anything I shouldn't upload on Google Docs. And it's very useful for team work.

Yet I don't use my Google accounts at all except for this, plus I try to separate my professionnal, family/government and spam-related accounts.

I try to warn people around me about this, but as said before, most won't listen.

What I should do is show them this Google page I don't remember the URL, which showed what they know about your account. That sure would raise concerns.

Like you guys said, privacy is not to use because you have something on your mind or things you don't want others to know, it's because there are data other people don't need for you to work with them, you gain nothing by giving it to them, so you don't have and don't want to give'em what they want.

Like I once heard then repeated everytime I talk about this :

Si c'est gratuit, c'est toi le produit !

In english, that means "If it's free (of charge), you're the product !".

 

[elw3]

 Ok but I doubt evildragon would record serial numbers from the device into a database or some other kind of storage where you could be traced back to the individual user.

This happens very often without any bad motives. One just thinks "Hey such a list might come in handy some times for me!".

I doubt EvilDragon himself would have the time to do such a thing, at most the only thing that may be logged by him would be the serial number on the sticker in the battery compartment. There would be nothing stored on hardware or software that would relate to that number. This project doesn't the people a major corporation would have working round the clock, it's still ran by basically himself and a few helpers.

What about the imei in the 3g units? 

Is there some law or something that needs them to be stored?

I recall some talk about that. 

 

[TrashyMG]

 Ok but I doubt evildragon would record serial numbers from the device into a database or some other kind of storage where you could be traced back to the individual user.

This happens very often without any bad motives. One just thinks "Hey such a list might come in handy some times for me!".

I doubt EvilDragon himself would have the time to do such a thing, at most the only thing that may be logged by him would be the serial number on the sticker in the battery compartment. There would be nothing stored on hardware or software that would relate to that number. This project doesn't the people a major corporation would have working round the clock, it's still ran by basically himself and a few helpers.

What about the imei in the 3g units? 

Is there some law or something that needs them to be stored?

I recall some talk about that. 

Don't have a clue, but I doubt it's anything that ED would keep himself... How would that work on 3rd party re-sellers and such. 

 

[PowerGod]

You should also use a different DNS service everytime you connect (or remember all the IPs of your favourite sites and don't use DNS at all ), and use different browsers too (or just change the user-agent)

...also use a random MAC address at every session, and all the other "normal" routine things like deleting cookies and flash/html5/java storage everytime...

This will make more difficult to track behaviours

 

[jonlad1]

As a moderator I can see IP addresses and email accounts for each user... but hey feel safe.

HAHA! Gold reply

 

[kingoddball]

You watch a lot of Mr Robot or something?

• The homeless man with USB reference; not quite the same but close (Chirstian Slater)
• Paranoid everyone is watching
• Side note; AWESOME show (minus the drugs, felt it could have done without too)

Very paranoid... Don't DL illegal crap and live the google life

 

[kingoddball]

 Ok but I doubt evildragon would record serial numbers from the device into a database or some other kind of storage where you could be traced back to the individual user.

I'm sure he'd store pandora/pyra data - unit serial; warranty. I'm not sure if factory or anything is storing component data with unit serial - I think they would for things like product recalls. Maybe TI could realise they sold a dude batch and need to recall certain units.

 

[TrashyMG]

 Ok but I doubt evildragon would record serial numbers from the device into a database or some other kind of storage where you could be traced back to the individual user.

I'm sure he'd store pandora/pyra data - unit serial; warranty. I'm not sure if factory or anything is storing component data with unit serial - I think they would for things like product recalls. Maybe TI could realise they sold a dude batch and need to recall certain units.

The unit serial will most likely just be the sticker serial number slapped in the battery compartment like the Pandora. Nothing that is actually electronically stored on the device itself like the CPU serial number and such, that is the point I was trying getting at. Doing so would be more work than I can likely see an extremely small assembly team do. 

 

[Acheron]

My advice:

Don't use static logins. Ever.

Don't use popular web services.

Avoid the use of the WWW when possible, plenty of things can be accessed through other protocols. HTTP is inherently insecure. HTTPS is targeted by everybody, and not much better.

Use networks that have seen minimal use by the commercial sector, advertisers live there and they collect everything they "legally" can, usually according to /their/ country.

Use good encryption, and learn how piping works in Linux to eliminate cryptographic signatures. Layer it.

Remember that you generally have your best interests at heart more than any other.

If it's online, it'll be hacked eventually. Your data will not necessarily stay with an individual, company, or country. See: Sony, Amazon, Facebook.

Use IP addresses instead of DNS, as mentioned earlier.

Mask your IP, use proxies, think about using TOR if you know a few good exit relays, and make sure some kind of end-to-end encryption is enabled - ideally lots.

Use protocol bridges/layering. SSH, VNC, RTP, whatever looks useful.

If possible, rotate network adapters. If not, do it anyway.

If using WWAN, make sure to encrypt traffic long before it hits your modem.

Basically, be as unpredictable as possible and make the follower's job a royal pain.

Do lots of "normal", innocent stuff under heavy encryption. Send pictures of kittens to your grandmother, for example. It'll confuse the heck out of everybody.

Learn about 'net connection tracing, and how to check for signs of rerouting.

Log your own network traffic with a dedicated device.

There is no such thing as "overkill". Just enough kill.

Make sure you have a really, really good data plan.

Watch security conference talks, quite a few are freely available from official websites. They'll help get you up to speed.

Know where to draw the line. Don't become hopelessly paranoid about it, just take appropriate action.

Also, remember that most forums are indexed and cached... doh

/rant

 

[___]

From numerous posts by ED we can assume that he is very concerned about privacy issues and doesn't want to keep any personal information as far as he can. What that means, I cannot say. I remember though, that he is very aware of these issues. Best to get an official statement by him regarding this.

All in all, a very sad situation we're in right now. I just wanted to add this to all the previous rants: It's not our governments and corporations that did this on their own. For the most part it's due to stupid consumers and technology enthusiasts that didn't care up until now. FFIW these issues are not news. In the early 2000s when cellphones were more and more common, many people also called out the potential risks. We used to take the battery out at political gatherings and people we warned about this called us paranoid and laughed. Shortly after there were the first illegal  raids in Germany, based on illegal phone surveillance and they were tracking people live at demonstrations. Now every idiot has a smart phone and talks about privacy while updating their facebook status about how important it is... I can't bear to hear it anymore. Fucking morons... It's like Eben Moglen said, we are the problem, not the commercialization of our gullibility. It's not a surprise to me at all, that our governments are interested in monitoring everything. This is what they do and what secret services are for. The surprising part is how readily everybody helps them gather everything about them.

 

[Stellanatus]

From numerous posts by ED we can assume that he is very concerned about privacy issues and doesn't want to keep any personal information as far as he can. What that means, I cannot say. I remember though, that he is very aware of these issues. Best to get an official statement by him regarding this.

All in all, a very sad situation we're in right now. I just wanted to add this to all the previous rants: It's not our governments and corporations that did this on their own. For the most part it's due to stupid consumers and technology enthusiasts that didn't care up until now. FFIW these issues are not news. In the early 2000s when cellphones were more and more common, many people also called out the potential risks. We used to take the battery out at political gatherings and people we warned about this called us paranoid and laughed. Shortly after there were the first illegal  raids in Germany, based on illegal phone surveillance and they were tracking people live at demonstrations. Now every idiot has a smart phone and talks about privacy while updating their facebook status about how important it is... I can't bear to hear it anymore. Fucking morons... It's like Eben Moglen said, we are the problem, not the commercialization of our gullibility. It's not a surprise to me at all, that our governments are interested in monitoring everything. This is what they do and what secret services are for. The surprising part is how readily everybody helps them gather everything about them.

Yeah Ik what you mean. At first I tried to be more anonymous but it made life harder and was pretty poopy at it. So instead I split my activities in two. My privacy activities and my "I don't care if they see this" activities separate as if it were two different people in different locations without ever interacting. I'm an activist/protester... But also like to have my media/gaming/school mainstreamed. 

 

 

[WizardStan]

I understand where you're coming from but I respectfully disagree.  We should be able to live in a world where our safety and privacy are respected.  If I leave my door unlocked and someone walks off with my TV it isn't my fault: yes I could have done something to prevent it but I'm not the one who decided to steal a TV, the criminal who walked in made that choice.

To that end, if I send a private message about some meeting I'm having I should be fully within my rights to expect it to remain private, if the government is listening in against my will then it is them that have made that choice, for better or for worse, and responsibility lies 100% with the decision maker.

The fact that we can't does not make the people complaining about it morons.

 

[DaMummy]

You're in Canada. I'm sure you get more people knocking on your door to offer you to watch TV with them with a bottle of maple syrup.

 

[___]

@WizardStan: Please do not misunderstand my post, I totally agree with you. It is a perversion of human rights! I am not saying I like security standarts the way they are, just saying it is not surprising that governments act this way and that people let their rights go because they are gullible! This whole mess is unjust and wrong, it's just that consumers brought it on themselves, while in totalitarian states people don't even have a choice at all.