Staying private on internet.

[ShleeDragon]

I don't think TOR's that compromised, the FBI needed that lulzsec guy to screw up to find him.

Most of those guys are idiots at actually covering their tracks... and TOR won't save you from yourself if you make mistakes

 

[EssoAir]

Ya, most of the "infamous hackers" are 14 y/o with too little homework and too much time

 

[2bit]

^^ To little homework ?! All traditional homework does is set your mind to think in boring in the box ways . Good for creating a strong , submissive , and logistical ( I get food if I play along ) work force .

 

[Askarus]

Ya, most of the "infamous hackers" are 14 y/o with too little homework and too much time

This is one of the facts that frustrates me most.

Some children are computer pros and I'm not even able to port a Game to Pandora.

 

[ekianjo]

Ya, most of the "infamous hackers" are 14 y/o with too little homework and too much time

This is one of the facts that frustrates me most.

Some children are computer pros and I'm not even able to port a Game to Pandora.

You could if you followed PtitSeb's tutorial on Pandoralive. It's really far from being hard. You just need 30 mins of your free time to start porting.

 

[Askarus]

Ya, most of the "infamous hackers" are 14 y/o with too little homework and too much time

This is one of the facts that frustrates me most.

Some children are computer pros and I'm not even able to port a Game to Pandora.

You could if you followed PtitSeb's tutorial on Pandoralive. It's really far from being hard. You just need 30 mins of your free time to start porting.

I know .

In holidays I'll try to port something.

For now my mind is full with hundreds of pages I have to learn for exams.

I want to have a free mind for such things as I don't want to follow a tutorial but understand the steps I do.

 

[Klumpen]

 

[sebt3]

Security is a balance. The only *real* way to be secure on the net is to keep away from it. Because, if someone want to get in no matter the effort you'll make, they will get in.

The only sensible way is to have correctly balanced the difficulty to spot and track you compared to the importance that tracking is for them... Using product like TOR show you've something to hide, so you increase the importance to track you, while using only open system like IRC give you lower interest so lower chance to get tracked.

 

[Bosbeetle]

The other way of being secure is having nothing to hide. Any government could check everything I do and they would probably just yawn

 

[ElPoco]

The "I have nothing to hide" rhetoric is flawed.

1. Your current government would yawn, but what of the next one? What if a new government gets to power, and this government considers everyone who owns uncommon small computers - such as the Pandora - a dangerous threat? Or what if you just get an oppressive government/dictatorship (which, since you live in the EU, might not be completely out of the picture)?
2. If your government has databases and/or backdoors that allow it to retrieve your data, then anyone else can possibly get access to these databases and/or backdoors. This includes mafias, big companies as well as some guy who works for the government and has access to that data, and might just be your neighbor, or your wife's best friend. And while you might not have anything you'd care hiding from your government, is it true about anything/anyone else?
3. This is beside the point. Yes, the government probably doesn't care about my sex life or browsing history, but that doesn't mean I want to share it with them. That's what privacy is about. 

 

[Morn]

The other way of being secure is having nothing to hide. Any government could check everything I do and they would probably just yawn

Well, that might be easy for you but I can imagine people want to have their little secrets, love affairs, very personal letters etc.

 

[Klumpen]

The "I have nothing to hide" rhetoric is flawed.

1. Your current government would yawn, but what of the next one? What if a new government gets to power, and this government considers everyone who owns uncommon small computers - such as the Pandora - a dangerous threat? Or what if you just get an oppressive government/dictatorship (which, since you live in the EU, might not be completely out of the picture)?
2. If your government has databases and/or backdoors that allow it to retrieve your data, then anyone else can possibly get access to these databases and/or backdoors. This includes mafias, big companies as well as some guy who works for the government and has access to that data, and might just be your neighbor, or your wife's best friend. And while you might not have anything you'd care hiding from your government, is it true about anything/anyone else?
3. This is beside the point. Yes, the government probably doesn't care about my sex life or browsing history, but that doesn't mean I want to share it with them. That's what privacy is about. 

People shouldn't feel so secure from their government. The wind can change very suddenly and it does on a regular basis.

I'm reminded of different cases in America, Germany and England in the last years where a quick decision from a government executive turned against innocent citizens in a very terrible way.

 

[Null]

is having nothing to hide.

Everyone has something that they'd rather be kept private, I dare say even you do, feel free to spill the beans btw since you have nothing to hide.

 

[Klumpen]

The other way of being secure is having nothing to hide. Any government could check everything I do and they would probably just yawn

Do you want to be observed and have bugs everywhere around your house for a year when having sex and doing whatever business you are doing

and being arrested for a while without any crime or trial?

That's what happened to Andrej Holm, a renown social science guy in one of Berlins universities, because he wrote about gentrification (which really is a big problem in Germany atm) and sometimes went out of his house without taking his cellphone with him.

(OMG, we can't track him, he must be dangerous! Terrorists, omfg!)

They couldn't find anything against him but nobody will give him his and his familys old life back. They sure had their fun observing his daughter too.

Yes, our NSA is just like the StaSi back then in the GDR but has more possibilities.

 

[rygD]

I was avoiding getting in on this...

sometimes went out of his house without taking his cellphone with him.
(OMG, we can't track him, he must be dangerous! Terrorists, omfg!)

People act like I am a paranoid freak when I mention my hate for these devices since they function as both a leash and a tracking device.

What really bugs me is that some people who have been formally trained on security stuff are as likely as anyone else to react this way.  Furthermore, even though many of them are privacy advocates they also seem to support:

The other way of being secure is having nothing to hide.

This is bullshit.  Instead, I propose that not only should everyone be concerned about privacy and security when it matters, but also when it doesn't matter.  If you use the same precautions for secure communication of sensitive information as you do to check for a recipe it  becomes "second nature" or whatever. This serves to keep you better protected when it really does matter, because you are already doing it.  It also creates more noise and creates more work for those trying to see what you are saying or doing.  I am sure this cannot truly be as much of a minority view as it seems.  People lock their cars and homes, right?  They wear shoes, so how is this different?  If people don't care then I need to get out on the streets and start asking for ATM cards and PINs.

 

[sebt3]

...and creates more work for those trying to...

You dont seems to understand the computationnal power organisation like the NSA have, nor how many analyst there is behind the scene.Even if the number of persons doing this double, it wont bother then even slightly...

But, with that behaviour, be sure you're flagged as a potential terrorist, which mean (by the kind of laws being passed around the world, slowly but surely) you'll have less right (like no more upper bound to the preventive jail time and so on).

Brave new world here I come...

If people don't care then I need to get out on the streets and start asking for ATM cards and PINs.

While doing it irl wont work, doing it online work like a charm...

 

[rygD]

You dont seems to understand the computationnal power organisation like the NSA have, nor how many analyst there is behind the scene.

Actually, I do.

 Even if the number of persons doing this double

Instead, I propose that not only should everyone be concerned about privacy and security when it matters, but also when it doesn't matter.

Everyone, always.

But, with that behaviour, be sure you're flagged as a potential terrorist, which mean (by the kind of laws being passed around the world, slowly but surely) you'll have less right (like no more upper bound to the preventive jail time and so on).

They already keep an eye on me for other reasons.  Potential terrorist?  Whatever you want to believe.  You already mentioned the analysts.  You must think they don't know how to think, which I find amusing since that is their job.

 

[_wb_]

If you encrypt stuff, better use a method with strong cryptographic properties, very large key sizes, and make sure you're not running compromised software (e.g. anything by Microsoft or Apple) or using compromised web services (e.g. anything from Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Skype etc).

I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA can routinely decrypt some of the popular encryption methods, using a combination of brute force (probably they have very neat dedicated hardware just for brute-force decryption), weaknesses in the method itself that have not yet been discovered by the public, and subtle weaknesses in particular implementations of the method (subtly introduced or silently discovered by the NSA). While I don't think the NSA has secretly discovered that P=NP (that would be neat though), it's still possible that they have found an efficient decryption method for e.g. the RSA problem (which is not known to be NP-complete).

 

[levi]

Personally I'm not too fussed if the NSA et al are looking at my stuff. Sure the internet makes it easier, but it's always been possible for the state to monitor it's citizens. I can see why people object to that, especially in the states with its traditions, but I don't mind the govt spying on me if they're also spying on you and making sure you're not going to blow me up or what have you.

Personally I'm more concerned with what internet businesses have on me. When Amazon eventually gets sold (not anytime soon, but it'll happen in my lifetime I bet) my sales history, name and addresses all goes to the new owners, and I don't have any say in the matter. Using that information you could make up all sorts of stories about me, many of them true, but not all of them.

Not that I'm particularly concerned about the sale of Amazon, as I doubt the successive owners would do anything more with the mined data than offer things for me to buy, but the possibility is there.

 

[_wb_]

Imperialist states are generally not particularly trying to minimize civilian casualties of war and terrorism. Big brother-style monitoring is not at all an effective way to combat terrorism since there is generally no way to stop a sufficiently careful, desperate and determined terrorist. Controversial military activities and a sustained aggressive economical and political strategy of world domination that kills, impoverishes and hence understandably angers large fractions of the world population, those are both the main catalyst of terrorism and the main purpose of intelligence agencies. Hence, in many ways, organizations like the NSA are contributing more towards the stimulation of terrorism than towards countering it.