Category: Internet matters

Posts about the internet

Pushing back against internet surveillance

An international effort is being made today to fight back against internet surveillance.

If you wish to take part, I suggest doing so by downloading a version of the GNU Privacy Guard for your operating system, in order to encrypt your emails. Gpg4Win is for Windows, while GPGTools is for Mac OS.

Downloading the TOR Browser Bundle is also a good idea.

Lastly, you may want to learn how to use your operating system’s built-in disk encryption: BitLocker for Windows and FileVault for Mac OS.

None of this is likely to protect you from the NSA / CSEC / GCHQ, but it will make ubiquitous surveillance a bit harder to enforce.

Flash memory and storing data for the long term

I didn’t know this about flash memory:

Flash memory is really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it’s too good to be true. In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception. The illusion of a contiguous, reliable storage media is crafted through sophisticated error correction and bad block management functions. This is the result of a constant arms race between the engineers and mother nature; with every fabrication process shrink, memory becomes cheaper but more unreliable. Likewise, with every generation, the engineers come up with more sophisticated and complicated algorithms to compensate for mother nature’s propensity for entropy and randomness at the atomic scale.

These algorithms are too complicated and too device-specific to be run at the application or OS level, and so it turns out that every flash memory disk ships with a reasonably powerful microcontroller to run a custom set of disk abstraction algorithms. Even the diminutive microSD card contains not one, but at least two chips — a controller, and at least one flash chip (high density cards will stack multiple flash die).

It reinforces the point that we really have no technology for long-term data storage. Hard drives fail, burned CDs and DVDs likewise. Paper is enduring.

Even backup systems like Apple’s Time Machine have problems. If a file gets corrupted on your hard drive, Time Machine will start backing up corrupted copies, eventually over-writing the good ones. What’s really needed is a system that makes a hash of the files to be backed up and stores distinct copies of all modified versions. Of course, that could require a lot more storage space – especially if the files in question are something like videos being edited.

Advertising on this site

I am mindful of the fact that the advertising on this site is ugly, and often runs counter to the main lines of argument here. For instance, there are often ads for oil companies.

All told, the ads yield roughly $100 per year, which is enough to cover the costs of hosting the site.

Would people strongly prefer a site without ads? If so, would they be willing to donate to make that happen?

To be fair, I have always encouraged people to use advertising blocking plugins. Adblock Plus, for Chrome and Firefox, is excellent.

HOPE 6 videos

2600 Magazine has just posted an archive with 67 hours of talks originally given at HOPE 6 in 2006. They are available for purchase at DVD quality, of free viewing via YouTube at lower quality.

There is some seriously interesting stuff in here: Basics of Forensic Recovery, Binary Revolution Radio, Exploring Your World with Open Source GIS, GPS, and Google Maps, Keynote Address – Richard Stallman, Urban Exploring: Hacking the Physical World, and a lot more.

Note: many of these videos include bizarre and implausible conspiracy theory ideas.

Operational security for disclosing wrongdoing

Wired on the steps now required for whistleblowers to leak evidence of wrongdoing to journalists, in an age of ubiquitous surveillance:

“Get a dedicated computer or tablet: the cheapest Windows laptop will do. And pay cash, as our normal laptops have a host of automatic synchronization and similar services. Our personal web browsers also contain all sorts of location-identifying cookies. Even if you’re logged in to but don’t actually visit Facebook’s home page, a subpoena to Facebook can still reveal where you connect and what pages you visit — every “Like” button reports to Facebook that you are visiting that particular page, at a particular time, from a particular IP address.

Leave your cellphone, your normal computer, and your metro card (like SmarTrip) at home: anything that speaks over a wireless link must stay behind. Then go to a coffee shop that has open Wi-Fi, and once there open a new Gmail account that you will only use to contact the press and only from the dedicated computer. When registering, use no personal information that can identify you or your new account: no phone numbers, no names.

Don’t forget: if you get anything at the cafe, or take public transit, pay cash. Be prepared to walk a bit, too; you can’t stay close to home for this.

Of course, the job still isn’t finished. When you are done you must clear the browser’s cookies and turn off the Wi-Fi before turning off the computer and removing the battery. The dedicated computer should never be used on the network except when checking your press-contact account and only from open Wi-Fi connections away from home and work.”

Related: Wikileaks and whistleblowers

Concept for making use of Google’s ‘Inactive Account Manager’ feature

Presumably after considering the consequences of doing so, Google has become a sort of unusual executor of the digital estates of users who opt in to their ‘Inactive Account Manager’ feature.

They are given the option to set how long a ‘timeout period’ must pass before the system kicks in.

They are then allowed to automatically notify and potentially share data with up to 10 “trusted friends or family members”.

They can then add an autoresponder message, either for anyone who emails them or just for contacts.

Finally, they can set up a system to delete their account.

In a way, this looks a lot like a Dead man’s switch.

The concept

This system relies upon the autoresponder feature.

If you have data that you wish to make publicly available only after your death, encrypt it with a secure-yet-commonly-used algorithm like AES.

Put the key in the body of your Google post-mortem autoresponse email.

In all likelihood, the key will circulate and people will be able to decrypt the files which you wish for them to decrypt.

I am sure Google thought this through, but it seems to me that this system might encourage suicides. There can be a certain attraction in going out by means of a dramatic gesture, and this system makes it a lot easier.

Apology for eaten emails and comments

These days, I need to be extra-vigilant in terms of filtering possible spam and malware. I also get a substantial volume of spam comments and emails each day. As a result, it is almost certain that I am occasionally missing legitimate emails and comments, deleting them from spam folders that I don’t have time to check through manually, or never even seeing them because they are automatically blocked on a different basis.

The blog’s spam filtering systems are fairly sensitive to links, so if your comments are being eaten try posting them without links.

Similarly, for email, I am more likely to open an email from an unknown sender if it is in plain text (not HTML) and includes no attachments.

iTunes updates

The decision of whether or not to update iTunes is always a wary one for me.

On the one hand, it is possible they are patching essential security bugs that are leaving one or more of my devices vulnerable.

On the other, it is likely that the update will include at the very least a gratuitous and confusing user interface change, and at most will be another transformation in the functioning of the whole program. I don’t want to need to learn new software every time Apple decides to mix things up again, and they have an unfortunate habit of eliminating good features and introducing deliberately frustrating ones.