
Mozilla, EFF, Reddit And 83 Other Organizations Launch StopWatching.Us - rhufnagel
http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/11/stopwatching-us-launch/
======
kunai
Just the fact that we have to start websites like these, and march Capitol
Hill to make the government realize its mistake is depressing, infuriating,
and is gently, gradually tapping at a hot, steaming teapot of rage within
every rational individual's psyche.

What is the root cause? How did this get so incredibly bad? Is it the fault of
the public? Is it the public's fault we are in an Orwellian state of Soviet-
era Germany? Or does Hanlon's Razor apply here?

In any case, there needs to be more action than just bandage measures like
petitions and phoning your Congressman. This level of government negligence
deserves an uproar, and sadly we're not getting it because many trust
government, and are not skeptical in the slightest about it.

We have those animals called "politicians" to blame for that.

So, if people really want to change, lead a march on Capitol Hill. Be
attention-seekers, make a change for the better, not for the worse. Let your
life have value, and use that value against the worthless individuals sitting
at their desks in Washington.

Just do something worthwhile, not sitting behind that sRGB display of yours.
Painless encryption, countermeasures, protests, whatever -- we need to do
something.

~~~
zer0gravity
Concrete steps that I have made to gain control over my data:

\- hosting my DNS server ( bind ) along with my domain

\- Made my own RSS reader and blog with openid authentication (server/client)

\- Installed ftp server ( vsftpd )

\- Installed my own mailserver (nice tutorial here:
[https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MailServer](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MailServer))

Planning to: \- install my own xmpp server

I want to create an integrated, user centered platform, that will provide (
mail, blogging, storage, ftp, feed reader, an openid identity & social
networking ) and make it really easy for somebody to install it on a raspberry
pi + some external storage and have its own personal micro data center.

Someone could also consider Citadel
([http://www.citadel.org/](http://www.citadel.org/))

If you ask me, I'd say that the personal data center is the future ( the free
future )

~~~
tn13
Well, I wonder why cant we create too many false positives for them to make
the whole data meaningless ?

Instead of hiding all our private communication we can generate fake
communication across the whole internet which might raise flags in NSA's
system. (I would have given more concrete examples but I am scared that
tomorrow some NSA freak might knock on my door.)

~~~
zer0gravity
What you're proposing is like this:

I want to say a sentence to someone, but in order for an unintended listener
not to understand what I'm saying I will say 10 sentences. Five of which will
be "I will kill you and everyone you know" and "I will bomb America".

Isn't that just a meaningless waste of energy?

\-- The government spies on you because you make it easy for it to do it.
Instead, keep your personal data personal, use encryption and there's not much
more that it can do, without becoming physical... ( it has no problem doing
that either, but at least its intentions will be more obvious that way, and
hopefully will wake up all the ignorants that think that some old guys peeking
into everyone's lives is justified).

~~~
TeMPOraL
> Isn't that just a meaningless waste of energy?

It is. People suck at being random, so there's a good chance that those "false
positives" will actually be trivially filtered out. And even if not
immediately, this is an algorithmic problem - they will just throw few dozen
kUSD at some math and CS graduates to make it go away.

------
lifeisstillgood
This is going to be about a redefinition of privacy.

It was ok for governments to spy on other countries governments (and so their
citizens). In this name we put satellites over us all. The problem with this
is the satellites spied on everyone, and governments were supposed to ignore
the right bits.

But now if a government wants to spy, it mostly needs to watch what people do
or do not do online (I will bet real spies have some really odd online
"tells")

So if its ok to spy on another government, it's going to be necessary to spy
on everyone everywhere, and then ignore certain bits. Like satellites but much
more finer grained. Oh and if you want to catch a spy in the USA, you need to
spy on all US citizens to watch for those "tells".

What we want is not for governments to pretend the Internet does not exist,
but rather to ensure that they cannot use the information found for anything
we do not specifically legislate.

I am pretty sure this is something like an extension of the fourth amendment
in US terms.

It's a redefinition of privacy - not that no-one knows, but that no-one is
allowed to make use of knowing.

That's the trade-off we face. We get the Internet, we give up what we
currently think of as privacy.

~~~
pyre
1\. The machinery being put into place is a dictator's wet dream. By creating
the infrastructure, we are putting a gun to our heads, and trusting the person
holding it (the government) to not pull the trigger. The government may be
benevolent now, but that may not always be the case.

2\. Once the machinery is in place, it makes it that much easier to change
directions. Just look at how all of the powers granted by the PATRIOT Act are
used to non-terrorism related investigations like the War on Drugs, or the War
on (Paid) Sex. Look to the censorship programs in Europe / Australia. They
were put into place to block supposedly ' _only_ ' child pornography. Now they
are used to block other things.

3\. How are we supposed to make sure that things aren't being abused when
everything happens behind closed doors, and the members of Congress cleared to
see more specifics aren't allowed to see very much of hte system.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
> dictator's wet dream I expect the same was said about satellites, telephone
> tapping, etc Our defence against dictators does not lie in technology but in
> the ballot box.

2\. Again the ballot box is the defence, but the reason it gets used is people
are educated about the technology and the implications of abuse. I doubt that
a US to ernment that took away a right to silence would suffer a few outcries
from geeks. They would get roasted. (Unlike the UK)

3\. Secret courts are banned for that reason. I think I would like to see a
definition of national security like "ten thousand dead" or 3 % loss of GDP.
Then when. That gets invoked we can make a sensible guess about how often it's
likely. Otherwise, you put it in open court

Individuals are not the only ones to lose privacy in the coming years. Go
ernment a will lose more

~~~
pyre
The government has more resources than common citizens have. Sure the
government is losing privacy, but citizens can't be invasive of the
government's privacy in the same way that the government is being invasive of
citizens' privacy.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
in aggregate we can, and will.

~~~
pyre
Can and will invade the government's privacy how? Maybe by forcing them to be
more transparent, but I don't view that as "invading the government's
privacy."

------
bradenb
Here's where I get depressed about this whole thing: how will we know change
has occurred? I mean, say in the best case scenario the government admits it
was wrong and promises to stop the monitoring programs. How exactly are we
supposed to know it has happened? I don't see why they couldn't simply start
up a new secret program using the exact same resources and keep it from the
public eye.

~~~
milhous
A good way to do it would be to radically downsize the federal government and
return back to limited constitutional government. The less money they have,
the less stuff they can do. Return power (and tax revenues) back to the states
so that the people of that state can have a more powerful influence in
state/local politics instead of everyone pleading, fighting, and begging at
the national level in Washington.

And since radical downsizing won't happen voluntarily, as both political
parties are corrupt and incompetent, the only way I can see this happening is
for the government to continue borrowing and spending money into oblivion,
which will ultimately trigger an economic default. At that point, there will
be no money for new secret programs.

~~~
mehwoot
_The less money they have, the less stuff they can do._

Iran-Contra, anybody? And the president that was in charge was a small
government hero.

 _And since radical downsizing won 't happen voluntarily, as both political
parties are corrupt and incompetent, the only way I can see this happening is
for the government to continue borrowing and spending money into oblivion,
which will ultimately trigger an economic default. At that point, there will
be no money for new secret programs._

Ah yes, starve the beast. That's working out well.

~~~
notdrunkatall
Except they never starved anything. Government expenditures did not decline in
any meaningful way.

~~~
ubernostrum
It's almost as if there's a trend that people who go on and on and on about
their commitment to "small government" principles suddenly abandon those
principles the moment they're in power.

~~~
notdrunkatall
It's almost as if every politician does precisely that.

------
fiatmoney
Instead of a "campaign", how about some technical countermeasures? They're the
only thing that actually has a chance of working.

You simply can't rely on the political process as it exists when the response
of the security establishment is to a) wait for an arbitrary crisis to dust
off a naked power-grab, b) secretly "reinterpret" the law beyond recognition,
and c) flatly ignore the law as they did with their "Terrorist Surveillance
Program".

~~~
jafaku
What technical countermeasures do you suggest? Check out what this guy has to
say about resistance:
[http://youtu.be/3ftfEXxFC4Q?t=28m53s](http://youtu.be/3ftfEXxFC4Q?t=28m53s)

~~~
visarga
I have thought about it. We can't make use any more of Google, Microsoft,
Yahoo Twitter and FaceBook. We need a new system, one built with anonymity and
lacking a central point of failure.

Let's say we invent a protocol and write some software clients for it. It
should do anonymous search, browsing, messenging, social networking, video
calls and video streaming. It would hide the origin of a request and make it
uncertain about who does what.

For example, if 1000 people use a common VPN server to access Google, and they
all come out as the same IP address, it can become more difficult to know who
searched for what. All that is needed then is to browse in Safe Mode without
logging in.

This kind of ideas and other (distributed hash table, using bittorrent like
systems for moving data around) could make a nice private communication tool.

We just need to make a clear separation between what can be said on FB and
what can be said on Anonymous net.

~~~
coldpie
I've been thinking about this, too (I think something built on top of Freenet
is the answer, btw). But the trouble I keep running in to is: no one is going
to use it. Relatively few people want to hide what they put into the Internet.
Everything on Facebook is effectively public, and look how much information
gets placed there.

We can invent wonderful and secure ideas all day, and have been since the
'40s. But what use are they if no one uses them?

We need to break this down like any traditional problem and remove
irrationality. What, exactly, is the problem we want to solve? What prevents
existing technology from solving that problem?

Edit: I should add, I'm somewhat interested in discussing this seriously, if
you wish to take it off HN.

~~~
DanBC
> We need to break this down like any traditional problem and remove
> irrationality. What, exactly, is the problem we want to solve? What prevents
> existing technology from solving that problem?

1) We want Ann and Bob to be able to communicate. Both Ann and Bob must know
that they are actually talking to each other, and not to Eve pretending to be
Ann or Bob. Eve must not be able to understand what Ann or Bob are saying to
each other.

2) We want Anonymous_Person to be able to send a document to Bob. We don't
want Eve to be able to work out who anonymous_person is. We don't care if Eve
can read the document.

These two are already possible, but hard. Subtle flaws can mean totally
broken. Huge amounts of money and research and effort goes into making
computer OSs and interfaces easier to use, but there is very little happening
around making cryptography and anonymity easier to use. Thus, good quality,
short, readable, documentation would be very useful. And much better
interfaces and workflow for existing software would also be helpful.

3) We want Anonymous_Person to be able to send a message to Bob. We want
Anonymous_Person and Bob to be able to know they are talking to each other,
and not to Eve pretending to be one of them. We want to make sure that Eve
cannot read the message. And we want to make sure that Even cannot tell who
anonymous person is.

This is very hard. It requires advanced knowledge, and strict discipline, and
very careful use of complicated tools.

Then there are a bunch of expectations. "We cooperate only when given a
validly formed legal document; and we resist those if we think they're too
broad" is one. Perhaps some kind of Privacy Charter? A bit like the GNKSA[1]
(Good Net Keeping Seal of Approval) - and companies can have a checklist of
things they do to meet the charter.

[1] ([http://www.gnksa.org/](http://www.gnksa.org/))

------
Qantourisc
I still wonder why humans outside the US are of less value then the peaple
inside it... Or aren't we humans ?

Also where is StopWatching.eu ? Cause the site is made for us :p

~~~
ryusage
To be fair, part of the US government's job is to protect its citizens against
outside threats. Given that, I can't imagine anyone inside the US arguing that
they should stop spying on other countries' citizens. I'm pretty sure that's
the NSA's actual job.

And anyway, there's a huge difference between being spied on by a foreign
government versus your own. My own government actually has some amount of
authority and influence over me and my community, whereas some place like the
UK has little to none, so it's less of a big deal.

~~~
danbruc
The distinction should definitely not be US vs foreign country citizens but
unsuspicious vs suspicious people. Spying at unsuspicious foreigners is
absolutely no better than spying at your own citizens - it's still a human
rights violation.

------
pinaceae
May I ask to expand this request to all the advertisers, and other consumer
trackers? Google, Facebook, 99.9% of all Internet consumer stuff basically?
Plus Banks, Credit Card companies, TelCos?

The fact that PRISM is so cheap (20mil) is only possible because the NSA does
not need to actually snoop at all - it is just taking data from Google, etc.
that they already collected on us (which for some fucking reason is ok if it
is a commercial entity).

So if I ever get slammed for using AdBlock, I'll cite this NSA bruhaha and the
stopwatching.us initiative.

Or, as the genius Onion put it: Area Man Outraged His Private Information
Being Collected By Someone Other Than Advertisers
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-outraged-his-
priva...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-outraged-his-private-
information-being-co,32783/)

------
mayneack
I wonder how often freedom works (the infamous tea party group supposedly
funded by the koch brothers) is listed right next to greenpeace and on the
same list of supporters as the PCCC and moveon.org. It can't be often

~~~
jdp23
Privacy is one of those issues that cuts across the spectrum. With Stop REAL
ID, we had transgender people and biblical literalists on the same side. A
friend of mine was telling me about a coalition meeting a few years ago where
the lobbyist for the Quakers was sitting next to -- and agreeing with -- the
people from the NRA. Strange bedfellows indeed.

------
tomasien
I think it's funny that this was on the front page this morning, and with
"Mozilla, EFF, and Reddit" in the title, the TechCrunch article about it blows
straight to the top.

Titles matter y'all, titles matter.

------
morroccomole
Not too many Silicon Valley software companies on that list

------
pvnick
I love Mozilla

~~~
ndesaulniers
Mozilla loves all. See the Mozilla Story.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmk43_2dtn0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmk43_2dtn0)

------
dataisfun
Signed! Thank goodness organizations are stepping up to avert the slow creep
of total surveillance.

------
defuzz
Just an intresting observation and question: why is this linking to techcrunch
and not directly to
[https://optin.stopwatching.us/](https://optin.stopwatching.us/) ?

------
dzhiurgis
And there was the ultimate test - submit your personal details in order to
fight your freedom. Odd, isn't it?

------
_pmf_
Protesting against surveillance by providing personal information online ...

~~~
bargl
I think the idea is that in this case we have willfully divulged our
information versus the government gathering our personal data without consent.

------
hkmurakami
love the (I think?) backhanded slap against FWD.us

(maybe I'm reading too much into this)

------
ekianjo
Members of US Congress who signed this... _click_

None. Hmm.

