
Do you like online privacy? You may be a terrorist - bootload
http://publicintelligence.net/do-you-like-online-privacy-you-may-be-a-terrorist/
======
VonLipwig
This is golden. I think I might be a terrorist.

I...

1) Shield my screen in public places ( I don't want snoopers reading my
emails....) 2) I pay cash most of the time (Helps me save money as the change
goes into a change jar never to be spent again) 3) I have multiple cell
phones. (One for business, one for personal)

4) I use a proxy to shield my IP address 5) I encrypt my computer and files, I
send password protected compressed files. 6) I communicate with people I have
never met in video games

7) I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and
infrastructures

Seriously though I am not keen on the flier. I think terrorism and extremists
work best in fragmented societies. If you live in a small village where
everyone knows everyone then the oddball or outcast will naturally be viewed
with curiosity and suspicion. However, in towns and cities where you sometimes
don't know your neighbor.. this is where a suspicious person can thrive.

Fliers like this encourage you not to trust to your neighbor. It screams. "The
guy next to you might be a terrorist!" and encourages you to be distrustful.
Its not healthy. It helps propagate the climate of fear. You expect messages
like this in a police state not in a supposedly free country.

~~~
srl
> I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and
> infrastructures

You're on a website called "Hacker News", for starters. Am I the only one
who's had to deal with related idiocy when on a public computer? (Also, using
PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of places for
"hacking".)

~~~
pmiller2
>(Also, using PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of
places for "hacking".)

Has this happened to you or anyone you know?

~~~
srl
It's happened to me as stated.

Back in public school, I had a friend who got banned from using the computers
for several months for VNC'ing into his home computer. Because it was
"hacking" - no other rationale, no complicating factors.

To use the car analogy: it's like getting arrested for using a remote to
unlock your car instead of a physical key. (Or, more accurately, like getting
your license taken away for several months. Which may make even less sense.)

------
ttt_
From: Ten Steps to Close Down an Open Society:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-
close-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-
a_b_46695.html?view=print)

 _4 Set up an internal surveillance system

In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist
China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and
encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a
minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they
themselves were being watched.

In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York
Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens' phones, read their
emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to
ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny.

In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about "national
security"; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their
activism and dissent._

------
elb0w
So Obama signed the National Defense Authorization act which allows the
indefinite detention of citizen and non-citizens declared as terrorists of the
united states. Lamar Smith is pushing a bill that will require ISP's to store
all information on U.S. Citizens that tie to an IP address. Now the FBI is
saying you are a terrorist if you try to hide your ip. So now if you don't
allow the government to capture all information about you from the internet
you can declared a terrorist which in-turn will cause you to be held in jail
indefinitely..... or im just paranoid.

~~~
jrockway
_you can declared a terrorist which in-turn will cause you to be held in jail
indefinitely_

It probably won't be you. By the time they'd come looking for you, these laws
will have been laughed out of the Supreme Court and a few political careers
will be dead forever.

~~~
srl
> these laws will have been laughed out of the Supreme Court

It makes me mighty uncomfortable how often we have to fall back on "because
the supreme court" (or more generally, "because courts" - there are a lot of
lower-level justices doing their jobs admirably, and they don't get nearly
enough credit) to convince ourselves that we're not heading for a closed
society. Eventually, someone will grab enough political capital to pull an
Andrew Jackson and decide to just ignore and possibly arrest them - at which
point we're absolutely screwed.

We're at the point now where viable presidential candidates can openly admit
that they don't believe the courts are worth obeying. It's time to start
worrying.

------
jgrahamc
Switching SIM cards is perhaps not common in the US, but in Europe it's very
common. If you take the Eurostar from Paris to London the people changing SIM
cards as they come out of the Channel tunnel are not terrorists, they are
people who don't want to pay high roaming charges.

Also, paying cash in an Internet café doesn't seem like unusual behavior at
all. Many people who use them will be students and people traveling who may
not want to hand over a credit card in a foreign country.

~~~
johncoltrane
Here in France it's often hard to pay for anything under 15 or sometimes 30 €
with a payment card. Big chains and supermarkets often have a very low minimum
(think 0.50 €) but smaller shops have no problem indicating you the closest
ATM. To the point where the second phrase you say in a shop is often "C'est
quoi le minimum pour la carte ?".

And yes for Internet cafés. Absurdity.

~~~
mikeash
I believe that credit card merchant agreements in the US prohibit any minimum
amount for card purchases. You can occasionally find places that do it, but
they're breaking their agreement and risk punishment for doing so, so it's
rare.

~~~
apu
In big cities in the US it's very common for many businesses to either have a
minimum for card purchases, or charge extra for small purchases, or offer
"cash discounts" -- regardless of what the actual law is.

~~~
cdr
It's not law (though there may be state/local laws also), it's the merchants'
agreements with Visa/MC/Amex/etc. Cash discounts are allowed - you see them
with gas stations quite frequently - but minimums and surcharges are
disallowed and the merchant will almost certainly get into trouble with the
credit issuers if it's reported.

It's almost entirely small businesses that try to flout their agreements -
you'll rarely see any major business try because of the consequences.

------
orbitingpluto
This is of course ridiculous.

I can be found in a cafe almost more often than not. I...

1) regularly use encryption for all traffic while in a cafe. Would you yell
out your credit card in a cafe over the phone? It's easier to encrypt
everything than handpick.

2) regularly have multiple phones out on the table. I'm usually doing Android
dev.

3) travel up to six kilometers to get my _good_ coffee. Apparently
unwillingness to drink McD coffee is a sign of a terrorist?

4) love coffee and drink way too much of it. So if I'm a little twitchy from
that third Americano I may be a terrorist?

5) prefer to pay cash to limit my spending so I don't get that fourth
Americano.

6) Like to get out. Just because I have Internet at home and I'm using it
somewhere else doesn't make me suspicious.

That being said, I have been suspicious of people using Internet at coffee
shops before. But usually it's that guy who has parked right in front of the
coffee house for the third consecutive day and has his laptop out. (I noticed
his car when going to the cafe one day and realized he was just getting porn.
The cafe owner and I had a good laugh about it.)

I have also called police about a young man who had made a giant map of
downtown and making sniper signs and lines of sight across it. He also really
wanted to talk about a recent mass murder. The creepiness and attention
seeking was enough to set off internal alarms. The police followed up with me
after and were very professional.

The only people I ever terrorised in a coffee house are the Mactards who think
it is fine to bittorrent and bring even simple email checking for everyone
else to a screaming halt. So far, it is the only useful thing I've ever made
in Python.

------
twelvechairs
"What should I consider Suspicious?" "People Who:" "Act nervous or suspicious
behaviour inconsistent with activities"

Whoever wrote this should go back to both English class (grammar!) and
circular logic class (I should consider someone 'suspicious' because they have
'suspicious behaviour'?)

~~~
loup-vaillant
It's not circular logic. It's an appeal to intuition. When they say a suspect
is someone who act suspect, they really mean "act in ways you _feel_ is
suspect". There, you know that if someone is glancing sideways, then your
feeling suspicious is enough to mark that person as suspect (or so the flyer
says).

Anyway, that's just as bad: it teaches you to be paranoid.

~~~
slowpoke
_> Anyway, that's just as bad: it teaches you to be paranoid._

What taught me to be paranoid weren't retarded fliers like these. That honor
goes to the people who caused me to pick up the practices described on this
flier in the first place - organizations like the FBI, government increasingly
evolving towards police states a and, last but not least, corporations like
Google or Facebook, whose practices can at best be described as amoral.

------
thebigshane
An interesting snippet from the "General Public" version (as opposed to the
parent "Internet Cafe" version)

    
    
       It is important to remember that just 
       because someone’s speech, actions,  
       beliefs, appearance, or way of life is 
       different, it does not mean that he or  
       she is suspicious.  Instead, focus on 
       behavior and activities that are unusual  
       or out of place for the situation and that 
       appear to be suspicious. 
       
       The activities outlined on this handout  
       are by no means all-inclusive but have  
       been compiled from a review of terrorist 
       events over several years.  Some of the 
       activities, taken individually, could be 
       innocent and must be examined by law 
       enforcement professionals in a larger 
       context to determine whether there is a 
       basis to investigate. 
    

[source: [http://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-
SuspiciousActivity/Ge...](http://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-
SuspiciousActivity/General_Public.pdf)]

It looks like they acknowledge the same individual complaints as noted in the
comments here but I think they miss the overall point that people are innocent
until proven guilty. It sounds like they are saying only law enforcement
professionals are qualified to determine whether someone displaying some of
these behaviors is really innocent.

I'm not saying someone needs to have charges pressed against _before_ being
investigated. Instead, I'm saying this is a dramatic shift to our social
obligations and interactions: the person next to you is now no longer innocent
by default, he is a potential terrorist and it is your responsibility to
monitor his activities and if they show any unusual behavior to bring in the
police/feds.

~~~
Terretta
Agreed.

Note "some of the activities _could_ be innocent" ... really? ... "and _must_
be examined by law enforcement" ... ok then ... "to determine whether there is
a _basis to investigate_ ".

Sure smells like an end run on "The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause..."

Here the "could be innocent" implies default of not being innocent, and the
law enforcement gets involved _before_ determination of basis to investigate.

It's "If you've got nothing to hide, why are you hiding it?" in flyer form.

~~~
xorbyte
Doesn't this set up 'probable cause to search' because the LEOs get a
complaint of suspicious behaviour from a civillian? It certainly seems to be
an easy way to bypass the 4th.

------
rasur
Would it not just be simpler and cheaper for the FBI and DOJ to print a flyer
that says: "You are all under arrest, on suspicion of Terrorism. Report to
your local Police station for processing."

I mean, really - what kind of insanity is being entertained in the US at the
moment?

------
loup-vaillant
That gives me the urge to display suspicious behaviour just to make them lose
time. As I live in France, it shouldn't be so risky yet.

Seriously, if more people where actively protecting their privacy, it would no
longer be suspicious to encrypt one's email. But some people need to do it
first.

~~~
stfu
_Seriously, if more people where actively protecting their privacy, it would
no longer be suspicious to encrypt one's email._

This is an excellent point! At least open source OS systems should make
encryption the standard option. But even Ubuntu seems unable to pull this off
and more or less in stagnation on this - despite EFF's efforts (
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/help-bring-disk-
encryp...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/help-bring-disk-encryption-
ubuntu-live-cd) ).

~~~
spindritf
Firstly, Ubuntu Alternate CD has an excellent installer, it's not text-based
as in you have to type in commands, or compile anything, it's just like the
Windows XP installer, except for all the sideloading of drivers. You can set
up an encrypted LVM, or whatever partitioning scheme you like, the default
settings also seemed very sensible so you don't even have to touch anything.
Secondly, regular Ubuntu installer offers to encrypt your home dir.

------
stfu
Let's guess what else is going to make the list 10 years in the future.

Suggestions: \- saves files on a local storage system and not on a cloud
service. \- is not caring a smart phone \- owns a variety of "wires" to
connect different devices

------
DefineClass
OH MY GOD, I'm in a coffee shop and there's this guy that keeps "apparently
using tradecraft"! He won't stop!

Do cross words constitute a "coded work sheet"? That old lady really looks
intent on figuring it out.

And those fourth graders keep sending suspicious messages on that PC game!
Like "PWND" and "teafrag"...

Well, I'm fucked, but it could be worse:

[http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/britons-denied-entry-
to...](http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/britons-denied-entry-to-us-after-
homeland-security-doesnt-find-destroy-america-twitter-joke-funny/)

------
ajuc
Apparently indirect democracy isn't working as well, as we would like it to
work. Anyone knows somebody that would vote directly for such paranoic
measures (what happens on airports, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, all that propaganda for
restricting freedom)?

This security and copyright madness reminds me of middle ages witch hunts, and
fighting heretic. Most people didn't cared about witches, nor heretics, as
long as nobody said them they should.

Governments and religions created that paranoia, and then it just lived on.

I like this
[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261344/Henrician-A...](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261344/Henrician-
Articles) solution to the problem of government instilled paranoia.

It was possible in 1573 to demand of king, that he would keep the promises, he
made before people elected him. People just made him sign a treaty, that if he
started religious persecution, he will not be a king anymore accordingto law.

Why now, in the age of democracy, we can't hold our representatives
responsible, and can't demand that they will keep their promises? I would
gladly vote for someone, that signed such documents before elections, that
says he won't be fighting terrorists by restricting freedom. But in our system
such contracts are void, if I understand correctly.

------
cycojesus
The word 'online' isn't even necessary anymore. "Do you like privacy? You may
be a terrorist" still pretty much describe the world surrounding me right now.
For context I live in France and this is what's happening here:
[http://bugbrother.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/02/01/claude-
gueant-v...](http://bugbrother.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/02/01/claude-gueant-va-
ficher-les-honnetes-gens/) (sorry it's in French and I have work to do.)

------
drcube
Most of this stuff applies to the Military and FBI. Guess they're all
terrorists.

Or maybe you're only supposed to care about encryption and privacy when you
work for the government?

------
aroberge
This appears to be some sort of phishing site. I first look at it using an
iPad with the built-in Safari. Since the font size was too small (can't help
it, I'm old!), I tried to pinch and enlarge and the text transformed into a
blurry image with my email address (iPad/Safari security issue?) displayed and
a button inviting me to have it sent to me by email.

Using Chrome on my laptop, I get a warning that there are too many redirects.

------
freehunter
I'd like to see this in official context. While I have no serious doubt that
our government would issue something like this, anyone can make an official
looking PDF.

------
basseq
It's a correlation-causation problem. I'm sure terrorists ARE all about online
privacy, so if you're all about online privacy, you MAY be a terrorist. But
when you break it down, maybe 80% of terrorists (a small group) favor online
privacy, but only 0.0001% of those who favor online privacy (a large group)
are terrorists.

The same reason I have to take my shoes off at the airport: because one
asshole tried to hide plastic explosives in his over a decade ago.

------
bdg
Can one of you American citizens submit a FOIA request so they release the
supporting documentation and research for such claims? I would if I were an
American.

------
lignuist
One more sign that the western world (not only the US and maybe not only the
western world) is facing serious signals of McCarthyism 2.0.

------
manish_gill
What do they expect? That a terrorist is going to hide some top secret weapon
information in a steganographic photo?

This is just ridiculous.

~~~
chakalakasp
No, that's not crazy, it's just crazy to think that anyone is going to notice
someone doing stego in an internet cafe, since anyone doing stego is already
going through huge efforts to hide what they are doing. The idea behind good
stego is that you encrypt something important, stego it into an image, then
post that image (i.e., dead drop it) somewhere where the recipient knows to
look. But when this is done (on either end), of course, all that appears is
happening is that the person is either upload or downloading an image. When
you consider some of the Usenet groups out there with bajillions of images
posted a day to them, this would probably be a pretty effective system,
assuming your stego program is good enough to embed the data into the image
itself and is not just encapsulating it into the metadata or something.

The one interesting thing to come out of this sheet is that apparently
terrorists are heavy stego users.

------
kgosser
When do you think 4Chan, Reddit, or ... GASP ... even HackerNews start to
become considered honeypots for terrorists?

------
Chrono
This reminds me of the "Du bist Terrorist" campagin.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIA0jeW-24> (German with English subs)

Most of these terrorist indicators seems like common sense to me. Paranoia
over reason once again?

------
davidwparker
I think a lot of people are missing the point. The document clearly states
"Related to Internet Cafe".

Now, I agree that I would still want my privacy in an Internet cafe, as well
as paying cash, and using multiple phones. But some of the other stuff doesn't
make much sense in an Internet cafe.

~~~
muyuu
They even say it's suspicious that someone shields the screen from view of
others. WTF? I consider most of my communications essentially private and I
don't want anyone to be eavesdropping.

------
kmfrk
I find this to be way more hilarious than disturbing in all their
cluelessness.

~~~
stray
After all, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition...

------
brudgers
<channeling Jeff Foxworthy>

You might be a terrorist if...

------
tertius
Time to turn myself in I guess!

------
maeon3
Terrorism is a military tactic, saying "you are a terrorist" is about as
meaningless as saying: "You are a right flank", "You are a military operation"
and "You are a deployed F16 bomber". It's this double speak and new-think that
is damaging our country, not the demand for basic human rights.

~~~
adrianN
A terrorist is someone who employs the military tactic of terrorism, just like
a guerilla is a practitioner of guerilla tactics. I don't see the problem
here.

~~~
maeon3
The problem is that terrorism is a strategy that America also uses in war.
Calling the terrorists evil because they blow up civilians in another country
is calling war evil. Its the double-think and hypocritical nature of the word
I don't like.

What makes the planes into the world trade center more evil than the hundreds
of thousands of bombs used to blow up suspected enemy hideouts in iraq, Iran
and Afghanistan?

~~~
RexRollman
I think it is all about intention. Intending to kill innocent civilians is
different than accidentally killing them while trying to target enemy
combatants.

(Of course, these differences mean nothing to those who were wrongly killed.)

~~~
ttt_
>> _I think it is all about intention._

Isn't the US the only country to have ever used nuclear warfare? Therefore
willingly and knowingly killing countless innocent civilians?

~~~
gee_totes
True, but I wouldn't consider this terrorism. For me, the distinction between
terrorism and general warfare is that terrorist acts are carried out by non-
state actors (or people acting as proxies for a state). The war in Afganistan,
the bombing of Japan, etc. was carried out clearly and explicitly by the
United States government.

This is why I find the phrase 'terrorist government' to be absurd.

~~~
DasIch
Terrorism, initially, described acts performed by a government. Interesting
that people consider this to be absurd nowadays.

~~~
tkahn6
Source?

~~~
ttt_
>> _"Terrorism" comes from the French word terrorisme,and originally referred
specifically to state terrorism as practiced by the French government during
the Reign of terror._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism#Origin_of_term>

------
kenrik
You may call me Achmed. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go>

Seriously though did they lower the requirements to become a government
employee even further? Who comes up with the stuff? I would laugh but it's
actually kind of disturbing that these are the people who we rely on to
prevent actual "Terrorists" from doing "Evil".

------
shareme
funny thing is if you read Obama's wife comments on privacy she could be label
a terrorist..

Why are both democracies and non-democracies so damn afraid of having choosy
and thinking citizens? What are the World governments hiding?!

