
We cannot afford to be indifferent to internet spying (2013) - octosphere
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/09/internet-surveillance-spying
======
gpvos
(2013).

 _> However, I believe that we have turned a corner: we have finally attained
Peak Indifference to Surveillance. We have reached the moment after which the
number of people who give a damn about their privacy will only increase._

While I have seen a slight increase in interest, have we really turned a
corner in the last five years? Certainly the EU has started to change the
rules on privacy, but I haven't seen a dramatic increase of giving a d*mn in
the general populace.

~~~
1001101
It looks like the needle has only moved slightly over time, although, there's
a lot less left to the imagination or relegated to tin-foil hat territory.

Pew research gives a good lay of the land for the US [1]

The tldr: 70% believe it's for a purpose other than stated, 25% have changed
the way they interact with technology, 27% believe content is being snarfed,
57% disapprove of use on US citizens.

[1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/04/how-
american...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/04/how-americans-
have-viewed-government-surveillance-and-privacy-since-snowden-leaks/)

------
jchw
Here's my question: where is the software that circumvents internet spying and
censorship? Where's the user friendly decentralized end-to-end encrypted
software? Closest I'm aware of is tox.chat, but it hasn't been audited and it
isn't really that user friendly. In the modern era of the internet, I really
think such software is going to be needed.

~~~
octosphere
> where is the software that circumvents internet spying and censorship?

1.) [https://geti2p.net/](https://geti2p.net/)

2.) [https://www.torproject.org](https://www.torproject.org)

3.) [https://openprivacy.ca/blog/2018/06/28/announcing-
cwtch/](https://openprivacy.ca/blog/2018/06/28/announcing-cwtch/)

Tor is an obvious choice here and has penetrated the mainstream when Gawker
ran that article on Silk Road. Now and then newspapers run sensationalist
articles on the Dark Web in an attempt to wake up the masses about Tor and its
famous (unsecure) Browser Bundle.

~~~
jchw
Sure, Tor and I2P are great. Tor Browser Bundle even tries to be useful to the
average person. And yet, I still think there's work to be done. I'm thinking
we need a new application platform entirely.

There are some contenders for that, but progress has been slow.

~~~
octosphere
> I'm thinking we need a new application platform entirely.

Well the state of the art seems to be Whonix[1] and Qubes[2],and TailsOS[3]

[1] [https://www.whonix.org/](https://www.whonix.org/)

[2] [https://www.qubes-os.org/](https://www.qubes-os.org/)

[3] [https://tails.boum.org/](https://tails.boum.org/)

The idea behind these Operating Systems is that even if you somehow got
hacked, it limits the damage caused. For example, in Qubes you can open a
potentially malicious PDF in a separate dedicated Fedora template/image, then
delete the VM after viewing the PDF.

With Whonix/Tails, you can also limit the damage caused, so if some intel
agency decides to drop an 0day/RCE vuln in your Tor Browser session, then your
real IP can't be leaked, because it defaults to Tor for _all_ network activity
(and spoofs the MAC address in the case of TailsOS).

But for the 'average person' as you describe, these tools are typically not
within their threat model. I can understand journalists and marginalized
communities using them, but not run-of-the-mill users who like to Skype
grandma on their Windows machine and have Internet Explorer as their main
browser.

------
buboard
Wishful thinking. Despite privacy cannons from the media, people still don't
care, they don't even bother to ask governments to stop spying on them.

~~~
thelittleone
Indeed a disturbing truth.

If I was a government with the goal of total surveillance nirvana, I'd do it
the same way as I'd eat an elephant, one bite at a time. Programmatically
reducing the expectation of privacy through invasive technology and policies
at the maximum speed possible that does incite a revolt.

~~~
908087
I'd do it the same way the US government has been doing it:

Allow massive corporations such as Google/Facebook/Amazon free reign to spy on
the entire population, then share in their spoils courtesy of the third party
doctrine and/or trading political favors and protection for access to
surveillance data.

