The NSA and his accomplices killed whistleblower protection by monitoring any communication taking place. In doing so, they killed the free press. There is no longer any social function that is capable of challenging the lies of those in power.

The free press has been called the "fourth branch of government" alongside the legislative, executive and judicial branches of journalism free and independent investigation is necessary for checks and balances against the three other branches, to discover and disclose the abuse of power in all its forms. the underlying assumption is that the abuse of power leaking daylight, and would be disappearing in the sunlight the press is able to shine on it. so the free press is an anti-corruption office.

an essential mechanism for a free press to function is its ability to protect its sources. If you want to blow the whistle on bad or abusive behavior in the corridors of power, the idea goes, you should be able to do so without risk to your position. this way, the company counters violations of corruption and rights man by providing incentives to those who work in the government of the whistle on it - to document any and all abuses and deliver this documentation to the press. Therefore, a journalist has the right to protect their sources. In some countries, like Belgium or Sweden, a journalist even has a legal duty to protect their sources - they can go to jail for revealing once whistleblower protection was invoked

There is widely recognized that without strong. source protection, a free press can not function and fulfill its duty to the fourth branch of government, with an eye on the other three.

That's the theory, anyway.

However, the protection of sources has effectively ceased to function. With spy agencies - NSA and their accomplices - recording and logging nearly every conversation that takes place, there is no need to ask a reporter to their source. You just have to see that the journalist spoke, anywhere, on any channel - preferably a connection from the government department whose abuses are reported on. Whistleblower protection has been completely erased, and it happened while we were looking the other way.

Edward Snowden knew. He knew he could walk away with the crown jewels (and all the treasure room) of the NSA, but he also knew he would not be protected as source, regardless of what the laws say, whatever integrity popular journalists like Glenn Greenwald. Therefore, it was logical to keep the initiative and prove to be the source of the NSA files, before it was hunted -. And he probably understood very well how long the time he had to play this card to still keep the initiative

The price for the denunciation was essentially a life in exile, but also as a life a hero. Few people are willing to pay that price, and thus the incentive to disclose the abuse of power in a free press is now a mere myth legends of the past.

Compare that to the break-in to the FBI March 8, 1971, where documents were copied describing other illegal activities and spy on citizens. At the time, the documents can be sent anonymously and secretly - anonymously and secretly! . - Using something that everyone had access to: the regular postal service

Imagine that. Everyone has the ability to communicate untracked in secret and in private, and the ability of everyone and their brother - not to place requirements on the high levels of cryptographic technical competence - was used to uncover abuse outrageous power while preserving the anonymity of sources.

function of the press in society depends on its ability to shed light on abuses of power. This, in turn, completely and totally dependent on the ability of journalists to protect their sources. But this capacity has been eradicated, annihilated, and shot by a government that does not want to be held responsible for his actions. Consequently, there is more press able to fulfill its primary function.

With the press unable to obtain sources that contradict the official statements, the only thing the press is able to print and telling statements - true or false, just as often the as the other - made by the representatives of the government. He has lost its function as a disseminator of truth, in the face of government lies. Rather, it is now linked to a fate blindly repeating these lies.

We deserve better than that.

In my last post, I developed a bit selective enforcement and the consequences thereof. What happens when the police began targeting individuals rather than annoying annoying crime?

Everyone is guilty. It's about as simple as that. The culprit of everyone something , for jaywalking or speeding and more. There is no such thing as a law-abiding citizen. . Not least, as I wrote in my last post, because the unwritten rules often contradict the rule of law

"Show me the man I'll show you the crime . "- Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret police under Stalin

This will illustrate once again that the so-common attitude" I have nothing to hide "will save people from nothing. it is just self-deception, really. If someone in law enforcement decides to get a particular individual, they will be have a justification to imprison this person, with all the data collected today. There are models if you look for them

"Give me six lines written by the most honest man, you know, and I'll find something in them to hang. "-. Cardinal Richelieu

I would like to mention a very classic example of selective enforcement and how it is exactly not what police should do from a story that I think we've all heard.

Al Capone.

M .. Capone is known as the person more or less running the underground scene in Chicago gangster in the 1930s Most of us have heard the story of how he came out absolutely clean for each crime he was accused of, "so the police arrested him for tax evasion instead."

See what happened?

We are taught in the story that the police smart to find something else in prison Capone. But it is not moral at all. What happened is that this individual was acquitted of crimes, but the police were so determined to put behind bars, they have finally found a charge that has stuck.

This happened there almost 100 years, in a very analogue environment. It is a classic example of selective enforcement , and it's not the police being smart at all. It is the police cut corners and do not treat people as equal before the law. If you still think it was just or justifiable, think the same thing is happening to you:

"Yes, sir, you have been acquitted of the charge, however, you are not free to. go; you have to stay in this prison while we locate another charge to pin on you that has a greater chance of sticking do not worry, sir, it will not be long until we formally charge ". .

Does it still sound like the police to be intelligent? This is the situation that is activated by mass surveillance.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Dismissing privacy, many people use the idea that since they have done nothing wrong, they have "nothing to hide". It ignores the most fundamental fact: it is not the that determine whether they did something wrong, but most likely it will be the fascist powers increase. 86 of 766 elected members of Parliament belonging to the fascist factions, and these might actually be the ones to take control of mass surveillance.

There has recently been a european election that should give pause to people who say they have "nothing to hide", that they "do not mind the surveillance." Deployment ongoing mass surveillance at the moment means that you can not hold a single private conversation, can not walk anywhere unnoticed, and can not find any information without it being logged. All that registered to use against you later.

Some people have argued that this can not possibly be used against them because they are good, they have done nothing wrong. And saying this, they are the most dangerous event of all: it is themselves coming whether their conversations, feelings and thoughts are incomplete source of government concern. It's not. It is whoever is in power at the time that determines that.

There is an economic crisis sweeping the world in the US, Europe and China. This coupled with politicians ivory tower who are disconnected from the everyday concerns of the people, have always been a recipe for a rise of extremist parties that promise the order by striking down on minority groups in society - anything people coming to be born to love people of their own sex for people born with little wrong shade of skin or lineage.

86 of 766 elected to Parliament were gone fascist or similar extremists. Seven elected were openly Nazi. These are the people who will listen to all your conversations, view all your connections, read all your thoughts, and to determine if they think you have done something wrong.

86 of 766 may seem insignificant (11.2%). However, they are not evenly distributed among European states. In Denmark, the Dansk Folkeparti was the largest party with 27% of votes. In France, the worse National Front was the largest party with 25% of votes. Whoops. I guess he wants to be Danish and French so you should never get mass surveillance in place. Ohwait, they already have that

In addition, the size of a political force -. Over 10% - means that more or less all the others will move in their direction to prevent bleeding more votes for

Just how hostile is a party like National Front ? To provide context, its founder said recently that "Immigration is nothing that Mr. Ebola can solve in three months," suggesting a mass execution of minorities is a perfectly reasonable and compelling solution to the problems of society. This was just voted on the largest party in France. Are you really, really comfortable with this kind of government to determine whether your conversations, thoughts, habits dating and information retrieval are of concern - in their eyes, not yours

This brings us to the crucial lessons for civil liberties:

rule No. 1 for the mass surveillance is that it will happily used by the next regime in power, you can not predict today. If you can not give your worst enemy, do not allow it at all.

rule # 2 for the mass surveillance is that it is not you who will determine if you have something to hide.

monitoring gives no security. He never did. Imagine the mass surveillance on the rise on the same time downright fascist political parties - which could may horribly, horribly wrong here

Privacy remains your own responsibility

many discussions it recently there has been about the safety of PIA VPN services in particular and as a VPN technology in general. This post should help both to the spirit of our customers at home and also to better inform them on how VPN technologies work and how they interact with the largest ecosystem of applications and infrastructure network.

First of all, no solution is 100% secure by itself. Applications depend on other applications and hardware to run properly, and compromise throughout the stack can be used to attack your privacy and anonymity.

To understand how PrivateInternetAcces works, you must have a basic understanding VPN in networks and routing interact general and how to protect your data.

VPN is an encrypted tunnel works by creating a network interface in your computer similar to a Wifi / simulated network connection. When your computer sends data to the simulated interface, your VPN software encrypts the data and sends it to your gateway via your actual network interface. The gateway decrypts the data and sends it to original as you want it to go to.

Your computer knows which connection to send data by checking your "routing table". When using the VPN, he said something like "usually always send data to my vpn simulated interface". Apart from this, it is often more specific rules, depending on your network configuration.

Another rule that you will always have your routing table when using a VPN is "when sending data on the VPN gateway, use my WiFi interface." Otherwise, your VPN software will not be able to connect to your VPN server and send it to your encrypted data. Thus, your routing table should have links that allow it to be sent directly to the network.

This means that if your computer is behaving in a way that you do not want to act because of a compromise, the above configuration can be exploited. By having a malicious actor taking control of various parts of your computer or network, your safety may be endangered.

Web browsers, but a fundamental part of our experience of the Internet, are also an essential element of our security profile. Not only are they powerful applications in what they can do on our computers, but they are in constant communication with servers that may not have our best interest in mind. This is always extremely dangerous: our browser is running attackers controls on our computers. In addition, browsers are highly complex applications, and are often able to perform even more powerful plugins such as Java and Flash, which all had vulnerabilities described in the past.

The fact is that browsers can, for example, the name of the site you visit, open arbitrary network connections from your computer just about any other server in the Internet. This means that there can be an incredible power to your computer in the hands of a malicious Web site operator once you give him free reign in your browser by accessing its website

But the question is :. A malicious Web site could still threaten my safety or anonymity just visiting? The answer, as in so many complex situations, it depends. Here are some scenarios in which the answer could be yes:

• Your Flash version is outdated. The site can take control of your computer and execute arbitrary commands on it, and it is likely that the malicious Web site can control your computer in a way that threatens your privacy / anonymity, even if you use a VPN .
• You 're using Java. Although Java is patched every 3 months, given the 30+ vulnerabilities announced each quarter, it is very likely that you are at risk sailing with Java. It is recommended practice that if you need to use Java for anything (usually corporate intranet applications or banks) that you use a browser just for that, so that you reduce the risk of opening a malicious Web site about her.
• There is a tap on the browser itself. What happened when the FBI injected malware on the Tor Bundle firefox browser users by hacking a website and serve site users malware, it helps to de-anonymize them.
• By forcing you to connect to another site that keeps track of your identity via cookies or log, another site can now match your IP VPN to your previous original IP in the folder the same user assuming you have used the Web site directly in the past, even if you do plan to let the other website know your IP VPN.
• The site opens a connection to a server that is not on your itinerary "default". In other words, the data will not be sent through the VPN, and the malicious operator has the ability to be inspecting network traffic by compromising your router or be able to read the packets on your network, or to receive packets network directed to this server. Mitigating this is one of the main reasons why we do not recommend any kind of split tunneling.

Note that if these attacks are technically feasible when visiting a malicious website, they are usually simple, to the point of being impractical and even a Man In The (MitM ) average scenario, ie., someone manipulate network data between you and a legitimate website. The reason is that the VPN connection protects you against already MitM attack all the way until the VPN gateway server, and it is much more difficult to attack far from the front door that is in front of her , mean compromising your public WiFi router / home.

In any case, this is why we recommend that users that really need to be as safe as possible for their anonymity to add layers of protection because you never know where the next vulnerability be. Unfortunately, the most common operating systems (Windows and OSX) do not offer this solution directly. However, having a firewall that ensures that only your VPN application sends unencrypted data on your WiFi / network interface, for example, you can prevent other malicious application to send data with your original IP . There is a chance that your firewall has a weakness, but it acts as another layer of security.

Similarly, if your browser has a proxy configuration on him, he will therefore always send data directly to the proxy, instead of relying on the routing table. There is still a chance that your proxy may be compromised, but you add another layer of security.

By disabling javascript and not allowing it to non-malicious-known sites that you trust, you can avoid certain types of network connections to be open. There are still ways to open connections without javascript, and the site you trust could be compromised by a third party (as in the case of the previously discussed FBI). But there is another layer of security.

Our team at PrivateInternetAccess working around the clock to keep your anonymity and your data safe. It is important to be aware that no single solution can protect 100% all the time, regardless of defects and vulnerabilities elsewhere. Computers and networks form an interdependent ecosystem, and cracks on one of these interactions can be exploited by a person who does not have your best interest in mind. In particular, web browsers are powerful and in the hands of malicious website operations applications, they can, intelligently, putting your privacy at risk.

Although we do not believe what is stated above should concern the everyday user, it is always important to understand that the Internet can be a dangerous place, and we do our best to ensure that you are protected.

There are not that superficial our rights are under assault. It is the foundation of all our other rights - the right to freely seek information without being hindered physically, and without fear of reprisals or repercussions. Without this reason alone, all others fall like dominoes. That's why anonymity is not a luxury but a prerequisite for democracy as we know

We have a number of rights , which are all connected -. And that, taken together, constitute the foundations of our society.

We the right to assemble , which means that we can meet and exchange views.

We the right to opinion , which means that we can hold an opinion that we love -. no matter how crazy it may be, or more importantly, no matter how threatening that opinion may be the status quo

we have the right to speak freely , which means we can talk about these opinions.

We the right to freedom of thought , which means that we can freely think about information we find.

Last but not least, and extremely important, we the right to seek information freely , which means that we can look and learn information that we love. (Some information may be provided to us legally, as medical journals others. But we can still ask nicely, without going to court for this.)

Without this last part, we're not allowed to learn . And yet, this part came in the frightening threat. With the net NSA monitoring, we know that what we seek is connected to potentially use against us some time in the future. With advertisers and any connecting each search in shops, this very special book, we looked on Amazon is suddenly appear in Facebook Ads.

Lately, many of our freedoms have come under assault. Many of them amazing, actually. But what appears to be slow random pick-offs come with a new urgency when our online activities are monitored.

Today, the net is not a "service". It is an extension of our thought process, as teamwork is a division of labor and sharing of thoughts. You're not entirely sure more when your brain stops and starts of someone else in an intensely collaborative environment where you do not even need to know the other participants personally. It is more relevant that the services are provided by different actors. We believe simply online. We have a thought and search for information to merge with it without treatment we invite the world to share not only our thoughts, but even our thought process.

This is why restrictions seeking information are beyond the grave: all other straight starts and stops with this concept. If there is any concern that you may face repercussions to watch a topic in the future, it literally reconnects your entire thought process to avoid this.

If you can not get information without hindrance, you're not allowed to think freely.
If you can not think freely, you can not speak or vote freely.
If you can not speak freely, you can not share opinions or free assembly

There are many forces trying to limit what we can reach on the web right now -. from the copyright industry, trying to get the net and search results censored for pure commercial reasons, religious fanatics who are determined to force their world view on the world. And all this is welcomed by most administrations who see the thin edge of a two-tone corner to start limiting the supply of thoughts available on the net - after all, there are "bad" thoughts , as they see it and how convenient to be able to turn off at the flick of a switch

Enter the anonymity

anonymity is not only a right in itself - the .. right to send a message without someone else to reveal your identity. It is also a preserve against removing the right to freedom of expression and free thought. It is a guarantee against poking holes in all rights above.

The right to anonymity is the last line of defense

To. if you can get the information anonymously, you can still get information. If you can share information and thoughts anonymously, you can still share information and thoughts. In a society where government agencies are approaching capacity, able to watch our thoughts as they form in our heads, it has never been more important to hide your identity mind-reading.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

end of 2014, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced a small software utility called "Let Encrypt" to site administrators. It reduces the time and skills needed to encrypt a Web site from three hours and much googling to twenty seconds and a command. This initiative is more important than being just another random utility.

In the last days of 2014, it became known that the NSA and their ilk can and can not wiretap. To cut a long story short, the technologies that are impossible to wiretap are also technologies that are virtually impossible to use. TOR, OTP, ZRTP. The most user-friendly technologies are emerging Tails and subsequently / RedPhone / TextSecure of Signal, and even they are nerdcore-only software at present.

In 2010, the Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation developed something called "HTTPS Everywhere". It was a simple browser plugin automatically chooses an encrypted version of websites, if applicable. If you have installed this plugin in your browser, your communications were all a lot more fail. (It remains a question why, four years later, this behavior did not default in browsers.)

However, allowing people to use encrypted communications only not enough. It must also be encrypted communication to begin. Most people who operate small websites are not offers encrypted versions, for several reasons: it costs money to buy an encryption certificate, it takes more than an hour to set up encryption even for the man how to do it (and it involves rather arcane commands in the production of certificates you need to google for each time), and it is a real problem to maintain and renew.

EFF has launched an initiative called "Let Encrypt" which is a simple server-side utility that reduces all that hassle for ten to twenty seconds of work, just once. Instead of an hour more of the procedures, it would just

webserver admin @: ~ $-encrypt allows www.myweb.com

... and the utility would not only generate and install a certificate, no hassle with credit cards and callbacks, but also to automatically renew if necessary. On the back, the Encrypt Let The utility also contains a complete certification authority.

This is quite true. It is this utility that is necessary - it is this .. attitude what is needed for much more than secure web browsing

Security is difficult

good security should not be difficult.

Essentially, the strong safety has been a holder for the technically competent, as noted above in respect of which cryptographic solutions are continuous reality (those that are difficult to use ). We need many more initiatives to make a strong crypto to the masses, and we need to realize that even system administrators find a good crypto too cumbersome.

This must change.

The crypto use strong pain points must disappear. Each of them, and for everyone involved. Congratulations to the EFF to get this ball rolling.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

the Swedish tax authorities requested transaction history complete customer, including specifically addresses customer portfolio, the small Swedish bitcoin exchange BTC-X. This application comes without individual suspicion of crime or suspicion of crime at all, even in general. As would trackability of the financial past of everyone, present and future, BTC-X takes the tax authorities in court on their demands.

Various authorities have long confused the right to require follow-up data in individual cases of concrete suspicion of a serious crime and committed to the right to cast a dragnet on tons private data to see what sticks. However, the latest move by the Swedish tax authorities is a new level of audacity -. And a new level of massive violations of privacy

The Swedish tax authority requires transaction history for the 20,000 customers of the Swedish bitcoin exchange CTB-X. They, in turn, fight back and take the tax authorities in court on that application. While the tax administration is doing its usual spin dance, saying "it's just routine" and "just a snapshot of data," not to mention "it is legitimate", the truth is that this set data would give the tax authority a horrifying level of trackability on everyone's finances every day - well beyond what has already been asked before

It would not just be a instant .. due to the nature of Bitcoin, if the tax authority wins in court and receives this data, they will not only have a snapshot of this - they will also have full trackability in the past, and even worse, full traceability financial data of everyone in the future -. including all the things people will do outside as the exchange in the future

Are the courts understand that? It is crucial to understand the magnitude of the violation committed. As we have said before, Bitcoin can be pseudonymous - but it provides financial monitoring that can be used for a dystopian society where the government does not know only every hundred or satoshi past, but it has a very good idea who it processed. The Swedish tax administration seems to be looking for the opportunity to create whatever dystopian future.

Privacy remains your own responsibility, indeed.

There an argument being passed around that freedom of expression is not a freedom to insult or offend. This argument is objectively and factually wrong. This is exactly what free speech is.

Freedom of expression is not intended to protect traditional opinions. No constitutional protection is needed to protect traditional opinions. You need a law to protect your right to say that kittens are cute. Freedom of expression exists specifically to allow the taboo of being pronounced and expressed, in particular, to express marginalized.

Being offended the other hand, is something you choose. Everyone sees the same things, hear the same things, perceives the same things. Some things that you see go against your moral compass. This happens to everyone, every day. But each of us also choose what to focus on this neverending avalanche of impressions: if a person chooses to be offended by the opinion of someone else, which is exactly what it is - this is a choice and something that freedom of speech is not affected by or concerned.

freedom of expression is the right of idiots to be completely false, and that is a good thing, because as history shows, it may be that those considered idiots were those of the right.

When people in establishing an express non-mainstream opinion, they are not ostracized from society because they are influential, but non-mainstream opinion is politely ignored as if it never happened.

When outcasts or other marginalized people express a prevailing opinion, everyone agrees, and no social punishment is inflicted. It is not perceived as dangerous, either.

This is when marginalized people say dangerous things, that freedom of expression is necessary because there are no other restrictions in society against punishing these people to break taboos. And it happened several times that it is they are correct. Thus, freedom of expression can be summarized as the right for idiots to be completely false, insulting and offensive -. Because from time to time, they prove to be in the right

This is why privacy is crucial.

Some findings, opinions, and facts that may be correct are still so taboo that you can not express them safely with your name attached, despite the legal right to do so - there is still social sanctions attached. It is important to remember that freedom of expression is a right to the government it is not a right to your fellow people. Nobody is forced to listen to you, work with you, or lunch with you if they do not want - more social actions presuppose mutual agreement, and social sanctions have always been high for people who break social taboos, even when their moral compass dictates they should.

Therefore, freedom of expression does not exist in practice, without the possibility of anonymity. And this ability to break taboos led to most things that we consider "progress" in the mirror today.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

When automated speed cameras were introduced in Sweden in the 190s they were shot. Literally. The citizens were so outraged by the idea of ​​being sentenced to an automatic fine, radars were destroyed with shotguns, or almost in any conceivable way (!): The average lifespan of a new speed camera of the brand police was 14 days. They were taken for a decade, then reintroduced in mass without any resistance. What happened?

There was a change of identity important that the 190s came around. In the 1980s, the whole identity of the West was "We are not the ." And the , they were the countries east of the curtain iron, countries that have automated monitoring of all their citizens, all the time. It was a false image and a false identity, of course, but still strong identity.

If you had told people Echelon surveillance network in the 1980s, nobody would have believed you Such was the substance of Soviet repression, not of the free West Maybe because of this indoctrination -.. that the West was indentity freedom and individual rights - has been the reaction so hard to automated surveillance, severe enough for people in a country with stringent gun laws to destroy the property of the police with shotguns force. this civil disobedience should not be underestimated.

So what happened when speed cameras were deployed for a second time?

The major geopolitical difference was that there was no repressive power to polarize against. To make a long story short, people are no longer supported to make a difference in the way they had in the 1980s, to the brink of nuclear annihilation and when people felt they had to take a stand. Instead, all the "positive cost savings and increased road safety" could dominate the discourse, and therefore, automated speed traps were deployed en masse.

The observation is that the identity of a population is essential for that cares about civil liberties or not. Paradoxically, it seems useful to have a neighbor who is not care about those freedoms -. Or there will not be anything compared to

How are we going back to a feeling where people care so much for the liberties they were ready to destroy automated police equipment that has been used for mass surveillance, risking long prison sentences in the process? Is it even possible? I have no clear answer to this question.

However, I know that in the meantime, privacy remains your own responsibility.

It seems that Google makes audio recordings of the microphones all the time despite attempts to minimize the situation. The "hotword" search - when you start a search by saying "Ok Google" - was criticized before, when it was downloaded open-source browsers running Chrome. However, major concerns for privacy that Google still does not start recording when you say "Ok Google"; it was recording before you said the hotword.

Back when Google drive-by-downloaded a black box with a registration code to the Chrome open source browser, there was a public outcry on the Google code in your listening room. The objections mainly fell into one of two categories:

• Google downloads a black box code for open-source systems and free software without authorization, compromising
• Google East. using proprietary code to listen to your room

Of these, the first was considered most serious by far, as any code will have access to exclusive operation device sensors -. including microphone - almost by definition, so it was not really considered strange that the owner code had access to black box recording. However, there was still a problem of privacy and a concern that Google had the ability to listen to any and every room where there was a Chrome or running Android, which - frankly - is a fairly large portion of available rooms on the planet .

However, Google roundabout sort of apologized for drive-by-download black-box proprietary code to open source Chromium browser, and people trying to shoot down the story (there always those, and usually with the top voted comment ...) insisted that Google has not opened until audio after you said the magic words "Ok Google ", something that is called a hotword to start recording, analysis and transcription.

As part of the transparency of the Google initiative, you can see (some?) Google data stored on you. It is that all audio searches are stored permanently, and you can listen to your own previous voice commands and voice search. They are listed in chronological order.

A screenshot of my Google Audio History. I can listen to recordings and read transcripts. If you use Voice Search, you have a page like this, too.

You will recall the discussion of the previous privacy, Google access to microphones in almost every room gives Google the ability to spy on each room and all the time. It should be emphasized that this is a technical capacity; there is no indication this is happening, but the presence of capacity is causing serious privacy issues

In this discussion, people said -. no, insisted and shouted - that fear was exaggerated, tinfoilhattery and mental. "Obviously, Google only audio after you say Ok, Google ," the experts said in all directions. But listen to this audio recorded off the search history page audio search from Google, something sticks out clean, nobody seems to have noticed. Listen to this:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Purpose

This series of multi-part blog is to describe the path of a packet of the wire through the network driver and the kernel until it reaches the receive queue for the socket. This information includes the Linux kernel, release 3.13.0. Links to the source code on GitHub are provided throughout to help with the context

This document will describe the code throughout the Linux networking stack, and the device driver code following Ethernet :.

• e1000e: Intel PRO / 1000 Linux driver
• igb: Intel Gigabit Linux driver
• ixgbe: Intel driver 10 Gigabit PCI Express Linux
• tg3: Tigon3 Broadcom ethernet driver
• be2net: HP Emulex PCI Express 10 Gigabit Linux driver
• bnx2: Broadcom network driver NX2

other nuclei or drivers will probably similar, but the interior line and functioning detailed numbers will probably be different.

technical data / reference manuals Programmer

driver code can be cryptic, especially when trying to understand the meaning of that bed stastistics counters camera driver. In many cases, referring to the documentation on the device may help to clarify things

WARNING . All PDF files are large. You may or may not want to download them on mobile devices

• e1000e :.
  1. Intel 82574 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
  2. Intel 82579 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
• igb:
  1. Intel Ethernet Server Adapter i350
  2. Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I210
• ixgbe:
  1. Intel Ethernet Controller X540
• tg3:
  1. Broadcom NetXtreme / NetLink BCM5717 BCM5718 BCM5719 BCM5720
• be2net:
  1. Emulex® OneConnect ™ UCNAs and LightPulse® Fibre Channel HBAs
• bnx2:
  1. Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5706 BCM5708S of BCM5708C BCM5709C BCM5709S BCM5716
  2. Broadcom BCM57XX

Overview

overview of high level of a packet path:

1. Driver is loaded and initialized [
2. packet arrives at the NIC from the network.
3. Packet is copied (via DMA) to a circular buffer in kernel memory.
4. hardware interrupt is generated for the system knows a packet is stored.
5. Driver calls into NAPI to start a polling loop if it was not running already.
6. ksoftirqd processes running on each CPU on the system. They are recorded at startup. The process ksoftirqd pull packets off the ring buffer by calling the NAPI poll function as the registered device driver during initialization.
7. memory regions in the ring buffer that have network data written them are unmapped.
8. data that was DMA'd memory is transmitted to the network layer as a "skb" for treatment.
9. Packet management gets to distribute processing load packets to multiple processors (in leu of a network card with multiple receive queues), if enabled.
10. packets are delivered to the protocol layers from the queues.
11. protocol layers add them to receive buffers attached to sockets.

detailed look

loading driver / PCI

PCI devices to identify themselves with a series of registers in the PCI configuration space.

When a device driver is compiled, a macro named MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE is used to export a PCI device ID table identification devices that the device driver can control. The kernel uses this table to determine which device driver to be loaded to control the device.

When the driver is loaded, a function named pci_register_driver is called in the initialization function.

This function saves a structure of function pointers that the kernel can be used to initialize the PCI device.

e1000e

in the e1000e, this structure can be found in drivers / net / Ethernet / intel / e1000e / netdev.c around the 7035 line:

  pci_driver static struct {.name = = e1000_driver e1000e_driver_name, .id_table = e1000_pci_tbl, .probe e1000_probe = / * more stuff * /}  

This is part e1000_init_module in the same file around line 7043:

  / ** * e1000_init_module - registration routine * * e1000_init_module drivers is the first routine called when the driver is loaded * . All he does is register with the PCI subsystem. ** / Static int __init e1000_init_module (void) {int ret; pr_info ( "Intel (R) PRO / 1000 Network Driver -% s  n", e1000e_driver_version); pr_info ( "Copyright (c) 1999-2013 Intel Corporation.  n"); ret = pci_register_driver (& e1000_driver); return ret; } Module_init (e1000_init_module);  

igb

In the igb driver, this structure can be found in drivers / net / Ethernet / intel / igb / igb_main.c around the line 238:

  pci_driver static struct {.name = = igb_driver igb_driver_name, .id_table = igb_pci_tbl, .probe = igb_probe, .remove = igb_remove, #ifdef CONFIG_PM .driver.pm = & igb_pm_ops, #endif .shutdown = igb_shutdown, .sriov_configure = igb_pci_sriov_configure, .err_handler = & igb_err_handler};  

is registered in igb_init_module in the same file around line 682:

  static igb_init_module __init int (void) {int ret; pr_info ( "% s - Version% s  n", igb_driver_string, igb_driver_version); pr_info ( "% s  n", igb_copyright); #ifdef CONFIG_IGB_DCA dca_register_notify (& dca_notifier); #endif pci_register_driver ret = (& igb_driver); return ret; }  

ixgbe

In the ixgbe driver, this structure can be found in drivers / net / Ethernet / intel / ixgbe / ixgbe_main.c from around the line 8448:

  pci_driver static struct {.name = = ixgbe_driver ixgbe_driver_name, .id_table = ixgbe_pci_tbl, .probe = ixgbe_probe, .remove = ixgbe_remove, #ifdef CONFIG_PM .suspend = ixgbe_suspend, .resume = ixgbe_resume , # endif .shutdown = ixgbe_shutdown, .sriov_configure = ixgbe_pci_sriov_configure, .err_handler = & ixgbe_err_handler};  

is registered in ixgbe_init_module in the same file around the 8468 line:

  static ixgbe_init_module __init int (void) {int ret; pr_info ( "% s - Version% s  n", ixgbe_driver_string, ixgbe_driver_version); pr_info ( "% s  n", ixgbe_copyright); ixgbe_dbg_init (); ret = pci_register_driver (& ixgbe_driver); if (ret) {ixgbe_dbg_exit (); return ret; } #ifdef CONFIG_IXGBE_DCA dca_register_notify (& dca_notifier); #endif return 0; }  

tg3

In the tg3 driver, this structure can be found in drivers / net / Ethernet / Broadcom / tg3.c around the 17999 line

  pci_driver static struct {.name = = tg3_driver DRV_MODULE_NAME, .id_table = tg3_pci_tbl, .probe = tg3_init_one, .remove = tg3_remove_one, .err_handler = & tg3_err_handler, .driver.pm = & tg3_pm_ops, .shutdown = tg3_shutdown,};  

is saved in the same file, using a macro module_pci_driver (defined in include / linux / pci.h : 1104) just au below the structure definition:

  module_pci_driver (tg3_driver);  

be2net

In be2net driver, this structure can be found in drivers / net / Ethernet / emulex / benet / be_main.c around the line 4819:

  pci_driver static struct {.name = = be_driver DRV_NAME, .id_table = be_dev_ids, .probe = be_probe, .remove = be_remove, .suspend = be_suspend, .resume = be_resume, .shutdown = be_shutdown, .err_handler = & be_eeh_handlers};  

is registered in be_init_module in the same file around the 4764 line:

  static be_init_module __init int (void) {if (rx_frag_size = 8192 = 4096 && && rx_frag_size rx_frag_size = 2048) {printk (KERN_WARNING DRV_NAME "Module parameters must be rx_frag_size 2048/4096/8192." "Using 2048  n");! rx_frag_size = 2.048; } Return pci_register_driver (& be_driver); }  

bnx2

In bnx2 driver, this structure can be found in drivers / net / Ethernet / Broadcom / bnx2.c around line 8788

  pci_driver static struct {.name = = bnx2_pci_driver DRV_MODULE_NAME, .id_table = bnx2_pci_tbl, .probe = bnx2_init_one, .remove = bnx2_remove_one, .driver.pm = BNX2_PM_OPS, .err_handler = & bnx2_err_handler,. shutdown = bnx2_shutdown,};  

is saved in the same just below the structure definition file using the module_pci_driver macro (include / linux / pci.h):

  module_pci_driver (bnx2_pci_driver);  

probe PCI

Each driver registers a probe function with the PCI system in the kernel.
The kernel calls this function for fast initialization of the device.
most drivers have a lot of working code to get the device ready for use. The
exact things done vary drivers.

The name of the registered function as a probe function and a very overview (very) high level
to what is provided below for each pilot

in general, drivers are quite similar in terms of what they do at this stage :.

1. The ethtool (described in the next parts of this series) driver support functions
2. The survey NAPI function (described further in the next parts in this series) for the harvest of incoming packets
3. MAC NIC address
4. the upper level net_device structure
5. hardware IRQ number that will be used by the device when interrupts are (eventually) enabled
6. Everything watchdog necessary tasks (eg e1000e has a supervisory task to check if the material is suspended)
7. Other device specific things, such as workarounds or deal with quirks or similar

to dig deeper into what the function of each probe driver, see:

• e1000_probe (drivers / net / Ethernet / intel / e1000e / netdev.c: 6517) to e1000e
• igb_probe (drivers / net / Ethernet / intel / igb / igb_main.c: 05) igb
• ixgbe_probe (drivers / net / Ethernet / intel / ixgbe / ixgbe_main.c: 7796) to ixgbe
• tg3_init_one (drivers / net / Ethernet / broadcom / tg3.c: 17315) for tg3
• be_probe (drivers / net / Ethernet / emulex / benet / be_main.c: 4501) to be2net
• bnx2_init_one (drivers / net / Ethernet / broadcom / bnx2.c: 8517) to bnx2

many personal information collection procedures go to great length to explain why data is collected and how it will be used. Unfortunately, it is all for nothing. All these guarantees are null and void, and the only thing that matters is that the data is collected.

We've all seen the privacy policies. We have seen the government fine print on how data will be used. It is just enough impression. There is absolutely nothing. All that matters is that the data is collected.

A privacy policy may bind the company collects data on you, if you ask a lawyer. Maybe even if you ask a politician. What happens next is that the company goes bankrupt, all deals are off, and looks a liquidator all the assets that can be monetized to pay off debt from bankruptcy as required by law. These assets include the data collected about you.

A government may be equally honest when he collects data on you for more benign reasons. But come election day, the government voted out of power, and the next administration discovered this cache of useful information on citizens that re-purposes in ways that you would have never approved when the data collected.

In other words, it does not matter if you trust the good faith of the data collection entity for you. It does not even matter if they have the purest of good faith from a purely objective point of view. Sooner or later, by legal, illegal or violent means, those who trusted and who promised you how the data will be used will no longer exercise the power required on the data collected - and at that moment, someone the other calls the shots and rewriting the rules entirely suited to their interests.

The only concern when data is collected about you must be how this data can be abused in the worst case, for this exact scenario is more likely than not materialize.

There are many warnings history here. One of the most horrifying, at the risk of earning Godwin, arrived early last century, the Netherlands has been collecting data of religion in the dossiers of the population. The reason was the mildest imaginable :. To ensure that there were sufficient places of worship for everyone in the city, and at suitable distances from people's homes

Certainly no one would oppose these collected data to provide citizens the best civic service?

Then World War II came around. The new administration ... ... found it very convenient to have the religion listed under the public records of the population, including where people lived. As a result, there was almost no Jews all in Amsterdam in 1945. Quoting Wikipedia:

In 1939, there were about 140,000 Dutch Jews living in the Netherlands -Low. […] In 1945, about 35 000 of them were still alive. […] Approximately 75% of the Dutch-Jewish population perished, an unusually high percentage compared to other occupied countries of Western Europe. […] The Civil Administration was advanced and offered Nazi Germany A complete overview not only in the number of Jews, but also exactly where they lived.

As horrible as it is, it is far too easy to dismiss because World War 2 was such an exceptional event that could never possibly happen again. It is a mistake. Most genocides are based off of public records, to the extent that some of my fellow activists are researching in the field of identity cards resistant genocide.

But even short of genocide, far short of genocide, examples abound of how the data collected were horrifically redirected. Let's take a modern example of Sweden, which has one of the most important medical databases for research on hereditary factors of PKU phenylketonuria , inability to metabolize phenylalanine and therefore more artificial sweeteners . To help the search, a small sample of blood was taken from each child born after 1975. For strictly medical research in hereditary defects.

In other words, the database of the blood sample was strictly for medical research, until the prosecutor's office realized that they could legally assign this database for DNA samples.

suddenly, without any public debate whatsoever, and only at the initiative of the prosecutor's office, Sweden created a DNA registry for purposes of the law of its entire population under 40 years. This register is today, and is the largest DNA population registry available to law enforcement around the world.

Then, of course, you have the everyday database leaks, but catastrophic ordinary, those that occur for the reasons of incompetence malice. The recent leak of Ashley Madison dating service comes to mind.

The only thing that is important to know whether the data is collected at all. There will always be used against the person concerned, with mathematical certainty.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

different branches of the institution are often criticized for not understanding, or even care, areas of critical importance for privacy and security. In one image, how the New York Post shows the situation is with this ignorance.

When I came to the European Parliament, I am often shocked at how policy makers and politicians including the crucial issues of the 21st century: information, security, privacy (which in turn leads to innovation and growth). Instead, MEPs have printed emails to them by their secretaries and put in a pile on their desk, and they would therefore believe that they understood what the Internet was about.

There are some years, there was something like a riot on the Internet as the copyright industry has tried to delete the key "09-F9-11-02- 9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88 -C0 "to be discussed: it was a token for access and control of Hollywood DVD playback. Everyone who is familiar with the Internet include the concept of publishing a . It can not be canceled, and once you publish his secret, you have opened Pandora's box.

A cryptographic key is usually published as above, in a sequence of hexadecimal digits, since that is the secret key. What makes it different from a physical key, where fitness the key is the secret key.

Now consider this story by the New York Post, which screams of terror as a master key for utilities New York fled. Consider this story has gone by many people in the publishing path, all part of the implementation of the creation story, and considering that their understanding of the most fundamental security should look like.

Yes, that's the key being discussed here, the key "1620". The New York Post is screaming in terror that the master key is on the loose, and becomes publish the full secrecy of the key, in gigantic format. From this point, anyone can trivially reproduce this key.

It is reasonable to ask when an ignorance of security at this level becomes incredible criminal negligence.

ignorance is like the fiasco with Diebold voting machines, also there are about a decade. The voting machines were supposed security; they needed a key to access the memory card slots. Spare keys are available on the website of Diebold, and were sold only to certified voting officials. But like any webshop, there were high-resolution photos key voting machines right on this webshop, and these images can be (and are) used to create keys that could access the files vote.

safety, too, begins to become your own responsibility

. (Hat tip: @gsuberland)

Егор Цветков (Egor Tsvetkov), a photographer in Russia, took pictures of random people on the subway and portraits connected to social media and complete profiles using the face matching technology. This is a game changer.

It used to be that technology was good enough to tell if two images appear to be the same person. We have now reached a point where an input picture can (mostly) be used to find the person matching among tens of millions of inflection, where the processing power used is low enough that the Service to be free. This is a complete game changer.

The severity of this does not really hit you until you see the examples, where the photos are taken under lighting and angles radically different from that of portrait photos, and sometimes with different facial hair too. In addition, this photographer has used a service available corresponding photo - FindFace.ru - which already imported a large quantity of photos on vKontakte , which is (all?) the equivalent of the Russian Facebook, and leave a neural network study all these photos.

accordingly, the photographer claims a success rate of 70% corresponding to random people photographed in the subway, in completely different lighting conditions, with full profile social media.

You can not stop the mere existence of the technology. Within five years there will be CCTV cameras which lists all persons currently in phase with their name and portrait of social media. Soon after, the implementation of the law will be used for automated spotting mandate, RoboCop style -. Or at least be eager

In ten years, the service to be available for personal use -. superimposed portraits and social names of people directly to your field of vision, using glasses or projection contacts already prototype

and maybe fifteen, traders will cry and weep for the ability to provide "targeted messages" of the kind that we saw in Minority Report -. where the billboards change in front of you to meet your particular interests, or what marketing think are your interests

With the technology available as a free service, increased power treatment is just a matter of Moore's law and throwing money at it. Who will provide the neural network and photo databases? There are obviously giants like Facebook and Google, but it would also be a potential new monetization for a service which many people have sent pictures - like tinder. . Real-time image matching for monitoring use and convenience

Privacy remains your own responsibility

UPDATE: .. See also Hacker News discussion on the subject

crowdfunding to the investment company "CAD", which exceeded a hundred million and counting, has the old world into confusion. "How something hierarchical run a company or trust an investment," We hear This shows the actual depth of the digital divide

The DAO -.. Short for the organization autonomous Distributed - is actually a pretty bad name for the company The name is a modern equivalent of "The Corporation" something like "self venture Investor Distributed" probably would have been more understandable for that particular organization, because there is.. much of OAC (as there is more than one company). But still.

TheDAO is the largest investment crowdfunding ever, beating the game Star Citizen who pulled in $ 100 million funding. TheDAO currently attracted investment money in $ 108 million, mainly small and individual investors. this left all the major investment institutions in complete confusion and disarray, the technical term for this kind of amount "a shitload of money", which in turn draws the attention of Wall Street.

Star Citizen is understandable for Wall Street. It is a high-end entertainment product with an experienced game designer, with some of the most popular products at the helm. The CEO has recruited some of the best in the industry. This is grokable to the old world.

And then there TheDAO. No leader, no incorporation, nothing. Just a shitload of money (technical term) from around the world.

"Who decides?"

"Where is the business plan?"

"What is the investment idea?"

What the old world does not see is that there is a leadership, there a business plan, and there is a clear investment idea. It is right in front of them. They just fail to recognize it as such :.

The source code

The source code makes decisions for all to see. The business plan is just in the source code.

The fact that Wall Street does not recognize the source code for logic perfectly valid, pensionable and transparent business is why Wall Street is falling behind.

It was exactly the same with Bitcoin last few years. "How can you trust a currency that does not have a central bank may decide to destroy your assets?"

The answer, of course, was that you could just trust because he has not had this kind of central bank - because the source code is open for see everything, so transparent and predictable

and that's why you can trust the new type of organization .. unregulated, unstoppable, censor free enterprise, with open source code for all to see

Because the old world can not stop

(update: .. Star Citizen is still the # 1 crowdfunding with $ 113 million at Monday noon European time TheDAO,. currently at $ 108 million, is expected to exceed it by Tuesday noon or so)

(update 2 :. well, that was quick TheDAO is $ 117. million at 19:00 European time on Monday officially making # 1)

The near 75 million inhabitants of Turkey may not use PayPal to pay for goods online beginning June 6, 2016. PayPal's decision to withdraw from Turkey resulting from the expiration of a required financial license. Rather than risk the wrath of the financial regulator of Turkey, PayPal will withdraw from Turkey. Users will be able to withdraw funds from their existing Turkish banks.It account is very likely that PayPal and Turkish Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) will come forward in the future and Turkish residents will be able to use PayPal to pay for international goods and services again; however, until that time comes, many people and especially companies are looking for a new way of international legal payment to depend for business and internet purchases

You can always use Bitcoin pay for VPN

While cryptocurrency Bitcoin has proven to be effective for domestic payments, the local paper money is still king. The combination of the network effect, the strength of the army of a government, and the international priority means it is unlikely to change in the near future. For international payments, however, things are a bit confusing. The functions of the financial system of the world as a mishmash of real jungle walled gardens. To move from one garden to another requires a fee. In turn, PayPal such costs for users because of the true costs of regulatory compliance. Even if they wanted to pay the fee, the end user in Turkey is now unable to use PayPal to pay for their VPN service - but they will still be able to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin can be used wherever the Internet reaches. In combination with the use of VPN, you can easily defeat Internet censorship.

You will be able to use Bitcoin to pay for almost everything

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkey imports the most goods from China, Germany, America and Russia. All four of these countries are strong cryptocurrency usage bastions. In countries like Germany and America in particular, services like PayPal are always preferred by users. However, on the sidelines of the interconnected financial system of the world - as a country of nearly 75 million - cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are incredibly useful at least as a means of exchange between fiat currencies of two countries. Exactly when you will be able to buy anything with Bitcoin remains to be seen. Government action as Turkey is still accelerating the timetable for adoption Bitcoin, however.

A proposed amendment to Article 41 of the United States federal Rules of criminal procedure clearly unconstitutional could grant rights to US judges. The proposed new powers would allow US federal judges to grant access to search distance of a target computer where "the district where the media or information was concealed by technological means." That is to say, if Article 41 isn 't shot in Congress, law enforcement will be able to find American judges who are more than willing to issue warrants for any computer whose IP address is hidden Tor or a VPN service. The update rule 41 is so ambiguous that law enforcement could use the rule to go after those of us who deny the location data of some smartphone applications. If that was not enough by itself, the second part of the update section 41 allows law enforcement to use malware on an infected computer botnet in order to find the botnet operator. Instead, what is likely to be found is a lot of private information that we can not trust the government to remove. We must do all we can to avoid such a dystopian, Orwellian future.

Join the EFF against Rule 41

To fight against this flagrant exceed the power of the government, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has organized a day of action today June 21 , 2016 to press for a public debate on the proposed changes to hacking capabilities of law enforcement. As a supporter of special maintenance work of the EFF, private Internet access means strong with the EFF in this day of action. Make no mistake, potential new powers of the US government allows it to easily obtain a warrant to violate a suspect computer worldwide.

The proposed amendment was adopted by the Supreme Court and will go into effect in December unless the United States Congress is against it. To help, the US residents should send an email to your congressional representative via this form provided by the EFF. Non-US residents can still get the word out on the Internet because that overuse of power has far-reaching, international consequences. Laws of this kind can only be made by unelected officials, precisely because they can not be held liable for the citizens they supposedly serve. Join EFF to hit the update proposal Article 41 -. It is an affront to our privacy

July 8th, 2016: private MACE ™ Internet access is a new feature that blocks ads, trackers and malware. Private Internet Access (PIA) has always sought to provide the most privacy preservation solutions for customers using the desktop client PIA. After all, "Privacy is our policy." Online advertising is often a free-for-all where the end user loses. That's why the private Internet access has created a VPN service with capabilities for ad blocking keep users safe on Android, Windows, Mac and Linux.

MACE ™ private Internet access blocks ads, trackers and malware

According to recent statistics, about 10% 15% of Internet users currently use ad blockers. We believe that this number should be much higher, and doubling down on this belief with the release of MACE ™. It is often difficult for users to find the right ad blocker that works with their browser and is simple to use. Setting up an ad blocker at the network requires more technical expertise. Now customers will be able to use a private Internet access MACE ™ to block ads, trackers and malware on what browser they use. To try to private Internet access MACE ™, simply update the customer PIA v60.

About the private Internet access (PIA)

private Internet access is the first step of newspaper VPN service provider in the world. PIA believes that access to an open Internet is a fundamental human right and gives the EFF and effusively FFTF to promote internationally is private life. Based on the North American, PIA has more than 3,300 servers in 24 countries that provide reliable, encrypted VPN tunnel gateways for whatever use cases. Please visit us at www.privateinternetaccess.com for more information.

Despite a recent decision justice to the contrary, the US government still wants to serve search warrants to companies outside its legal national jurisdiction. According to a report by the WSJ, the Obama administration recently revealed that they had worked on these agreements for some time, and the first search warrant exchange program with the United Kingdom was finishing completion. A few days after the historic decision, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is already preparing to reverse the decision of Microsoft to protect the data stored on the non-US server US bonds. Under the new exchange agreements Warrants offered the US government could serve as a mandate or stored information in real time directly to wiretap a foreign company housed in an agreement accepting the nation, and vice versa. The only redeeming subject to this rule is that countries would not be able to serve search warrants for the citizens of target countries, only noncitizens.

US to allow other countries to use foreign search warrants to US Internet companies

Obama administration's plans have a few obstacles in the way: the DOJ may file Microsoft appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, and whatever agreements are made will have to be approved by the legislatures of both countries. By using the historical case that recently won Microsoft, the DOJ could trigger the border term box using a pandora. At present, we do not know the plans of President Obama to set up cross-border raid reciprocity with the United Kingdom; However, there are more clandestine deals in manufacturing - and even the exchange of legal mutual assistance treaties existing data

recent change of management in the UK because of Brexit drama all but assured that the bill will pass. the side of the pond. A government that is willing to force the end of encryption end to end will be more than willing to acquiesce to sharing requests US data. Privacy aware of Internet users have a realistic chance to stop this overreach of government power :. Stop the approval of Congress, as we have done to share counterterrorism information is Force Act

the European Court of justice (ECJ) said that the mass surveillance of innocent people may be legal in a preliminary ruling today. The Court of Justice is the highest court of the European Union, and it issues a preliminary decision by Advocate General about six months in advance of its final decision. preliminary ruling today allows mass surveillance on a state by state basis, but only when five conditions are met.

Two years, the Court of Justice annulled Directive on the retention of data hated requiring all European Member States to have mass surveillance of innocent people, indicating that blankly it was not appropriate for a democratic society, and even defeated the existence of the directive retroactively. However, many European countries have created mass surveillance programs in response to the directive, and the matter was still open whether they were license to have such plans, even if they are not not necessary . to

Therefore, this case has been closely watched by many people: the 2014 case turned the mass surveillance of innocent people "mandatory" to "option" for European states. This case had the potential to turn it "option" to "prohibited", as was the case before 05. It was really important to get a clear yes or no court on the question whether mass surveillance innocent may be acceptable., violation of the presumption of innocence

the key point of why so many people are unhappy with this monitoring is that it is preemptive monitoring - people's privacy is invaded before they have committed a crime at all, if they commit a crime later and that the data would be relevant to an investigation from police. Therefore, it is literally about the mass surveillance of innocent people.

In a preliminary ruling today by the attorney general ECJ, in answering the question whether the mass surveillance of innocent people is legal, the court has set a business " maybe "

The preliminary ruling -. or "opinion" as it is formally known - holds that conservation innocent people data can be allowed, as determined by the courts in each State, but under very strict conditions. For example, it can never be used to prosecute petty crimes and civil cases - as for serious crimes

The five conditions set out by the Advocate General to allow data retention were ;.

1. predictability. an innocent mass surveillance must be very strictly described in the law or regulations in a way that creates predictability, predictability and protection against arbitrary interference.
2. Respect for private life. A mass surveillance of innocent must respect the gasoline Charter of Fundamental Rights. The word "essence" is important here because it literally requires mass surveillance complying with the spirit of the law, not the letter.
3. serious crimes only. By balancing many competing interests, the preliminary decision indicates that only the fight against serious crime is sufficient to justify a general obligation to store data on everything and everyone. Convenience for surveys in general, or opportunistic criminal proceedings or civil, is not enough.
4. Not least intrusive method available. notes that Advocate General of innocent mass surveillance is a highly intrusive measure, in order to be allowed, there must be no other method that provides the same effect with less intrusive to privacy. In addition, access to the stored data should be strictly limited to what is necessary to achieve the stated objective.
5. Proportionality. In the words of Advocate General, that means "the grave risk [!] caused by [requiring mass surveillance] in a democratic society must not be disproportionate to its benefits in the fight against crime serious. "

Following this preliminary decision, we can expect the lobby Hollywood say that the non-profit sharing of culture and knowledge between individuals should be a" serious crime "in equality with murder and arson. the copyright industry has been heavily dependent on data retention and other invasive measures that deny privacy to defend its position, and such a statement would not be the the most surprising thing to come out of the copyright industry.

the final decision is expected in about six months, after which the legal challenges of individual status monitoring can begin. Meanwhile, privacy remains your own responsibility, as always.

anonymity proved an essential property of the company. From the early days of the time the anonymous writings have been found in many great works of literature, including but not limited to cave paintings, hieroglyphics, The Bible, Tom Sawyer, and the same Federalist Papers that helped the ratification the United States Constitution.

The founder of 2Ch, a popular anonymous forum in Japan, said,

"... the diffusion of new without taking risks is very important for us. There a lot of information disclosure or secret news gathered on channel 2. Few people would post this kind of information by taking a risk. in addition, people can not really discuss something when they do not know.

if there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a critical game. on the other hand, in the anonymous system, although your opinion / information is criticized, you do not know not to be upset with that. Also with a user ID, those involved in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. by virtue a perfectly anonymous system, you can say it's boring, 'if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work "(Source: Wikipedia)

There is very little room for the argument of how anonymity protects ideas, society and ultimately. freedom humanity . However, anonymity has also become an important tool to protect against the many dangers of the Internet.

• • •

in the early days of the Internet, IRC networks, at the time, did not hide the addresses and IP hostmasks, quickly became World of Warcraft for the young and angry. A network People, known as Eris Free Networks or EFnet, became a war zone group where users are competing for control of IRC channels and IRC nicknames. Essentially, we would be able to use a form of DOS attack to disconnect other users and network servers. Some of these attacks consisted of sending an ICMP packet that confuses specific routers, while others included traffic flooding / single packets. These attacks were used against both IRC servers to induce a network-split and specific users to eliminate opposition groups control nicknames and IRC channels.

Groups may use botnets bot which consisted of several IRC clients spread across several geographic networks to maintain connectivity to the IRC, and essentially, to maintain control of IRC channels and nicknames, even in case of network-splits and bot flood. Most robots and individual IRC connections are operated by high voltage UNIX shells to use more stable connections with bigger pipes. With this was the birth of several vanity hosts, who used the "reverse DNS" IP addresses to portray personalized messages in the host names of the user.

A revolutionary solution arrived when dalvenjah DALnet launched, and with it, the channel services and nickname registration. However, soon it became a reality that IP cloaking was still important, even with the absence of channel and pseudo wars

At this point, more experienced (aka higher level ) users. (Aka kiddies scripts ) were able to use tools such as Teardrop, Smurf, Boink, Ping of Death, among others against the less experienced (aka newbies ). Some of them led to instant blue screens [of death] , while others hilarious crushed the TCP stack causing dialog box to open showing the computer would restart in 60 seconds. With long startup time on slow computers yesterday, the re-spawn time associated with a death in World of Warcraft is a far cry from the 5+ minute wait caused by these restarts with potential signals occupied during the numbering in the ISP.

As such, for the receptors of these attacks, there were very few laughs. This increasingly important to protect your IP address with the UNIX shells of use and IRC bouncers. Finally, anonymization and cloaking his IP address has become so important in the prevention of hacks, attacks and severe slaps (worse than getting slapped by mIRC trout ) that innovation was introduced by binary and Mysidia (Darkfire.Net/Sorcery.Net) in creating high-cloaking IRC on IRC servers that today become adopted in most IRC network codes.

Fast forward today, sore different in IP usage began. While individuals kiddies and scripts used to be the authors of the use of negative IP, today, companies have started using IP addresses as well as monitoring data. On 4 August 06, AOL released data for millions of searches by millions of users. Programmers could cross-check "anonymous" data to see who entered each search query. It was a massive breech of confidentiality of the data which led to the serious embarrassment for many.

Projects like Do Not Track attempt to protect users by providing an opt-out tracking and data mining. However, there seems very little reason at this time for companies to comply with these projects. In addition, projects such as providing YouHaveDownloaded BitTorrent P2P download per IP data, contributed to emphasize again that the IP privacy is always so important. In fact, a cross-reference of data with Skype BitTorrent P2P traffic led to a direct bolt in the identity and, for the most privacy. In addition, anonymous crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin suffer from these same problems, especially when not used with a client Bitcoin patched.

Today, many users choose to protect their identity using the Tor and VPN services. Protecting our privacy and access to protection services anonymization of identity is an important must we build the Internet, which today is still just a beginner.

Flag United Kingdom: Target locked. Cameras on.

If you live in the UK, as unreal as it may seem, Big Brother is coming, and he has access to see all the websites you have visited, if you do not use an anonymizer, such as VPN or Tor . Recently, the UK and David Cameron came under surveillance because of a bill on censorship back. However, given the latter proposal, it looks like they love the spotlight, that is, to put a spotlight on private activities of people.

• • •

Hon Queen of England gave a speech detailing a new bill draft communication for actors from law enforcement and government to spy on Internet connections for all citizens of the United Kingdom. This legislation, if it passes, will force providers in the UK and other service platforms to connect all the details of the Internet user activity, , including all websites the user visits .

This is a huge violation of privacy. While the FBI is trying to push its own wiretapping program, the UK can beat them to the punch. It is not known how quickly or even if this bill is passed, but one thing is certain: The United Kingdom and the United States will do whatever it takes, until they can you to spy. If you have already made a deal, for example, on a car and tried to low ball a price to meet in the middle, you can see what happens.

The sad truth in all this, however, is that technology companies will leave the US and the UK. In history, the nations that controlled the new technologies have become superpowers. If the United States and the United Kingdom continues to drive technology companies away with the laws of surveillance and draconian confidentiality, there will be consequences

In other news, elections are coming to United States

.. EDIT:

They backtracked. Although it seems like a victory for privacy, this is the technique used, once again, at the first low-ball offer to meet in the middle when buying a car.