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Yesterday I was caught naked to the camera. There was nothing sexual or even exciting about it. I was in a public sauna with a girlfriend, naked as is appropriate sauna culture, and found myself in the surveillance cameras in the sauna complex. The concept of privacy is definitely changing. But how?

There are more areas where you can take Big Brother is not looking. It used to be that you could assume governments will not seek to you naked in your house, but we now know that they are happy to do so, and even recording nude video chats. There was not even much of a public contempt that the government's spy agencies were bare save you in cats.

He also used to be that you could at least have bodily functions to yourself as you would be free from prying eyes when you visited the toilet. Wrong again, totally wrong: there were surveillance cameras in public toilets for at least a decade. When a famous artist was caught snorting coke in the toilets in 06, the Swedish Aftonbladet even tabloid published pictures of monitoring the bathroom.

At the time, most people were wondering why this person has been taking drugs, as evidenced by the camera images. It seemed that I was the only person wondering what the hell a surveillance camera recording was done in the bathroom.

There are some things to take away from these developments.

First, the cameras are not going away. We can regulate what the government can do with the monitoring data (and we're not being very successful at it right now, to be honest), but some gadgets are just here to stay. Small cameras are ubiquitous such an article. We have cameras in glasses and cameras in Contacts or similar hidden does not seem more than a decade on. In short, we can expect to be saved, always , although mostly by individuals whose paths we are going through at random.

Second, the net production has a different set attitude toward the human body and privacy. It used to be that the images of naked people were something special. Yeah, not so much. Privacy seems to evolve to protect you he and own , that you think and communicate . Recorded video of me working show nothing subversive at all - it will just show a guy sitting at a desk with a computer manyscreened. But if you were to have access to what I'm working on, the image of me changed radically.

Third, the government has yet to be chosen. The laws surrounding the cameras were developed at a time when it was assumed that no one could get a power advantage continues taking the photo at any time. But when the actors of society suddenly get the ability to take pictures everywhere, all the time , it changes the dynamics of the dramatic power. The laws, as written, do not take such an ability into account. At present, governments are experimenting with surveillance drones that can literally watch over an entire city, followed by each individual movement. We can not realistically prevent ordinary people wore cameras - if the technology is there, the cat is out of the bag. - But we can and need to restrict the use of government surveillance

After all, ordinary people don 't you really feel for doing something as mundane as, for example, smoking grass. The government, however, can put you in jail for years and years for (and did so many times in recent decades). In addition, it records and stores everything to eventually be used against you at a later date

I think it's one of the scariest things about current monitoring trends :. Not that anyone is seen naked, but that everything everyone says and thinks is recorded - .. and it can and will be used against them, decades from now, when the laws and values ​​have changed

Privacy remains your own responsibility

an Argentine court ordered a temporary censorship of the Pirate Bay this week, at the request of the copyright industry. It affects all Internet service providers in Argentina, and spreads through the Paraguay. This shows a remarkable lack of understanding of Privacy-in-Lieu on behalf of the copyright industry.

It used to be that we could be located in a geographical location. Today, with the help of VPNs, plugins, tunnels, digital, or a number of other tools, we can change the apparent location at the tap of an icon. I agree with the Pandora music service, which is available only in the United States. I am in Stockholm, Sweden. I can choose to look to the United States without effort at all.

In this way, the copyright industry shows a huge lack of understanding of how the world works today. They seem to think that this country still borders ... well, it exists, and that the laws limiting information can be applied in a geographical area. Instead, the privacy of the location ensures that countries have more effect, as you can jump from one place to the effort -. And if we choose, no one will even be able to identify a base

When the Pirate Bay has been censored in Argentina, what happens is that people choose to appear in Argentina as elsewhere and that's the end of censorship. It is as simple as

Instead, another mechanism kicks that began in so many times before :. whatever you focus on, grows . In other words, whatever you call attention, attracts attention. This happened several times with The Pirate Bay before, and each time, the Pirate Bay traffic has soared: the geographical censorship is irrelevant because people can choose their own place today. Using VPN, using TOR, using plugins, using friends

The idea that someone can tell where you are physically based on how you access the Internet -. Supposedly GeoIP - is a ridiculously false concept

The relevant XKCD for this story. There is always a relevant XKCD.

(Also, in this particular case, someone hacked into the lobby of the website the right to local copyright industry CAPIF, and turned it into a proxy for The Pirate Bay. that gives you an idea of ​​which part in this conflict has a realistic view of their own influence world events.)

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

privacy is not there for the purpose of protecting people who want to do harm. Privacy is a civil right to chance: it is guaranteed in a democratic society, a crucial safety valve against unjust laws that should not be able to be applied. As such, it is not an individual benefit as much as it is a collective :. A mechanism that benefits everyone, even those who do not use

Most people understand vaccinations. We protect ourselves against infection with the preparation of our immune system against pathogens (viruses, bacteria) by showing the disabled versions of this pathogen to the immune system, so that the immune system recognizes and is prepared when and if an attack Live happens to this pathogen.

But the importance does not stop there, at the individual level. Immunization is not only an individual benefit, it is collective advantage. If vaccines are in place in a population, they even benefit those who - for whatever reason - were not vaccinated. If a pathogen is unable to take control in a population, because more are vaccinated, contagion will never break, which benefits everyone.

Therefore, vaccination is not an individual benefit (something that is only those who have been vaccinated), but collective profit -. everyone enjoys it

Life works the same way. It was never "only for those who had something to hide."

The laws are changed as a result of a change in behavior and evolution of acceptances in the general population, and very rarely the other way. (The debate on cannabis legalization and being late is an example of this, as well as marriage equality.) This means that the laws are changed because of the people who break the law to one of the many reasons - they might see it as unjust, illegitimate, step with public acceptance, or break the law simply because they want to. The reason does not really matter

To put a clear example :. If people who are born homosexuals had not insisted on being who they were, although it is illegal, laws would not have changed to make it legal. Do the legal. This need for privacy, and he did not have just a single benefit for some offenders -. It was the collective benefit of the repeal of unjust laws, something that could not take place without privacy

There are many examples of this kind, and is one of the main reasons we we need privacy. A nation that can apply all its laws, devoid of any privacy at all, stop dead in its tracks since the values ​​are no longer allowed to change and evolve. Most people today who look at what our values ​​were 50 years ago are horrified; is there a reason to believe that people 50 years on not think the same today? And yet, people justify violations of privacy to "round up criminals."

If we had monitoring now in place it was 50 years ago, homosexuality would be even criminal. as marriages between people of different skin tones. It was only because of privacy that these laws could be questioned, debated and changed. If "round up criminals" was not acceptable as an excuse so why should it be now?

We need privacy. Not for individuals break the law, not for people who have something to hide, but for the collective benefit of a few people may question the norms and standards that perhaps are simply false, which benefits all .

We need privacy to evolve as a company.

In the absence of government providing privacy, it remains your responsibility.

Staying in length advance potential security flaws, private Internet access and VPN patched its Web site to protect us and especially our customers the latest Bug. Following reports of attacks by Bash bug named 'shellshock' began to roll in, PIA has taken additional security measures to protect the confidentiality of its customers remained intact. With experts reports of people using the bug looking for ways to take advantage of security breaches, PIA has taken steps to ensure that its customers would not be covered.

With many media said the security threat makes its rounds, the Bash vulnerability allows anyone who can set environment variable values, which are then sent to bash to execute arbitrary code on the machine of the target. TroyHunt.com reports that Bash is a * nix shell or in other words, it is an interpreter that allows the user to orchestrate commands on Unix and Linux systems. These commands normally connect via SSH or Telnet, but can also function as an analyzer for CGI scripts on a Web server, usually seen running on Apache.

Attackers can manipulate environment variables by modifying the header values ​​and Web servers call CGI scripts using these environment variables, which allows the attacker to use variable controls.

September 24 ^e , the day the vulnerability was disclosed, access to private Internet patched its systems, protect its website and its VPN service any impact this bug. This commitment to our security and hope to the safety of our customers is our priority just another way to say thank you to our clients for private Internet access of your choice for the security of the Internet and browser.

Life is not a luxury or privilege. It is a right. You should never justify why you need privacy; you have a right to privacy, without any justification. The few exceptions are what need to be justified.

We are witnessing an attack more and more on our right to privacy. Snowden's revelations have given us a glimpse of the depth of the rabbit hole goes: it is not enough that our privacy is abolished in law; it is also that the various government agencies ignore the few protections in the law anyway, and all the wiretap big world all the time.

The worst is that some ordinary people actually try to justify this infringement. You probably have friends who reject the fact that they can not have a private conversation as "unimportant" or worse, "I am willing to give it to feel safe" Like. - A - they got safer without privacy, and - two - they had the right to make that decision for everyone, just because of how they feel

There is also the ubiquitous cliché "? If you have nothing to fear, why do you need privacy"

A sarcastic but always relevant, accurate response would be ;.

"? If you do use it for such a drivel, why do you need the freedom of expression"

This response illustrates the nature of both privacy and freedom of expression: They are not contingent on what you use them for, or more importantly, the work of someone else (read the "law enforcement") would be easier and more handy if you do not have them.

(for a more complete response to this dangerous cliché, see Demystifying nothing to hide).

It is absolutely essential that all challenges to privacy is thrown stressing that privacy is not need to be justified; it is a fundamental human right, as described in the US bill of rights in the European Convention on Human Rights and the Declaration of the United Nations for Human Rights, among others. However, invasions of privacy must be justified in any case -. Well justified not only "because law enforcement wants"

Each political battle is won or lost in the language. It is time we remind our friends that may come to be aware of this importance, how fundamental privacy is -. And that you should never justify keeping things to yourself

Privacy remains your own responsibility [

in the United States, the regulation on net neutrality is to come to a showdown on February 26 for such a boring name, it has enormous implications, well beyond the Internet. Imagine that your electrical kitchen appliances only worked with a power company in particular? That's what you get without net neutrality - or gate neutrality, as it would in this case

households had electricity for a little less than a century, so we're good. aware of the advantage - self-evidentness, actually - that whatever electrical device you plug into the mains, the unit will accept power from the grid and just run on it. And if it was not? What if the grid is not neutral?

At this time, two corporate cultures collide. On one hand, you have the Internet team, which requires neutrality, which requires that everything should work with anything else, and that none of the companies can not be allowed gatekeeper role and the right to determine who has access to markets and which does not. The concept of the garage commissioning is sacred in the culture of the Internet, and it allows access to everyone the service they prefer.

On the other hand, you have the Telco cable and culture, which is exactly the opposite. This culture is called a walled garden, where you need to be able to answer all needs every , either through your own services or through the services you have signed. There is no free choice here. You get the whole package in the walled garden, but only things in there, or you get nothing.

Both cultures are coming to a shock on net neutrality, which is what the Internet requests and demands, and that each fiber will be the Telco and cable industries.

In the jargon of the business, the philosophy is called Walled Garden vertical grouping . It is good for the company to do so, at least in the short term, because it creates blocking effects and greatly increases the transaction costs. It is bad for everyone for the same exact reason.

Vertical consolidation means you take an offer at a level and consolidation with an offer to another level. It could be a combination detergent with a store that sells laundry products, for example (only stores selling private label products). It could be bundling a laundromat with detergent (requiring customers to use only their own detergent, a heavy markup). It could be bundling a mobile phone subscription with priority access to Pandora or Spotify (and lock the competing offers as Grooveshark).

To understand why the lack of neutrality is bad, look at the example of electricity. If your utility company made the vertical grouping, you would have to buy anything that ran on electricity them . They provide kitchen appliances, lamps, electric motors, everything ran on electricity, and remind you often enough on the innovative way they were, by offering this great selection. Meanwhile, we reject this scenario as quite ridiculous - the time that a company would be able to provide a better choice than the overall market, and that would be a desirable situation for everyone, but utility

The lock. -in effect would be enormous. If you wanted to change your power company should be replaced every piece of power equipment . This would be a situation of the power company would salivate; it would be prohibitive to change electricity supplier. It would shock everyone, for the same reason. In addition, the power companies would be guardian of position to determine who has access to the market all with all powered devices.

This is the situation the Cable & Telco team is salivating. They see the potential for lock-in by giving preferential access to their favorite services, creating an artificial garden, and a lock-out or degrade competing services on the Internet. But it will not just against the whole concept of the Internet - everyone is equal online; it also creates a huge economic damage to the whole society, and it puts the Cable & Telco team in a caretaker position to determine who gets access to the market all .

This is why we need net neutrality, as we take electric grid neutrality for absolutely granted.

If you are based in the US, take a minute of your day today to call on Congress to this. The FCC vote on February 26.

a High Court in the UK has commissioned several censored entire sites, at the request of the copyright industry, because they contain a link to the Popcorn Time application. This is an inefficient, disproportionate and dangerous act of censorship - not to mention completely unnecessary. Just a VPN, in all countries, to completely bypass censorship.

The courts seem to live even in times book burning when they had some kind of authority on what information was allowed to exist and what information could be effectively silenced. This was not the case for about 20 years.

The Internet, after all, was created to continue operating even in the event of a nuclear war on a large scale. He has more than enough resilience to withstand - practically ignore - lost a court here and there. John Gilmore was quite right when he noted that the Internet interprets censorship judicial technical damage to the network, and some roads around it

Let's call a spade a spade :. This is censorship. Not all things that we call censorship are today; in fact, most are not. When a forum moderator deletes a post, for example, is not censorship because it is the owner of the publication platform (server) who exercises property rights and the copyrights. Those owner of the publishing platform always get to decide what to publish, even against someone else's will. This does not mean censorship.

Censorship is when government decides that someone can not publish, or not carry . And that's exactly what happened here.

Such measurements are restricted in what we call human rights , as guaranteed by the Charter of the European Union. Courts can issue such restrictions, but can not do it lightly: any restriction must be "necessary, effective and proportionate." These words have a very specific meaning:

A restriction being necessary means that there must be an identified need to do something. It need not be this particular thing, but there must be a state of systemic discontent in a form that requires judicial action. In this case, the copyright industry were not satisfied (they have been for the past century or more), which apparently qualified.

Moving forward the need, specific legal action is proposed. For that to occur, the proposed action should be effective - that is, we must solve the identified problem. The notion that judicial censorship has any kind of effect at all on the Internet shows that the courts are stuck in the last century, and the High Court order fails miserably this test.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, such an order shall be proportional , that is, it should not create more problems than it solves. This is where the real danger. A court gave the censorship orders against sites that provide links - Links - a software application that can or can not be used to exercise normal property rights and violating the monopoly of copyright in the process. This does not take lightly any censorship

We would like everyone to take stupid decisions as read the very simple explanation named "World of Ends" -. Explaining what the Internet is and how to stop taking it for something else. Apparently the courts think that ISPs have a say whatsoever in what their customers can or can not access the Internet, or were tricked into thinking so by the copyright industry.

There is also the question of what the courts will do when they discover that it is trivially bypassed using a standard VPN, or even just using TOR. Does the High Court to try to ban all virtual private networks, even those not in the same country?

Good luck with that.

data collected on citizens have always been used against citizens in the end, sometimes subtly, sometimes genocidal. In the Netherlands, official documents of the population contained a field of religion from 1851 forward - to help in the planning of the city, and make sure everyone had a good selection of appropriate places of worship nearby their residence. The goal was quite benign, and the collection was not conceivable dangerous in any way.

When a new administration rolled in the Netherlands in WW2 war machines that benign Population Register has been reoriented to
genocide. We must consider this and the lessons of history, as the government today perceive absurd amounts of data on each and
each individual, with a little more purpose or afterwards that "because we can . "

Jacques Mattheij posted a summary of the events that is well worth reading:

Since 1851, Amsterdam had a register that recorded the following innocent pieces of data about residents: name , date of birth, address, marital status, parents, profession, religion, previous addresses and date of death if deceased. for many years, this system has served and has been meticulously kept up to date.

this which no doubt well-meaning servant long before World War II had the brilliant idea to record religious affiliation in the census is lost in the mists of time. what we know is that this small field caused untold thousands people to die once the occupants have decided to use it to locate the Jewish people. And there were many of those in Amsterdam, which was home to about 80,000 Jews (Dutch) of the total of about 104,000 in all of the Netherlands at the beginning of the war. 70,000 of them had their data entered into the register Amsterdam.

After the Civil Registry was in the hands of the enemy, the extermination program for Jews based Amsterdam (those who had not fled) moved into high gear and street after the street was raided. Entire neighborhoods were empty. The importance of the register has not been lost on the resistance who planned and executed a bold attack (Dutch) to destroy as they could register by firebombs after subduing the guards. The attackers were betrayed to the Nazis and all but two were executed in the dunes near Overveen. Although the attack was not a complete success records the song was destroyed completely (about 15%), and much of the rest suffered extensive water damage because firefighters do everything possible to drown the parts that did not burn (after dragging their heels as long as possible to let the building burn as they could get away with without raising suspicion that they knew what was going on).

Read the full article on the Jacques Mattheij.

[? GCHQ is profiling each user unique Internet, according to new Snowden files published by the Intercept . At this point, the story should not be the watchdogs record every thing you do in the clear, but people are always surprised about it. We are well beyond Orwellian and it is time that people realize.

Imagine that. The British spy agency has personal records of each person who has ever been online, monitoring every visit to every site possible. Stasi would be green with envy. Erich Honecker would be proud. After all, the Stasi files were only a large part of the East German population.

Indeed, yes, we could imagine it exactly. At present, we must know that all unencrypted traffic is tapped, for no other reason than because it may be tapped. Supervisory agencies have demonstrated loud and clear that they are completely outside the scope of the law and fundamental rights of privacy.

We already knew that the GCHQ intercepts and stores absolutely everything in storage in rotation, the analysis as much as they can while still in store. Bottom line :. if you are not using encrypted communications, you must know now that at least three government agencies are monitoring everything you do

The difference is one of attitude: the defenders of life private assume, based on experience, that monitoring organizations do everything technically possible with today's technology. It seems that many people still think these agencies respect a kind of law or constitution. They do not.

It should be noted here that the FBI Hoover went even intact for a long time, especially because Hoover was embarrassing files on all holders of power that could make anything close Hoover down. Now can you imagine that today watchdogs know their opponents?

This is no fantasy. When the Swedish watchdog, the FRA, was argued before a bill giving it a carte blanche permission for bulk wiretapping without warrant, you will see the IP addresses of the agency in the visitors log on each blog critical of it every morning. He did not even hidden. And of course, it was only the open part of keeping track of their political opponents.

This is the same GCHQ had a program called optic nerve as listening to popular video conversations (the penny should start falling, as they are wiretapping all ). Yes, including wiretapping naked conversations between those who like them. Now GCHQ power of having this material is not having a naked picture of someone - this is who bare chatting with each other. Say, hypothetically, a senator married oversee the NSA would chatted lightly dressed with a British person - to whom the senator not married? That is where the value lies. Yes, that would be exorbitant. And yet, it happened again and again and again and again. Is it time to start learning history, yet?

I hear many people dismiss comparisons between today and oversight bodies, eg, East Germany Stasi (the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit , coincidentally translate State Ministry of security or more contemporarily national security Agency ). People are right to reject such comparisons as unfair, but not for the reason that these people think. The human mind is very poor to understand the differences of several orders of magnitude.

When comparing apples to apples, the only stores NSA nine orders of magnitude more data on citizens that the East German Stasi ever made. It is more invasive by a factor of one billion. Nine zeros.

These wiretaps watchdogs all, record everything, all cross-reference. This is not a joke and it is time to act accordingly.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Freedom of expression not only is the freedom to say what you want. It is the freedom to say these words someone . The result is that strong encryption is not only a strong right in itself, but it is inherent in the freedom of expression, as the normal case for today's discourse to take place over a distance.

In the United States, we are now something like third wave clueless politicians trying to score cheap points by the war on encryption. The first was in the early 190s, when the PGP encryption software to Phil Zimmermann - Pretty Good Privacy - indeed has been classified as military equipment and could not lawfully be communicated outside the United States. This ended with a major legal battle established that code is speech, and therefore freedom of expression includes the free code. (Activists in the courtroom wore T-shirts with the source code.)

Between then and now, there has been a low-intensity war on freedom conducted by various politicians who want to ban encryption. (Are we on the second or third cryptographic wars? Does not really matter, what matters is that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.) These politicians are generally technically illiterate if they are better described with their control technology proposed as the equivalent of drunken elephants trumpeting about in a glass factory.

freedom of expression has never been freedom of being alone in a padded room and muttering incomprehensibly for you. The concept necessarily involves the communication of a thought to one or more other persons, and thus includes your right to choose these people. It was obvious that we were talking face to face, and freedom of expression has been registered; Now, technology has changed our ability to talk to people from a distance, but not the basic concept. Therefore, strong encryption is now a prerequisite to maintain the concept of freedom of expression.

The problem is that encryption, such as the Internet itself, we see a distinct phenomenon. But it's not. It deeply embedded in the way we exercise our freedoms and protect our freedoms today. It used to be that all freedoms not only could, but in general would be exercised in an analog way.

Today, however, we exercise our fundamental freedoms such as freedom of assembly, speech, opinion, the press, and thought to Internet. And therefore the Internet itself has become just a fundamental right that all other rights we exercise through it .

Therefore, freedom of expression today is not without strong encryption.

While we could preach to go off the grid altogether to leave no trace at all, which is hardly compatible with a modern lifestyle. One could say that you should stop using anything traceable - stop using the credit cards, stop using mobile phones - but it will not be very useful, and the burden will quickly be unbearable for all but the most devout. Instead, here are five tools you can use in your daily life, it now appears that will rapidly increase significantly your level of privacy:

TOR Long a tool of choice for hostile dissidents. schemes, it is a little difficult to implement, and should be carefully validated to be set up correctly, but is one of the strongest anonymizers the network level and the guards privacy there. When configured correctly, that all traffic routes in a series of additional encrypted random jumps around the planet, and your IP address appear to be from somewhere completely different. completely random, even. There will be no linkage whatsoever between your real IP and your IP apparent or apparent between your IP and real identity, which is the effect we desire. Read more about the TOR project.

Virtual Private Networks (VPN). Virtual Private Networks also replace your real IP address with an IP address apparent, but do so in a single encrypted hop. This makes it much faster than digital in most cases. However, VPN services are provided by many different actors, and each of them are not die hard to privacy -. There have been cases where less serious VPN providers retained newspapers and happily handed over the identification information to hostile authorities

Remember that what we want to avoid is the coupling between the IP address apparent and your identity, therefore an absolute requirement is that the VPN provider keep no log either of its connections. The problem with this requirement is that it is impossible to verify if what you want to look for is a VPN provider who merely claims that it does not keep all the papers, but also does not need your identity sign up for a VPN connection, denying any linkage between your identity and the VPN service used - if the supplier does not have your identity in the first place, you should not trust anyone.

Zero confidence is a very good principle on these issues. This does not mean that you do not trust anybody; it means you do not do need to trust anyone, that trust was made irrelevant.

You should not have to trust anyone to behave well with your data - it is much better if they did not. For this, in particular, look for VPN providers who accept bitcoin payment instead of a (personal!) Credit Card. If you are really concerned about traceability, you can purchase bitcoin ATM fees with money for this use, yet reducing traceability. Coin ATM radar shows some of them.

Adblockers. They do not work on the network level but at the level of user data. Good adblocker will remove much of the monitoring happens between sites, advertising networks, closing your computer altogether. I recommend the classic Adblock Plus plugin Chrome / Chromium and Firefox on desktop systems / laptop. Mobile, this is still something of a problem.

Ghostery. In addition to a adblocker, it also helps to have a plugin that removes the remaining tracking tags used to link your visits between sites. Ghostery is a classic here, available as a plug-in for Firefox and Chrome / Chromium.

Signal. Last but not least, sometimes we also want to secure private messaging with friends and associates. The go-to choice there Signal Open Whisper Systems, available for Android and iOS. It provides both messaging and ciphertext encrypted voice calls, and the extremely handy feature to detect when a person messaging you also installed and switching signals in encrypted mode.

the greatest power that you can hold in any society is the power of storytelling - the position where other people are looking to you to know what is true and what is false, and interpret events around from US. The Internet completely upsets the previous holders of this power, and much of the conflict on the net can be traced to this power -. Specifically the transition to this

To understand how important this is, you can try to ask this hypothetical question to a friend: if they got to write the news for a week, and all the world would accept what was claimed in the news as a full and indisputable truth, what would they write

those? who think in terms of exploitation of the situation came up with the idea of ​​writing they are rich, they have the attractive property, they are desirable personally, and so on. This misses the point by a wide margin.

If you control what is true and false, you do not do need money. Or anything else, ever. You have a position where you can do all of humanity want to provide all your needs on a whim. You can choose a demi-god among men - .. And that's exactly how this power has traditionally been used or abused

We call this power to maintain Power of Narrative

illustrate what happens in the transitions of this power. In the 14th century, books in Europe have been copied laboriously by hand by monks and nuns in monasteries. This meant the Catholic Church had absolute control over what books existed, and of course, all were in Latin.

The 1453 printing press broke it, but it was not obvious at first. It took a minister named Martin Luther to start protest against the abuses of power of Narrative - in particular, details which affirmed Catholic Church they had the ability to forgive sins in exchange for sums of money. This detail is that history books tend to focus on, but the bigger picture is the possibility of claiming something unverifiably first.

Remember, the Bible was in Latin. There was in Latin. And only the clergy could read Latin and therefore, tell the masses what the Bible says. This is exactly the power imagined earlier in this article -. The ability to say anything and took to unquestionably true

Thus, the real shock came with the so-called Gutenberg Bibles, Bibles printed by cartloads in French and German, which began to appear in the streets. At this point, completely panicked Catholic Church, because all of a sudden, people could read and check the allegations. The church was no longer necessary to read the Bible in Latin. This meant that the Church had lost the ability to interpret the text to its own advantage

This led to 0 years of civil war across the known world -. The so-called "religious wars" - such as the power of transition story several times.

So why do printing of the Bible in a different language, a common language, leading to civil war two centuries? Because the Church had lost goalkeeper position on the knowledge and culture of mankind.

The use of these technologies has been increasingly repressed, with tougher sanctions, until they reach death. Yes, using a printing press at all - make an unauthorized copy -. Was punished by death in a law enacted in France on January 13, 1535. The official justification was "to prevent the spread of dangerous ideas"

... now it all feel familiar in respect of today Internet disturbance of the old guard?

This is the perspective that must be applied where the authorities demand the right to inspect what people are talking about, to determine what ideas just where to go and where. To identify people who spread dangerous ideas - all this mean for current powers that be. To restrict the flow of information to and from various sites and people where ideas become too difficult.

"Record companies are not really afraid of you put their music on YouTube. They are afraid of you put your music on YouTube, without ever asking permission," as a well-illustrated colleague.

the copyright industry is a small player in this transition They are just the first skirmish -.. the level of tutorial, if you like the politicians do not care what the music is being played - but they do not care if they can not control the finances (Bitcoin) and the newsflow

This is why every small effort to save the current decentralization issues ideas This is a.. Therefore, each fighting for privacy is important (not the only reason, but still). This is why the Internet must be defended. This is why governments must be kept out of our computers, cameras and phones and why we must defend encryption.

Hopefully this transition of power Narrative can be made more orderly than 0 years of civil war.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

The aftermath of the Brussels attacks is as predictable as it is despicable: Politicians try trying to make a career out of the position by Reducing liberty and Increasing surveillance-even though Both are counterproductive

There is a political Saying That You shoulds. never let a good crisis go to waste. There is Among Politicians Reviews another Saying That anything good for the career is ethical by definition. hawks monitoring-have-been not resting on laurels Their cet item.

A couple of days after the attacks Brussels, we can see the political aftermath, and it's as predictable as it is counterproductive and dangerous. We're already seeing Renewed and stronger calls for more surveillance.

Hours after-Offering His resignation, Belgium's minister of justice Koen Geens Said ict intelligence services need Greater access to people's phone and internet records.

In this way, it Reminds us of the aftermath of the 04 Madrid bombings, When Politicians scrambled to create one of the MOST invasive schemes ever, the so-called Data Retention: Basically, it Meant That every electronic track you left shoulds be Retained by your operators to use the service contre you. Every person or server you contacted, how, when, From Where, and for how long. The "from where" is Especially interesting, as it Practically Provided a history of your movements, day by day, Almost down to footstep level

It Would take ten years up to the European Court of Justice -. The European Union equivalent of a Supreme Court - struck down the Data Retention Directive as utterly incompatible with Fundamental human rights. That Has not mattered. Politicians keep yelling about more and more and more common traceability of citoyens.

Of course, attackers know this. They're unfazed by this. They're not using traceable phones. They're not using phones That are feasible to trace, and invasive-even with new legislation. They're not-even bothering with encryption communicating goal in cleartext. They just carry Dozens and Dozens of burner phones - single-use phones, discarded after-one gold FEW uses - Thus completely Call negating Any collection of data about phones or phonecalls

It's politically Stated That Any reduction in liberties must. be "necessary, effective, and proportionate": it must address an APPROBATION and precise problem, it must solve That problem, and must not create worse problems in the process. Mass Surveillance is one of These Things That-have proven to be ridiculously ineffective. - Those Who want to circumvent it, find it trivial to do so for the specific purpose They Want to hide

(Interestingly, California now: has a Proposed bill to outlaw anonymous burner phones, selon Russia Today. That's an interesting Attempt qui accounts for absolutely nothing, as suicide bombers are not the Slightest Concerned with Being tracked and APPROBATION after-a successful attack.)

Of race, proponents of mass monitoring try to justify Their cause. Purpose When the proponents of mass monitoring state supervision HAS That stopped X number of terror attacks, most is of the time, they 're lying through Their teeth - and fortunately, this is trivial to verify. Even if the method Was secret and can not be told in public, the "stopped terror attack" is the major share: prepaid mass destruction ( "terror") is a very serious crime, Almost as serious a crime as Actually executing the planned mass destruction. So if We had X number of thwarted plots, we also have the exact Would Sami X number of very public court verdicts of "guilty" of schedule Such mass destruction. If we do not-have That verdict, there simply Was not Such a schedule in process That Was thwarted.

And for MOST countries, the number Claimed is in excess of a dozen, and the actual court records show a big fat zero. This is indicative of Reviews another well-Established political process Known As "lying like a weasel When you think you can get away with it."

There's a pattern here of Adding Reducing monitoring and effectiveness. The only thing proven to work contre this kind of attacks is old classic detective Police work: Were the attackers already Known by Police and HAD-even-been flagged as potential terrorists based on Arrests and very traditional policing work. Adding more monitoring just does not work. It adds more noise, not signal more

In one way, the terror attack in Stockholm on Christmas 2010 is Some sort of template for thesis power grabs. En ce que attack, a lone suicide bomber failed to kill anybody goal himself, as His suicide vest detonated prematurely in an alley just ahead of the city streets full of Christmas shoppers; Police Were busy putting out a burning elsewhere because He Had filled with gas cylinders and detonated as a diversionary tactic.

So in the end, this Particular attacker killed nobody goal himself. That did not stop the Swedish Security Police - the Säpo - from time immediately Demanding new monitoring powers into people's email and more, in order to prevent prevention similar attacks in the future. Aim as it turned out, the attacker HAD sent a mail to the Säpo explaining exactly what He Was going to do, how, and when to. HOWEVER, Being a Saturday and all, That mail was not read For a Few more days.

In --other words, the anti-terror Police Did not fail to prevent prevention this template attack Because They couldn 't read --other people's email; They failed to prevent prevention it Because They Did not read Their Own email

Monitoring Does not just not work. it's counterproductive.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

the death of
Ukrainian
Bitcoin license

innovation, most often comes from the bottom. A fault occurs in the community and against all institutionalized pressures on the contrary, want to say finally made its way in the government due to mounting pressure from below. For proof of this, you need not look further than the political issues such as gay marriage or the start of the drug war (or his end). Until a year ago, the nascent Bitcoin community in Ukraine wanted to work together with the Ukrainian government to create a safe place for Bitcoin businesses innovate using this bleeding edge technology. This charge was led by Michael Chobanian, the founder of Bitcoin Agency KUNA which is itself one of the founders of the Ukranian Bitcoin Foundation. Last year Chobanian and Ukranian Bitcoin Foundation began working with the National Bank of Ukraine to educate various government agencies on Bitcoin and blockchain technology. In May 2015, a welcomed an Ukranian BitLicense project was released to public view and Chobanian entered the world of Ukranian policy to forge a version that would actually make the Parliament of Ukraine. After several months of working with government agencies, Chobanian was cautiously hope that Ukraine would be able to spend a Bitcoin licensing program that would encourage existing and new businesses to move to Ukraine. He told the media that:.

"It is understood that this technology is here to stay and is the future there is no checkpoint, and they can create conditions where companies can grow. And this is exactly why we are pushing the initiative Bitcoin License Ukraine. "

the reality with Bitcoin licenses is very different from the dream of the government, though. The early establishment in 2015 of the New York BitLicense caused a multitude of digital currency companies established to add the state of New York in their jurisdictions banned list - right next to Iran and North Korea. Even now, almost a year after the BitLicense entered into force, only a BitLicense was granted. Chobanian began negotiations with the Ukrainian bank and the government with clear intentions to avoid the exact situation, but it seems that was not met in kind. Probably Chobanian gave up its negotiations with the Ukrainian government because it realized that the community he represented had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Last week Chobanian announced it was abandoning the project license Bitcoin legislation. He explained that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies like this are already sufficiently regulated:

"Crypto is completely legal You can use it by all means Regarding the people.. moral, there is little sense in doing anything for them. Even if we adopt the most liberal laws on virtual currencies, I seriously doubt anyone would open businesses in Ukraine. 147 Other taxes and currency regulation are still there, let alone the chaos caused by the law enforcement agencies (Ministry of Interior, State tax Service, the security Service of Ukraine, the prosecutor General's Office, courts, etc. ..) I prefer to leave it as it is. It is a perfect size for a time like this, "

After all this, the creator of Bitcoin Ukranian license decided that this law was not intended. the dominant feeling rational governments of the world is that the existing currency, taxation and anti-money laundering laws (of which there are already many) are sufficient to prosecute malicious use of Bitcoin as money that have and continue to arise. No matter what the future looks like Bitcoin eventually Licenses - technology has already progressed beyond treatment. At present, there cypherpunks working on projects that are not really based in any country. Whether or not these projects, often called Autonomous Decentralized Companies (The OAC), end up being accountable to the laws of any country remains to be seen.

Since the Snowden leaks, the US government has sought to repair his public image and to limit public knowledge of its invasions of privacy. Before 2015, the US government has been allowed access to five years of phone metadata value of every person in the three jumps of a suspected terrorist. In 2015, the most blatant bit of the Patriot Act were allowed to expire and the Government of metadata phone mandate was reduced to two jumps and eighteen months. A new study three Stanford researchers shows that the US government is still able to collect metadata about 25,000 phone for every single terrorist suspect "seed". Under the old rules, the NSA was allowed to spy on 20 million phones by simply suspected terrorist "seed". In essence, by 2013, the researchers estimated that the NSA had "legal authority to access phone records for the majority of the total population of the United States."

course the US government has made a great show of being respectful of privacy, leaving the provisions of the Patriot Act expire. the amount of metadata scrapable terror suspect dropped several orders of magnitude. However, the amount of suspected terrorists also increased to no fever in the meantime. It is important to note that metadata are simultaneously becoming more and more relevant as the world becomes more interconnected. the average amount of companies / applications with access to the metadata of your phone has increased dramatically along with the penetration of smartphones in recent years. the terrorist database still exists and your name can be added without any concrete evidence. The NSA now has better pools of metadata to focus their time and efforts on and they are probably not even notice the Downsize in the telephone data. We're just starting to get numbers on how metadata phone strips away our privacy -. Imagine what kind of privacy in our Internet metadata gives away

What information can be collected from single phone metadata?

Stanford researchers analyzed metadata 823 volunteers phones. In total, they had access to metadata (time stamps, time, parts) approximately 250,000 1,0,000 calls and text messages. From these data, the researchers were able to discern the location of the current city for 57% of the volunteers. Additionally, the metadata has been able to identify not only whether or not a volunteer had a significant other, but also to identify what his telephone number is. Even more damning was the researcher's ability to identify private information such as property and health gun just metadata requirements, then easily check the inferences through public information sources.

The Stanford team is hoping that their data, which somewhat quantified the amount of damage caused by the telephone surveillance metadata will help to sensitize decision-makers. As more and more data from the front shows "monitoring of bulk metadata to be an ineffective intelligence strategy," we hope that the world and its governments are coming to see the madness in otherwise mass surveillance ethics without checks and balances. In the meantime, know that all metadata, not just your phone, may still play just for the NSA.

Earlier this week, BitDefender has demonstrated the telescope technique, which allows an attacker to decrypt TLS communication between a target and a virtualized server. Means TLS Transport Layer Security and is widely used. The technique of the telescope is both operating and crypto library agnostic agnostic system. Any TLS key that is generated on a virtualized server is sensitive to this technique. This security alert reminder that your VPN service should use their own bare metal servers.

teleScope reminds us the Cloud is not secure

Common knowledge has always dictated that if you use a virtual machine remotely, who has access to the real hardware is clearly able display your activity if they really want. Users have always known techniques Snooping criticism which would defeat the encryption using TLS as possible. The revelation Telescope BitDefender reminds us of the particular situation. A similar attack cache also allows malicious access to your RSA keys and other important cryptographic keys. This is not only a possibility we have to trust Amazon not to exploit -. Anyone with a VM that is used on the same physical machine as yours can spy these articles

Use VPN instead of a VPS

Many people and businesses worldwide rely on TLS and virtualization to run essential services - but teleScope is unnecessary VPS to a dedicated attacker. Private Internet Access reminded VPS and VPN users around the world who are affected by this news:

If you use a VPS or VPN on the virtualized hardware (ie, a VPS such that Digital Ocean, Amazon, Azure, etc.), you should assume that your traffic has been and is decrypted.

private ™ Internet access is secure by default this vulnerability since we use real bare metal servers.

Your BitTorrent Downloads are very public, and Suren Ter, the producer behind YouHaveDownloaded.com, helped raise awareness of this reality. We sat with our friend, Suren, to discuss the idea behind YHD , piracy and the future of file sharing.

• • •

Please give the world a brief introduction about yourself, such as past projects, interests, beliefs?
I am a mathematician. I'm not very good with people, but I'm good with abstract ideas. All my projects have the same influence and characteristics. For example, XMLShop.com is an automated drop-shipping system. Then there SEMrush.com, a competitive intelligence tool. They have teams of course. But if the team were to disappear one day, customers will not notice for weeks. Regarding beliefs, I have not. I'm a guy with facts and figures. Having beliefs indicates a lack of knowledge and / or ability to draw conclusions based on known facts. I have no problem admitting when I do not know anything, so I just do not need to believe.

Why did you create YouHaveDownloaded?
It started as a joke. We spoke with two other guys, a beer and a few laughs. Some guys talk about football, talk about other guys girls - we speak of P2P protocols, the social aspects of file sharing and confidentiality. Some conversations end up in a bar fight, some are found in the hangover (most of them, actually) - our conversation ended in a bit of coding. By the way, just to avoid nerd jokes, we're all pretty successful with girls and money  . We just find complicated ideas a little more interesting, and discussions about whether John Doe hit a ball or not.

What obstacles or difficulties have you encountered during launch and operation of the YHD?
You must be kidding. What obstacles such simple site could have? In fact, the only challenge was Facebook. They turned out Facebook connection when they saw oversubscribed. It was a minor inconvenience though. The site had up to 4 million visitors a day. But my sysadmin is one of the best. Ilya (encoder) is a very smart guy too. The system used less than 10% capacity and it is just a server.

What are your predictions for the future of file sharing?
I think new anonymous protocols will surface soon. They will make file sharing "safer" in legal terms. On the other hand, the initial copies will thumbprints watermark. It will always be possible to share, but copies will be traceable to the first downloader. For the rest, it is an endless power struggle or as I like to say. "A fight between the ball and the armor"

Do you think that your website has helped people become more aware of the privacy risks when sharing files?
Certainly! However, the majority is too stupid to learn anything. for example, we get the same question about dynamic IP in least ten times a day. the answer is right on the first page. It's on every page, in fact. ignorance is bliss, but most people abuse. they never really learn, they get used to only some thing.

How did you manage the load on your site when you were linked to everywhere?
As I mentioned before, it was quite easy. when looking for something visitors to the site, there is a small pop-up jumps and offers to "like us while you're waiting." This is an artificial delay. We can return results in milliseconds. The pop-up and the delay was just my idea to gather more people.

Have you ever thought about selling your data to the RIAA / MPAA?
Nah. First, they have their own data. Second, they are arrogant idiots. I do not want to deal with people like that. I think of them as the Inquisition. They have a promising idea and turned into a giant hammer to crush others for profit.

What are your moral views on piracy?
Like I said a French journalist and the lady at the Washington Post, the pirates are thieves and they fly. Yeah yeah, "when I fly your DVD, you have no DVD, but when I copy a file, you still have a file" - I get that BS. We all know it's BS too. However, Sopas and PIPA create tyranny. If given the choice between the robbers and tyranny, I prefer to stay with the robbers. It reminds me a piece of history ... at the beginning of Nazi Germany, many Germans did not pay the transit price. But young Nazis decided to put a stop to it. They stopped the bus and shot dead several gatecrashers. That's when things changed. You can say that free riders brought on themselves. The truth is that it is cruel, but effective. The problem is that it did not stop there and we all know what happened then. See, I was born in the Soviet Union and saw things that, for you, is an abstract social theory. The United States is going in a very wrong direction here.

What are your thoughts on bitcoins?
There are two aspects. Scientifically, it is a very neat algorithm. Kudos to the inventor - the guy (or team) is brilliant. Socially - that's another great thing. It is a new, perfect gold. If some large social network (hmm, who could it be?) Or a large social network game maker (hmm, who could it be?) Have started using bitcoins as currency in the game ... Wow. It would create an initial application. It is difficult to predict the outcome. But it will be scandalous fail. It is a Federal Reserve distributed without corruption. Governments will need new underwear. Many new underwear. It seems that the inventors realize that it corresponds quite well. The creator was hidden for a reason. If I were him, I would be hidden too 

Do you have any projects in the pipeline that you want to announce?
SEMrush.com is interesting. It is not necessarily in the pipeline in terms of being new. But we are constantly adding many new features. Some idiots were concerned about the invasion of privacy YHD. Ha! SEMrush.com - it's an invasion of privacy. It reveals trade secrets of big business. YHD is just a toy. SEMrush is the real thing.

Do you have any other words you'd like to share with the world?
I'm not good with words. I prefer to share stuff with real world 

East -what your Internet history of the last twelve months have anything you would not want the public, government, or even blackmail hacker to know? For most people in the world, our Internet activity can provide enough information to paint a clear picture. Browsing and search history can easily reveal your sexual orientation, financial status, travel plans, beliefs, and more. There are circumstances, such as criminal investigations, where this data can be useful to help the greater good; However, the potential abuse of this incredible power means that the warrants must be granted before that happens. It is this fundamental guarantee against the government that comes to a head in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom.

The UK comes after your Internet history with Bill Investigatory Powers

Bill investigative powers, called the IP bill for short, would force service providers Internet (ISPs) to store information on sites and services visited by all users for an entire year. What is more damning, ISPs would be allowed to share this data with law enforcement without needing a warrant. With this power, the government needs to acknowledge only a crime and they will be able to see if your Internet History presents no more damning evidence. Lord Strasburger, a Lib Dem in the House of Lords, described the potential danger of IP Bill: ["InthehandsofanextremistgovernmentIPbillisatoolboxfortyranny"

also, Lord Strasburger, fears that vague wording in the bill presents a "threat to encryption." in fact, another part of the investigative powers bill allows at GCHQ, the British NOS hack all devices in a non-UK city for national security purposes - Curiously recalling recent US anti-privacy efforts rule 41. turbulence on recent events, including the terrorist attack in Turkey, have predictably triggered a new round of violations against privacy worldwide. politicians have even expressed concern that this type of legislation become law without public reaction because of the media is busy elsewhere.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Brian Armstrong (Previously AirBnB) founded the first YC supported Bitcoin society. Now it has reached an even greater milestone. Coinbase (YC S12) is now officially the first traditionally funded Bitcoin business crowd (we traditionally say because some Bitcoin companies have raised money in the stock market via Bitcoin GLBSE).

This shows that many people believe in Coinbase and, by proxy, Bitcoin. Some all stars like Y Combinator, Alexis Ohanian (reddit co-founder), Trevor Blackwell (Anybots, YC co-founder) and IDG Ventures have invested in Coinbase. Armstrong, of course, it is quite easy to believe in Coinbase. He created Coinbase be PayPal Bitcoin Bitcoin and bring to the masses.

After completing the FundersClub (YC S12) crowdfunding round Coinbase raised $ 268,700, just over its goal of $ 250,000, 61-member FundersClub. This represents an average of $ 4,500 per member. The minimum investment was $ 1000 with $ 2500 guaranteed a place in the round. The occasion was initially only available for 10 days, but it was subsequently extended several times. It ended up being available for about one month in total. Coinbase also raised an additional $ $ 350,000 from investors offline.

Brian Armstrong says the funding will go primarily to the construction of a high quality team.

privacy and anonymity are two different concepts. They are both more necessary that we get more and more bugged and monitored, legally as well or not, and it is important to understand why they are an integral part of our civil liberties - why they are not only beneficial to the individual, but absolutely essential to a free society.

privacy is the ability to keep some things to yourself, regardless of their impact on society. To take a trivial example, I lock the door when I go to the men's room - not because I'm doing something criminal or plotting to overthrow the government in the men's room, but just because I want to keep activity there for myself.

research shows that going beyond a need and a deep need - in all societies throughout history, people have created private spaces for themselves. Even under the most oppressive regimes, people have found a way to do something, something little, apart from prying eyes. This is rather say.

When someone says that only criminals have something to hide, they are simply wrong, as evidenced by this observation. No one would make a keyboard for people with three arms, based on the simple fact that people must not three arm. Yet some hawks monitoring and cohorts are pushing for a society for people without the need for privacy -. Despite the fact that these people do not exist

So privacy is a concept describing the activities that keep you totally up to you, or a limited group of people.

However, anonymity is when you want people see what you do, not just whether you do it. A typical example would be if you want to denounce the abuse of power or other forms of crime in your organization without risking career and social status in this group, which is why we generally strict laws that protect sources the free press. You can also view these anonymous data online through a VPN, the TOR anonymous network, or both. This is the analog equivalent of tip-off anonymous letter , which was considered a staple in our checks and balances

Obviously these concepts -. Privacy and anonymity - are beneficial to the individual. But more importantly, it is in the interest of the whole society that all people have these advantages. There is not only an individual benefit but collective benefit

We talked a little in favor of the already anonymity -. Without anonymity in society, we have essentially lost the ability to keep our government in check. That simple. (Unless you want to get a Snowden and flee halfway across the planet, but most people probably do not want to do that.)

The advantage and need for privacy are ... a little more hidden below the surface, and has to do with the fundamental principles of democracy. In a democratic nation, we elect people to govern the country, including the capacity to apply force to the citizens. Then, after a period of n years, we hold them accountable for their performance and reassess if they are fit to run the country or not.

If these leaders with the full capacity of the strength of a country had the ability to look into the homes, hearts and minds of voters, they would be able to held responsible voters their thought and opinion, rather than the reverse. It becomes a complete reversal of 180 degrees of power. That's why privacy for citizens and transparency in government is essential in a democratic society. And indeed, any company that has been the other way around - transparent and opaque government citizens - were, shall we say, low satisfaction companies

But anonymity is not only important to denounce. scandals. It can have profound effects in catalysing the development of society, especially when breaking taboos or transfer prohibited causes which were then justified.

For example, the events that led to the formation of the United States soon centered something known as Federalist Papers -. documents and brochures nailed to trees throughout the then-British colony, documents advocating the secession of England independence and the United States of America

at the time, these defense opinions publicly was high treason, not just the death penalty, but a particularly horrible kind of death. It is easy to see why Federalist Papers were published anonymously.

Thus, to illustrate the importance of anonymity not only to the individual but to the whole society, the United States would not exist as a country if anonymity is not existed at the time preceding the independence

therefore, both privacy and anonymity -. although different - are essential to a democratic society, not only to individuals but to society as a whole.

As an endnote, it could be argued that nobody is really anonymous, but pseudonymous - that is, everyone has a name of some sort, even if it is one that can not be connected to their common name. If you download the proof of a government scandal by the nickname "Scarlet Whistleblower," are you really anonymous, or do you simply create yourself a new name for this purpose? Arguably it.

This can be seen as a philosophical problem with little impact in the real world, and today it is. However, adolescents growing up today are used to change the names online more frequently than underwear, and I predict values ​​around something as basic as the name may change dramatically over the next generations.

When I grew up, we knew that the country to east of the iron curtain had secret agents who spied their own citizens, and we were taught that it was absolutely horrible and terrifying. An integral part of our identity west of the Iron Curtain that we would never behave like this: in the West, we were right to privacy, we had civil liberties which were inviolable. Today, I can not discuss ordinary working the phone with my colleagues. How did it come to this

As the film of adaptation Lord of the Rings opens the voice of Cate Blanchett is heard:. "The world has changed"

When I grew up, we assumed that we could communicate in private. There were countries that were spying on their own citizens, and they were held in contempt. They were the Soviet Union, they were East Germany. KGB and the Stasi were the names of the organizations that we knew spied on shareholders citizens of their country, and a very strong party identity west of the Iron Curtain was that we were not. In the West, freedoms were sacred.

How naive we were. Once it became possible, western governments have done exactly the same thing. How is it that?

According to Edward Snowden, global monitoring machine are not, and never was intended to catch terrorists. It was just a front, a justification, a false front. The real reason was always the geopolitical domination of economic and industrial espionage, diplomatic domination, and the ability to discredit powerful opponents. (No wonder, like drowning in bathtubs is five times more dangerous than terrorism.)

In a cynical way, it feels better to know that my phone is tapped, and that all I say can and will be used against me, now or at anytime in the future. Before, I had a nagging suspicion, often being shot by friends and colleagues as paranoia.

"What makes you think you are important enough to be listened to?" , some people asked, ignoring the geopolitical game I play and the strings I pulled. Some of them make me doubt my own rational analysis

Now, with Snowden, I know my phone is tapped -. Because every phone is tapped. My attention was right all along, and my use - overuse some have said before -. Cryptography had been quite correct to move

Somehow things went terribly wrong, and I'll return to that in the column next week.

Yet the way the world has changed over the last decade is astonishing and devastating at the same time. I can not talk on the phone longer, nothing substantial distance. I can not discuss sensitive matters into my own apartment - and the definition of "sensitive issues" is becoming wider. In other words, I do not want to like this. I want to be able to have a private conversation.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. In 190, Germany was reunified. In 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. The net effect of this is that person younger than 25 years old today - people who take the net for absolutely granted, just as we all take for granted today cars - has any personal memory of unspeakable abuses a European supervisory state, and what happens when it starts flexing his muscles. But now the technology that people use is the technology that is used against them on a 24 by 7.

We often make comparisons with the East German Stasi regarding the state of being deployed surveillance - despite the comparison to come short in two important aspects. First, monitoring is now the mind bogglingly further than East Germany Stasi never able to accomplish. The Stasi was the dreaded secret police of East Germany had a file on everyone, and that would disappear inconvenient people and pressure from the rest. Secondly, monitoring today is much more secretive - it has not (yet) started to use everything he knows about ordinary people against ordinary people

(There is a excellent film called Das Leben Der Anderen, life. other , which provides an overview of the cooling psyche bureaucrats monitoring and the time officers.)

the Eastern Europe monitoring states in general, and East Germany, in particular, not only open letters and phonecalls wiretap randomly. As it was not possible to open all the letters and wiretapping every phonecall, there was an extensive network of civilian informers among the population - people who had been recruited, often under threat or blackmail . It was not just one or two - records show that the informants numbered 174000, or one to forty people . In effect, this meant that informants were everywhere - it is easy to envision a typical day and see that in a place with more than 40 people, it is statistically at least one person who will report anything suspicious to an agency makes suspicious people disappear.

The "go away" was real. Often people know at least some of the informants. Children who have been raised in this environment were under strict orders from their parents never to speak to the children of informants, or at school or elsewhere, because if it looks like a bad word to this child, their father would disappear in the night. It was not a very pleasant company.

People were avoiding contact with informants.

This was a very effective way to maintain a tyrannical society. That did not stop growing resentment, but he stopped a growing movement. If someone close to you has expressed thoughts that could eliminate someone, there was the possibility that a third party could hear the conversation and you might as well go. There was also the possibility that they were a provocateur , someone would see if you agree. In this way, effectively isolated the climate of fear anyone trying to build against.

This culture of fear can also be a direct cause of the economic collapse of Eastern Europe, as there was a climate to remain a part of the gray mass rather than sticking to the crowd. Anyone can do better - read entrepreneurs -. Were thus slaughtered

Today, there are no people around us that we spy on behalf of the government. Instead, our own devices mean that, for the government, and they do it constantly, all the time, wherever we perform them. When people wanted to talk privately in East Germany, they go outside and talk while walking. When we want to talk privately today we will also outside, and above all, we leave behind all our electronic devices. (Not everyone does, too, but safety conscious among us do.)

In East Germany, informants were friends. What happens to the climate in society where your phone, your office and your walls are informants?

In the book and the film 1984 , there was the famous telescreen which allowed governments to look into someone's home. (We have those now, by the way.) In this scene, we also see the protagonist hide out of sight of the surveillance camera to get some coveted private moments. This is effectively where we are now.

What is going to do for our future? How will you prevent your phone, your office and your walls, and still have something resembling a social life and significant

Oh, and as a final note :? The name Stasi was an abbreviation of Ministerium for Staatssicherheit . It literally translates Department of State Security , but to see how the latest words are used today in the harbors of "ministry" (a place where people work the government) and "state "(country), more accurate modern translation would be National Security Agency .

I grew up in Western Europe in the 1980s My teenage years were marked by the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union collapsed now. We learned that the West was freedom, and that the East was oppression. Presumably, the East taught the opposite in their respective years of adolescence. But when the West did he become the enemy they painted?

It is difficult to communicate how pervasive the threat of nuclear war was. Basically, we can say that we who grew up in the 1980s do not expect to grow old. In this period of polarization and belligerence, identify with your local team was more important than ever. In retrospect, it was a false sense of freedom that gave us - the mass surveillance began with the ECHELON and similar programs in the mid-1970s -. But it was nevertheless a very strong sense of freedom

So the only thing that remained strong with us through the threat of nuclear war and total annihilation was our sense of identity. We are not the . And the , they were those who were suspicious of their own citizens. Who read their mail. Who listened to their phonecalls. The Eastern bloc. And this behavior was particularly personified by East Germany Stasi on Ministerium für Staatssicherheit , and to some extent, by the Soviet KGB .

One thing that strikes you is the enormous cost of the unit is monitoring machine in the 1970s and -80s. It has been estimated that half a million people were employed directly or indirectly by Stasi , which was in East Germany, which had 16 million people. In other words, about 1 in 15 people of working age were just working with this branch of internal monitoring. The cost to the national economy to enforce such a domestic monster must have been positively huge by any measure.

However, when talking to monitoring hawks today, many of them bring out the argument that this technology is available, and that those who have nothing to hide not have to fear anything. (This is a completely dishonest argument itself.) They tend to tell you that all our calls and communication logs files are stored temporarily anyway, so why should they not be available for national security and application of the law? The underlying logic here is cold :. "It's cheap, so therefore, we should do this"

Throughout my teenage years, I was taught that freedom and privacy are issues of principle. And now these vital liberties are discarded unceremoniously now it is jordan enough to do it? was it ever a matter of freedom, just a matter of price

Privacy remains your own responsibility

PS:. the translation of the name of Stasi , the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit would be National Security Agency .