Washington DC's Public Library Will Teach People How To Avoid the NSA 81
Jason Koebler writes Later this month, the Washington DC Public Library will teach residents how to use Tor as part of a 10 day series designed to shed light on government surveillance, transparency, and personal privacy. The series is called "Orwellian America," and it's quite subversive, considering that it's being held by a publicly funded entity mere minutes from a Congress and administration that allowed the NSA's surveillance programs to spin wildly out of control.
How depressing... (Score:5, Interesting)
That learning how to protect your privacy from quasi-legal Govt. data harvesting could now be considered "subversive"
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If you stay in ONION yes. But the feds own or control a vast many exit nodes to consider it a 'safe' route anywhere outside of onion space.
That works for me. I always stay in TheOnion [theonion.com]
Re:How depressing... (Score:5, Informative)
It's depressing that it's necessary, but ...
Getting around a surveillance state which has declared itself to be legal and legitimate ... well, guess what, demanding your rights now is subversive.
When you have to hide from your own government because they have decided you have no actual right to privacy, your government is unjust.
That is now interpreted as "unless we say otherwise, and if you disagree you must side with the terrorists".
The supposedly "free" governments around the world now pretty much require that we be subversive, because they no longer recognize or give a damn about our rights. So it's pretty much the only thing left.
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Getting around a surveillance state which has declared itself to be legal and legitimate ... well, guess what, demanding your rights now is subversive.
... declared itself to be legal ...
I love how we use this phrase as if to imply that the government has somehow changed the rules on it's own without the consent or will of the people. All of these changes stem from the Patriot Act that followed September 11th. Which was voted into law by the Representatives that we elected. How many people actually read the Patriot Act? How many people chose to attend the House and Senate sessions where the nuances of the act were debated? How many people actually wrote
Re:How depressing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Until such time as they change the Constitution, it is still the highest law of the land. Deciding the 4th amendment (or any other part of it) is optional is not consistent with that.
Ergo, it is, by definition, illegal.
Yes, a lot of scared people have accepted this. That doesn't make it legal. It's expedient, sure. But legal? I don't buy that.
And, since they've given themselves permission to do this in the rest of the world, without the consent of the people they do it to ... I conclude that America has made themselves the enemy of the liberty of everyone on the planet.
In which case what your passive citizenry accept is irrelevant. Because the rest of the world isn't subject to US law, no matter how much you guys believe in manifest destiny.
So, fight or don't fight your your rights, I don't care. But keep your fucking hands off mine. The rest of us haven't consented to this horseshit by the NSA.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
Please tell me how that is against the forth amendment? Also, please explain how business records provided after a court order (warrent?) by the phone company somehow breaks the forth amendment.
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So, fight or don't fight your your rights, I don't care. But keep your fucking hands off mine. The rest of us haven't consented to this horseshit by the NSA.
But that's the NSA's job. It's posted in their mission statement on their public website. And news flash. If you think that whatever country you're in isn't doing the same damn thing... Then you're delusional.
Re: How depressing... (Score:1)
The idea that they can be simply replaced if they do things we don't like is only true in an efficient and fair election system. Most candidates never state where they stand on most issues, and make sure the public never gets a chance to challenge them on any issue beyond asking single question. So you wouldn't know who to vote for to begin with, even if you assume both candidates were actually in opposition on the topic.
Running yourself won't help as money is required to get your word out, and our votin
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Actually, the fact that this is even happening is just a sign that the NSA can see into Tor and this is just a way to get peole to use it and "think" they are "safe" from the NSA spying....
This is what America has come to...
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tag the participants for surveilance (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, Bob, attend this class, make a list of attendees. Oh man, this is too easy!
Re:tag the participants for surveilance (Score:4, Funny)
All the more reason for these lectures to be delivered all over the country. They can't watch all of us ... Oh, wait :-(
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Hey, Bob, attend this class, make a list of attendees. Oh man, this is too easy!
It was easy; the instructor gave me a copy of the list. Now, we just need to pull up the physical and e-mail addresses of Mr. Dover, Mr. Jass, Mr. Jablome....
Librarians are good eggs (Score:1)
Librarians understand.
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Lesson 1: (Score:1)
Avoid going to meetings about avoiding the NSA while in public.
And (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to the TOR class. To register, we need your name, DOB, address, Social Security number, and a short essay on why you fear the government...
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and a short essay on why you fear the government
Because they seem to like to violate the constitution that they have sworn an oath to uphold. Add in that they like to fire drones at individuals whom happen to be in foreign countries as well as harass and arrest individuals in the US who happen to espouse ideas contrary to the current view of the leadership. Finally it is none of their goddamn business.
Makes sense, actually (Score:2)
So NSA do love practical jokes, what's new here?
is "superversive" a word? (Score:2)
Wikipedia thinks that "Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy. "
One might consider this superversive, an attempt to restore a social order's power of their security servicer.
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Re:is "superversive" a word? (Score:4, Funny)
Wikipedia thinks that "Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy. ".
I thought Subversion was a Revision Control System akin to Git and CVS.
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Naa, CVS is where you get your prescriptions filled, and a Git is a real jerk.
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One might consider this superversive, an attempt to restore a social order's power of their security servicer.
So Stewie was being superversive at Woodstock!
Stewie: (singing and strumming a guitar) "Establishment. Establishment. You always know what's best!"
Crowd boos.
Stewie: "LEARN THE RULES!"
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subversion is just another form of 'git' ....
Coming soon... (Score:5, Informative)
Good For Them (Score:2)
In addition to the obvious benefit of public education, it's nice to see a local government function giving El Federales the finger.
First rule about TOR club is... (Score:4, Funny)
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Take a note from Magneto (X-Men) (Score:1)
He (and the guy he took it from) a special hat to keep their thoughts from being detected.
A word of advice: Don't use tinfoil. It might work, but if people see you wearing a tinfoil hat, they will think you are a crackpot. Except of course if it doesn't work, then anyone who can read your mind will know if you really are a crackpot or not.
Disclaimer: The above is meant to be funny. Publicly-known technology is so far away from reading brainwaves at any significant distance that any claim that there is
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Thank your local librarian ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people don't realize librarians have always been on the forefront of protecting out rights.
From fighting for censorship, to advocating for free speech, to stuff like this ... librarians tend to be people with a real understanding of our liberties, and why it's important to have them.
So, if you enjoy the right to read a book which someone found offensive, of the ability to access stuff without having to pay the publisher, or free and anonymous access to the interwebs ... hug your local librarian.
They or someone like them has probably done as much to maintain your freedoms as anybody else in the last few decades.
Showing the public how to undermine the surveillance crap ... well, that deserves applause in my book.
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http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bann... [ala.org]
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I think you meant "fighting against censorship."
Although I guess it depends on the library.
Librarians for Liberty (Score:5, Informative)
Librarians have been fighting the good fight in America at least as far back as the 1940s when they stood up to red scare shenanigans. [pbworks.com] They were also at the forefront of fighting the PATRIOT act, [propublica.org] both in lobbying and in action when they redesigned their lending software to delete all information once a book was returned. They are also at the center of the hackerspace movement. [npr.org]
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Subversive nothing (Score:1)
It's not the government that loyalty is owed, it is the government that owes loyalty to its people, and it is lacking and found wanting.
Even the place is right. Let congress and senate learn what horrid beast they have created.
Of course, it could still be subversive, if they or some other service would abuse this series of meetings to flag and catalogue people to keep an eye on. All the more reason to make sure as many senators and congress(wo)men attend.
I hope it's better than the last one (Score:5, Funny)
Their last seminar on How Not to be Seen [youtube.com] wasn't very popular with some of the attendees.
must be bust... (Score:2)
NSA must have cracked Tor...
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NSA must have cracked Tor...
That's obvious, if someone as corrupt and incompetent as the FBI can monitor TOR for over a year in order to prosecute Silk Road, then the NSA has doubtless tracked TOR users for years and told the FBI how to do it.
Don't get me wrong, getting privacy into the main stream is a great idea. Unfortunately I think at this point it is too little too late.
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Every message in is reconciled with every message out. Finding the end and entry ip is then easy at a county, state or federal level.
People may expect privacy and anonymity from networks that are collecting it all.
If Bob and Sally are under constant constant surveillance privacy would be an issue.
If Bob is under active surveillance and Sally as a journalist is, then anonymity for any whistleblower is i
What libraries are for (Score:5, Insightful)
Libraries are by design one of the safeguards against tyranny.
And we're only safe once the tools to subvert domestic NSA spying are so ubiquitous that a workshop like this one are no longer newsworthy. But I'm sure some future John McCain/Lyndsey Graham congressional asshat will decry "public funds being used to support terrorism" and the program will be cancelled.
The NSA won't burn books (Score:1)
That's what fire departments [wikipedia.org] are for.
Hmm, how about teaching encryption techniques? (Score:1)
Do you know?
I'm suggesting they also teach how to selfsign their certificates and understand how this whole process works.
If I were trying to monitor the internet's HTTPS/SSL traffic i'd go after those private keys soon as possible, especially since there is this belief that your safe if you have a signed pem key for your host/https/tls/etc..
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Yeah, they better teach about these techniques if you really think SSL works by handing out your private keys.
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You implied your "SSL key signer" has your private key which is not the case as it would be royally stupid.
interesting venue (Score:2)
I wonder how many spooks'll be there taking names?
Late to the game (Score:1)
D.C. likes doing things like this. (Score:2)
The city government of D.C. likes tweaking the nose of the Federal government. Ever seen one of these? It's a D.C. license plate, and it reads "Taxation Without Representation". [wikimedia.org]
Giving an ineffectual finger to the Feds is a pastime for them.
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With tame international standards and all ip's been logged a person is left with the security and privacy of an application. As both ends of the encrypted chat are uncovered the only task is to get the plain text, voice before encryption by an app. Most open and consumer grade OS seem to be very useful to offer access to plain text as entered or