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Excellent article from the former director of application security at Twitter.
It focuses on several points. First, Federal criminal statute is spread over 27,000 pages. Even the Feds don't know how many laws there are, but it's estimated to be in excess of 10,000. For example, it is illegal to poses a lobster under a certain size. Doesn't matter how you got it, and ignorance of the law is no excuse. It also talks about the sometimes necessity of violating the law to encourage change. In Minnesota, sodomy was illegal until 2001, they recently approved same-sex marriage. If we had 100% effective law enforcement, it would be extremely difficult to get such laws changed because everyone who would benefit from that change would be a branded criminal.
Another: manpower. It used to require law enforcement to commit one or more persons to follow someone. Now we all carry our very own tracking devices, and last year cell carrier Sprint, by itself, responded to 8 million tracking requests from law enforcement. That's pretty much the entire city of New York. It's much easier for law enforcement to relax their standards and be profligate in their information requests since they don't have to invest the manpower resources to follow someone. Myself, I've become tempted to put my phone in to airplane mode just to screw up my tracking data. I have no reason to believe that law enforcement would be interested in me, but I also see no reason to make their jobs easier if they do take an interest. Of course, the question then becomes would me turning off their ability to track me pique their interest in me?
She also mentions license plate scanners. I actually saw those in use in El Paso, 100 miles south of me and a place that we visit every couple of months. If I ever see Phoenix or any of the places that I regularly spend time in getting them, I'm buying one of those LED license plate frames.
I especially like two paragraphs in her conclusion: Some will say that it’s necessary to balance privacy against security, and that it’s important to find the right compromise between the two. Even if you believe that, a good negotiator doesn’t begin a conversation with someone whose position is at the exact opposite extreme by leading with concessions.
And that’s exactly what we’re dealing with. Not a balance of forces which are looking for the perfect compromise between security and privacy, but an enormous steam roller built out of careers and billions in revenue from surveillance contracts and technology. To negotiate with that, we can’t lead with concessions, but rather with all the opposition we can muster..
I was recently discussing this topic with a friend, who is part of the "I have nothing to hide" attitude. He surfs porn on the internet. He's also a teacher. I have no idea what flavors of porn he's interested in, and I'm sure they're perfectly kid-safe. But what would happen to his career if that information were released? It could certainly be a career-ending revelation.
I don't have anything in my computers that I'm particularly ashamed of, including browser history, but I don't want it to become public knowledge. The fact that I have nothing in particular to hide doesn't give law enforcement or anyone else the right to stick their nose in it without probable cause and a search warrant. My laptop is encrypted, so is my desktop and all of my backups, also my iPhone backups which do not back up to the cloud. I will not allow my equipment to be casually examined. I will not go gently in to that good night if they take an interest in me, they're going to have to produce a valid search warrant before I unlock anything.
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/
It focuses on several points. First, Federal criminal statute is spread over 27,000 pages. Even the Feds don't know how many laws there are, but it's estimated to be in excess of 10,000. For example, it is illegal to poses a lobster under a certain size. Doesn't matter how you got it, and ignorance of the law is no excuse. It also talks about the sometimes necessity of violating the law to encourage change. In Minnesota, sodomy was illegal until 2001, they recently approved same-sex marriage. If we had 100% effective law enforcement, it would be extremely difficult to get such laws changed because everyone who would benefit from that change would be a branded criminal.
Another: manpower. It used to require law enforcement to commit one or more persons to follow someone. Now we all carry our very own tracking devices, and last year cell carrier Sprint, by itself, responded to 8 million tracking requests from law enforcement. That's pretty much the entire city of New York. It's much easier for law enforcement to relax their standards and be profligate in their information requests since they don't have to invest the manpower resources to follow someone. Myself, I've become tempted to put my phone in to airplane mode just to screw up my tracking data. I have no reason to believe that law enforcement would be interested in me, but I also see no reason to make their jobs easier if they do take an interest. Of course, the question then becomes would me turning off their ability to track me pique their interest in me?
She also mentions license plate scanners. I actually saw those in use in El Paso, 100 miles south of me and a place that we visit every couple of months. If I ever see Phoenix or any of the places that I regularly spend time in getting them, I'm buying one of those LED license plate frames.
I especially like two paragraphs in her conclusion: Some will say that it’s necessary to balance privacy against security, and that it’s important to find the right compromise between the two. Even if you believe that, a good negotiator doesn’t begin a conversation with someone whose position is at the exact opposite extreme by leading with concessions.
And that’s exactly what we’re dealing with. Not a balance of forces which are looking for the perfect compromise between security and privacy, but an enormous steam roller built out of careers and billions in revenue from surveillance contracts and technology. To negotiate with that, we can’t lead with concessions, but rather with all the opposition we can muster..
I was recently discussing this topic with a friend, who is part of the "I have nothing to hide" attitude. He surfs porn on the internet. He's also a teacher. I have no idea what flavors of porn he's interested in, and I'm sure they're perfectly kid-safe. But what would happen to his career if that information were released? It could certainly be a career-ending revelation.
I don't have anything in my computers that I'm particularly ashamed of, including browser history, but I don't want it to become public knowledge. The fact that I have nothing in particular to hide doesn't give law enforcement or anyone else the right to stick their nose in it without probable cause and a search warrant. My laptop is encrypted, so is my desktop and all of my backups, also my iPhone backups which do not back up to the cloud. I will not allow my equipment to be casually examined. I will not go gently in to that good night if they take an interest in me, they're going to have to produce a valid search warrant before I unlock anything.
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/
