CISPA
April 23, 2012 3:09 AM Subscribe
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is a controversial surveillance bill that proposes broad legal exemptions for the U.S. government and private companies to share "cyber threat intelligence" that go well beyond the FISA Amendments Act which legalized the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.
The EFF has observed that CISPA undermines "established [privacy] laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act [that] prevent companies from routinely monitoring private communications" by "creating a broad immunity against both civil and criminal liability".
Any information obtained under these legal exemptions for cybersecurity is then explicitly permitted to be used for all other law enforcement purposes, potentially including copyright enforcement and censoring whistleblowers.
In addition, CISPA has provisions allowing companies to take "countermeasures" on behalf of "cybersecurity purposes", which the EFF has labeled "ripe for abuse". They fear such purposes could include blocking websites, disrupting privacy tools like Tor, disrupting peer-to-peer technologies, or distributing spyware.
Finally, CISPA creates a two year statute of limitations for suing the government and collaborating companies over privacy violations, potentially too short for the violation to even come to light, much less survive a legal challenge.
CISPA's corporate supporters includes not only the telecoms who collaborated with the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program and defense contractors involved in intelligence work, but also many tech companies who helped defeat SOPA/PIPA, like Facebook and perhaps Google. These companies would gain the ability to sell their user data to government agencies and benefit from increased protections against lawsuits for privacy violations. In consequence, CISPA creator Mike Rogers (R-MI) has described protests against CISPA as "turbulence on .. landing".
The EFF has observed that CISPA undermines "established [privacy] laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act [that] prevent companies from routinely monitoring private communications" by "creating a broad immunity against both civil and criminal liability".
Any information obtained under these legal exemptions for cybersecurity is then explicitly permitted to be used for all other law enforcement purposes, potentially including copyright enforcement and censoring whistleblowers.
In addition, CISPA has provisions allowing companies to take "countermeasures" on behalf of "cybersecurity purposes", which the EFF has labeled "ripe for abuse". They fear such purposes could include blocking websites, disrupting privacy tools like Tor, disrupting peer-to-peer technologies, or distributing spyware.
Finally, CISPA creates a two year statute of limitations for suing the government and collaborating companies over privacy violations, potentially too short for the violation to even come to light, much less survive a legal challenge.
CISPA's corporate supporters includes not only the telecoms who collaborated with the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program and defense contractors involved in intelligence work, but also many tech companies who helped defeat SOPA/PIPA, like Facebook and perhaps Google. These companies would gain the ability to sell their user data to government agencies and benefit from increased protections against lawsuits for privacy violations. In consequence, CISPA creator Mike Rogers (R-MI) has described protests against CISPA as "turbulence on .. landing".
Hurrah, its back!
The elite will have their way, no one will be allowed to do or say anything without their say-so or oversight. Fascism ahoy.
posted by marienbad at 4:11 AM on April 23, 2012 [9 favorites]
The elite will have their way, no one will be allowed to do or say anything without their say-so or oversight. Fascism ahoy.
posted by marienbad at 4:11 AM on April 23, 2012 [9 favorites]
A few months ago, when PIPA and SOPA were being presented, almost everybody I knew had heard about them, and thought they were bad ideas. Seems like nobody is paying as much attention to CISPA.
posted by KGMoney at 4:21 AM on April 23, 2012
posted by KGMoney at 4:21 AM on April 23, 2012
Nice little country you've got there. Pity if anything were to ... happen ... to it.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:22 AM on April 23, 2012 [10 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:22 AM on April 23, 2012 [10 favorites]
A few months ago, when PIPA and SOPA were being presented, almost everybody I knew had heard about them, and thought they were bad ideas. Seems like nobody is paying as much attention to CISPA.Sure, but unlike SOPA, CISPA doesn't harm companies like google. Instead it lets them do things with the government without worrying about liability.
And of course these companies actually do have to deal with cybersecurity threats, and would probably be helped by being able to work with the government in a 'non-evil' way. And if you look at companies like AT&T or Comcast, laws like this would just be codifying things they're already doing anyway, like warenteless wiretapping and now shutting down 'pirates'
posted by delmoi at 4:41 AM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
It's almost as if Congress sees the Chinese way of managing the internet as a model to emulate.
posted by indubitable at 5:18 AM on April 23, 2012 [7 favorites]
posted by indubitable at 5:18 AM on April 23, 2012 [7 favorites]
This will just spur the growth of the "dark internet". Hard encryption is opaque to everyone, and can be hidden if necessary in ok looking packet. If you have an invitation you can download just about anything from a private server.
posted by sammyo at 5:28 AM on April 23, 2012
posted by sammyo at 5:28 AM on April 23, 2012
Just remember that the next time you end up with an unwanted browser toolbar, it's in the cause of keeping the homeland safe.
posted by Trurl at 5:29 AM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Trurl at 5:29 AM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
This bill is bad and everyone who supports it should feel bad.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 5:33 AM on April 23, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 5:33 AM on April 23, 2012 [1 favorite]
The elite will have their way, no one will be allowed to do or say anything without their say-so or oversight. Fascism ahoy.
That's why I still use MySpace, Can say anything without fear of it being read by human eyes.
posted by mattoxic at 5:47 AM on April 23, 2012 [12 favorites]
That's why I still use MySpace, Can say anything without fear of it being read by human eyes.
posted by mattoxic at 5:47 AM on April 23, 2012 [12 favorites]
This will just spur the growth of the "dark internet". Hard encryption is opaque to everyone, and can be hidden if necessary in ok looking packet. If you have an invitation you can download just about anything from a private server.Why do people use facebook rather then making their own web pages over ssh and linking directly to their friends? Well, because facebook is easy to use. Have you ever tried to use real crypto products? For personal encryption (like TrueCrypt) it's not so bad but the stuff for sending messages is kind of a pain.
Interestingly, bitcoin (which uses a lot of high-power crypto) has a fairly not-terrible UI, but the people developing it had a powerful financial incentive to make it easy to use and there's no way to send messages through the system, even though it could easily be extended to do so in a completely secure way.
What's needed for crypto to become popular is for the crypto guys who understand the math and can implement the algorithms to team up with UI people to build systems that are both secure and easy for people to use.
posted by delmoi at 6:08 AM on April 23, 2012 [11 favorites]
I believe the FISA Amendment Act already codified the NSA's relationship with the telecoms, delmoi, this extends it to ordinary sites and lets them forward any data they wish to anybody they wish. Apple, DropBox, Microsoft, etc. could for-example give DHS direct access to everyone's iCloud, DropBox, SkyDrive, etc. stored data, which DHS then forwards to the DEA, FBI, IRS, etc.
I'm concerned about the NSA, CIA, etc. making a practice of buying everybody's data, but I'm much more concerned about the NSA, CIA, etc. becoming ordinary law enforcement. Yes, the DEA needs probable cause to raid your home looking for drugs, but that doesn't do you much good if the NSA just sells it to them. You might argue they're obviously violating the state actor doctrine but the cops insist their tip was obtained through cybersecurity concerns. And the details cannot be contested in court since they're classified.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:18 AM on April 23, 2012 [7 favorites]
I'm concerned about the NSA, CIA, etc. making a practice of buying everybody's data, but I'm much more concerned about the NSA, CIA, etc. becoming ordinary law enforcement. Yes, the DEA needs probable cause to raid your home looking for drugs, but that doesn't do you much good if the NSA just sells it to them. You might argue they're obviously violating the state actor doctrine but the cops insist their tip was obtained through cybersecurity concerns. And the details cannot be contested in court since they're classified.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:18 AM on April 23, 2012 [7 favorites]
I'd add to that that it should be non-intrusive. I'd love to have something that I could install on my and especially my parent's computers (for example) that they wouldn't ever have to think about and just sat in the background and worked without me hardly having to know it was there.
posted by VTX at 6:20 AM on April 23, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by VTX at 6:20 AM on April 23, 2012 [1 favorite]
Maybe the War on Drugs et al can be won after all? If we just let the government see everything, all the time, then they can catch everyone breaking every law. We'll be safe!
posted by Meatbomb at 6:23 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by Meatbomb at 6:23 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
I wish they'd stop trying to legislate against the Internet and just go straight to the source - make bad people illegal.
What makes these idiots think they can suddenly peer into encryption?
posted by pashdown at 6:26 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
What makes these idiots think they can suddenly peer into encryption?
posted by pashdown at 6:26 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
I've come to the conclusion that Congress has been taken over by al-Qaeda, because they sure do hate our freedom.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 6:27 AM on April 23, 2012 [6 favorites]
posted by Enron Hubbard at 6:27 AM on April 23, 2012 [6 favorites]
They don't need to break encryption. Their endgame is not some fantasy-world control of the Internet.
By getting access to all of your mostly unencrypted communications, they can build a list of people to pick up as soon as civil unrest grows beyond the point where they feel they can sell your incarceration to the rest of the population. In your culture, it will be an easy sell.
They will push to that point, and beyond. They feel cocky and invulnerable, and y'alls money is just there for the taking.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 6:34 AM on April 23, 2012 [8 favorites]
By getting access to all of your mostly unencrypted communications, they can build a list of people to pick up as soon as civil unrest grows beyond the point where they feel they can sell your incarceration to the rest of the population. In your culture, it will be an easy sell.
They will push to that point, and beyond. They feel cocky and invulnerable, and y'alls money is just there for the taking.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 6:34 AM on April 23, 2012 [8 favorites]
Apple, DropBox, Microsoft, etc. could for-example give DHS direct access to everyone's iCloud, DropBox, SkyDrive, etc. stored data, which DHS then forwards to the DEA, FBI, IRS, etc.
The fundamental posit of cloud computing is that your data is elsewhere, and you don't know where. I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA put up a large cloud farm that "VMs of interest" could be migrated to from the big commercial providers, and then they could sit there and watch your data run directly on their hardware.
Encryption? Doesn't mean anything if the server's running on NSA hardware, does it?
posted by eriko at 6:37 AM on April 23, 2012 [4 favorites]
The fundamental posit of cloud computing is that your data is elsewhere, and you don't know where. I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA put up a large cloud farm that "VMs of interest" could be migrated to from the big commercial providers, and then they could sit there and watch your data run directly on their hardware.
Encryption? Doesn't mean anything if the server's running on NSA hardware, does it?
posted by eriko at 6:37 AM on April 23, 2012 [4 favorites]
I've become a big fan of off-the-reccord messaging, delmoi, even works over facebook's jabber chat, assuming both people use clients with OtR support. Also, encrypted audio and video chat has become reasonably simple with Zfone's session initialization protocol ZRTP for SRTP.
Anyone using vender supplied clients like iChat should dump them for some clients with OtR support. Adium is an extremely established and well-polished client with OtR support for Mac OS X, used it for years. Jitsi is only slightly less polished but offers both OtR and SRTP/ZRTP support.
I believe both OtR and ZRTP are "grand parent ready" in that they "just work" once them been set up. There is a minor hiccup that afaik OtR doesn't support friends with multiple different credentials, meaning you'll need software like otrfileconverter to move your credentials into your phone's client, i.e. if you fail to migrate your keys, then your chat partner sees scary messages.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:41 AM on April 23, 2012 [5 favorites]
Anyone using vender supplied clients like iChat should dump them for some clients with OtR support. Adium is an extremely established and well-polished client with OtR support for Mac OS X, used it for years. Jitsi is only slightly less polished but offers both OtR and SRTP/ZRTP support.
I believe both OtR and ZRTP are "grand parent ready" in that they "just work" once them been set up. There is a minor hiccup that afaik OtR doesn't support friends with multiple different credentials, meaning you'll need software like otrfileconverter to move your credentials into your phone's client, i.e. if you fail to migrate your keys, then your chat partner sees scary messages.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:41 AM on April 23, 2012 [5 favorites]
I doubt the NSA could decipher an unknown AES256 stream, eriko, even one passing through their own server. If one uses SSL like Apple's iCloud then obviously the server must decrypt it, meaning they'd get your data. If however you use a good end-to-end protocol like SRTP, then it all come down to key exchange, like OtR or ZRTP.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:52 AM on April 23, 2012
posted by jeffburdges at 6:52 AM on April 23, 2012
I doubt the NSA could decipher an unknown AES256 stream, eriko, even one passing through their own server. If one uses SSL like Apple's iCloud then obviously the server must decrypt it, meaning they'd get your data. If however you use a good end-to-end protocol like SRTP, then it all come down to key exchange, like OtR or ZRTP.Block encryption is only as good as the key generator and the key exchange, at best. I'm sure they (NSA, DIA, CIA, MI6, Mossad, KGB, etc) have nice databases of known flaws to work from when they decide they are interested in your particular communications.
If they don't have a pick for the lock you used on that particular message at that particular time, I'm sure the traffic analysis would help them find a copy of parts of the message for plaintext in replies or other copies of the message contents sooner or later in time.
posted by MikeWarot at 7:01 AM on April 23, 2012
Yes, there are an awful lot of ways to get around encryption when you're willing to dedicate the resources, like extracting keys via spyware, boarder controls, weaknesses in key generation, etc., but all this requires resources, so enough well encrypted traffic will slow them down.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:18 AM on April 23, 2012
posted by jeffburdges at 7:18 AM on April 23, 2012
I doubt the NSA could decipher an unknown AES256 stream, eriko, even one passing through their own server
You send a secure email to the user on that server, whereupon it is decrypted and read on that server, and the NSA then reads it out of the RAM. Basically, if they have direct access to the endpoint of the secure connection, you've lost.
Servers don't work on encrypted streams. They decrypt them and work on them. If you're just passing an encrypted stream through a cloud server, you're okay -- but you're far better off skipping that hop for other reasons.
However, most cloud servers actually work on data -- and that data, in RAM, will be readable.
posted by eriko at 7:23 AM on April 23, 2012
You send a secure email to the user on that server, whereupon it is decrypted and read on that server, and the NSA then reads it out of the RAM. Basically, if they have direct access to the endpoint of the secure connection, you've lost.
Servers don't work on encrypted streams. They decrypt them and work on them. If you're just passing an encrypted stream through a cloud server, you're okay -- but you're far better off skipping that hop for other reasons.
However, most cloud servers actually work on data -- and that data, in RAM, will be readable.
posted by eriko at 7:23 AM on April 23, 2012
A few months ago, when PIPA and SOPA were being presented, almost everybody I knew had heard about them, and thought they were bad ideas. Seems like nobody is paying as much attention to CISPA.
This one will pass. The only reason SOPA didn't was because Google thought it might harm their revenue streams, it had zero to do with grassroots concern for the integrity of the internet or user privacy. It was a huge fluke that the SOPA/PIPA protests made it into the national conscious despite concerted pressure to suppress and backdoor the bills per the normal course of business. The little guys don't win two in a row. If not, the next one will pass. Or the next. Or the next. There will be infinite variations of these kill the internet bills until one gets through. The elites have infinite resources to throw at the problem of people not paying for things or saying things that contradict the corporate narrative on the internet. That's all going to stop sooner or later.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:41 AM on April 23, 2012 [15 favorites]
This one will pass. The only reason SOPA didn't was because Google thought it might harm their revenue streams, it had zero to do with grassroots concern for the integrity of the internet or user privacy. It was a huge fluke that the SOPA/PIPA protests made it into the national conscious despite concerted pressure to suppress and backdoor the bills per the normal course of business. The little guys don't win two in a row. If not, the next one will pass. Or the next. Or the next. There will be infinite variations of these kill the internet bills until one gets through. The elites have infinite resources to throw at the problem of people not paying for things or saying things that contradict the corporate narrative on the internet. That's all going to stop sooner or later.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:41 AM on April 23, 2012 [15 favorites]
You send a secure email to the user on that server, whereupon it is decrypted and read on that server, and the NSA then reads it out of the RAM. Basically, if they have direct access to the endpoint of the secure connection, you've lost.What? That would only work if the server were running NSA programs. Why would that be the case? It could certainly be a problem if you have a cloud hosting thing like Amazon, but if it's a server in your own home, how does the NSA listen in? And why does it need to be decrypted on the server in the first place.
Servers don't work on encrypted streams. They decrypt them and work on them. If you're just passing an encrypted stream through a cloud server, you're okay -- but you're far better off skipping that hop for other reasons.What are you talking about? Servers don't need to decrypt messages in order to "work on them". You send the address unencrypted, and then the server forwards that to the recipient.
posted by delmoi at 8:29 AM on April 23, 2012
Encryption? Doesn't mean anything if the server's running on NSA hardware, does it?
eriko, encryption doesn't really mean anything if it's run on anyone's server. It's the equivalent of hiding your valuables in that honest-looking bum's pockets.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:31 AM on April 23, 2012
eriko, encryption doesn't really mean anything if it's run on anyone's server. It's the equivalent of hiding your valuables in that honest-looking bum's pockets.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:31 AM on April 23, 2012
What makes these idiots think they can suddenly peer into encryption?
posted by pashdown at 8:26 AM
haha, weeelllpp...
posted by p3on at 9:01 AM on April 23, 2012
posted by pashdown at 8:26 AM
haha, weeelllpp...
posted by p3on at 9:01 AM on April 23, 2012
One of the key points is that there is no evidence whatsoever that any such bill is even necessary.
The tiny number of actual terrorists in the world have not in the past been particularly tech-savvy. And if they chose to, setting up end-to-end strong encryption for their purposes would not be particularly hard.
The same is true with copyright violators. Most of the actual pirates are people pressing actual DVDs in places like China or the Bronx.
And the same is true for big-time drug dealers.
So CISPA is clearly aimed at your average individual - you and I - making sure that they can read our emails at all times, and more, that we know that they can.
Note also that the Republicans, so big on "individual freedoms", are all over this, and so are many Democrats. In classic "fake conflict" style, the White House has "expressed concern" in such a way to make it clear that they won't actually oppose the final bill.
Why would they do that? Why would both parties want to spend billions on something that doesn't solve any problems we actually have? Today, your average person isn't doing (major) drug deals over the net, or expressing opinions that would be actionable.
It's difficult to tell - so I'm going to move into pure speculation - everything above this sentence is factual to the best of my knowledge, things I'd stand up for, but from now on it's purest science fiction.
Why do they want to be snooping on everyone? Perhaps it's not that we're expressing our discontent now: perhaps it's that they have very good reasons to expect that the population will be deeply discontented in the near future and want to have these powers all sewed up before this happens.
If I were a long-range planner in the government, and were I rational and a good thinker, I'd be seeing two things.
The first one is the permanent destruction of the middle class.
Any reasonably smart person should see unambiguously that, as I have said here repeatedly, any job that a bookish person might want that doesn't require specific technical skills is being automated out of existence. But that same person should also understand that the manual labor and minimum wage jobs are all also going. We all know how terrible it is to work in one of these great warehouses run by Amazon or other online vendors - but these jobs, awful as they are, are jobs, and they're going away too.
Given that customers never appear on site, given that you can completely control the entire working environment, and given that these companies are floating in an ocean of cash and are very good at technical development, it's inevitable that they are going to completely automate the entire process, that within a few years when you order something on Amazon, most of the time there won't be an entire human involved at all in the process.
This means that millions of Americans will never have a full-time job again.
The second is climate change. I was baffled when Mr. Obama took over and there was, essentially, no change in the US government's policy regarding climate change - that any significant changes will be set in action after Mr. Obama's second term (if he gets one).
It is also the case that I just don't believe that the senior Republicans really disbelieve in climate change after the weather in the last couple of years. You'd have to be really stupid to actually believe that all these not-particularly-well-paid scientists are in cahoots with the weather to spread a fake science theory and I don't believe all these Republicans are actually stupid.
A month or two I realized the simple explanation - they, the government of the USA, are going to let us take the bullet. They're not going to try to stop climate change - they're going to let it happen, and fix things up afterward. Any measures they take are merely to reduce the damage, or prevent us from seeing that they've given up on this issue.
I don't think this is a conspiracy theory. As an example, I'm convinced that meat eaters aren't in general going to stop eating meat, but this isn't some meat eaters conspiracy theory, it's just that they like meat and they're going to keep eating it, even if it kills them.
I don't think that there's any secret climate change meeting, but just a tacit acknowledgement that it's simply too difficult to actually make changes.
If so, in a generation or so, millions of Americans will be suffering the effects of their selfish laziness.
Add both of these together, and in ten or twenty years you're going to have an awful lot of enraged Americans who have lost everything and have nothing more to lose.
A compelling theory is that CISPA is intended as a proactive measure to prevent these people from organizing or even expressing their anger, and to allow the government to know who they are if they even try.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:06 AM on April 23, 2012 [20 favorites]
The tiny number of actual terrorists in the world have not in the past been particularly tech-savvy. And if they chose to, setting up end-to-end strong encryption for their purposes would not be particularly hard.
The same is true with copyright violators. Most of the actual pirates are people pressing actual DVDs in places like China or the Bronx.
And the same is true for big-time drug dealers.
So CISPA is clearly aimed at your average individual - you and I - making sure that they can read our emails at all times, and more, that we know that they can.
Note also that the Republicans, so big on "individual freedoms", are all over this, and so are many Democrats. In classic "fake conflict" style, the White House has "expressed concern" in such a way to make it clear that they won't actually oppose the final bill.
Why would they do that? Why would both parties want to spend billions on something that doesn't solve any problems we actually have? Today, your average person isn't doing (major) drug deals over the net, or expressing opinions that would be actionable.
It's difficult to tell - so I'm going to move into pure speculation - everything above this sentence is factual to the best of my knowledge, things I'd stand up for, but from now on it's purest science fiction.
Why do they want to be snooping on everyone? Perhaps it's not that we're expressing our discontent now: perhaps it's that they have very good reasons to expect that the population will be deeply discontented in the near future and want to have these powers all sewed up before this happens.
If I were a long-range planner in the government, and were I rational and a good thinker, I'd be seeing two things.
The first one is the permanent destruction of the middle class.
Any reasonably smart person should see unambiguously that, as I have said here repeatedly, any job that a bookish person might want that doesn't require specific technical skills is being automated out of existence. But that same person should also understand that the manual labor and minimum wage jobs are all also going. We all know how terrible it is to work in one of these great warehouses run by Amazon or other online vendors - but these jobs, awful as they are, are jobs, and they're going away too.
Given that customers never appear on site, given that you can completely control the entire working environment, and given that these companies are floating in an ocean of cash and are very good at technical development, it's inevitable that they are going to completely automate the entire process, that within a few years when you order something on Amazon, most of the time there won't be an entire human involved at all in the process.
This means that millions of Americans will never have a full-time job again.
The second is climate change. I was baffled when Mr. Obama took over and there was, essentially, no change in the US government's policy regarding climate change - that any significant changes will be set in action after Mr. Obama's second term (if he gets one).
It is also the case that I just don't believe that the senior Republicans really disbelieve in climate change after the weather in the last couple of years. You'd have to be really stupid to actually believe that all these not-particularly-well-paid scientists are in cahoots with the weather to spread a fake science theory and I don't believe all these Republicans are actually stupid.
A month or two I realized the simple explanation - they, the government of the USA, are going to let us take the bullet. They're not going to try to stop climate change - they're going to let it happen, and fix things up afterward. Any measures they take are merely to reduce the damage, or prevent us from seeing that they've given up on this issue.
I don't think this is a conspiracy theory. As an example, I'm convinced that meat eaters aren't in general going to stop eating meat, but this isn't some meat eaters conspiracy theory, it's just that they like meat and they're going to keep eating it, even if it kills them.
I don't think that there's any secret climate change meeting, but just a tacit acknowledgement that it's simply too difficult to actually make changes.
If so, in a generation or so, millions of Americans will be suffering the effects of their selfish laziness.
Add both of these together, and in ten or twenty years you're going to have an awful lot of enraged Americans who have lost everything and have nothing more to lose.
A compelling theory is that CISPA is intended as a proactive measure to prevent these people from organizing or even expressing their anger, and to allow the government to know who they are if they even try.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:06 AM on April 23, 2012 [20 favorites]
... like China or the Bronx.
Dude, it's not cool to pick on third-world nations.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:16 AM on April 23, 2012 [1 favorite]
Dude, it's not cool to pick on third-world nations.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:16 AM on April 23, 2012 [1 favorite]
And meanwhile in an alternative reality... US President Barack Obama announces fresh sanctions against Iran, Syria and those who help them use technology to crack down on dissent.
posted by merocet at 9:44 AM on April 23, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by merocet at 9:44 AM on April 23, 2012 [4 favorites]
And meanwhile in an alternative reality...
...and Secretary Clinton calls for Open Government.
Yes, really. Can't make this shit up.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:51 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
...and Secretary Clinton calls for Open Government.
Yes, really. Can't make this shit up.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:51 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
and lupus_yonderboy is heading in the right direction. This isn't about now, this is about 5 years down the line (maybe a bit faster) depending on the rate of the US and Europe's economic decline. There are still more bubbles to burst; and banks will squeeze personal credit more and more. Then as even more people with no employment for their skills and who have less and less they will start to get angry (as if this is not already happening) and government which is basically the the mouthpiece of corporate enterprise will want to be able to try and keep the lid on it all as long as possible by taking more and more repressive measures. The dystopian future is just around the corner, or maybe it is here already.
posted by adamvasco at 9:53 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by adamvasco at 9:53 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
It's here, it's just not evenly distributed yet.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:00 AM on April 23, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 10:00 AM on April 23, 2012 [5 favorites]
adamvasco: I agree with you that this is the reasoning from the authorities, but I actually don't agree with that reasoning.
Eric Hoffer points out in the book The True Believer that it is paradoxically rising prosperity in oppressive societies that leads to revolution. When things are bad and getting worse, individuals have no energy to spend on political matters - simple survival is all that matters. It's when a middle class appears and their kids have leisure time that the possibility of revolution appears.
That has been true time and again throughout history, from France to Iran. (The USA's War of Independence isn't the same thing because of the geography - they didn't overthrow the British government - and yet in fact it didn't start until there was actually a society with many affluent people in North America...)
Still, they're completely "right" to set up this system - it conveys the right attitude: "You are all being watched all the time".
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:27 AM on April 23, 2012
Eric Hoffer points out in the book The True Believer that it is paradoxically rising prosperity in oppressive societies that leads to revolution. When things are bad and getting worse, individuals have no energy to spend on political matters - simple survival is all that matters. It's when a middle class appears and their kids have leisure time that the possibility of revolution appears.
That has been true time and again throughout history, from France to Iran. (The USA's War of Independence isn't the same thing because of the geography - they didn't overthrow the British government - and yet in fact it didn't start until there was actually a society with many affluent people in North America...)
Still, they're completely "right" to set up this system - it conveys the right attitude: "You are all being watched all the time".
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:27 AM on April 23, 2012
I'll be following the development of secure comms based on quantum entanglement with a keen eye. I think stross or someone had a character use a batch of "one-time matter" which was basically a few grams of entangled stuff for black ops cryptography. The future's getting closer all the time.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:59 AM on April 23, 2012
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:59 AM on April 23, 2012
The only reason SOPA didn't was because Google thought it might harm their revenue streams, it had zero to do with grassroots concern for the integrity of the internet or user privacy.
I know Chris Dodd, Lamar Smith, and the like keep repeating this like it's a fact, but it isn't true. I attended the Innovate/Activate 2.0 conference last week and one of the recurring themes was: How did the SOPA protests come together? What went right? How can we engage the Internetgoing public again for similar issues in the future?
Google employees said they didn't decide to start the Take Action campaign and link it in that front page notice about SOPA on blackout day until word started getting around that other major, high-traffic sites like Reddit and (especially) Wikipedia announced their blackout campaigns. Reddit and Wikimedia employees said their blackout decisions were driven by community consensus, rather than site leadership. Many of the sites that people were sharing on facebook, tweeting about, etc. (such as Free Bieber) were created by nonprofits like Fight for the Future and the EFF.
IOW, Google was opposed to SOPA and participated in the protests, but their momentum and spread had much more to do with, yes, actual grassroots concern.
This one will pass.
Unfortunately, this probably is true. A lot of the grassroots organizers from the SOPA protests are still eager to help, but much more fragmented/less on-message. Everything from ACTA and TPP to the UK "security" bill etc. have been labeled as "the next SOPA" or "worse than SOPA" and consensus hasn't coalesced around any one bill as the next major target. Reddit and Wikipedia communities haven't agreed to a blackout or any major visible action today. Google's Take Action page is still talking about their recent "The Internet give me the power to..." campaign. Congresspeople either don't understand the implications of CISPA, don't care, or both, and there isn't aggressive pushback like there was with SOPA. So... guess this bill will have to be one for the Court?
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 11:07 AM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
I know Chris Dodd, Lamar Smith, and the like keep repeating this like it's a fact, but it isn't true. I attended the Innovate/Activate 2.0 conference last week and one of the recurring themes was: How did the SOPA protests come together? What went right? How can we engage the Internetgoing public again for similar issues in the future?
Google employees said they didn't decide to start the Take Action campaign and link it in that front page notice about SOPA on blackout day until word started getting around that other major, high-traffic sites like Reddit and (especially) Wikipedia announced their blackout campaigns. Reddit and Wikimedia employees said their blackout decisions were driven by community consensus, rather than site leadership. Many of the sites that people were sharing on facebook, tweeting about, etc. (such as Free Bieber) were created by nonprofits like Fight for the Future and the EFF.
IOW, Google was opposed to SOPA and participated in the protests, but their momentum and spread had much more to do with, yes, actual grassroots concern.
This one will pass.
Unfortunately, this probably is true. A lot of the grassroots organizers from the SOPA protests are still eager to help, but much more fragmented/less on-message. Everything from ACTA and TPP to the UK "security" bill etc. have been labeled as "the next SOPA" or "worse than SOPA" and consensus hasn't coalesced around any one bill as the next major target. Reddit and Wikipedia communities haven't agreed to a blackout or any major visible action today. Google's Take Action page is still talking about their recent "The Internet give me the power to..." campaign. Congresspeople either don't understand the implications of CISPA, don't care, or both, and there isn't aggressive pushback like there was with SOPA. So... guess this bill will have to be one for the Court?
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 11:07 AM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
> I'll be following the development of secure comms based on quantum entanglement with a keen eye.
A non-starter for the individual. The cost will always be too great, and it's entirely unclear that these are, in practice, any stronger than mathematical systems. Schneier has it right here, as he is so often - your security is no stronger than the weakest link, and that weakest link is almost certainly not your encryption.
> I think stross or someone had a character use a batch of "one-time matter"
A sweet idea, but one-time pads have been around for centuries and offer exactly the same benefits.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:11 AM on April 23, 2012
A non-starter for the individual. The cost will always be too great, and it's entirely unclear that these are, in practice, any stronger than mathematical systems. Schneier has it right here, as he is so often - your security is no stronger than the weakest link, and that weakest link is almost certainly not your encryption.
> I think stross or someone had a character use a batch of "one-time matter"
A sweet idea, but one-time pads have been around for centuries and offer exactly the same benefits.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:11 AM on April 23, 2012
Given the provisions that make it basically impossible to file suit, is it likely that this would ever go before the Supreme Court?
posted by vogon_poet at 11:56 AM on April 23, 2012
posted by vogon_poet at 11:56 AM on April 23, 2012
This, and countless others like it, are the finest laws that money can buy. If the voters in the US really think they have any say over how they are governed, they are sadly mistaken. As someone who has watched congress for a long time now, I can tell you that there is nothing that will stop this, the money to be made is far too great and the public's interest is too low.
posted by photodegas at 12:07 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by photodegas at 12:07 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
My money goes with the 800 corporations that support this--did all of you read the incredible cross section of financial, manufacturing, telecom, computing, service etc corporations that endorse this. As bad as it sounds my future is much more interwoven with them than the EFF. This legislation is way beyond my layman's understanding--but I do trust 800 diverse profit making special interest groups more than a handful of other individulal and corporate vested interests. These are some of the most solid, reliable, well regarded and sophisticated corporations around (not just USA). I am not nearly as worried about big business as I am religious, political or ideological zealotry. At least with big business I generally know the motive and bottom line. Anyway,how can you be against a bill endorsed by Apple, The Africa Channel, Target, Ford, Bayer and "the good hands people" Allstate.
posted by rmhsinc at 12:23 PM on April 23, 2012
posted by rmhsinc at 12:23 PM on April 23, 2012
rmhsinc, could you make your sarcasm a bit more transparent or add a hamburger tag? I don't think most people will catch on otherwise.
posted by Balna Watya at 12:28 PM on April 23, 2012
posted by Balna Watya at 12:28 PM on April 23, 2012
TreeHouse time?
posted by Slackermagee at 12:29 PM on April 23, 2012
posted by Slackermagee at 12:29 PM on April 23, 2012
I'm writing a paper about online privacy rights right now, and it seems that (at least) one of the problems in all of this is that the American conception of privacy stems mostly from a penumbra of rights afforded by other civil liberties (like the right to property, the right against unauthorized search and seizure). Privacy law is mostly handled by necessitating a warrant for government searches (which laws like this seek to abolish) and in civil cases as tort law (trespassing, false light, misrepresentation or public disclosure of private facts). Unfortunately in the tort law large companies are usually given the benefit because of an American commitment to a distorted view of freedom of the press, and the government is given the benefit because of an American commitment to a distorted view of security.
Instead of having a centralized commitment to privacy as a human right, as one finds in much European law, there's a scattershot approach which values privacy in the abstract, but often comes down against it when there's some other value in the other court.
The NSA doesn't have to try very hard to spy on Americans because by either ignoring the law, or by dodging its way around it through lobbying and concurrent private sector interests, it has as much information as it can throw at its algorithms and software agents happily volunteered on Facebook and through Google searches. These two (although they're just the most prominent among a faceless thousand) have made themselves a central part of modern life but aren't in any way accountable for what they do beyond some vague fantasy of the invisible hand of the free market. This will only get more prevalent as more and more of your stuff, and the stuff around you, is communicating through near field networks, constantly creating a shadow of yourself in gigantic, unknowable databases.
One of the books I'm using as a source, The Digital Person, talks about how the usual literary metaphor for this sort of unilateral surveillance is 1984 and Big Brother, but a better way to conceive of it is the nameless Bureaucracy of Kafka's The Trial. The power of the surveillance doesn't come in the nameless authority's ability to swoop down and disappear you, but rather in how it makes one so paranoid that they will do anything to comply to norms that aren't even made distinctly clear.
posted by codacorolla at 12:35 PM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
Instead of having a centralized commitment to privacy as a human right, as one finds in much European law, there's a scattershot approach which values privacy in the abstract, but often comes down against it when there's some other value in the other court.
The NSA doesn't have to try very hard to spy on Americans because by either ignoring the law, or by dodging its way around it through lobbying and concurrent private sector interests, it has as much information as it can throw at its algorithms and software agents happily volunteered on Facebook and through Google searches. These two (although they're just the most prominent among a faceless thousand) have made themselves a central part of modern life but aren't in any way accountable for what they do beyond some vague fantasy of the invisible hand of the free market. This will only get more prevalent as more and more of your stuff, and the stuff around you, is communicating through near field networks, constantly creating a shadow of yourself in gigantic, unknowable databases.
One of the books I'm using as a source, The Digital Person, talks about how the usual literary metaphor for this sort of unilateral surveillance is 1984 and Big Brother, but a better way to conceive of it is the nameless Bureaucracy of Kafka's The Trial. The power of the surveillance doesn't come in the nameless authority's ability to swoop down and disappear you, but rather in how it makes one so paranoid that they will do anything to comply to norms that aren't even made distinctly clear.
posted by codacorolla at 12:35 PM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
If this hits, I foresee a premium being charged by hosting providers with no US jurisdicitonal exposure.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:58 PM on April 23, 2012
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:58 PM on April 23, 2012
@alna Watya--if the truth be told, and I will. I am not sure whether I am being sarcastic or not. It is in fact an incredible array of corporate, and in many cases competing, interests. And I was serious in that I have an element of trust in publicly held companies--in many ways they are more transparent than government, churches or many advocacy organizations. I am dubious when corporate and government interests are closely interwoven. But hey, a lot more trusting than when right wing ideologues are married to government. From a distance I tend to admire and understand the pragmatism of major corporations.
posted by rmhsinc at 1:09 PM on April 23, 2012
posted by rmhsinc at 1:09 PM on April 23, 2012
rhmsinc is just hoping to get a job with one of those 800 corporations, and a public declaration on a much-spidered website like this is sure to get into the database and help him rise to the top of future applicant lists.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:15 PM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:15 PM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]
I don't think that is a good reason to trust their support of the bill though. As you said, their motivations are always pretty clear. They care about profit and this bill creates a potential new revenue stream. All of the companies that support the bill can now sell their customer's information to the government without fear of being sued.
posted by VTX at 1:16 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by VTX at 1:16 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
oneswellfoop--I can absolutely, unequivocally and completely assure you that I am fully, thoroughly and enjoyable retired. Any thing which interferes with my travels, reading, the blue (or green), an open schedule and no expectations is just not for me. The money/prestige/power that it would take to lure me back to the work force ( and I loved my job) will never be offered given my limited talents and skills.
posted by rmhsinc at 1:28 PM on April 23, 2012
posted by rmhsinc at 1:28 PM on April 23, 2012
A whole thread and no one has mentioned that the US or it's direct proxies are engaged in, as we speak, cyberterrorism against a foreign country?
posted by ennui.bz at 4:35 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
A voracious virus attack has hit computers running key parts of Iran’s oil sector, forcing authorities to unplug its main oil export terminal from the Internet and to set up a cyber crisis team, according to reports on Monday.Techno-libertarianism is all good fun, but it's not really all about your personal data consumption, there is much larger political context eg. war, religion, empire, power, democracy, etc. that don't fit neatly into internet debates about liberty and privacy and personal security.
posted by ennui.bz at 4:35 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
I recognize the need to diversify power even when doing so puts more power in the hands of worse people, rmhsinc, but corporatism/fascism never does that job. I'll elaborate via a hypothetical scenario :
Imagine Apple and Microsoft give the DHS direct access to their data centers, but Google resists because they're the "good guys", largely thanks to Sergey Brin's influence. In five to ten years, we'll observe another law seeking to "standardize the intelligence and law enforcement community's relationship with private enterprise", i.e. compel Google to give up your data by force.
Abstractly, we cannot benefit from a division of power into smaller units if either said units grow to big or if said units collaborate too much, especially with the bigger units we haven't figured out how to diversify, i.e. government.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:04 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
Imagine Apple and Microsoft give the DHS direct access to their data centers, but Google resists because they're the "good guys", largely thanks to Sergey Brin's influence. In five to ten years, we'll observe another law seeking to "standardize the intelligence and law enforcement community's relationship with private enterprise", i.e. compel Google to give up your data by force.
Abstractly, we cannot benefit from a division of power into smaller units if either said units grow to big or if said units collaborate too much, especially with the bigger units we haven't figured out how to diversify, i.e. government.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:04 PM on April 23, 2012 [2 favorites]
Cispa cybersecurity bill opposed by Obama administration: White House official reiterates president's opposition to Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act ahead of vote
posted by homunculus at 9:41 AM on April 24, 2012
posted by homunculus at 9:41 AM on April 24, 2012
ProPublica Meet the Media Companies Lobbying Against Transparency
posted by adamvasco at 12:07 AM on April 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by adamvasco at 12:07 AM on April 25, 2012 [1 favorite]
Btw, there is a #CongressTMI and CongressTMI.org as well.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:35 AM on April 25, 2012
posted by jeffburdges at 12:35 AM on April 25, 2012
Cybersecurity Measure Heads to House Floor Despite Privacy Fears
posted by homunculus at 10:58 AM on April 26, 2012
posted by homunculus at 10:58 AM on April 26, 2012
Encryption? Doesn't mean anything if the server's running on NSA hardware, does it?Um, yes? If I encrypt a message to you on my computer, and send it through a mail server controlled by the NSA, then you get it on your machine and decrypt it the NSA can't read the email. If we haven't pre-exchanged keys, a Man in the Middle attack is possible, but not if you have pre-arranged keys. You can also each verify the fingerprint manually, if you're paranoid.
...and Secretary Clinton calls for Open Government.To be fair, Clinton has consistently argued for this stuff (other then in the case with Bradly Manning) - she doesn't have any control over domestic policy.
posted by delmoi at 11:30 AM on April 26, 2012
CISPA advances in House, as EFF decries bill's revisions
posted by homunculus at 4:17 PM on April 26, 2012
posted by homunculus at 4:17 PM on April 26, 2012
Privacy-Killing CISPA Bill Passes House (Updating)
FWIW, every nay vote was a Democrat, although five (including the usual suspects like Dan Boren and Heath Shuler) joined all the Republicans in voting yay.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:20 PM on April 26, 2012
FWIW, every nay vote was a Democrat, although five (including the usual suspects like Dan Boren and Heath Shuler) joined all the Republicans in voting yay.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:20 PM on April 26, 2012
Democracy is best conducted on a surprise rush vote during the NFL draft.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:26 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:26 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]
If it's possible to monitor a piece of private information, someone will.
We'll stop CISPA, I hope, but these laws will keep coming.
posted by bwerdmuller at 8:28 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]
We'll stop CISPA, I hope, but these laws will keep coming.
posted by bwerdmuller at 8:28 PM on April 26, 2012 [1 favorite]
what the god fuck holy shit >:(
WHAT THE HELL
ok can we now start sharing links to privacy tools?
posted by rebent at 8:47 AM on April 27, 2012
WHAT THE HELL
ok can we now start sharing links to privacy tools?
posted by rebent at 8:47 AM on April 27, 2012
Did CISPA Actually Get Better Before Passing? Not Really
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
Naoimi Wolf: - Organising against the enemies of internet freedom.
posted by adamvasco at 12:25 PM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by adamvasco at 12:25 PM on April 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
Hmmm the original source in the link I posted only mentioned 5, which seemed weird to me. I guess it was posted mid-vote.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:35 PM on April 27, 2012
posted by zombieflanders at 4:35 PM on April 27, 2012
Why the Government Can’t Remain the Cybersecurity Czar: CISPA doesn’t just violate digital privacy. It will flood the U.S. government with more data than it can handle.
posted by homunculus at 3:27 PM on May 1, 2012
posted by homunculus at 3:27 PM on May 1, 2012
Mozilla Slams CISPA, Breaking Silicon Valley's Silence On Cybersecurity Bill
posted by jeffburdges at 6:05 PM on May 2, 2012
posted by jeffburdges at 6:05 PM on May 2, 2012
FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites, now. (regarding CALEA)
posted by jeffburdges at 2:22 PM on May 4, 2012
posted by jeffburdges at 2:22 PM on May 4, 2012
Syrian Government Pushing Malware To Activists Via Skype (F-secure)
posted by jeffburdges at 2:26 PM on May 4, 2012
posted by jeffburdges at 2:26 PM on May 4, 2012
Speaking of the FBI: Hidden camera records FBI returning snatched anonymous remailer server
posted by homunculus at 3:27 PM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 3:27 PM on May 4, 2012 [1 favorite]
Meanwhile, in Canada: How the Toews-sponsored Internet surveillance bill quietly died
Previously
posted by homunculus at 7:23 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Previously
posted by homunculus at 7:23 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Or not: Internet surveillance bill not dead, Toews says
posted by homunculus at 8:55 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 8:55 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Medal Ceremony in Real Life: for Internet Awesomeness
posted by homunculus at 6:53 PM on May 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 6:53 PM on May 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
High Court to Hear Warrantless Eavesdropping Challenge
posted by homunculus at 2:01 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 2:01 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
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posted by CautionToTheWind at 4:10 AM on April 23, 2012 [3 favorites]