Surveillance Self-Defense

March 3, 2009 11:11 PM

The SSD Project."The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it." [Via]
posted by homunculus (12 comments total)

Damn, they logged my IP when I read that post. Now I'm screwed...they know about me!

The prevailing question is, "Who are they?" Somebody is watching this stuff, right? Someone has a job doing it? Who exactly is that, and why do they care?

Liberals don't work for the government or law enforcement much, do they?
posted by Chuffy at 11:31 PM on March 3

Add homunculus to the "people they're watching" list.
posted by BrnP84 at 12:28 AM on March 4

Add Chuffy to the "people that completely miss the point" list.
posted by The Monkey at 2:29 AM on March 4

Excuse me while I point out:

This is one consonant away from being SSDD
(Same Shit Different Day)
posted by will wait 4 tanjents at 3:00 AM on March 4

Liberals don't work for the government or law enforcement much, do they?

I wanted to be a cop, but I couldn't meet the mustache requirement :(
posted by atrazine at 5:23 AM on March 4

Wait, what is this? How to get away with terrorism for dummies?
posted by prefpara at 5:41 AM on March 4

Not to kick around the EFF - 'cause on privacy they try pretty hard to help the consumer, but have you read their privacy policy?

EFF's search capability is provided by a third-party search engine, which is currently Yahoo. All searches are carried out by EFF's servers, protecting your privacy; no information from your browser (including your IP address or any cookies) is transmitted to Yahoo! or any third party. Information submitted to the search function is not collected by EFF, but it may be collected by the search engine provider, subject to the search engine provider's privacy policy. EFF may change the search engine provider from time to time.

That doesn't even make sense. They start off seeming to tell you that there is no way for a third party to grab your search info on their website, then they finish off with but it may be collected by the search engine provider. Huh?

There there is this:

From time to time, EFF may work with third-party consultants or other service providers who may have access to personally identifiable information. In such cases, we will restrict their use of personally identifiable information in accordance with their assigned tasks and subject to the limitations of this privacy policy.

Excuse me, but I'm more concerned about private enterprises collecting, using, and redistributing information about me than I am about the government (especially under the new administration). Then I turn to the EFF and this is the best they can do?

Honestly, it probably is because they recognize they need to leverage technology from third parties and that opens a can of worms.

It seems to me we're all sunk on this privacy issue and aside from taking rather minimal standard precautions, we run the risk of becoming the privacy equivalent of hypochondriacs with little net benefit at the end of the day.
posted by Muddler at 7:45 AM on March 4

In solidarity with most security tools, they've made this a pain in the ass to use (i.e., read).
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:43 AM on March 4

Muddler, what the first part means is this:

When you use the EFF search, you send them (the EFF) various data. There's the computer information (IP Address, computer type, cookies, etc) and then there's the search information (keywords and such). The computer information is not sent to anyone that is not the EFF themselves. The search information IS sent to Yahoo, because otherwise they can't do the search. EFF doesn't control what Yahoo does with searches, and are thus warning you that they might store it.

Roughly, you're using EFF as a proxy to search their site. You could do the exact same search by going through Yahoo, but then Yahoo would have you computer information. It seems pretty reasonable to me.

The second part is not great, but it's because they're probably not hiring everyone who works on their computer systems. They'll contract out, or consult, or what have you. It's not ideal, but neither is them doing everything in-house and wasting money.
posted by Lemurrhea at 11:23 AM on March 4

It appears The Man may have gotten to their server...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:23 PM on March 4

Bush Wiretapping: Known Unknowns Remain
posted by homunculus at 6:47 PM on March 5

Obama's Bush league decision: The president's lawyers continue to block access to information that could expose warrantless wiretapping. Is this change we can believe in?
posted by homunculus at 8:27 PM on March 5 [1 favorite has favorites]