On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Anon195714 <anon195714@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

(Matthew: I see your comment was posted to me but not posted to list, so
I've redacted it from this posting to the list, which is in reply to
you. If you want to post your comment to the list, feel free. Everyone
else: it wasn't a scathing criticism or something scandalous, in fact I
think Matthew may have wanted to post it to list but didn't hit Reply
All. That said, it's up to him.)

The surveillance ecosystem is already enormous, and the vast majority is
in the private sector.

General rule: "Dissipative structures form ecosystems around
entropy-gradients." Organisms are dissipative structures; work is
energy-conversion. This explains much of human social behavior as well
as physical ecosystem behavior.

For example people want music and they're willing to work hard (convert
energy) to get it. Energy conversion produces an entropy gradient. The
music industry middlemen (RIAA) insert themselves into the path between
sources & sinks (artists & audiences, and that relationship is two-way)
to tap as much energy out of this process as possible, in the form of
money. Illegal file downloaders as well as self-produced bands who use
Creative Commons or Copyleft, are seen by the music industry as
short-circuits in the system.

Consumer behavior in general is an enormous energy source (money
source), and the goal of capitalism is ultimately to surround every
consumer with the equivalent of a Dyson sphere to capture as much of
their work output as possible. The modern surveillance ecosystem is all
about "predicting and controlling" individual behavior, toward that end.

So, per Matthew, one way to counter this is to set up a countervailing
ecosystem, with entropy gradients tilted in such a manner as to produce
incentives to fight back against the surveillance.

As for defending privacy: privacy is equivalent to free speech. As a
lawyer told us when I was working on "crypto for the masses" in the
early 1980s, the right to freedom of speech necessarily includes the
right to choose your audience. Today we commonly use the term "chilling
effect" to refer to what happens when you can't choose your audience,
e.g. when your boss and the credit bureaux etc. are likely to be
watching you on "social" networks.

It's been said more than once, that you can tell when someone's boss is
watching them on Facebook: all of a sudden their comments go totally
bland (not that any of us should be using Facebook unless we're
deliberately using it as a publicity tool for political or other
campaigns). That's the chilling effect in action. And if DARPA and
Google have their way, where everyone's every conversation, private and
in-person included, is recorded and archived and made searchable, the
chill will be so total that it will make life in East Germany under the
Stasi look like a picnic by comparison.

Knowledge is power: when THEY know all about YOU, but you know nothing
about them, who has the power?

As the old song said, "Getting to know you / getting to know all about
you..."

Not to mention, "He sees you when you're sleeping / he knows when you're
awake. / He knows if you've been bad or good / so be good for (getting
lots of presents) sake!"

Going back thousands of years, societies envisioned deities as concerned
with individual "moral behavior" (i.e. sex) as a way of strengthening
tribal cohesion. Western cultures in particular evolved with the very
strong sense that their deities were keeping a close watch over them.
This gave people a sense of comfort and protection.

Today as agnosticism, atheism, and various forms of transpersonal
beliefs (in effect religion without personalized deities) are on the
rise in the geek sector, the sense of comfort from "being watched over"
has transplanted itself from the deity to the surveillance
superstructure. Many people are secretly fond of the idea that Big
Google is reading every word they write, listening to every phone call
they make, and following them around. This is nothing more than a new
deity taking the place of the old one: "someone big who watches over us."

It seems to me that a necessary part of the evolution of rational people
away from the need for personalized deities, is to get away from the
need for the "comfort" of being watched over. Individuals who are
rational self-aware autonomous moral actors have no need of being
watched over by anything other than our own consciences.

-G.

=====

On 13-03-05-Tue 2:43 PM, Matthew D. Howell wrote:

(Comment was sent to me in private email, not to the list, so if Matthew
wishes he can repost it to the list.)

=====

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:22 PM, Anon195714 <anon195714@sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

>> Re. Anthony, Rachel, Matthew, re "masking audio."
>>
>> That was the first thing I tried when I found out about NSA's voice
>> recognition back in 1980 (if I recall correctly it was the October 1980
>> issue of _The Progressive_ that referred to the HARVEST program, keyword
>> rec and voice rec, and some stuff in a British paper or magazine also, I
>> may still have copies around).
>>
>> The idea was that instead of using a voice scrambler or crypto (which
>> required a device at each end of a conversation), voice rec could be
>> defeated from one end of a phone call by saturating the channel with
>> just enough noise. What killed that idea was the fact that long
>> distance telephony used T-carrier that split up the conversation into
>> two different speech paths between telco central offices (e.g. me to
>> you, you to me). So a device would still be needed at both ends, and
>> one may as well just use a scrambler. That led me down the trail to
>> details about scramblers (bottom line, analog scramblers aren't any
>> good) and ultimately to cryptography by 1982 - 1983.
>>
>> Re. "every person's voice has a distinct signature that can be
>> recognized...", yes, thus voiceprint recognition, which was 99.6%
>> accurate in 1960 according to an article in _Telephony_ magazine at the
>> time (I may still have that around also). Fast-forward to today at the
>> speed of Moore's law, and you can be quite sure that voiceprint
>> recognition is used for tracking.
>>
>> This is one of the things I find most pernicious about the decline in
>> the use of landlines and the rise in the number of people with "mobile
>> only": A landline enables you to design, build, connect, and use any
>> hardware you choose, including digital voice crypto devices, and
>> including computers running digital voice crypto. And with a landline
>> phone, when the receiver is on the hook, the microphone is physically
>> disconnected by the hookswitch, a visible set of switch contacts inside
>> the phone.
>>
>> Mobile devices are sealed black boxes, the ultimate revenge against
>> phone phreaks & phone hackers, where you have no final control over
>> what's in the black box. Just like the bad old days of Ma Bell when it
>> was quasi-illegal to connect "foreign attachments" to your home phone
>> line. Even a voice crypto app on a mobile device is questionable at
>> best, because you have no way of knowing if at some level it's being
>> undermined by something else in the device that you can't detect. By
>> analogy, crypto on your laptop, but a keystroke logger hiding between
>> you and the crypto app.
>>
>> The mere possibility of being able to hack the hardware provides more
>> security than any sealed box, and best of all is when you can design &
>> build your own hardware, such as when people build their own desktop
>> machines from components.
>>
>> Anyway, I agree with Rachel & Matthew that audio masking isn't
>> sufficient because it can be undone by the watchers. It may have to do
>> in some situations, but it would be better to design more "aggressive"
>> personal defense tech such as wearable "resonant audio cannons" or
>> something else.
>>
>> -G.
>>
>>
>> =====
>>
>>
>> On 13-03-05-Tue 11:21 AM, Matthew D. Howell wrote:
>>> @Rachel The state of the technology for recognizing and separating
>>> patterns in audio is advanced enough to overcome that sort of thing.
>>> Every person's voice has a distinct signature that can be recognized.
>>> I would venture a guess that some kind of encrypted digital signal
>>> transmission would be the best way to keep any sonic communication
>>> private in the most extreme of situations. (most interested party with
>>> the best technology at their disposal)
>>> – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – >8
>>> /V\ /-\ + + |–| ø \/\/ ∂ £ £
>>> –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
>>> Matthew D. Howell
>>> misterinterrupt, tHe M4d swiTcH, the RuinMechanic
>>> cell: (617) 755-1481
>>> –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 11:16 AM, rachel lyra hospodar
>>> <rachelyra@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Wouldn't it need to be non-commercially available music, so they couldn't
>>>> just find the audio data of the track, invert its wave, and cancel it out of
>>>> the recording?
>>>>
>>>> CACOPHONY FOR THE REVOLUTION!
>>>>
>>>> mediumreality.com
>>>>
>>>> On Mar 5, 2013 10:23 AM, "Steve Berl" <steveberl@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> You could carry a boombox around playing loud music where ever you go.
>>>>> Perhaps this would be the end of earbuds. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Anthony Di Franco <di.franco@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> People have rendered surveillance cameras useless with very bright IR
>>>>>> LEDs in their fields of view.
>>>>>> Could something similar be done for sound recording devices?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mar 5, 2013 6:17 AM, "Anon195714" <anon195714@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> Yo's-
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Something I forgot to add re. DARPA's desire for universal recording of
>>>>>>> face-to-face conversations.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What's the ideal device for doing all that recording?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> How'bout something you wear? How'bout something that "everyone" wears?,
>>>>>>> or even a significant fraction of "everyone"?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Like maybe Google Glasses.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Always on, camera and mic always "connected" to "the cloud." Orwell's
>>>>>>> telescreen gone mobile.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Everyone who wears them will become, in effect, _unpaid surveillance
>>>>>>> drones_ watching their family and friends, not from up in the sky, but
>>>>>>> from up close where every word can be heard.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Some will say "oh, there's no stopping technology." People said that
>>>>>>> about the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb. But public outcry led
>>>>>>> first to treaties and then to progressive degrees of nuclear
>>>>>>> disarmament. We haven't used that technology since it was first used in
>>>>>>> WW2.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We can stop pernicious tech if we choose. We can refuse, we can
>>>>>>> withdraw consent, we do not have to press the Buy button.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Technology should liberate and empower people. "Conveniences with a few
>>>>>>> strings attached" are not liberation, they're puppet-strings.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It's all about control: technology that you can control, vs. technology
>>>>>>> that can control you.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -G.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> =====
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 13-03-05-Tue 1:50 AM, Anon195714 wrote:
>>>>>>>> Yo's-
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This just in:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "DARPA wants to make [voice recognition/transcription] systems so
>>>>>>>> accurate, you’ll be able to easily record, transcribe and recall all
>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> conversations you ever have. ... Imagine living in a world where every
>>>>>>>> errant utterance you make is preserved forever. ... DARPA [awarded
>>>>>>>> U.Texas comp sci researcher Matt Lease]... $300,000... over two years
>>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>>> study the new project, called “Blending Crowdsourcing with Automation
>>>>>>>> for Fast, Cheap, and Accurate Analysis of Spontaneous Speech.”"
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "The idea is that business meetings or even conversations with your
>>>>>>>> friends and family could be stored in archives and easily searched.
>>>>>>>> The
>>>>>>>> stored recordings could be held in servers, owned either by
>>>>>>>> individuals
>>>>>>>> or their employers. ... The answer, Lease says, is in widespread use
>>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>>> recording technologies like smartphones, cameras and audio
>>>>>>>> recorders...
>>>>>>>> [A] memorandum from the Congressional Research Service described [an
>>>>>>>> earlier DARPA project of this type known as] EARS, as focusing on
>>>>>>>> speech
>>>>>>>> picked up from broadcasts and telephone conversations, “as well as
>>>>>>>> extract clues about the identity of speakers” for “the military,
>>>>>>>> intelligence and law enforcement communities.”"
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/darpa-speech/ (Yes, "real
>>>>>>>> geeks
>>>>>>>> don't read Wired," but nonetheless its news pages are useful for
>>>>>>>> keeping
>>>>>>>> a finger on the pulse of Big Brother and his corporate Brethren.)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In short:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> DARPA is researching the means by which every conversation you have,
>>>>>>>> in-person, whether at work or with family or friends, gets picked up
>>>>>>>> by
>>>>>>>> the mic in your smartphone or other portable device, and stored on a
>>>>>>>> server, where DARPA's algorithms and human editors turn all of it into
>>>>>>>> fast-searchable text, that could be used by your employer, the
>>>>>>>> military,
>>>>>>>> law enforcement, and intel agencies. Presumably the credit bureaus,
>>>>>>>> insurance companies, and financial institutions will want "in" on the
>>>>>>>> data as well.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Now connect that with this, about cell-site tracking and call detail
>>>>>>>> records:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "The government maintained [that] Americans have no expectation of
>>>>>>>> privacy of such cell-site records [call detail records or CDR] because
>>>>>>>> they are in the possession of a third party — the mobile phone
>>>>>>>> companies."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gps-drug-dealer-retrial/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The key point is that the gov's current position is that data stored
>>>>>>>> on
>>>>>>>> a third party's servers have "no expectation of privacy." What begins
>>>>>>>> with CDR will eventually include voicemail messages stored on the
>>>>>>>> mobile
>>>>>>>> phone companies' servers, and then eventually all of your live
>>>>>>>> in-person
>>>>>>>> conversations that are stored "in the cloud."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "Anything you say can and will be used against you..." Mark my words.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Meanwhile people keep using gmail and Google Voice, and smartphones
>>>>>>>> from
>>>>>>>> which they can't remove the batteries. Because nothing is more
>>>>>>>> important
>>>>>>>> than "convenience," right?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As a character in a sci-fi piece I wrote in the mid-1980s said, "Why
>>>>>>>> put
>>>>>>>> a person in prison, when you can put prison in the person instead?"
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -G.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>>>>>> sudo-discuss@lists.sudoroom.org
>>>>>>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
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>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>>>> sudo-discuss@lists.sudoroom.org
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> -steve
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>>> sudo-discuss@lists.sudoroom.org
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>>>>>
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