[sudo-discuss] Breaking: Oakland to lead country in, diverting anti-terror funding to ubiquitous warrantless surveillance

[Shawn Lesniak]

On 2013-10-15 18:21, GtwoG PublicOhOne wrote:

> "Roving wiretaps."  Like when Apple collected GPS data from iPhones and
> publicly posted the users' locations and movements?   That was an
> immediate danger to the life of anyone who was a stalking victim.  Like
> the voice command apps, that require the microphone to be always-on,
> listening for keywords, relaying them to a corporate server-farm to be
> processed?  Do you know what other keywords are on that list, aside from
> the ones they tell you about? 
> 

Roving wiretaps have a specific meaning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roving_wiretap
If you would like to willfully ignore well-established meanings of words
don't be surprised when people choose to stop talking to you.

My phone runs Android 4.3 and it won't take dictation commands unless
Google Now is in the foreground or I press the microphone at an input
screen.  IIRC, Siri on iOS requires tapping the home button 3 times to
activate.

> "Wireshark or a cell signal detector."  I've used Wireshark to
> troubleshoot VOIP, and it is not something that laypeople would be able
> to use.  If there's a cell signal detector that's layperson-usable, I'd
> love to know about it.   (I have a standing design for a "blackout box"
> that will enable someone to put their "smart"phone in it and block
> surveillance while being able to ring on incoming phone calls.)
> 

Have fun trying to fake the location and yet stay in contact with towers
close enough to be useful.
Easy to use cell phone detector:
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/product/rf+signal+detector+ii.do
If you don't like that one, you could just as easily find plenty more by
using the search engine of your choice to search for cell phone detectors.

> "The look of Shotspotter is a secret and afaik we can't even know
> exactly where they are for that reason."  That's just poor marketing by
> Shotspotter.  Shotspotter needs to get cool looking enclosures with
> patented round corners, and an "app" you can buy for $2, and have hip
> sexy celebrities Oooh and Aaah about them.  Then everyone will want
> one;-)  (Ad concept: pop music star holding up iPhone with Shotspotter
> app on it.  Sound effect: repetitive rapid gunfire.  Celebrity voice: 
> "It's the rhythm of the city!  Tune it in, with Shotspotter!")
> 

I think that's good marketing, if you don't, you don't have your finger
on the pulse of the police state.

> "The ownership of a smartphone is voluntary..."  And having
> conversations within earshot of someone else's smartphone that you can't
> see, isn't voluntary.  Though, per Google's court filing that claims
> that anyone who communicates with a GMail user consents to be spied on
> by Google, I suppose one could come up with a similar interpretation for
> conversations conducted in earshot of someone else's mobile surveillance
> device.
> 

Yes it is, in cities like SF and Oakland, if someone is within earshot,
there's a smartphone within earshot too.  If you think they're all
picking up all conversations or all conversations with keywords just set
up a speaker to speak 'sarin bomb al-qaeda active shooter'.

You're probably proposing that everyone on this list throw out their
phone, so let's pretend that we're going to do that.  There are now
(let's say) 50 fewer phones out of a population of 380,000 in Oakland.

> "Voluntary" is a slippery word, whereby manipulation of "consumers" is
> regularly justified.  Have you read every EULA you've clicked "OK" on? 
> Fine print at the bottom of a "user agreement" doesn't hold a candle to
> the frequent appearance of hip sexy celebrities Ooohing and Aaahing over
> the latest piece of self-surveillance hardware. 
> 

I do.  It's easy when they're mostly GPL thrust upon users as EULA (GPL
is a distribution license, not a EULA).

> "Provides advantages" vs. "thrust upon us."  Advantages like lower cost
> to taxpayers for transcribing conversations recorded at closer range? 
> "Thrust upon us" like the disappearance of anonymous-cash-paid public
> telephones that used to be on every street corner?  Or is everything
> justifiable in exchange for "convenience" and Angry Birds?  (When
> Microsoft put Solitaire on Windows, people were cynical.  But Angry
> Birds and Farmville?)

You should talk to someone with a smart phone sometime.  Maybe you'll
see that the advantages include things like providing driving
directions, access to email from multiple locations, making phone calls.
 The sort of thing that gets you laid.  I think asking people to page me
would have a profound negative impact on my sex life.

> 
> What level of invasiveness would be sufficient to make that "voluntary"
> transaction a bad bargain? 
> 

That's up to the user.  You can sit in your ivory tower all day and
night and think people are stupid, but in the end you've likely made 0
people give a fuck.
I'm against surveillance, so I spoke at city council against DAC, I've
taught at crypto parties and otherwise.  I'm building up my chops to
make more contributions to privacy software.  I care about taking steps
that people will actually follow.  If I stood on the street corner
telling people to delete their Facebook and throw out their smart phone
no one will follow that advice.

> How'bout "smellavision" (ambient chemical sensors) where the
> "smart"phone picks up smells in its vicinity, for example the scent of
> recreational marijuana?  How'bout a "smart" EEG sensor that gives you
> the "convenience" of not having to say a word: just think the thought? 

How about if the moon were suddenly made of cheese?

> 
> How'bout all your phone calls being recorded in realtime by default?  I
> didn't believe this one either, until a few months ago, when I heard it
> straight from a proverbial horse's mouth.
> 

RedPhone, SilentPhone.  Mark Klein said this was happening in 2005 and
apparently it was happening since February 2001.  Again, it's really
hard to get people to care, but I do.  I've gotten dozens using these
tools, how many cell phones have you got people to throw away?


> Where do you draw the line in the sand, and what do you do when it's
> crossed? 
> 
> Or is it "OK" if these intrusions are introduced slowly enough for
> people to "get used to them," frog-in-boiling-water style?   First GPS,
> then always-on microphones, then one camera per device, then two cameras
> (front and back) per device, then speech recognition (constant
> monitoring of the microphone, as I said: what else is on that keyword
> list?). 
> 

Cell phone detector + reciting likely trigger words.  Cameras can be
dealt with using adhesive bandages (they don't leave residue over the lens).

> What next?  Here's one example of "what next."  Microsoft plans to
> introduce a permanent replacement for cookies, embedded in Windows, that
> will track people even more aggressively and will be impossible to turn
> off.  Google, Apple, and Amazon are doing likewise.  And if anyone here
> thinks that's only about "personalized advertising," I have a bridge for
> sale, cheap. 
> 
> http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/private-tracking-arms-race/
> 

Those aren't here yet and it's hard to tell what's fact and what's
fiction in regards to the future of online tracking.  There are loads of
tools like privoxy, adblock, ghostery, Tor Browser Bundle and Tails
available.  Now get people using them.  Adblock is the easiest sell
possible, run this and the ads go away.
It is important to keep our eyes to the future, but not to the extent
that we should ignore what's going on today.  What are you doing now
about this stuff?

> Principle:  If it's not-OK for government to do something, it's not-OK
> for corporate interests to do the same thing.  That's the core of the
> difference between left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism. 
> 

What?  Since when did this become libertarian-talk?  Where does this
principle come from?  Is the converse true?

> Keyphrase: "predict and control." 

Keyphrase: Allah (pbuh) airplane September 11th, sarin gas underwear bomb

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