Keeping online private matters private

[Shamanistic]

In response to the 'anti-terrorism' laws passed today which allow authorities to track your every move online I thought I'd share a guide to keeping your private matters private. I do not condone illegal activity but I do believe that the government has no business in my personal life or anyone elses. I didn't write this guide, credit goes to 'Master Pirate'. If you follow this guide you can be pretty sure your business stays your business. I'd also like to point out some parallels to this law that's been passed today and the current situation over in the states where an ex marine by the name of Brandon Raub has been 'kidnapped' (by that I mean he's been detained at a mental home with no charges being laid upon him) for speaking his mind about certain government. Long live freedom of speech!

The guide: http://pastebin.com/euFC0322

News article on law: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/authorities-gain-power-to-collect-australians--internet-records-20120822-24m03.html

More on the Brandon Raub story: http://www.huffingto..._n_1817484.html

Peace!

Edited August 22, 2012 by Shamanistic

[∂an]

I stopped using Tor because its frequent change of IP address would lead to some sites forcing me to log in again and again (like every 5 minutes). Is there a solution to this?

[Shamanistic]

I'm really not sure. Maybe a VPN but even then I don't think you get a static IP so to say as the ip you get is in a pool. The longer you have the same IP the less effective the security is. I'll do a little more looking tonight for you and see if I can find a conclusive answer.

[at0m]

I haven't read it yet but I'd highly suggest AGAINST using Tor for 'clearnet' (ie, regular websites like sab, google, etc) where you use login credentials. All of it is easily sniffable (they can see ALL of your web traffic, like the ISPs can) by anyone who runs an exit node. I'm not saying that all exit nodes are untrustworthy but I'm not taking that risk.

My suggest:

Buy a VPN.

Make sure you research the provider too. Google their name, read their privacy policy and terms of use/service. I wouldn't pay more than $10/mo, if that.

Better yet, buy a VPS and run your own VPN. It's rather complicated though. Especially for people with limited technical knowledge.

Also, OpenVPN or bust. PPTP and L2TP/IPSec don't come close.

I keep saying I'll make a 'privacy guide' but I never get around to it :\ Maybe one day when the lethargy subsides...

*Edit: added a simple comparison for VPN software.

Edited August 22, 2012 by at0m

[at0m]

I'm really not sure. Maybe a VPN but even then I don't think you get a static IP so to say as the ip you get is in a pool. The longer you have the same IP the less effective the security is. I'll do a little more looking tonight for you and see if I can find a conclusive answer.

 

VPNs often give you a 'static' but shared address. Meaning it doesn't change however it's not only you that the IP becomes associated (ad agencies, etc) with.

To an extent I suppose using the same IP for a long period of time is a bad idea. The main thing is we want to encrypt and route our traffic through another country so all the ISP gets is misc. encrypted traffic which they can't do anything with.

[qualia]

I haven't read it yet but I'd highly suggest AGAINST using Tor for 'clearnet' (ie, regular websites like sab, google, etc) where you use login credentials.

yeah this is the reason i don't use tor now. but;

i thought using https at the exit nodes got around this problem? that just leaves the problem of a website not having https version, some which i think sab doesn't have right now. note i2p automatically encrypts all traffic, but last time i used it it was slower than tor and basically unusable.

Edited August 22, 2012 by qualia

[shortly]

This is the bill they were talking about storing all data for 2 years isn't it?

So how much is this going to push up the price of an internet connection? I mean no one is going to store that volume of data for free & its a safe bet roxon isn't volunteering to cough up the $'s. someone will end up having to pay & its a safe bet it will be all of us.

[at0m]

Sort of but not entirely, qualia. Check out some info on SSL Strip.

Side note: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/badRelays

Just an example.

[Sallubrious]

It wouldn't hurt to throw a macchanger or hw ether if you're on ipv6 addressing either.

Edited August 22, 2012 by SallyD

[Shamanistic]

I hadn't thought of that aspect of Tor but I'm definitely going to look into VPN. I wonder if there is a way to setup a TOR exit node on your VPN so that your traffic moves through TOR and then exits from your VPN server. I haven't done a huge amount of research into VPN so maybe this would be overkill since like at0m said the aim is to have encrypted so that anyone with your traffic is going to have a hard time working out what's going on.

[at0m]

It'd be pointless imo. Too much overhead for no real extra security. Assuming I'm understanding it correct anyway...

Do you mean You -> Tor -> Your exit node (blocking all others) -> VPN -> internet?

If anything, I could see this being less secure* if they decide to crack down on tor usage. Tor usage is relatively easily to profile (it's part of how the "Lulzsec" guys I believe).

*I should clarify that I don't mean your data (whilst in transit) will be less secure. What I mean is that they may come a knockin' asking to see your computer because you're using tor (which already has a stigma attached to drug use and crime... who knows where it could go...)

[Sallubrious]

If you go to such lengths to protect your information that will be deemed as suspicious in itself.

This is all getting quite Orwellian isn't it ?

The Soviets had the Cheka, then the KGB and they ended up becoming executioners.

No good can come from this.

[r2pi]

On this topic ... I'm sure you guys would be well on top of this already but others who are as slow on the uptake as I am will proabably find this talk as compelling as I did:

 

(I found it via The Psychedelic Salon)

If/when FreedomBox comes to fruition, all of the above and more will hopefully be accessible to mere mortals, no techno-jiggery-pokery required.

[Shamanistic]

I'd love to know where Orwell bought his crystal ball. Reading 1984 is quite eerie in this day and age. The fact that they want to know and control everything I/everyone do with my/every other australians lives should be deemed suspicious but the masses are asleep.

Yeah, I was thinking that it's possible that the government will try to ban Tor. I wonder if they will stop using it, or their equivilent.

Thanks for that link r2pi, I didn't actually know anything about FreedomBox. I haven't watched that video just had a quick look at what I could find online and so far I love it.

[r2pi]

Thanks for that link r2pi, I didn't actually know anything about FreedomBox. I haven't watched that video just had a quick look at what I could find online and so far I love it.

 

The video is only indirectly about the FreedomBox - it is more of a manifesto for action in protecting our Internet privacy and thereby furthering the incredible unfolding of human potential which is otherwise under threat by closed technology. Plus, an idea of how to pitch this to government. (Not sure why the fuss on the latter part. Government stuffs everything it touches. Let's just keep doing it without them.) It starts off kinda slow- stick with it.

You know, I love the anarchist success story of free software and wikipedia, but one thing troubles me - the software and information are freely given but the hardware nearly all comes about through profit-driven wage slavery. We need a free, voluntary system of hardware production to go with the software and information. That's much harder to achieve without capital. But I digress...

[nabraxas]

Reading 1984 is quite eerie in this day and age

Orwell made some good points, but Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, to my mind, hits closer to the mark.

[qualia]

Orwell made some good points, but Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, to my mind, hits closer to the mark.

seems to me to be more a combination of the two. look at how well scripted mainstream media is as the mouthpiece to the government. sure it's not quite a closed socialist state depicted in 1984 but too often media from all "sides" follows the orwelian groupthink, sticks basically to script.

but something i find interesting is the possibility of using the so called "conspiracy" subculture to obscure information. it's not very well received by the wider public, and to be honest i think a lot of it is ridiculous, but there's still some interesting issues raised which should receive greater attention, but doesn't because it's drowned the "sea of irrelevance" and basically difficult to disseminate without some degree of knowledge or the time to research fact from bullshit. also using the idea of a conspiracy to discredit truth, and "recruit", if you will, otherwise well meaning but naive and gullible people into attacking a legitimate issue under the guise of "exposing conspiracy".

[nabraxas]

it's drowned the "sea of irrelevance"

or maybe disinformation?....that's a game that's been played for a long time, but reached it's peak in WW2

By the time of the Second World War, the "Double-Cross System" had been invented -- by British Intelligence, of course. This was the products of such minds as Alan Turing, a brilliant homosexual mathematician who (when not working in espionage) specialized in creating logical paradoxes other mathematicians couldn't solve, and Ian Fleming, whose fantasy life was equally rich (as indicated by his later James Bond books), and Dennis Wheatley, a man of exceptionally high intelligence who happened to believe that an international conspiracy of Satanists was behind every conspiracy he didn't invent himself.

By the time Turing, Fleming, Wheatley and kindred British intellects had perfected the Double-Cross System, the science of lying was almost as precise as Euclidian geometry, and nearly as lovely to the detached observer.

What the Double-Cross experts had invented was the practical political applications of the Strange Loop. In logic or cybernetics, a Strange Loop is a set of propositions that, while valid at each point, is so constructed that it leads to an unresolvable paradox. The Double-Cross people drove the Germans bonkers by inventing disinformation systems that, if believed, were deceptive, but if doubted led to a second disinformation system. They enjoyed this work so much that, at times, they invented Triple Loops...

These Strange Loops functioned especially well because the Double-Cross experts had early on fed the Germans the primordial Strange Loop. "Most of your agents are working for us and feeding your Strange Loops."

Many German agents, it later turned out, had managed to collect quite a bit of accurate information about the Normandy invasion, but many others turned in equally plausible information about a fictitious Norwegian invasion; and all of them were under suspicion, anyway. German Intelligence might as well have made its decisions by tossing a coin in the air."

 

--Robert Anton Wilson

[nabraxas]

look at how well scripted mainstream media is as the mouthpiece to the government.

that's interesting. i would say that mainstream media serves the oligarchy ov media & big business rather than government per se.

as examples how the carbon tax has been reported & how the super profits mining tax was so throughly trashed it cost Kevin Rudd his

job & the government was forced to back down & compromise w/the mining companies.

Also the way Gina Reinhold has aquired footholds in Channel 10 & Fairfax in an attempt to push her anti-carbon tax, anti-mining tax agenda.

[r2pi]

The thing that amazes me is that the politicians and journalists all jump up and down and say that the media are not biased, that journalists are competent professionals, and so forth. Anyone who begs to differ is written of as a raving lunatic. And yet, at the same time, they all focus considerable attention on media ownership issues such as concentration. Thereby belying the truth of the matter.

Love the cartoons above, but must disagree with the inclusion of computers. The internet has already done huge amounts of good work, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Or it could be, as long as we can face off the threat of the internet being taken over by corporations and governments.

[Auxin]

If you go to such lengths to protect your information that will be deemed as suspicious in itself.

Thats why truecrypt has the option for hidden volumes, if pressed you can decrypt the outer volume in which you stored vids of guys being buggered by women with a strapon and a whip (or if thats accepted and commonplace where you work you can toss in a goat or something... where legal, of course ).

Hypothetical minor vulnerabilities to TOR are not a reason to not use it, its actually a reason to use it more IMO. Every search for DMT info, etc. would make it more work for someone to steal useful information out of the sea of TOR.

After 911 when bush swore to declare war on anyone who wouldnt obey the US I got most of my news from TOR for the whole next year, it was creepy how vastly different the information from overseas was in comparison to US TV, and it was rather ominous how many (non-terrorism supporting) news sites were seized by the US. TOR is a handy thing to have and know how to use.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Auxin

[Sallubrious]

That pic of me with the goat was photshopped I swear.

[Sallubrious]

I just heard on the radio that the ATO wants the power to tap phone calls and emails to catch tax cheats.

Sieg heil !

[r2pi]

If you go to such lengths to protect your information that will be deemed as suspicious in itself.

 

And that is another reason why seamless privacy needs to be rolled out on a massive scale so that it just becomes a standard part of everyone's internet connection --- with something like the FreedomBox or similar.