RT

The Rise of the Global Police State

Sep 14, 2013

KC
Stage· 296 messages
Sep 14, 2013

Paranoid Android Kevin Caslava joins us to discuss the implications of NSA surveillance, the Global Police State, how to minimize your digital footprint and what to do when the police state turns on people like you.

KC

k caslava · 11:00 PM

hello world.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:00 PM

Hello and welcome to everyone.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:00 PM

Hey, K. Nice to see you.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:01 PM

If this is your first time, welcome! Log in to participate. nAudience members, you can log comments, ask questions and chat amongst yourselves. Be sure to click on the “Who’s Here?” button and click to listen to the other audience members so you can
KC

k caslava · 11:01 PM

Hey there becky. Thanks for inviting me to do this thing.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:01 PM

Comments can be “upvoted” by clicking the thumbs-up sign in the bottom right corner. This will change the comment to “Overheard” status, as signified by the blue OH symbol in the upper left-hand corner.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:01 PM

The hosts can see your comments only after they’ve been “Overheard.” We’ll try to spotlight these comments to answer your questions and include as many comments as possible. Glad you’re here!
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:02 PM

Okay, with that done, welcome, kevin. Nice to see you on the Tawker's stage.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:02 PM

Let's give the audience a little background on you.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:02 PM

Who is this guy?
KC

k caslava · 11:02 PM

Haha, ok
KC

k caslava · 11:03 PM

Well, to begin with, I am american by birth, I lived there for the majority of my life, and went so far as to take a job working for the US government.
KC

k caslava · 11:03 PM

That's where you and I met, working together in Central America. Well, more precisely, we met because I'd been booted out of my position, as a result of my online communications.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:04 PM

That's a fun story!
KC

k caslava · 11:04 PM

And that for me, on top of several other things, led to my interest in what we're here calling the Global Police State, but could just be called the global surveillance state, or the matrix, or whatever you like.
KC

k caslava · 11:04 PM

Yeah, that's a good enough story.
KC

k caslava · 11:05 PM

Once upon a time, I worked for the Peace Corps in Honduras. And in the course of my time there, I was writing, quite a bit actually.
KC

k caslava · 11:05 PM

Writing to classes of school children, writing home to my family, writing to a wide network of interested listeners, who wanted to know about the Peace Corps, Honduras, or just my ramblings and musings.
KC

k caslava · 11:06 PM

And after some months of this, I'd amassed enough listeners that one of them, who was dating a newspaper editor, put us into contact.
KC

k caslava · 11:06 PM

And she put some of my work into her paper
KC

k caslava · 11:06 PM

That was on a Thursday. On Monday, I was called into the Peace Corps head office, and summarily fired.
KC

k caslava · 11:07 PM

They had, in those 100 hours, found everything I'd ever written, on Facebook, Twitter, my personal blog, in US media, under pseudonyms, you name it.
KC

k caslava · 11:08 PM

I was confronted with a ream or more of paper, organized and categorized with my online life of at least the past four years, across a variety of platforms, and including some of what I had previously thought to be "private" communications.
KC

k caslava · 11:08 PM

Turns out privacy doesn't really apply to those who can compel the owners of major websites to turn over your data.
KC

k caslava · 11:09 PM

So I was given a plane ticket home, and told to leave. And instead I took my government issue passport and hopped on a bus.
KC

k caslava · 11:09 PM

Lived the next year across central america, and got into a whole lot of other trouble that doesn't much fit the topic.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:09 PM

So...if anybody has a reason to be paranoid, it's you. That's a terrifying experience, and it sort of ruined what was going on in your life at the time.
KC

k caslava · 11:10 PM

It destroyed my entire life. I wasn't even doing anything that could be considered "bad." The writing that was in that paper was already released 3 months prior via approved channels.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:10 PM

Because getting g into the Peace Corps and leaving your life for 2-3 years is not cheap or easy, which is why not many manage it.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:10 PM

★ Spotlighted from Rachel McDonnell

so why did they show you this data? to scare you? or just as evidence of why you were being fired?

KC

k caslava · 11:11 PM

Rachel - they saw some of this data as evidence that others within their organization were involved in behavior they didn't approve of. I was offered continued employment if I gave up my colleagues.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:11 PM

Sick.
KC

k caslava · 11:11 PM

I believe it was also an intimidation tactic. "We know what you're doing and who you are."
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:12 PM

"See how much we know???"
KC

k caslava · 11:12 PM

But I was lucky enough to be in a position where, young and wild, the bit of money and language skills I had were enough to give me an alternative.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:13 PM

Well, and you were angry enough and willful enough to figure out a way to not return home beaten.
KC

k caslava · 11:13 PM

In the end, I was told point blank that I was being made an example of. It wasn't about me, it was about telling all peace corps volunteers that they were forbidden to speak except through official channels. The new policy had just come into effect.
KC

k caslava · 11:13 PM

That also, Becky.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:14 PM

i actually had a really hard time believing your story when I heard it. It just...how could they do that, you know?
KC

k caslava · 11:14 PM

I don't know if anyone realizes that it takes 2-3 years to enter the Peace Corps, and that it is a 2 year commitment to a very difficult life. And having made that all, having said goodbye to my entire life, I faced the utter destruction of my life.
KC

k caslava · 11:15 PM

Anyway, I've written a lot more of that on a blog I kept at the time.
KC

k caslava · 11:15 PM

It's called Mental Cigarettes, I'm sure it's searchable.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:15 PM

Oh, that's a good joke.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:15 PM

SO, that brings us to our premise here today.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:16 PM

Which is:
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:17 PM

that the surveillance state has been growing increasingly with no oversight and very little public resistance since 2001.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:17 PM

And we should be scared and we should be doing something.
KC

k caslava · 11:17 PM

The rise of the global police state, and what that entails on a personal level
KC

k caslava · 11:18 PM

is that everything you do, every movement you make daily, every purchase, payment, every interaction, every relationship, everything that makes up the fabric of your daily life is now being recorded, stored, and analyzed for patterns.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:18 PM

Great!
KC

k caslava · 11:18 PM

These patterns are what we call "your personality" and your inner thoughts
KC

k caslava · 11:19 PM

We're at, right now, not at some future date, the point where your future behavior can be reliably predicted, and using your past information, you can be found guilty of any number of illegal actions.
KC

k caslava · 11:20 PM

My machine is having trouble with the site - typing issues. Sorry to be so slow at it.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:20 PM

It's cool. Hitting refresh occasionally helps. :)
KC

k caslava · 11:21 PM

Here's an interesting tidbit - my computer spontaneously generated a process using "image capture" that was sucking up all my spare computer cycles.
KC

k caslava · 11:22 PM

Probably a coincidence.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:22 PM

★ Spotlighted from Robin Bakay

It seems to me that the collapse happened officially on 9/11.

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:22 PM

That's not too strange an idea, Robin.
KC

k caslava · 11:23 PM

And every time I kill the running process, it immediately recreates itself. Again, probably a coincidence.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:23 PM

How...convenient. ;)
KC

k caslava · 11:23 PM

So, this is my public computer. The one tied to my identity, the identity as a known troublemaker, activist, and all around pain in the ass.
KC

k caslava · 11:23 PM

And this machine gets some very interesting attacks and visitors
KC

k caslava · 11:24 PM

In any case, part of what I'm trying to address is the ubiquity and unavoidable nature of surveillance
KC

k caslava · 11:24 PM

and the dangers this poses to anything resembling a free society.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:24 PM

Sigh. Well, we know that some US military kiddos are assigned to create fake identities and troll all over the internet. It's likely that there are virus trolls employed by the gov, as well.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:25 PM

So what do you think about the 9-11 thing?
KC

k caslava · 11:25 PM

More than likely, actually working in the wild these days.
KC

k caslava · 11:26 PM

The FBI recently raided an irish-run internet service provider, and replaced their websites with an error message that also logged your computers unique identifiers and location and sent them back to Virginia.
KC

k caslava · 11:26 PM

9/11, the 24/7 excuse for everything?
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:26 PM

And this:
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:26 PM

★ Spotlighted from Robin Bakay

I guess the question is in this world of surveillance is what is America hiding?

KC

k caslava · 11:27 PM

I think it has been very effectively leveraged into the justification for moving beyond soft (economic) empire, toward hard (force based) empire
KC

k caslava · 11:27 PM

What America is hiding might be best called the "shadow government" if we want to wear tin hats, or the military-industrial-media-intelligence-surveillance complex
KC

k caslava · 11:28 PM

which keeps getting more complex, and more interconnected. And global. It is not an american problem, global surveillance. The USA is simply best positioned to do it, by sitting at the center of the empire.
KC

k caslava · 11:29 PM

center of the internet, that is.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:29 PM

Did you mean America, as in the government, or Americans, the citizenry?
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:29 PM

Because the citizenry isn;t hiding much.
KC

k caslava · 11:29 PM

As the big tech companies almost all sit within the USA, the US government holds the ability to copy all internet traffic to and from google, facebook, microsoft, skype (microsoft now) and twitter and all the rest.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:30 PM

★ Spotlighted from Rachel McDonnell

yes it is the top 1% big money douchebags that run our world and make us think we need to fight against each other.. when they are all in this together... and here we sit divided which is what they want

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:30 PM

I think that's precisely the point, Rach.
KC

k caslava · 11:30 PM

And that's really what is happening - all of the traffic on the internet is being captured, not individuals', and certainly not just some of it. The design of the internet makes it very simple to monitor everything, very difficult to monitor any one.
KC

k caslava · 11:31 PM

And now computer processing speeds and storage capacities have caught up with the volume of internet traffic, and everything can be read, categorized, and filtered in real time
KC

k caslava · 11:32 PM

We live in a strange moment, because perhaps at no other time has more of our collective lives been visible and accessible to those with money and processing power.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:32 PM

I don't even know why you'd WANT that info.
KC

k caslava · 11:33 PM

Well, its not exciting, thats for sure.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:33 PM

LOTS of cat video watchers...
KC

k caslava · 11:34 PM

But if you want to control people, if your end is power, then knowing who knows who, what they talk about, and where they go, what their work is, what they study... that becomes power-enhancing
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:34 PM

★ Spotlighted from Robin Bakay

They prey on the gullibility of humanity. omg. we're doomed.

KC

k caslava · 11:34 PM

The cat videos are the chaff. It gets tossed out easily enough. What the groups in power are interested in are the people talking about them, and more than that, talking about how to combat them.
KC

k caslava · 11:35 PM

The plans of other governments, of corporations, of groups of activists, of anyone who is discontented.
KC

k caslava · 11:35 PM

Think about it: if you had all the power, and your goal was to keep the power, then isn't your dream to know what everyone is saying to one another, what they're doing alone, where they go, etc?
KC

k caslava · 11:35 PM

To know all that, and to manipulate it.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:35 PM

The thing is, we need to talk about resistance. It's ironic that the internet is the biggest advance for activists and it's also our Achilles' heel.
KC

k caslava · 11:35 PM

That's the end, that's what the information goes toward.
KC

k caslava · 11:36 PM

I have a quote by Julian Assange. If anyone has not read his book "Cypherpunks" I recommend it. He also wrote a blog 20 years ago worth reading
KC

k caslava · 11:37 PM

"The world is galloping, not sliding into a new international dystopia. This development has not been properly recognized outside of national security circles."
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:37 PM

But the thing is, Kevin, we've been warned SO many times!
KC

k caslava · 11:38 PM

"the internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous tool of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization."
KC

k caslava · 11:38 PM

We have been warned. But we have also been avalanched with warnings, with data, with more, more, more.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:38 PM

Science fiction writers, activists, everyone has been predicting this stuff with terrifying accuracy for the last century and it hasn't stopped anything!
KC

k caslava · 11:38 PM

Chicken Little comes to mind.
KC

k caslava · 11:39 PM

No, it hasn't. Fahrenheit 451, The Machine Stops, 1984, and all the rest were right on the money. And we have not changed course.
KC

k caslava · 11:39 PM

But it isn't something that we just throw our hands up over. There's still ways out of this nonsense. The internet is still able to help us.
KC

k caslava · 11:40 PM

Because it is incredibly useful. And there is no other communications medium capable of the same reach, without censorship.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:40 PM

It unsettles me every time something else happens, every time the screws tighten and language is lifted right out of Orwell's 1984 or Animal Farm.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:40 PM

I feel like a crazy person, because no one else seems to notice.
KC

k caslava · 11:40 PM

So it is my position that we must use it, if we are to save civilization, and that means finding a way around the censors and watchers.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:41 PM

It's true.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:41 PM

This is the critical moment.
KC

k caslava · 11:41 PM

Yeah, I don't get invited to too many parties.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:41 PM

The time for change is now, which means that violence and repression will escalate.
KC

k caslava · 11:42 PM

It's always the critical moment. There is no other. There will never be a "too late" just as there was never a "too soon." History and life move in circles until we do what we are supposed to.
KC

k caslava · 11:42 PM

Yes. I'm sure everyone here has seen the ratcheting violence and oppressing worldwide.
KC

k caslava · 11:42 PM

And global surveillance has risen in lockstep with the rising oppression.
KC

k caslava · 11:43 PM

Likely, we'll see a continuation for our entire lives, barring some sort of relief from population pressures and resource competition between states and corporate actors.
KC

k caslava · 11:43 PM

★ Spotlighted from Rachel McDonnell

I think one of the reasons people didn't act is labels like conspiracy theorist, crazies, or sci-fi (not real) and people just thought "yeah right" more people wake up as the economy continues to tank

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:43 PM

But I feel like evolution happens not just as a biological mechanism. We're in a global cultural awakening.
KC

k caslava · 11:43 PM

It does get harder to ignore Rachel, when one's belly is empty and the kids' too.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:44 PM

It's time for something to happen.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:44 PM

I think that's why power is nervous.
KC

k caslava · 11:44 PM

Yeah, I don't believe it's a biological process we're looking at here. This is competing mindsets, coming to no point of agreement, and each side going to their strengths.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:45 PM

That's a good way to put it.
KC

k caslava · 11:45 PM

Those who want to control and hold the lion's share are going to keep focusing on ways to control critical resources, and among them is the freedom to express one's ideas, either with legitimacy or at all.
KC

k caslava · 11:46 PM

Looking abroad for a moment - In venezuela and in Russia we're seeing state media playing the private phone calls and showing private videos of political opponents in order to embarass and undemine them.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:46 PM

We see it here, too. Every election season.
KC

k caslava · 11:46 PM

All taken by "normal" intrusive surveillance, no specific targetting needed.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:46 PM

★ Spotlighted from Robin Bakay

I hate to seem selfish, but I have two little boys. Do you see this happening in our lifetime?

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:47 PM

I have a 2-year-old...it's going down as we speak.
KC

k caslava · 11:47 PM

Robin - this is now. This is all already here. Nothing I will speak of today is future tense.
KC

k caslava · 11:47 PM

It's grim, but we must face the truth of our situation if we are going to fix anything.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:47 PM

So what can we do to fix it?
KC

k caslava · 11:48 PM

Here's what I would say are my most salient points: surveillance is total and omnipresent. secondly, there is no way to use law to constrain organizations who by their nature work outside the law. Thirdly, we must rely on what is impossible,
KC

k caslava · 11:48 PM

rather than what is illegal, to constrain those watching us and trying to control us.
KC

k caslava · 11:48 PM

Does everyone know Edward Snowden?
KC

k caslava · 11:49 PM

He's ex-NSA, worked for a contractor called Booz Allen, one of the largest companies on earth, and recently fled the USA and leaked secret documents to the Guardian and other papers. Primarily he leaked to Glenn Greenwald, American living in Brasil
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:50 PM

Yup.
KC

k caslava · 11:50 PM

Edward Snowden said a few months ago that one of the few weapons we have left is good encryption. It is still unbreakable.
KC

k caslava · 11:51 PM

Julian Assange, Jacob Applebaum, and several others who make their lives in the grey area outside the law have said similar things.
KC

k caslava · 11:51 PM

Becky, you asked how we fix it.
KC

k caslava · 11:51 PM

We have to encrypt everything, disguise it in unbreakable nonsense, readable only by the parties we choose to communicate with.
KC

k caslava · 11:52 PM

That's the only way left to us. We turn the open internet into our mask, and tunnel beneath it, hiding messages in plain sight, using obscurity and complex math to make it work.
KC

k caslava · 11:52 PM

And atop that, we radically change our internet habits.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:53 PM

★ Spotlighted from Rachel McDonnell

back to the underground railroad and revolution days with covert names and language.

KC

k caslava · 11:53 PM

The conversation has to change, away from "Dude cool photos of your kid we saw on facebook" and toward "here, people I actually know, you can see my photos. And everyone else gets gibberish."
KC

k caslava · 11:54 PM

Yes. Time to move away from internet 2.0 or whatever you want to call the user-created, centralized internet.
KC

k caslava · 11:54 PM

Toward pseudonymous, deniable, unreadable, untraceable communications.
KC

k caslava · 11:54 PM

The good news is, as the surveillance gets easier, the hiding does too.
KC

k caslava · 11:54 PM

Because 6 years ago, what I'm going to suggest to you all was so difficult I spent until now learning how to do it, and how it worked
KC

k caslava · 11:55 PM

and now, you can download thousands of peoples hard work for free, and run it off of a USB stick.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:56 PM

★ Spotlighted from Rachel McDonnell

@Robin activists could potentially create a system for people who can't write code.. but you'd have to prove you weren't on the 'other" side which could get tricky.. definitely an age where we need computer programmers on our side

KC

k caslava · 11:56 PM

The answer to global surveillance is global encryption, running off of cleverly designed applications on very well protected USB stick computer system.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:56 PM

That's sort of (exactly) what K is proposing.
KC

k caslava · 11:56 PM

One example is tails. https://tails.boum.org/
KC

k caslava · 11:56 PM

it's designed for journalists, and well, for most anyone.
KC

k caslava · 11:57 PM

It's where we are at in terms of the nexus between usability and security. It's preconfigured, and you'll notice immediately while slow, it doesn't really hinder you or require you to learn command line prompts.
KC

k caslava · 11:58 PM

In a nutshell, Tails is designed to look exactly like every other tails machine out there, to share traffic in order to obscure its origins and destination, and to encrypt all of one's communications by default.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 11:58 PM

Nice.
KC

k caslava · 11:58 PM

And still, for all of its ease, tails requires you to spend a few hundred hours learning the intricacies of Onion Routing, Off the Record messaging, and Public/Private key encryption.
KC

k caslava · 11:59 PM

You must understand, the adversary here is so big, the resources arrayed against us are so mighty, that it may never get much easier than this. I hope it does, and there are some inroads being made, but currently, you must have an open heart and mind
KC

k caslava · 12:00 AM

Here is an alternative to Tails: http://dee.su/liberte
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:01 AM

★ Spotlighted from Anyus Grasso

I appreciate the fact that these tools are made available to use, but the fact that they are necessary for the ordinary Internet user is both sad and terryfing.

KC

k caslava · 12:01 AM

Called Liberte Linux, it is also designed to be USB mounted operating system, extremely tiny, set up for maximum secrecy, and which erases all changes made upon being shut down, to the point of randomizing your machine's RAM
KC

k caslava · 12:01 AM

Yes Anyus, I absolutely agree.
KC

k caslava · 12:01 AM

This page shows a good overview of what the threats posed are: http://dee.su/liberte-motivation
KC

k caslava · 12:02 AM

And one more link before I stop bombing these on you all: This is where a lot of very smart activists hang out to discuss technology and how to use it to help people: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:03 AM

★ Spotlighted from Peg Paluch

Genicide, homicide,, starvation, and the USA doesn't take care of our own.

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:03 AM

Well, Peg, if you think of the US Government as essentially a psycopath, it doesn't seem so personal.
KC

k caslava · 12:03 AM

Remember - this is not only the USA. The USA is best positioned to do it, but anyone with $10,000,000 can do this to a country of about 10 million.
KC

k caslava · 12:04 AM

Hence why we see Bahrain, Iran, and China doing exactly the same thing.
KC

k caslava · 12:04 AM

This is a natural course for those who value power.
KC

k caslava · 12:05 AM

I want to encourage people to consider what Becky is saying here: to view governments as essentially psychopathic creates a more realistic relationship between them and us.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:05 AM

★ Spotlighted from Rachel McDonnell

which they are Rebecca as we have discussed. Douchebags AND Psychopaths... yep that's who controls us *awesome&

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:05 AM

★ Spotlighted from Robin Bakay

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:05 AM

★ Spotlighted from Robin Bakay

We're so past the USA caring. It's a sad world, out there, Peg.

KC

k caslava · 12:06 AM

So then, the natural step from realizing that we have a problem is to talk about, and try to reach upon a solution.
KC

k caslava · 12:06 AM

And that is where these sorts of programs interpose themselves. Keeping people quiet, making sure they don't speak together, and intimidating them not to speak honestly.
KC

k caslava · 12:06 AM

I see two paths before us, two paths toward a better world.
KC

k caslava · 12:07 AM

And we will have to take both somewhat, some of us down one, some down the other.
KC

k caslava · 12:07 AM

The first path is secrecy
KC

k caslava · 12:07 AM

Hiding our words, speaking in coded messages across deniable gulfs of 0s and 1s.
KC

k caslava · 12:07 AM

The second path is to lose our fear.
KC

k caslava · 12:08 AM

To come forward publicly and state that we know what these people are doing, and we refuse to participate.
KC

k caslava · 12:08 AM

There is no excuse to have a facebook anymore. It is the perfect surveillance tool. The Stasi could never conceive an engine of mass surveilance and behavioural manipulation
KC

k caslava · 12:09 AM

It's convenience overlaying a network that knows your facial structure, waking hours, location, job, and most of all your relationships.
KC

k caslava · 12:09 AM

Your relationships are, at the most basic level, who you are.
KC

k caslava · 12:09 AM

Without others, we don't exist, not in the sense of social human animals.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:10 AM

That's all so true, but isn't that the first best reason to keep using Facebook, to say, hey, I am here and you can't so this?
KC

k caslava · 12:10 AM

I spent a lot of time hiding in the shadows, afraid to make splashes on the internet. It was impossible to be a writer and online activist again, knowing that everything I did was being used against me in the court of outside the law
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:10 AM

To say, Hey - I see this! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/02/miranda-rights-trimmed-do_n_667023.html
KC

k caslava · 12:11 AM

Perhaps. But it would probably be better to do something far more radical. And the satisfaction gained by posting that link on facebook keeps millions from taking no further action.
KC

k caslava · 12:11 AM

"Yeah, I like that." We click instead of going outside and smashing a CCTV camera.
KC

k caslava · 12:11 AM

Not that random property damage with fix things either.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:12 AM

I understand. I do. I am paranoid as hell. But I don't know how else to stay informed and how to reach other people.
KC

k caslava · 12:12 AM

But facebook is a more perfect opiate than religion.
KC

k caslava · 12:12 AM

I have decided upon writing letters, and speaking in person.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:12 AM

Writing letter to friends, or to your Congressmen? Because one is effective and the other is essentially worthless.
KC

k caslava · 12:13 AM

In much the same way that writing your congressman is more effective than emailing, writing your friends is much more effective than facebooking them. And an envelope fits a tiny micro SD card of encrypted secrets very easily.
KC

k caslava · 12:13 AM

Anything in the physical world is more secure than the digital one. You're better off spraypainting your private details on a billboard than posting them to a website, just in terms of who gets to see it.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:13 AM

But it gets scanned and recorded, too. All your letters and packages are digitally recorded by the USPS.
KC

k caslava · 12:13 AM

Yes, their outsides do.
KC

k caslava · 12:14 AM

Which is a great reason to start pre-printing your labels and sending from false, generic names.
KC

k caslava · 12:14 AM

★ Spotlighted from Anyus Grasso

How great would it be if all these big social media companies would take a step and stand on the right side of the issue... they could provide the perfect enviroment for people to organize, and yes, share the ocasional cat video if they want.

KC

k caslava · 12:14 AM

I agree with this sentiment. There are some things they can do. But not under the current models
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:15 AM

LOL, to K and Anyus.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:15 AM

The hardest part for me is my own stubbornness. I don't WANT to lie, abscond, obfuscate. I just want to be straightforward and live my life.
KC

k caslava · 12:15 AM

There is no way to build a secure facebook, or a secure gmail. Email and facebook are centralized services. As long as their is a central server, the data can be collected. There are some intersting new exceptions, like Silent Circle
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:15 AM

I have trouble bending, thinking that I need to bend.
KC

k caslava · 12:16 AM

http://www.silentcircle.de/silent-circle.html
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:16 AM

I feel as if I'm being dishonest, and I am not a dishonest person, even to my own detriment.
KC

k caslava · 12:16 AM

Yes, Becky, that is a hell of a thing.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:16 AM

★ Spotlighted from Anyus Grasso

Yes, I get what you are saying. But I also love being able to meet people from around the world wit whom I share interests and ideas, I love that about it. I wouldn't have meet these people any other way.

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:16 AM

★ Spotlighted from Robin Bakay

Like, rename ourselves?

KC

k caslava · 12:16 AM

I've tried always to be truthful in my life, and it has been a lot of work in lying, even if by lying all I mean is hiding the contents and recipients of your messages
KC

k caslava · 12:17 AM

Robin - I was once impelled to send some sensitive objects across the USA, because I didn't want them on me. I sent them from an imaginary person, at a legitimate address, to myself across the nation.
KC

k caslava · 12:18 AM

It's not like that makes things foolproof, but it certainly helps to muddy the waters.
KC

k caslava · 12:19 AM

Anyus - what you are saying is one of the reasons why I'm speaking publically about this
KC

k caslava · 12:19 AM

We need everyone to do it, not just one or a dozen folks.
KC

k caslava · 12:19 AM

We need to change the culture of the internet. Because right now, it is headed off a cliff.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:19 AM

★ Spotlighted from Peg Paluch

I have paid out more to lawyers than I wish to remember. Adoptees can not get original birth certificates, thus violating the freedom of information act.

RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:19 AM

Peg, that's terrible!
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:20 AM

It certainly is! Every time we kill SOPA, it comes back to life. It will only take a few more times, or a bill rider, for people to get so tired of it they stop paying attention.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:20 AM

I see what they're doing!
KC

k caslava · 12:20 AM

Wow Peg, you might want to look the few nations that offer citizenship for sale, but otherwise I don't know what to suggest to you. Sneaking a border is an option, but neither Canada nor Mexico is a very hospitable place to be doing that sort of thin
KC

k caslava · 12:20 AM

★ Spotlighted from Rachel McDonnell

so you just "borrowed" someone else's address on the envelope to send it?

KC

k caslava · 12:21 AM

Rachel - exactly. Some fake name, some other address. And with myself (or at least, the name I was using at the time) as the recipient.
KC

k caslava · 12:21 AM

Remember, the federal budget can't pay for a good post office, so security is very lax.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:22 AM

:D
KC

k caslava · 12:23 AM

Also, remember that the digital and analog worlds scale differently
KC

k caslava · 12:23 AM

reality scales linearly, while digital things scale exponentially. A system that tracks a million people is not so different from 7 billion people online
KC

k caslava · 12:23 AM

but in the real world, that represents hundreds of millions of new staff, new hands, etc.
KC

k caslava · 12:24 AM

I would say, as basic policy, mail things that you want to be kept safe, on encrypted usb sticks, and send the password via some secured communication channel, like a VOIP program that isn't skype.
KC

k caslava · 12:25 AM

And for your internet needs, the programs that you should look into are first TOR http://torproject.us/ and second Tails https://tails.boum.org/
KC

k caslava · 12:26 AM

The important thing here is recognize the problem, and to see that the solution boils down to a shift of paradigm. There is no good reason the internet works as it does.
KC

k caslava · 12:27 AM

Decentralization would make it 1) nearly free, as in beer 2) nearly free, as in speech, and 3) impossible to censor. We would have to adjust, but think of adjusting to the current paradigm. Do you remember it?
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:27 AM

Just as there's no good reason that society works as it does - it's a set of rules we scrabbled together as we developed.
KC

k caslava · 12:27 AM

Was it some grand struggle, or the adoption of new tools as they proved better than what you were using before?
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:27 AM

Exactly.
KC

k caslava · 12:28 AM

becky - Yes quite that. We are quick to assign reason to things, because our minds hunger for it.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:28 AM

We can do better, we can change to suit our needs, so why don't we?
KC

k caslava · 12:28 AM

I spoke earlier today with the Dalai lama
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:28 AM

For real
KC

k caslava · 12:28 AM

He was asked "how do I build an engine in me, to do good work in spite of my fear?"
KC

k caslava · 12:28 AM

Yes, for real :)
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:29 AM

(That was supposed to have a period...)
KC

k caslava · 12:29 AM

And his answer was great. He said you must do something. You must act. Compassion implies action. You cannot be compassionate and do nothing.
KC

k caslava · 12:29 AM

We do not act out of fear. We act out of love. And as some here have mentioned, Anyus coming to mind, we do activism because we love it. We love people, so we talk to them.
KC

k caslava · 12:30 AM

We do not have to leap off the ship, and abandon the internet.
KC

k caslava · 12:30 AM

But we need to see the dangers clearly, and we need to urge as many as possible that a new ship, one controlled and manned by us, is the only way to weather the storm
KC

k caslava · 12:30 AM

And with that, I know Becky has a baby to care for.
KC

k caslava · 12:30 AM

And I am blathering.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:31 AM

Those are pretty hopeful words, there, K.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:31 AM

I appreciate that.
KC

k caslava · 12:31 AM

Pandora kept hope for us. I know there are many, from Derrick Jensen to a whole host of great activists, who believe acting without hope is both desirable and more effective, I disagree.
KC

k caslava · 12:32 AM

My heart, my soul, and god demand hope.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:32 AM

Indeed.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:32 AM

How the hell else do you get up in the morning? I mean, really.
KC

k caslava · 12:33 AM

Cocaine.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:33 AM

Nah. I'm still breastfeeding.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:33 AM

Anyway, thank you all for being here.
KC

k caslava · 12:33 AM

Indeed. I'm thankful to any and all who stick around for topics like this.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:33 AM

The comments were wonderful. Now, go encrypt your shit! Now!
KC

k caslava · 12:33 AM

Because the gray, grittiness of it deters a whole lot of participation.
KC

k caslava · 12:34 AM

So please, take a look at what I've linked, and don't worry if you don't understand how encryption works. Hardly a few thousand people do. Just learn how to use it, and well.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:34 AM

And, you can go listen to this and feel better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3KXQiMsh2Q
KC

k caslava · 12:34 AM

Especially the bit about how to choose your pass phrases. One last link:
KC

k caslava · 12:34 AM

http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html
KC

k caslava · 12:35 AM

haha
KC

k caslava · 12:35 AM

yes, music
KC

k caslava · 12:35 AM

laughter
KC

k caslava · 12:35 AM

babies
KC

k caslava · 12:35 AM

Remember why we fight. For if a society does not provide music and love and laughter, what good is it? These things are not the extras, the scraps supported by politics and economy.
KC

k caslava · 12:36 AM

Politics and economy are tolerable evils only when they enable us to have art, music, love, and all the rest. And babies.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:36 AM

Wise words.
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:36 AM

Take it easy, all. Thanks for being here.
KC

k caslava · 12:36 AM

If anyone has any questions, I'll stick around a few minutes and answer
KC

k caslava · 12:36 AM

goodnight becky
RT

Rebecca Westbrook Toker · 12:36 AM

See you around, K. :) Bee good!
KC

k caslava · 12:37 AM

Tenga buenas suenos
KC

k caslava · 12:38 AM

★ Spotlighted from Seth Westbrook Toker

QUESTION:so how is the idea of teaching how to be elusive and still connected

KC

k caslava · 12:39 AM

Seth - can you repeat that? I'm not sure I understand
KC

k caslava · 12:40 AM

★ Spotlighted from Seth Westbrook Toker

How do you feel about teaching that, i ask

KC

k caslava · 12:40 AM

Oh, I understand. I felt reluctant for a long time.
KC

k caslava · 12:40 AM

Everyone who gets into this arena gets targetted.
KC

k caslava · 12:40 AM

I am still keeping a relatively low profile
KC

k caslava · 12:40 AM

But I'm diversifying my interests
KC

k caslava · 12:41 AM

Citizenship in one country, residence in another, business based in a third.
KC

k caslava · 12:41 AM

The idea is to keep oneself out of the complete grasp of any one national entity, or corporate for that matter. And I suppose it helps to be low maintenance.
KC

k caslava · 12:42 AM

Mostly, I want to teach people how to teach themselves. A teacher is not judged based on how many students they have, but how many knowledgable people they enable to do good things.
KC

k caslava · 12:42 AM

But I'm thinking of doing courses, online or otherwise.
KC

k caslava · 12:42 AM

Because the learning curve on this is steeper than I'd like, and steeper than I expect people to take, unless they're driven as I was.
KC

k caslava · 12:43 AM

Right, so does anyone mind if I scoot out of here?
KC

k caslava · 12:43 AM

It's about bedtime, plus a bit.
KC

k caslava · 12:44 AM

Alright, goodnight everyone. Thank you again for coming by.
KC

k caslava · 1:01 AM

★ Spotlighted from Seth Westbrook Toker

well, let us know when they start, i belive the sooner the better to learn this stuff.

KC

k caslava · 1:01 AM

Sure thing seth.
KC

k caslava · 1:01 AM

I'll pass it along the improper channels