The owner of Groklaw has chosen to shut down her service. She can't see a way to work without email and, since the NSA is vacuuming it all up, she's quitting. (H/T) She's not the only one to conclude that and shut down.
Imagine that you are talking to a good friend over lunch. All of a sudden, a cop sits down at your table and says: "Don't mind me, please, continue on."
That, Gentle Readers, is where we are today. The Google has already declared that Gmail offers no privacy. Google claims that they are not like the Post Office, no, they are more like your secretary, so they read everything.
Meanwhile, the MTAHNS is now claiming that they should have the right to search your cell phone without a warrant. Because that part in the Fourth Amendment about being secure in your effects--
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.--only applies to those "effects" that you might have had in 1791, I gather. So as long as you write out your letter using a quill pen and then give it to a dispatch rider on horseback, you're still within the Fourth Amendment.
Of course, don't expect to hear anything objecting to it from the likes of Sen. Feinstein (D-DDR) or Rep. King (R-CCCP). Others, though, are objecting, especially to the part where Obama, in essence, claims that if you failed to object to his kicking you in the nuts, then kicking you in the nuts is legal. Which is pretty goddamned outrageous. Can you imagine a burglar telling the cops that because the property owner didn't file a police report, that it was legal to rob the place?
Oh, and if you're looking for a secure email service, these are the "Five Eyes" Countries: The United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. You would be well advised to not choose an email service based in any one of them. Regardless, make sure that you do the encryption on your system, not theirs. And if you want to be really safe, do the encryption and decryption on a comuter system that is "air-gapped" (not connected to the Internet). And use a very long passphrase.
On encryption programs, any thoughts on what's good?
Not a programmer, but I'd kind of like to write an app that continuously sends encoded random text to a database of millions of email addresses all over the world, one at a time, all day long. Make it operate invisibly to the user, apart from showing cute kitty pics.
ReplyDeleteLet it spread to all computer and mobile users all over the globe... anyone interested in giving Big Brother a huge fucking headache.
<<-only applies to those "effects" that you might have had in 1791, I gather. So as long as you write out your letter using a quill pen and then give it to a dispatch rider on horseback, you're still within the Fourth Amendment.>>>
ReplyDeleteDoesn't work the pony rider is a third party. ;)
Current level says a passkey length of 1024 is barely enough but 2048 is currently.. for a while.
eck!
About Groklaw the site founder is Pamela Jones. So adjust your pronouns... Thanks for the news.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jim. That was sheer laziness on my part.
ReplyDeleteI use TrueCrypt for encrypting my private stuff, eg. memory-sticks.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit sceptical about the usefullness of the 'plausible deniability' feature because several countries make it a crime to not disclose the keys to encrypted material.