The Privacy Blog Podcast – Ep.7: Blacklisted SSL Certificates, Social Media Hacking, and the “Right to be Forgotten” Online

Welcome to episode 7 of The Privacy Blog Podcast. In April’s episode, we’ll be looking at the blacklisting of SSL certificate authorities by Mozilla Firefox - Specifically, what this complex issue means and why Mozilla chose to start doing this.

In more breaking online privacy news, I will be discussing the security implications of relying on social media following the hacking of the Associated Press Twitter account earlier this week.

Next, I’ll chat about the “right to be forgotten” on the Internet, which hinges on the struggle between online privacy and free speech rights. In a closely related topic and following Google’s release of the new “Inactive Account Manager,” I will discuss what happens to our social media presence and cloud data when we die. It’s a topic none of us likes to dwell on, but it’s worth taking the time to think about our digital afterlife.

My philosophy on privacy and anonymity

I have recently seen chatter suggesting people are confused about my thinking and allegiances on various privacy issues. First, a few core beliefs that form the axioms underlying my actions and positions.

I believe that:

• The basic design of the Internet and the protocols that run on top of it make it the most privacy hostile major communications media ever used.
• Censorship and widespread surveillance are inimical to free speech and free expression.
• Personal privacy is critical to our social, societal, and mental health.
• There are criminals, terrorists, and governments whose activities will undermine the quality of life for myself, friends, and family.
• Law enforcement and intelligence organizations are a necessary part of a functioning society.
• Governments and other organizations are made up of real people with real and diverse opinions and are not monolithic entities and edifices of conformity.
• If data is valuable to someone, and is sitting around in a database or other storage, it is very likely to be compromised at some point, in some way.

So, these basic tenants lead me to take the following opinions:

Individuals need the ability to robustly protect their privacy when engaging on-line. While not all areas of the Internet are appropriate for anonymity (I really want my bank to make sure it is me accessing my accounts), anonymity / pseudonymity should be an option in most social spaces on the Internet.

Not only are most websites not inclined or incentivized to help you be anonymous, but the very structure of the Internet encourages detailed logging such that creating anonymity friendly systems is quite hard.

All providers of privacy services are fundamentally saying “trust me and I will protect you.” Any claims about how a service works rely on the operator to have actually implemented the system as claimed. At the end of the day this is only backed up by the reputation of the operators of those systems. Choose wisely.

Criminals and other “hostiles” are indiscriminate in their use of technologies. They will use the best tool for any job. The Internet is no exception to this rule. While there is a long history and extensive precedent for plain clothes and under cover police and intelligence activities in the meatspace, the same is not true for cyberspace. Yet, the same need applies. If one is trying to engage with a criminal on the Internet, doing so as a law enforcement officer, from known law enforcement IP addresses is going to imperil the investigation at the very least.

What does this mean for me and how I comport myself?

I have chosen to very publicly back the Anonymizer.com privacy services with my personal reputation. I have been active in the personal privacy space since I started running anonymous remailers as a grad student in 1992. I have been creating new privacy services since I wrote Mixmaster in 1993. I created the “Kosovo privacy project” during the Kosovo conflict to enable people in the country to report on atrocities going on. I have provided multiple anonymity and anti-censorship tools for the Chinese and Iranian people, protecting hundreds of thousands of their citizens against their own country. Human rights and free speech are passions of mine. Anonymizer.com itself has protected countless numbers of users of its services. In all that time there has never been a case where we have violated the privacy assurances we have made to our customers. This is not because we have not been tested. Anonymizer is regularly subpoenaed for information on our customers’ activities. Compare this to a relative newcomer “HideMyAss.com.” They, as it turns out, did keep logs and were compelled to compromise the privacy of a member of LulzSec. There are numerous examples of TOR exit nodes monitoring and even altering traffic. With a much longer and weightier track record, you will find no such incidents with Anonymizer. It is logically impossible to prove a negative, but our history speaks volumes. Anonymizer will never provide a back door or violate any of our privacy assurances while my name is attached to it. Reputation is hard to earn and easy to squander. It is my personally most valuable asset.

Law enforcement and other government entities need anonymity and pseudonymity tools too. In their cases the people trying to pierce the veil are often much more motivated, skilled, funded, and resourced, than those tying to identify ordinary individuals. It is not practical, reasonable, or desirable to have these groups simply ignore the Internet in the scope of their responsibilities I have been involved in the creation and operation of numerous tools to enable such organizations to do their jobs on-line as they do off-line. In working with these people I have discovered that they are “people.” They hold diverse opinions about privacy and anonymity. Many are personally closely aligned with my beliefs. They are also tightly constrained by legal limitations on what they can do. Watching my U.S. government customers struggle with their legal departments to do even the simplest and most innocuous activities, while very frustrating, makes me sleep much better at night.

While there have certainly been times when the U.S. Government has overstepped its authorities, they are rare, and we know about these because they came out. The diversity of people in these organizations makes any of the grand conspiracies I see discussed on the Internet absurd on their face. Secrets are either known by very few people and thus limited in scope, are reasonable to just about everyone who all agree they should be kept secret, or will get leaked or blown in some way.

Some users of my personal / consumer privacy services see themselves as in opposition to some or all of my corporate or government users, and vice versa. I think both are important and I protect the anonymity of all of my customers equally. There is no “crossing of the streams.” None of my customers get any special insight into the identities or activities of any of my other customers. As above, there are no secrets like that which would last very long, and it would destroy my reputation.

Honor, reputation, and a man’s word being his bond may be very old fashioned ideas these days, but they carry great weight with me. I hope this clarifies where I stand.

Facebook "Like" not protected speech in Virginia

Courthouse News Service reports that a virginia judge has ruled Facebook "Likes" are not protected speech.

The case was related to employees of the Hampton VA sheriff's office who "Liked" the current sheriff's opponent in the last election. After he was re-elected, he fired many of the people who had supported his opponent.

The judge ruled that posts on Facebook would have been protected, but not simple Likes.

PM David Cameron on censorship: bad when you do it, OK when I do it.

Back in February, British Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech where he strongly opposed the censorship and crack down on protesters in Egypt.

For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling regimes, and that reform and openness would put that stability at risk. So, the argument went, countries like Britain faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past. But I say that is a false choice.
As recent events have confirmed, denying people their basic rights does not preserve stability, rather the reverse. Our interests lie in upholding our values - in insisting on the right to peaceful protest, in freedom of speech and the internet, in freedom of assembly and the rule of law. But these are not just our values, but the entitlement of people everywhere; of people in Tahrir Square as much as Trafalgar Square.

Now, with the riots in England he feels that restricting access to social media, and censoring free speech is necessary to maintain order.

Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers. Police were facing a new circumstance where rioters were using the BlackBerry Messenger service, a closed network, to organise riots. We've got to examine that and work out how to get ahead of them.

It is easy to condemn censorship in others, but it seems expedient when one is trying to control one's own population. When in power, the difference between justifiable actions and tyranny is largely a matter of "us" vs "them". "We" are good and would not abuse this power while "they" use censorship to keep the boot of oppression on their people.

The trouble is, it is very hard to know when one has moved past the tipping point, and powerful self justification comes easily to intelligent leaders and their advisors. As has been said many times "no man is the villein of his own story".

This is a Rubicon I hope the UK can hold back from crossing.

Debate about activist need for anonymity on Facebook

Amid unrest, a hard new look at online anonymity | The Social - CNET News:

This article takes an interesting look at the issues with Facebook's true name policy and the impact it has on activists and dissidents in repressive countries. It quite rightly talks about the fact that for most of the history of the Internet use of "screen names" was the default.

The odd thing about this debate is that there is basically no authentication of the names used. Many people assume that since most users are under true name that all of them are. It is trivial to set up a new account with a plausible name which can not be traced back to the real user.

I would hope that dissidents, activists and others at risk would take advantage of this simple capability to protect themselves. Yes, this is in violation of the terms of service, but I think it is for a much greater good.

If you choose to do this, take care with who you friend under this alias. If the social network you create matches your real one, or that of another account, it may be very easy to unmask your identity.