PUSCII blog - privacy

Privacy is not terrorism

groente — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 15:42:07 +0000

On Tuesday 16th December, a large police operation took place in the Spanish State. Fourteen houses and social centres were raided in Barcelona, Sabadell, Manresa and Madrid; books, leaflets and IT material were seized; and eleven people were arrested and sent to the Audiència Nacional, a special court handling issues of "national interest", in Madrid. They are accused of incorporation, promotion, management and membership of a terrorist organisation. However, lawyers for the defence denounce a lack of transparency, saying that their clients have had to make statements without knowing what they are accused of [2]. "[They] speak of terrorism without specifying concrete criminal acts, or concrete individualised facts attributed to each of them.” [1] When challenged on this, Judge Bermúdez responded: "I am not investigating specific acts, I am investigating the organization, and the threat they might pose in the future" [1]; making this yet another case of apparently preventative arrests. Four of the detainees have been released, but the remaining seven have been jailed pending trial. The reasons given by the judge for their continued detention include the posession of certain books, "the production of publications and forms of communication”, and the fact that the defendants “used emails with extreme security measures, such as the server RISE UP.”[2]

There were several cases in the last decade where people were accused because of "conspiratorial behaviour". In Germany, in 2007, 4 people were arrested. One of them because he met with another suspect twice more than in the previous five months, leaving mobile phones at home for some meetings, and so on. [3]
Nearly the same thing happened in Austria in 2008 when 13 people were arrested. One reason was: they were using encrypted e-mail.
In both cases and in several others this kind of "conspiratorial behaviour" has been used as a reason to keep people in jail during the investigation period. In the eyes of investigators, every meeting/email/phonecall of which the contents are not known, is “conspiratorial.” The legitimate protection of the private sphere is criminalised and - in the eyes of state prosecutors - constitutes proof of terrorist organisation.

We are appalled that the use of our services - and privacy measures in general - is considered tantamount to terrorism. No one is a terrorist because of protecting ones privacy. In a world where our every move is monitored by state and corporate interests, the use of encryption is an essential self-defense towards maintaining personal integrity. As such, every email provider should enable "extreme security measures". We as hosting provider commit ourselves to protecting the data of our users in every way possible for us. We will not sell or hand out the data of our users. The state may thus think of us as supporting terrorism, but the only terror we see connecting the aforementioned cases is that of arbitrary repression aimed at those who do not want to voluntarily expose their private lives.

[1]: https://directa.cat/actualitat/pandora-empresonada
[2]: https://directa.cat/jutge-gomez-bermudez-envia-preso-set-de-onze-persone...
[3]: http://einstellung.so36.net/en/1363
[4]: http://antirep2008.org/?p=14&lang=en

Ad Exchange-Publisher leaks cookies, evades blocking.

fierman — Tue, 20 May 2014 13:25:44 +0000

Ad Exchange-Publisher creative settings results in 3rd-party cookie blocking evasion and leaks.

The OpenX Ad Exchange which provides Real-Time Bidding services is cooperating closely with its publishers, as a recent observation shows. The way the domain name system is being used, browser blocking of 3rd-party cookies seems to be bypassed as a side effect.

Unrelated cookies such as Google Analytics, are being sent to 3rd-party sites, like OpenX, due to broad cookie scoping and the setting of DNS aliasing, as the full report states.

Urgent - Saravá Group is about to lose its main server!

fierman — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 13:19:02 +0000

Urgent - Saravá Group is about to lose its main server!

Due to a lawsuit running in secrecy of Justice against Radio Muda, the oldest independent radio station working in Brazil, Saravá's main server is settled to be confiscated this next Monday, April 28th. Sarava is a research group that for the past 10 years have offered technological infrastructure, political thinking and autonomous and secure communication sources freely to research groups and social movements.

Radio Muda has had its equipment confiscated once before in Februrary 24th of this year[1]. As the litigation went on, Prosecuting Attorney Edilson Vitorelli Diniz Lima from the Public Prosecutor's Office , signed a request for the server aiming for the radio's site data that might identify it's members.

Sarava's sever is located at the State University of Campinas - Unicamp, and hosts the radiolivre.org platform, including Radio Muda's website, it also hosts many different research projects related to Unicamp and other public Brazilian universities.
Sarava is a research group that for the past 10 years have offered technological infrastructure, political thinking and autonomous and secure communication sources freely to research groups and social movements [2]. In 2008, one of its servers has been confiscasted and it hasn't been returned since [3].

Just now, as the Marco Civil Internet Bill has passed[4], and as Brazil's hosting a World International Internet Meeting (Netmundial) and is trying to pass on the idea of being the one holding country that holds the state-of-the-art legislation towards internets privacy, freedom and security, we face once more an attempt of data theft, undermining the privacy of research projects and the free acess to information, with the closure of discussion lists, sites and other tools.

We say the decision of breaking the confidentiality of our communication following the Public Prosecutor's Office lawsuit is disproportionate . Afterall, the server has no record that could identify its users as part of its Privacy Politics[5].
We ask for solidarity from all groups, individuals and institutions that fight for a free society and internet. Next monday, April 28th at 1:00 PM (Local time, GTM-3h), there will be a demonstration in front of the Data Processing Center from the Filosophy and Humanities Institute building at Unicamp, all support will be welcomed. Our hatred towards this act will be shown throughout social networks and messages to Public Prosecutor's Office all over the internet.

Hashtags:
#SaravaLivre, #netmundial1984, #sarava, #privacidade, #OurNetMundial,
#marcocivildainternet
We demand the immediate interruption of police's attempts against Saravá's Group server and its users data.

[1] http://intervozes.org.br/fechamento-da-radio-muda-e-mais-um-atentado-con...
[2] Saravá's Principles: https://www.sarava.org/pt-br/principios
[3] Saravá's hijack in 2008: https://www.sarava.org/en/node/46
[4] Law nº 12.965, from April 23th, 2014, DOU:http://pesquisa.in.gov.br/imprensa/jsp/visualiza/index.jsp?jornal=1&pagi...
[5] https://www.sarava.org/pt-br/privacidade

Disconnected Filesharing hack-a-thon

webmind — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 11:37:23 +0000

On May the 3rd 2014, NURDSpace and PUSCII are organising a Disconnected Filesharing Hack-a-thon. Hacking on filesharing tools which do not rely on Internet connectivity.

Where

NURDSpace, Churchillweg 68, Wageningen, Netherlands

When

Saturday 2014-05-03, or Saturday the 3rd of May 14 years after the apocalypse.
Starts at 14:00 and will go on for about 6 hours.

Why

Everything gets more and more connected, everything becomes part of the Internet. More and more tools also start depending on having Internet on being connected, making surveillance easier, but also excluding those who are not or do not want to be always connected. Disconnected services bring things back closer to home, closer to the physical spaces. As any transfer require the coverage of physical distance with slower speeds than those of electrons, the transfers become less predictable, harder to monitor but also more personal and linked to your physical surroundings.

What

Hack-a-thon where people will work on projects surrounding filesharing without internet. Projects such as:

PirateBox
Forban
Occupy-Here
Rhizome
RiotNAS
ZeroMQ
DeadDrop
...?

Related resources:

Post Privacy Party tools

webmind — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 18:41:43 +0000

As we've done some Privacy Parties now, here's a list of tools we've collected so far.

Please keep in mind though, that privacy is generally a social problems and these technical-tools can only help you resist against others trying to snoop on your personal affairs. There are no 'perfect' solutions, but depending on your situation, these tools can be quite effective.

Browser Privacy Tools

Suggested browsers

- Firefox
- Iceweasel
- Tor-browserbundle

Firefox Add-Ons which are helpful

- Request Policy (Prevents contacting sites which you're not visiting, whitelisting) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy
- Disconnect.me (Prevents trackers from being loaded on websites, blacklisting) https://disconnect.me/
- Ghostery (Can block trackers, but leaves them on by default): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery
- QuickJava (easy button to enable/disable javascript, java, flash, silverlight on sites): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quickjava/
- NoScript (whitelist/blacklist javascript, java, flash for certain sites): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscrip
- Adblock Edge (Blocks advertisements): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge
- HttpsEverywhere (use https/SSL whenever it's available): https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
- BetterPrivacy (Throw away cookies after using, all of them): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy

Search Engines

- Ixquick / https://ixquick.com
- Duckduckgo / https://duckduckgo.com / http://duckduckhack.com/
- Metager / https://metager.de/en/

Toolboxes

Privacy toolsbox on a USB-Stick: https://tails.boum.org/
Run a Linux enviroment from a USB-Stick where everything is routed through tor and with every by default set to aid your privacy.

Privacy in Communication

OTR (Off The Record)

system to sent encrypted instant messages
+ Pidgin: https://pidgin.im/
+ Jitsi: https://jitsi.org/ (linux, windows, mac, android)

PGP/GPG Pretty Good Privacy

system to send encrypted mail and create digital signatures
+ Enigmail (GPG Addon for Thunderbird): https://enigmail.net/home/index.php
+ KGPG (KDE/Kubuntu GPG interface): http://utils.kde.org/projects/kgpg/
+ Cryptophane (windows): http://code.google.com/p/cryptophane/

Privacy Apps for Android

Less google on your android

- Replicant (fully opensource android adaptation): http://www.replicant.us/
- Cyanogenmod (mostly opensource, doesn't need google-play etc): http://www.cyanogenmod.org/
- Alternative android market with all opensource tools (add the guardianproject repository): https://f-droid.org/
- More on hardening android: https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-se...

File Sharing Stuff

- Git-Annex / https://git-annex.branchable.com/Android/
- Seafile / http://www.seafile.com/en/download/ | https://github.com/haiwen/seadroid
- Tahoe-Lafs / https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs https://github.com/ctrlaltdel/TahoeLAFS-android
- Sparkleshare / http://sparkleshare.org/

Taking Photos

- ObscuraCam (hides faces and encrypts) / https://guardianproject.info/apps/obscuracam/
- InformaCam (keeps all metadata and important information) / https://guardianproject.info/apps/informacam/

Encrypted Instant messaging

(use with orbot to anonymise)
- Encrypted Instant Messaging: chatsecure / https://guardianproject.info/apps/chatsecure/ (XMPP/Jabber + OTR)
- Cryptocat (iPhone/Android in development) https://crypto.cat/

General resources

- Guardian Project (makes good apps for activists): https://guardianproject.info/apps/

More information

- https://securityinabox.org/ Security in a Box by the Tactical Technology Collective
- https://ssd.eff.org/ Surveillance Self-Defense by the EFF

PUSCII Privacy Party, How did it go...

webmind — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 13:13:27 +0000

Last Saturday the 1st of March, we organised a Privacy party in the book store the Rooie Rat in Utrecht. TL;DR: It was a success. We started at 14:00, but a few people where there earlier. In total we had about 25 active participants. We started out listing the stuff people wanted to learn and who could help teach these items, we had quite a list but in the end we ended up having groups on the following topics: * Tails & Tor * GnuPG/PGP * Browser Privacy * OTR * Doxing * Linux installation Groups contained about 5 to 6 participants and where fairly interactive. There where about 2 rounds of groups since there was some overlap of interest and some people worked on their own stuff or helped people on an individual basis. At ca. 17:00 all groups where about done and at 18:00 we all left as the shop closed. Considering the success we are definitely planning another event, but in the mean time, keep an eye on this blog for announcements.

1 maart: Puscii Privacy Party @ RooieRat

groente — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 17:39:28 +0000

1 maart, 14.00h - Rooie Rat, Oudegracht 65, Utrecht

cctv.png

Het zal niemand zijn ontgaan dat ons internet- en telefoonverkeer gretig wordt afgeluisterd. Met name activisten zijn hiervoor een geliefd doelwit. Maar de online privacyschendingen gaan verder dan alleen aftappende inlichtingendiensten. Ook het grootkapitaal - google, facebook, u kent ze wel - weet ons driftig te volgen en vaak onopgemerkt te profileren. Gelukkig zijn de technieken die hierbij gebruikt worden vaak met enige kennis en de juiste tools redelijk te omzeilen.

Daarom organiseren wij zaterdag 1 maart de Puscii Privacy Party: een dag voor kennisuitwisseling op het gebied van versleuteling, anonimiteit en privacy. Er is geen vooropgezet programma: de bedoeling is om kennis en vragen bij elkaar te brengen, te kijken wat er beschikbaar is, waar interesse in is en daar dan praktisch mee aan de slag te gaan.

Toegang is gratis en iedereen is welkom, ongeacht technische voorkennis.

Waar: Rooie Rat, Oudegracht 65, Utrecht
Wanneer: 1 maart, 14.00h
Meenemen: vragen, kennis, nieuwsgierigheid, laptop, (not-so-)smart phone, snacks
Toegang: gratis
Trefwoorden: versleuteling, anonimiteit, privacy, tor, pgp/gpg, otr, tails, gnunet, i2p, otr, diy hosting, ostn, redphone, textsecure, ssl/tls, browser-beveiliging, google-alternatieven, etc.

Print & verspreid de

flyer

TA3M recordings

groente — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 23:32:17 +0000

Better late then never and we didn't manage to catch everything, but here are some files that may give you an impression of the last TA3M evening in the ACU, Utrecht:

Newsflash
Slides

Jeroen van der Ham on The Internet Society Netherlands' app for testing net neutrality
Slides
Audio: download

Nadim Kobeissi on activism against surveillance
Audio: download

Don't forget, upcoming monday is the next TA3M in de Vondelbunker (am*dam): https://wiki.openitp.org/events:techno-activism_3rd_mondays:amsterdam, RSVP: https://dudle.inf.tu-dresden.de/TA3MNovember/

Choosing a more privacy aware email provider

albi — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 13:58:34 +0000

Recently the privacy of email reading and writing has been a hot topic in mainstream media. Several people are now looking at options to move away from Google's Gmail now. So what is a good and more privacy aware email provider to migrate to ? Activists have been building their own networks since years, https://we.riseup.net/riseuphelp+en/radical-servers but what are the options for the masses ? There's an interesting project to watch "Mailpile" http://www.mailpile.is/ but that is only expected to be ready in the summer of 2014, next year. Also, you should always keep in mind that your emails to for example Hotmail and Yahoo email users will be as postcards going over the internet, not as letters in envelopes (unless you are using email encryption with GnuPG) even after you have chosen a new more privacy aware email provider. There is this interesting list of more privacy aware email providers, a little bit outdated, but still very nice to look at : http://thesimplecomputer.info/free-webmail-for-better-privacy/ This week I decided to test some of these with a Firefox addon called Wappalyzer. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/wappalyzer Wappalyzer can quickly show you what software and tools a website is running. Here's some of the results : Mailoo uses Google Analytics : Hide My Ass uses Google Analytics : Privatdemail does not reveil anything at all what they are running : Surprising to see some of those privacy aware email providers use Google Analytics. So, what is the conclusion ? My personal approach is to divide your email into personal and others and use different email accounts for that. The most interesting seem TorMail and Privatdemail but I have not tested them yet. An option which is not in that list is Greenhost. Their website is partially still in dutch, but has enough english to read the important parts. https://greenhost.net/about-us/ They do no logging of email, and they are concerned about privacy and internet security. (Note: I'm not affiliated with any of these email providers mentioned here above. YMMV)

ACTA

fierman — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:07:58 +0000

Op 18 januari gingen duizenden websites, zoals wikipedia en Indymedia, op zwart vanwege SOPA/PIPA. ( https://www.indymedia.nl/node/1946 ) Dit waren wetten die in de verenigde staten zouden worden ingevoerd die de internetvrijheid zouden beperken. Die acties waren zo succesvol (en de wetten zo absurd) dat SOPA is tegengehouden. Maar nu komt de grote broer van SOPA meedoen: ACTA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement ) Dit nieuwe “verdrag" is in het geheim in elkaar geflanst, en al door de europese landen ondertekend. Maar voordat het aangenomen kan worden moet het eerst nog goedgekeurd worden door het europese parlement. Hier is er nog kans dat ACTA door grootschalige protesten, zoals bij SOPA, tegengehouden kan worden. Wat is het idee achter ACTA? Het (officiële) idee achter ACTA is dat Intellectueel Eigendom (copyright) moet worden beschermd. Als 1 iemand een CD koopt, en de nummers vervolgens op internet zet, dan kan iedereen deze nummers downloaden. Dan verdient het bedrijf dat achter het maken van de CD zit niets meer omdat iedereen gratis de nummers kan downloaden. Om dit te voorkomen is copyright bedacht. ACTA (en andere wetten) maakt dit illegaal. Dit is niet “fair”, als ik een boek koop en dat uitleen aan vrienden, gaan zij dat boek ook niet meer kopen, want ze hebben het al gelezen. Toch is dit niet verboden, maar met een nieuw medium (internet) komt nieuwe wetgeving en zien de grote bedrijven mogelijkheden om meer geld te verdienen, dus is het noodzakelijk ook op internet onze rechten af te dwingen. Wat is ACTA en waarom is het een probleem? (http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.1/whats-wrong-with-ACTA) Voor een korte en duidelijke samenvatting van ACTA: (http://youtu.be/citzRjwk-sQ) Met ACTA worden internet providers (zoals kpn, ziggo etc.) verantwoordelijk gesteld voor wat zij aanbieden. Als een klant van een provider iets met copyright tegenkomt op internet, dan is de provider strafbaar. Providers moeten dus het internet gaan censureren, om niet zelf voor de rechter te komen. Hier zijn zij zelf ook niet blij mee: http://nos.nl/artikel/334787-ook-kpn-weigert-blokkade-pirate-bay.html Maar nog belangrijker is dat dit rechtstreeks indruist tegen de morele rechten die mensen hebben op vrije communicatie, ofdat de rechter de macht zou moeten hebben om bepaalde dingen te censureren valt te betwijfelen, maar bedrijven zouden dat recht in ieder geval nooit moeten hebben. En het gaat verder dan alleen copyright schendingen, deze wetten kunnen gemakkelijk gebruikt worden om kritische websites te censureren. Neem indymedia als voorbeeld: als hier bijvoorbeeld een filmpje op staat van een protest, waarbij een liedje met copyright gedraaid wordt, dan is dit al strafbaar onder ACTA. En als dat vaker gebeurt dan zullen providers verplicht worden om indymedia ontoegankelijk te maken. Dit kan natuurlijk bij alle websites gebeuren, per ongeluk (zoals in het voorbeeld) of met opzet (door gepatenteerd materiaal op websites te plaatsen). Maar behalve deze gevolgen voor de vrijheid van meningsuiting voorziet ACTA ook in het handhaven van de patenten op bijvoorbeeld medicijnen. Als een bedrijf een medicijn tegen kanker of aids bedenkt, kunnen ze hier patent op aanvragen. Dan mogen alleen zij dit medicijn produceren, waardoor zij er rijk mee kunnen worden en er miljoenen mensen zinloos blijven sterven aan deze ziektes. Vooral mensen in derde wereld landen zullen deze dure medicijnen (duur omdat er een monopoly ontstaat door de patenten) niet kunnen betalen. Dit wordt in de berichten over ACTA minder benadrukt, maar is misschien wel belangrijker dan de internetvrijheid. Met ACTA plaatsen de regeringen de belangen van grote bedrijven boven de vrijheid en zelfs boven de gezondheid van gewone mensen. Dit is een zeer reëel gevaar, en zelfs “mainstream” politici zien dit verdrag niet zitten: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ow1v5/acta_note_from_marietje_... Er moet nog veel gebeuren om ACTA tegen te houden, maar het kan nog steeds. De normale media berichtten niet over SOPA, maar toch werd dat tegengehouden, met samenwerken kunnen we ACTA ook stoppen. Door mensen er bewust van te maken en politici ervan te overtuigen dat dit een erg slecht idee is. Zoals hierboven gemeld moet het europees parlement nog over dit verdrag stemmen, dus zullen voor het tegenhouden hiervan parlementsleden cruciaal zijn. Hier is een mooi artikel dat ook ingaat op wat er gedaan kan worden: https://www.bof.nl/2012/01/26/video-verhef-je-stem-tegen-acta/ en nog wat bronnen: http://nos.nl/op3/artikel/334493-geen-sopa-of-pipa-wel-acta.html http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/23/if-you-thought-sopa-was-... http://www.laquadrature.net/acta TL;DR: hier staat in het kort, minder saai uitgelegd wat er aan de hand is: http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/acta.png

PUSCII blog - privacy

Privacy is not terrorism

Tags:

Ad Exchange-Publisher leaks cookies, evades blocking.

Tags:

Urgent - Saravá Group is about to lose its main server!

Tags:

Disconnected Filesharing hack-a-thon

Where

When

Why

What

Tags:

Post Privacy Party tools

Browser Privacy Tools

Suggested browsers

Firefox Add-Ons which are helpful

Search Engines

Toolboxes

Privacy in Communication

OTR (Off The Record)

PGP/GPG Pretty Good Privacy

Privacy Apps for Android

Less google on your android

File Sharing Stuff

Taking Photos

Hiding informations

Encrypted Communications

Anoymised Communications

Encrypted Instant messaging

General resources

More information

Tags:

PUSCII Privacy Party, How did it go...

Tags:

1 maart: Puscii Privacy Party @ RooieRat

cctv.png

flyer

Tags:

TA3M recordings

Tags:

Choosing a more privacy aware email provider

Tags:

ACTA

Tags: