[Explore Tor, NYC!] Tor for Journalists: April 12

Great news! This is a good example of the kind of outreach TP needs to be doing as much as possible with limited resources and within limitations imposed by sensible priorities.

At this particular meetup, I think it's important to stay focused on bringing journalists into the fold, so to speak. But it might be good to take the opportunity to explore interest in future "Tor to NYC area journalist" outreach meetups.

One topic many reporters at the meetup might be interested in exploring is the question of how much protection the following will offer, or indeed whether it is a sensible concept at all technically or politically:

thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/381036-nyc-to-launch-free-cyber-security-tools-to-protect-residents-from
NYC to launch free cybersecurity tools for residents
Olivia Beavers
30 Mar 2018

> New York City will boost its residents' internet security by rolling out two free cybersecurity tools, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday. The NYC Secure program will cost the city about $5 million per year as it works to protect New Yorkers from facing malicious cyber activity online. “New Yorkers aren’t safe online. And we cannot wait around for other levels of government to do something about it or the private sector to do something about it because we will be waiting a long time if we do that,” de Blasio said at a news conference. The mayor warned that hackers could steal private data such as bank account details or information about someone's identity that can then "be weaponized and turned against us." “It’s our job in government to make sure that people are safe online. This is a new reality and we are taking the first steps into that reality,” he continued, adding that he hopes other cities follow suit. New York City residents can download a smartphone app that will alert users when it detects suspicious activity on their devices.

In the same vein, a very important but under-reported WiFi security story:

washingtonpost.com
US acknowledges potential unauthorized spying devices in DC
Olivia Beavers
3 Apr 2018

> The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is acknowledging for the first time that foreign actors or criminals are using eavesdropping devices to track cellphone activity in Washington, D.C., according to a letter obtained by The Hill... It said it is also aware of IMSI use outside the Beltway.

NYC is one of the unnamed "other cities" where we know Stingrays are being used by non-USG actors. And DHS admits it knows of nothing which can stop this--- which probably means it doesn't want to know because FBI screams in DHS's ear that it "needs" Stingrays for everything [sic].

So it's up to pro-citizen-privacy adepts like Edward Snowden and Micah Lee to concoct effective anti-Stingray countermeasures. And some have been trying to rise to the challenge--- they deserve the support of any democratic society.

Some further issues which US media ought to cover more extensively and accurately and which affect the Tor user base:

1. Over the past five years, a decades old ideological conflict between EU and US views on who rightfully owns personal data has come to crisis, largely unreported by US media. Here is a good explainer of the current situation:

wired.com
The Next Cold War Is Here, and It's All About Data
Vying against each other are societies that believe that individuals have an absolute right to control their personal data and those that believe that personal data is a good to be traded on the open market.
Tom Pendergast
28 Mar 2018

> The headlines about the trade wars being touched off by President Trump’s new tariffs may telegraph plenty of bombast and shots fired, but the most consequential war being waged today is a quieter sort of conflict: It’s the new Cold War over data protection. While the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica crisis currently burns as the latest, hottest flare-up in this simmering conflict, tensions may increase even more on May 25, 2018, when the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation comes into effect.

The basic conflict is between the EU view that privacy is not dead and that individuals have a right to control how very personal data (e.g. HIV status--- see the Grindr scandal) is used/shared/reshared, while the US view has been that companies should enjoy unregulated use of even enormous and very sensitive datasets on individual lives (both on and offline). And something very strange but welcome is happening: the EU view is rapidly spreading, and even gaining traction among US companies which are willing to give up revenue from dangerously lax data sharing to gain the benefits of a global framework, which reduces their legal exposure in their global operations. But some companies--- Facebook is perhaps the best known example--- rely on free sharing at the core of their business models and may find it impossible to adapt to the new legal environment.

2. Another welcome development is the fact that citizens of some of the more progressive EU nations are starting to push back against naive and rapid adoption of new technologies, such as the promise of "cashless economies":

theguardian.com
'Being cash-free puts us at risk of attack': Swedes turn against cashlessness
Sweden’s central bank governor has called for public control over its payment system. Others say a fully digital system is vulnerable to fraud and attack
David Crouch in Gothenburg
3 Apr 2018

In a related development, citizens of the US are starting to push back against the too rapid adoption of driverless vehicle technologies and citizen-operated drone technologies, on the grounds of public safety concerns which have been highlighted by many recent but underreported incidents (the recent vehicular homicide by a test vehicle being a notable exception--- but the important revelation that the Mayor kept the test program secret has not been widely reported).

3. There has been very little coverage in US media (even "alternative media") of the alarming fact that "fake-news suppression" laws have been spreading like wildfire (in EU, former SU, Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and South Asia):

techdirt.com
More Governments Granting Themselves Extra Censorship Powers With 'Fake News' Laws
from the silence,-peasants! dept

> Fake news is apparently everywhere. All over Europe, legislators and officials are trying to regulate content with "fake news" legislation and directives, as though the term could somehow be narrowly-defined enough that regulation could even have a positive effect. All these new laws and demands for cooperation from tech companies are sure to generate plenty of negative effects, not the least of which is these laws will become tools for censorship and a super-easy way to silence dissent. It's not just a European thing. It's happening in nations around the world. Countries already known for heavy-handed control of the internet are using "fake news" to seize even more control of news outlets and communications platforms. Countries generally viewed as more generous with their rights are lining themselves up for authoritarian mission creep by setting themselves up as the final arbiter of real/fake news. The EFF is reporting similar efforts are underway in Latin and South America.

Some of us have tried to warn about the dangers for years. Just a few recent examples of how these laws are being abused to criminalize political dissent (which is always their true purpose, even in Drump's America):

theatlantic.com
Four More Years of Censoring Culture in Egypt
The current president has presided over a purge of liberal expression. And he’s nearly guaranteed to win another term this week.
Edmund Bower
26 Mar 2018

It's not just Egypt but also Pakistan, France, ... one could go on and on unfortunately. And it is clear that the Drump administration also wants to introduce similar laws in the US (to some extent, the recent and disastrous SESTA/FOSTA may play the role of such a law), which could directly endanger TP.

A horrific example of how mainstream US media can very easily adopt a "false meme framing" of a major story is the failed prosecution of the wife of the Pulse nightclub shooter, which was adequately reported only by The Guardian during the 14 month leadup to the actual trial. Here's a good post-trial analysis from HuffPo:

huffingtonpost.com
Everyone Got The Pulse Massacre Story Completely Wrong
And another, smaller injustice was obscured: the sadistic prosecution of Noor Salman.
Melissa Jeltsen
Family handout
Noor Salman was acquitted of helping her husband with his attack on Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
4 Apr 2018

IMO "sadistic" is the appropriate description. I think the prosecutors should be brought up on charges of malicious prosecution, because they knew their victim was innocent. And liberals should note that the FBI is not their friend, but a very dangerous and largely unchecked secret police agency whose main mission has always been political oppression.

The "fake news" problem in the US is set to get much worse. A cautionary example of how the promoters of politically motivated "fake news" all over the world often use the "fake news meme" itself to push propaganda:

huffingtonpost.com
Dan Rather Has Scathing Words For Sinclair News Anchors Reading 'Propaganda'
The legendary news anchor called the company's effort "Orwellian."
Andy McDonald
2 Apr 2018

> Renowned former CBS news anchor Dan Rather chimed in on the disturbing story that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of more than 170 U.S. TV stations, had forced its local news outlets to read the same script decrying “false news.”

(People who remember why Rather was fired might not feel he is the best person to speak out against fake news, but he is not the only one--- even some Sinclar station anchors have spoken up, anonymously, in itself an example of why journalists need to know how to help whistleblowers, who are sometimes other journalists with something important to say that their corporate overlords don't want anyone to hear.)

Here is a description of a typical politically motivated covert information warfare operation which illustrates the often international character of such conspiracies:

theguardian.com
Former Trump aide approved 'black ops' to help Ukraine president
Exclusive: Paul Manafort authorised secret media operation that sought to discredit key opponent of then Ukrainian president
Luke Harding
5 Apr 2018

4. Currently, Google and Facebook appear to be all powerful and far from benign overlords of the personal lives of the hapless citizen, but they can't yet arrest and incarcerate anyone--- criminal prosecution and prison being still the prerogative of nation states. And currently, Boeing and Northrup Grumman cannot declare war on the citizens of some locale--- militaries and wars still being the prerogative of nation states (and drug cartels). But as the very concept of the nation states continues to become irrelevant, all this will change, and that's a huge story which has not been reported. But for the rapidly increasing irrelevance of the nation state, see:

theguardian.com
The demise of the nation state
After decades of globalisation, our political system has become obsolete – and spasms of resurgent nationalism are a sign of its irreversible decline.
Rana Dasgupta
5 Apr 2018

During the next decade, we can expect to see the demise of the political concept of democracy, with the principal ideological global conflict becoming rule by corrupt Mafia state type dictatorships by another name versus rule by criminal cartels. I.e. a difference without a difference.

One of the implications is of course that human rights advocacy, social justice advocacy, and environmental advocacy, will all become even more dangerous, with lethal government reprisals against citizens who choose to take the risks spreading all over the world, including to the former "Western democracies".

Widespread adoption of Tor and similar tools by journalists worldwide is one of the very few programs which might slow this horrifying development.