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Need of anonimity II. – Rock privacy in 8 easy steps!

| | 2014.03.11. 05:58:34  Gulyás Gábor  

In our previous post on the importance of privacy we highlighted why we believe that it matters, how has our view changed on the issue in the past few decades.  In this post we would like to share some more insights, who could be potential threat to your privacy,

Intruders of online privacy – who are they and what do they do?

One of the main problems is that no one have a clue who is conducting surveillance (in more professional terms: there is a lack of the proper attacker model) and what are their reasons of collecting information. However there are a few outstanding, widely known issues, government surveillance is surely such a thing, especially since the PRISM-case.

Many governments – similar to the one in question – sacrifice (a lot of) privacy in exchange of (some) security; for instance, the Data Retention Directive in the EU regulates what information telecommunication companies need to retain in order to help governing forces combating terrorism. Although it is put into practice by most member states, we know little about exact implementations of the directive over fulfillment of surveillance obligations exact technical details at involved telecommunication parties seem to be white spots of the process.

While this type of mass-surveillance has less effect on individuals (except for the ones under targeted observation), it is problematic because it can be executed secretly leading to potential abuses (like it happened in the US), and the secrecy around the implementation can loosen democratic control over these operations (as in the EU).

Meanwhile, surveillance committed for commercial purposes have a rather significant impact at a personal level. This kind of activity includes various actors, ranging from large service/platform providers selling out the data of their users (are you on Facebook?), to marketers using personal profiles to steer their business decisions. For example if you have ever surfed on the net for the best priced plane tickets and watch them going up and down – you may be familiar with behavioral advertising and dynamic pricing. Although there are clearly some legal applications for such uses of profiles (especially if they were collected and used with consent), most are not beneficial for the data subjects.

Thus, these companies get the chance of undetectably influence our choices. Like in the case of Orbitz offering Mac users more expensive hotels, or when it turned out that how ‘bad’ friendships (on social networks) can affect the credit score of someone. Besides, it is also wise to think about others who can access our data and use it occasionally, e.g., as auxiliary data during a job interview.

A lost battle vs. reasons to act for your privacy

At the time of writing, owing to the continuously emerging revelations of the Snowden case we know more and more details of NSA surveillance affecting most people throughout the globe. However, there is probably a lot more to come and it is also likely that the security industry will significantly change soon – so keep that in mind while going on with reading.

Until the fall of 2013 we learn that despite the number of experts NSA employees or the extent of hardware it has, the agency rather seeks cooperation with companies and service providers all over the world to build its own backdoors into software and services. At the same time the NSA possibly influenced the creation of standards and protocols, and enactment of a law was also planned in order to have access to arbitrary other companies (though it was pushed by the FBI).

Fortunately, according to the revealed documents, following a few simplguidelines can make mass surveillance harder, and can help us to be safer online. We still have strong cryptography to rely on, and using open source software is also crucial to succeed. Regularly overviewed open source software is less likely to have embedded backdoors, and if we use standardized protocols, other parties have less chance to influence parameters and stuff (or use software that would do so).

Reinforcing against commercial parties should be done accordingly: while it is difficult to avoid all kinds of surveillance, we can make the duty of the watchers so hard and expensive that we can pass under the radar for most of them. As these companies have several limits regarding founding, technological expertise, etc., usually fighting against a small resisting group simply isn’t worth it. In addition, going for wholesale surveillance is not always a valid business goal for many.

So this is not yet over – take the first steps!

Privacy is not just about revealing secrets – it is far more complex than being a form of secrecy. Your privacy can also be invaded even if no secrets are revealed, implicating that privacy is very sensitive to technological innovations and changes. For instance, someone having a public micro blog on a specific topic (e.g., French cuisine or sports) may not reveal information about the personal life of the author. Meanwhile, timing of the messages and location information attached to tweets can be used to correlate daily routine and other habits. Thus we should be alert of the privacy implications of new technology while it continues reshaping our everyday life.

Download the ebook on strengthening privacy!

This post originally appeared in the Tresorit Blog.

Tags: profiling, anonymity, tracking

Permalink: https://pet-portal.eu/blog/read/574/2014-03-11-Need-of-anonimity-II-8211-Rock-privacy-in-8-easy-step...

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Need of anonimity I. – How to rock privacy

| | 2014.02.12. 05:55:32  Gulyás Gábor  

The recent decades speeded up, twisted and completely changed the world. Modern technology not only reshaped the societies we live in, but it also undetectably pervaded our everyday life to change our ways of thinking.

If you are an average smartphone user you probably downloaded around 10 to 100 app in the past few weeks, to track your workout performance, record your spending, manage photos, follow the most important happenings in your network, kill time with the latest (and coolest) game and so on.  This is just a single device of those you are using. Significant information we give out on where we are, what we do and what we probably think are accessible today for many parties, and in addition, we often voluntarily provide supplement to data being collected

This process could be described from many aspects. However, the overview of web tracking techniques makes an outstanding example on how the profiling based market extended tremendously over the years (e.g., behavioral profiling), and how conscious webizens engaged trackers in a seemingly never ending circulation: finding the way to avoid tracking and discovering new tracking mechanisms.

While general concern for online privacy was continuously growing, recently leaked NSA documentation revealing world-wide wholesale surveillance gave a boost to the rise of awareness. Despite the fact that we arrived to a positive landmark, there are still several white spots on the map of privacy and yet many false-beliefs surrounding the topic.

I have nothing to hide – why should I care?

There are several typical phrases denying the need for privacy that often emerges from the media. Probably the most frequently used one states that “if you have nothing to hide, you should be not worried” (and similar ones with different wordings). Eric Schmidt is also famous for quoting this, while now he yet seems to be seeking privacy himself.

First of all: is privacy about hiding something? Definitely not. Bruce Schneier gives a few good counterexamples such as the need to “seek out private places for reflection or conversation”, “sing in the privacy of the shower”. We could think of sharing moments with the ones we love, or seeking loneliness to find ourselves. There are several other private moments in everyday life to choose from.

Privacy is also important as a basis for the freedom of speech. Dictatorships in the twentieth century showed us that if privacy is omitted (e.g., by allowing targeted surveillance on people disagreeing with the system), this will react in changing individual behavior and public speech. By looking it this way, we can see how privacy means freedom, why it is a basic human need.

Beside some level of secrecy, privacy is also includes control for disclosure among several other things (e.g., “my house my castle”). Daniel Solove quotes pretty good replies from his readers to the misunderstanding in question:

  • My response is “So do you have curtains?” or “Can I see your credit-card bills for the last year?”
  • So my response to the “If you have nothing to hide … ” argument is simply, “I don’t need to justify my position. You need to justify yours. Come back with a warrant.”
  • I don’t have anything to hide. But I don’t have anything I feel like showing you, either.
  • If you have nothing to hide, then you don’t have a life.
  • It’s not about having anything to hide, it’s about things not being anyone else’s business.

Another problem that such an attitude can justify uncontrolled surveillance. If information is collected without a defined purpose, it can be easily abused. Definition of what is good or wrong can change over time, and what was once collected can be even used to condemn data subjects if it is in the interests of the currently governing forces. This implies several other questions. What data would be stored on you and for how long? Who could access it and make copies of it?

In addition, mistakes can happen anytime. For example, your financial records can look misleadingly suspicious, sufficiently convincing for the tax office to investigate you. Or your data can be leaked accidentally or hacked. In this case, how could you tell what is out there in the public? What is once out there, it stays there.

There are other public voices stating that we don’t care about privacy anymore or don’t simply need it in the digitalized age we live in. However, research shows that even new generations do care about privacy, though for them privacy is more about control. This might be unexpected regarding the strong influence of new technology on their lives, and propaganda of technology companies trying to have the young generation more engaged with their products (not surprisingly: most of their business models rely on controlling vast amount of user-related data).

We got a little enthusiast on the topic, so by end of the process we found a [tltr] alert flashing over the post. This is why we break this down to two pieces. The second will follow in some days. We reward your patience, by adding a super useful e-book on privacy, with many tips and tricks. Stay tuned, it is going to be great!

This post originally appeared on the Tresorit Blog.

Tags: profiling, anonymity

Permalink: https://pet-portal.eu/blog/read/573/2014-02-12-Need-of-anonimity-I-8211-How-to-rock-privacy.php

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Upcoming article: BlogCrypt: Private Content Publishing on the Web

| | 2011.07.18. 05:59:00  Földes Ádám Máté  

Social networks and other Web 2.0 sites are becoming more and more a part of our culture; however, we are inclined to forget about – or at least ignore – their dangers. Many of us have heard or read stories where somebody was fired because he/she friended his/her boss on Facebook, and the latter found a malignant post about the company they worked for. However, it is good to know that we are in danger even if we do not make so obvious blunders. This article describes the threats we face, and the means of defence against them. One particular defence mechanism, BlogCrypt, is described in details: a simple Firefox plugin that allows encrypting and decrypting web content as easy as it sounds.

We will publish this article on the International PET Portal & Blog the following Friday.

Abstract

Voluntary disclosure of personal information is becoming more and more widespread with the advent of Web 2.0 services. Publishing such information constitutes new kinds of threats, such as further reinforcing already existing profiling techniques through correlation of perceived user activities to those publicly disclosed, but the most obvious of all is the intrinsic threat that malicious third parties collect and combine information we publish about ourselves. In this paper, we evaluate currently existing solutions that are destined for addressing this issue, then propose a model of our own for providing access control for a user over information she published and analyse our implementation thereof.

Tags: social networks, articles, profiling, web2.0, upcoming article

Permalink: https://pet-portal.eu/blog/read/400/2011-07-18-Upcoming-article-BlogCrypt-Private-Content-Publishing...

Source: BlogCrypt: Private Content Publishing on the Web

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