Author: Christopher Parsons

Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.

Categories
Quotations

2013.3.10

But documents released by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (and an unredacted version of the same unearthed by CNET) late last week show that the DHS has been doing a lot more with drones in the intervening ten years, including tricking them out with cellphone sniffing equipment, sensors that can distinguish between humans and animals, and technology that tells authorities whether someone on the ground is packing a gun.

Frighteningly, the records also show that the DHS’ Predator drones are ready to be equipped with weapons, although a spokesman for DHS sub-agency Customs, Border Protection (CBP) told CNET’s Declan McCullagh that the drones are currently unarmed. McCullagh reports that the DHS has been loaning its drones to domestic law enforcement agencies with criminal justice missions, “including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.” Requests from those agencies are becoming more and more common, he writes:

“[DHS drone] use domestically by other government agencies has become routine enough – and expensive enough – that Homeland Security’s inspector general said (pdf) last year that CBP needs to sign agreements ‘for reimbursement of expenses incurred fulfilling mission requests’.”

The DHS told McCullagh that it isn’t using “signals interception” on its drones – yet – and that “[a]ny potential deployment of such technology in the future would be implemented in full consideration of civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy interests and in a manner consistent with the law and long-standing law enforcement practices.” But if “longstanding law enforcement practices” are any indication of where the DHS is headed, we are in trouble.

That’s because often “long-standing law enforcement practice” has been to get away with whatever it can using the loosest interpretation of the fourth amendment possible, before legislators or courts act to correct the problem (if they ever do).

Kade Crockford, “Drones are coming home to skies near you: feel safer?”
Categories
Aside Humour

Hey There, Civil Libertarians!

murielleejones:

Trust Me! by *poasterchild

Categories
Quotations

2013.3.9

…nowhere does he raise the possibility that feedback loops produced by digital technologies might also be harming governance. Consider a 2011 survey by a British insurance company in which 11 percent of respondents claimed to have seen an incident but chose not to report it, worried that higher crime statistics for their neighborhood would significantly reduce the value of their properties. In this case, the quality of future data is intricately dependent on how much of the current data is disclosed; unconditional “openness” is the wrong move here—precisely because of feedback loops.

Evgeny Morozov, review of Future Shock

I would note that this failure to appreciate the social implications of novel monitoring technologies is something that is drastically unappreciated by public policy planners.

Categories
Aside

Another Chapter Done!

Another dissertation chapter drafted and submitted to the supervisor. Time to relax. And start my soon-due paper on drones.

Categories
Quotations

2013.3.8

An often-overlooked dimension of cyber espionage is the targeting of civil society actors. NGOs, exile organizations, political movements, and other public interest coalitions have for many years encountered serious and persistent cyber assaults. Such threats — politically motivated and often with strong links to authoritarian regimes — include website defacements, denial-of-service attacks, targeted malware attacks, and cyber espionage. For every Fortune 500 company that’s breached, for every blueprint or confidential trade secret stolen, it’s a safe bet that at least one NGO or activist has been compromised in a similar fashion, with highly sensitive information such as networks of contacts exfiltrated. Yet civil society entities typically lack the resources of large industry players to defend against or mitigate such threats; you won’t see them hiring information security companies like Mandiant to conduct expensive investigations. Nor will you likely see Mandiant paying much attention to their concerns, either: if antivirus companies do encounter attacks related to civil society groups, they may simply discard that information as there is no revenue in it.

Rob Deibert and Sarah McKune, “Civil Society Hung Out To Dry in Global Cyber Espionage”
Categories
Writing

Don’t Risk Model for Aged, Wealthy, Americans

Data security and communicative privacy matters. The boons of the contemporary computer era has led to people across the world using common services for security, for data processing, and for communications generally despite users’ radically different risk profiles. Few users are savvy enough to engage in code-level audits, fewer to ascertain the validity of improperly issued security certificates, and likely even fewer to guarantee that programs’ and operating systems’ updates are from the actual developers. These are problems – important problems – that need to be directly addressed by developers.

It’s always been morally wrong to be cavalier about your software’s security profile, and to just discount the potential vulnerabilities or bugs linked to your tools. Things aren’t getting better, however, on account of state actors becoming more and more sophisticated in how they target and monitor their citizens’ and residents’ communications. Consequently, the blasé attitude towards security that has (largely) focused on successful engineering over successful security in depth is a larger and larger problem. This attitude, especially when it comes to anti-circumvention and encryption software, is leading to individual users ending up seriously hurt, imprisoned, or dead.

Security is important. Speech is important. And ensuring that secure, private, speech is possible is an increasingly critical issue for parties throughout the world. Developers and companies and individuals ought to take the severity of the consequences of their actions to heart, or risk having very real blood on their hands.

Categories
Videos

“Your entire life is online. Be vigilant.”

Categories
Aside

Big data: the new oil?

Categories
Quotations

2013.3.5

Once your life is inside a federal investigation, there is no space outside of it. The only private thing is your thoughts, and even they don’t feel safe anymore. Every word you speak or write can be used, manipulated, or played like a card against your future and the future of those you love. There are no neutral parties, no sources of unimpeachable wisdom and trust.

The lawyers tell you: take no notes.

The lawyers tell you: talk to no one.

It is the loneliest of lonely things to be surrounded by your loved ones, in danger, and forced to be silent.

May you never experience a Federal investigation. I did, and it consumed me, and changed everyday that will come after it for the rest of my life.

Quinn Norton, “Life Inside the Aaron Swartz Investigation”
Categories
Quotations

2013.3.4

Security signs that begin with ‘For your protection…’ essentially end with ‘…we will restrict freedoms & invade privacy’.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (via kateoplis)

You tell em Neil, we need working and relevant services, not to be babied.

(via scinerds)

This, this is a case of Neil not thinking about the children, right? Right?