Re: [liberationtech] The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom
wow. thanks for sharing this. from where I sit, that looks like hitting a nail on the head that has needed such a direct hit for quite a while. as the publisher's site tags it: How the freedom-to-connect movement aids Western hegemony. Can't wait to read it. DG On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 2:55 PM, Shawn Mathew Powers s...@gsu.edu wrote: We are pleased to announce the release of The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom (University of Illinois Press, 2015, http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/83cdd9wm9780252039126.html) by Shawn Powers (https://gsu.academia.edu/smp) and Michael Jablonski ( http://www.realcyberwar.com/authors/). The book is on sale now ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Cyber-War-Communication/dp/025208070X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8qid=1426072769sr=1-1) for $25 (paperback). The Kindle edition ( http://www.amazon.com/Real-Cyber-War-Political-Communication-ebook/dp/B00UGIKUVA/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8sr=1-1qid=1426072769) is just $11.75. About the book: Discussions surrounding the role of the internet in society are dominated by terms such as internet freedom, surveillance, cybersecurity, and, most prolifically, cyber war. But behind the rhetoric of cyber war is an ongoing state-centered battle for control of information resources. Powers and Jablonski conceptualize this real cyber war as the utilization of digital networks for geopolitical purposes, including covert attacks against another state’s electronic systems, but also, and more importantly, the variety of ways the internet is used to further a state’s economic and military agendas. Moving beyond debates on the democratic value of new and emerging information technologies, The Real Cyber War focuses on political, economic, and geopolitical factors driving internet freedom policies, in particular the U.S. State Department's emerging doctrine in support of a universal freedom to connect. They argue that efforts to create a universal internet built upon Western legal, political, and social preferences is driven by economic and geopolitical motivations rather than the humanitarian and democratic ideals that typically accompany related policy discourse. In fact, the freedom-to-connect movement is intertwined with broader efforts to structure global society in ways that favor American and Western cultures, economies, and governments. Table of Contents: Introduction: Geopolitics the Internet 1. Information Freedom US Foreign Policy: A History 2. The Information Industrial Complex 3. Google, Information Power 4. The Economics of Internet Connectivity 5. The Myth of Multistakeholder Governance 6. Towards Information Sovereignty 7. Internet Freedom in a Surveillance Society Conclusion: Taming Geopolitics Reviews: A knowing, wide-ranging, perceptive, important, and original book. Powers and Jablonski connect disparate and significant dots; weave history, technology, and law together; and explain interrelated complex concepts imaginatively. They tell a compelling story key for any student of transnational information flows.--Monroe Price, author of Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution and its Challenge to State Power As governments, companies, civil society, and other stakeholders struggle towards a new global information and communication order in the post-Snowden world, this equally provocative and important book cuts through the Western rhetoric of 'Internet freedom' and draws a sobering picture of how policy-making in this space is ultimately a fight for control over information, which is largely driven by economic and geopolitical interests rather than democratic ideals and human rights.--Urs Gasser, Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet Society, Harvard University Where to learn more? University of Illinois Press ( http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/83cdd9wm9780252039126.html) Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Cyber-War-Communication/dp/025208070X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8qid=1426072769sr=1-1 ) Realcyberwar.com Feedback and questions are welcome. Also, if you are working on a similar or related project, please get in touch! All the best, — Shawn Powers, PhD Assistant Professor, Communication Associate Director, CIME Georgia State University s...@gsu.edu -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu. -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator
Re: [liberationtech] Snowden sets OPSEC record straight
Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he said. Very likely he still had a copy while in Hong Kong but destroyed them before leaving for Moscow. While I agree that these are the journalist's words, not quotes from Snowden, you are here directly contradicting what the story says in order to make your version come out, and suggesting we disbelieve what Risen actually wrote. That still makes it impossible to take the actual words at face value, and I don't like that strategy as way of understanding what's reported. We have reason to believe Snowden trusts Risen and Risen is trying to be accurate. Interpretations that require us to discount what is written take us down a rabbit hole. Further, as we all know, destroying copies of any digital files, let alone a huge number of files like these, is a significant project in and of itself. Snowden and Risen never mention destroying files. If we are concerned about possible intelligence agency access to files, would you be comfortable with any method of destruction that did not include physical destruction of the drives containing the information? Do we assume Snowden had access to strong means of physical destruction *and reliable disposal of the destroyed drives* in a hotel in Hong Kong? This is supported by the fragmentary actual quote that NYT printed: “What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward?” he added. I'm not sure how this actual quote supports anything. It's perfectly compatible with the simplest understanding of what Risen wrote, in which he gave all the copies he had to Poitras and Greenwald. So once Greenwald and Poitras left, he should not have had any documents of this sort. I don't see any particular reason to assume that. Except that it's specifically and exactly what Risen reported Snowden said, even though you are right that those remarks are not in quotations. You don't see any reason to believe what Risen wrote, and if you see no reason to believe his reporting, we are already down the rabbit hole of picking and choosing what to believe. Further, you've not included the second part of my message, where we have Greenwald directly stating (and not just quoted, but you can literally hear him saying it on the video) that Snowden has the documents on July 14, including the complete blueprints of the NSA, which giving the very close parsing of this stories you're doing and filling in quite a bit of information that's not in them, now seems hard to fit in. When Glen and Laura left, Ed apparently thought he was going to stay in Hong Kong for a while; it wasn't until the HK government started applying pressure that he decided to leave. None of which is mentioned in the story. My point is that, as printed/spoken, the stories do not quite add up. Maybe there will be some clarification. -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
Re: [liberationtech] Snowden sets OPSEC record straight
i generally support Snowden, but aspects of this part of the story concern me. Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. Poitras and Greenwald visited Snowden on June 1; reports indicate only a single visit (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden-documents_n_3716424.html). They both report leaving Hong Kong with the files a day or two later (see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?_r=0pagewanted=all). Yet the *South China Morning Post* reports specifically that Snowden gave them documents on June 12, over a week later: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa-surveillance?page=all, http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusive-snowden-safe-hong-kong-more-us-cyberspying-details-revealed?page=all: The latest explosive revelations about US National Security Agency cybersnooping in Hong Kong and on the mainland are based on further scrutiny and clarification of information Snowden provided on June 12. The former technician for the US Central Intelligence Agency and contractor for the National Security Agency provided documents revealing attacks on computers over a four-year period. The documents listed operational details of specific attacks on computers, including internet protocol (IP) addresses, dates of attacks and whether a computer was still being monitored remotely. This is not trivial because Snowden specifically claims he did not keep any copies for himself. So once Greenwald and Poitras left, he should not have had any documents of this sort. Second, and perhaps easier to explain away but still concerning given the above, is that in a widely-publicized interview given on July 14, two weeks *after *Snowden arrived in Russia, Greenwald clearly says that Snowden is *currently *in possession of literally thousands of documents ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoxP70oojfY) and warns of some mechanism (which might be technical or social, but it sounds as if it is not completely social--that is, there is some kind of mechanism that would release the documents if harm came to him, a mechanism which it would presumably not be impossible for intelligence agencies to uncover even if Snowden is not technically in possession of the documents: It's not just a matter of, if he dies, things get released, it's more nuanced than that, he said. It's really just a way to protect himself against extremely rogue behavior on the part of the United States, by which I mean violent actions toward him, designed to end his life, and it's just a way to ensure that nobody feels incentivized to do that. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/journalist-edward-snowden-has-blueprints-nsa -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Liberationtech is public archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
Re: [liberationtech] a privacy preserving and resilient social network
I really think that is wrong, because it looks at the problem from a purely technical level. We already know that in any given network, if the snoops cannot penetrate it technically, they will penetrate it socially. They do this either through setting up puppet accounts (very visible all over Facebook, if you know what to look for), and if that fails, they simply pay the most vulnerable member of the network, and/or blackmail them. This is documented spy operations 101, all over any history of CIA, NSA, etc., you care to read. In fact, it's old-fashioned spying, and the fetish for pursuing technological intelligence makes it easy to overlook the more pedestrian kind. if you put your personal information out there in any kind of centralized shared environment (I mean: an environment which others know about, has a name, etc., not necessarily technically centralized), and the snoops want to know about the network, they will find out about it. Look at how easily they penetrated very small networks of what one would have expected to be extremely like-minded, security-conscious and very small networks: WikiLeaks, LulzSec, using just these methods. There is nothing paranoid or conspiratorial about this observation. the danger is inherent in the network itself, and the solution is to craft laws and oversight that prevent organizations like NSA and CIA from thinking they have the authority to snoop. Otherwise, the snooping will occur, full stop. On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Eleanor Saitta e...@dymaxion.org wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 2013.06.29 11.09, David Golumbia wrote: put more simply: the notion of a privacy-preserving social network is an inherent contradiction in terms. No, it's totally not. You can definitely build systems that allow people to have meaningful levels of privacy toward anyone not in the set of people with whom they choose to share data, while still letting them reasonably efficiently speak with those they want to speak with. I don't see why there's anything inherently contradictory in this. E. - -- Ideas are my favorite toys. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (MingW32) iF4EAREIAAYFAlHO+sQACgkQQwkE2RkM0wqCtQD/biQwnDGjxlqW6Ea/yZkYpbz2 6zTBdBW/zloHGzvZNAwA/1xbE7g2fXIa5EVLMoCR8t7q6MK7sXMeBpLaoY9rmgYF =aa3t -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] a privacy preserving and resilient social network
On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 12:05 PM, Eleanor Saitta e...@dymaxion.org wrote: I'm not. I'm trying to solve specific technical problems which support larger social ends. I don't think privacy preservation is a technical problem, or at the least, not largely a technical problem. I think it's (mostly) a legal and social problem. This is fine. I'm not saying that using a network like this will make you invulnerable to HUMINT. What I am saying is that networks can a) force your adversary to use HUMINT (which is a lot more expensive), and possibly even give you some tools to help maintain your social graph integrity, etc. I don't think forcing your adversary to use HUMINT is what most people understand by privacy preservation. Further, the snoops use HUMINT to get technical access. it only takes one compromised friend on Facebook to allow downloading a huge amount of data, for example. I don't even think it's clear that HUMINT is more expensive than technical intelligence, and the budgets of snoop agencies are not so constrained that cost is something we can take comfort in. If we build tools that force spooks to use HUMINT to get in, we've won. I really disagree with this, and I don't think it's what most people understand by privacy preservation. I don't think members of WikiLeaks or LulzSec feel their privacy has been preserved because the penetration involved (but was not limited to) HUMINT. Privacy-preserving, as a property, doesn't mean if you don't think about what you're doing in the world you can run black ops on this platform. It means you can keep what you're doing here private against mass observation by the motivated and targeted observation by the non-resourced. Or, at least, I think that's a bar that's actually meaningful and can be achieved; what you're talking about can't. I'm having trouble parsing the two properties you lay out here; they are both much more complicated than I'd want to make them. I find privacy to be a simple property: I'm not going to be snooped on by the govt without a warrant; companies are not going to collect my data and do inappropriate things with it. These are matters of law and governance. I believe that the world in which law and governance ensure these principles is not only achievable, but the only meaningful kind of privacy we can hope for. Our political sphere is governed by laws, not human beings. Back to the original proposition, which did not appear to be yours: building a social network and proclaiming it to be privacy-preserving suggests to users that they will not be spied on. While there may be some truth to the difficulty such networks would pose for commercial data collection, any sense of security from government spying such a network creates will be false. That will be true until and unless we have a legal structure built to prevent that spying, in which case the technical methods aren't necessary to begin with. -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] NSA Director Alexander @ Senate Appropriations Committee (Jun 12)
readers of this list may find interesting a brief analysis I've just posted of the discrepancies between General Alexander's testimony and media coverage of it--from the actual testimony it appears he did not mean to be claiming that dozens of terrorists attacks were prevented via collection of phone records, despite nearly every news source today using that as a headline: Through the PRISM of Media Distortions (of BLARNEY) http://www.uncomputing.org/?p=262 David On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 12:10 PM, Kyle Maxwell ky...@xwell.org wrote: Thanks for this. His comments on Guarding Privacy and Civil Liberties are as follows: Let me emphasize that our nation’s security in cyberspace is not a matter of resources alone. It is an enduring principle and an imperative. Everything depends on trust. We operate in a way that ensures we keep the trust of the American people because that trust is a sacred requirement. We do not see a tradeoff between security and liberty. It is not a choice, and we can and must do both simultaneously. The men and women of USCYBERCOM and NSA/CSS take this responsibility very seriously, as do I. Beyond my personal commitment to do this right, there are multiple oversight mechanisms in place. Given the nature of our work, of course, few outside of our Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branch oversight bodies can know the details of what we do or see that we operate every day under strict guidelines and accountability within one of the most rigorous oversight regimes in the U.S. Government. For those of you who do, and who have the opportunity to meet with the men and women of USCYBERCOM and NSA/CSS, you have seen for yourself how seriously we take this responsibility and our commitment to earning and maintaining your trust. Someday - not today, of course, but someday - they're going to get it about increased transparency. Some things will and should remain secret, but not anywhere near the extent of today. I hope that day comes sooner rather than later. On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 11:51 PM, Gregory Foster gfos...@entersection.org wrote: U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations (Jun 12) - Hearing on Cybersecurity: http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/ht-full.cfm?method=hearings.viewid=33dda6f9-5d83-409d-a8c5-7ada84b0c598 Complete video of the hearing and prepared testimony of each of the witnesses is linked here. This previously scheduled hearing received some press today as it was General Keith B. Alexander's first public appearance since the inception of the Snowden event. The General's prepared testimony provides a useful primer on the NSA/CSS and its relationship with Cyber Command - the US military branch active in the networked domain (PDF download): http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/ht-full.cfm?method=hearings.downloadid=6ae112a2-f7e1-4c6e-92a9-bd7b16f2824e gf -- Gregory Foster || gfos...@entersection.org @gregoryfoster http://entersection.com/ -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Canadian phone and Internet surveillance program revealed
the buried lede in all these stories is that cooperation agreements mean Canadians can spy on US citizens (but are only ever asked about Canadians, Canadian pols only talk about protections for their citizens), US can spy on Canadians (but are only asked about US, US pols only talk about protections for their citizens), etc., etc.--esp. for UK, NZ, and Aus-- share the info as they like. and not spy on their own citizens and (kind of) tell the truth when they say it. or a half-truth that makes them feel better and appears to comply with letter of the law. On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Nadim Kobeissi na...@nadim.cc wrote: Some news in Canada similar to the NSA revelations in the US: Defence Minister Peter MacKay approved a secret electronic eavesdropping program that scours global telephone records and Internet data trails – including those of Canadians – for patterns of suspicious activity. Mr. MacKay signed a ministerial directive formally renewing the government’s “metadata” surveillance program on Nov. 21, 2011, according to records obtained by The Globe and Mail. The program had been placed on a lengthy hiatus, according to the documents, after a federal watchdog agency raised concerns that it could lead to warrantless surveillance of Canadians. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/data-collection-program-got-green-light-from-mackay-in-2011/article12444909/ NK -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data
complete agreement with Rich on my part. On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 10:08 AM, Rich Kulawiec r...@gsp.org wrote: On Sun, Jun 09, 2013 at 09:45:31AM -0400, Nadim Kobeissi wrote: I don't agree with x z (and rather agree with you), but I'm really tired of just how aggressive and rude you always are on Libtech. First: you've got to be kidding. I've never seen a single message on this list that goes past about 2 on a 10 scale. (Not that I'd mind seeing things that go higher: I really do enjoy quality flamage.) Second: stupidity, in all forms, fully deserves to be slapped down -- hard. I expect that if I say something stupid here (and if I haven't already, eventually I will) that I'll get hammered for it. Good. I should be. Because I would rather endure the pummelling and the possible embarassment than persist in being wrong. (Or worse, making someone else be wrong too because they think I'm right when I'm most certainly not.) Third: anyone who can't handle the exceedingly gentle discussions here (which are, generally speaking, held between people who are *all on the same side*, at least in a philosophical sense), is really, really not up to the task of liberating anything. Because doing so will require going up against people who will do far more than just type a few mildly caustic words in an email message from time to time. Jacob's contributions here are among the most cogent and useful. I don't care how aggressive and rude he is (and I don't think he is at all, by the way), I care if he's right -- and he has an excellent track record of being so. ---rsk -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple
On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 6:52 AM, Michael Rogers mich...@briarproject.orgwrote: This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States. Note the wording of this denial: the *target* of collection may not be a US citizen or a person located in the US. But if the *target* is, say, Al Qaeda and affiliated organisations, does the law prevent data about US citizens and persons located in the US from being collected and retained? Cheers, Michael And in case one draws any comfort at all from these apparent limitations: there is no chance that intelligence community representatives would take advantage of very technical details of the wording of laws to, e.g., share information on the citizens of other countries with whom it has formal information sharing agreements but whom it is not supposed to directly surveil, right? Because that would be kind of dishonest, and we know the intelligence community is first and foremost dedicated to being truthful in public. http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/essays/canada-and-the-five-eyes-intelligence-community/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Why Metadata Matters
while it is literally true that the data accessed by the NSA is formally metadata--that is, informational data about the calls rather than the conversations themselves--the distinction is becoming more and more obfuscatory. The whole direction of so-called big data analytics is to see through the metadata into what would, until very recently, have been understood as data. metadata today is both far more informationally rich, and far more analytically useful, than the data/metadata distinction suggests. On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 1:44 PM, Griffin Boyce griffinbo...@gmail.comwrote: I see a lot of people wondering why metadata matters. But they don't know *what* you're doing there! So I'll give a short example to illustrate how metadata can be used to not only determine who someone is talking to, but also to invade their privacy and uncover the most intimate details of their life. Jane is at 16th L Street for an hour. Carla is at 16th L Street for four hours. She's had a short visit previously. James is at 16th L Street for twenty minutes. He comes back at the same time every week. Kris is at 16th L Street for ten hours. Rick is at 16th L Street for eight hours every night. Samantha has been there for three days and four hours. 16th L Street is the address of a Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC. Jane is having a physical. Carla is having an abortion. James receives his medication there. By visit time, location, and frequency, he is likely a trans guy. If his appointments were every two weeks, the metadata would indicate that James is a trans woman. Kris is protesting there. Rick works in an office in the same building. Samantha dropped her phone in the Farragut West Metro Station and has been looking for it ever since. And that's just location data. If one calls a physician every day, perhaps they have a major medical problem. If a crime happens on the other side of town, and you suddenly start calling attorneys... did you do it? There are numerous explanations for either of those scenarios, but this kind of metadata in isolation can be used to tell almost any story you want. Stay safe out there. best, Griffin Boyce -- Technical Program Associate, Open Technology Institute #Foucault / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: sa...@jabber.ccc.de -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] Why Metadata Matters
let's just presume that there are parallel arrangements with every other major provider of not just telephony but other forms of electronic communication. and a Google-like persistent shadow copy of whatever parts of the web can be reached. and some neat layers of indexing and categorization metadata of their own. that should bring the disks up to at least 5% full. which definitely leaves no room for a copy of the Bill of Rights (or, for that matter, the Constitution itself). On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 5:34 PM, Bernard Tyers - ei8fdb ei8...@ei8fdb.orgwrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I'm glad someone brought up the NSA datacentre. I was thinking is there any connection to this? How far is it to being finished? Is that public knowledge/possible to find out? It wouldn't warrant this amount of data, which I would expect is pretty small in comparison to the capabilities of this NSA datacentre? Probably too far fetched an idea... On 6 Jun 2013, at 22:27, Bruce Potter at IRF wrote: The other point worth keeping in mind is that NSA can keep this data forever (hence the humoungous cyber farm NSA is building in Utah) -- So a decade from now they can check the metadata to see if it fits some theory a paranoid analyst thinks might have happened half a lifetime ago. bp On Jun 6, 2013, at 1:44 PM, Griffin Boyce griffinbo...@gmail.com wrote: I see a lot of people wondering why metadata matters. But they don't know *what* you're doing there! So I'll give a short example to illustrate how metadata can be used to not only determine who someone is talking to, but also to invade their privacy and uncover the most intimate details of their life. Jane is at 16th L Street for an hour. Carla is at 16th L Street for four hours. She's had a short visit previously. James is at 16th L Street for twenty minutes. He comes back at the same time every week. Kris is at 16th L Street for ten hours. Rick is at 16th L Street for eight hours every night. Samantha has been there for three days and four hours. 16th L Street is the address of a Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC. Jane is having a physical. Carla is having an abortion. James receives his medication there. By visit time, location, and frequency, he is likely a trans guy. If his appointments were every two weeks, the metadata would indicate that James is a trans woman. Kris is protesting there. Rick works in an office in the same building. Samantha dropped her phone in the Farragut West Metro Station and has been looking for it ever since. And that's just location data. If one calls a physician every day, perhaps they have a major medical problem. If a crime happens on the other side of town, and you suddenly start calling attorneys... did you do it? There are numerous explanations for either of those scenarios, but this kind of metadata in isolation can be used to tell almost any story you want. Stay safe out there. best, Griffin Boyce -- Technical Program Associate, Open Technology Institute #Foucault / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: sa...@jabber.ccc.de -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator atcompa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings athttps://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech - -- Bernard / bluboxthief / ei8fdb IO91XM / www.ei8fdb.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.17 (Darwin) Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJRsQByAAoJENsz1IO7MIrrtAoIAM1H67FVvGHcrlw4PyLXf98z gYr67C3tvIsN1N8knasQjwdeJ7zLtGaoLUYjgQ7JdhdZfaJwWL4ashgBO+KCMbyZ o239wW/m61A3DkhOdq0GLTEGKTBL70EKwX0mAHWrbYkI1hhRfGsGj7QiNqNl1G6f 9IPj8av0IHSMp5VuCKNX4zPuBBgpx/gs+Kiw4Na4JhFcdYIcko2BFa8NgxLYVHiZ FXesc14gWtmbY8tLgjy6k0QzHg6LXmqbpNlKJ5d5rvQYvx6ZoL055lIaLAEI+8JT 0xkuaClw37dUW/63tNjD1LxgsCJQFj0Otuuj+k4CWuB5dssHwN1VMvp07N7txb4= =ojaX -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] US State Dept Discourages Using Technology to Promote Democracy, Human Rights, and Citizen Engagement in Ukraine?
the key word people seem to be missing is unless: it says don't apply *unless your application meets the program objectives*. it is therefore encouraging, not discouraging, applications. as a RFP posted on state.gov, it doesn't make much sense to think State is discouraging applications. They appear to have updated the page almost immediately to avoid confusion; it now reads Proposals must demonstrate awareness of similar USG-supported programming in Ukraine and how the proposed program would complement ongoing efforts. http://www.state.gov/j/drl/p/206488.htm On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Yosem Companys compa...@stanford.eduwrote: Fostering Civic Engagement in Ukraine (approximately $500,000 available): DRL’s objective is to support the role of civil society in policy formation and enhancing accountability and responsiveness of government officials in Ukraine. The program will support civil society to foster an inclusive and participatory democratic system of government and hold politicians and public officials more accountable to constituents. In order to foster more unity among civil society efforts, the program should support post-election advocacy on areas of policy formation and implementation such as ongoing efforts related to elections and election law reform; freedom of assembly legislation; and/or reversing legislation restricting the rights of vulnerable or marginalized populations. The program should also examine how well existing laws are implemented and help civil society ensure that citizens can use official institutions and mechanisms to exercise their rights. Program activities could include, but are not limited to: support for activities to encourage debate and advocacy by citizens and civil society organizations, small grants to civil society for monitoring and/or advocacy activities, creating regional civil society partnerships to increase civil society unity on advocacy efforts, or connecting Ukrainian civil society with their counterparts in one or more countries in the region through NGO-to-NGO exchanges and mentoring in order to take advantage of shared post-communist and transition experiences. Successful proposals will demonstrate a strong knowledge of civil society in Ukraine and an established ability to work with regional civil society groups. DRL strongly discourages health, technology, or science- related projects unless they have an explicit component related to the requested program objectives listed above. http://www.state.gov/j/drl/p/206488.htm -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] US State Dept Discourages Using Technology to Promote Democracy, Human Rights, and Citizen Engagement in Ukraine?
the whole thing is not a big deal, but i will risk repeating myself: the original comment on this list overlooked the phrase *unless they have an explicit component related to the requested program objectives listed above*, and this is actually a solicitation *for *proposals, not an effort to discourage them. The original discourage comment was just trying to ensure that proposals were area- and program-specific. State has already modified the page to make this clear, perhaps in reaction to comments such as the original one on this list: http://www.state.gov/j/drl/p/206488.htm. It's now clear that there is no intent to discourage applications. On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 11:36 AM, Jillian C. York jilliancy...@gmail.comwrote: I just really don't see why this is a big deal. So State's funding priorities for tech stuff aren't about those subjects. So what? -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] US State Dept Discourages Using Technology to Promote Democracy, Human Rights, and Citizen Engagement in Ukraine?
://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
Re: [liberationtech] US State Dept Discourages Using Technology to Promote Democracy, Human Rights, and Citizen Engagement in Ukraine?
I assume you are referring to this March 5 press release? http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/03/205666.htm the earliest open RFP on State's website is from Feb 15 and includes the same language, which appears on every other currently-open RFP: http://www.state.gov/j/drl/p/204850.htm I have some experience with both governmental and foundation grantsmaking, and in both cases something between many and a majority of applications completely omit one or more major, explicit requirements clearly stated in the RFP, creating a fair amount of hassle and administrative overhead for the grantsmakers. boilerplate language insisting on the formal requirements is standard for this reason (and still does not drastically reduce the number of inappropriate applications). this does not read to me in any way to actually be discouraging health, science, or technology proposals. On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 1:26 PM, Yosem Companys compa...@stanford.eduwrote: David, you have indeed pointed it out twice. But it's still inconsistent for the US State Department to carry out a public relations campaign that gives the impression that it's adding a technology component to all its work and then issue RFPs that strongly discourage technology projects from applying unless they have an explicit component related to the requested program objectives. I understand it's standard language. But, presumably, everyone who applies will have the program objective in mind, whether they are tech-oriented or not, so why even bother with the caveat? Also, the language does not disprove Katy's suggestion that the caveat may be there to ensure non-technology projects get support. One way to test whether this is indeed the case is to see whether RFPs issued prior to the public relations campaign lacked that caveat. In any case, I suspect whoever wrote this standard language likely did not put as much thought into crafting the language as we are analyzing it. Best, Yosem On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 9:46 AM, David Golumbia dgolum...@gmail.com wrote: I have now twice pointed out that this perception is a misreading of the document. They are simply trying to cut down on the number of inappropriate applications using very standard language. the original cut-and-paste obscured where the phrase appears on the page, but it is still followed by the exact phrase you quoted: unless they have an explicit component related to the requested program objectives listed above. If technology projects have an explicit component related to the program, they are NOT discouraged from applying. There is no story here. There is a lot of other qualifying information in the additional information block. The entire block of information appears to be repeated in all of their RFPs. I've pasted it in below. It suggests they get a lot of applications that don't read the RFP carefully. I repeat: there is no story here at all. Projects that have a strong academic, research, conference, or dialogue focus will not be deemed competitive. DRL strongly discourages health, technology, or science- related projects unless they have an explicit component related to the requested program objectives listed above. Projects that focus on commercial law or economic development will be rated as non-competitive. Cost sharing is strongly encouraged, and cost sharing contributions should be outlined in the proposal budget and budget narrative. On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Yosem Companys compa...@stanford.edu wrote: I assumed the same. It's just an odd caveat in the context of US State Department's public relations drive about innovation. On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 7:46 AM, Katy P katyca...@gmail.com wrote: My guess is that since money is already allocated for tech, they wanted to ensure that programs that weren't tech focused had some funds too. (Just a guess). On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Shava Nerad shav...@gmail.com wrote: Evgeny got to them. ;) More seriously, does anyone have digital divide info - cultural and financial - on Ukraine? Tech is not the solution for all cultures. Beer is the correct solution for some. A thousand cups of tea for others. Maybe State knows something we don't? Like: --- INTERNET Ukraine suffers digital divide - study Tuesday 22 March 2011 | 15:40 CET | News There is still a significant difference in household internet access across Ukraine, according to a study by GfK Ukraine. Internet penetration was just 12 percent in rural areas in Q4 2010, reports BizLigaNet. The figure rises to 25 percent in towns with a population below 50,000 and 38 percent of households in cities with more than 500,000 residents. http://www.telecompaper.com/news/ukraine-suffers-digital-divide-study--793094 yrs, Shava Nerad shav...@gmail.com On Mar 21, 2013
