GROWING BACKLASH TO GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
GROWING BACKLASH TO GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
from AP 12 Oct
2013, 6:58 AM PDT
By MARTHA MENDOZA AP National Writer SAN JOSE, Calif.
From Silicon Valley to the South Pacific, counterattacks
to revelations of widespread National Security Agency surveillance are taking
shape, from a surge of new encrypted email programs to technology that
sprinkles the Internet with red flag terms to confuse would-be snoops.
Policy makers, privacy advocates and political leaders
around the world have been outraged at the near weekly disclosures from former
intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that expose sweeping U.S. government
surveillance programs.
"Until this summer, people didn't know anything
about the NSA," said Center for International Security and Cooperation at
Stanford University co-director Amy Zegart. "Their own secrecy has come
back to bite them."
Activists are fighting back with high-tech civil
disobedience, entrepreneurs want to cash in on privacy concerns, Internet users
want to keep snoops out of their computers and lawmakers want to establish
stricter parameters.
Some of the tactics are more effective than others. For
example, Flagger, a program that adds words like "blow up" and
"pressure cooker" to web addresses that users visit, is probably more
of a political statement than actually confounding intelligence agents.
Developer Jeff Lyon in Santa Clara, Calif., said he's
delighted if it generates social awareness, and that 2,000 users have installed
it to date. He said, "The goal here is to get a critical mass of people
flooding the Internet with noise and make a statement of civil
disobedience."
University of Auckland associate professor Gehan
Gunasekara said he's received "overwhelming support" for his proposal
to "lead the spooks in a merry dance," visiting radical websites,
setting up multiple online identities and making up hypothetical "friends."
And "pretty soon everyone in New Zealand will have
to be under surveillance," he said.
Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Parker Higgens in
San Francisco has a more direct strategy: by using encrypted email and
browsers, he creates more smoke screens for the NSA. "Encryption loses
its' value as an indicator of possible malfeasance if everyone is using
it," he said.
And there are now plenty of encryption programs, many
new, and of varying quality.
"This whole field has been made exponentially more
mainstream," said Cyrptocat private instant messaging developer Nadim
Kobeissi.
This week, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University
released a smartphone app called SafeSlinger they say encrypts text messages so
they cannot be read by cell carriers, Internet providers, employers "or
anyone else."
CryptoParties are springing up around the world as well.
They are small gatherings where hosts teach attendees, who bring their digital
devices, how to download and use encrypted email and secure Internet browsers.
"Honestly, it doesn't matter who you are or what you
are doing, if the NSA wants to find information, they will," said
organizer Joshua Smith. "But we don't have to make it easy for them."
Apparently plenty agree, as encryption providers have seen
a surge in interest.
Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, a free encryption service
was being loaded about 600 times a day in the month before Snowden's
revelations broke. Two months later, that had more than doubled to 1,380,
according to a running tally maintained by programmer Kristian Fiskerstrand.
Andrew Lewman, executive director of TOR, short for The
Onion Router, said they don't track downloads of their program that helps make
online traffic anonymous by bouncing it through a convoluted network of routers
to protect the privacy of their users.
But, he said, they have seen an uptick.
"Our web servers seem more busy than normal,"
he said.
Berlin-based email provider Posteo claims to have seen a
150 percent surge in paid subscribers due to the "Snowden effect."
Posteo demands no personal information, doesn't store
metadata, ensures server-to-server encryption of messages and even allows
customers to pay anonymously _ cash in brown envelopes-style.
CEO Patrick Loehr, who responded to The Associated Press
by encrypted email, said subscriptions to the 1 euro ($1.36) per month program
rose to 25,000 in the past four months. The company is hoping to offer an
English-language service next year.
Federation of American Scientists secrecy expert Steven
Aftergood said it is crucial now for policymakers to clearly define limits.
"Are we setting ourselves up for a total
surveillance system that may be beyond the possibility of reversal once it is
in place?" he asked. "We may be on a road where we don't want to go.
I think people are correct to raise an alarm now and not when we're facing a
fait accompli."
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who introduced a bipartisan package
of proposals to reform the surveillance programs last month, told a Cato
Institute gathering Thursday that key parts of the debate are unfolding now.
"It's going to take a groundswell of support from
lots of Americans across the political spectrum," he said,
"communicating that business as usual is no longer OK, and they won't buy
the argument that liberty and security are mutually exclusive."
----
Associated Press writers Frank Jordans in Berlin and
Raphael Satter in London contributed to this story. Follow Martha Mendoza at https://twitter.com/mendozamartha
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