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After Manning, let’s focus on Snowden

By on January 18, 2017 in Big Brother, Big Government, Hacktivism, Manning, Snowden

Yesterday we learned that Chelsea Manning will be released May 17 next year. Now, let’s keep an eye on the ball. Still, much can happen.

Given that Manning really will be released from prison – it’s time to boost the campaign for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Still, in theory, there is a possibility of a presidential pardon. But it is not very likely. Instead, the Snowden campaign will have to shift focus to asylum or sanctuary in a western democracy.

Needless to say, practically all western governments reject this proposal. If it is to happen, we will have to make them change their minds.

Politicians mostly care about their image and public opinion, i.e. votes. Factors that can make them more popular or unpopular and give them more or less public support are essential. So, it really should be possible to make them change their mind about Snowden.

The first thing should be to reach critical mass. Actually, this is the hardest phase. It requires hard work. But we know that focused campaigning can lead to a breakthrough. And we already have e.g. the European Parliament and several media organizations onboard.

Furthermore, politicians saying no to Snowden might stand out as elitist, shady and patrons of the deep state. The pro-Snowden campaign, on the other hand, is from the beginning perceived as fighting for a noble cause. We also have the psychological advantage of being the underdog, the people confronting the power elite.

We need to saturate the Internet and the media with pro-Snowden messages. But we also need action. Because action is a very effective tool for communication. We need to organize rallies, seminars, and media-friendly grass root activism. And we need to take every opportunity to bring this subject up when politicians meet the public.

It is possible to provide refuge for Edward Snowden in the western world. But to reach this goal, we will have to work really hard. Nothing will happen by itself.

/ HAX

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Assange on Fox: Governments hate transparency

By on January 8, 2017 in Assange, Big Brother, Big Government, Democracy, Free Information, Hacktivism, Rule of law, Transparency, Wikileaks

“We’re in the business of publishing information about power,” Assange said. “Why are we in the business of publishing information about power? Because people can do things with power, they can do very bad things with power. If they’re incompetent, they can do dangerous things. If they’re evil, they can do wicked things.”

In Part III of the interview, which aired Thursday on the Fox News Channel, Assange also said that governments “hate transparency. They loathe it. Because they have to work harder.” (…)

Governments are “full of incompetent people,” Assange told Hannity. “And the more secretive the area is, the more incompetent it becomes because there’s no proper oversight.” (…)

“If you don’t know what’s happening in the world with powerful individuals, corporations and governments … immoral actors within the state or within those big corporations prosper,” Assange said at the conclusion of the interview.

Fox: ‘Hannity’ Exclusive: Wikileaks’ Assange: Governments ‘Hate Transparency. They Loathe It’ »

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Fake news and the war over information

By on December 27, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Data, Big Government, Big Media, Censorship, Free Information, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Internet, Media, social media

Everybody seems to be obsessed with the phenomenon of »fake news«.

But this is nothing new. If you have first-hand information, you will find that mainstream media are often wrong.

When I used to work in the European Parliament for the Swedish Pirate Party, we established the principle »right enough«. If a piece of news only had minor errors, we let go and focused on something more important. To try to correct everything journalists get wrong will be much too time-consuming.

A standard phone call from a (non-Brussels based) journalist normally started out with everything between five and 30 minutes of EU for dummies – where we had to explain who does what and how things actually work in this multinational bureaucracy. And in the end, it would to some extent end up incorrect anyway. You can only do so much.

Journalists are not rocket scientists, their insights and knowledge are normally limited, and they have a tight time frame to collect and analyze the facts. They will always get some things wrong.

And, of course, journalists and media organizations are biased – often without being aware of this fact themselves.

However, the context at the moment is not about mainstream media. It’s about the competition.

The political and media elite seems to have a strong aversion towards alternative media. Often new players don’t follow the same set of unwritten rules as journalists who are a part of the establishment. And this might be a good thing, as the latter often are more interested in cultivating their relations with people in power than reporting the actual news.

Of course, alternative media is sometimes filled with fake news, satire, propaganda, opinions, biased reporting… and often with real, important news and a qualified analysis that doesn’t make it into traditional media.

During the years 2009-14 in the European Parliament, we often used our blogs and social media networks to get the news out: Important news and first-hand information, that was not in any way covered in other media.

This was often met with irritation from the political elite and the bureaucracy – and with a scornful attitude from Big Media. There are always people who, because of various reasons, find frank reports about real matters disturbing.

Somehow, I fear that an elite of politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, and media organizations are taking advantage of the fact that there is a certain degree of fake news out there – to smear all new, alternative media.

They simply don’t want others to interfere.

Now we will see Facebook in cooperation with mainstream media start labeling links as »disputed«. Germany might go all Putin and fine those who publish »incorrect« information on the Internet. It is all quite Orwellian. And it opens up for abuse, censorship, and cover-ups.

The media – new or old – rarely gets everything right. Sometimes it gets most things wrong. Usually, it has some sort of agenda. Therefore, its’ analyses should always be questioned. To get a somewhat complete picture – we need to turn to more sources, many different media organizations, and an abundance of disparate voices – not fewer.

The entire discussion over »fake news« might just be tactics in the endless war of power over information, over the agenda. Obviously, the establishment is not amused with the new competition.

/ HAX

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Civil rights are not in the interest of the ruling political class

By on November 25, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Government, Civil liberties, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, Privacy, Rule of law

Democracy and civil rights. It would be difficult to find anyone in the western world who does not subscribe to these principles. At least in public.

Yet, we are steadily moving away from these values.

It is being done in many small steps. Always justified with the best of intentions – like security, fighting serious crime, child protection, the war on drugs, copyright protection and combating hate speech. Just to mention a few.

Nevertheless – without a doubt – we are limiting privacy, free speech, rule of law and equal rights. It seems to be a non-reversible process. And sooner or later, the many small steps will end up being a giant leap.

Democracy and civil rights can only be curtailed so many times before the consequences will be dire.

»We have to strike a balance between fundamental rights and security« politicians say. And every time that is being done, civil rights are hollowed out. When you repeat this process time and time again – fundamental rights will be reduced to empty words.

This is extremely serious. But nobody really seems to care.

One day we will wake up to a society where you cannot speak your mind, where everything you do is observed and scrutinized, where courts no longer is a guarantee for fair trials, and where it doesn’t matter if you are innocent or guilty – you will have everything to fear.

You will have to be blind not to see the writing on the wall.

Please, do not trust politicians with upholding our fundamental rights. They have a different agenda. They are the ones limiting them.

Our civil rights can only be upheld, protected and won back by the people. It is in no one else’s interest.

/ HAX

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Dutch government leaving us all vulnerable

By on November 17, 2016 in Big Government, IT security

EDRi: Dutch government wants to keep “zero days” available for exploitation »

The Dutch government is very clear about at least one thing: unknown software vulnerabilities, also known as “zero days”, may be left open by the government, in order to be exploited by secret services and the police.

So, the Dutch government is willing to leave information technology all over the world vulnerable to known dangers – to be able to use them itself?

What could possibly go wrong?

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Merkel to social networks: Hand over the Holy Grail

By on October 27, 2016 in Big Data, Big Government, Censorship, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Internet, social media

In times when most people (at least most young people) use social media as their main source for news, German Chancellor Angela Merkel demands that these platforms should disclose their privately-developed algorithms.

“The algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others?” (…)

“These algorithms, when they are not transparent, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information.”

Of course, that would be very interesting. But, at the same time, demanding that private companies disclose their deepest trade secrets doesn’t seem very reasonable or likely to happen.

Nevertheless, Merkel touches on an important issue, with far-reaching democratic implications. Information is power. And whoever is in control of the flow of information has a huge influence on society and politics. She continued…

“The big internet platforms, via their algorithms, have become an eye of a needle which diverse media must pass through to reach users. This is a development that we need to pay careful attention to.”

On the other hand, what information will show up in your Facebook newsfeed or Google searches is largely decided by who your friends are, what they read, what they share and also by what web pages you yourself use to visit, like and on your own web search history. There is no universal model – rather all newsfeeds and all search results are personal.

And it would be rather strange to have news feeds insisting on trying to have you to read articles that you don’t care about or find interesting. Or search engines coming up with results that are not relevant to you or not in line with your preferences.

Taking the Chancellors remarks to the extreme, it would be quite terrifying if the government were to have influence over your news flow and your search results. It’s foreboding enough that politicians (on both national and EU levels) have had Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Microsoft to censor posts with certain content.

In my opinion, the only way to tackle this issue is by introducing disruptive competition. And it will happen. Internet platforms rise and fall. We have absolutely no idea what platforms or what technical concepts will be used tomorrow.

The Internet and the World Wide Web is, by design, an unprecedented opportunity for humanity to discover of information and knowledge, distribute content and take part in a free and open debate. I don’t think it would be a good idea for governments to interfere in this free and dynamic evolution.

The focus should be on entrepreneurs, activists, academia and private individuals to develop new and better tools and platforms. In doing so, I’m quite sure that information diversity, as well as privacy, will be competitive advantages.

/ HAX

RT: Merkel says Facebook, Google ‘distort perception,’ demands they ‘reveal algorithms’ »

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On TTIP, CETA, free trade and a free and open Internet

By on October 14, 2016 in Big Government, Data Protection, EU, Free Markets, Intellectual Property, Internet, Privacy, TTIP, US

I’m a free marketeer. I believe that free trade would be hugely beneficial for all.

I also believe in a free and open Internet. Especially as it provides a level playing field on which entrepreneurs from all over the world can join a global market, 24/7.

And I’m not at all happy with politicians and bureaucrats trying to force me to choose between the two.

The CETA (EU-Canada) and TTIP (EU-US) trade agreements are problematic. CETA will undermine Europeans right to data protection and privacy online. The same goes for TTIP, which also might contain intellectual property regulations undermining the principle that Internet service providers are not responsible for what their customers are up to in their cables (the mere conduit principle). That would have huge implications, leading to a strictly controlled Internet where everything you are up to must be approved in advance. When it comes to TTIP, we still have no comprehensive information about what is going to be included or not when it comes to IP – as negotiations are carried out behind closed doors.

Also, the ISDS mechanism in these trade agreements will make a much needed and long overdue copyright reform impossible.

But then, again, these trade agreements are not really about free trade. They are about »harmonizing« rules and regulations. So, they are really about regulating trade.

If you want free trade, all you have to do is to get rid of customs fees and other trade barriers. That would benefit us and all of the humanity greatly. But that is not what the politic and bureaucratic elite hope for. They want to regulate and control. The EU even has a special sub-bureaucracy for »trade defense«.

So, I don’t buy into it when they claim that these »free trade agreements« are about free trade.

I’m standing with free trade. And I’m standing with a free and open Internet. It is perfectly possible and logical to combine these standpoints with being critical to CETA and TTIP.

/ HAX

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Torrent-based websites that cannot be censored?

By on October 9, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Business, Big Government, Bitcoin, decentralization, File Sharing, Internet

This is exciting. The Web2Web project claims to be able to put web pages on the Internet that cannot be taken down, using torrents and Bitcoin. And it can be run from any modern browser.

The under the hood stuff is explained by TorrentFreak – Web2Web: Serverless Websites Powered by Torrents & Bitcoin »

»To run a Web2Web website neither the server nor the domain is required. All you need is a bootstrap page that loads your website from the torrent network and displays it in the browser« Czech developer Michal Spicka tells TorrentFreak.

If this turns out to be anything like what it’s said to be, it might be a game changer. It builds on the need for resilient, decentralised systems beyond the reach of Big Government and Big Business.

Expect some serious noise from the authorities…

/ HAX

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