[Freedombox-discuss] False dichotomy

Boaz alt.boaz at gmail.com
Sat Jul 9 23:38:44 UTC 2011


Standard disclaimer: non-developer's thoughts follow.


>We should not be segregating our work into systems for "normal people"
>and "dissidents".  To make that segregation implies two things:
>
>0) surveillance and corporate- or government-controlled communications
>for "normal people" is acceptable, and
>
> 1) that these categories are fixed, mutually-exclusive, and static --
>an individual cannot be both at once, or change from one to the other,
>either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Very insightful.

It is my view that the distinction that some have made between
“dissidents” and “normal people” or between people in “oppressed
places” and “non oppressed places” is both imaginary and misleading.

Unthinkably enormous data silos are being built as we speak in and
about the people of Western “democracies”, and the governments of
these places are hard at work starting to use technical censorship of
the internet as well.

On the other hand, just because a place is under severe “repression”
doesn't mean that there is no internet, or that you're going to be
arrested for encrypting your email or running your own mail server, or
that there's a camera affixed permanently in every home.

Repression comes in a vast spectrum of degrees and flavors, and the
same tools that are useful for fighting it in a slightly less severe
form will be helpful for fighting it in a slightly more severe form.

Nearly every “normal person” strives, if even in a very small way, or
at least yearns, for social change of some kind or other.

Every “activist” still wants to have a conversation with his mother
about recipes and the weather now and then.

When change happens, it happens because the bulk of the population are
acting as “activists”, and doing so using the tools for access and
distribution of information that they always normally use.  Change
doesn't happen because of the work of a couple shadowy mystery
supermen using their godly special powers that the mere mortals don't
need, that's just not how the world is.

The same software that provides “privacy” to a “normal person” in a
“non oppressed place” provides “secure communication” to a “freedom
fighter” in an “oppressed place”.  These distinctions are both
meaningless and useless.  Any time you extend any greater degree of
privacy to any person, anywhere, you advance the cause of human
freedom.

Yes, some features might be more useful to someone in north Africa
than someone in North America (though those features surely would be
useful to both), but the absence of those features doesn't render the
device no improvement over Twitter and Facebook.

Consider a Freedom Box which provides every feature that Twitter and
Facebook provides, in a decentralized and encrypted manner, but which:
1. Communicates solely over the internet, and in the absence of any
kind of internet connection at all, is not able to communicate at all.
2. Loses every security property in the face of an attacker with
physical access.

Will it help someone in North Korea?  No.  But will it help someone in
North Africa or North America?  Of course.  Might a North African user
prefer if it could also communicate over a magical unstoppable mesh
network and be disguised to look like a fleck of paint on the wall?
Of course.  Does that mean that it would be of no use to that North
African user?  Of course not.  Might a North American user also prefer
if it could do these extra things?  Of course.  But remember, the best
strategy is to pick the low hanging fruit first.

I think a moment of reflection on the truly awful state of the
security practices of actual real live “activists” is in order.

The Freedom Box I've described does not do anything when all the ISPs
shut the internet off.  But it does circumvent censorship and
surveillance, if and while the internet, in some form, is still
operating.  Well you know what?  They don't keep the internet turned
off all the time.  And the gradual shifts in public opinion that lead
to revolutions don't occur while the revolution is occurring.  They
occur in the years and decades before the revolution.

The Freedom Box I've described doesn't prevent someone from being shut
up or spied on by breaking into his house (although with the proper
encryption, both the end-to-end and the anti traffic analysis flavors,
they might not know whose house to break into).

Well you know what?  The state does not have the resources to
burglarize every home and business in the nation.  Or, perhaps better
phrased:

If we make it so that they need to burglarize every home and business
in the nation to get the same capabilities that they already have
right now without needing to, we've scored a victory for human
Freedom.

Let's devote our attentions to something specific, rather than vague
generalization arising out of meaningless distinction.  Because, at
the risk of being overly critical, this discussion leads nowhere in a
hurry.

Let's stop trying to categorize the world's population into
“activists” and “normal people”, and start building tools that the 1.9
billion internet-connected normal activists can use to live their
lives free of censorship and surveillance.


Boaz



More information about the Freedombox-discuss mailing list