[Freedombox-discuss] False dichotomy

Nicolás Reynolds fauno at kiwwwi.com.ar
Sun Jul 10 00:39:14 UTC 2011


El 09/07/11 07:38, Boaz dijo:
> 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

+1

-- 
Salud!
Nicolás Reynolds,
xmpp:fauno at kiwwwi.com.ar
omb:http://identi.ca/fauno

OTR: C0CB1F0F 01DB5E18 2D634C2A A4626858 E7C7C3A2

http://parabolagnulinux.org
http://endefensadelsl.org

"Freedom [...] is messy" ~ Eben Moglen
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