Signal.

          I'm always surprised at the number of activists who still use vacuum information sucking F/B WhatsApp, when there is an excellent free encrypted message system that happens to be on our side. I am of course talking about "Signal", the messaging system that I try to get those I know to switch to, from the usual data gathering popular system. That simple change would make your communications practically useless to prying eyes, data gathering organisations, state and otherwise
         Perhaps the following article might convince a few more to abandon the popular Facebook, WhatsApp data grabbing message systems for a free, secure and simple to use friendly system, Signal.

This from It's Going Down: 

  

         Technical discourse almost always generates an odd sort of distortion when it collides with life outside of disciplinary separations. This is very much the case when it comes to radicals and information security. Communications, computer science and cryptography are highly complex, to the point that even people working in the security industry full time have difficulty grasping the complexities from time to time. As we saw with the Snowden leaks, the combination of highly complex technical content and the possibility of danger in the form of surveillance, tended to generate a discourse grounded in hyperbole and conspiracizing. This approach often led people to either attempt to completely go dark, or to modify their practices base on false, misconstrued or misunderstood information.

         Over the past series of years this phenomenon has emerged in relation to Signal and Tor, very specifically. Without getting too into the technical elements of each, we can definitively say that the conspiracies about weak encryption, protocols being “broken,” secret government backdoors and so on are commonly held, but ultimately damaging and false arguments. This tendency is gaining traction and accelerating in relation to Moxie Marlinspike leaving Signal.

Well worth reading the full article HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

The One-Way Mirror Society.

       We live in a glass bubble that has been constructed around us all by state spying agencies, city council surveillance CCTV and of course our corporate masters. Your mobile phone is a direct link to most of these surveillance groups, your computer is a suction machine for the spying class. Go out and leave you phone at home and your are followed, monitored and profiled by CCTV, facial recognition and car number plate logging. All this data collection is not done with your consent nor is it for your benefit, but for the benefit of the state and the consumer juggernaut that is capitalism.

      You may believe that you lead a private life minding your own business, but your privacy is an illusion and the details of your life are big business. You are the pawn in their vile and secretive constructed glass bubble. Today's society is a one way mirror, and we are at the wrong end. Privacy is not a given, in this society the opposite is the case, it is a privilege for those who have the time and the money. Your privacy is something you have to work at and even then you will not be completely successful in your aim. However there are things you can do to curtail some of the extremities of their prying eyes.

         There are some interesting info which we can all follow to this end in the article from Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Read the report here:  Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Download the report here: Surveillance Report:

 Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

The End Of Privacy.

         We are moving ever closer to a society of total control, total surveillance. On top of countless thousands of CCTV cameras in all avenues of our life, we have a company in Sweden placing chips in the arms of employees, Glasgow's new experimental, mood and profiling surveillance system, and kids in schools useing palm or finger prints to access parts of the school. Do you honestly think that your life will be enhanced by your every movement, mood and conversation being monitored? Or is your welfare and well-being not on the list at all? 

This very interesting article from Politics in The Zeros:

Woo-hoo, little microscopic sensors will soon be everywhere, tracking us constantly, happily sending data back to motherships somewhere. This of course, will be done solely to help us all make informed decisions. So, no need to worry your silly little heads about, oh, businesses collaborating with governments and sending the data along to them or about what happens when these systems get hacked and exploited. Instead, let us behold our new surveillance society.

I recently wrote about Humanyze, a new startup that has created a smart employee badge to help track employee movements and social interactions throughout the day and correlate the data to company goals.

Humanyze, which doesn’t seem very human to me, monitors everything serfs employees say, including tone of voice, to insure they are being “loyal, plastic robots for a world that doesn’t care.” Whoops, how did that Frank Zappa lyric sneak into a discussion about the wonderfulness of your employer monitoring everything you do? my bad. “I’m sorry Bob, but you’ve been spending far too much time at the coffee maker and we’ve sent a message about this to your boss., and further, your tone of voice has been sarcastic and unhelpful lately.”

But wait, there’s more.

Oral B has a smart toothbrush. The toothbrush uses Bluetooth and a mobile app to capture data about your tooth brushing habits. It includes a timer to make sure you’re brushing for a full two minutes, and it maps your brushing so if you concentrate really hard on your bottom front and give short shrift to your upper molars, the app lets you know and gives you feedback.

Will it spend a nasty note to my dental insurance provider should I not properly brush my molars?

Cheaper sensors will fuel the age of smart everything, says TechCrunch, in a relentlessly perky article mentioning none of the downsides of such monitoring.

Who benefits from this? Hint, the consumer and the citizen are at the bottom of the list, after business and governments.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

An Open Internet, Or A Corporate Controlled Internet?

President Obama is holding secret meetings in Asia to ram through the TPP’s Internet censorship plan, which would force ISPs to monitor our Internet use, censor content, and remove entire websites. To fight back we need your help to project an attention-grabbing message on key buildings in Washington D.C. Tell decision-makers to stop the secretive TPP now so we can deliver the message before it’s too late.

An urgent appeal from Open Media:

      This is urgent. An Internet censorship plan is being finalized in secret meetings right now. We need all hands on deck at this crucial moment. Click HERE to learn more and speak up.

      Here’s the situation: Obama himself is in secretive meetings with key political figures and lobbyists in Asia to lock the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Internet censorship plan into place.

We know from leaked documents that this secretive plan will censor your use of the Internet and strip away your rights.1 If finalized, this plan would force ISPs to act as “Internet Police” monitoring our Internet use, censoring content, and removing whole websites.2

     It will give media conglomerates centralized control over what you can watch and share online.

We urgently need your help to fight back. Add your voice right now and we’ll project a Stop the Secrecy message on key buildings in Washington D.C. to ensure Obama, the media, and everyone else knows this censorship plan must be stopped.

       This is huge: covering 40% of the global economy, the TPP is being called a legal “blueprint” for the rest of the world.[3] Once key leaders finalize TPP Internet censorship plans today it will be used to globalize censorship across the world. You will be affected and this may be our only chance to stop it.

        Our attention-grabbing message will shine a light on their secret plan and will make clear to Washington lobbyists that the Internet community will never accept the TPP’s secrecy or censorship. The more who speak out, the larger our projection will become, and the more people we can reach.

This is a decisive moment: we need to act right now. Join with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to shine a light on the TPP’s job-killing Internet censorship plan. Let’s send decision-makers and the lobbyists pulling the strings a message they can’t ignore: "Stop the secrecy now."

        With every voice that is added to our call, a donor will contribute to make Stop The Secrecy projection in Washington bigger and brighter. We’ve stalled them before and we can kill this censorship plan if we act together at this critical moment. The bureaucrats and lobbyists think they can ram through this damaging binding plan behind your back and without your consent. Will you let them get away with it, John?

      Thank you for being a part of history,

     Steve, Josh, Eva, and David, on behalf of your OpenMedia.org team

      P.S., If the TPP censorship plan goes through, the Internet as we know it will change forever. We’d be left with an Internet that’s far more expensive, censored, and policed. We know we can stop this - but we need to act right now. Can we count on you to stand with us, John?

Footnotes

[1] “Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).” Source: WikiLeaks.

[2] TPP Creates Legal Incentives For ISPs To Police The Internet. What Is At Risk? Your Rights. Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation

[3] U.S. “Bullying” TPP Negotiators Amid Failure to Agree. Source: Inter Press Service News Agency. *Note: The U.S. and the E.U. are already discussing a similar secretive agreement called "Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)". Once the TPP is finalized there will be pressure to harmonize and extend its provisions to TTIP -- meaning the E.U. There are also reports of several others countries being added to the TPP once it is finalized.

OpenMedia.org is a non-profit organization that relies on donations from people like you to operate. Our small but dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way to make your voice heard. Please donate today.     We are an award-winning network of people and organizations working to safeguard the possibilities of the open Internet. We work toward informed and participatory digital policy. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Spying, Prying, Society.

        It is unacceptable the way that this surveillance, “big Brother” society, has infiltrated all aspects of our life. The moment you leave through your outside door, the cameras are tracking your every move, where you shop, where you drink, who you meet and whatever else you get up to. If you live in Glasgow, until the recent police helicopter crash on top of the Clutha, you would also have been tracked from the sky. You then go home and think, well that's me free from prying eyes. Well not quite, did you know that Facebook keeps records of all you type, even if you DON'T post it. Yes, your unpublished irate drivel that you decide not to make public, is recorded by Facebook. Facebook of course makes all that available to the various state spying organisations. You have been warned, those unguarded crazy moments in private, are being logged for future reference. In this society, you have no right to privacy.

This from Care2:

       At this point, it's a pretty safe bet that Facebook keeps track of the groups we "like" or the games we play on the site. But now, it turns out that the company has also been keeping track of the notes and comments we don't publish -- even if we never intended to share them with anyone.
       Who hasn't come home from a hard day at work or a frustrating conversation with a loved one, written a status on Facebook, and then decided at the last minute not to hit "post?" All this time, it may have seemed even safer than writing in a diary. But Facebook's policies enable to keep track of every single keystroke entered into the site -- meaning that the company can essentially peer into our private lives whenever it wants.
        To make matters worse, in the United States, Facebook has been recorded sharing data with the National Security Agency. That hasn't extended beyond American borders, but where is the line?
We have the right to censor ourselves without Facebook looking over our shoulder. Tell Facebook to stay out of our private and unpublished posts!

 Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Surveillance Society.

    We live in the surveillance society, cameras in pubs, on buses, in offices and other workplaces, in our streets, at buses stops and train stations. Now it seems that Google believes that gmail users have "no legitimate expectation of privacy".

    

  Google reads every word of every email you send to or from a Gmail account in order to target you and your friends with ads. They read about your personal relationships, your health information, your finances, and more.

     Tell Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google, that you want Google to stop selling ads at the expense of your inbox! »

     It's illegal for someone to open and read your paper mail without permission, but Google reads every word of every single email you send or receive every single day.
     In response to a lawsuit against Google for snooping through personal Gmail, Google claims that users have "no legitimate expectation of privacy" when it comes to their email. But, common sense says that's ridiculous; clearly, when you send a personal email to a friend or colleague, either on paper or online, you expect that the message will not be read to target you with ads.

     Tell Google that you DO have an expectation of privacy and that you demand that they stop reading the contents of your private emails to sell you ads. »

Thanks for taking action, Natasha Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team   Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk