Are you fucking telling me that the state and its actors are rational and those NSA subcontractors got great work ethics?! Do you see how absurd this sounds :jokerfication:

Also why the fuck do you wanna make the pigs' job easier huh? "Hey officer I'm one of the good leftists don't worry about me but those leftists over there got something to hide" :jokerfied:

You, the state and the pigs are all rational and it's us silly nerds who are lame :fedposting:

Btw making the pigs' job harder is a great reason to use Tor or any other privacy software even if you wanna debate how effective it's

  • Tofu_Lewis [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I used to think that "data jamming" or "culture jamming" (ideas presented most effectively by the Prisoner series) could be an effective tool to remain engaged but obfuscate data profiling. Now I consider whether that time may be past: the only success relies on whether one is willing to commit continuous conscious effort to obscure the panopticon of surveillance technologies.

    • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I'm no expert, but I think the "best practices" in :cia: tradecraft apply more-or-less to revolutionary organizing as well. In particular, compartmentalization, stenography, and encryption.

      First of all, you need to consider that your adversaries come in tiers. Facebook boomers on the lower end, followed by right wing cranks, followed by local law enforcement, followed by federal bureaucrats (that guy at the FBI who carries a pocket constitution), followed corporate mercenaries, followed by Intelligence Community spooks at the top.

      You want to compartmentalize your online identity. Do politics under a political identity, do personal business under a personal identity, do commerce under a commercial identity, edit Wikipedia under a wiki identity, contribute to open source under an open source identity. With proper discipline, this will weed out the cranks from connecting your political identity to your real name or home address. You can be relatively sure that the local cops and Mormon feds won't figure out who you are without a warrant - which means unless you are popping up on the radar of the upper echelons of capital, you're reasonably safe.

      That leads to the second point - stenography. The last thing you want to do is stick out. Try to blend in as much as you can. Bulletproof encryption is good, but what's even better is not even being noticed in the first place. Not every conversation needs to take place immediately. Talk to people in person sometimes. Consider doing things like dead drops and one time pads, even on the internet. Find clandestine ways to convey signals.

      Finally, encryption. Encryption is a bedrock foundational technology of the internet. It is a tool, and if you abuse it you can shoot yourself in the foot, but it pays to understand the fundamentals of modern encryption schemes and how they're applied throughout the application layer. As long as you aren't absolutely fucking up, encryption will always make your adversary's work more challenging.

      Tradecraft does not shield us from the struggle though. At some point, we must make sacrifices to further our goals. When you reach the point where you are directly confronting the state, it doesn't matter which disguise you're wearing. They'll squash you like a bug right in your disguise. But tradecraft can buy us time to organize.

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Compartmentalisation is a really good point here. Remember if you're using Tor and pure encryption and a throw-away email for your praxis on a secure Linux Kernel, that is the online equivalent of sneaking around in a giant trenchcoat and a massive hat with a newspaper with eyeholes cut into it. You're a giant walking "check here!" sign. Make sure you aren't using it to buy groceries.