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January 20, 2006
Well, we do it for the Chinese...
Today's news that Yahoo and Microsoft responded to supoenas for Internet search records while Google has decided to fight (the L.A. Times story) made me think about the anonymizer websites some organizations were putting up for the Chinese when Google searches were blocked by the Chinese government and Chinese citizens risked trouble because of what they sought out on the Internet. Why is no one proposing these for Americans? Or rather, for the world, as protection against the American government? I remember a couple of sites, one in Denmark, I think, where about ten years ago one could connect through to hide traces of one's activities. A proxy running SSL and--accountably--vaporizing all traces of connections would do the trick. Why aren't civil liberties and human rights groups setting such proxies up? Why aren't Americans asking for them?
Why did encryption never really catch on for email, for that matter? People demanded it for their Amazon.com and bank transactions, but free and simple encryption software for emails has been out there for a long time without widespread adoption. I've installed multiple versions, but I never had anyone to send encrypted mail to and hardly anyone ever sent one to me, except to see if it worked. This article, among many, explains public key encryption and makes the analogy to the mail: we seal our letters and expect privacy with our mail not because we're criminals, but because we can. Now the reasons to do so online are a little more urgent, I'd say.
There was also a time when some privacy activists would add "spook words" to emails, words that supposedly attract and waste the attention of Carnivore/Echelon-type data mining. Swamping the Internet with communications with these words would shut down the endeavor. Maybe. I did this for a few weeks in the early 1990s. If everyone Googled--wait, Yahoo'd--"bomb instructions" at least once a day, would that discourage government deep sea fishing through our privacy?
I doubt it. Why don't we seek out what the Chinese and other censored populations get: anonymizing proxies. Congress gets upset when US companies capitulate to Chinese censorship. Some of the same techniques and habits to work around censorship should also put government data mining out of business, along with the significant attendant threats to privacy and civil liberties. I suppose a few innocent Americans will need to be caught up in the nets because of unlucky patterns of Internet use before this catches on.
Posted by johnn at January 20, 2006 11:05 PM
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