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Bruce Schneier <[email protected]> Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 2:14 AM
Reply-To: Bruce Schneier <[email protected]>
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CRYPTO-GRAM
June 15, 2013
by Bruce Schneier
Chief Security Technology Officer, BT
[email protected]
http://www.schneier.com
A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on security: computer and otherwise.
For back issues, or to subscribe, visit <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html>.
You can read this issue on the web at <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-1306.html>. These same essays and news items appear in the "Schneier on Security" blog at <http://www.schneier.com/blog>, along with a lively and intelligent comment section. An RSS feed is available.
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In this issue:
Government Secrets and the Need for Whistleblowers
Prosecuting Snowden
Trading Privacy for Convenience
More Links on the Snowden Documents
Essays Related to NSA Spying Documents
The Politics of Security in a Democracy
News
More on Feudal Security
Surveillance and the Internet of Things
The Problems with CALEA-II
Schneier News
Sixth Annual Movie-Plot Threat Semifinalists
A Really Good Article on How Easy it Is to Crack Passwords
Bluetooth-Controlled Door Lock
Security and Human Behavior (SHB 2013)
The Cost of Terrorism in Pakistan
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Government Secrets and the Need for Whistleblowers
Recently, we learned that the NSA received all calling records from Verizon customers for a three-month period starting in April. That's everything except the voice content: who called who, where they were, how long the call lasted -- for millions of people, both Americans and foreigners. This "metadata" allows the government to track the movements of everyone during that period, and a build a detailed picture of who talks to whom. It's exactly the same data the Justice Department collected about AP journalists.
The "Guardian" delivered this revelation after receiving a copy of a secret memo about this -- presumably from a whistleblower. We don't know if the other phone companies handed data to the NSA too. We don't know if this was a one-off demand or a continuously renewed demand; the order started a few days after the Boston bombers were captured by police.
We don't know a lot about how the government spies on us, but we know some things. We know the FBI has issued tens of thousands of ultra-secret National Security Letters to collect all sorts of data on people -- we believe on millions of people -- and has been abusing them to spy on cloud-computer users. We know it can collect a wide array of personal data from the Internet without a warrant. We also know that the FBI has been intercepting cell-phone data, all but voice content, for the past 20 years without a warrant, and can use the microphone on some powered-off cell phones as a room bug -- presumably only with a warrant.
We know that the NSA has many domestic-surveillance and data-mining programs with codenames like Trailblazer, Stellar Wind, and Ragtime -- deliberately using different codenames for similar programs to stymie oversight and conceal what's really going on. We know that the NSA is building an enormous computer facility in Utah to store all this data, as well as faster computer networks to process it all. We know the U.S. Cyber Command employs 4,000 people.
We know that the DHS is also collecting a massive amount of data on people, and that local police departments are running "fusion centers" to collect and analyze this data, and covering up its failures. This is all part of the militarization of the police.
Remember in 2003, when Congress defunded the decidedly creepy Total Information Awareness program? It didn't die; it just changed names and split into many smaller programs. We know that corporations are doing an enormous amount of spying on behalf of the government: all parts.
We know all of this not because the government is honest and forthcoming, but mostly through three backchannels -- inadvertent hints or outright admissions by government officials in hearings and court cases, information gleaned from government documents received under FOIA, and government whistleblowers.
There's much more we don't know, and often what we know is obsolete. We know quite a bit about the NSA's ECHELON program from a 2000 European investigation, and about the DHS's plans for Total Information Awareness from 2002, but much less about how these programs have evolved. We can make inferences about the NSA's Utah facility based on the theoretical amount of data from various sources, the cost of computation, and the power requirements from the facility, but those are rough guesses at best. For a lot of this, we're completely in the dark.
And that's wrong.
The U.S. government is on a secrecy binge. It overclassifies more information than ever. And we learn, again and again, that our government regularly classifies things not because they need to be secret, but because their release would be embarrassing.
Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so much of it is illegal -- or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel interpretations of the law -- but because we have a right to know. Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name. That means knowing that the government is operating within the constraints of the law. Otherwise, we're living in a police state.
We need whistleblowers.
Leaking information without getting caught is difficult. It's almost impossible to maintain privacy in the Internet Age. The WikiLeaks platform seems to have been secure -- Bradley Manning was caught not because of a technological flaw, but because someone he trusted betrayed him -- but the U.S. government seems to have successfully destroyed it as a platform. None of the spin-offs have risen to become viable yet. The "New Yorker" recently unveiled its Strongbox platform for leaking material, which is still new but looks good. Wired recently gave the best advice on how to leak information to the press via phone, email, or the post office. The National Whistleblowers Center has a page on national-security whistleblowers and their rights.
Leaking information is also very dangerous. The Obama Administration has embarked on a war on whistleblowers, pursuing them -- both legally and through intimidation -- further than any previous administration has done. Mark Klein, Thomas Drake, and William Binney have all been persecuted for exposing technical details of our surveillance state. Bradley Manning has been treated cruelly and inhumanly -- and possibly tortured -- for his more-indiscriminate leaking of State Department secrets.
The Obama Administration's actions against the Associated Press, its persecution of Julian Assange, and its unprecedented prosecution of Manning on charges of "aiding the enemy" demonstrate how far it's willing to go to intimidate whistleblowers -- as well as the journalists who talk to them.
But whistleblowing is vital, even more broadly than in government spying. It's necessary for good government, and to protect us from abuse of power.
We need details on the full extent of the FBI's spying capabilities. We don't know what information it routinely collects on American citizens, what extra information it collects on those on various watch lists, and what legal justifications it invokes for its actions. We don't know its plans for future data collection. We don't know what scandals and illegal actions -- either past or present -- are currently being covered up.
We also need information about what data the NSA gathers, either domestically or internationally. We don't know how much it collects surreptitiously, and how much it relies on arrangements with various companies. We don't know how much it uses password cracking to get at encrypted data, and how much it exploits existing system vulnerabilities. We don't know whether it deliberately inserts backdoors into systems it wants to monitor, either with or without the permission of the communications-system vendors.
And we need details about the sorts of analysis the organizations perform. We don't know what they quickly cull at the point of collection, and what they store for later analysis -- and how long they store it. We don't know what sort of database profiling they do, how extensive their CCTV and surveillance-drone analysis is, how much they perform behavioral analysis, or how extensively they trace friends of people on their watch lists.
We don't know how big the U.S. surveillance apparatus is today, either in terms of money and people or in terms of how many people are monitored or how much data is collected. Modern technology makes it possible to monitor vastly more people -- the recent NSA revelations demonstrate that they could easily surveil *everyone* -- than could ever be done manually.
Whistleblowing is the moral response to immoral activity by those in power. What's important here are government programs and methods, not data about individuals. I understand I am asking for people to engage in illegal and dangerous behavior. Do it carefully and do it safely, but -- and I am talking directly to you, person working on one of these secret and probably illegal programs -- do it.
If you see something, say something. There are many people in the U.S. that will appreciate and admire you.
For the rest of us, we can help by protesting this war on whistleblowers. We need to force our politicians not to punish them -- to investigate the abuses and not the messengers -- and to ensure that those unjustly persecuted can obtain redress.
Our government is putting its own self-interest ahead of the interests of the country. That needs to change.
This essay originally appeared on the "Atlantic."
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...on-citizens-scarier-than-what-we-know/276607/ or http://tinyurl.com/mgtx6nx
Verizon documents:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order or http://tinyurl.com/mfm9qs6
Metadata:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/phone-call-metadata-information-authorities or http://tinyurl.com/n5zq58b
National Security Letters:
http://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters
http://epic.org/privacy/nsl/
http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/07656JDB
FBI spying:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/03/fbi_secretly_sp.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/11/e-mail_security.html
FBI intercepting cell phone calls:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...unlock_history_behind_cellphone_tracking.html or http://tinyurl.com/a8v5ch8
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/29/feds-fbi-warrantless-cell-tracking-very-common/ or http://tinyurl.com/d3v5b6z
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/verizon-rigmaiden-aircard/all/ or http://tinyurl.com/d52aqkb
Turning a cell phone into a listening device:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html
Trailblazer:
http://publicintelligence.net/binney-nsa-declaration/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/new-yorker-on-thomas-drake/
Stellar Wind:
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/09/stellar-wind-secret-nsa-domestic-spying.html or http://tinyurl.com/kjk8l53
Ragtime:
http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/...ntelligence-program-revealed-in-new-book.php# or http://tinyurl.com/khtm7s5
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...on_ragtime_domestic_surveillance_program.html or http://tinyurl.com/c9h78fn
The NSA's Utah computer facility:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1
http://rt.com/news/utah-data-center-spy-789/
DHS data collection:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email...71623040640006-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwMzExNDMyWj.html or http://tinyurl.com/bv998wp
Failures at Fusion Centers:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2012/10/dhs-covers-up-failures-of-u-s-counterterrorism-centers/ or http://tinyurl.com/acx2jtv
Total Information Awareness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office
Corporate spying on behalf of governments:
http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html or http://tinyurl.com/38trebe
http://www.schneier.com/essay-423.html
Overclassification:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/national-security-and-americas-unnecessary-secrets.html or http://tinyurl.com/lnvrxfb
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/15/telling_secrets
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/the-scale-of-american-overclassification or http://tinyurl.com/84h2wlg
http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/reducing-overclassification-through-accountability or http://tinyurl.com/lqhn3u8
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/20...1_espionage-act-drake-case-government-workers or http://tinyurl.com/mxk4558
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/05/30/491988/government-overclassification/ or http://tinyurl.com/k65d6ht
Transparency and accountability:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...nt-hurt-security-theyre-crucial-to-it/275662/ or http://tinyurl.com/l35moqr
Ruminations on our future police state:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130312013840/https://frank.geekheim.de/?page_id=128 or http://tinyurl.com/kluz58q
The Internet is a surveillance state:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-418.html
StrongBox:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/strongbox-and-aaron-swartz.html or http://tinyurl.com/b4mnrx8
http://www.newyorker.com/strongbox
http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/articles/new-yorker-launches-strongbox/ or http://tinyurl.com/l5mms4q
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/15/new-yorker-launches-new-leak-s.html
https://github.com/deaddrop/deaddrop
Wired's advice on how to leak:
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/0...roats-this-is-how-to-leak-to-the-press-today/ or http://tinyurl.com/a9xdwyu
National Whistleblowers Center:
http://www.whistleblowers.org
http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=984&Itemid=173 or http://tinyurl.com/kgpe3zx
Obama's war on whistleblowers:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/05/obamas-war-whistle-blowers/38106/ or http://tinyurl.com/6xlssug
http://www.thenation.com/article/173521/obamas-crackdown-whistleblowers or http://tinyurl.com/d6dunx2
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer
Manning's treatment:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/manning-treatment-inhuman/
Action against the AP:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/us/leaks-inquiries-show-how-wide-a-net-is-cast.html or http://tinyurl.com/lzqv56l
"Aiding the enemy" charges against Manning:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112554#
Political solutions:
http://joshuafoust.com/nine-dashed-off-points-on-the-nsa-scandal/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpoli...urt-limits-damage-payments-to-whistle-blowers or http://tinyurl.com/kkh7yn8
This essay is being discussed on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1g1eyz/bruce_schneier_democracy_requir es_an_informed/ or http://tinyurl.com/lqs5se6
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Prosecuting Snowden
Edward Snowden broke the law by releasing classified information. This isn't under debate; it's something everyone with a security clearance knows. It's written in plain English on the documents you have to sign when you get a security clearance, and it's part of the culture. The law is there for a good reason, and secrecy has an important role in military defense.
But before the Justice Department prosecutes Snowden, there are some other investigations that ought to happen.
We need to determine whether these National Security Agency programs are themselves legal. The administration has successfully barred anyone from bringing a lawsuit challenging these laws, on the grounds of national secrecy. Now that we know those arguments are without merit, it's time for those court challenges.
It's clear that some of the NSA programs exposed by Snowden violate the Constitution and others violate existing laws. Other people have an opposite view. The courts need to decide.
We need to determine whether classifying these programs is legal. Keeping things secret from the people is a very dangerous practice in a democracy, and the government is permitted to do so only under very specific circumstances. Reading the documents leaked so far, I don't see anything that needs to be kept secret. The argument that exposing these documents helps the terrorists doesn't even pass the laugh test; there's nothing here that changes anything any potential terrorist would do or not do. But in any case, now that the documents are public, the courts need to rule on the legality of their secrecy.
And we need to determine how we treat whistleblowers in this country. We have whistleblower protection laws that apply in some cases, particularly when exposing fraud, and other illegal behavior. NSA officials have repeatedly lied about the existence, and details, of these programs to Congress.
Only after all of these legal issues have been resolved should any prosecution of Snowden move forward. Because only then will we know the full extent of what he did, and how much of it is justified.
I believe that history will hail Snowden as a hero -- his whistleblowing exposed a surveillance state and a secrecy machine run amok. I'm less optimistic of how the present day will treat him, and hope that the debate right now is less about the man and more about the government he exposed.
This essay was originally published on the "New York Times" Room for Debate blog
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...rosecuting-snowden-investigate-the-government or http://tinyurl.com/kxrardv
It's part of a series of essays on the topic.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/11/in-nsa-leak-case-a-whistle-blower-or-a-criminal or http://tinyurl.com/lkhzedp
There's a big discussion of this on Reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/..._schneier_prosecuting_snowden_i_believe_that/ or http://tinyurl.com/l3yfzw6
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Trading Privacy for Convenience
Ray Wang makes an important point about trust and our data:
This is the paradox. The companies contending to win our trust
to manage our digital identities all seem to have complementary
(or competing) business models that breach that trust by selling
our data.
...and by turning it over to the government.
The current surveillance state is a result of a government/corporate partnership, and our willingness to give up privacy for convenience.
If the government demanded that we all carry tracking devices 24/7, we would rebel. Yet we all carry cell phones. If the government demanded that we deposit copies of all of our messages to each other with the police, we'd declare their actions unconstitutional. Yet we all use Gmail and Facebook messaging and SMS. If the government demanded that we give them access to all the photographs we take, and that we identify all of the people in them and tag them with locations, we'd refuse. Yet we do exactly that on Flickr and other sites.
Ray Ozzie is right when he said that we got what we asked for when we told the government we were scared and that they should do whatever they wanted to make us feel safer. But we also got what we asked for when we traded our privacy for convenience, trusting these corporations to look out for our best interests.
We're living in a world of feudal security. And if you watch "Game of Thrones," you know that feudalism benefits the powerful -- at the expense of the peasants.
Last night, I was on "All In" with Chris Hayes. One of the things we talked about after the show was over is how technological solutions only work around the margins. That's not a cause for despair. Think about technological solutions to murder. Yes, they exist -- wearing a bullet-proof vest, for example -- but they're not really viable. The way we protect ourselves from murder is through laws. This is how we're also going to protect our privacy.
Ray Wang's essay:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/06/beware_trading_privacy_for_con.html
The internet is a surveillance state:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-418.html
The government/corporate surveillance partnership:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-423.html
Ray Ozzie's remarks:
http://www.boston.com/business/inno...ow-time-wake/42AqxBSvgu0X3xXGIx7WFK/blog.html or http://tinyurl.com/l3yfzw6
Me on Chris Hayes:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/52186804/#52186804
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/52186831/#52186831
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More Links on the Snowden Documents
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data
http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html or http://tinyurl.com/mm3ttqt
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...reenwald_profiled_and_other_reccommended.html or http://tinyurl.com/lvpx739
The whistleblower is Edward Snowden. I consider him an American hero.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance or http://tinyurl.com/pkm26ps
Someone needs to write an essay parsing all of the precisely worded denials. Apple has never heard the word "PRISM," but could have known of the program under a different name. Google maintained that there is no government "back door," but left open the possibility that the data could have been just handed over. Obama said that the government isn't "listening to your telephone calls," ignoring 1) the metadata, 2) the fact that computers could be doing all of the listening, and 3) that text-to-speech results in phone calls being read and not listened to. And so on and on and on.
An NSA spying timeline:
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline
Speculation about PRISM:
http://unhandled.com/2013/06/07/a-taxonomy-of-prism-possibilities/
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2013/06/brainstorming-few-hypotheses-about-prism.html or http://tinyurl.com/qgeuuby
Defenses of NSA surveillance:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...-idea-to-me-this-is-what-governments-are-for/ or http://tinyurl.com/lyrqs5k
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/making-a-mountain-out-of-a-digital-molehill.html or http://tinyurl.com/kjqb7ve
http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2013/06/sensationalizing-cyber-surveillance.html or http://tinyurl.com/keljyyk
More essays worth reading:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/birth-of-the-surveillance-state/276650/ or http://tinyurl.com/lfvb32d
http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...p-the-real-nsa-scandal-is-whats-legal/276625/ or http://tinyurl.com/lnlwde4
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/nsa-numbers/
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/07/dont_defend_the_dragnet/
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-up-this-much-liberty-to-fight-terror/276695/ or http://tinyurl.com/lrk2jcr
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...tleblower_have_access_to_prism_and_other.html or http://tinyurl.com/l4pfgb4
http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ or http://tinyurl.com/l6qvege
http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2013/06/surveillance-legitimacy/
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/...-s-flawed-defense-of-surveillance-4-responses or http://tinyurl.com/lfnbofj
NSA surveillance reimagined as children's books:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/gal...-twitter-pictures#/?picture=410409133&index=0 or http://tinyurl.com/opt85ar
Claims that PRISM foiled a terrorist attack have been debunked:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/public-documents-contradict-claim-email-spying-foiled-terror or http://tinyurl.com/lyq7vse
A collection of headlines:
http://thelibertarianforum.com/topic/2327-the-nsa-and-the-surveilance-state-scandals/ or http://tinyurl.com/knxqj35
Interesting comments by someone who thinks Snowden is a well-intentioned fool.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/government_secr.html#c1497091 or http://tinyurl.com/ktje7kj
The *Economist* speculates on the political factors that would lead Obama to allow this. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/why-we-spy or http://tinyurl.com/lcaxmvw
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Essays Related to NSA Spying Documents
Here's a quick list of some of my older writings that are related to the current NSA spying documents:
The Internet Is a Surveillance State," 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-418.html
The importance of government transparency and accountability, 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-423.html
The dangers of a government/corporate eavesdropping partnership, 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-425.html
Why Data Mining Won't Stop Terror, 2006.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-108.html
The Eternal Value of Privacy, 2006.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-114.html
The dangers of our "data shadow," 2008.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-219.html
The politics of security and fear, 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-427.html
The death of ephemeral conversation, 2006.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-129.html
The dangers of NSA eavesdropping, 2008.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-100.html
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The Politics of Security in a Democracy
Terrorism causes fear, and we overreact to that fear. Our brains aren't very good at probability and risk analysis. We tend to exaggerate spectacular, strange and rare events, and downplay ordinary, familiar and common ones. We think rare risks are more common than they are, and we fear them more than probability indicates we should.
Our leaders are just as prone to this overreaction as we are. But aside from basic psychology, there are other reasons that it's smart politics to exaggerate terrorist threats, and security threats in general.
The first is that we respond to a strong leader. Bill Clinton famously said: "When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody that's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right." He's right.
The second is that doing something -- anything -- is good politics. A politician wants to be seen as taking charge, demanding answers, fixing things. It just doesn't look as good to sit back and claim that there's nothing to do. The logic is along the lines of: "Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it."
The third is that the "fear preacher" wins, regardless of the outcome. Imagine two politicians today. One of them preaches fear and draconian security measures. The other is someone like me, who tells people that terrorism is a negligible risk, that risk is part of life, and that while some security is necessary, we should mostly just refuse to be terrorized and get on with our lives.
Fast-forward 10 years. If I'm right and there have been no more terrorist attacks, the fear preacher takes credit for keeping us safe. But if a terrorist attack has occurred, my government career is over. Even if the incidence of terrorism is as ridiculously low as it is today, there's no benefit for a politician to take my side of that gamble.
The fourth and final reason is money. Every new security technology, from surveillance cameras to high-tech fusion centers to airport full-body scanners, has a for-profit corporation lobbying for its purchase and use. Given the three other reasons above, it's easy -- and probably profitable -- for a politician to make them happy and say yes.
For any given politician, the implications of these four reasons are straightforward. Overestimating the threat is better than underestimating it. Doing something about the threat is better than doing nothing. Doing something that is explicitly reactive is better than being proactive. (If you're proactive and you're wrong, you've wasted money. If you're proactive and you're right but no longer in power, whoever is in power is going to get the credit for what you did.) Visible is better than invisible. Creating something new is better than fixing something old.
Those last two maxims are why it's better for a politician to fund a terrorist fusion center than to pay for more Arabic translators for the National Security Agency. No one's going to see the additional appropriation in the NSA's secret budget. On the other hand, a high-tech computerized fusion center is going to make front page news, even if it doesn't actually do anything useful.
This leads to another phenomenon about security and government. Once a security system is in place, it can be very hard to dislodge it. Imagine a politician who objects to some aspect of airport security: the liquid ban, the shoe removal, something. If he pushes to relax security, he gets the blame if something bad happens as a result. No one wants to roll back a police power and have the lack of that power cause a well-publicized death, even if it's a one-in-a-billion fluke.
We're seeing this force at work in the bloated terrorist no-fly and watch lists; agents have lots of incentive to put someone on the list, but absolutely no incentive to take anyone off. We're also seeing this in the Transportation Security Administration's attempt to reverse the ban on small blades on airplanes. Twice it tried to make the change, and twice fearful politicians prevented it from going through with it.
Lots of unneeded and ineffective security measures are perpetrated by a government bureaucracy that is primarily concerned about the security of its members' careers. They know the voters are more likely to punish them more if they fail to secure against a repetition of the last attack, and less if they fail to anticipate the next one.
What can we do? Well, the first step toward solving a problem is recognizing that you have one. These are not iron-clad rules; they're tendencies. If we can keep these tendencies and their causes in mind, we're more likely to end up with sensible security measures that are commensurate with the threat, instead of a lot of security theater and draconian police powers that are not.
Our leaders' job is to resist these tendencies. Our job is to support politicians who do resist.
This essay originally appeared on CNN.com.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/20/opinion/schneier-security-politics/index.html or http://tinyurl.com/njp48xh
This essay has been translated into Swedish.
http://opassande.se/2013/06/04/sakerhetspolitiken-i-en-demokrati/
Preaching fear:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...-Age-of-Terror-that-exists-in-his-imagination or http://tinyurl.com/nc5tryv
My essay on how to fight terrorism:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-292.html
Fusion Centers:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/fusion-centers
TSA prohibited from allowing small knives:
http://www.latimes.com/business/mon...all-knives-on-planes-20130422,0,3679780.story or http://tinyurl.com/ckql2r3
Another essay along similar lines:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/surveillance-0 or http://tinyurl.com/q7xhay3
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News
All of the anti-counterfeiting features of the new Canadian $100 bill are resulting in people not bothering to verify them.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...ooks-passing-fake-polymer-bank-notes-british- or http://tinyurl.com/ldn8y8m
For a while now, I have been thinking about what civil disobedience looks like in the Internet Age. DDOS attacks, and politically motivated hacking in general, are certainly a part of that. This is one of the reasons I found Molly Sauter's recent thesis, "Distributed Denial of Service Actions and the Challenge of Civil Disobedience on the Internet," so interesting.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/141893154...ALLENGE-OF-CIVIL-DISOBEDIENCE-ON-THE-INTERNET or http://tinyurl.com/pq6djfo
One of the problems with the legal system is that it doesn't make any differentiation between civil disobedience and "normal" criminal activity on the Internet, though it does in the real world.
This 127-page report on "The Global Cyber Game" was just published by the UK Defence Academy. I have not read it yet, but it looks really interesting.
http://www.da.mod.uk/publications/library/technology/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf/view or http://tinyurl.com/pkuoga3
This blog post by Aleatha Parker-Wood, on the one-shot vs. the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, is very applicable to the things I wrote in "Liars & Outliers":
https://plus.google.com/107475727645912993113/posts/3BVKXUhqSrV
Interesting report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project on teens, social media, and privacy:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/new_report_on_t_1.html
The research by G. Gigučre and B.C. Love, "Limits in decision making arise from limits in memory retrieval," in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," v. 110 no. 19 (2013) has applications in training airport baggage screeners.
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/19/7613.short?rss=1
Nassim Nicholas Taleb on risk perception:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151501872108375&id=13012333374 or http://tinyurl.com/p5m4eag
This article wonders if we are finally thinking sensibly about terrorism.
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/finally-talking-terror-sensibly-8511 or http://tinyurl.com/naq48px
There are also these:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/refusing-be-terrorized-time-terror/64265/ or http://tinyurl.com/pupye9o
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/04/16/terrorism-is-rare/
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/04/15/something-else-to-talk-about/ or http://tinyurl.com/c3yk4hm
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...w-growing-resolve-to-live-with-terror-threat/ or http://tinyurl.com/d7fzdtg
http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-i...il-liberties-in-the-name-of-national-security or http://tinyurl.com/dxc4csq
President Obama used my "refuse to be terrorized" line:
http://www.politico.com/politico44/...m-the-week-americans-refuse-to-be-162163.html or http://tinyurl.com/cchxy23
This bit on why we lie, by Judge Kozinski, is from a federal court ruling about false statements and First Amendment protection:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/why_we_lie.html
Interesting article on a greatly increased aspect of surveillance: "the ordinary citizen who by chance finds himself in a position to record events of great public import, and to share the results with the rest of us."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...other-jones-video-rise-of-little-brother.html or http://tinyurl.com/ovrzhsf
New paper by Daniel Solove: "Privacy Self-Management and the Consent Dilemma":
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2171018
Someday I need to write an essay on the security risks of secret algorithms that become part of our infrastructure. This paper gives one example of that. Could Google tip an election by manipulating what comes up from search results on the candidates?
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_security_ri_3.html
Eugene Spafford answers questions on CNN.com.
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/23/cyber-security-expert-answers-readers-questions/ or http://tinyurl.com/p9h8sds
Interesting speculative article on tagging and location technologies.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/06/inside-the-militarys-secret-terror-tagging-tech/ or http://tinyurl.com/qgao2u
Ignore the sensationalist headline. This article is a good summary of the need for trust in IT, and provides some ideas for how to enable more of it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/03/trust_nobody_with_your_personal_data_ever/ or http://tinyurl.com/lw97ezr
The psychology of conspiracy theories.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy-into-conspiracy-theories.html or http://tinyurl.com/ozhlb23
Ricin as a terrorist tool:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/ricin_as_a_terr.html
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More on Feudal Security
Facebook regularly abuses the privacy of its users. Google has stopped supporting its popular RSS feeder. Apple prohibits all iPhone apps that are political or sexual. Microsoft might be cooperating with some governments to spy on Skype calls, but we don't know which ones. Both Twitter and LinkedIn have recently suffered security breaches that affected the data of hundreds of thousands of their users.
If you've started to think of yourself as a hapless peasant in a "Game of Thrones" power struggle, you're more right than you may realize. These are not traditional companies, and we are not traditional customers. These are feudal lords, and we are their vassals, peasants, and serfs.
Power has shifted in IT, in favor of both cloud-service providers and closed-platform vendors. This power shift affects many things, and it profoundly affects security.
Traditionally, computer security was the user's responsibility. Users purchased their own antivirus software and firewalls, and any breaches were blamed on their inattentiveness. It's kind of a crazy business model. Normally we expect the products and services we buy to be safe and secure, but in IT we tolerated lousy products and supported an enormous aftermarket for security.
Now that the IT industry has matured, we expect more security "out of the box." This has become possible largely because of two technology trends: cloud computing and vendor-controlled platforms. The first means that most of our data resides on other networks: Google Docs, Salesforce.com, Facebook, Gmail. The second means that our new Internet devices are both closed and controlled by the vendors, giving us limited configuration control: iPhones, ChromeBooks, Kindles, BlackBerry PDAs. Meanwhile, our relationship with IT has changed. We used to use our computers to do things. We now use our vendor-controlled computing devices to go places. All of these places are owned by someone.
The new security model is that someone else takes care of it -- without telling us any of the details. I have no control over the security of my Gmail or my photos on Flickr. I can't demand greater security for my presentations on Prezi or my task list on Trello, no matter how confidential they are. I can't audit any of these cloud services. I can't delete cookies on my iPad or ensure that files are securely erased. Updates on my Kindle happen automatically, without my knowledge or consent. I have so little visibility into the security of Facebook that I have no idea what operating system they're using.
There are a lot of good reasons why we're all flocking to these cloud services and vendor-controlled platforms. The benefits are enormous, from cost to convenience to reliability to security itself. But it is inherently a feudal relationship. We cede control of our data and computing platforms to these companies and trust that they will treat us well and protect us from harm. And if we pledge complete allegiance to them -- if we let them control our email and calendar and address book and photos and everything -- we get even more benefits. We become their vassals; or, on a bad day, their serfs.
There are a lot of feudal lords out there. Google and Apple are the obvious ones, but Microsoft is trying to control both user data and the end-user platform as well. Facebook is another lord, controlling much of the socializing we do on the Internet. Other feudal lords are smaller and more specialized -- Amazon, Yahoo, Verizon, and so on -- but the model is the same.
To be sure, feudal security has its advantages. These companies are much better at security than the average user. Automatic backup has saved a lot of data after hardware failures, user mistakes, and malware infections. Automatic updates have increased security dramatically. This is also true for small organizations; they are more secure than they would be if they tried to do it themselves. For large corporations with dedicated IT security departments, the benefits are less clear. Sure, even large companies outsource critical functions like tax preparation and cleaning services, but large companies have specific requirements for security, data retention, audit, and so on -- and that's just not possible with most of these feudal lords.
Feudal security also has its risks. Vendors can, and do, make security mistakes affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Vendors can lock people into relationships, making it hard for them to take their data and leave. Vendors can act arbitrarily, against our interests; Facebook regularly does this when it changes peoples' defaults, implements new features, or modifies its privacy policy. Many vendors give our data to the government without notice, consent, or a warrant; almost all sell it for profit. This isn't surprising, really; companies should be expected to act in their own self-interest and not in their users' best interest.
The feudal relationship is inherently based on power. In Medieval Europe, people would pledge their allegiance to a feudal lord in exchange for that lord's protection. This arrangement changed as the lords realized that they had all the power and could do whatever they wanted. Vassals were used and abused; peasants were tied to their land and became serfs.
It's the Internet lords' popularity and ubiquity that enable them to profit; laws and government relationships make it easier for them to hold onto power. These lords are vying with each other for profits and power. By spending time on their sites and giving them our personal information -- whether through search queries, e-mails, status updates, likes, or simply our behavioral characteristics -- we are providing the raw material for that struggle. In this way we are like serfs, toiling the land for our feudal lords. If you don't believe me, try to take your data with you when you leave Facebook. And when war breaks out among the giants, we become collateral damage.
So how do we survive? Increasingly, we have little alternative but to trust *someone*, so we need to decide who we trust -- and who we don't -- and then act accordingly. This isn't easy; our feudal lords go out of their way not to be transparent about their actions, their security, or much of anything. Use whatever power you have --- as individuals, none; as large corporations, more -- to negotiate with your lords. And, finally, don't be extreme in any way: politically, socially, culturally. Yes, you can be shut down without recourse, but it's usually those on the edges that are affected. Not much solace, I agree, but it's something.
On the policy side, we have an action plan. In the short term, we need to keep circumvention -- the ability to modify our hardware, software, and data files -- legal and preserve net neutrality. Both of these things limit how much the lords can take advantage of us, and they increase the possibility that the market will force them to be more benevolent. The last thing we want is the government -- that's us -- spending resources to enforce one particular business model over another and stifling competition.
In the longer term, we all need to work to reduce the power imbalance. Medieval feudalism evolved into a more balanced relationship in which lords had responsibilities as well as rights. Today's Internet feudalism is both ad hoc and one-sided. We have no choice but to trust the lords, but we receive very few assurances in return. The lords have a lot of rights, but few responsibilities or limits. We need to balance this relationship, and government intervention is the only way we're going to get it. In medieval Europe, the rise of the centralized state and the rule of law provided the stability that feudalism lacked. The Magna Carta first forced responsibilities on governments and put humans on the long road toward government by the people and for the people.
We need a similar process to rein in our Internet lords, and it's not something that market forces are likely to provide. The very definition of power is changing, and the issues are far bigger than the Internet and our relationships with our IT providers.
This essay originally appeared on the "Harvard Business Review" website.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/06/you_have_no_control_over_s.html
It is an update of this earlier essay on the same topic.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-406.html
"Feudal security" is a metaphor I have been using a lot recently; I wrote this essay without rereading my previous essay.
There is another way the feudal metaphor applies to the Internet. There is no commons; every part of the Internet is owned by someone. This article explores that aspect of the metaphor.
http://newamerica.net/publications/..._and_erasures_from_digital_rights_management_ http://tinyurl.com/k9lwexw
Power and security:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-409.html
The need for trust:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-412.html
The Internet giants reimagined as "Game of Thrones" players:
http://blog.hootsuite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/GoT-social-infographic-final1.jpg or http://blog.hootsuite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/GoT-social-infographic-final1.jpg
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Reply-To: Bruce Schneier <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
CRYPTO-GRAM
June 15, 2013
by Bruce Schneier
Chief Security Technology Officer, BT
[email protected]
http://www.schneier.com
A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on security: computer and otherwise.
For back issues, or to subscribe, visit <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html>.
You can read this issue on the web at <http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-1306.html>. These same essays and news items appear in the "Schneier on Security" blog at <http://www.schneier.com/blog>, along with a lively and intelligent comment section. An RSS feed is available.
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In this issue:
Government Secrets and the Need for Whistleblowers
Prosecuting Snowden
Trading Privacy for Convenience
More Links on the Snowden Documents
Essays Related to NSA Spying Documents
The Politics of Security in a Democracy
News
More on Feudal Security
Surveillance and the Internet of Things
The Problems with CALEA-II
Schneier News
Sixth Annual Movie-Plot Threat Semifinalists
A Really Good Article on How Easy it Is to Crack Passwords
Bluetooth-Controlled Door Lock
Security and Human Behavior (SHB 2013)
The Cost of Terrorism in Pakistan
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Government Secrets and the Need for Whistleblowers
Recently, we learned that the NSA received all calling records from Verizon customers for a three-month period starting in April. That's everything except the voice content: who called who, where they were, how long the call lasted -- for millions of people, both Americans and foreigners. This "metadata" allows the government to track the movements of everyone during that period, and a build a detailed picture of who talks to whom. It's exactly the same data the Justice Department collected about AP journalists.
The "Guardian" delivered this revelation after receiving a copy of a secret memo about this -- presumably from a whistleblower. We don't know if the other phone companies handed data to the NSA too. We don't know if this was a one-off demand or a continuously renewed demand; the order started a few days after the Boston bombers were captured by police.
We don't know a lot about how the government spies on us, but we know some things. We know the FBI has issued tens of thousands of ultra-secret National Security Letters to collect all sorts of data on people -- we believe on millions of people -- and has been abusing them to spy on cloud-computer users. We know it can collect a wide array of personal data from the Internet without a warrant. We also know that the FBI has been intercepting cell-phone data, all but voice content, for the past 20 years without a warrant, and can use the microphone on some powered-off cell phones as a room bug -- presumably only with a warrant.
We know that the NSA has many domestic-surveillance and data-mining programs with codenames like Trailblazer, Stellar Wind, and Ragtime -- deliberately using different codenames for similar programs to stymie oversight and conceal what's really going on. We know that the NSA is building an enormous computer facility in Utah to store all this data, as well as faster computer networks to process it all. We know the U.S. Cyber Command employs 4,000 people.
We know that the DHS is also collecting a massive amount of data on people, and that local police departments are running "fusion centers" to collect and analyze this data, and covering up its failures. This is all part of the militarization of the police.
Remember in 2003, when Congress defunded the decidedly creepy Total Information Awareness program? It didn't die; it just changed names and split into many smaller programs. We know that corporations are doing an enormous amount of spying on behalf of the government: all parts.
We know all of this not because the government is honest and forthcoming, but mostly through three backchannels -- inadvertent hints or outright admissions by government officials in hearings and court cases, information gleaned from government documents received under FOIA, and government whistleblowers.
There's much more we don't know, and often what we know is obsolete. We know quite a bit about the NSA's ECHELON program from a 2000 European investigation, and about the DHS's plans for Total Information Awareness from 2002, but much less about how these programs have evolved. We can make inferences about the NSA's Utah facility based on the theoretical amount of data from various sources, the cost of computation, and the power requirements from the facility, but those are rough guesses at best. For a lot of this, we're completely in the dark.
And that's wrong.
The U.S. government is on a secrecy binge. It overclassifies more information than ever. And we learn, again and again, that our government regularly classifies things not because they need to be secret, but because their release would be embarrassing.
Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so much of it is illegal -- or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel interpretations of the law -- but because we have a right to know. Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name. That means knowing that the government is operating within the constraints of the law. Otherwise, we're living in a police state.
We need whistleblowers.
Leaking information without getting caught is difficult. It's almost impossible to maintain privacy in the Internet Age. The WikiLeaks platform seems to have been secure -- Bradley Manning was caught not because of a technological flaw, but because someone he trusted betrayed him -- but the U.S. government seems to have successfully destroyed it as a platform. None of the spin-offs have risen to become viable yet. The "New Yorker" recently unveiled its Strongbox platform for leaking material, which is still new but looks good. Wired recently gave the best advice on how to leak information to the press via phone, email, or the post office. The National Whistleblowers Center has a page on national-security whistleblowers and their rights.
Leaking information is also very dangerous. The Obama Administration has embarked on a war on whistleblowers, pursuing them -- both legally and through intimidation -- further than any previous administration has done. Mark Klein, Thomas Drake, and William Binney have all been persecuted for exposing technical details of our surveillance state. Bradley Manning has been treated cruelly and inhumanly -- and possibly tortured -- for his more-indiscriminate leaking of State Department secrets.
The Obama Administration's actions against the Associated Press, its persecution of Julian Assange, and its unprecedented prosecution of Manning on charges of "aiding the enemy" demonstrate how far it's willing to go to intimidate whistleblowers -- as well as the journalists who talk to them.
But whistleblowing is vital, even more broadly than in government spying. It's necessary for good government, and to protect us from abuse of power.
We need details on the full extent of the FBI's spying capabilities. We don't know what information it routinely collects on American citizens, what extra information it collects on those on various watch lists, and what legal justifications it invokes for its actions. We don't know its plans for future data collection. We don't know what scandals and illegal actions -- either past or present -- are currently being covered up.
We also need information about what data the NSA gathers, either domestically or internationally. We don't know how much it collects surreptitiously, and how much it relies on arrangements with various companies. We don't know how much it uses password cracking to get at encrypted data, and how much it exploits existing system vulnerabilities. We don't know whether it deliberately inserts backdoors into systems it wants to monitor, either with or without the permission of the communications-system vendors.
And we need details about the sorts of analysis the organizations perform. We don't know what they quickly cull at the point of collection, and what they store for later analysis -- and how long they store it. We don't know what sort of database profiling they do, how extensive their CCTV and surveillance-drone analysis is, how much they perform behavioral analysis, or how extensively they trace friends of people on their watch lists.
We don't know how big the U.S. surveillance apparatus is today, either in terms of money and people or in terms of how many people are monitored or how much data is collected. Modern technology makes it possible to monitor vastly more people -- the recent NSA revelations demonstrate that they could easily surveil *everyone* -- than could ever be done manually.
Whistleblowing is the moral response to immoral activity by those in power. What's important here are government programs and methods, not data about individuals. I understand I am asking for people to engage in illegal and dangerous behavior. Do it carefully and do it safely, but -- and I am talking directly to you, person working on one of these secret and probably illegal programs -- do it.
If you see something, say something. There are many people in the U.S. that will appreciate and admire you.
For the rest of us, we can help by protesting this war on whistleblowers. We need to force our politicians not to punish them -- to investigate the abuses and not the messengers -- and to ensure that those unjustly persecuted can obtain redress.
Our government is putting its own self-interest ahead of the interests of the country. That needs to change.
This essay originally appeared on the "Atlantic."
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...on-citizens-scarier-than-what-we-know/276607/ or http://tinyurl.com/mgtx6nx
Verizon documents:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order or http://tinyurl.com/mfm9qs6
Metadata:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/phone-call-metadata-information-authorities or http://tinyurl.com/n5zq58b
National Security Letters:
http://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters
http://epic.org/privacy/nsl/
http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/07656JDB
FBI spying:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/03/fbi_secretly_sp.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/11/e-mail_security.html
FBI intercepting cell phone calls:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...unlock_history_behind_cellphone_tracking.html or http://tinyurl.com/a8v5ch8
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/29/feds-fbi-warrantless-cell-tracking-very-common/ or http://tinyurl.com/d3v5b6z
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/verizon-rigmaiden-aircard/all/ or http://tinyurl.com/d52aqkb
Turning a cell phone into a listening device:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html
Trailblazer:
http://publicintelligence.net/binney-nsa-declaration/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/new-yorker-on-thomas-drake/
Stellar Wind:
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/09/stellar-wind-secret-nsa-domestic-spying.html or http://tinyurl.com/kjk8l53
Ragtime:
http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/...ntelligence-program-revealed-in-new-book.php# or http://tinyurl.com/khtm7s5
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...on_ragtime_domestic_surveillance_program.html or http://tinyurl.com/c9h78fn
The NSA's Utah computer facility:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1
http://rt.com/news/utah-data-center-spy-789/
DHS data collection:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email...71623040640006-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwMzExNDMyWj.html or http://tinyurl.com/bv998wp
Failures at Fusion Centers:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2012/10/dhs-covers-up-failures-of-u-s-counterterrorism-centers/ or http://tinyurl.com/acx2jtv
Total Information Awareness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office
Corporate spying on behalf of governments:
http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html or http://tinyurl.com/38trebe
http://www.schneier.com/essay-423.html
Overclassification:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/national-security-and-americas-unnecessary-secrets.html or http://tinyurl.com/lnvrxfb
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/15/telling_secrets
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/the-scale-of-american-overclassification or http://tinyurl.com/84h2wlg
http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/reducing-overclassification-through-accountability or http://tinyurl.com/lqhn3u8
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/20...1_espionage-act-drake-case-government-workers or http://tinyurl.com/mxk4558
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/05/30/491988/government-overclassification/ or http://tinyurl.com/k65d6ht
Transparency and accountability:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...nt-hurt-security-theyre-crucial-to-it/275662/ or http://tinyurl.com/l35moqr
Ruminations on our future police state:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130312013840/https://frank.geekheim.de/?page_id=128 or http://tinyurl.com/kluz58q
The Internet is a surveillance state:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-418.html
StrongBox:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/strongbox-and-aaron-swartz.html or http://tinyurl.com/b4mnrx8
http://www.newyorker.com/strongbox
http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/articles/new-yorker-launches-strongbox/ or http://tinyurl.com/l5mms4q
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/15/new-yorker-launches-new-leak-s.html
https://github.com/deaddrop/deaddrop
Wired's advice on how to leak:
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/0...roats-this-is-how-to-leak-to-the-press-today/ or http://tinyurl.com/a9xdwyu
National Whistleblowers Center:
http://www.whistleblowers.org
http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=984&Itemid=173 or http://tinyurl.com/kgpe3zx
Obama's war on whistleblowers:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/05/obamas-war-whistle-blowers/38106/ or http://tinyurl.com/6xlssug
http://www.thenation.com/article/173521/obamas-crackdown-whistleblowers or http://tinyurl.com/d6dunx2
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer
Manning's treatment:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/manning-treatment-inhuman/
Action against the AP:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/us/leaks-inquiries-show-how-wide-a-net-is-cast.html or http://tinyurl.com/lzqv56l
"Aiding the enemy" charges against Manning:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112554#
Political solutions:
http://joshuafoust.com/nine-dashed-off-points-on-the-nsa-scandal/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpoli...urt-limits-damage-payments-to-whistle-blowers or http://tinyurl.com/kkh7yn8
This essay is being discussed on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1g1eyz/bruce_schneier_democracy_requir es_an_informed/ or http://tinyurl.com/lqs5se6
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Prosecuting Snowden
Edward Snowden broke the law by releasing classified information. This isn't under debate; it's something everyone with a security clearance knows. It's written in plain English on the documents you have to sign when you get a security clearance, and it's part of the culture. The law is there for a good reason, and secrecy has an important role in military defense.
But before the Justice Department prosecutes Snowden, there are some other investigations that ought to happen.
We need to determine whether these National Security Agency programs are themselves legal. The administration has successfully barred anyone from bringing a lawsuit challenging these laws, on the grounds of national secrecy. Now that we know those arguments are without merit, it's time for those court challenges.
It's clear that some of the NSA programs exposed by Snowden violate the Constitution and others violate existing laws. Other people have an opposite view. The courts need to decide.
We need to determine whether classifying these programs is legal. Keeping things secret from the people is a very dangerous practice in a democracy, and the government is permitted to do so only under very specific circumstances. Reading the documents leaked so far, I don't see anything that needs to be kept secret. The argument that exposing these documents helps the terrorists doesn't even pass the laugh test; there's nothing here that changes anything any potential terrorist would do or not do. But in any case, now that the documents are public, the courts need to rule on the legality of their secrecy.
And we need to determine how we treat whistleblowers in this country. We have whistleblower protection laws that apply in some cases, particularly when exposing fraud, and other illegal behavior. NSA officials have repeatedly lied about the existence, and details, of these programs to Congress.
Only after all of these legal issues have been resolved should any prosecution of Snowden move forward. Because only then will we know the full extent of what he did, and how much of it is justified.
I believe that history will hail Snowden as a hero -- his whistleblowing exposed a surveillance state and a secrecy machine run amok. I'm less optimistic of how the present day will treat him, and hope that the debate right now is less about the man and more about the government he exposed.
This essay was originally published on the "New York Times" Room for Debate blog
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...rosecuting-snowden-investigate-the-government or http://tinyurl.com/kxrardv
It's part of a series of essays on the topic.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/11/in-nsa-leak-case-a-whistle-blower-or-a-criminal or http://tinyurl.com/lkhzedp
There's a big discussion of this on Reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/..._schneier_prosecuting_snowden_i_believe_that/ or http://tinyurl.com/l3yfzw6
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Trading Privacy for Convenience
Ray Wang makes an important point about trust and our data:
This is the paradox. The companies contending to win our trust
to manage our digital identities all seem to have complementary
(or competing) business models that breach that trust by selling
our data.
...and by turning it over to the government.
The current surveillance state is a result of a government/corporate partnership, and our willingness to give up privacy for convenience.
If the government demanded that we all carry tracking devices 24/7, we would rebel. Yet we all carry cell phones. If the government demanded that we deposit copies of all of our messages to each other with the police, we'd declare their actions unconstitutional. Yet we all use Gmail and Facebook messaging and SMS. If the government demanded that we give them access to all the photographs we take, and that we identify all of the people in them and tag them with locations, we'd refuse. Yet we do exactly that on Flickr and other sites.
Ray Ozzie is right when he said that we got what we asked for when we told the government we were scared and that they should do whatever they wanted to make us feel safer. But we also got what we asked for when we traded our privacy for convenience, trusting these corporations to look out for our best interests.
We're living in a world of feudal security. And if you watch "Game of Thrones," you know that feudalism benefits the powerful -- at the expense of the peasants.
Last night, I was on "All In" with Chris Hayes. One of the things we talked about after the show was over is how technological solutions only work around the margins. That's not a cause for despair. Think about technological solutions to murder. Yes, they exist -- wearing a bullet-proof vest, for example -- but they're not really viable. The way we protect ourselves from murder is through laws. This is how we're also going to protect our privacy.
Ray Wang's essay:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/06/beware_trading_privacy_for_con.html
The internet is a surveillance state:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-418.html
The government/corporate surveillance partnership:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-423.html
Ray Ozzie's remarks:
http://www.boston.com/business/inno...ow-time-wake/42AqxBSvgu0X3xXGIx7WFK/blog.html or http://tinyurl.com/l3yfzw6
Me on Chris Hayes:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/52186804/#52186804
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/52186831/#52186831
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More Links on the Snowden Documents
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data
http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html or http://tinyurl.com/mm3ttqt
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...reenwald_profiled_and_other_reccommended.html or http://tinyurl.com/lvpx739
The whistleblower is Edward Snowden. I consider him an American hero.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance or http://tinyurl.com/pkm26ps
Someone needs to write an essay parsing all of the precisely worded denials. Apple has never heard the word "PRISM," but could have known of the program under a different name. Google maintained that there is no government "back door," but left open the possibility that the data could have been just handed over. Obama said that the government isn't "listening to your telephone calls," ignoring 1) the metadata, 2) the fact that computers could be doing all of the listening, and 3) that text-to-speech results in phone calls being read and not listened to. And so on and on and on.
An NSA spying timeline:
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline
Speculation about PRISM:
http://unhandled.com/2013/06/07/a-taxonomy-of-prism-possibilities/
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2013/06/brainstorming-few-hypotheses-about-prism.html or http://tinyurl.com/qgeuuby
Defenses of NSA surveillance:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...-idea-to-me-this-is-what-governments-are-for/ or http://tinyurl.com/lyrqs5k
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/making-a-mountain-out-of-a-digital-molehill.html or http://tinyurl.com/kjqb7ve
http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2013/06/sensationalizing-cyber-surveillance.html or http://tinyurl.com/keljyyk
More essays worth reading:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/birth-of-the-surveillance-state/276650/ or http://tinyurl.com/lfvb32d
http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...p-the-real-nsa-scandal-is-whats-legal/276625/ or http://tinyurl.com/lnlwde4
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/nsa-numbers/
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/07/dont_defend_the_dragnet/
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-up-this-much-liberty-to-fight-terror/276695/ or http://tinyurl.com/lrk2jcr
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...tleblower_have_access_to_prism_and_other.html or http://tinyurl.com/l4pfgb4
http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ or http://tinyurl.com/l6qvege
http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2013/06/surveillance-legitimacy/
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/...-s-flawed-defense-of-surveillance-4-responses or http://tinyurl.com/lfnbofj
NSA surveillance reimagined as children's books:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/gal...-twitter-pictures#/?picture=410409133&index=0 or http://tinyurl.com/opt85ar
Claims that PRISM foiled a terrorist attack have been debunked:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/public-documents-contradict-claim-email-spying-foiled-terror or http://tinyurl.com/lyq7vse
A collection of headlines:
http://thelibertarianforum.com/topic/2327-the-nsa-and-the-surveilance-state-scandals/ or http://tinyurl.com/knxqj35
Interesting comments by someone who thinks Snowden is a well-intentioned fool.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/government_secr.html#c1497091 or http://tinyurl.com/ktje7kj
The *Economist* speculates on the political factors that would lead Obama to allow this. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/why-we-spy or http://tinyurl.com/lcaxmvw
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Essays Related to NSA Spying Documents
Here's a quick list of some of my older writings that are related to the current NSA spying documents:
The Internet Is a Surveillance State," 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-418.html
The importance of government transparency and accountability, 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-423.html
The dangers of a government/corporate eavesdropping partnership, 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-425.html
Why Data Mining Won't Stop Terror, 2006.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-108.html
The Eternal Value of Privacy, 2006.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-114.html
The dangers of our "data shadow," 2008.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-219.html
The politics of security and fear, 2013.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-427.html
The death of ephemeral conversation, 2006.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-129.html
The dangers of NSA eavesdropping, 2008.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-100.html
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The Politics of Security in a Democracy
Terrorism causes fear, and we overreact to that fear. Our brains aren't very good at probability and risk analysis. We tend to exaggerate spectacular, strange and rare events, and downplay ordinary, familiar and common ones. We think rare risks are more common than they are, and we fear them more than probability indicates we should.
Our leaders are just as prone to this overreaction as we are. But aside from basic psychology, there are other reasons that it's smart politics to exaggerate terrorist threats, and security threats in general.
The first is that we respond to a strong leader. Bill Clinton famously said: "When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody that's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right." He's right.
The second is that doing something -- anything -- is good politics. A politician wants to be seen as taking charge, demanding answers, fixing things. It just doesn't look as good to sit back and claim that there's nothing to do. The logic is along the lines of: "Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it."
The third is that the "fear preacher" wins, regardless of the outcome. Imagine two politicians today. One of them preaches fear and draconian security measures. The other is someone like me, who tells people that terrorism is a negligible risk, that risk is part of life, and that while some security is necessary, we should mostly just refuse to be terrorized and get on with our lives.
Fast-forward 10 years. If I'm right and there have been no more terrorist attacks, the fear preacher takes credit for keeping us safe. But if a terrorist attack has occurred, my government career is over. Even if the incidence of terrorism is as ridiculously low as it is today, there's no benefit for a politician to take my side of that gamble.
The fourth and final reason is money. Every new security technology, from surveillance cameras to high-tech fusion centers to airport full-body scanners, has a for-profit corporation lobbying for its purchase and use. Given the three other reasons above, it's easy -- and probably profitable -- for a politician to make them happy and say yes.
For any given politician, the implications of these four reasons are straightforward. Overestimating the threat is better than underestimating it. Doing something about the threat is better than doing nothing. Doing something that is explicitly reactive is better than being proactive. (If you're proactive and you're wrong, you've wasted money. If you're proactive and you're right but no longer in power, whoever is in power is going to get the credit for what you did.) Visible is better than invisible. Creating something new is better than fixing something old.
Those last two maxims are why it's better for a politician to fund a terrorist fusion center than to pay for more Arabic translators for the National Security Agency. No one's going to see the additional appropriation in the NSA's secret budget. On the other hand, a high-tech computerized fusion center is going to make front page news, even if it doesn't actually do anything useful.
This leads to another phenomenon about security and government. Once a security system is in place, it can be very hard to dislodge it. Imagine a politician who objects to some aspect of airport security: the liquid ban, the shoe removal, something. If he pushes to relax security, he gets the blame if something bad happens as a result. No one wants to roll back a police power and have the lack of that power cause a well-publicized death, even if it's a one-in-a-billion fluke.
We're seeing this force at work in the bloated terrorist no-fly and watch lists; agents have lots of incentive to put someone on the list, but absolutely no incentive to take anyone off. We're also seeing this in the Transportation Security Administration's attempt to reverse the ban on small blades on airplanes. Twice it tried to make the change, and twice fearful politicians prevented it from going through with it.
Lots of unneeded and ineffective security measures are perpetrated by a government bureaucracy that is primarily concerned about the security of its members' careers. They know the voters are more likely to punish them more if they fail to secure against a repetition of the last attack, and less if they fail to anticipate the next one.
What can we do? Well, the first step toward solving a problem is recognizing that you have one. These are not iron-clad rules; they're tendencies. If we can keep these tendencies and their causes in mind, we're more likely to end up with sensible security measures that are commensurate with the threat, instead of a lot of security theater and draconian police powers that are not.
Our leaders' job is to resist these tendencies. Our job is to support politicians who do resist.
This essay originally appeared on CNN.com.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/20/opinion/schneier-security-politics/index.html or http://tinyurl.com/njp48xh
This essay has been translated into Swedish.
http://opassande.se/2013/06/04/sakerhetspolitiken-i-en-demokrati/
Preaching fear:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...-Age-of-Terror-that-exists-in-his-imagination or http://tinyurl.com/nc5tryv
My essay on how to fight terrorism:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-292.html
Fusion Centers:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/fusion-centers
TSA prohibited from allowing small knives:
http://www.latimes.com/business/mon...all-knives-on-planes-20130422,0,3679780.story or http://tinyurl.com/ckql2r3
Another essay along similar lines:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/surveillance-0 or http://tinyurl.com/q7xhay3
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News
All of the anti-counterfeiting features of the new Canadian $100 bill are resulting in people not bothering to verify them.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...ooks-passing-fake-polymer-bank-notes-british- or http://tinyurl.com/ldn8y8m
For a while now, I have been thinking about what civil disobedience looks like in the Internet Age. DDOS attacks, and politically motivated hacking in general, are certainly a part of that. This is one of the reasons I found Molly Sauter's recent thesis, "Distributed Denial of Service Actions and the Challenge of Civil Disobedience on the Internet," so interesting.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/141893154...ALLENGE-OF-CIVIL-DISOBEDIENCE-ON-THE-INTERNET or http://tinyurl.com/pq6djfo
One of the problems with the legal system is that it doesn't make any differentiation between civil disobedience and "normal" criminal activity on the Internet, though it does in the real world.
This 127-page report on "The Global Cyber Game" was just published by the UK Defence Academy. I have not read it yet, but it looks really interesting.
http://www.da.mod.uk/publications/library/technology/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf/view or http://tinyurl.com/pkuoga3
This blog post by Aleatha Parker-Wood, on the one-shot vs. the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, is very applicable to the things I wrote in "Liars & Outliers":
https://plus.google.com/107475727645912993113/posts/3BVKXUhqSrV
Interesting report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project on teens, social media, and privacy:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/new_report_on_t_1.html
The research by G. Gigučre and B.C. Love, "Limits in decision making arise from limits in memory retrieval," in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," v. 110 no. 19 (2013) has applications in training airport baggage screeners.
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/19/7613.short?rss=1
Nassim Nicholas Taleb on risk perception:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151501872108375&id=13012333374 or http://tinyurl.com/p5m4eag
This article wonders if we are finally thinking sensibly about terrorism.
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/finally-talking-terror-sensibly-8511 or http://tinyurl.com/naq48px
There are also these:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/refusing-be-terrorized-time-terror/64265/ or http://tinyurl.com/pupye9o
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/04/16/terrorism-is-rare/
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/04/15/something-else-to-talk-about/ or http://tinyurl.com/c3yk4hm
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...w-growing-resolve-to-live-with-terror-threat/ or http://tinyurl.com/d7fzdtg
http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-i...il-liberties-in-the-name-of-national-security or http://tinyurl.com/dxc4csq
President Obama used my "refuse to be terrorized" line:
http://www.politico.com/politico44/...m-the-week-americans-refuse-to-be-162163.html or http://tinyurl.com/cchxy23
This bit on why we lie, by Judge Kozinski, is from a federal court ruling about false statements and First Amendment protection:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/why_we_lie.html
Interesting article on a greatly increased aspect of surveillance: "the ordinary citizen who by chance finds himself in a position to record events of great public import, and to share the results with the rest of us."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...other-jones-video-rise-of-little-brother.html or http://tinyurl.com/ovrzhsf
New paper by Daniel Solove: "Privacy Self-Management and the Consent Dilemma":
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2171018
Someday I need to write an essay on the security risks of secret algorithms that become part of our infrastructure. This paper gives one example of that. Could Google tip an election by manipulating what comes up from search results on the candidates?
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_security_ri_3.html
Eugene Spafford answers questions on CNN.com.
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/23/cyber-security-expert-answers-readers-questions/ or http://tinyurl.com/p9h8sds
Interesting speculative article on tagging and location technologies.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/06/inside-the-militarys-secret-terror-tagging-tech/ or http://tinyurl.com/qgao2u
Ignore the sensationalist headline. This article is a good summary of the need for trust in IT, and provides some ideas for how to enable more of it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/03/trust_nobody_with_your_personal_data_ever/ or http://tinyurl.com/lw97ezr
The psychology of conspiracy theories.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy-into-conspiracy-theories.html or http://tinyurl.com/ozhlb23
Ricin as a terrorist tool:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/ricin_as_a_terr.html
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More on Feudal Security
Facebook regularly abuses the privacy of its users. Google has stopped supporting its popular RSS feeder. Apple prohibits all iPhone apps that are political or sexual. Microsoft might be cooperating with some governments to spy on Skype calls, but we don't know which ones. Both Twitter and LinkedIn have recently suffered security breaches that affected the data of hundreds of thousands of their users.
If you've started to think of yourself as a hapless peasant in a "Game of Thrones" power struggle, you're more right than you may realize. These are not traditional companies, and we are not traditional customers. These are feudal lords, and we are their vassals, peasants, and serfs.
Power has shifted in IT, in favor of both cloud-service providers and closed-platform vendors. This power shift affects many things, and it profoundly affects security.
Traditionally, computer security was the user's responsibility. Users purchased their own antivirus software and firewalls, and any breaches were blamed on their inattentiveness. It's kind of a crazy business model. Normally we expect the products and services we buy to be safe and secure, but in IT we tolerated lousy products and supported an enormous aftermarket for security.
Now that the IT industry has matured, we expect more security "out of the box." This has become possible largely because of two technology trends: cloud computing and vendor-controlled platforms. The first means that most of our data resides on other networks: Google Docs, Salesforce.com, Facebook, Gmail. The second means that our new Internet devices are both closed and controlled by the vendors, giving us limited configuration control: iPhones, ChromeBooks, Kindles, BlackBerry PDAs. Meanwhile, our relationship with IT has changed. We used to use our computers to do things. We now use our vendor-controlled computing devices to go places. All of these places are owned by someone.
The new security model is that someone else takes care of it -- without telling us any of the details. I have no control over the security of my Gmail or my photos on Flickr. I can't demand greater security for my presentations on Prezi or my task list on Trello, no matter how confidential they are. I can't audit any of these cloud services. I can't delete cookies on my iPad or ensure that files are securely erased. Updates on my Kindle happen automatically, without my knowledge or consent. I have so little visibility into the security of Facebook that I have no idea what operating system they're using.
There are a lot of good reasons why we're all flocking to these cloud services and vendor-controlled platforms. The benefits are enormous, from cost to convenience to reliability to security itself. But it is inherently a feudal relationship. We cede control of our data and computing platforms to these companies and trust that they will treat us well and protect us from harm. And if we pledge complete allegiance to them -- if we let them control our email and calendar and address book and photos and everything -- we get even more benefits. We become their vassals; or, on a bad day, their serfs.
There are a lot of feudal lords out there. Google and Apple are the obvious ones, but Microsoft is trying to control both user data and the end-user platform as well. Facebook is another lord, controlling much of the socializing we do on the Internet. Other feudal lords are smaller and more specialized -- Amazon, Yahoo, Verizon, and so on -- but the model is the same.
To be sure, feudal security has its advantages. These companies are much better at security than the average user. Automatic backup has saved a lot of data after hardware failures, user mistakes, and malware infections. Automatic updates have increased security dramatically. This is also true for small organizations; they are more secure than they would be if they tried to do it themselves. For large corporations with dedicated IT security departments, the benefits are less clear. Sure, even large companies outsource critical functions like tax preparation and cleaning services, but large companies have specific requirements for security, data retention, audit, and so on -- and that's just not possible with most of these feudal lords.
Feudal security also has its risks. Vendors can, and do, make security mistakes affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Vendors can lock people into relationships, making it hard for them to take their data and leave. Vendors can act arbitrarily, against our interests; Facebook regularly does this when it changes peoples' defaults, implements new features, or modifies its privacy policy. Many vendors give our data to the government without notice, consent, or a warrant; almost all sell it for profit. This isn't surprising, really; companies should be expected to act in their own self-interest and not in their users' best interest.
The feudal relationship is inherently based on power. In Medieval Europe, people would pledge their allegiance to a feudal lord in exchange for that lord's protection. This arrangement changed as the lords realized that they had all the power and could do whatever they wanted. Vassals were used and abused; peasants were tied to their land and became serfs.
It's the Internet lords' popularity and ubiquity that enable them to profit; laws and government relationships make it easier for them to hold onto power. These lords are vying with each other for profits and power. By spending time on their sites and giving them our personal information -- whether through search queries, e-mails, status updates, likes, or simply our behavioral characteristics -- we are providing the raw material for that struggle. In this way we are like serfs, toiling the land for our feudal lords. If you don't believe me, try to take your data with you when you leave Facebook. And when war breaks out among the giants, we become collateral damage.
So how do we survive? Increasingly, we have little alternative but to trust *someone*, so we need to decide who we trust -- and who we don't -- and then act accordingly. This isn't easy; our feudal lords go out of their way not to be transparent about their actions, their security, or much of anything. Use whatever power you have --- as individuals, none; as large corporations, more -- to negotiate with your lords. And, finally, don't be extreme in any way: politically, socially, culturally. Yes, you can be shut down without recourse, but it's usually those on the edges that are affected. Not much solace, I agree, but it's something.
On the policy side, we have an action plan. In the short term, we need to keep circumvention -- the ability to modify our hardware, software, and data files -- legal and preserve net neutrality. Both of these things limit how much the lords can take advantage of us, and they increase the possibility that the market will force them to be more benevolent. The last thing we want is the government -- that's us -- spending resources to enforce one particular business model over another and stifling competition.
In the longer term, we all need to work to reduce the power imbalance. Medieval feudalism evolved into a more balanced relationship in which lords had responsibilities as well as rights. Today's Internet feudalism is both ad hoc and one-sided. We have no choice but to trust the lords, but we receive very few assurances in return. The lords have a lot of rights, but few responsibilities or limits. We need to balance this relationship, and government intervention is the only way we're going to get it. In medieval Europe, the rise of the centralized state and the rule of law provided the stability that feudalism lacked. The Magna Carta first forced responsibilities on governments and put humans on the long road toward government by the people and for the people.
We need a similar process to rein in our Internet lords, and it's not something that market forces are likely to provide. The very definition of power is changing, and the issues are far bigger than the Internet and our relationships with our IT providers.
This essay originally appeared on the "Harvard Business Review" website.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/06/you_have_no_control_over_s.html
It is an update of this earlier essay on the same topic.
https://www.schneier.com/essay-406.html
"Feudal security" is a metaphor I have been using a lot recently; I wrote this essay without rereading my previous essay.
There is another way the feudal metaphor applies to the Internet. There is no commons; every part of the Internet is owned by someone. This article explores that aspect of the metaphor.
http://newamerica.net/publications/..._and_erasures_from_digital_rights_management_ http://tinyurl.com/k9lwexw
Power and security:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-409.html
The need for trust:
https://www.schneier.com/essay-412.html
The Internet giants reimagined as "Game of Thrones" players:
http://blog.hootsuite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/GoT-social-infographic-final1.jpg or http://blog.hootsuite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/GoT-social-infographic-final1.jpg
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