In this fascinating book, investigative reporter Yasha Levine uncovers the secret origins of the internet, tracing it back to a Pentagon counterinsurgency surveillance project.

A visionary intelligence officer, William Godel, realized that the key to winning the war in Vietnam was not outgunning the enemy, but using new information technology to understand their motives and anticipate their movements. This idea–using computers to spy on people and groups perceived as a threat, both at home and abroad–drove ARPA to develop the internet in the 1960s, and continues to be at the heart of the modern internet we all know and use today. As Levine shows, surveillance wasn’t something that suddenly appeared on the internet; it was woven into the fabric of the technology.

But this isn’t just a story about the NSA or other domestic programs run by the government. As the book spins forward in time, Levine examines the private surveillance business that powers tech-industry giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, revealing how these companies spy on their users for profit, all while doing double duty as military and intelligence contractors. Levine shows that the military and Silicon Valley are effectively inseparable: a military-digital complex that permeates everything connected to the internet, even coopting and weaponizing the antigovernment privacy movement that sprang up in the wake of Edward Snowden.

With deep research, skilled storytelling, and provocative arguments, Surveillance Valley will change the way you think about the news–and the device on which you read it.

You can read an extract from Surveillance Valley published in the Guardian here: Google’s Earth: how the tech giant is helping the state spy on us

The post Book of the Day: Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The recent revelations by Edward Snowden and other whistle-blowers about the American empire’s megalomanic scheme to spy upon every inhabitant of the planet have discredited the West’s self-identification as the global champion of human rights.

Richard Barbrook writes shares his thoughts on Digital Citizenship. Originally published in CyberSalon.

Digital Citizenship: From Liberal Privilege to Democratic Emancipation

Government founded … on a system of universal peace, on the indefeasible hereditary Rights of Man … interests not particular individuals, but nations, in its progress, and promises a new era to the human race.’

– Tom Paine, Rights of Man

In the second decade of the 21st century, citizenship is defined not just by the people being able to choose the political leadership of their nation through regular elections, but also by the legal protection of their human rights, such as media freedom, personal privacy, fair trials and religious toleration. Enshrined in both national constitutions and international treaties, these democratic precepts ensure that individual citizens can express their views and campaign for causes without fear of persecution or discrimination.

Yet, when they were first codified during the 17th and 18th centuries’ modernising revolutions which overthrew aristocratic and priestly despotism in Western Europe and North America, these fundamental freedoms were initially restricted to a minority of the population: white male property-owners. Despite the universalist rhetoric of the English 1689 Bill of Rights, the French 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and the USA’s 1791 Bill of Rights, men without property, all women and the African slaves who were property remained outside their constitutional protection. In this pioneering liberal iteration, political and civil freedom was founded upon economic exploitation. Human rights were the privilege of the few not the emancipation of the many.

Over the past two centuries, this oligarchic interpretation of citizenship has been superseded by a more democratic vision of individual liberty. Adopted in the immediate aftermath of the victory over fascism,the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights included the previously excluded within their provisions. All adults were now entitled to the full rights of political citizenship. When these mid-20th century charters were being drawn up, there were fierce debates between Left and Right over whether social and economic rights should also be given legal recognition. Seeking to mobilise the masses against its internal and external enemies, the Jacobins had promised in their 1793 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen that the French republic would ensure that all citizens had access to the necessities of life.

In 1944, responding to the global wartime emergency, US president Franklin Roosevelt had called for a new bill of rights which guaranteed employment, housing, healthcare, education and pensions for the whole population. Although the Right vetoed their inclusion in the 1948 and 1950 charters, the Left’s socio-economic precepts of human liberty were eventually codified in the United Nations’ 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Individual freedoms required the collective means to realise them in practice. The liberties of the many must take precedence over the privileges of the few.

During the past few decades, this socialist version of human rights has been almost forgotten. For the Left as well as the Right, the implosion of the Soviet Union has justified a return to the original liberal interpretation of these constitutional principles. According to the USSR’s 1936 Fundamental Rights & Duties of Citizens, every adult was entitled to an impressive collection of both political-civil and socio-economic freedoms. Unfortunately, as anyone who tried to put them into practice soon discovered to their cost, these emancipatory promises had been devised as ideological mystifications. By emphasising social and economic rights over political and civil liberty, the Stalinist dictatorship could deny both types of citizenship to its citizens.

Not surprisingly, many of those who opposed this totalitarian regime concluded that the Left’s attempts to extend human rights into civil society had negated their original intention: protecting individual freedom from state tyranny. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the demise of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and Russia was symbolised by their new democratic governments’ enthusiasm for the 18th century interpretation of personal liberty. The USA’s 1791 Bill of Rights didn’t need augmenting by the UN’s 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. On the contrary, political and civil freedom from state interference was the only possible form of freedom in the post-modern world. Liberalism and democracy were synonymous.

The recent revelations by Edward Snowden and other whistle-blowers about the American empire’s megalomanic scheme to spy upon every inhabitant of the planet have discredited the West’s self-identification as the global champion of human rights. Even with their huge resources, the Stalinist spooks of the KGB with their 20th century industrial technologies were only able to monitor the activities of a minority of Soviet citizens. In contrast, the NSA is now equipped with 21st century digital technologies which can intercept the emails, texts, phone calls, web browsing, media downloads and social media activity of almost all of humanity. Most worryingly, the liberal guarantees of the 1791 Bill of Rights have failed to protect the American people from the totalitarian ambitions of their own nation’s secret police.

Added as the 4th Amendment of the US constitution, a clause of this charter promised that the private communications of individual citizens could only be intercepted in exceptional circumstances which required judicial authorisation.

However, this fundamental principle was quickly discarded to reassure an American public terrorised by Al Qaeda’s 2001 murderous attacks on New York and Washington DC. Having obtained the approval of a supine legislature and compliant courts, the US government ordered the NSA to build the technical infrastructure for the ubiquitous surveillance of the entire global population. Like its defunct Stalinist rival, the American empire now champions the ideal of individual freedom to negate its implementation in practice. Far from advancing political and civil rights, the abandonment of socio-economic rights has emboldened the imperial hegemon to eviscerate all legal restrictions on its repressive powers at home and abroad. National security is now the antithesis of personal liberty.

The NSA’s totalitarian project to place the whole of humanity under permanent real-time surveillance is built upon the dominance of corporate America over the Net. Whether for targeted advertising, market research or customer relations, these dotcom companies have become proficient at gathering and analysing data about how people are using their products and services. From social media postings to on-line shopping, people are constantly sharing intimate details of their private lives with strangers.

For the NSA’s spooks, gaining access to this confidential information which can reveal an individual’s political opinions, moral beliefs and cultural tastes is a top priority. Since anyone could be an enemy of the American empire, everyone on this planet is a target of surveillance. According to some clever hackers and resourceful entrepreneurs, this illegal snooping can be thwarted by developing strong forms of encryption for the masses. However, as revealed by Snowden’s leaks, any technological fix is unlikely to provide a long-term solution for protecting personal privacy. It isn’t just that the NSA has become adept at breaking encryption by compromising software and hardware security. Above all, the 18th century’s concept of a citizenry composed of atomised individuals is an anachronism for the 21st century’s networked masses. What was once revolutionary has now become reactionary.

At the dawn of modernity, liberalism emerged as the philosophy of the white male property-owners who challenged monarchical oppression and clerical bigotry. With capitalism now in its dotage, the boosters of neo-liberalism have appropriated this radical heritage to excuse the social and environmental depredations of corrupt governments, fraudulent banks and tax-dodging corporations. By praising political-civil rights to demonise socio-economic rights, these apologists of the American empire have undermined the juridical foundations of both types of citizenship. The defence of liberal democracy against Stalinist tyranny has morphed into the advocacy of neo-liberal oligarchy against plebeian democracy.

At this dangerous moment in the history of humanity, personal freedom is threatened by the intrusive attentions of both authoritarian states and monopolistic businesses. In the virtual world as in real life, people must be confident that not only their personal communications will remain private, but also they can freely express controversial opinions without inhibition. Crucially, these political and civil rights must be combined with socio-economic rights.

The sharing of information over the Net is a premonition of the democratisation of the whole productive process. If they are to contribute to this collaborative endeavour, everyone must have access to the knowledge and technologies which will be used to build the emerging network society. Like its liberal and socialist predecessors, this new dispensation should be guided by its own rules of the game. The creation of a Net Bill of Rights codifies the mutually agreed principles for regulating individuals’ on-line activities in the common interest. By collectively defining a new vision of digital citizenship, this generation can make its own world-historical contribution towards building a truly human civilisation.

The better future must be anticipated in the troubled present. Let’s seize this opportunity to transform our utopian dreams into everyday life!

Richard Barbrook,

8th March 2015,

London, England.

Photo by Skley

The post Is it time for Digital Citizenship? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Denis Jaromil Rojo of dyne.org

Following the sudden and bizarre announcement that popular encryption software Truecrypt ‘may contain unfixed security issues’ and the equally bizarre recommendation by the Truecrypt developers to use Microsoft’s Bitlocker program (source of much derision from security professionals who assume it must be backdoored by the NSA), there has been a great deal of speculation as to firstly, why this has happened, and secondly what to use as a replacement if Truecrypt is indeed compromised. The most common theory to explain the announcement seems to be that the TC devs were put in the same impossible situation as Lavabit had been – pressured to install a backdoor to the software, the leaders decided to close down the project rather than give in to the US government’s demands, and in the case of TC, the recommendation of software presumed to be insecure is a coded message of some sort.

However it could be that an ongoing audit of the TC code had found multiple vulnerabilities and faced with the exhausting prospect of fixing them, the developers decided to throw in the towel instead. However this does not explain the recommendation of Bitlocker.

As to the second question, it appears there is not too much out there in the way of trusted open source software which could replace Truecrypt – proprietary non-open software must be presumed to be insecure as the code cannot be audited. One option might be Tomb, written by Jaromil of the excellent dyne.org.

“Tomb aims to be an 100% free and open source system for easy encryption and backup of personal files, written in code that is easy to review and links commonly shared components.”

Tomb does not appear to be super-complicated to set up, however it is definitely less user-friendly than Truecrypt, and unlike TC it does not work on Windows machines, the advice from the website being:

“…we strongly encourage people in need of strong encryption to not use Winslows, or at least to not generate encrypted partitions with it, since it can contain backdoors in the random number generation…”

Meanwhile we await more details to fill in the background on the Truecrypt announcement…

The post Alternative to Truecrypt appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Automattic’s mission is to democratize publishing, and a fully informed citizenry is the foundation of any functioning democracy. Keeping our users and the public fully informed about our policies on responding to government requests has always been important to us — and now, more than ever, candor in this area is vitally important.

In keeping with these principles, we’re pleased to release our firsttransparency report. This initial report summarizes the number of government information requests, takedown demands, and national security requests that we received during the second half of 2013. In addition to giving our users full transparency about the volume of these requests, we also hope that publicly reporting our data will help hold all parties (including us) accountable.

A few highlights of our report:

Information Requests. For the second half of 2013, approximately 0.0001% of the 48 million sites that we host were subject to a government information request. Our policy is to notify you of any information request we receive regarding your account, so that you may challenge the request. The only exception is if we are prohibited by law (not just asked nicely by the police) from making such a notification. We also carefully review all legal requests we receive and actively push back on those that are procedurally deficient, overly-broad, or otherwise improper (i.e., those that target non-criminal free speech). In other words, we’ve got your back.

Takedown Demands. Just as importantly, our transparency report includes takedown requests we received from governments around the world. Governments sometimes seek to remove WordPress.com posts that they deem to be prohibited by local laws, such as posts that they judge as defamatory or those that discuss illegal subject matter. We aim to promote freedom of expression around the world, and are also mindful of local laws that might impact that expression. When we receive an order to remove content, we may remove it in only those jurisdictions where it violates local law.

National Security. We’re reporting the maximum amount of information allowed by law about the number and types of National Security Requests that we received. The disclosures we’re currently allowed to make are limited, and unfortunately, we’re not permitted to paint a more truthful picture.

We’ll update this report every six months so that we can compare the volume of requests we receive over time. In future reports, we’ll include information about the volume of copyright takedown requests we receive and process under the DMCA. We’ll also update you on the actions we’re taking on the internet, in the courts, and in Congress, to defend our users and promote a free and open internet. So stay tuned to the “News” tab of the report!

Share and Share Alike

Like all of our policy documentation, our transparency report is released under a Creative Commons Share Alike license (CC BY-SA 2.0) so that other sites can use and build on our work if they’d like.

We hope this report is useful to our users and that its data adds to the important public debate about the proper role of government in monitoring and policing activity on the modern internet.

Check out the full transparency report here.

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