Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance: Sources and methods: Counter-strategies against pervasive surveillance architecture

[grarpamp]

https://www.win.tue.nl/~jappelba/Communication_in_a_world_of_pervasive_surveillance-phd-thesis.pdf

         Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance
                    Sources and methods:
Counter-strategies against pervasive surveillance architecture
                       Jacob R. Appelbaum

                                          Preface

       "If this be treason, make the most of it!"
                                        -- Patrick Henry, on his
twenty-ninth birthday

This thesis is the culmination of more than a decade of research into
the topic of surveil-
lance and the uses of data collected through surveillance. The
research that follows in-
cludes discussions with insiders and analysis of both previously
published and unpub-
lished information. We still lack full information on many topics,
notably the names of
perpetrators. This has several causes: the nature of the topics
covered, the legally threat-
ening markings on many documents, and the political power of those who
would suppress
publication. There can be considerable personal consequences for
following this direc-
tion of research. Several colleagues face serious legal, political,
social, and health issues
resulting from their participation in, and contributions to, this
research topic.

     Many aspects of this research started as investigative journalism
rather than science.
Documents first published by news organizations under the byline of
the author of this
thesis are reproduced here in full and credited appropriately.
Sensitive, classified, or
otherwise secret internal documents are provided to ensure that their
content is witnessed
firsthand, to make them freely accessible on the Internet and in
libraries, and to ensure
that they are not erased from history.

     The perspective in this thesis is necessarily dominated by the
United States of America,
whose activities impact nearly every person on planet Earth. The focus
on America is
deeply political: it is the moral duty of every citizen of the United
States to address
serious faults in policy and to assist in the process of
accountability. Democratic discussion
covering technical and non-technical topics of various government or
corporate activities
is important and necessary. The evidence and findings discussed in
this thesis touch
on myriad controversial issues ranging from political spying on world
leaders to drone
assassination of human beings who faced no legal charges and are
afforded no day in
court.

     The sheer number of the surveillance systems that we document in
subsequent chap-
ters reflects the industrial scale of data collection in the
twenty-first century. We hope that
future researchers will take up the challenge of addressing each
covert program as a re-
search subject to fully and completely explore, and to freely share
their findings with the
wider world in the spirit of open academic discussion. This kind of
basic research is cru-
cial to anti-surveillance software and hardware development. One
example is the general
idea of the Mix network (mixnet), an anonymity mechanism designed to
withstand very
powerful adversaries who possess a long memory. How might the
evolution of mixnets
be shaped by understanding the concrete systems that attack privacy
and anonymity in-
frastructure? Researchers may even feel inspired to build their own
countermeasures,
and perhaps full solutions, that encompass more than the purely
technical. We offer sev-
eral examples of such solutions in the chapters that follow. By
applying mathematics
and computer science to build countermeasures to surveillance systems,
we can protect
people individually and at scale, reducing these systems to historical
footnotes.

    Mass surveillance programs present a temptation so great that even
very intelligent
people imagine the trade-offs to be worthwhile. Many people cannot
imagine a future in
which their government is blatantly corrupt, or has indeed collapsed.
Yet history teaches
unambiguously that such changes may come quickly, unexpectedly, and
those who seek
to exploit the entropic nature of the situation will use all
technical, social, economic,
and political levers to accomplish their goals. This knowledge should,
but often does not,
temper support for mass surveillance; this is a blind spot that is not
to be dismissed lightly.

    The machinery of mass surveillance is simply too dangerous to be
allowed to exist.
We must work to ensure that no one will be able to say that they did
not know, or that
they were not warned. We must use all of the tools in our toolbox ­
economic, social,
cultural, political, and of course, cryptographic ­ to blind targeted
and mass surveillance
adversaries. The goal is justice [Pon11, "The method is transparency,
the goal is justice."]
and this thesis encourages a method of designing, building, deploying,
and using crypto-
graphic protocols centered around human liberty to ensure it.