"Rather than having a democratically accountable state that sets wages and prices based on need and ability, price discrimination gives this authority to large firms with pricing power, no regulatory constraints, and unlimited access to surveillance data. You couldn't ask for a neater example of the maxim that "What matters isn't what technology does. What matters is who it does it for; and who it does it to."..." - @pluralistic

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11381126… #tech #business #surveillance #privacy

Cory Doctorow

2025-01-11 19:02:15

The social function of the economics profession is to explain, over and over again, that your boss is actually right and that you don't really want the things you want, and you're secretly happy to be abused by the system.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/soc…

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Pluralistic: The cod-Marxism of personalized pricing; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 3) (11 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

I was very glad to hear Adam at 38:55 talking about how we should frequently reexamine the rules that secure our rights, in order to determine whether those rules are still adequate given recent technological developments. This point sort of looms in the background of any discussion related to privacy law these days, but it's rarely voiced directly.

On the other hand, I'm very disappointed in how timid the EFF's stance on ALPRs is. At 16:26, Adam says, "What should the public know about the surveillance technology that the government is using to spy on the public? And at the EFF, we think the answer should be, 'Everything.'" No, no, no! The answer should be, "The government cannot spy on the public!" If you ask me, no form of dragnet surveillance should exist.

For a comparison, and as Adam also points out at 50:43, there are a few technologies that the EFF hopes to ban entirely, including personalized/behavioural advertising. I remember when I first learned about that, I was shocked and extremely impressed that the EFF would be so bold as to plant their flag on a hill that essentially no one else is even discussing the possibility of trying to take. Why not do the same with ALPRs? Surely banning them would be less disruptive to current practices than banning personalized advertising would be!

#ALPR #behavioralAdvertising #disclosure #humanRights #privacy #surveillance #technology #transparency

Can the #TOR #network still be described as #secure - according to my #analysis, no, it is not!

You may remember the news that the German #police deanomized a Tor user. A good online friend of mine sent me this summary, which contains all the important data on the subject: marx.wtf/2024/10/10/law-enforc…

What surprises me is that the whole #truth is nowhere to be found and even those responsible at TOR do not go into the full extent of the #misery in their #statement. Since this is not the case, I am inclined to assume a #conspiracy that could put future #whistleblowers without technical background knowledge in danger. I am therefore sharing my #knowledge with you here and drawing your attention to the #dangers.

First of all, I would like to point out that it takes very little these days to show up on the #NSA's radar as a suspected #cyberterrorist. The Department of #Defense (DOD) considers protests an example of "low-level #terrorism" (source: aclu.org/news/national-securit…). Human rights activists and journalists keep finding bugging #software on their smartphones, even though they are actually the good guys. So it would be nice if the TOR network could provide the necessary #security.

#Attack options for #deanonymization at TOR

1) #Timing attack: This attack uses control over a large part of the Internet, which the NSA undoubtedly has. Interruptions of various lengths are placed on all #subnetwork cables. If you then have real-time #communication via TOR, you can measure these #delays and find out which cable the traffic is coming from and thus narrow down the #region. If you know the approximate #location, you can check the #providers there to see who was using TOR at the time.
2) #Server #control: You try to control a large part of the servers in the Tor network. If many #connections are routed via your own servers, you can measure the #timing of real-time communications as well as the size of the connection packets to establish a correlation between #sender and #receiver. #Traffic is therefore routed through different countries, but this does not increase safety. Even if the servers are located in #Russia, they may still be paid by the #CIA and therefore also monitored by the CIA.

Necessary #countermeasures that are not provided

1) To prevent timing attacks, a random delay would have to be built into every transmission.
2) All packages must be the same size so that no correlation is possible via the package size.
3) Fake packets would have to be sent constantly so that real-time communication cannot be recognized.
4) There should be many more trustworthy servers that are not under the control of the state's secret services.

Some of this could be implemented easily, others would cost money and traffic and thus slow down the network. I have it on good authority that the TOR #project was made aware of these dangers many years ago. The TOR project has now been in existence for 22 years and the #monitoring options have evolved to the detriment of #freedom. The NSA is now able to monitor the majority of the #Internet and today's TOR defensive measures are no longer sufficient, so that even the German police are able to deanonymize users.

Under these circumstances, I cannot recommend whistleblowers, #dissidents and #resistance fighters to use TOR if they are dependent on #anonymity!

#danger #problem #cybercrime #cybersecurity #dissident #whistleblower #journalism #press #humanrights #fbi #dod #pentagon #terrorism #terror #surveillance #tracking #defense #politics