Out of Pod Experience

Lavabit, a 10 year old encrypted email service provider in the US has chosen to cease operations instead of allowing the NSA access to its servers. It is notable for being the email provider of Edward Snowden.

The Register
Guardian

Apparently the knock on effects are starting to bite, currently 10% of international users of US cloud providers are leaving the country over privacy concerns. It gets interesting as the providers have built up capacity in a competitive area, so cutting 10% would disproportionately effect their bottom line. The worry is that if the trend continues, could we see something comparable to the overdevelopment of fiber optics and servers in the late 90's?

The Update here.


No need for a separate thread I figured

Better than over here, with the exception of the Guardian which is screaming "FIRE" not many others are paying it much attention.

Don't judge us

Been looking at this story since I saw it on Reddit earlier today.

I have to applaud the owner of Lavabit for standing up for what he believes in, (and I've contributed to his defence fund) this however is only one part of the story.

We keep getting told "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear", thing is, the government is hiding everything, which leads me to fear them.

The democratic governments of the west seem to be systematically destroying liberty and freedom in the name of protecting it. Whilst we are hearing about the actions of the USG, I can guarantee, that other govt's around the world are doing thier own programs of internet spying.

It is worthy of note that whilst the USG has the largest military and spying programs, most of the technologically advanced nations are allies of America. So the aggregation of all thier efforts is probably to big to be understood by anyone outside thier closed circle.

Hi to the NSA, CIA, FBI, DEA, GCHQ, MI5, MI6, BND, DGSE and anyone else watching the thread.

Ari

I was really upset when I found out that the NSA was looking at my facebook page and weren't 'liking' anything.

CSIS gets an anyone else.

Even a terrifying program of surveillance isn't enough to take Canada seriously.

Be honest it's the Mountie uniforms isn't it.

Let's be honest 99% of the concern of surveillance is that the people don't want Big Brother to know where their pen1s goes or what they rub it for.

The other 1% is other stuff.

Personally I'd rather we start trying to tackle with blowback which provokes the attacks in the first place. By no means a sympathiser but it seems more practical to in future not destabilise regions full of fruitcakes. Realistically it looks like in the news that we have more to worry from Spain right now over the Rock than we do the Taliban or Al-Quaeda.

By that I mean bugger all, seems to be the losers that end up doing suicide bombings outside the ME and they apparently had to trick several of the hijackers in 9/11 because they couldn't get enough people willing to commit suicide for it. Even then, we already know that terrotist cells use encryption already.

Cats already out of the bag, and I see a bigger risk in industrial espionage from foreign powers abusing the openess of the net (US focus on Germany, China hacking Western R&D/utilities).

Ok, lets intercept communications to prevent terrorism.

What about drug dealers and couriers. Yeah that seems good too.

How about those involved in fraud. seems like an idea waiting to happen.

Theft & robbery, we need to prevent those

Is Dog fouling and litterbugs too far? not according to one Australian council.

Thing is, what if you want to protest something. Organise through Facebook, google, et al and the police will be knocking on your door.

or just look up pressure cookers and backpacks at work and your employer will get scared because of terrorism and call the police, who will come and search your home and check your not a terrorist.

These are things happening around the world today.

YOU are being watched. And what to you is innocent can get you in trouble with those in authority.

Do you want to be watched? 24/7? forever?

Ari

P.S. Alara. Mounties are cool, but my image of them is based on the show Due South.

That swings both ways, the main reason that Gibraltar is counted as a British Overseas Territory is because the residents want it to be, the moment they turn round and say we don't want your protection any more is the moment that the UK gives up any claim to it, it's the same situation in the Falklands.

Historically Spain and the UK have both had possession of it for around the same period of years, and both got possession of it by conquest. Spanish fishermen do get harassed for fishing there, there's no denying it, but that's generally because they tend to be very militant about it and ignore the laws that apply to fishing quotas in Gibraltan waters, the situation has been further excaberated by members of the Guardia Civil taking potshots at British tourists in what are technically British waters and members of the Spanish government suggesting that business in Gibraltar is subject to Spanish tax laws, not long after the controvesy of the asset declaration law that mainly affected non Spanish residents. Admittedly the British Government is no better in some respects, they certainly have their faults and idiocy.


Personally, as someone whose parents live in Spain, and as someone who has also lived in Gibraltar I hope both the Spanish and British governments can come to some sort of amicable agreement that doesn't involve shooting or shouting at each other, we're meant to be allies, not enemies.

Back on topic, I can see the US government, and anybody else who has been involved in the latest intelligence revelations, regretting what they have put in place, trust is a very fragile thing, and it's rapidly being eroded by unwarranted amounts of intelligence gathering. They won't however regret it because it's wrong, they'll regret that they didn't hide it well enough, that it ever saw the light of day and that they got caught doing it, says a lot about politicians to be honest (something a politician rarely is)