By Tom VanAntwerp, Presented at American Univeristy on 9/19/2013
Get over it.
Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded. ...you don't have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis...
Edward Snowden
...except that they have.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! The NSA is always hiring!
Pros
Cons
David Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA in disgrace after the FBI unintentionally discovered his affair with Paula Broadwell by reading his emails.
Technology is the enemy. Live a life apart from the world with only the basics. Forsake the digital life.
Pros
Cons
Ted Kaczynski, AKA The Unabomber, was a PhD mathematician who believed technology threatened freedom. He moved to the woods and started mailing bombs to people. He was identified by family after they recognized his writing style from his manifesto.
You are so extremely public and without shame such that spies have no leverage.
Pros
Cons
Nicholas Felton, a designer at Facebook, lives publicly by recording data on all his daily activities and publishing it annually in the Feltron Report.
Determine which threats you realistically face, take appropriate precautionary measures.
Pros
Cons
Security is making yourself a difficult target to attack. Anonymity is disguising yourself to avoid targeting.
We live in the physical world - Meatspace - and are surveiled through the digital world - Cyberspace. In Meatspace, force rules. In Cyberspace, math rules.
It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics.
-Bruce Schneier
Cryptography uses math that is ease to solve in one direction, but hard to solve in the other direction, to scramble information.
Strong cryptography can resist an unlimited application of violence. No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem.
-Julian Assange in Cypherpunks
Spies can identify you as a target by profiling your digital footprint. Minimize the footprint to avoid detection.
Atypical actions change your profile and make you stand out. This includes strong cryptography and the use of anonymization tools. Tradeoff.
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
-Albert Camus
Our task is to secure self-determination where we can, to hold back the coming dystopia where we cannot, and if all else fails, to accelerate its self-destruction.
-Julian Assange