10 Comments
Jan 16, 2021Liked by Yasha Levine

Forwarded this email to a non-subscriber and this was his response. He's a software developer and very into all the encryption and 4th amendment issues.

I don't doubt the technical claims about Signal (eg, I consider it secure from mass surveillance). It's open source and pretty high profile, if there are egregious backdoors someone would have noticed by now.

Nothing will protect you if US govt targets your phone individually.

That Signal was funded by us/cia/whatever isn't necessarily "bad". The internet itself and Tor were both funded by the govt. Tor may still get US funding, I'm not sure. Doesn't mean the tech doesn't work as claimed.

But I agree that there is no technical solution to US govt surveillance. That requires political solutions.

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Jan 21, 2021Liked by Yasha Levine

It's ok to call Matt Rosenfeld Matt Rosenfeld -- Wikipedia now does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie_Marlinspike

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Thanks for the heads-up. I mentioned (commented on) a new introduction into the privacy / freedom sweepstakes that was supposed to debut this past Saturday on Kevin Gs Shadowproof YouTube channel, an offering from Suzy Dawson that has Bill Binney and Hedges aboard among other non-tech notables including Jimmy Dore. That would be the upload of your interview with Rania and Kevin, of which it must be said it was quite informative and enjoyable. You three together seem to mesh well, well-enough to do something like that on a more regular basis.

Cheers from Alaska, DaveO

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Jan 16, 2021Liked by Yasha Levine

Thanks for the early morning feast of micro green encryption revelations. It was a great refresher and helped reinforce the lessons from Surveillance Valley. It’s also a good bedtime story and I Am ... now off to the land of nod where I will appeal to higher angelic powers to encrypt dreamland from corrupting influences. I appreciate you.✌🏼❤️🙏

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The typical question is "what's the alternative?". I guess that it depends what you mean by alternative. Are you a Julian Assange or a Cuban agent that needs to transfer super secret documents or do you need to chat with your drug dealer and your secret lover (maybe the same person)? In the first case forget you can solve the problem by installing "another" app on your CIA malware infested phone. In other cases it's probably not a huge deal, unless you are into very big stuff.

I was told to research a bit on this French app, Olvid, from a private company. I can't recommend it, but you can check it out and figure out. The most important difference with garbage like Signal is that it doesn't request your contacts, one of the most blatant pieces of evidence that Signal is certainly NOT about your privacy and security and they can build a map of all your relations the moment you install it and start using it.

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I'm trying to decide between reading "Surveillance Valley" and "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." I am not a diligent enough reader to be able to finish both and the latter is VERY long. How would you compare the content and message in your book vs. TAoSC? Any reply is appreciated.

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I don't know you but I believe I've been a target by members of some secret group.

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deletedFeb 1, 2021Liked by Yasha Levine
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