Think before you post
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “In general, internet security is non-existent. And if you are truly and deeply concerned about it, you should not be using the internet at all.”
But if you do, continues RT on Santa Cruz IMC, “some simple principles might keep you safer (or at least make it harder for law enforcement to keep tabs on us):
- NEVER discuss illegal things online.
- Be careful about cheeky hyperbolic braggadocio (lesson learned!)
- Be aware how much one can gather about your connections to others
- Don’t provide identifying information that makes it easy to make connections (far from fool proof)
- Limit who has access to your personal info if possible
“I took part in a demonstration and was arrested,” he says, going on >>>
Afterward, the police contacted my employer to suggest that they check up on me. I got a copy of the police report yesterday and was surprised to find that the police had gone beyond just the basic facts of my arrest.
They had tracked down the website for my band, followed a link to our myspace page, and from there tracked down my personal myspace page. In my profile I had some pretty cheeky anti-authoritarian hyperbole and that was quoted in the report. “Subject says in his myspace profile that he is ‘looking for someone to turn over and burn police cars with,’” a dumb comment that had been part of my online profile for many years. There was a print out of my entire myspace profile, band website, etc. All of this info had been passed on to my employer.
Why this should surprise me, I’m not sure. It is something I should totally be aware of by now.
And while I wasn’t arrested while burning police cars, nor was there any suspicion along those lines, my employer sure takes such things seriously, especially coupled with a heads-up from the local police. The implication and insinuation that someone is involved in something gnarlier than they are can be easily made. Just because you are non-violent (and even law-abiding) doesn’t mean you can’t be charged with something violent.
Imagine what might be said about your myspace profile: “Subject lists as their myspace friends ‘Support ALF,’ the Animal Liberation Front, a group whose members have been convicted of arson and long watched by the FBI as a serious potential terrorist threat.” Bullshit and circumstantial connections notwithstanding, the implication is there for a prosecutor to use.
This goes beyond myspace and Indymedia to other online communities, facebook, blogs, tribe.net, friendster, etc. Cops look at these public sites and use the information they find.
And while I don’t imagine that local law enforcement has the time or resources to randomly surf online sites in order to make connections, they do investigate people who’ve come to their attention. Local cops have told me that they read Indymedia daily. And it is certainly not beyond the means of the feds to map out networks of connections and involvement. Online profiles and blogs have definitely been used against people in criminal cases.
Not to make anyone paranoid, he adds, “but just a word to be cautious and careful.”
p2pnet doesn’t collect logs of comment posts or any other kind of information on people who visit the site. And it never has done.
Also See:
Santa Cruz IMC – Do police read indymedia (and myspace, etc)?, December 18, 2007
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December 19th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
To say that you cannot post anonymously is an inept statement.
The 7 Steps to posting anything without getting caught:
1. Walk into any coffee shop with wireless and take out your laptop.
2. Before connecting to the internet or the wireless router, change the MAC address of your wireless card.
3. Start up a VPN service that uses a minimum of 256 bit encryption. Make sure it is a trustworthy VPN service with both public and private keys (obvious I know).
4. Start up tor.
5. Disable javascript, java, active x controls, cookies, etc. on your browser.
6. Connect your VPN THROUGH your tor connection (which should be running as a server)
7. Browse to your hearts content.
It may sound like a lot of work, but at least where there is a will…. there is a way.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I think you forgot one.
8. Use a Virtual Machine with the above configuration and set the NIC card to Bridged (that way it has its own IP)
Its even more work, but for anyone watching it will look like someone highjacked your computer and was stealing your internet connection. Unless they really do some hardcore hacking.
December 20th, 2007 at 11:10 am
A better way is to use TOR for all your internet activity. Thi is what I am doing to protect my privacy and my constitutional right. It is sad that we have to use technology for this!
As usual it is easy for the cop to catch inocent people since they are not hiding because they are not doing anything wrong. Catching the criminals is a lot harder because they know better. This is particularly true when some constitutional criminals are now in the rank of the justice, the police and the federal governement and they are looking for easy catches to pretend that they are doing something.
December 21st, 2007 at 7:47 am
i think you have watched too much Dexter