privacy is an illusion

and youre all losers

or how 1984 was a manual for our panopticon society

!
By Cain Ransbottyn - @ransbottyn

End of privacy

9/11 attacks invigorated the

concept of terrorist threats

Post 9/11 there was a strong

and understandable argument
to prioritise security

End of civil liberties

New word: asymmetrical

threats

Actually means: please give

up your civil liberties, in 2001
55% US citizens were pro; in
2011 only 40% (and
declining).

Patriot Act changed the world

for good

So, terrorism huh ?

systematic use of violent

terror as a means of
coercion

violent acts which are

intended to create fear
(terror)

perpetrated for a religious,

political, or ideological goal

deliberately target or
disregard the safety of noncombatants (civilians)

Global terrorist threat map

Data of 2010. Seems legit.

Year on year doubling in surveillance

budget since the Patriot Act
Except for 2013, then there was a dark budget of US$ 52,6B

Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.

Instilling fear is a premise for

coercion. But to whom ?

Mass media works as a

catalyst to bring fear in the
homes of citizens.

We all are very shitty at threat

and risk assessments. Pigs or
sharks ?

23,589

40

Or terrorist attacks ?
13,200

* 2010 facts and figures worldwide

Are we really capable of

understanding the real
threat level ?
Please demonstrate you can spot a rhetorical question when you see one

The convenience of circular

logic

Govt: Were using

surveillance so we can
prevent terrorist attacks
You: I dont see any terrorist
threat or attack
Govt: Awesome stuff, hey ?

Him: Im using this repellent to

scare away elephants.
You: But I dont see any
elephants.
Him: Awesome stuff, hey ?

quis custodiet ipsos

custodes ?

Total Information
Awareness
The 2002 - 2003 program that began a data mining project, following warantless surveillance decision in 2002

PRISM, XKeyScore, Tempora

!
Thank you Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Paltalk, YouTube, AOL,
Apple, Skype

Snowden leaks the post 2007 surveillance industry is much worse than anyone could have imagined

The rise of private

intelligence agencies

The welcome gift of social

networks

The thankful adoption rate of

smart phones

The cloud as the ultimate data

gathering extension to
governments

The phone operators remain a

loyal friend

The overt investment strategy of

In-Q-Tel

The In-Q-Tel investment firm

Founded 1999 as not-for-profit

venture capital firm

So if you are not looking to make a

profit, what are you looking for then ?

Investments in data mining, call

recording, surveillance, crypto,
biotech,

E.g. 2007 AT&T - Narus STA 6400

backdoor = product of In-Q-Tel
funded company

Many (many) participations

worldwide (also Belgium)

Social networks as a private

intelligence agency

Perfect front offices

Facebook as the first global

private intelligence agency

Otherwise hard to obtain intel

is being shared voluntarily by
everyone (e.g. hobbies, etc.)

US$ 12,7M investment by

James Breyer (Accel), former
colleague of Gilman Louie
(CEO In-Q-Tel)

Smart-phones as the
ultimate tracking device

Device you carry 24/7 with you.

With a GPS on board.

Android has remote install/deinstall

hooks in its OS (so has IOS)

OTA vulnerabilities allow remote

installs of byte patches (e.g.
Blackberry incident in UAE)

Apple incident (the bug that

stored your whereabouts)

Any idea how many address

books are stored on iCloud ? :p

Smart-phones as the
ultimate tracking device

Wi-Fi based positioning has become very accurate and quickly deployed mainstream

Cloud providers as the

perfect honeypot

There is no company that is so

invasive as Google

Records voice calls (Voice),

analyses e-mail (GMail), knows who
you talk to and where you are
(Android), has all your documents
(Drive) and soon will see through
your eyes (Glass)

Robert David Steele (CIA) disclosed

Google takes money from US Intel.
community.

In-Q-Tel and Google invest in

mutual companies (mutual interest)

Cloud providers as the

perfect honeypot

Not only Google. The latest

OSX Mavericks actually asked
me to store my Keychain in
the cloud *sigh*

While Apple claims iMessage

cannot be intercepted, we
know it is possible because
Apple is the MITM and no
end-to-end crypto is used nor
certificate pinning.

The loyal friend, the phone

operator

Needs to be CALEA and ETSI

compliant. Yeah right :-)

Operators are both targets of

surveillance stakeholders (e.g.
Belgacom/BICS hack by GCHQ)
and providers of surveillance tactics
(taps, OTA installs, silent SMS, etc.)

Does KPN really trust NICE (Israel)

and does Belgacom really trust
Huawei (China) ?

Truth of the matter is: you cannot

trust your operator

Privacy is for losers

If you think you have privacy,

you really are a loser

#dta

If a government needs to understand

its enemy, and were being surveilled.
Then, who exactly is the enemy ?

Conspiracy theory ?
!

Whistleblowers showed that reality

is far worse

So now what ?

Change your attitude.

Wake the f*ck up

Reclaim ownership of your data.

Demand transparency of every
service you use.

Encryption is your
friend

Encryption today is built for security

professionals and engineers.
Not for your mom or dad.

Security and crypto engineers dont

understand UI and UX

Android and IOS planned. Microsoft Mobile perhaps.

Requirements

Must provide strong crypto

Must be open source (GitHub)

Must be beautiful and easy to use, we

actually dont want the user to be
confronted with complex crypto issues

Provide deniability

Provide alerting mechanisms that alert

the user when something is wrong

Even when your device is confiscated,

it should be able to withstand forensic
investigation

How its built

Using tor as transport layer for P2P

routing and provide anonymity (no
exit nodes used).

Obfuscated as HTTPS traffic to

prevent govt filtering.

Using OTR v3.1 to ensure perfect

forward secrecy and end-to-end
crypto.

Capable of detecting A5/GSM

tactical surveillance attacks.

Extremely effective anti forensic

mechanisms and triggers

How its used

Whos using it

Journalists

Freedom Fighters

Whistleblowers

Lawyers and security

professionals

Why use it ?

To protect your human right

on privacy

To protect your human right

on freedom of speech

Because your communication

needs to remain confidential

Because excessive
surveillance is a threat to
modern democracy

Privacy might be for losers, but

that doesnt mean you are OK
to give up your human rights