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David Montgomery‘s article You’re a Criminal in a Mass Surveillance World – How to Not Get Caught has a new comment 1 month, 1 week ago
Sometimes you just get lucky.
I was in Amsterdam when the Snowden story broke. CNN was non-stop asking politicians and pundits, “Is Edward Snowden a traitor?” Those who said he betrayed America also said som [Read story]
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David Montgomery‘s article Escape the World’s Biggest Racket — Politics and the Age of Decentralization has a new comment 7 months, 4 weeks ago
Let’s face it, friends. You can ignore politics, but politics won’t ignore you.
If somebody asks what you think of politicians, what’s your gut response…
Yum or Yuk?
For most people it’s a yuk that ranks even [Read story] -
Incredible work, David! This is your best piece yet on liberty.me, and there is no better example of the reason I send liberty.me my membership dues every month. It should be translated into every language and read by every person on the planet, but I doubt that very many Americans will even take the time to read it.
>Americans are at serious risk despite their material comfort relative to
>much of the rest of the world.I hope Americans’ material comforts, specifically, are also at risk. I believe that their loss is, quite possibly, the only thing that can wake-up a large number of people. Peoples’ awakenings will spawn their desires and commitments to ending the state, or at least turning the corner on this unprecedented horrible one!
“Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” -Thomas Jefferson
I believe that most people find great evils to be sufferable, as long as they have a high level of material comforts. I value liberty most highly, and thus welcome a significant reduction in material comforts!
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Thanks so much for the kind words, Calin!
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David! This is excellent! You have connected the dots so wonderfully, I appreciate your thorough research and I will spread this wide and far.
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Thanks Marchella — and thanks a ton for sharing with your thundering horde of followers on Twitter! 🙂
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agreed, echoes my own reaction. Thanks for taking the time to articulate, compile, and distribute so much valuable content. I will be coming back to this many times
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Thanks, Peggy!
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Darren, thank you so much, and thanks for sharing with your friends!
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Excellent article. However, you misspelled the Cayman Islands.
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Thanks Stephen — fixed.
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Powerful, expansive, full of great links and resources, I have saved it to my EverNote.
I have two points of constructive criticism:
1) CrossFit. While you say the jury is still out on Gluten or Round-Up being the cause based on numerous studies, which of course you point out at least half could be bunk, Yet based on a Chiropractor and meeting Glassman you claim CrossFit to be highly injurious. You have statistics contrasting Terrorist with Heart Disease and Cancer, do you have the same comparing CrossFit to Soccer or Running? Your Chiropractor did mention Running and Yoga as well so perhaps there exists a deeper common factor, namely that people push themselves to hard. People ramp up the intensity too high too soon, before they have proper mechanics and consistent proper mechanics. That of course is CrossFit core doctrine; Mechanics, then Consistency, then Intensity. Do people follow it, no, do instructors hold their clients to it, no, Yet a read through the CF Level 1 manual you will find it again and again. It is not Yoga, CrossFit, or Running that injure people, it is naive instructors and people who place competition and points ahead of quality.
http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/Virtuosity.pdfI have seen this both in my 16 years in the Army, and my 5 years as a CrossFit trainer, even in myself.
And what exactly does Disabled from a gymnastics injury Greg Glassman have to do with the expected effects of CrossFit? That is not even a random sample of people who have done CrossFit. I think you have gotten lost in that Fallacy jungle you mentioned.
Second point to come in a second comment.
Thanks!
-MS Exercise Science Performance Enhancement, Injury Prevention
-MS Analytics (Statistics on Big Data) -
Thanks for reading and your comments, Benjamin. My warning about Crossfit isn’t just based on the condition of its founder. It’s based on knowing several people who have been injured doing Crossfit, as well as trying it for myself.
Most exercise protocols and most trainers of all stripes (including yogis) call for careful attention to form. But it’s very hard to ‘enforce’ perfect form in a group setting. And when the group is doing technical lifts under load, combined with a gung-ho culture, it’s not surprising to me that injuries happen often.
My personal experiences conform to what is reported here:
http://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/exercise/too-much-pain-for-crossfit-gains-20140326Of course people can train in whatever modality they’d like. My desire is to make people new to exercise who “just want to get in shape” realize that there are real risks involved, and that some modalities are riskier than others.
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Yes, did you notice that the article makes my points:
That soccer is more injurious that CrossFit, and that the injuries stem from people being stupid. You could perhaps warn people against being stupid weather they play soccer, do yoga, or train for marathon or triathlons. No surprise that the Title of the article from Men’s Journal exceeds whats actually written in the article.Including ridiculousness such as Glassman’s condition reduces the level of scholarship in your otherwise excellent article. Perhaps you could refer to something of substance, such as the injury rate of CrossFit is “3.1 injuries per 1,000 CrossFit sessions” compared to “older youth soccer players had an injury prevalence of 4 to 7.6 per 1,000 hours – higher than CrossFit’s.”
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Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, Ben.
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David, I thought I had already commented on your article, but maybe I hit the wrong button. I don’t have much to add to what has already been said, except to endorse the accolades of Calin, Darren, Peggy, Marchella, Stephen and Benjamin. I will certainly be sharing it with friends and family.
Btw, I printed it out and have been reading it slowly, which is how I read. Have noticed and market a few inconsequential typos. If you want, I’d be happy to reported them to
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Thanks so much, Ned. Sorry you had issues commenting. I’m guessing this book is pushing Wordpress to the limit. By all means, pm or email me any typos you spot. Much appreciated!
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David, I thought I had already commented on your article, but maybe I hit the wrong button. I don’t have much to add to what has already been said, except to endorse the accolades of Calin, Darren, Peggy, Marchella, Stephen and Benjamin. I will certainly be sharing it with friends and family.
Btw, I printed it out and have been reading it slowly, which is how I read. Have noticed and market a few inconsequential typos. If you want, I’d be happy to reported them to you either by comments here or by email.
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Hi Ned, I was one of the first to attempt to comment here and I kept getting an error message on each “Post Comment” click. I reported the problem to liberty.me tech support and they not only corrected it, but managed to recover my comment and post it. I think this is more likely to be the cause of your difficulty than accidentally hitting the wrong button.
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Thanks, Calin. You have relieved my frustration.
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I met two federal agents yesterday. They had some letters I had written to a bureaucrat, offering to connect outside of officialdom since contacts who work inside the US Postal Inspection Service would serve me well (I sell bitcoins for cash that gets mailed to me). They said the letters could look like offers of bribery. It made me realize two things. First, any attempt we make to align our interests with those of a man or woman in the employ of government can look like bribery. More importantly, serving the government damages us, making offers from other people to align our interest with theirs look like something criminal.
I skimmed through your book with this in mind and I have three thoughts to share.
1. “The smarter and more devious ones seek out positions of power, privilege, and legal exemption which largely shield themselves from punishment for predatory behavior.” Actually, if they are smart enough, they see the choice between that and helping others protect themselves from it. To someone like me, since I cannot escape the suffering I feel when I know that others suffer, the choice is obvious, but to them, since they don’t feel vicariously, it’s a choice, and I’d guess a random choice, though mostly influenced by the psychological, emotional, and intellectual strength of the people who raise them. Ultimately, the path you describe turns all good people against you, but hubris and high intelligence can blunt that effect enough to make it attractive anyway. I wanted to point this out because I believe a lot of sociopaths are helping the liberty movement. I also believe that those who aren’t may some day find the humility to better their lives by aligning their interests with ours.
2. The word “criminal” has two meanings as you have used it, I think. One reflects violation of legislation. The other reflects harm to human beings. Increasingly, these two definitions are opposite. I can’t think of a good word to replace the second, and I really like the existing connotation of “criminal” as being a drain on society and someone without whom we’d all be better off. So I choose from among a few different terms for the first one which is most literally “lawbreaker,” depending on the context: agorist, anarchist, voluntaryist, or scofflaw. We choose to follow our conscience, regardless of whether or not it agrees with the law.
3. You describe a lot of tax law without understanding it, and then later explain that understanding the law is virtually impossible. Admit that you don’t understand it, and point out that among those who claim that they do understand it, there is heavy disagreement (of which you may not be aware). It is apparent that you haven’t heard of Peter Hendrickson or his work, or his book, or his disentanglement of the mystery between Title 26 and the Constitutional prohibition against direct taxes. It’s pretty simple, but the government employees who benefit from our misunderstanding of it do everything they can to prevent the simplicity from becoming well known. It’s simply this: If you earn money without utilizing any kind of privilege granted to you by the federal government, then you are not engaging in taxable activity and don’t owe any income tax.
So your whole section on taxation basically just needs to point out that you are writing about the IRS’ implementation of the tax laws, rather than the tax laws themselves, which, the evidence presented by Hendrickson shows, are mostly voluntaryist. Like I said, to obey the tax laws but not owe any tax, just don’t use any “federal privilege”. After that, you have to be patient with the brainwashed employees at the IRS and write lots of letters to get them to understand and obey their own damn laws.
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“If you earn money without utilizing any kind of privilege granted to you by the federal government, then you are not engaging in taxable activity and don’t owe any income tax.”
Dave, so what? It really doesn’t matter whether or not you owe income tax pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code. If IRS agents say you owe it–you owe it. I haven’t read everything David Montgomery wrote in this tome yet, but it is clear from many of his statements that he sees the whole picture of what is involved in “our system of taxation,” and it has little or nothing to do with correctly “interpreting” the tax code.
As those scoundrels over at http://www.quatloos.com (an organization of tax attorneys, accountants, tax preparers, IRS agents and others with a beneficial interest in the IR Code and thereby committed to defending it at any cost to their integrity) are quick to point out, Peter Hendrickson’s “imaginative theories” (viz. his understanding of the IRCode, which are probably correct) have been thoroughly rebuked, rejected and discredited by US district and appellate courts and SCOTUS has refused to hear challenges to those lower courts’ decisions.
Dave, you say, “you have to be patient with the brainwashed employees at the IRS and write lots of letters to get them to understand and obey their own damn laws.” But what if, as is often the case, the folks at the IRS your dealing with refuse to understand and/or obey their own damn laws. I think David’s point is: The law doesn’t matter when it gets in the way of our rulers’ intent to keep us in line. Having “the law on your side” when in federal court in a case involving the government’s procedures and ability to collect taxes doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. What matters is the fact that all of the folks a “tax protester” is up against are utterly dependent on those taxes for their welfare, and they will do whatever they perceive is necessary to protect their welfare, laws and judicial ethics to the contrary not withstanding. (Judicial ethics is an oxymoron.)
Btw, tax laws, even if correctly understood to mean payment is voluntary, cannot possibly make them “mostly voluntaryist,” for their intent is to produce revenue for the violent state. Voluntary taxation is a meaningless oxymoron.
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(David Montgomery) “sees the whole picture of what is involved in ‘our system of taxation,’ and it has little or nothing to do with correctly ‘interpreting” the tax code.'”
Yes, Ned! Tax “code” (law) is just ink on paper (IOP) and also a ridiculous excuse and justification for pointing guns at people and caging them. The IOP has no power; it is the states guns that wield power!
Whatever any IOP says (Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution, law, court rulings, etc.), IOP always means what our rulers and masters say it means. Their interpretations of the IOP are not bound by conventions of logic or semantics whatsoever and, furthermore, our rulers and masters live under the benefit of the double standards encompassed by other IOP (a “second set of books”). There almost always exists a second set of books that contradicts and trumps the IOP myths that most people hold as the truth. Only through these myths (“The Most Dangerous Superstition,” as Larken Rose calls it), will people accept the state’s guns and its cage!
Our rulers and masters are Humpty Dumpty:
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’?
https://veryserioso.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/humpty_dumpty.png
All that matters, is “which is to be master”– who controls the gun!
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“If IRS agents say you owe it–you owe it.”
This is not the position of an independent mind, nor of a mind that understands what law is. It is the position of someone who has given up under the (admittedly nearly irresistible) force of what David called the “Authority Principle”. As he writes (but in which you’ll see my emphasis), “People will repeatedly violate their own moral standards of right and wrong **if they believe** they’re being directed by a legitimate authority.”
I comfortably blame that same principle for your acceptance of the **false** claim by folks you (rightfully) call “scoundrels” that Hendrickson’s “‘imaginative theories’ … have been thoroughly rebuked, rejected and discredited” by courts. Certain words make the claim absolutely false, specifically “thoroughly” and “discredited.” His “imaginative theories” are and have been for over a decade living in a book which the IRS twice submitted for banning, which requests were both denied by the justice department. Whatever the opposite of “thoroughly” and “discredited” are, they would be more appropriate here, at least according to the justice department of the same parasitic criminal organization whose lifeblood is threatened by that book. Why is this so? Because governments require an aura of moral legitimacy and they cannot survive without the support of the public they therefore must increasingly deceive. But that particular deception was judged as too difficult to maintain. They rely on quatloos and Daniel Evans instead, among others.
“Voluntary taxation” certainly is an oxymoron, but so is “jumbo shrimp.” The apparent contradiction may cease to confuse if you study the problem. Too many people accept the rationale of prohibitions against the manufacture of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms to reject the federal government’s rendering of those activities impossible without some privilege from them, which makes your root claim true: taxes are not voluntary because everyone who engages in the manufacture of alcohol, tobacco, or firearms (or any of the several other things the public has allowed the feds to monopolize) is required **by the law** to pay them. But the vast majority of those who believe (as Mr. Montgomery appears to also believe) that they must pay the income tax are not required **by the law** to pay it because they don’t do any of those things which require federal privilege. They are deceived. Attempts to show them the light are met with resistance.
Law is contract, and applies when you agree to abide by it (implicitly or explicitly), but your agreement is to abide by the written law, not to the enforcer’s interpretation of it, because then you are not agreeing to obey a law, but to be a slave. In this light, law can be good and useful, and often is. But to obey a law you agreed to obey is different than being a slave to someone who claims to understand it better than you do. This is the distinction I wanted to make, and which I want to help others make. I will keep writing until I have found a way to make it simpler.
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“If IRS agents say you owe it–you owe it.”
I’m, sorry, Dave. I should have stated it with greater clarity, and said, “If the IRS says you owe it, and if what they say you owe is enough to be worth their effort, the threshold being much lower if you are, like Hendrickson, publicly challenging their law, and if they suspect you have assets sufficient to entice them to pursue your case, regardless of whether you “owe” it, they will collect it by stealing your property–if they can reach your assets.” And if they say you have broken the law, even though you haven’t, and if they think prosecuting you and sending you to the pokey will help keep others from knowing so much about their law that like Hendrickson they might just quit paying, they will very likely cage you for a spell as a lesson to others. Almost all IRS prosecutions of individuals who resist is for the purpose of keeping the rest of the taxpayers behaving as good little taxpayers.
Dave, just as I was careless in explaining my position, you were certainly careless in reading the rest of what I said, attributing what I made perfectly clear was the position of Quatloos to me. That’s not nice!
Long before Hendrickson figured it out, I knew that the IRS was not “legally” collecting taxes, and so I quit filing and paying. The last time I paid any federal, state or local income or employment tax was with the 1040 I filed for 1971 , and a subsequent $250 I was assessed after an audit, by which the examining revenue agent denied a legitimate (in my opinion) business deduction I had taken that year. I spent perhaps 20 to 25 years dueling with the IRS, playing cat and mouse in and out of fedeal court on my own behalf and assisting other “illegal tax protesters” (as they called us), after which time the IRS–not me!!!–evidently gave up, or at least they haven’t tried to contact me since about 2003. I never conceded one iota nor paid one penny to them, although they did manage to steal on two occasions from bank accounts I foolishly had back in the 1980s, a combinded total of less than $600, which I suppose was applied against the $90k or so they said I owed. However, I almost evened that score when one of the banks the IRS took my money from agreed to settle a law suit I filed against it for $500.
I did do a little jail time (34 days) for “civil contempt of court.” A judge had (unlawfully, of course) ordered me to produce my “books and records” and give testimony to the IRS agents after I refused to cooperate with an IRS “collection summons.” I was rather enjoying my stay in jail but I agreed to obey the judge’s order so I could get out and spend Memorial Day with my family. Since I had quit keeping books and records long before, producing them was easy, but being forced to testify was an excruciating ordeal even though I could honestly tell them nothing that would lead them to discover the hidden assets they were sure I had. (Why else would he go to jail rather than cooperate?) The looks on the two agents faces when they realized there was nothing for them to steal was worth the ordeal–and then some.
I may have set a record for filing what the IRS called “frivolous tax returns,” and was fined $500 for each one. (The fine is a lot more nowadays I think.) I didn’t pay those fines, and I suppose the fines were added to the tax they said I owed and haven’t paid. They weren’t really tax returns. What I did was send in a form 1040 every year with a statement in bold print accross the face of it which said, I CANNOT (OR WILL NOT) PROVIDE THE INFORMATION REQUESTED HEREIN, UNLESS THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY/IRS CAN ASSURE ME THAT IN SO DOING ALL OF MY RIGHTS AS A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES WILL REMAIN INVIOLATE. Of course the government never gave me assurance, and I never gave the government their requested information, nor any money.
Since becoming a voluntaryist as opposed to a libertarian and constitutionalist sometime in the early 1990s, I quit sending the IRS anything even though it only took about ten minutes to prepare a 1040 using my procedure. However, since I declare I am no longer a US citizen, I’d alter the wording a bit if I had to do it again. And since my method of resisting has proven successful in that the government has been unable to collect the taxes it has said I owe from me, nor send me to prison, my method seems a lot easier and safer than going through all the trouble of “cracking the code.”
Since I spent a couple of decades of rather intense research of the tax laws, court procedures, writ writing, etc., I probably understand THE LAW as well as anyone. Let me sum up my understanding of all man-made laws, up to and including the Constitution: THEY ARE ALL A CROCK! I don’t criticize Hendrickson or anyone who has the gumption to challenge the IRS. Irwin Schiff isxxx was one of my all time heroes. But to me, after a lot of time and effort playing the game in the government’s court, which is what anyone does who studies the laws, I decided to take my ball and racquet to where I could be more productive.
I’ll conclude this overlong comment by saying I think David Montgomery has the better perspective from a voluntaryist viewpoint on the law and taxation–man-made law that is. It is what your rulers says it is. If you don’t have rulers, their laws are not a problem, so why waste time trying to unravel or interpret them.
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Thanks for offering your thoughts, David.
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David,
I’ve seen this get passed around by the usual suspects on Twitter, and all I can say right now is that I plan on spending all my Sunday devouring this word for word, link for link, and look for ways to begin applying what you have to say here!
This post looks amazing! 😀
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Thanks, RJ! Hope your Sunday turned out ok. 🙂
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Okay, this is a bit much to get through with limited available time, but it definitely seems worthwhile. Still in Tax Farming. This was obviously quite a large effort on your part, so I appreciate that as well. Thanks for taking the time to write and post this!
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Thanks, Bruce — you’re welcome!
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Testing 123. Ignore me!
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Easily done!
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Community-supported agriculture (CSA) meets cryptocurrency! http://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-farm-to-table-farmers-markets-for-bitcoin-through-overstock
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Whoa, 3D printed jelly fish. http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/09/granular-gel-as-3d-writing-medium-to.html
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Ended up staying up all night because I couldn’t put this down. This became a bit comical once I reached the section on sleep and health. Nevertheless, I am pleased with my choice and blessed by all you wrote. Thanks for the love you put in to this.
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Carrie, that was so incredibly thoughtful and kind. You brightened my day. And thinking of you bumping into the sleep section in the middle of the night made me laugh. 🙂 Thank you so much!
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@abombshell I concur wholeheartedly with what you said, same experience here 😀
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Open source encrypted email provider Tutanota has partnered with a UK company to crowdfund a fully encrypted Google-free smart phone called the UnaPhone Zenith. Check it out! https://igg.me/at/unaphone
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Thanks again for this latest, David.
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Sure thing, Ned. I’ll post interesting decentralization-related stories when I see them, and welcome others to share what they find too.
Reading about (what was at the time) the first 3D printed metal gun: http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/11/metal-3d-printed-gun-which-proves-laser.html -
Added another Education resource for learning how to code for free: http://www.sololearn.com/
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Added the Serval Project and Funkfeuer to Mesh Networking.
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Updated Exercise with yet another reason to avoid gyms: MRSA and other funky skin infections. http://vitals.lifehacker.com/more-reasons-you-need-to-wash-your-hands-after-working-1773984352
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Added free resources link to 3D Printing
Also of note: there’s a new (faster but more $) competitor to the Raspberry Pi, the Samsung Artik: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3066895/hardware/samsungs-raspberry-pi-like-artik-10-priced-higher-at-14999.html
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This weekend Best Buy stores across the US are demoing the Oculus Rift. If you want to get a glimpse of VR — and the future — go check it out! http://www.bestbuy.com/site/clp/oculus-rift-vr/pcmcat748302045866.c?id=pcmcat748302045866
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MIC update: The regime’s fleet of drones and fighter jets are being armed with combat lasers. http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/05/us-air-force-will-have-first-combat.html
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Add the Battlefield 1 trailer — now the most liked trailer in Youtube history — to #1 Propagandist.
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Added link in the intro to research on smartphones causing ADHD symptoms. Also updated 24/7 media hurricane links.
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The American people have been forbidden from reading the regime’s report detailing the torture that the American people were forced to fund: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-torture-report-full_us_573622e3e4b08f96c1832750
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Here are some leads a friend sent me that reveal a number of ways of avoiding the command and control authorities of centralization. Some are already covered in David’s fine essay, but a few may be new to denizens of Liberty.me, at least they were new to me.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/walden-reports/Manifesto-for-the-Uber-Economy.pdf -
@nednetterville
Lots of great info in here! Thanks! -
Thanks, derick r.
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Amazing article! The links alone are worth the read. It’s encouraging that the market is leading people away from government “services” to better alternatives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the state will wither away. It still can tax and regulate; it still has fines, police, courts, and prisons. I’d like to see a follow-up article that explains how technological advances will actually shrink the state down to size.
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Thanks very much, John. With tens of millions of Americans dependent upon the government for their paychecks and tens of millions more dependent on various redistribution programs, there will be no sudden “withering.”
But humans respond to incentives. As more people’s lives are improved by decentralized products and services, people’s behaviors and preferences will increasingly shift away from inferior government alternatives and dependencies.
Regime obsolescence through decentralization is the peaceful path to a freer and more peaceful world. It doesn’t require philosophical lecturing and mass ideology conversion (thankfully). I wish it all would happen faster of course, but tectonic shifts take time.
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This is a link to a talk by Spencer Heath MacCallum on what he calls the “entrepreneurial community” as an extremely attractive alternative to communities in which forcible governments provides “public services.” It is not a utopian dream, such communities already exist. It fits the objective of David’s objective decentralization.
David, another resource I would like to mention here, is Peter Bos’s book, THE ROAD TO FREEDOM AND THE DEMISE OF THE NATION STATE. Peter has thought through and logically answered most of the questions regarding “Who will fix the roads (fight the wars, police the community, put out the fires, etc., etc.) in the absence of the nation-state/” I think you’ll like his answers.
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Ned’s link leads to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUNQG5Akqlw in case anyone wants to cut Bing out of the loop. One of the perks of going to Youtube (or other sources in general) is that you can see comments by previous viewers, which are often very helpful in promoting, explaining, debunking, or expanding on the subject. There was only one comment on the YT video, and it was from a woman who is another pretty face for liberty, so I encourage her to pick up the mantle she laid down in her comment.
On the other hand, the link Ned provided has right-arrows that take you through a series of videos that might be helpful. I don’t know how that “playlist” is constructed, but I’ve learned to pay more attention to decisions that are apparently made for me, since they so often reflect an intent to manipulate.
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Thanks Dave. I should know better, but I am learning.
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@nednetterville
Ned
Thanks for that link. This vision is very similar to the vision Doug casey and others, myself included have for our own futures, and our own contributions to the fight for freedom.
It reminds me a bit of the old Stewart Brand slogan, ” Workers of the World, Disperse.” -
Thanks Rick.
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“Being healthy is your best defense against the state.” is my favorite advice for being more free. I also think the bits on sleep exercise and meditation were well done and approachable for folks who might shrug at these crucial building blocks that lead to actual freedom. I’ll have to revisit this post a few times. Thanks for the resource, David!
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Thanks Rich, glad you find it useful. And thank you Ned for sharing that video.
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Americans still dumping citizenship in record numbers to avoid global taxation and passport lockdowns: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/01/why-americans-are-giving-up-citizenship-in-record-numbers/
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Hail Caesar! Render to me. I need a new toga. https://jesusontaxes.liberty.me/render-unto-caesar-as-on-marcus-borgs-blog/
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I thought the #1 Propagandist chapter covered all the bases, but no. Turns out I was missing extreme sports. Watching skateboarding on the X-Games today, I was informed that it is sponsored by the “returning brands America’s Navy, Harley-Davidson, Fruit of the Loom, Monster Energy and Toyota.” In true fascist form, the Navy is a brand.
“The competition and festivities will kick off with a jump by the Navy’s Parachute Team (Leapfrogs) and a flyover by America’s Navy.” http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2016/05/espn-unveils-sponsors-x-games-austin-2016/ -
This may fit into David’s anti-centralization mantra as an inroad into corporate farmings’ beneficial alliance with USDA. It also tends to debunk the Henny Pennies among us who argue that we are running out of agricultural land and must protect what remains by zoning laws that prevents any other development on “farm land.” http://verticalharvestjackson.com/
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That was fascinating, Ned. Thanks for the link.
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The inventor of the world wide web on the need to re-decentralize the Internet: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/09/2223209/sir-tim-berners-lee-internet-has-become-worlds-largest-surveillance-network
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New to Augmented Reality (AR)? Here’s a peak at what’s coming:
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Cooo00ool!
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Did you folks know Uncle Slime accidentally dropped 4 hydrogen bombs on a Spanish coastal village. Two bombs split open spilling their radiation, which the U.S. never cleaned up and now the locals are dying from radiation-caused cancers, etc. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2625023/The-Costa-del-Armageddon-How-US-dropped-H-bombs-beach-Spain-turned-hundreds-British-expats-caught-deadly-nuclear-fall-zone.html Also see a report of the incident in today’s (6?20) NYT
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That is awful, Ned. Hadn’t seen that story. Nobody damages the environment, and of course kills more people, than the regime. Thanks for the link.
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The Supremes have commanded us. All hail the omnipotent and all powerful police!
blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2016/06/while-america-was-preoccupied-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-4th-amendment/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/06/green-light-police
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Whooo! The continuing erosion of those tenuous protections of liberty that may once have been provided by the Constitution is almost complete. Thanks Calin.
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Need another reason not to vote? 154 million voter records exposed, revealing gun ownership, Facebook profiles, and more: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/154-million-voter-files-exposed-l2/
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Given the Supremes’ utter disrespect for the 4th Amendment (and entire Bill of Rights, really), I would not count on them for any relief from our police state:
I sure wish people could recognize that the United States of American is not drifting toward a police state; it IS a full blown police state already!
I doubt that will happen either. The mind control technology now held by our masters and rulers is simply too powerful:
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Thanks for the links, Calin.
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The world’s biggest stalker is collecting 5 billion phone records per day. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html
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Americans pay billions for the regime to train up other police states and war fodder around the world: https://theintercept.com/2016/07/13/training/
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Yet, fueled by the storm in a teacup the presstitutes created, much of the American public’s panties are all in a bunch because Cody Wilson endeavored to enable We The People to 3D print crappy little guns with hobby fabrication tools! His lawsuit against the U.S. State Department’s censorship of the otherwise readily available information that he disseminated is still pending.
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Some Americans pay billions. I do not. I’ve mentioned this before, but I guess most people don’t have the tolerance to examine the evil of government head-on as that link does.
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“Some Americans pay billions. I do not.”
Me neither. Very liberating, ain’t it?
Irwin (RIP) Schiff’s book, THE GREAT INCOME TAX HOAX (published March, 1985) first exposed the fact that the income tax cannot legally be collected as it is by the IRS. It was the first and remains the most comprehensive history of federal taxes in America from colonial times to the present. If you’ve paid a big chunk of your hard-earned money to Uncle Scam, and would be interested in learning how the government tricked you into thinking you were legally required to pay, this book takes you through the scandalous perfidy and treacherous deception your government officials (presidents, senators, judges, SCOTUS justices, DOJ lawyers, etc.) perpetrated on the American public in order to take their money by unlawful means, including by force, violence and coercion. See: http://paynoincometax.com/hoax/index.htm
And check Amazon for used copies for $6.01 and up.Irwin Schiff was the most courageous man I ever knew. He died in prison October 16, 2015. Uncle Scam imprisoned him three times for writing such “seditious” books as THE BIGGEST CON: HOW THE GOVERNMENT IS FLEECING YOU (1977), HOW ANYONE CAN STOP PAYING INCOME TAXES (1982), THE SOCIAL SECURITY SWINDLE: HOW ANYONE CAN DROP OUT (1984), and, THE FEDERAL MAFIA: HOW THE GOVERNMENT ILLEGALLY IMPOSES AND UNLAWFULLY COLLECTS INCOME TAXES (1999). Every time the US Gestapo (IRS + DOJ + federal judges) threw Irwin in jail, he made good use of the down time to write another book or two exposing the crookedness of the government. In the annals of America’s bravest heroes, Irwin Schiff stands alone, for he spoke truth to the most powerful government since the Roman Empire without flinching for almost 40 years. Sam Adams and Patrick Henry were lesser heroes than Irwin Schiff. The revenue agents of George the Third couldn’t hold a candle to the IRS in collecting taxes from those who would resist. The only American patriot I would put in the same class with Irwin was Thomas Paine. What U.S. government agents did to Irwin would make the leaders of the Islamic State (Daesh) proud of them.
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More on regime subsidized obesity: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/how-the-government-supports-your-junk-food-habit/
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Nice roundup of skills you can learn for free online: https://www.thrillist.com/tech/valuable-skills-you-can-learn-online-websites-that-will-teach-you-something-duolingo-online-harvard-courses-mit-courses
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News that should be front page but isn’t: Thousands of American missile and bomb strikes on Muslim countries have gone unreported. http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/airstrikes-unreported-syria-iraq-afghanistan-islamic-state-al-qaeda-taliban
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David, thanks for these 3 latest additions to your great article. I sent a link to the Military Times article to Rachel Maddow (MSNBC host) because she wrote a good book titled DRIFT, about the growing disconnect between the military/MIC and the “people,” (as used in the Constitution), as well as the people in government who are “assumed” (as in making an ass out of u and me) to exercise control over the military. Keep it up.
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Thanks, Ned. The outright furor over the Muslim immigration ban is surprising in light of the relative silence over thousands of American bombs being dropped on Muslim nations every year.
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@davidmontgomery I’d like to see a ban on American bombs in Muslim countries. Now that’s a ban I could support.
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Hello Ned,
I hope that all is well with you and yours! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your passionately held opinion with me. Your points are well-taken, and I agree with you on many issues, but please don’t miss the central point of my previous message. While you obviously disagree with the philosophical premises upon which the present American constitutional system is based, NO legal system will ever survive if its officials refuse to obey the laws that they have sworn to enforce! Please tell me how it was possible for America to become the wealthiest and most advanced country in the history of the world, if a legal system that is based upon a constitutional republic is so ineffective?
Even if you were able to somehow create a system in which there were no man-made laws of any kind, it would just be a matter of time before the sick, pseudo-humans known as sociopaths, who infect every strata of humanity, would eventually band together and use force and violence to steal the lives, liberty, and property of normal human beings!
Please share with me your vision of how human beings should interact with each other on this earth. Should there be any sort of legal system at all, or will we each person be armed and each one of them be individually responsible for their own personal protection? Should they each decide in the heat of the moment when to use deadly force? Thanks very much for your kind attention. I am looking forward to your reply.
Steve
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Wow…a house was 3D printed in 24 hours for $10k! https://singularityhub.com/2017/03/05/watch-this-house-get-3d-printed-in-24-hours/
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One of the best articles I have read…..ever.
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I consider this essay a “must pass on.”
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David Montgomery‘s article This War of Mine has a new comment 1 year, 5 months ago
Years ago I had the good fortune of spending an evening talking movies with Roger Ebert. His knowledge of film was encyclopedic and matched only by his passion for watching them.
I’ll always be grateful that [Read story]
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Wondered how long it would take someone to post an article on this game.
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It’s hard to get me interested in video games, but your review was engrossing.
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Thank you Rich!
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I play Simutrans, while it covers resource management and market demands I think you may have given me a reason to check out steam.
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@kenj, glad you’re leaning towards giving it a go. If you do please let me know what you think.
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Wow, I need this game! I love ethical dilemmas, and this game sounds like it’s swimming in them.
I used to be a Marine (a long time ago, at an Air Station far, far away) and I’m disgusted by Call of Duty. Combat training made me realize how fragile we really are, how stupid war really is, and that if I were ever ordered to go to the front line to die for some politician’s ego, I would flatly refuse.
I may have been a Marine, but I definitely wasn’t a good one. lol -
Audrey, I think you’ll be really moved by this game’s design and aesthetic. And speaking of having been a Marine 🙂 … https://bananas.liberty.me/katy-perrys-killer-propaganda/
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“I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, ‘Mother, what was war?'” An expansion for this brilliant antiwar game was just released. Check it out: http://store.steampowered.com/app/481090/
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This brilliant antiwar masterpiece is currently 75% off ($4.99). The world needs more antiwar games. Check it out or buy it for a friend: http://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/
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It was harrowing and certain death if she was caught, but she made it out alive and our group managed to cling to life because of it.
http://www.mactechnicalsupportnumbers.com/apple-customer-support/
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 7 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article Escape the World’s Biggest Racket — Politics and the Age of Decentralization has a new comment Let’s face it, friends. You can ignore politics, but politics won’t ignore you. If […] ViewWow…a house was 3D printed in 24 hours for $10k! https://singularityhub.com/2017/03/05/watch-this-house-get-3d-printed-in-24-hours/
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 7 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article You’re a Criminal in a Mass Surveillance World – How to Not Get Caught has a new comment Sometimes you just get lucky. I was in Amsterdam when the Snowden story broke. CNN was n […] ViewToday Wikileaks unmasked the CIA’s gigantic mass surveillance program. Turns out thousands of taxpayer-funded hackers have written malware for the CIA to attack people’s iPhones, Android phones, Windows, and even the navigation systems of cars.
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/03/07/wikileaks-cia-vault-7-leak/ -
David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 8 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article Escape the World’s Biggest Racket — Politics and the Age of Decentralization has a new comment Let’s face it, friends. You can ignore politics, but politics won’t ignore you. If […] ViewThanks, Ned. The outright furor over the Muslim immigration ban is surprising in light of the relative silence over thousands of American bombs being dropped on Muslim nations every year.
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 8 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article Escape the World’s Biggest Racket — Politics and the Age of Decentralization has a new comment Let’s face it, friends. You can ignore politics, but politics won’t ignore you. If […] ViewNews that should be front page but isn’t: Thousands of American missile and bomb strikes on Muslim countries have gone unreported. http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/airstrikes-unreported-syria-iraq-afghanistan-islamic-state-al-qaeda-taliban
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 8 months ago
In reply to: Ken Jons-un posted an update in the group Alternative Homes and Construction for Liberty Awesome use of small space! ViewThis is brilliant, Ken, thanks.
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 8 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article Escape the World’s Biggest Racket — Politics and the Age of Decentralization has a new comment Let’s face it, friends. You can ignore politics, but politics won’t ignore you. If […] ViewNice roundup of skills you can learn for free online: https://www.thrillist.com/tech/valuable-skills-you-can-learn-online-websites-that-will-teach-you-something-duolingo-online-harvard-courses-mit-courses
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 9 months ago
In reply to: Ken Jons-un posted an update A video about a thief with a twist. This doubles as a good insight into how YOUR smartphone looks from the capable data collection thieves known as 5-eyes (NSA, GCHQ and their […] ViewThanks Ken.
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 10 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article Katy Perry’s Killer Propaganda has a new comment There is no agony like heartbreak. This truth is the basis for the most effective and most subversive piece of government propaganda I […] ViewKaty Perry’s masterwork of military propaganda has garnered over half a billion views. Ooh Rah.
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David Montgomery‘s article Katy Perry’s Killer Propaganda has a new comment 2 years, 10 months ago
There is no agony like heartbreak.
This truth is the basis for the most effective and most subversive piece of government propaganda I have ever seen.
I am referring, as inconceivable as it may seem, to a [Read story]
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Great article.
I would contend that man’s nature is quite evil, however. The acts that men ultimately and individually commit in war are evil. They are not helpless victims of the state at that point, but willing accomplices. Indeed, war is racket, at the level of design and declaration. But men carry it out, willingly. -
I contend that man’s nature is Good.
The natural drive to defend one’s family from aggression is a Good thing. War is a perversion of that good instinct into an Evil thing.
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We aren’t evil by nature, we are ignorant by nature. Almost everyone thinks they are doing good, even ones who hurt others. In order to get these people to commit these acts they must be convinced that they are serving some good. I would say that if people were by nature bent on destruction and death then the human race wouldn’t exist by now. We seem to have an ability to lie to ourselves when there is a layer of fear over the top of our rational thoughts though.
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Michael, Ben and John thanks for reading and commenting about the human nature question. I’m not sure about the nature of man as a concept (i.e. I’m fuzzy on what it really means) — need to give it more thought.
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Thanks for taking the time to write this article. I’m a US Marine, and Katy Perry shot this video with marines from my battalion. While I understand why you think they’re trying to break recruits down into a cold blooded killer, it doesn’t actually happen that way. Yes, they demand obedience, but like any government program, they only get it by threatening force. Superiors threaten to take disciplinary action that could result in you not getting promoted, or for offenses that violate the UCMJ, you can get demoted and lose pay.
Even though the mission is to be ready to fight and kill at a moment’s notice, most every marine I know is looking forward to their EAS date- End of Active Service. They often talk about it as “becoming free again”. Those who are thinking of reenlisting often have a wife and/or family, and do so for job security and benefits.
Very simply, the military is a welfare program, with the singular difference that it embraces and is enforced with violence. I think the point of the video is to promote the prevailing -and false- narrative that this welfare program should be unquestionably celebrated and revered, and also to encourage females to seek positions in infantry units (currently the Marines are considering it, but appears unlikely to happen soon). Obviously, Katy Perry did not serve in the military, so I think she was under orders to perform this song rather than doing from her boundless musical creativity….
Additionally, while many marines love Katy Perry and her music (*shudder*), they really don’t like this song or video. At all. How ironic!
In the past, disobedience on the battlefield warranted the death penalty. So, I would advise a little more compassion for the boots on the ground who got more than they bargained for. You can claim, as my superiors often do, that I volunteered for it and no one forced me to join, but if you do, please read my article on Liberty.me arguing that I was Economically Conscripted.
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Britton, thanks for reading and the thoughtful comments. I’m delighted to know that so many are anxious about “becoming free again.”
I’m familiar with the consequences for disobedience. It’s awful to be threatened with death if you don’t carry out a politician’s killing orders. I feel for anyone who buys into the recruiting propaganda and then wakes up to the reality of who and what they serve.
p.s. Here’s Britton’s article: https://forrightandfreedom.liberty.me/an-anarchist-in-the-marine-corps/ -
I do appreciate what you’re saying, but it doesn’t stop the soldier from doing exactly what the writer is saying: obey orders to kill, no matter what, or be killed is the message. Each one of you is probably scared witless most of the time; another reason to obey, remember your orders.
Economically conscripted? What does that mean? You think you had no choice? If you know the truth now, go out and teach the younger before they make the same mistake.
I hope you are doing well after going through such horror. I know there are many who are suffering a lot. -
@lcplsprouse
Solid comment. I never really thought of the military as a welfare program, but that kinda makes sense! Here’s that article link for all to see and read: http://forrightandfreedom.liberty.me/PS: That’s funny about how the propaganda music doesn’t really delight the Marines themselves.
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Great article. Just fantastic.
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Thank you, Joey!
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You’re on a roll, @davidmontgomery!
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Leanne, you’re so kind — thank you!
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This arricle was friggin awesome it was broken down and disected so well. Plus it was just really informative. I was never a fan of Katy anyway. I dont like massive sell outs and i beleive if your ganna talk the talk walk the walk. Katy went from gospel singer to i kissed a girl and i liked it over night betraying her principles to make more money. The fact that shes now being used as state propaganda to glorify war just makes me even more sick.
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Thanks for the kind words, Nick!
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Great article. Lots of things to think about.
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Thank you, Peter!
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Outstanding, again, David !!
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Jorge, thank you so much!
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So well-reasoned and well-written. The politicians are not just after our wealth, they want our bodies and minds and hearts to serve them, to admire them, even to love and adore them. And the worst of these psychopaths want to be worshipped. The most disturbing aspect isn’t that such people exist–it’s that they attract legions of willing followers eager to worship.
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Thank you so much, John. Yes, disturbing to say the least…
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Katy Perry is illuminaughty. 😉
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Hah Marchella! Great portmanteau. 🙂
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What a fucking disgusting video.
But hopefully an opportunity for a good teaching moment for my 7-year old daughter, who already has the guts and wisdom to not participate in “mandatory” Pledge of Allegiance at her indoctrination campXXXXXschool and who opts out of Veteran’s day ceremonies.
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Wow, your child is ahead of the curve. Bravo! When I was 7 I didn’t even know what the pledge of allegiance meant short of mouthing the words.
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David! Do you have an android? I need you to beta test this Austrian econ app I’ve been working on. Game? @davidmontgomery
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Absolutely! Hit me with a link if you please.
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Thanks, I’ll get you in messages. @davidmontgomery
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David
Your writing gets better and better. This is easily worth my indigogo contribution.Thank you. -
Rick, knowing how generous you are that’s an incredibly kind thing to say. Thank you very, very much.
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This is an important post because this is the issue (military/national defense) where many otherwise “libertarian” leaning friends of my revert back to defense of the state. Thank you Britton for your comments. Would be interesting to hear other soldiers view on this article as well.
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Thank you, Brent. I agree that soldiers are in a powerful position to persuade each other that, to quote General Butler, they’ve been propagandized into a racket.
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Here come the calls for mandatory service to the regime: http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/how-to-defeat-isis-with-millennial-spirit-and-service-20150616
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Thank you, Brian. Yeah, that article is best read on an empty stomach.
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Hey David
Well done! I was thinking about your article all this week and couldn’t help thinking that the way Katy Perry got conned into joining the US army is in many ways similar to young people joining organizations like Isis. It would be a killer counter propaganda video if there was a split screen with a young woman deciding to fight for isis, and on the other side, the normal Katy Perry video. The flags at the end, the American and the Isis would really hit your message home. Both the duality of what is being shown but the uncanny similarity as well.
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Thanks Scott. I’d love to know who came up with the idea for the video. In any case, she stated that everyone in the video (other than herself of course) is a Marine, and she obviously had the resources of Camp Pendleton at her disposal for shooting it. Tax dollars at work…
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Sadly, Katy’s mass murder anthem has passed 400 million views.
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Being the 4th of July, it seemed like a fitting time to update the view count of this patriotic video…to 445 million.
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Katy Perry’s masterwork of military propaganda has garnered over half a billion views. Ooh Rah.
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 10 months ago
Whoa, just looked again and see 19.
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 10 months ago
Welcome Guy. Your avatar is killer.
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@davidmontgomery Thanks, David! They follow me around like the crocodile in Peter Pan.
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 10 months ago
I see 17.
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 10 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article You’re a Criminal in a Mass Surveillance World – How to Not Get Caught has a new comment Sometimes you just get lucky. I was in Amsterdam when the Snowden story broke. CNN was n […] ViewiPhone users, if you don’t want months of your call logs stored, disable iCloud: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/17/iphones-secretly-send-call-history-to-apple-security-firm-says/
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 10 months ago
In reply to: David Montgomery‘s article You’re a Criminal in a Mass Surveillance World – How to Not Get Caught has a new comment Sometimes you just get lucky. I was in Amsterdam when the Snowden story broke. CNN was n […] ViewTrump’s pick for CIA director called for Snowden to be executed: http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/18/watch-trumps-reported-pick-to-run-the-ci
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 10 months ago
In reply to: posted an update Hi everyone. New to this group. Looking forward to getting to know people. Enjoy and be safe. ViewWelcome Kathleen. On the topic of being safe, I offer my anti-mass surveillance guide: https://bananas.liberty.me/youre-a-criminal-in-a-mass-surveillance-world-how-to-not-get-caught/
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 11 months ago
In reply to: Ned Netterville posted an update With the turmoil of the election behind us–I hope–it seems like a good time to read again my favorite article out of the plethora of good ones I’ve read on Liberty.me. I refer to […] ViewThank you Ned! 🙂
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David Montgomery posted a new activity comment 2 years, 11 months ago
Good one Ken. And those numbers jump almost 10-fold if you measure the regime as a whole: https://bananas.liberty.me/escape-the-worlds-biggest-racket-politics-and-the-age-of-decentralization/#hive
Powerful & valuable.
Thank you, Toni!
Brb, removing my “skateboarding is not a crime” bumper sticker.
Kickflips for freedom. 🙂
OPM is what gubbermint officals snort. It sounds like opium, is equally addicting, and stands for Other People’s Money, forcibly extorted. On the other hand, OPM is a band that made this great tribute to the skateboarding culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCSJzw6QM_Q
My advice don’t use a mobile device AT ALL. I use a burner phone for calls and don’t even keep a contacts list in the phone. IF YOU ARE PAYING FOR A CONTRACT FOR YOUR PHONE YOU’RE LOCATION IS BEING TRACKED 24/7! On top of using a burner I replace it every 3 months.
Thanks for reading, Joseph. Security and convenience are typically at odds, so it’s always a balancing act. Most people have come to depend on smart phones, but it’s great that you can manage without.
Stirring and most useful. Thanks for taking the time to write this.
Gary, thanks so much for reading and the very kind words. @garyhall
Wow! Great post — very powerful. And with a useful to-do list, to boot. Thanks so much.
Leanne, thank you so much. I’m delighted to know you found it useful. @leannebaker
Quite possibly the most important at well stated article on this website related to technology in the time we live in (as opposed to philosophical discussions).
I only suggest one thing – turn this into a pdf and upload it as a book.
Thank you Mr Montgr
Quite possibly the most important at well stated article on this website related to technology in the time we live in (as opposed to philosophical discussions).
I only suggest one thing – turn this into a pdf and upload it as a book.
Thank you Mr Montgomery
Ken, thank you so much for the kind words. I really appreciate it. Re: the pdf suggestion, I don’t know how to typeset with InDesign.
Well written, David. Speaking of “Mass Surveillance Cheerleaders” I’ll mention you with a good one from today.
Thanks Marchella!
Great article!
How can one know that StartPage and DuckDuckGo do not surveil? Maybe they are honeypots.
Thank you Roger! We can’t know for certain if they are legit, but given the choice I’d prefer to go with a non-US based engine (Startpage) that’s been around for years and pledges not to track me than a US-based one that pledges to. 🙂
If you’re using the Firefox add-ons like Random Agent Spoofer along with a VPN, there shouldn’t be a whole lot to get from you unless you’ve been singled out as a target. (If that’s the case, search engine selection is the least of one’s worries.)
Another fantastic article! Thanks David !!
Welcome Jorge, thanks for the kind words!
Wow. I’d like to download this article on my computer – there’s so much good information here. It should be available as a book, if it isn’t already. Thank you, David, for taking the time to write such a thorough article with valuable links.
Most welcome, Nancy. @kenj said the same thing about a book. I don’t know how to typeset, but one thought is to save the page as a pdf file. To do that just search Startpage.com for ‘how to save a web page as a pdf’. Hope that helps.
Makes me afraid to leave a comment. Excellent article!
Thank you! @conhawn
You left out the biggest item of all! If you are using a laptop or Desktop, it would be very advantageous to you to migrate away from Apple or Windows into a Linux environment. For some, this is not realistic as many are married to Windows through the control grid government has allowed them to have. Linux is as robust as any operating system Windows or Apple has to put out there. Linux Mint, OpenSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, are just a few. These distributions are free and open source. We changed over 12 years ago and have never looked back. They are easy to install and the major difference is Linux is a permissions based system. Software cannot be installed without gaining the necessary permissions. Let me know if you are interested and I can help!
Thanks for reading, Joe. You’re right about Linux, and people who make it to the recommendations for furthering their knowledge will find out about it. I just felt that asking people to uproot their entire computing experience to learn a new OS and give up a lot of software that hasn’t be ported yet would be too much out of the gate.
I have a toddler daughter, and I just keep thinking about how surveillance-sophisticated boys are going to be in 10 or 15 years.
Yeah, covering up the webcam …
You won’t have to wait that long. There are 15 year olds today who have scary good technical chops.
Some of these ideas are very simple to implement. Others can be a real pain in the butt. Here are two of the very simple yet very effective ones (already mentioned by David of course), which everyone should implement right now.
1. Adobe Flash.
We are all better-off without this massive piece of concealed-source software which has been repeated exploited over the years. Some people won’t let go of Flash because a few web features still use it (for example, some videos). But what everyone can easily do is to disable it on every website where they don’t need it.
Please do it right now. If you are using Firefox, you may see a gray block that looks like a piece of Lego, in the address bar just next to the “Back” button. Click it and select “Don’t allow Liberty.Me to run Adobe Flash”. Do the same thing on other sites that you use.
2. Firefox’s Tracking Protection
Unless you really want to see advertisements that are based on your browsing history, there is absolutely no reason to leave tracking enabled.
Better yet, turning on tracking protection will make pages load 44% faster (on average) and use 39% less data. Details, and easy instructions with screenshot are here:
http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/24/firefoxs-optional-tracking-protection-reduces-load-time-for-top-news-sites-by-44/
You only need to set this once. It applies globally, not per website. What an easy way to increase privacy and efficiency. Do it now!
Thanks for pitching in, Roger! I hope tracking protection will be enabled by default in the next Firefox release.
Seriously powerful article!
Does anyone have the list of surveillance trigger keywords used in text or email?
Thanks so much Travis!
There was a trigger list that came out over 3 years ago that was about 400 words. It’s easy to find if you search surveillance trigger list. I would assume that there are multiple trigger lists being screened by several different agencies.
I bet “surveillance trigger list” is one of them too.
Thank you David! This is the most impressive and comprehensive overall analysis of this subject I have seen!
Thank you so much for the kind words, Bill!
David, Thank you for the excellent article. I will be implementing all of your suggestions.
Arthur, it made my day hearing you’re going to put the guide into action. Thank you!
^Shit was cash.
Lol, thanks Zachary.
@davidmontgomery I’m willing to bet “surveillance trigger list” is on the surveillance trigger list.
I bet you’re right, Grant!
Arg! He beat me to the joke!
Thank you so much for the btc tip. I wish I could thank you by name — please know how much it is appreciated!
This article is just so darn good.
Thanks so much, Ryan. Hope it’s useful.
Thanks and cheers to whoever just sent the btc tip!
David I love this article and I am glad you took the time to write it. I’m not sure I take the same message from it that others have. You want us to hide from the government, yet you point out that it’s hopeless, that everyone is guilty and the government can arrest anyone at any time for something. Every year cameras and other surveillance tech get smaller, cheaper, smarter, more sensitive, easier to use against someone without their knowledge. The government can’t resist spying on us. Hiding is not a solution. We need something more creative.
I’m not going to suggest I know the answer. Maybe I am nuts and someone is about to discover the invisibility cloak, so we can all hide very successfully. But in the meantime, we should be on the alert for other opportunities and strategies. (Sousveillance?)
Thanks Dave. I equate hopelessness with learned helplessness, i.e. doing nothing, and I of course don’t advocate that. While using encryption can’t guarantee any particular individual’s safety, it does render collect-it-all dragnet surveillance ineffective in many areas. (And if you’re not already targeted, it does greatly improve your security.) Unfortunately people right now are unwittingly assisting in the construction of their panopticon with every Facebook post, Google search, etc. This is a massive behavioral challenge more than anything else since better alternatives exist.
I completely agree that we need creative solutions and new approaches. My hope is that spreading understanding about the scope and danger of this silent war being waged against us will spur market demand for real security. Brilliant innovators will step up if they feel the urgency of millions demanding a better way.
FYI, all, we’ve updated the Reclaim Your Privacy guide again to reflect the TrueCrypt–VeraCrypt evolution.
Our guide is free for all Liberty.me members right here: https://liberty.me/guides/reclaim-your-privacy/
Thanks, Mike. You guys are amazing!
Thanks Mike!
I’m sad to report that one of the victims cited in my article — a boy caged for 3 years in Rikers without ever being convicted of a crime — just committed suicide:
http://gawker.com/teen-jailed-for-years-without-conviction-found-dead-of-1709745629
Kalief Browder, rest in peace.
Great article! I had already taken some of the steps, but your guide encouraged me to take a few more. I’ve still got a few to go, but till then, I’m still way better off for having read this.
Douglas, thank you so much. It truly makes my day to know you’re taking action.
Quite sobering to say the least, even for me, who was well aware of most of what you covered. But even then, the depth and scope of their data collection efforts and sheer maliciousness is staggering. I also appreciate your proposed solutions at the end. I think a yearly update on that section would be in order so long as the present state of affairs exists. Thank you very much for publishing this important piece.
You’re welcome, Bruce. Thanks very much for the kind words. I plan to update the guide as I come across new and better solutions.
Fantastic. You’ve created a very valuable resource. Thanks. (Archived here: https://archive.is/Z1GDl)
Thank you so much, Tomasz! Your videos are wonderful.
Is there anything to replace Google calender with?
@edandjoanna If you find one, let us know at Antiwar.com. We are weening off of google.
http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/15-cool-alternatives-to-google-calendar/
Thanks for the recommendations, Grant! Here are a few more possibilities: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-free-but-powerful-desktop-calendars/
I’ve been using Encryptr for about a week now. Great, simple use tool. But today, when I try to login using the same username as always, it says “Account not found”
Anyone else have this issue?
I haven’t had a problem, but you could try emailing the developer, [email protected].
I did email him, but he said there’s not much he could do. I’m trying out KeePass, with KeeFox and KeePass2Android. So far, this is working out much better for me.
Good to know, thanks for the update.
KeePass & KeeFox (& KeePass2Android) have been serving me very well for a while, now. I know David took points off for it being a little more clunky, but, I think that is also a strength, as it reminds you to be an active participant in keeping your passwords secure, backed-up and rotating regularly. It’s easy to set up for auto-sync with Dropbox, and you can make this hack-proof by pairing it with CrypSync http://stefanstools.sourceforge.net/CryptSync.html to encrypt the folder with the password database in it before it syncs to Dropbox.
Using good info posts/sites like this and getting creative (even excited) about mixing/matching solutions and problem solving is the real way to make securing yourself a strong self-reinforcing good habit.
Good points, thanks Jay.
The surveillors get surveilled… Private company exposes massive gov’t security hack during sales demo. Gov’t gives its workers 18 months of credit monitoring and $1 million liability insurance. http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/report-hack-of-government-employee-records-discovered-by-product-demo/
Regarding the Random Agent Spoofer, the version available from the official AMO site does not have all the features that the Github version does. For instance, I need to white-list certain websites for work. You can install the .xpi file at https://github.com/dillbyrne/random-agent-spoofer/releases/tag/0.9.5.3 to get the latest full-featured version that includes this and other options that are not allowed on the AMO site.
Great point about the version lag — thanks Douglas.
Apparently LastPass just got hacked
mashable.com/2015/06/15/lastpass-hacked/
I switched out my old master password and gave myself my very first passphrase.
Thanks Mike, you beat me to it! Glad you’ve jumped on the passphrase train. 🙂
The Sunday Times’ Snowden Story is Journalism at its Worst — and Filled with Falsehoods
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/14/sunday-times-report-snowden-files-journalism-worst-also-filled-falsehoods/
Hopeful sign — the market is responding: http://boingboing.net/2015/06/17/duckduckgo-search-engine-traff.html
The danger of cash is a virtue of cryptocurrency — man’s life savings is summarily confiscated: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/17/8792623/civil-forfeiture-charles-clarke
Major Apple iOS and OS X security vulnerability announced: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/17/apple_hosed_boffins_drop_0day_mac_ios_research_blitzkrieg/
Former NSA Director Mocks Extent of Post-Snowden Reform: “And This Is It After Two Years? Cool!”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/17/hayden-mocks-extent-post-snowden-surveillance-reform-2-years-cool/
Most useful article I’ve read anywhere in a long time, initially it gave me that familiar depressed feeling I get whenever I read about this kind of stuff, but the amount of good alternatives out there is very reassuring. This must have taken ages to put together, thanks a lot!
Thanks for the kind works, Tom. Really appreciate it. The tools are out there — it’s just a matter of being willing to act.
How the NSA cracks one of the security protocols we rely all on: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/21/is-this-the-nsa-s-secret-to-cracking-secure-comms.html
NSA and GCHQ attack anti-malware software to undermine its security protection: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/22/nsa-gchq-targeted-kaspersky/
Patch Adobe Flash (or better yet, uninstall it and see if you miss it)… https://threatpost.com/emergency-adobe-flash-patch-fixes-zero-day-under-attack/113434
Progress! http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/report-suggests-young-people-may-abandon-social-media-if-privacy-breaches-continue/
“Their spy bug, built for less than $300, is designed to allow anyone to ‘listen’ to the accidental radio emanations of a computer’s electronics from 19 inches away and derive the user’s secret decryption keys, enabling the attacker to read their encrypted communications.”
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/radio-bug-can-steal-laptop-crypto-keys-fits-inside-pita/
Fascism in a nutshell: “How can we harness the power of the commercial sector?” https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/24/nsa-chief-wants-watch-well-listen-read/
Elite hacker goes to work for the government, then for Google, and now back for the government… http://recode.net/2015/06/29/famed-security-researcher-mudge-leaves-google-for-white-house-gig/
How the mass surveillance web is woven by Facebook’s product (its users): http://datacenterfrontier.com/inside-facebooks-blu-ray-cold-storage-data-center/
A few more tech ideas for the masses: http://makezine.com/magazine/whos-watching-you-protect-your-digital-privacy-with-these-diy-projects/
Not sure I’d build a switch when you can simply unplug the cable and do the same thing with zero cost. But TOR is a good thing and the library is too.
ProxyHam! http://www.wired.com/2015/07/online-anonymity-box-puts-mile-away-ip-address/
Hey! Thanks again for the inspiration. Here’s a mention!
http://cointelegraph.com/news/114726/anne-frank-had-something-to-hide-and-something-to-fear
Wonderful article, Juan! Thank you! @juangalt
Wow, regime-serving hackers for hire get hacked: http://www.csoonline.com/article/2943968/data-breach/hacking-team-hacked-attackers-claim-400gb-in-dumped-data.html
Today is the day, in 1942, that Anne and her family went into hiding: http://www.annefrank.org/en/Anne-Frank/Not-outside-for-2-years/Hiding/
“Unbreakable” encryption tech coming? http://techfrag.com/2015/06/26/toshiba-working-unbreakable-encryption/
“The government’s proposals for exceptional access are wrong in principle and unworkable in practice.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/technology/code-specialists-oppose-us-and-british-government-access-to-encrypted-communication.html
Hi David, it’s wonderful to see the continued interest in this excellent post. When it first came out, I spent a couple of hours poring over it in detail, a few more speechless with admiration, and another hour installing Firefox extensions that had somehow escaped my attention. So I assume you’ll pardon me if I didn’t take the time to thank you right away.
Warren, thank you so much! Really appreciate it. Knowing you took action made my day.
So I got my Proton Mail invitation yesterday. It was very easy to set up and is working well. Client-side encryption for the win!
I have just finished converting my website to HTTPS-only. Now I can set my webserver to send HSTS headers (HTTP Strict Transport Security).
I need to finish updating all my browser bookmarks to HTTPS. I am about to install HTTPS-Everywhere into Firefox and Chrome.
I figure there’s no point complaining about surveillance until I’ve taken the steps that I can take. (There’s no point complaining about the postman reading my postcards if I don’t even put them in an envelope.)
Fantastic, Roger!
More on the massive hack of the feds: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/07/09/hack-of-security-clearance-system-affected-21-5-million-people-federal-authorities-say/
Torture doctors for the regime coming under new scrutiny: http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jul/10/us-torture-doctors-psychologists-apa-prosecution
Seen the trailer for the new Snowden movie? http://www.snowdenfilm.com/
“The NSA collected and stored intimate photos, emails, and chats belonging to totally innocent Americans and safeguarded them so poorly that a ne’er-do-well could copy them onto thumb drives.” http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/a-devastating-leak-for-edward-snowdens-critics/373991/
Citizenfour filmmaker Laura Poitras is being denied a FOIA answer about why she’s been detained and had her stuff confiscated at borders 50 times. http://boingboing.net/2015/07/14/laura-poitras-sues-the-us-gove.html
Apple is ramping up new ways to monetize you with surveillance: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-patent-for-e-commerce-and-mobile-advertising-system-2015-7
An Identity Thief Explains the Art of Emptying Your Bank Account: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-15/an-identity-thief-explains-the-art-of-emptying-your-bank-account
Hacking Team and Boeing Subsidiary Envisioned Drones Deploying Spyware: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/18/hacking-team-wanted-infect-computers-drone/
More and more workers are being spied on by human resources and they probably don’t even know it: http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-human-resources-manipulates-and-spies-you-even-when-youre-not-work
If you’re part of any protest groups which criticize the regime, assume that you’re being monitored: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/24/documents-show-department-homeland-security-monitoring-black-lives-matter-since-ferguson/
Surveillance tech is being used on Wall Street, much of it funded by the CIA’s private equity firm. Yeah, the CIA has a private equity firm… https://cryptome.org/2015/08/wall-street-invests-spies.pdf
How To Keep NSA Computers From Turning Your Phone Conversations Into Searchable Text:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/08/keep-nsa-computers-turning-phone-conversations-searchable-text/
Fascism in a nutshell -> AT&T’s “highly collaborative partnership” with the NSA: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/us/politics/att-helped-nsa-spy-on-an-array-of-internet-traffic.html
Jeb Bush: the NSA isn’t spying on us enough: http://boingboing.net/2015/08/19/jeb-bush-the-nsa-isnt-spyin.html
How Hacking Team Created Spyware to Allow the FBI to Monitor TOR Browser: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/16/hackingteam-attacked-tor-browser/
Spotify goes creepy: http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/08/20/spotify-creepy-privacy-policy/
Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare… http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/08/windows_10_privacy_problems_here_s_how_bad_they_are_and_how_to_plug_them.html
225,000 Apple Accounts Compromised via iOS Malware:
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/15/08/31/1245225/over-225000-apple-accounts-compromised-via-ios-malware
The Catch-22 of government ‘justice systems’: http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/staff-editorials/14188/julian-assange-extradition/
“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country — you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” -Donald Trump
If you use AVG Antivirus, ditch it: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/09/19/1319201/avg-proudly-announces-it-will-sell-your-browsing-history-to-online-advertisers
Though it may not have seemed possible, Facebook plans to stalk you even harder: http://petapixel.com/2015/09/21/facebook-may-soon-assign-your-camera-a-unique-fingerprint-for-identification/
More government schemes to undermine encryption: http://www.wired.com/2015/09/karma-police-encryption/
This site has aggregated almost a quarter billion accounts which have been breached (aka pwned). To see if you’ve been affected: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Don’t toss airline boarding passes without tearing them up first: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/10/whats-in-a-boarding-pass-barcode-a-lot/
White Hat Hackers Would Have Their Devices Destroyed Under the TPP:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/white-hat-hackers-would-have-their-devices-destroyed-under-the-tpp
“Nearly 90 percent of Android devices are exposed to at least one critical vulnerability”:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/android-security-a-market-for-lemons-that-leaves-87-percent-insecure/
Yet another “critical vulnerability” in Flash. Do yourself a favor and uninstall it! http://bgr.com/2015/10/15/adobe-flash-player-security-vulnerability-warning/
How Is the NSA Breaking So Much Crypto? http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/10/15/1957259/how-is-the-nsa-breaking-so-much-crypto
Snowden on evil smurfs and GCHQ, “a subsidiary of the NSA” http://cointelegraph.com/news/115402/edward-snowden-governments-want-to-own-your-phone-instead-of-you
Take 2 minutes to harden the security of your browser: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/how-to-protect-yourself-from-nsa-attacks-1024-bit-DH
The NYPD Is Using Mobile X-Ray Vans to Spy on Unknown Targets: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/the-nypd-is-using-mobile-x-rays-to-spy-on-unknown-targets/411181/
Have evidence of wrongdoing? How to leak it securely: https://theintercept.com/2015/01/28/how-to-leak-to-the-intercept/
“The Pentagon’s drone program uses data analytics in almost precisely the same way IBM encourages corporations to use it to track customers.” https://theintercept.com/2015/10/23/drones-ibm-and-the-big-data-of-death/
SHOCKER… Facebook secretly lobbied for cyber-surveillance bill: http://boingboing.net/2015/10/24/petition-facebook-betrayed-us.html
Listen to Snowden, peeps: “Avoid Facebook, Google”
The IRS has mobile spy gear: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/stingray-surveillance-technology-irs-cellphone-tower
More political theater. Use encryption to make petitions pointless. http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/29/9635856/cryptography-petition-white-house
Americans who attend protests are under FBI drone surveillance: http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/30/9642478/fbi-plane-flights-video-recording-baltimore-protests
VIZIO televisions surveil you and sell you out. “Vizio sets track your viewing habits in fine-grained detail, and share that information, along with information that can be used to personally identify you, with a variety of third party data-brokers who can then link this to your online activities.” http://boingboing.net/2015/11/10/all-smart-tvs-are-watching-you.html
Prison-industrial complex gets outed recording thousands of attorney-client privileged phone calls. http://boingboing.net/2015/11/11/massive-hack-of-70-million-pri.html
Do you use the same password multiple places? http://boingboing.net/2015/10/29/13-million-passwords-compromis.html
Seems the government’s mass surveillance complex includes academia. http://boingboing.net/2015/11/11/did-the-fbi-pay-carnegie-mello.html
“If you interact with the internet … the typical methods of communication today betray you silently, quietly, invisibly, at every click. At every page that you land on, information is being stolen. It’s being collected, intercepted, analyzed, and stored by governments, foreign and domestic, and by companies.” Great Snowden interview: https://theintercept.com/2015/11/12/edward-snowden-explains-how-to-reclaim-your-privacy/
Just got around to reading this in full. Wow. I thought I was already being too cautious with covering up my camera, using a password manager, having a VPN, and using 2FA for my accounts. Thanks for sharing these tips – will implement the ones I haven’t done yet!
@ljaluague Made my day to hear that, Liz. Thanks!
No big surprise — Microsoft’s BitLocker encryption has security holes: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3005182/encryption/bitlocker-encryption-can-be-defeated-with-trivial-windows-authentication-bypass.html
Use the free and open source VeraCrypt: https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/
Encryption Is Being Scapegoated To Mask The Failures Of Mass Surveillance: http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/17/the-blame-game/
DELL joins Lenovo in shipping laptops with a major security breach: http://lifehacker.com/dell-laptops-are-shipping-with-a-superfish-like-certifi-1744488741
Banks gets breached; account data for thousands of people made public: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/invest-bank-hacker-buba/
How to turn off your iPhone’s location tracking: https://www.thrillist.com/tech/nation/a-map-in-iphone-privacy-settings-tracks-your-location-how-to-turn-off-location-services
How do you choose between a numeric passcode and fingerprint when taking this in to account?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-38641
Great question, Kristopher. For those who live in legal jurisdictions that force people to fingerprint unlock devices, use a passphrase.
p.s. Or of course even better is both fingerprint and passphrase (2-factor authentication).
InterApp: The Gadget That Can Spy on Any Smartphone
http://news.softpedia.com/news/interapp-the-gadget-that-can-spy-on-any-smartphone-497864.shtml
WOW! This article (or dare I say book) is fabulous! Thank you for laying out so much relevant, valuable information in a format that even us mere mortals can understand it. David, this is a topic that is getting more important all the time. Your approach makes it doable and understandable. Thank you for what you have done here. I look forward to learning more about what you do. – Terry
Terry, thank you so much for the very kind feedback! I really appreciate it and am glad you found the material valuable.
Free, open source, encrypted messaging for your desktop. Check out the Signal beta:
https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop/
David…for Mac…I would not be without Little Snitch…allows you to see every attempt your computer makes to connect to an outside location and blocks it, until you allow, or not.
https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
@liberty56 Thanks for the tip, Lee!
Bootkits — a new form of malware that bypasses all (current) security software:
https://www.infopackets.com/news/9737/new-bootkit-malware-sidesteps-security-software
Database of 191 million U.S. voters exposed — names, addresses, birth dates, party affiliations, phone numbers, and emails.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-voters-breach-idUKKBN0UB1DQ20151229
Updated guide to recommend uBlock Origin instead of AdBlock Pro (which now lets companies buy their way through the blocking filter):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
It’s an interesting business model. Companies can only buy their way through the blocking filter for ads that meet quite strict criteria for “unobtrusiveness”.
And users have a setting that allows them to choose whether or not to see the paid ads.
Video games check your name against the Specially Designated Nationals list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control:
http://kotaku.com/video-game-erroneously-blocked-player-named-muhammad-kh-1752350370
Thank you for writing this. Considering it has taken me weeks to pour over it I can’t imagine how much time you spent writing it. This has been a significant wakeup call to me, as I did not previously employ any of the measures you recommended and did not realistically take cyber security all that seriously. I have implemented a number of measures and am continuing to add others (I even decided to try out liberty.me).
I have at least one specific question which I will post separately to keep it organized, but I have 2 general suggestions for improvement. First, include a link at the top for the 10 recommended steps, or even better separate them into a new page. The article/book is well written, but for the last couple weeks I have been referring back to the 10 steps at the end which requires a lot of scrolling on my android device.
Second, for the first few steps where you provide instructions for Mac and PC, include an extra section for Android and iPhone users. For example, some of the malware tools are not available for Android and the Firefox settings are different. I think I’ve managed to figure things out ok, but it could have been easier to follow. I emphasize this because I do 99% of my activity on Android devices, hardly touching my PC. I suspect a growing number of people are in the same boat, so I’m more interested in getting those tools setup on my Andoid than I am a conventional computer.
What are your suggestions for choosing a passphrase to secure an Android device? You gave some pretty good advice on setting a passphrase, but when I went to encrypt my Android I discovered there is a 16-character password limit. I honestly don’t understand why any software today would impose a maximum password size at all, but that’s another discussion. Should I try to make a 6 word passphrase with only 2-3 letter words? (Bordering on ridiculous).
@maxpeck You could use the first two letters of each of your six longer words, plus four digits or symbols.
Good idea @rogerribuck. @macpeck there are plenty of short words that get you to 5 or 6 but of course memoribility is the thing that makes this whole password deal annoying.
Read the FBI suicide letter sent to Martin Luther King? Remember this is the “work” of the pre-digital surveillance state, over half a century ago.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance
@maxpeck To follow up on your Android passphrase character limit, I updated the guide to mention this case and if you can get to 5 words with a good modification, that’s still very robust. Here’s a link to a list of 2 and 3 letter words to help: http://phrontistery.info/scrabble3.html
Also thanks for your suggestions; will continue to make improvements where I can.
Guide updates:
Added Disable WebRTC to Firefox add-ons list: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/happy-bonobo-disable-webrtc/
Added links to iOS and Android versions of Firefox, with mention that not all security add-ons are available for these mobile versions of Firefox.
It might be worth mentioning that Spideroak when accessed via website or mobile app is not truly zero-knowledge. Your passphrase (and data?) are transmitted plain-text to a “special server” which does the encryption before passing it to the main servers. They say this only resides in encrypted memory during your active session and never written to disk, and is purged when you sign out, but you must trust them and they are US-based (although they did refer me to canarywatch.com). If you really want zero-knowledge you would have to use the desktop program. A fully functional mobile app is under development but has no expected release date yet.
@maxpeck, good point. I’ve updated the guide accordingly. Thanks.
Another security blunder from massive PC vendor Lenovo. http://www.pcgamer.com/lenovo-patches-security-flaw-in-software-with-12345678-as-a-password/
@davidmontgomery I have slowly been working my way through your list — actually, quite a bit faster this week since my gmail email (I know, I know) stopped delivering emails on Monday. The good news is I have done all the add-ons to Firefox, opened a ProtonMail email account, and have the 1Password set up. I have even set up some passphrases. The bad news is that I can’t logon to Liberty.me on Firefox, so I still get on through Chrome — that seems to defeat the purpose. I have the same issue with my MarketWatch account. Anyway, I’ll keep plugging away . . .
Leanne, I can try to help you debug. Please open Firefox, disable all the add-ons you installed, and then try logging on to L.me and Marketwatch. Does that work?
@davidmontgomery No, still doesn’t work, for either one (yes, I turned everything off, waited, and then rebooted after I disabled). If you would rather do this offline, that’s fine. Thx so much.
Check out Obfuscation, a new anti-surveillance how-to book from MIT Press: http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/nyu-stories/finn-brunton-and-helen-nissenbaum-on-obfuscation.html
Are there any options for secure cloud storage that also have simple spreadsheet support? That’s the one thing I’m still stuck using Google drive for, since I want to be able to quickly access and edit a couple spreadsheets from multiple devices (Android and PC).
@maxpack Max, I’m not aware of any encrypted cloud spreadsheet solutions. I hope an enterprising coder comes to the rescue soon!
Great news. Keybase.io is introducing encrypted filesharing. Yet another market solution for ditching Dropbox!
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/05/keybase-introduces-end-to-end-encrypted-file-sharing-service/
Sophisticated malware records your Skype calls and skirts antivirus detection: http://news.softpedia.com/news/t9000-backdoor-malware-targets-skype-users-records-conversations-500018.shtml
Can the government secretly video surveil your home for months without a warrant? Yes, it’s “legal.” http://gizmodo.com/yes-cops-can-spy-on-your-front-door-for-10-weeks-witho-1757900522
Shock: Government rules that when government hacks phones and computers, it’s not illegal. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35558349
Bitcoin brain wallet security vulnerabilities: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/password-cracking-attacks-on-bitcoin-wallets-net-103000/
Tell your parents and others who might get suckered….just clicking a link in a text from somebody you don’t know can spell smart phone disaster.
http://gizmodo.com/beware-this-android-malware-that-erases-your-phone-with-1759390044
This article is right — the Apple vs FBI conflict is security theater. The backdoor the FBI wants will let them ‘brute force’ the phone by testing trillions of passwords. Using a robust passphrase can withstand brute force attacks. Don’t trust any company to keep you secure.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/20/decentralized-or-panopticon-pick-one/
Ransomware is rising: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/hospitals-schools-churches-are-targeted-in-string-of-ransomware-attacks/
Great piece of single points of failure: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/most-software-already-has-a-golden-key-backdoor-its-called-auto-update/
Updated Windows 10 guidance in Step 1 of the guide with how to turn off most of its tracking and surveillance in less than a minute.
Updated Essential Security Practices section with a recommendation on how to prevent social engineering attacks.
5 things to know about ransomware: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3041001/security/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-ransomware.html
Snowden calls B.S. on the FBI-Apple security theater charade: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/09/edward-snowden-fbi-san-bernardino-iphone-bullshit-nsa-apple
Encryption only needs to sort of work…no need to be an “absolutist”!
The regime’s security theater is as ridiculous as it is annoying. http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/11/president-obama-sxsw-privacy-encryption-debate/
Co-founder of Skype releases encrypted app for making video and audio calls: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/wire-app-complete-end-to-end-encryption,31389.html
Now THIS is what I’ve been waiting for….in the process of testing….will let you know how it works! I want to dump skype bad.
Firefox Configuration Guide for Privacy Freaks and Performance Buffs
http://12bytes.org/articles/tech/firefoxgecko-configuration-guide-for-privacy-and-performance-buffs
Just to echo and add to Joe K’s comments about switching over to linux… It’s a great idea to get away from proprietary operating systems that are loaded down with malware and backdoors right out of the box. I suggest an incremental approach to making a switch. Download and install Virtualbox and then download the current version of Linux Mint. I suggest Linux Mint because it simply works, you don’t need to do anything with the command line to make it run smoothly. Install Linux Mint into Virtualbox and then you have a virtual Linux desktop operating system to play around with. This is how I learned to appreciate Linux as a really great operating system. I made the switch a few years ago and haven’t looked back!
Great tips, thanks Marc. I agree that Linux is a wonderful path for those willing to give it a shot. The only downside is the app availability is not as good. Gamers are (mostly) out of luck, for example, as are people who run certain high-end production software packages.
But for the millions of people who just use a computer for browsing and social media, word processing/spreadsheets, or having fun with basic media editing/playback, Linux is a fantastic choice. I hope more people make the switch! @muku31415
I started dabbling in Linux back in the mid-90s. It became my primary OS back in ~2000.
My preferred desktop distro is currently Xubuntu Core (no BLOAT)
http://xubuntu.org/news/introducing-xubuntu-core/
https://unit193.net/xubuntu/core/
I love Linux. Linux is free. Most Linux software is free. Linux is more privacy-focused and security-focused than most other popular OSes. Linux is extremely versatile – some distros are portable http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ – some distros run entirely in RAM (screaming fast) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions_that_run_from_RAM – minimalist distros run well on old hardware http://www.linux.org/threads/which-distro-is-right-for-me-for-old-computers.8129/, etc.
ssokolow does an excellent job summing up some of the benefits of Linux:
“1. Users can rely on a trusted source for software that actually has enough selection to meet their needs within their budget:
1a. As mentioned, 99% of what anyone could want is in the package manager, where packages are digitally signed by people whose reputation and possibly their future livelihood are dependent on not letting malware through.
1b. 99% of software in the package repositories is built by the distros from publicly-available source, which makes it very difficult and very risky to try to sneak spyware in.
1c. Well-designed packages rely on the package manager itself to do everything that requires elevated privileges and some package managers (not Ubuntu’s sadly) even sandbox any installation scripting in the package and then only copy its contents into place after verifying that they’re not overwriting existing files.
1d. Pirated copies of Linux games are not common enough to be worth searching for, while Steam, GOG.com, Humble Bundle Inc., and other trustworthy stores offer growing libraries of malware-free Linux games.
1e. Because 99% of things are provided by the package manager, 99% of things get prompt security updates via a clean, streamlined, unified interface. (ie. No “Again? Y’know what, Java? Just shut up. I don’t care anymore.”)
2. Social engineering is more difficult:
2a. Linux has been multi-user from the start, and normal desktop applications don’t expect administrator privileges.
2b. Modern Linux versions take this further with UIs that allow routine tasks like applying updates to remember their granted permissions so, when the system asks for a password, it really IS a scary, exceptional thing to be considered carefully.
2c. Executable files can’t display custom embedded icons and file extensions aren’t hidden, so things like “CatPicture.jpg.exe” simply aren’t possible
2d. Some file managers, such as the Nautilus file manager used by Ubuntu, will refuse to allow double-click if the file’s extension doesn’t match its contents. (Instead, they display a dialog asking you to right-click and explicitly pick the action you want from the “open with” menu)
2e. Files are not executable by default. You must explicitly mark them as such using the properties dialog.
2f. The media players ignore “Go here for the codec/DRM-key/etc.” metadata in things like ASF files and, instead, rely on a built-in list of trustworthy sources.
2g. There are no cross-desktop APIs for things like setting a file association… only for registering yourself as a handler and hoping the user chooses you. Users are encouraged to get comfortable with the idea that everything happens for a reason that can be determined without knowledge of how to use a debugger.
3. Linux is a tougher target for attackers:
3a. Linux vendors have a history of patching security vulnerabilities more quickly. (Microsoft FUDs this by using deceptive stats, such as combining security bugs and non-security bugs in counts and drawing attention away from things like microsoft taking a much more widely variable amount of time to fix things.)
3b. Unlike Windows or MacOS, most of the “core applications” on a Linux desktop have multiple alternatives, which means that there are few “guaranteed to be there” applications that an exploit can rely on… sort of like how potato blight devastated Ireland because they were all growing the same strain of potato so, when the fungus found a weakness, it was open season.
3c. Because 99% of applications on a typical Linux desktop are open-source, it’s easy to roll out things like NX-bit support (Hardware DEP) across large portions of the system simply by teaching the compiler to recognize situations where they can’t hurt anything and then recompiling all the apps. (eg. On Linux, gcc will automatically opt into NX-bit support if you’re not using any language features which intentionally generate code at runtime. It also supports adding stack-smashing guards at compile time)
3d. The closest Linux gets to technologies like ActiveX is the apt: URL handler so the browser can trigger a “Do you want to install…?” dialog for something already in your trusted list of repositories.
3e. Linux supports user-mode drivers to a much greater extent than Windows. It’s possible to write drivers for USB devices, filesystems, and various other things without needing to hook into the kernel. (And the udev rules are set to permission the device nodes so that the user-mode drivers can run with minimal privilege… often each as its own user for further privilege isolation.)
3f. With only a handful of exceptions (typically for legal reasons), all drivers are bundled with Linux, so you don’t need to Google for them and possibly land on an untrustworthy site.
3g. Linux developers continue to work to take advantage of their obscurity and openness to get a head start on fixing design flaws and security oversights made by more popular OSes. (Since the obscurity tends to delay their appearance on Linux after showing up on Windows and the openness makes it feasible to migrate legacy APIs to “disabled by default” status relatively quickly.)
For example, I recently learned of a tool named Firejail which makes it easy to retrofit arbitrary apps and games on your desktop with partial sandboxes using technologies originally added to the Linux kernel for sandboxing cloud services… it also comes with ready-made definitions for apps like Firefox and Steam. ( https://lwn.net/Articles/671534/)
Here’s the Firefox config for it so you can see what I mean:
https://github.com/netblue30/firejail/blob/master/etc/firefox.profile
(It locks down which folders Firefox can see and what kinds of network connections it’s allowed to make)”
HTH
Even the former White House “cybersecurity czar” admits the FBI-Apple fight is security theater. Ignore the drama; just encrypt. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/former-cyber-czar-says-nsa-could-crack-the-san-bernadino-shooters-phone/
Excellent news! Encrypted Swiss-based encrypted webmail provider Protonmail is now available on mobile:
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/protonmail-encrypted-email/id979659905
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.protonmail.android
@davidmontgomery Awesome! I’ve been waiting!
Don’t wait till you’re hijacked to start using encryption. New ransomware locks you out of your computer, and the hijackers instruct you to use encryption tech to pay them off. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3046626/security/petya-ransomware-overwrites-mbrs-locking-users-out-of-their-computers.html
Anybody who still uses Flash at this point is just sticking their chin out into cyberspace and asking for an uppercut. The guide has uninstall instructions. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3052239/adobe-to-issue-emergency-patch-for-flash-vulnerability.html
The most popular add-ons for Firefox cause security vulnerabilities. Dump these: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/firefox-extension-security-breach
The Apple v FBI security theater was just a gambit: http://gizmodo.com/congress-new-encryption-bill-is-a-total-nightmare-1769881238
Encrypt your web site quickly and for free: http://boingboing.net/2016/04/14/lets-encrypt-is-actually-enc.html
Closed source encryption is unreliable. Turns out Blackberry’s much heralded security has been cracked for years: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/blackberry-encryption-key-canadian-police/
Do you use Quicktime player on Windows? If so, best to uninstall it and replace it with the free and open source VLC Player. http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/04/apple-stops-patching-quicktime-for-windows-despite-2-active-vulnerabilities/
The CIA is funding tech companies to mine your social media data. https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-investments-social-media-mining-looms-large/
New malware ripping off millions from people’s bank accounts: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/goznym-malware/
I had a few requests to make the guide sections easier to access, so I’ve added “Quick Links” to make it easier to hop around: https://bananas.liberty.me/youre-a-criminal-in-a-mass-surveillance-world-how-to-not-get-caught/#quicklinks
Reminder about just how insecure phones are. If you want your calls to be private, use Signal or Red Phone: http://www.phonearena.com/news/This-60-Minutes-report-should-scare-all-smartphone-users_id80321
Security group uncovers backdoor installed on 12 million PCs: http://www.securityweek.com/cisco-finds-backdoor-installed-12-million-pcs
Oxford Study Shows Mass Surveillance Breeds Meekness, Fear and Self-Censorship: https://theintercept.com/2016/04/28/new-study-shows-mass-surveillance-breeds-meekness-fear-and-self-censorship/
Open source encrypted email provider Tutanota has partnered with a UK company to crowdfund a fully encrypted, Google-free, Android-based smart phone called the UnaPhone Zenith. https://igg.me/at/unaphone
The Secret Annex of the Anne Frank House to be recreated in virtual reality: http://www.roadtovr.com/producer-of-acclaimed-first-sets-sights-on-anne-frank-vr-experience/
“We don’t do encryption to hide things; we do encryption so we can choose what to share.” Ubuntu founder pledges no backdoors in Linux. https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/05/03/1351203/ubuntu-founder-pledges-no-back-doors-in-linux
Snowden: “Governments can reduce our dignity to something like that of tagged animals.” http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/03/edward-snowden-assassination-complex-governments-tagged-animals-drone-warfare-whistleblower
Millions of Android phones open to attack: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/05/5-year-old-android-vulnerability-exposes-texts-and-call-histories/
Google mistakenly leaks its own employees’ private info: https://thestack.com/security/2016/05/09/email-mishap-leaks-google-staff-data/
Yet another reason to uninstall Adobe Flash: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3069200/hackers-exploit-unpatched-flash-player-vulnerability-adobe-warns.html
Important to remember that agencies of the regime other than the NSA are stalking you: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/history-fbis-hacking/
167 million hacked LinkedIn user records up for sale: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3072143/security/a-hacker-is-selling-167-million-linkedin-user-records.html
This is rich…the regime has released “privacy best practices” for drones: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3072466/tech-events-dupe/us-agency-releases-privacy-best-practices-for-drone-use.html
Facebook surveils your phone calls: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/05/25/1457246/facebook-could-be-eavesdropping-on-your-phone-calls
Good news, Tor to become more secure: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/05/25/2347238/tor-to-use-distributed-rng-to-generate-truly-random-numbers
My “Privacy for Anyone Anywhere” (https://fidelius.liberty.me/privacy-for-anyone-anywhere/) contains a link to this great and very useful article.
Thank you, Fidelius! My new book also has a surveillance chapter.
Report a security vulnerability, get raided by the FBI: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/05/armed-fbi-agents-raid-home-of-researcher-who-found-unsecured-patent-data/
Use a VPN from http://www.privacytools.io if you don’t feel like having your email and web history forked over in secret to regime agencies: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/26/secret-text-in-senate-bill-would-give-fbi-warrantless-access-to-email-records/
PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer ship with critical vulnerabilities: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/how-pc-makers-make-you-vulnerable-to-man-in-the-middle-attacks-out-of-the-box/
Denial-of-service attack reach record levels: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3079990/massive-ddos-attacks-reach-record-levels-as-botnets-make-them-cheaper-to-launch.html
Another critical security flaw found in Lenovo PCs: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/229788-shades-of-superfish-lenovo-begs-users-to-uninstall-its-own-crapware-due-to-massive-security-flaws
There is no limit on what the regime seeks to “monitor”: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/11/11910050/the-nsa-wants-to-monitor-pacemakers-and-other-medical-devices
The regime’s stalking capabilities further revealed: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/fbi-can-search-400-million-face-recognition-photos
Regime court rules that FBI can hack into computers without a warrant: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3088354/us-court-rules-that-fbi-can-hack-into-a-computer-without-a-warrant.html
Norton and Symantec products breached: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/25-symantec-products-open-to-wormable-attack-by-unopened-e-mail-or-links/
Mac malware posing as Dropbox file:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3092227/security/new-tor-powered-backdoor-program-targets-macs.html
Leaked info on the regime’s face and iris scanning. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/leaked-document-reveals-upcoming-biometric-experiments-at-us-customs
Check out Snowden’s new anti-surveillance smart phone case: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/edward-snowden-designed-accessory-would-warn-if-your-iphone-has-been-hacked/
Make sure your phone is encrypted with a real passphrase and power it down when you’re in customs/immigration lines. https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/07/23/220233/homeland-security-border-agents-can-seize-your-phone
Even monitors are vulnerable: http://slashdot.org/story/314663
Major Android vulnerability: http://www.cnet.com/news/quadrooter-security-flaws-said-to-affect-over-900-million-android-devices/
Footage from the secret spy planes that circle over US cities:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/08/07/2211248/fbi-forced-to-release-18-hours-of-spy-plane-footage
Hyper-advanced government developed malware went undetected for years:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/researchers-crack-open-unusually-advanced-malware-that-hid-for-5-years/
Microsoft’s back door slams its customers: http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/microsoft-secure-boot-firmware-snafu-leaks-golden-key/
Regimes buy malware to hack people’s iPhones:
https://apple.slashdot.org/story/16/08/25/1813236/malware-sold-to-governments-helped-them-spy-on-iphones
Massive Dropbox hack:
https://it.slashdot.org/story/16/08/31/1529229/hackers-stole-account-details-for-over-60-million-dropbox-users
Monumental Yahoo hack compromises half a billion accounts:
https://www.cnet.com/news/yahoo-500-million-accounts-hacked-data-breach/
Game publisher Capcom caught installing backdoor on its customers’ computers:
https://it.slashdot.org/story/16/09/25/004250/street-fighter-v-update-installed-hidden-rootkits-on-pcs
Yahoo caught secretly scanning of all its users’ email for the NSA:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-exclusive-idUSKCN1241YT
No surprise here: The regime uses Twitter and Facebook surveillance tools to target protestors.
https://medium.com/@ACLU_NorCal/police-use-of-social-media-surveillance-software-is-escalating-and-activists-are-in-the-digital-d29d8f89c48#.fowkro6dy
About half the Web shut down from denial of service attacks:
http://gizmodo.com/this-is-probably-why-half-the-internet-shut-down-today-1788062835
Trump’s pick for CIA director called for Snowden to be executed: http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/18/watch-trumps-reported-pick-to-run-the-ci
iPhone users, if you don’t want months of your call logs stored, disable iCloud: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/17/iphones-secretly-send-call-history-to-apple-security-firm-says/
Today Wikileaks unmasked the CIA’s gigantic mass surveillance program. Turns out thousands of taxpayer-funded hackers have written malware for the CIA to attack people’s iPhones, Android phones, Windows, and even the navigation systems of cars.
https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/03/07/wikileaks-cia-vault-7-leak/
The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. The quality or state of being free, The power to do as one pleases, Freedom from physical restraint. Great Post.
http://www.savebee.in/10-best-smartphones-under-10000-in-india/
Truly I’m all for security and privacy. And I think everyone can agree that one’s right to security and privacy ends where the next guy’s safety and privacy begins. (Think Tsarnaev, bin Laden, or Farook&Malik.) But how do we stop such deranged flunatics (sic) from inflicting their violence on innocents? Especially if they follow the kind of advice laid very scrupulously laid out here? Do we simply accept it as the cost of maintaining everyone’s privacy? Even the living, breathing privacy violation that is the US federal government can only be aided in _solving_ crimes with this information, not in _preventing_ them (except so far as the knowledge that such crimes will be solved serves as a deterrent.) Surely we can’t ignore the potential for abuse that such a wealth of information creates, but it seems we compromise it at our peril, too. I don’t pretend to have an answer that we can use at this level of technology, but there are two sides to this bitcoin.
Thanks, David, for another blockbuster contribution to your fellow man’s and woman’s liberty.
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Thank yu David very very helpful and timely!