Bummer Dude

Well, I am bummed.

Seems as though I am one of the IP addresses going into an NSA database after all.

Or maybe not

Shit.

My invitation to this elite group came when I had the nerve to download the Tails privacy system and set up encryption (GNUpgp) on a Linux box that I used for noodling around.  I also downloaded TOR to check it out.

Now everyone is having a hissy fit because

• Two servers in Germany - in Berlin and Nuremberg - are under surveillance by the NSA.

First, the when you read the rules, the rules only apply to Non-NeoByzantine (1) countries.  But truth be told, when you read the script, there is no reason whatsoever why the Guvmint wouldn't run it everywhere.  I would actually be surprised if they didn't

Now, you may think that I would be angry.  Naw.  In a way, this is just a sad case of confirmation bias for a cranky old man.  I have written extensively about the foolishness of thinking that the internet can be a means of secure communication.  It cannot be made into such a thing.  Silk purse and sows ears come to mind here.

I have no intention of changing my ways.  I will continue to use Linux.  I will also continue to use Windows where appropriate (just to make a technical issue clear, LibreOffice Writer is still not up to MicroSoft Office Standards in the commercial realm).  I have so routinely installed PGP, Thunderbird, and Enigmail that I have a ridiculous number of keysets out there and no one I want to talk with a delusion of security anyway.

I will continue to use Linux for a lot of things.  I like playing with it.

As for Tails and Tor.  I think that I check these out because I am fascinated with the lengths that people go to to create the illusion of privacy in a technology which is structurally insecure.

The NSA and its friends will sift through any communication on the internet.  It is what they do.  If you are doing something that threatens the status quo and wish to announce it to your buddies via e-mail, facebook, or twitter , the intelligence agencies will watch you and they will mark you.  Plan on it.

But I am fairly certain that an cranky old man trying to document the collapse of an empire will not piss them off sufficiently to come after me.

Because, at the end of the day, I think that they know that the walls are tumbling down.  They are just trying to hold things together a little while longer.  They will fail, but they will try.

I can't really get all that angry about them trying.


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(1)  I think that I will just start referring to the Anglophone countries that make up the Five-Eyes Alliance as NeoByzantium.  I think that it has a ring to it and really does define the way our end of the world works.