A Little Brother's Manifesto

by Qrag (qragrqsha@cebgbaznvy.pu)

"What do you have to hide?" they ask, and the thoughts begin to roil.

Every coin has two sides, but it seems like Big Brother only cares about one: the side of criminality.  Because of this, Big Brother has created a campaign dedicated to surveillance, as revealed by their constant urge to "backdoor" every piece of crypto they can get their hands on.  We should've known about this long before Edward Snowden, but Snowden solidified it.  Privacy isn't respected.  It's barely considered a right by Big Brother.  The NSA continues to massively surveill citizens, the FBI continues to run Tor exit nodes, and the president of the United States publicly calls for the boycott of a tech company for refusing to give the FBI exclusive backdoor access.

And so from what morals does our government draw these lines?  At the lowest level, all cryptography requires is a mathematical function.  If we create laws around which prime numbers we can and cannot multiply, we destroy our freedoms not only as mathematicians, geeks, nerds, punks, hackers, and phreaks, but as humans, too.  As soon as we allow our government to make laws around which ones and zeroes we can flip, we allow our government to toy with the laws of nature itself.  But somehow, I doubt that in the grand scheme of things, our government really cares about our safety more than our privacy.  In fact, I think that the government cares more about our political motivation than it does about our privacy.  You're either a proud American or you're not, according to them, and if you dare use end-to-end encryption, you get to be on a special list of no-good evil trouble-making terrorists just like you.

When the people start to pick up on these cues, they don't sit silently and accept defeat.  They begin to work on newer, better, stronger, ways of privatizing the online presence.  And Big Brother follows, sprinkling a few eavesdropping exit nodes here and there, but always staying one step behind the people.  And so the people will keep stepping ahead of Big Brother, always writing, sharing, and provoking without hesitation.  This resistance is what fuels innovation.  And so to Big Brother, who so painstakingly looks after us through a campaign of mass surveillance, intrusion of privacy, and back-dooring of online services, I thank you.  I thank you for showing us what it means to resist manipulation, control, and mistruth.

And so, to my friends, family, and fellow human beings who feel they deserve these freedoms, there are a number of organizations and tools available to maintain them.  Firstly, the EFF (eff.org) has been fighting for civil liberties in the digital world for nearing 30 years.  It wouldn't be unwise to donate, sign-up for their newsletter, and maybe even volunteer.  Secondly, torproject.org is a great way to gain some anonymity on the Internet for free.  The Tor Browser Bundle makes it possible to browse the Internet anonymously using Tor, so long as you don't log in to accounts that could be used to identify you.  The Tor Browser is being updated and maintained constantly, and has recently been announced as a part of a public bounty program set up by The Tor Project; Hack away, get paid.

Lastly, I encourage those not familiar with cryptography at all to dive into strong encryption algorithms like RSA, AES, and Blowfish as well as learn how to use privacy software like PGP to encrypt files and emails.  Every small step away from surveillance is a large step towards privacy.

Sincerely,
Little Brother