[liberationtech] Quick Guide to Alternatives

[Julian Oliver]

..on Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 07:13:08PM +0200, Anne Roth wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Tactical Tech has been getting a lot of questions lately on what to do
> to avoid being spied on - like probably most everyone on this list.
> 
> We have compiled this 'Quick Guide to Alternatives', based on Security
> in-a-box and more.
> 
> https://alternatives.tacticaltech.org
> 
> 
> In addition we try to keep 'Me and My Shadow' up to date with
> information about how we leave digital shadows and what can be done to
> reduce them: https://myshadow.org/ - also a topic that seems to matter
> more these days, also to people who so far tended to be members of the
> 'nothing to hide' and 'but it's so convenient' clubs.

Great list.

It'd be also good to add GNU/Linux however. It's an open source (inspectable) OS
made with the public interest in mind, rather than the strategic ambitions of a
sole proprietor. 

Use of open source applications alone is an insufficient measure against
snooping today, IMO. The operating system is a tangible and known point of
vulnerability, from keyloggers to auto-updaters and the unnegotiable pushing of
metadata over proprietary channels, such as iTunes.

Both Apple and Microsoft have been shown to collaborate with the NSA. Microsoft
has been found to alert government clients as to security flaws in their
operating systems long before publicly releasing a fix. There's no reason Apple
doesn't do the same, as if its track record for timely patching wasn't poor
enough. 

An important sub-theme of this whole debacle is that it's simply unrealistic to
trust that a corporation will defend basic human rights, especially when coerced
by a government or their own craving for profit.

Cheers,

-- 
Julian Oliver
http://julianoliver.com
http://criticalengineering.org