[liberationtech] U.S. State Department anonymization laptops

[Florian Weimer]

> On 03/22/2015 04:47 AM, Florian Weimer wrote:
>> It's been reported that the U.S. State Department hands out laptops
>> with anonymization capability to dissidents in select regions.  (I can
>> dig out the exact reference, I thnk I've read it in Lettre
>> International.)

> Does reference give any more details about the anonymizing tech, or
> other software it includes?

No, unfortunately not, it's not the focus of the article.  If I
recall, it's only mentioned to illustrate the peripheral nature of
U.S. involvement.

I just wonder how much planning went into this.  If you do it in the
wrong way (especially if you supply everything, from the hardware to
the applications), you risk creating a pretty clear fingerprint for
which scalable detection isn't too hard to implement.  On the other
hand, maybe the actual goal is to infiltrate these dissident groups
early own, to be prepared should their allegiances shift later.  In
that case, the laptop supplier probably does not care that much about
immediate exposure, as long as some of the recipients go undetected by
the regime.