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Sumus

How to Take Back the Internet

This was the year we lost the Internet. Previous bills like SOPA that the public stood up against just took different names and one finally got passed, it is called CISA. ICANN can still censor Internet domains at will. The “Great Firewall of China” got even better this year, and even started to censor people outside of China with DDoS attacks. The NSA is still collecting people data, even if they stopped publicly collecting phone calls. The “Five Eyes” countries are working together even more, and they are most likely close to becoming global adversaries. Brazil even blocked WhatsApp because it used encryption.

Some good happened as well though. Encryption software become more popular, and even became user friendly. Now everyone, for free, can encrypt their messages with an app called Signal. The Tor network grew, as well as other alternatives. So well these successes are great, we still have representatives in the US government that want to ban encryption, the FBI still calls for tech companies to weaken their security. When your privacy is protected it is not shown as a win, but when a terrorist also happened to use encryption software, it is shown as a loss, and it is shoved in your face as an excuse for the government to spy on you. If anything we have surpassed the amount of spying that was in George Orwell’s 1984, a dystopian novel. Even though people have made a logical and commons sense argument for encryption, it seems that our representatives still just don’t get it. Even a big tech company like Apple understands the importance of privacy.

This is the time when we stop the compromise. We have made our argument, we tried to educate the represenatives. Someone that was running for president hadn’t even sent an email. People that are making decisions for the US don’t even understand basic technology that nearly everyone uses. Everyone wants to protect their privacy, whether they realize it or not, just because they can’t see someone recording them, doesn’t mean it isn’t as real. We have tried to compromise, we keep telling ourselves that things will get better, someone out there will make a change. This is the time where we need to do it ourselves, don’t wait for privacy, create it.

So what do we do? Sure, the technology might no be all the way there yet, but if we put the same amount of effort into developing some of this technology as we did taking filter smothered pictures of ourselves I don’t think it would take that long. Not everyone needs to be a developer, but people should start to use encryption and privacy services. Anyways, here are some things we can do take back OUR Internet

  • Take back DNS. Tor Hidden Services besides providing anonymity to the user, they use a DNS (Phonebook for the Internet) separate from the US controlled ICANN. A DNS like the .bit Namecoin DNS moves us away from DNS based censorship.
  • An easy way to escape the common spying and Internet censorship is to use “Nets withing the Net”. I think we need to move towards strictly ISP based systems and move to some more mesh networks made out of personal routers in a community, this makes censorship A LOT more difficult, as well as making it harder to spy on. Using Tor and I2P will make traffic harder to correlate throughout the globe.
  • Encryption. If a government cannot see what is actually happening, then it is harder to figure out what to block. There should be no more plaintext, you shouldn’t have to trust tech companies that can be legally gagged by the US government, they should just use encryption. Along with protecting you from hackers, this protects you from the other adversary, the government.
  • Stenography. Hiding encryption, or even hiding encrypted traffic in more encrypted traffic. The more we get violated, the harder we need to push underground.

Now well we CAN take this to a new level, we CAN take our net back, it is going to take a lot more then some crypto. We need to push for legislation, we need to stop taking these compromises, and only accept true freedom, no less. Informing the people is what really matters though, if everyone values their privacy, and understands it, then the market will create a need for privacy services. So at least, if anything, think about your privacy, and educate others.