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May 23, 2006
Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way
That bit o’ wisdom cuts both ways eh? As digital age pioneer Scott McNealy noted once about using the Internet: "You have zero privacy anyway, [so] get over it" True that.
Slashdot.org has a posting today about some company in Switzerland that has built a mobile phone that features 128 bit-key encryption technology. Cool eh? Yeah, I guess so, but in the end that prolly won't work either. Even a non-technical goof like myself can see a few ways to beat this. Brute force for one and which is also Leviathan's specialty. If we can't listen the POB be will figger, then neither can you! And so they'll jam the signal. All you'll hear is static. Or the POB could announce that this item is "dangerous technology" and restrict it (like they did with PGP data encryption for a while) or just ban it outright like they have in England and Australia. And they can always prevail by simply putting a fookin' gun to your head. It's hard to defeat that with encryption technology, eh?
And then there's stealth. The POB could easily put a listening device in the phone or on your person or in close proximity to where you are calling from. I noticed when I had a corporate job that this one lady I knew always went out to smoke and sat at particular booth at the restaurant next door. And while puffing on her Marlboro Light she usually brought along her cellphone. How hard would it be to put a listening device in that booth? And then despite the encryption, signal scrambling and whatever I could hear whatever she said or did. Even text messages.
Today snooping technology is so extensive and pervasive that the only possibility for privacy at all is to fly under the radar. I say this because in the end, if Leviathan's minions get desperate enough or pissed enough then they'll just tie you to chair and run some current through the electrodes they’ve attached to your balls until you tell 'em what they wanna know.
Posted by Ali Massoud at May 23, 2006 09:28 AM
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