Mediaboss Marketing

James Martin/CNET

Fast cars, Champagne and virtual private networks -- some goods are best imported. It's not about snobbery; it's about getting the best value for your dime, especially in the case of VPNs. Sure, there are plenty of homegrown US-based VPNs that offer inexpensive subscriptions with which you can game and stream media to your heart's content. But for those of us seeking out top-notch privacy protection, I've become as sure about importing VPNs as I am about the Champagne.

One of my fundamental criteria for ranking a VPN provider is the jurisdiction of its parent and affiliate companies. When evaluating its overall capacity to protect user privacy -- before I even check into its technical specifications for encryption -- I start by looking at whether a VPN service is headquartered outside of the US and the reach of its intelligence-sharing partner countries, like those comprising the Five, Nine or 14 Eyes compacts.

Subscribe to the Mobile newsletter, receive notifications and see related stories on CNET.

If I find that a VPN is headquartered in the US or any of those member nations, even if its technology is on par with its non-US peers, I cannot in good conscience say it offers its users globally competitive privacy. Why? Because, as far as its government's relationship to technology is concerned, the US is a privacy-averse country, and your data may not be protected from federal eyes.

Following the revelations laid bare by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowdenin 2013, which detailed the existence of sweeping mass domestic surveillance -- and the continued renewal of the authorizing Patriot and US Freedom acts -- it's simply no longer reasonable to expect competitive privacy standards from any VPN headquartered in the States while also expecting its compliance with the law of the land. (Yes, a federal judge just declared the bulk data collection unlawful -- but that's closing the barn door after the cows have escaped.)

Read more:Best VPN services of 2020

When functioning under normal circumstances, VPNs operate by creating an encrypted tunnel through which communications can be safely transported from sender to destination. The debate is ongoing over whether government computing power is capable of -- or has already successfully accomplished -- decrypting the internet standard AES-256 (which is the common, minimum type of encryption you'd expect from a VPN). But the question isn't whether the NSA can decrypt your messages. It's whether you trust your VPN to go up against the US government should it request your VPN log your activity, and whether you trust your VPN to tell you about such a request when it's forbidden to do so.

Based on what fraction of US government interference the world has seen in the VPN realm, I don't have that trust. I personally do not trust any current US VPN company to go to bat for me in those kinds of circumstances, nor to hold up against the potential legal pressure that may be brought to bear should a company try to resist. This opinion is neither brave nor unusual.

In 2018, US-based VPN IPVanish cooperated secretly with the FBI, logging user data for the agency during a criminal investigation. Riseup, another US-based VPN, was prevented from updating its warrant canary in 2017 when the FBI handed the company a couple of subpoenas and silenced it with a gag order. PureVPN, based in Hong Kong with US servers, wasn't outside of the reach of the FBI when it handed over user data in 2017. HideMyAss -- a VPN company located in the UK, a Five Eyes member nation -- likewise handed over information to the UK feds in 2011.

Read more: Why you should be skeptical about a VPN's no-logs claims

It's fair to point out that some of these logging instances occurred in the context of companies helping law enforcement track down suspects who were ultimately found to be hiding behind a VPN to stalk, harass or abuse someone.

To be clear, it is entirely possible to be grateful for the arrest of guilty-as-sin criminals while ardently advocating for consumer privacy interests. My beef isn't with any VPN company helping cops catch a child abuser via usage logs; it's with any VPN company that lies to its customers about doing so. VPN policies have global consequences for users. The lie that helps law enforcement in the US catch a legitimate criminal is the same lie that helps law enforcement in China arrest a person watching footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Now playing: Watch this: Top 5 reasons to use a VPN

2:42

My beef is also with any government or entity that aims to outlaw digital window curtains because those curtains make it harder for cops to see potential criminals in your metaphorical living room. Or any entity, elected or otherwise, that aims to give cops a spare key to your house under the pretext of safety.

My skepticism of US VPNs isn't solely because the US government can force a VPN provider to secretly monitor a user. It's that legislation and policy priorities for a growing segment of elected officials are lurching hard toward FBI Director Christopher Wray's call for tech companies to weaken encryption.

Here's the elevator pitch from Wray this year: The government needs a special backdoor into encrypted communications so it can catch child predators and drug traffickers. The problem: There's no such thing as a backdoor into encryption without destroying encryption itself. It would be like putting a screen door on a submarine.

US Attorney General William Barr, so far publicly in lock-step with Wray on the issue, also wants law enforcement to have a backdoor into encrypted communications. His cause has likewise been championed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Graham is also the sponsor of the controversial EARN-IT Act. The legislation was initially pitched as a way to hold digital platforms like Facebook accountable for child predator activity, but during its winding passage through the committee system it became a bill that would grant the Attorney General sweeping authority over tech companies like Google, Facebook and Apple. Social media platforms that failed to comply with the directives of a national council headed by the Attorney General would face millions of dollars in civil penalties. In late July, the EARN-It Act cleared its last Senate committee hurdle and has since been sitting on the chamber's calendar, awaiting a hearing by the full Senate.

Beyond the obvious threats to Fourth Amendment search and seizure protections and First Amendment free speech, one of the problems with the bill is that we've already seen what happens when a weakened security standard is created so law enforcement agencies have special privileges. In 2009, Chinese political operatives got their hands on sensitive US intelligence after a Google backdoor breach. If one person can come through the backdoor, so can others. And US tech companies' weakened secured systems would then be vulnerable to a host of actors all over the world.

The problems aren't just limited to potential constitutional violations and human error. The creation of the backdoor would likely create a cascading chain of other security flaws as engineers attempt to comply with the feds. Here's the academic take from a host of reliable authors, including security legend Bruce Schneier, who is currently a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University:

"Exceptional access would force internet system developers to reverse forward secrecy design practices that seek to minimize the impact on user privacy when systems are breached," the authors write. "The complexity of today's internet environment, with millions of apps and globally connected services, means that new law enforcement requirements are likely to introduce unanticipated, hard to detect security flaws."

The message is clear: The current legal environment suggests that the US government is moving toward an end to encryption, and is therefore not required to protect your privacy -- at least for the foreseeable future. That means until we see the expansion and development of more decentralized and uncensorable bandwidth markets (a la what the folks at Orchid are working on) even the most promising VPN with the most watertight technology is not one I want to subscribe to if it or its parent and affiliate companies are headquartered in the US.

In my VPN tests for CNET, there are two that stand ahead of the pack: ExpressVPN, one of the fastest and most secure on the market, and SurfShark, a speedy up-and-comer with unlimited device support. Both are based in the British Virgin Islands, which is generally considered a privacy-friendly country due to its lack of surveillance-sharing agreements with others.

A final note: Just because a VPN has a jurisdiction outside of the US (and its multinational intelligence rings), it doesn't mean it is exempt from Uncle Sam's prying eyes, and it is often impossible to fully track the actual ownership of a VPN company through layers of shell companies and business filings. Beyond that difficulty, it's also pretty widely accepted that if someone really wants to find your data, they will -- whether that's some random hacker who hates your guts enough to doxx you, or a government agency looking to get your data from an overseas organization.

We'll never win the war for anonymity on the internet, but every battle for privacy is one worth fighting if it makes mass surveillance even just a little bit harder to accomplish.

Read this article:
I don't trust VPNs based in the United States. Here's why you shouldn't either - CNET

For those who supported President Trump in his reelection bid, they may wish to remember the example of a former Republican President, Richard Nixon.

In 1960 as the Republican nominee and the sitting vice president, he appeared to have narrowly lost a presidential election to John F. Kennedy. The margin was less than 1% in the popular vote and the two were separated by 120,000 votes. Unlike now, there was significant evidence in Illinois and Texas that Mr. Nixon had carried those two states, but counted out, with a very small margin for Mr. Kennedy and with that result he was the loser of the 1960 election.

Richard Nixon chose not to contest the election legally as he feared it would make the country bitterly divided in a time of peril. He graciously congratulated President-elect Kennedy at 2:30 a.m. after Election Day and met with him, personally, in Florida within 10 days to congratulate him again.

The year 1960 is also the only election where there was a recount which changed the electoral vote in a single state: Hawaii. Richard Nixon was certified as the winner of Hawaiis three electoral votes by a margin of about 141 votes. After the certificate was issued, the Democrats obtained a recount of the Hawaii votes and in the recount Senator Kennedy prevailed by under 200 votes. A new certificate of election for Hawaiis votes was issued to President-elect Kennedy.

When the electoral votes arrived in Washington, D.C., Hawaii had one certificate for Nixon and another for Kennedy. As the outgoing vice president, Richard Nixon was responsible for the joint session of Congress opening and counting the electoral votes. When Hawaiis certificates were presented, Vice President Nixon ruled that his opponent John F. Kennedy, not he, had carried Hawaii. His decision was accepted by the Congress.

Other than this single example, where the two men were separated by less than 200 votes, were the electoral votes changed. In 1964 as Mr. Nixons personal research assistant in New York, I have direct knowledge of these events.

It may be also remembered from White House recordings while president, Mr. Nixon learned the identity of the so-called Deep Throat informant for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. The president was told by H.R. Haldeman that Deep Throat was Mark Felt, associate director of the FBI. Mr. Nixon ordered no retaliation directly or indirectly against Mr. Felt.

Years later when Mr. Felt was indicted by a grand jury and stood trial on alleged Fourth Amendment criminal violation against the Socialist Workers Party, Richard Nixon appeared as a defense witness for W. Mark Felt. When he had finished testifying, he shook Mr. Felts hand as he left the courtroom. After Mr. Felts conviction, he was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Nixon sent him a bottle of his favorite, and expensive, champagne.

Richard Nixon had many flaws, all of us do. But he opened the door to China, ended the war in Vietnam for Americans, achieved detente with the Soviet Union and saved Israel during the Yom Kippur War, and he knew when it was time to go.

Jones, an Enid-based attorney, served as the lead defense attorney for Timothy McVeigh. Jones previously worked as Richard Nixons personal research assistant and assisted him with speeches and drafting articles and public statements prior to the Republican National Convention in 1964.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

View post:
GUEST COLUMN: Nixon knew when it was time to go - Enid News & Eagle

Jamilia Land

By Dylan Ferguson

CALIFORNIA Jamilia Landa member of the Abolish Slavery National Network (ASNN) in California and the founder of A.S.A.P, an organization centered on the mental health and well-being of children impacted by police and community murder, gun violence, and incarcerationhosted a webinar about abolishing slavery, mass incarceration, and involuntary servitude Monday.

Abolish Slavery National Network is a national coalition that is fighting to abolish constitutional slavery and involuntary servitude in all forms for all people, and believes that all people are protected by their state and federal constitutions.

The panel featured Max Parthas, a host on Abolition Today and a member of ASNN, Dennis Febo, the CEO of Guazabara Insights and an ASNN member in New Jersey, and Samuel Brown, the founder of the 10p program and a member of ASNN in California.

The conversation mainly emphasized the need to get rid of language in the constitutions that allows for slavery and involuntary servitude.

In 2020, the ASNN coalition members were able to successfully get rid of this language and abolish slavery language without any caveats in Utah and Nebraska. Max Parthas stated, Utah had as much as 80 percent of the people voting to end slavery and Nebraska had around 60 percent.

The ASNN also worked in Alabama to get the fourth amendment passed, which will allow government officials to take out any racist language. With the largest constitution in the world, Alabama has a lot of race-based or slavery-based language that needs to be taken out, ASNN said.

Parthas mentioned that the ASNN has plans to meet with Alabama government officials in two weeks in order to work on removing the exception clause of slavery from their constitution.

The ASNN does not just work on language in state constitutions, they also work to remove slavery language in general. Specifically, with changing the name of the state of Rhode Island from Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to just Rhode Island in June 2020.

Dennis Febo passionately discussed how our criminal justice system is driven by the incentive of profiting off of human bodies. He asked the audience to consider how much it costs from the moment a person is placed in handcuffs, to the moment justice is being served, to when that person is released.

Febo said that per human body, you can calculate how much it costs if you know on average how many people go through this in your state every year. He continued by saying that those incarcerated each represent a monetary amount per day, per year.

Febo then raised the question, asking what is the difference between now and pre-1865? He argued that there are still ledgers. Ledgers that were once used for cattle, property, and naming slaves. The criminal justice system does the same thing, prisoners not only represent a monetary value, but they are now insured with things, such as bonds.

The same exact structures that were in place then are in place today, Febo said.

So how do we move forward when our foundations are rooted in stripping humanity away from people? Febo suggested that we have to begin to hold people accountable. We have to acknowledge that justice cannot be justice, if everything is based on money, he said.

Samuel Brown spoke to this statement. As a man who has been incarcerated for the last two decades and attended this conversation via phone call from a facility, he has become intimate with involuntary servitude.

Brown is currently being paid 55 cents per hour to clean COVID-19 cells in the facility where he is imprisoned. Brown risks his health and safety and recalls that he was scared for his life the first time he cleaned a cell.

Over the last 24 years, Brown has become familiar with the prison system. He notes that it could be very beneficial to provide opportunities for people that have been incarcerated for an extended period of time. Things such as support services, vocational training programs, and getting compensated for the work prisoners do could equip them to survive in societynot set them up to return.

Brown knows that the pandemic has been difficult for everyone, but he suggested that the audience imagine what it would be like for prisoners to be released without things like support services, vocational training, or compensation, especially due to how COVID-19 has negatively impacted Americans throughout 2020.

An unfair disadvantage has always been placed on those incarcerated, but it has been emphasized by COVID-19. Brown believes that if prisoners were trained and paid, it could make them more employable.

Dylan Ferguson is a second-year at Westmont College, majoring in kinesiology with a minor in Spanish. She is from Las Vegas, Nevada.

To sign up for our new newsletter Everyday Injustice https://tinyurl.com/yyultcf9

Support our work to become a sustaining at $5 $10- $25 per month hit the link:

Read more here:
Webinar Focuses on Eliminating Slavery Language in Constitutions - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

A new piece over at OneZero examines the rising trend of local neighborhood associations installing private license plate readers to keep tabs on who comes and goes from their precious white suburbs;

ALPR technology, invented in 1976 by the U.K.'s Police Scientific Development Branch, has become a popular law enforcement tool over the past decade and is nowcommonly usedto track down alleged lawbreakers, to gather information about vehicles of interest, and to track down individuals who owe fines.

But now, ALPR companies are targeting the private realm as well. "Live in an HOA or neighborhood? Work in law enforcement?" reads the intro text on Flock's website. In either case, the call to action is the same: "Use license plate readers to capture evidence and stop crime." The company, which was founded in 2017, claims 700,000 neighbors in 400 cities and 35 states live in communities that rely on its technology.

At least seven homeowner associations (HOAs)in San Diego County, 100 neighborhoodsin Georgia, 10in the Denver area, and dozens throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee,Texas, and elsewhere have installed A.I.-infused ALPRs manufactured by Flock and a handful of other companies such as Vigilant Solutions and Obsidian Integration. Flock providesa calculatorthat recommends the number of cameras that neighborhoods should install: For 50 homes with two entrances, it recommends between two to four cameras; for 100 homes with five entrances, it recommends between five and 10. Each camera costs $2,000 per year. ALPR's expansion beyond law enforcement may be one reason investors have betmore than $35 millionin venture capital funding on Flock. The company closed its most recent and largest round of funding $15 million in March.

The article explores the dystopian impact of this utterly excessive surveillance profiteering on some of the neighborhoods that have willingly embraced it. Even if somehow a neighborhood association was able to install this license plate readers in a way that wasn't creepy and authoritarian say there was the rare instance of outsider crime that they genuinely hoped to catch the amount of data they would end up collecting would render the whole project moot. Suffice to say: no one in these communities is actually safer, or happier.

Since Fourth Amendment privacy rules do not apply to private citizens, HOA boards are not subject to any oversight. "Whatever motivates an individual gatekeeper racial biases, frustration with another neighbor, even disagreements among family members could all be used in conjunction with ALPR records to implicate someone in a crime or in any variety of other legal but uncomfortable situations," according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that defends civil liberties in the digital world.

Neighborhood Watch Has a New Tool: License-Plate Readers [Ella Fassler / One Zero / Medium]

How Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology works

Image: Public Domain

See the original post:
Neighborhood associations are installing license plate readers to privately police who drives on their streets - Boing Boing

One of the most consequential appointments that a new president must make is director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Unfortunately, this appointment is usually made late in the transition process, getting insufficient attention and typically ending up with a mediocre selection. Presidents have named liberals (Ted Sorenson and Tony Lake) who couldnt survive the confirmation process; former CIA analysts and operatives (Richard Helms, William Colby, Robert Gates, John Brennan, andthe current directorGina Haspel) who failed for various reasons; veterans from Capitol Hill (Rep. Porter Goss and George Tenet) who politicized intelligence; and an eclectic group (John Deutch, General David Petraeus, General Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and Jim Woolsey) who failed to provide leadership in the post-Cold War era.

President Bill Clintons selection of Woolsey, the poster child for failure, was typical. It was late in the transition period; Clinton had no likely candidate; and Woolsey was virtually unknown to the key advisors around the president-elect. But he did have one singular attribute. He was a hard-liner and nominally a Democrat, and Clintons advisers favored the idea of picking someone from the right-wing in order to appease the military-intelligence communities.

The meeting between Clinton and Woolsey in Little Rock, Arkansas, was classic. Woolsey wasnt quite sure why he was being called to the meeting, and college football was the main subject of discussion. There was virtually no substantive discussion. Clinton and Woolsey never established a working relationship; Woolsey, an introvert, worked behind closed doors and alienated the agencys leadership, and he thoroughly antagonized both Democrats and Republicans on the congressional intelligence committees.

The directors who were agency professionals were a particularly motley group. Haspel is best known for her leading role in the CIAs sadistic torture and abuse program; she never should have been considered. Brennan held an executive position during the planning and imposition of the program and never demurred. CIA director William Casey (former OSS) found Bob Gates to be the perfect sycophant, and the two of them enforced a program of politicized intelligence for President Ronald Reagan. James Schlesinger, Porter Goss, and George Tenet also excelled at the politicization of intelligence.

Meanwhile, there is the sterling example of Helms, who testified to Congress that it had to trust that honorable men were working inside Americas intelligence services. Several years later, he was fined $2,000 and given a two-year suspended sentence for perjuring himself before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. General Hayden stands out for his leadership role at the National Security Agency, where he broke the Fourth Amendment against illegal searches and seizures, and at the CIA, where he actively lobbied on the Hill to permit CIA interrogators to torture and abuse suspected terrorists in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The CIA has floundered at key moments because of the lack of a stable and senior leader at the top, and a culture of secrecy that has blurred the judgment of many CIA leaders who have allowed the tailoring of intelligence at key junctures. There probably is no perfect resume to suggest suitability for the role of CIA director, but the professional military, Capitol Hill, and perhaps the Agency itself may not be the best place to train a tough-minded leader who recognizes the central role of intelligence analysis and is suited to tell truth to power.

But I would suggest that President-elect Joe Biden look at the one department of government that has never produced a CIA directorthe Department of State. In the early 1950s, President Harry Truman wanted the director of the Department of States Policy Planning Division, George Kennan, to consider taking over the leadership of the CIA. Unfortunately, Kennan refused, denying the agency a leader who recognized the importance of intelligence gathering and analysis and would have been a rigorous enforcer of trenchant estimates and assessments. President Clinton was very close to naming Ambassador Thomas Pickering as CIA director, but Clinton decided that Pickering was a perfect choice as ambassador to Russia in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ive been beating the drums for Pickering over the years, but at the age of 89 he is no longer an obvious choice even in an age of aged leaders.

Fortunately, there is a Department of State veteran, William Burns, who would be a perfect choice, although he is reportedly being considered as a possible secretary of state to fill the tiny shoes of Mike Pompeo. Burns is currently the President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; he had a brilliant 33-year career as a Foreign Service Officer and retired as Deputy Secretary of State. Burns would understand the limits of the culture of secrecy and the pitfalls of covert action. More importantly, he would have the strategic sense few CIA directors have had for ensuring the central role of intelligence in identifying challenges and opportunities for decision makers.

My major concern is that the Biden team is looking at a tired list of possible choices as CIA director, which includes former acting director Michael Morell. Morell, like many CIA luminaries, such as John Brennan and John McLaughlin, has never accepted the CIAs role in brutalizing terror suspects and has criticized the Senate intelligence committees authoritative study of torture and abuse as deeply flawed. All of them have whitewashed the CIAs role. There will always be great tension between secrecy and democracy, and Biden will do great harm if he appoints a director who is more interested in keeping secrets from Americans than in keeping secrets to protect Americans.

See the original post:
Biden and the CIA - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch