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from the paranoia-makes-sense-if-everyone-is-out-to-get-you dept.
This is a little old but doesn't seem to have been discussed here. The Pew Research Center has released a report on privacy strategies adopted by Americans after the Snowden leaks started.
The analysis in this report is based on a Pew Research Center survey conducted between November 26, 2014 and January 3, 2015 among a sample of 475 adults, 18 years of age or older.
Concern about the surveillance programs is in the 30% range.
- 39% say they are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about government monitoring of their activity on search engines.
- 38% say they are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about government monitoring of their activity on their email messages.
- 37% express concern about government monitoring of their activity on their cell phone.
- 31% are concerned about government monitoring of their activity on social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter.
- 29% say they are concerned about government monitoring of their activity on their mobile apps.
A fraction of users have changed their behaviour.
- 18% of the Americans who are aware of the surveillance programs say they have changed the way they use their email accounts “somewhat” or a “great deal.”
- 17% say they have changed the way they use search engines.
- 15% say they have changed the way they use social media.
- 15% say they have changed the way they use their cell phones.
- 13% say they have changed the way they use mobile apps.
- 13% say they have changed the way they use text messages.
- 9% say they have changed the way they use their landline phone.
Spreading information about the programs seems to help change behaviour
Those who are more likely to have changed their behaviors include the people who have heard “a lot” about government surveillance (38% say they have changed a great deal/somewhat in at least one of these activities), those who are at least somewhat concerned about the programs (41% have changed at least one activity), and those who are concerned about government monitoring of their use of social media, search engines, cell phones, apps, and email.
The full 37 page PDF is available to everyone and Bruce Schneier has also written some good commentary.
(Score: 1) by kadal on Friday April 17 2015, @04:50PM
Well if "texting" (SMS or chats?) is what you use most, then there are services that make encryption really seamless and easy. TextSecure+Redphone on Android or Signal on iOS, is one such. Note that they don't encrypt texts anymore. That network essentially uses an updated version of OTR. I've started using it, pretty painless. They've got around OTR's problem of requiring both clients to be online to negotiate key exchange - so they can implement asynchronous messaging ( https://whispersystems.org/blog/asynchronous-security/ [whispersystems.org] ). Some of the other mobile OTR software (e.g. ChatSecure) actually drop messages if you dont have that app open when the other person sends you a message. Makes it totally useless.
I also have HTTPS-Everywhere (Encrypted Web for Pale Moon actually) installed just to increase the amount of encrypted traffic flying around. You can use OTR over XMPP with Pidgin / Adium too. It just requires people using these applications, and not the little browser chat window.
My view is, if you convince the people you communicate with most to do it, it makes a lot of difference. Family makes a good start.
For more alternatives see www.prism-break.org. Some info here too: https://ssd.eff.org/ [eff.org]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday April 17 2015, @05:15PM
Both textsecure and redphone require both sides be running the encryption programs. This goes back to the main problem with PGP in the 90's; namely the person you're talking to has to run it. I couldn't get my 30 something friends to do so in the 90's, I'm sure as hell not going to get my 50 something friends to do so now.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1) by kadal on Saturday April 18 2015, @04:07AM
Well yes, to protect your privacy, you have to switch from unsecured to secured networks. That said, at least on Android, things are pretty seamless. TextSecure can deal with SMS, MMS and OTR over their network. So you can have it handle all that, just use TextSecure instead of your normal Messaging app. With RedPhone installed, if you dial someone (who has RedPhone installed) using the normal dialer, you get a prompt to use encryption. Doesn't get much more seamless than that....
If you expect google, apple etc. to move to default end-to-end encryption, then you'll be waiting for a long time. Plus, all their stuff is closed source, so you don't know if it's siphoning off the cleartext somewhere.