phill4paul
07-29-2013, 08:26 AM
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/07/surveillance-free-day-part-i.html
For the next 24 hours, I’m going to try to live completely surveillance-free. I will foil Chinese hackers and the NSA with encrypted texts and VPN tunnels. I will find ways to buy things online without giving away any personal information and communicate via smartphone without producing metadata. Also, I will wear a funny-looking hat with small lightbulbs in it that will protect me from being caught on camera. With expert help and a spy’s toolkit, I will attempt to stick to my normal routine for an entire day, but without leaving behind a trail of data for the government – or anyone else – to collect.
Long article but worth the read...
Of interest:
My favorite anti-surveillance hack of the day has nothing to do with either my phone or my laptop, though. It’s a red baseball hat that I outfitted with infrared LEDs, and wired to a pair of 9-volt batteries, following instructions I found online. Most surveillance cameras operate on the infrared spectrum. And to the naked eye, my hat's LEDs will look like nothing. But on infrared cameras, they'll drown my face and render me unrecognizable. I'll just appear as a ball of light.
and this...
Both Jon and Gary pointed out one of the central paradoxes of my day – that, by downloading Tor and HideMyAss, by paying for software in Bitcoin, wrapping my phones in foil, and by turning my head into a giant glowing orb, I’m effectively asking to be put on a terrorist watch list. It’s the digital equivalent of hanging a big “I’M SKETCHY” sign around my neck. And as I browse through my morning news sites, using my Icelandic internet connection and my Tor browser, I can’t shake the feeling that black helicopters are already circling overhead.
For the next 24 hours, I’m going to try to live completely surveillance-free. I will foil Chinese hackers and the NSA with encrypted texts and VPN tunnels. I will find ways to buy things online without giving away any personal information and communicate via smartphone without producing metadata. Also, I will wear a funny-looking hat with small lightbulbs in it that will protect me from being caught on camera. With expert help and a spy’s toolkit, I will attempt to stick to my normal routine for an entire day, but without leaving behind a trail of data for the government – or anyone else – to collect.
Long article but worth the read...
Of interest:
My favorite anti-surveillance hack of the day has nothing to do with either my phone or my laptop, though. It’s a red baseball hat that I outfitted with infrared LEDs, and wired to a pair of 9-volt batteries, following instructions I found online. Most surveillance cameras operate on the infrared spectrum. And to the naked eye, my hat's LEDs will look like nothing. But on infrared cameras, they'll drown my face and render me unrecognizable. I'll just appear as a ball of light.
and this...
Both Jon and Gary pointed out one of the central paradoxes of my day – that, by downloading Tor and HideMyAss, by paying for software in Bitcoin, wrapping my phones in foil, and by turning my head into a giant glowing orb, I’m effectively asking to be put on a terrorist watch list. It’s the digital equivalent of hanging a big “I’M SKETCHY” sign around my neck. And as I browse through my morning news sites, using my Icelandic internet connection and my Tor browser, I can’t shake the feeling that black helicopters are already circling overhead.