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Through a PRISM darkly

Tech wires and rights groups forums all over the world started buzzing last week with some very disturbing news.

Most half-educated people realise that we live in a surveillance society where much of what we say and do is carefully scrutinised by a raft of different agencies -- some commercial, some governmental. However, the exact degree of government snooping seems to have been greatly underestimated -- at least in the USA.

Last week's revelations that Verizon had opened its doors to the US Government's security services to collect "metadata" on countless phone calls and other conversations has angered a great many people and surprised a great deal more.

And of course, as global citizens, New Zealanders' data is going to be in there as well, probably with a little help from our own security agencies.

Should we be worried?

Well hell yes we should be worried.

Not because we might have something to hide -- but because if we choose to keep things private then it ought to be our right to do so.

Of course, the politicians are telling us, this surveillance and data collecting only encompassed metadata -- which means no phone calls were actually listened to and no emails were actually read, only the fact that they were made or sent was logged.

However, if *I* or anyone else, wants to call another party, or receives a call from another party, we ought to be able to do so without the constant surveillance of government and its agencies.

Now you might be thinking "why is this political rant in the technology column today?" and I'll answer you.

The only reason any government can engage in this level of snooping is down to technology and the capabilities it affords those who wish to usurp our right to privacy -- for whatever reason. I've mentioned before that I believe it's time we (as citizens) began to use hard-encryption as "the norm" for our communications.

The US government claims it's only collecting metadata, let's keep it that way -- and the only way we can do that is to encrypt.

Yes, the NSA and other agencies probably have enough computing power to decrypt most of the readily available encryption systems -- but if *everyone* started using encryption, the overhead would kill the viability of casual and large-scale snooping.

Why on earth don't the mainstream email agent vendors release a "secure" version of their products so that we can have end-to-end encryption of our emails without the need for extra add-ons and their related complexity?

Perhaps the answer is that if they did so, the government agencies involved would simply demand that they install some form of back-door decrypt mechanism to allow the snooping to continue and this would produce an even worse situation -- one where people thought they were protected from prying eyes but weren't.

So open-source is the only way to go. Let's hope that the revelations relating to the PRISM project spur developers and computer users to embrace such technology with open arms.

If we don't fight to protect our rights (especially to privacy) then we *will* lose them, there is absolutely no doubt about that.

And before the politicians come back to say "only those with something to hide have anything to fear" I think we must ask why they kept this surveillance such a secret themselves? Why do they have a need to "hide" their surveillance activities from us?

Just as importantly, what mandate can any government claim to govern if they fear their citizens to such an extent that they need to engage in this level of surveillance?

Perhaps readers can chime in with their suggestions for implementing secure, encrypted messaging. What software? Where do you get it? What are the limitations? Are you using it yourself?

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