Privacy and Security the Tangled Web We Have Woven
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viewpoints DOI:10.1145/2408776.2408784 Eben Moglen VPrivacy and Security The Tangled Web We Have Woven Seeking to protect the fundamental privacy of network interactions. HE LAST GENERATION is being The Net should now universalize permit not only active surveillance born whose brains will devel- that process throughout the human but also extensive data mining of per- op independently of the Net. race, should make it possible for ev- sonal information in the Net, we will From now on, the way the Web ery person on Earth to read, watch, not achieve that promise. Indeed, if works will play a dominant listen, and participate in every form the Net is not engineered to protect Trole in the socialization of the human of learning and culture, everywhere, privacy, it will instead become a jail race. But because we have built Web without discrimination between rich for the human body and the human infrastructure without considering and poor, old and young, male and soul. privacy, we are also endangering our female. This truly universal learn- We are failing at present because basic freedoms. We are on the verge of ing system would immeasurably im- our Net is being used to spy on us, eliminating forever the fundamental prove the welfare of humankind. But constantly, as we use it to enrich our right to be alone in our thoughts. if we do not protect the fundamental lives. The innovations in surveillance At the beginning of the sixteenth privacy of network interactions, if we have come from industry. Record- century, moveable-type printing cre- keeping about how we use the Net— ated the experience of private read- what we search for, what we read, who ing, and with it the Western idea of We are on the verge we contact—is intensively and instan- the individual self freely developed, taneously “mined” for its value to self-made through a private process of eliminating forever those who want to sell us something. of reading and thinking. In religion, the fundamental right What we share with our friends and this led to the revolutionary adoption family, even the content of our email of individualist forms of Protestant to be alone in our and other private communications, is Christianity. Secular society adopted thoughts. scrutinized to the same end by compa- the scientific method, and with it nies that offer us “services” in return began radically improving the hu- for access to our private data. All this man social condition. The opening data, assiduously gathered by busi- of learning also enabled the gradual nesses seeking profit, no matter how transformation of the Western politi- responsibly they manage it, is also at cal landscape toward democratic self- the disposal of any government capa- government and the constitutional ble—by law, force or fraud—of gain- protection of freedom of thought. ing their cooperation. CREDIT TK 1 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM | FEBRUARY 2013 | VOL. 56 | NO. 2 V viewpoints Beyond the data itself lies the new er, they offer others the opportunity to build the operating software of the Net mathematics of inferring from it. “Data control us. in keeping with certain ethical princi- mining,” which now politely refers to Development in the private market ples. This doesn’t mean forcing people itself as “data science,” is a new subdis- of technologies to surveil, predict, and or businesses to change what they are cipline of statistics, directed at using influence individuals through the Net presently doing. It means providing all this individually identifiable and has of course drawn the attention of the equivalent of green technologies, aggregated behavioral data to predict states. Governments are rapidly mov- and helping people shift to them. human social action. Whether one is ing, to the fullest extent of their differ- First, then, we need to build re- selling pharmaceuticals, toys, advertis- ing means, to harness the power of big sponsible replacement software, ing placement, or a political candidate, personal data to improve their social providing existing functions in ways data science is now using our personal control. No matter what your politics, that respect users’ privacy, to replace data to help the seller identify, pursue, somewhere in the world, right now, a systems that are hazardous to privacy. and persuade us. Our consumption government of whose principles you Current webmail and social network- supplies information that can be used completely disapprove is beginning ing services, for example, put all their to read our minds. to use the Net to locate support, influ- users’ communications with their The situation is made still worse be- ence the population, and find its en- respective social circles inside huge cause we are rapidly adopting personal emies. Everywhere in the world, from centralized databases maintained by service robots that are not working ex- now on, governments that become the service operator, who in return clusively in our interests. Unlike the ro- tyrannical will have immensely pow- for doing the storing and providing bots living intermixed with humans in erful new tools for remaining perma- sophisticated access services to users, the science fiction of our childhoods, nently in power. gets the right to mine the data, which these robots have no hands and feet— This privacy crisis is ecological. The is now centralized and vulnerable to we are their hands and feet. They see unintended consequences of tiny in- government acquisition. what we point them at; they have ears dividual activities, aggregated over the But email and the Web are by de- to hear everything going on around us; vast scope of the Net, are producing a sign federated services, in which in- they know our location all the time. threat to our common human interests dividual servers can provide storage These robots we call smartphones on a global scale. and access services cheaply, securely, and tablets often contain software we Fortunately, because the parts of and with near-perfect reliability for cannot read or understand, much less this crisis are all our creation, we can individual users. Users began using CREDIT TK change. We do not control them; rath- remedy the problem. We need to re- centralized services that hurt their FEBRUARY 2013 | VOL. 56 | NO. 2 | COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM 2 viewpoints privacy because they gained tangible whom the operator “cooperates.” We convenience at no apparent cost. No need to explain that every little deci- one knew how to run her own mail When we act to sion to give away one’s own informa- server or Web server, and we did not improve our own tion also gives away other peoples’. We make it easy to learn. But we can—and can teach people that when we act to we should—help people to use free privacy we are also improve our own privacy we are also software and a coming flood of inex- protecting the privacy protecting the privacy of our children, pensive “personal server” hardware to our families, and our friends. If we make personal privacy appliances. of our children, our help people around us to understand The FreedomBox Foundation I am families, and our the effects their actions have on oth- currently advising is an example of an ers, they will decide for themselves attempt in this direction, making free friends. what changes they should make. personal privacy software for creating Untangling the Web, restoring pri- such appliances. Small, inexpensive, vacy in what we do and anonymity in power-miserly devices you just plug in what we read, will not be easy. Many and forget, they keep your communi- fine businesses will make a little less cations private, help you navigate the money if we do not offer all our per- Web without being spied on, and let sonal data to be mined by intermedi- you share with the world, safely. Let aries on their behalf. Governments— me get technical for a few sentences to pretty much all governments of every describe how. social sharing replace Facebook and stripe—are rapidly discovering how Much of the implementation of similar “services,” that have imposed much real control they can get with- such a software stack involves using centralized storage, data mining, and out showing their hands if they make existing free software tools. A privacy control. use of the currently misconfigured, proxy located in the router between a Soon, such privacy servers will be anti-privacy Net. A consensus of the user’s smartphone or PC browser and available to replace your home wireless great and the good against privacy is the public Net can remove advertising router or other similar device at even forming; the one against anonymity is and Web bugs, manage cookie flow, lower cost, but with enormous overall already full-blown. Imagine how dif- and improve browsing privacy and social benefit. Think of them as per- ferent our world would be if all the security by providing “HTTPS every- sonal coal-scrubbers that cost next to books in the West for the last half-mil- where.” Automating use of SSH prox- nothing and improve the atmosphere lennium had reported their readers to ies and personal VPNs can not only we all breathe. headquarters, including informing protect the privacy of Web access be- But this is not all. We must also the Prince or the Pope how many sec- hind the FreedomBox used as a router, provide clear, factual, technical pub- onds each reader spent on each page. it can also provide secure communi- lic education about privacy and “the The book, which anyone could read to cations and privacy-protected Web cloud.” Currently basic technical in- herself in the privacy of her mind, is access from a mobile device used on formation is either altogether missing being replaced by an appliance that untrusted networks away from home.