![Asked Voters If They Saw and Believed 5 of the Most Viral Fake News Stories That Flooded Social Media During the Final Weeks of the Election, [...]](http://data.docslib.org/img/813895069f424a5ef79ecd193a351809-1.webp)
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12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 1 Outline
● Facebook, political manipulation
● Surveillance, leaks, privacy
● Identification mechanisms
● Computer security
● Privacy countermeasures
● Ethical software
12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 2 2012: laboratory test
● Is it possible to transfer emotional states to others leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness and without direct human interactions?
● January 2012, 700’000 people
● Facebook “News Feed” manipulated to contain 10% more or less positive expressions
● ...
12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 3 PNAS June 17, 2014 111 (24) 8788-8790; https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 4 facebook (FB) – key facts
● 2.2 billion monthly-active uses ~30% of the planet
● equity: 74’000 million $. This is 33 $ for each user
● owns Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus VR
12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 5 Can FB influence elections?
12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 6 Can FB influence elections?
https://www.republik.ch/2018/05/16/facebook-influenced-elections-in-66-countries 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 7 Can FB influence elections?
< Stunningly, 98.21% of Bolsonaro voters surveyed were exposed to one or more fake news stories, and 89.77% believed they were based on fact. [...] https://secure.avaaz.org/act/media.php?press_id=918 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 8 Can FB influence elections? Reacting to these results, Ricken Patel, Avaaz CEO and founder, said: "Brazilian democracy is drowning in fake news. These stories were carefully crafted, toxic weapons designed to destroy a politician's electability. And with the help of Facebook and WhatsApp, they were as widely spread and believed as some of the top real news stories of the election. "How many democracies need to die before Mark Zuckerberg stops this madness on his platforms? […] >> https://secure.avaaz.org/act/media.php?press_id=918 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 9 Right to privacy ● The type of information shared depends from whom to share it with: – You do not tell your love affairs to your mother, you do not tell your employer your health issues, you do not tell a police officer you drove too fast,... ● “Saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.” [E. Snowden] 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 10 Source: http://us.macmillan.com/static/holt/greenwald/NoPlaceToHide-Documents-Uncompressed.pdf 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 11 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 12 GCHQ to the Five-eyes 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 13 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 14 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 15 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 16 Why? 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 17 Commerce 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 18 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 19 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 20 Identifying users from their biological/hardware/software fingerprints 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 21 Every computer is unique ● Many hardware components have unique IDs ● USB sticks: ● Computers save the ID of the visiting USB drives ● Can be used to identify users 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 22 WLAN’s fingerprint: MAC address ● Accessible to the operating system ● accessible to everybody on the same network ● is collected (whatsapp, iPhone,..) and stored wlp4s0: flags=4163 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 23 Most software is unique ● Nearly infinite amount of options an personalization render individual applications nearly unique ● For a browser: language, time zone, screen size and color depth, system fonts, installed plugins, version, operating system, cookies, time zone, ● Test your browser now: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 24 Keyboard fingerprinting ● Every human is unique in the way he types on the keyboard (timing between keystrokes) ● Several services (e.g. search engines) collect and send timing information to servers (part of autocompletion algorithm). This can be used to identify users. ● Browser add-ons like “Keyboard privacy”: https://paul.reviews/behavioral-profiling-the-password- you-cant-change/ [see references herein] ● Mouse: similar problem 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 25 Computer security ● A secure computer requires – bug-free non-malicious software ● Far away from it ● Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) http://cve.mitre.org/ – bug-free non-malicious hardware ● Very far away from it ● Open-source silicon chips do not exist at all (yet) ● Many very serious vulnerabilities known: – Management Engine (CVE-2017-5689) – Spectre and Meltdown (CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017- 5754) – ... 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 26 Trojans in hardware 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 27 Computer security ● In short: – if your threat-model (journalists, activists) includes powerful players such as governments then do not consider secure any internet-connected device 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 28 Privacy countermeasures -from simple to advanced 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 29 https://www.woz.ch/system/files/epaper/woz/pdf/woz_digi-ratgeber_okt18.pdf 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 30 Browser add-on: uBlock origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 31 Browser add-on: EFF privacy badger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 32 Enigmabox ● https://enigmabox.net/ ● Swiss-made. Creators at ccczh.zh ● Exit nodes in several countries ● 80.- hardware ● 120.-/year abo 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 33 Offline computer ● Always a good idea ● The only method to possibly have secure data.. ..and not even yet: – side-channel attacks, but very difficult and sophisticated 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 34 An effective safety measure e.g. for online activism (Snowden) ● One-use computer – buy a cheap laptop – open it, and remove the battery – “castrate” it (remove microphone, speakers, webcam, antennas -anything not strictly necessary) – There (still) are non password protected WiFi cafes. Turn on the computer only then. – Type with two fingers. Do not speak. Do not visit websites which may identify you. – Get the job done, and get rid of the laptop – … do not trust these instructions 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 35 Ethical software 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 36 Ethical software - Free software ● Free software – originally defined and promoted by Richard Stallman – “free as in freedom”, the four freedoms – copyleft, General Public Licence (GPL) – google, apple,... do not like it ● open source software – careful: without “free” it is generally meant “permissive” (permits companies to close it again) – may allow the creators to sue users for patent infringement – open source is free software without freedom – google, apple,... like it https://www.fsf.org/ https://www.gnu.org/ https://www.eff.org/ 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 37 Free software alternatives ● Major sites advertising alternatives: ● https://switching.social/ ● https://framasoft.org/en/ ● https://degooglisons-internet.org /en/alternatives/ 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 38 Videoconferencing ● Encrypted by default ● can be easily installed and hosted on own server ● Apache license (open source) ● No need to install any client – a browser is sufficient ● Just go on https://meet.jit.si/ and start a call ● Try it now: https://meet.jit.si/waedi123 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 39 Social media ● joinmastodon.org ● federated, decentralized ● similar to twitter, but more text ● can (easily) be self-hosted 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 40 owncloud or nextcloud ● Free-software (AGPLv3) ● alternative to google drive/dropobox ● private ● can be easily installed on a server 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 41 dudle ● a privacy-respecting doodle replacement ● Free-software (Affero GPL, AGPL) ● can be very easily installed on a server ● to try: https://dudle.ccc-mannhe im.de 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 42 Mediawiki ● Free-software (GPL) ● gratis alternative to Microsoft wikis ● great tool to organize groups and collect knowledge ● very easy to host on own server or own laptop 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 43 own email, own domain ● get your own email like [email protected] ● ~15.-/year, email account included ● https://gandi.net , or several others 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 44 Create your own server ● Renting a Virtual Private Server with 1 fixed IP (v4+v6) address and unmetered bandwidth can be as cheap as 4Eur/month ● https://scaleway.com ● Several pre-installed programs 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 45 Search engines ● https://swisscows.ch -possibly the best available in terms of privacy. Shows interesting results that sometimes other engines do not show. Not quite as powerful as google ● https://startpage.com -basically a clone of google, but no (evident) personal targeting ● https://duckduckgo.com -they say they respect privacy (but are hosted on amazon) 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 46 Want to pass to linux? Possibly best entry level for Advanced less technical users. Sponsored by Red Hat: Bests community, best tutorials The largest software collection in the world. Default at linux distribution at ETH- Zurich Gentoo Full of spyware, not fsf.org approved: High security: 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 47 Want to pass to linux? ● Tutorials and help for nearly everything can be found online, but the clarity is not always the best ● a good guide accelerates significantly the learning speed ● for example: https://kofler.info/buecher/ linux/ 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 48 What to do ● “Lobby” ZHAW to host instances of jitsi, mastodon, etherpad, etc.. under https://jitsi.zhaw.ch , etc.. ● Join one of the many gratis services available ● Set up your own server ● Spread the voice! 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 49 Literature 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 50 Thank you 12 Dec 2018 Transition-Waedenswil.ch 51