• The Panopticon
Topic:
Surveillance
2013-06-28
Two centuries ago, socialist utilitarian Jeremy Bentham designed a prison in which all of the cells could be viewed from a central location. The prisoners in his
Panopticon could not tell when they were being watched, and had to assume that they were under constant surveillance. Today, the modern panopticon is a prison without walls, implemented using electronic means. What is a
"cell tower"? What is "the worldwide web" and who sits in the center? Are we the
"yahoos" and the
"androids"? Even
George Orwell did not forsee that we would actually
volunteer to install two-way telescreens in our homes or carry them in our pockets, despite
his prophetic warning about the socialist utopia.
The latest revelation about the
routine capture, storage and analysis of electronic communications by the
National Security Agency (NSA) has stimulated interest in alternative web tools in order to avoid direct interaction with
partner corporations like Google and Microsoft. For example, StartPage.com bills itself as the "world's most private search engine" and claims that it doesn't store user information. In soothing tones, the site says: "StartPage protects you from government surveillance. Take a deep breath; you're safe here." Oh, really?
StartPage.com is not a "search engine" -- it is merely a front-end for Google, which actually performs the searches. StartPage may be able to hide user information from Google and from websites visited via their proxy service. However, it has no control over the government which has access to ALL internet traffic -- including theirs. StartPage is owned by Surfboard Holding B.V., which is incorporated in Europe and allegedly covered by E.U. privacy rules. Yet, ARIN network information shows that StartPage / Surfboard traffic is handled through
Peer 1 Network servers, an internet provider
located in New York and subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
The
network contact info for StartPage / Surfboard lists the email and phone number for
WebIntensive.com which is also located in New York and headed by David Bodnick, the founder of StartPage and leader of its
"privacy technology" team. WebIntensive is a software contractor which advertises "government services", including an expert system for "federated searching". Clients include "several Federal agencies" and the United Nations.
Even if StartPage does not actively cooperate with the snooping, it does NOT "protect you from
government surveillance" as claimed. On the contrary, it acts as a filter and a monitoring point, making it easier to isolate and capture the traffic from the self-selected group of privacy seekers who use the service.
DuckDuckGo.com is another service similar to StartPage, which provides an "anonymous" front-end for the Microsoft Bing search engine and runs on Amazon servers. The company was founded by Gabriel Weinberg, whose previous venture the "Names Database" was
designed to collect and share personal information, "making the world a smaller place". That service and its content was purchased several years ago by Classmates.com which specializes in dredging up and publishing personal information from old high school yearbooks
and other sources, including Facebook.
Facebook, the most successful of the "social media" sites, invites naive users to "Connect and share with the people in your life". They just don't tell you
how many people are going to be sharing your life after you connect. Way back in 2004, founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted that he was
harvesting personal information from the "dumb f*cks" (his words) using the service for resale to third parties. And today? The
privacy policy states: "Even after you remove information from your Facebook profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has [already] been shared with others...". Note that Facebook has been
"sharing" with the government since its inception.
UPDATE: Here is a discussion on
the "illusion of privacy" that these alternative search sites provide. They
cannot successfully hide information from the government, and it is deceptive to claim otherwise. The government controls the network and can use either legal or
technical means to obtain whatever it wants, including the
elimination of any private service not subject to its surveillance.
UPDATE: Here is a
free e-book which discusses the privacy benefits of using the Linux operating system rather than Microsoft Windows. It includes detailed, step-by-step instructions for correctly installing Linux and associated software on a computer currently running Windows.
