Governments around the world are using high-tech surveillance measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak. But are they worth it?

Edward Snowden doesnt think so.

The former CIA contractor, whose leaks exposed the scale of spying programs in the US, warns that once this tech is taken out the box, it will be hard to put it back.

When we see emergency measures passed, particularly today, they tend to be sticky, Snowden said in an interview with theCopenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.

The emergency tends to be expanded. Then the authorities become comfortable with some new power. They start to like it.

Supporters of the draconian measures argue that normal rules are not enough during a pandemic and that the long-term risks can be addressed once the outbreak is contained. But a brief suspension of civil liberties can quickly be extended.

Security services will soon find new uses for the tech. And when the crisis passes, governments can impose new laws that make the emergency rules permanent and exploit them to crack down on dissent and political opposition.

Take the proposals to monitor the outbreak by tracking mobile phone location data.

This could prove a powerful method of tracing the spread of the virus and the movements of people who have it. But it will also be a tempting tool to track terrorists or any other potential enemies of the states.

Artificial intelligence has become a particularly popular way of monitoring life under the pandemic. In China, thermal scanners installed at train stations identify patients with fevers, while in Russia, facial recognition systems spot people breaking quarantine rules.

The coronavirus has even given Clearview AI a chance to repair its reputation. The controversial social media-scraping startup is in talks with governments about using its tech to track infected patients, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A big attraction of AI is its efficiency by assigning probabilities to different groups of people. But too much efficiency can be a threat to freedom, which is why we limit police powers through measures such as warrants and probable cause for arrest.

The alternative is algorithmic policing that justifies excessive force and perpetuates racial profiling.

Snowden is especially concerned about security services adding AI to all the other surveillance tech they have.

They already know what youre looking at on the internet, he said. They already know where your phone is moving. Now they know what your heart rate is, what your pulse is. What happens when they start to mix these and apply artificial intelligence to it?

Its tough to strike a balance between security and privacy at the best of times, let alone during a global crisis.

Snowden doesnt dispute the severity of the pandemic. But he believes its a transient problem that will eventually be resolved by vaccines and herd immunity.

The consequences of the measures we introduce today, however, will be permanent. Thats why the tech we deploy now must be proportionate to each phase of the outbreak.Openness from governments and consultation with the public will ensure its within the rule of law and preserves our basic human rights.

Draconian measures may be tolerable if they get us through the pandemic. But we must also think about the world we want to live in once the coronavirus is contained.

Published March 25, 2020 15:37 UTC

Read the original here:
Snowden warns: The surveillance states were creating now will outlast the coronavirus - The Next Web

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Greg Wilpert: Its The Real News Network, Im Greg Wilpert in Arlington, Virginia. Recently, thousands of Israelis posted the cover of Naomi Kleins book The Shock Doctrine on their social media accounts without further comment. They were doing so because they had sensed that the book is a warning and that its becoming a reality before their very eyes. The crisis has shocked the population and this now allows the Israeli government to push forward with draconic and undemocratic policies.

All over the world, we are seeing how governments are declaring states of emergency because of the coronavirus pandemic and are undertaking extreme measures to stop the spread of the virus. However, other than perhaps China, no country in the world has gone as far as Israel in clamping down on civil liberties. First, prime minister Netanyahu closed the courts a few days before he was supposed to appear in court himself to face charges of corruption.

Then, as the opposition tried to elect a new chairman of the Knesset, Israels parliament, the ruling coalition that no longer has a majority decided to shut down the Knesset. Next and most alarming, the government used an executive order to grant unlimited powers of surveillance to the secret police, tracking the phones of every person in Israel at all times, supposedly to keep track of infected people and to prevent them from spreading the disease and to punish them if they break the curfew.

And finally, when thousands of Israelis wanted to protest these measures, the right to assembly was denied. Even a convoy of cars, in which everyone sits in their own car and does not interact with others, was forbidden. Heres how prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the measures last week.

Benjamin Netany: [foreign language 00:01:42]. The government will approve tonight executive orders for a state of emergency to allow the use of digital measures to fight the coronavirus. These measures will help us very much to find the location of the virus and the location of the sick people and thus stop the spread of the virus. We discussed it yesterday at the cabinet meeting for six hours.

[foreign language 00:02:06]. Me, and I must say, almost all No, all the ministers. We wanted to ensure a meticulous supervision of this measure to prevent misuse. The legal council accepted our request and this evening we shall authorize the use of digital tools for a limited time of 30 days. Israel is a democracy. It must keep the balance between individual rights and the collective needs and we are doing that.

Greg Wilpert: Joining me now to discuss how governments are taking advantage of the pandemic is Antony Loewenstein. He is an independent journalist and author of the book, Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe. Thanks for joining us again, Antony.

Antony Loewenstein: Thanks for having me.

Greg Wilpert: So, many countries that the coronavirus has hit, has hit them actually much harder than Israel, but they have not implemented such extreme measures as Israel. And so Israeli government officials argue that its precisely because of these extreme measures that Israel hasnt been hit so hard. However, there are many countries that slowed down the spread of the virus without taking such extreme measures. So the question is why Israel of all countries is reacting in such an extreme way to the coronavirus. What do you think?

Antony Loewenstein: Well theres a few reasons. I was living in Jerusalem until just recently. So I saw the beginning of this pandemic, but I left thankfully before it really accelerated or the shutdown happened, the lockdown. I think what youre seeing in Israel really is almost an inevitability. What I mean by that is for two reasons. One, Israel is a country that has spent decades occupying, monitoring, surveilling millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and in Israel proper and that now is coming home to roost.

What I mean by that is that they are using their technology which traditionally has been used on Palestinians, now on all citizens, which obviously includes Palestinians but also Israeli Jews. And it also of course is coming at a time where theres no actual government in Israel and Netanyahu claims to be prime minister, but in fact he hasnt won three elections. It has not been a legitimate government in Israel for close to 18 months. This is the reality in Israel and a weak and divided opposition. So the use and the and the technology and the ability of the Shin Bet, the internal security services to monitor all citizens, which I have to say is being claimed as a temporary measure should worry us deeply because these measures may well be loosened in time. We dont know, but the fact is we should not be trusting A the Israeli government or the Israeli security services historically have been known to very aggressively monitor and surveil Palestinians.

So the danger, which clearly is relevant to many other countries is, if you allow your government or your state to massively surveil and monitor the other, whether its Palestinians, all Muslims, whoever it may be. That technology will inevitably used on ourselves. And I think about Edward Snowden here when he talked about, hes released in about seven years ago and he was saying that yes, the US massively surveils the world. But they also surveil the Americans because that technology inevitably is used on our own. Thats whats happening in Israel today.

Greg Wilpert: Israeli member of parliament, Ahmad Tibi once said with regard to Israels Jewish population that Israel is a democratic state and regard towards Arab population, Israel is a Jewish state. Now we are seeing the last democratic protections of the Jewish population of Israel crumbling as well. What do you think this means for the Arab Palestinians population under Israeli control, which is nearly 7 million people? Are they being affected in the same way?

Antony Loewenstein: Well even more so. I mean obviously Gaza which has been under Israeli blockade now for much more than a decade has just recently seen two cases of the coronavirus and notably more will come and the health system has been collapsed for years, so thats a real potential catastrophe on Israels doorstep. The West Bank has essentially been locked down. The West Bank is on the complete Israeli control, military control. Bethlehem and many other cities are under complete lock down. People cant move in and out, which in some ways as many Palestinians say, this is in some ways the worst time the occupation. This is what normal life for many Palestinians is like all the time. Now obviously now its very extreme to be sure, but many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza was saying to Israeli Jews, now you know what it often its like. Cant move from town to town. Cant send our kids to school. Cant live a daily life.

Thats not necessarily every single day. The occupation ebbs and flows in different areas depending on the particular political movement at the time, but what you see also within Israel itself where the recent election, the joint list, the third major political party received huge amounts of support mostly from Palestinians and Arabs, but also from a growing number of Israeli Jews. And its very clear that from the both major sides of Israeli Jewish politics, they have little to no interest in having any coalition with those, with that party. They express contempt and deep racism for that party, Netanyahu particularly. And I think it shows in some ways two things. One that the Palestinian Arab population in Israel proper and the West Bank and Gaza, who might not have no votes. And I think its important to say to viewers, just to be very clear, Israel is not a democracy if youre not Jewish.

There are literally 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza roughly, who cannot vote in any elections for the Israeli Knesset for a leader who will control their lives. So to say, Israel is a democracy has always been a lie. And its certainly a democracy if you are Jewish of sorts. And also I think its important for people to realize that the joint lists growing support shows a growing divide within Israeli society itself, where I think many Israeli Arabs and a growing number of Israeli Jews realized that a Zionist political movement, by definition cannot and will not bring democracy to all its citizens. It simply wants democracy for Jews only.

And although the joint list will not be in government, the joint list politically will have not huge amounts of power. Symbolically, its unbelievably powerful and theyll continue to grow as more and more people realize that Netanyahu although he could or even his main rival Benny Gantz is basically Netanyahu in drag. Theyre virtually exactly the same on the key issue of the occupation. Thats what really matters here, which is why the joint lists support and growing support. It is so important.

Greg Wilpert: I wonder though, based on what you just said, if perhaps this crackdown in light of the coronavirus might produce a silver lining in the sense that as you said, its awakening Israelis to the conditions of occupation. Obviously its not as serious as the occupation, but at least theyre getting some degree of taste of it and perhaps that might change their attitude towards it. What do you think?

Antony Loewenstein: If only that was true. Look, maybe, and I guess we should talk in three or six months to see, but as Gideon Levy, the great journalist for Arabs. The Israeli newspaper said in a column recently. Yes, Israeli Jews and now on the lockdown, but its nothing like what Palestinians go through. Israeli Jews and not being raided in their houses, theyre not being dragged from their homes, theyre not being shot dead in the streets for protesting. Yes, theyre not being allowed to protest, but theyre not being shot dead for protesting. So yes, Israeli Jews maybe have a tiny taste of what Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza goes through. But I think sadly, having lived in Jerusalem, East Jerusalem for many, many years, what you really see over time is a hardening of hearts. And what I mean by that is that there is little to no empathy by the majority of Israeli Jews towards what is happening down the road in the occupation.

Now Im not saying old Jews in Israel, Im saying the majority of Jews. And you know that because most of them dont talk about it. Dont write about it. Dont vote in any way that reflects that theyre upset about it. And the media, to its eternal shame only really reports on the West Bank and Gaza with a few notable exceptions in the context of a security threat. There are not stories generally about what life is actually like in the occupation down the road from Israel. So Id like to think that this would maybe make Israeli Jews more reflective of the kind of regime theyve created for Arabs on their doorstep and therefore be more sympathetic towards them. But the evidence so far for that is quite minimal. And I hope that changes, but I not that optimistic.

Greg Wilpert: Now, turning to the larger picture, both your book Disaster Capitalism and Naomi Kleins The Shock Doctrine, argue that disasters or shocks are unpopular policies that the government hopes to impose when people are in shock or facing disasters and cannot properly resist. Now do you think that Israel is perhaps the proverbial canary in the coal mine and that other countries may also start surveilling the population and shutting down political dissent all in the name of fighting the coronavirus?

Antony Loewenstein: Well, the short answer is yes. I feel that a great deal and one of the things that Im really worried about at the moment and something Im looking into is Israel has perfected the art of the ethno state. The ethno state being of course a Jewish state that dominates non Jews and to the use of technology and surveillance often through public but also private companies for decades. Theyve mastered from their perspective an ability to control millions of Palestinians. That technology and that ideology is now being exported globally. Think of what India wants to do in Kashmir, Sri Lanka in the Tamil areas in the North. China in parts of the weaker areas. And thats not all because of Israel to be sure, but Israel provides both an inspiration ideologically, but also the ease of technology and surveillance. And the fear that I have is that although the coronavirus will at some point taper down or minimize six months, three months, a year, we dont know. Soon, it wont be forever.

But the fear is that therell be an appeal by many governments to maintain either tight controls and the monitoring of civilians and citizens without reducing them. And Israel in some ways is the model of that because Israel has done it for decades and they get away with it. Now, yes that monitoring is principally of Palestinians. But as were seeing now, its inevitably turning to Israeli Jews as well. And lets be honest, after Edward Snowdens revelations in 2013. In the US there were protests and there were minor changes through Congress. Were there hundreds of thousands of people marching through the streets in the US opposing what was happening? No. Snowdens documents revealed clearly that the US had an apparatus, both Republican and Democrat, to monitor and surveil every single citizen. And yes, some people were upset about that and they protested. But in general, thats continued. And I would argue different and we dont even really know whats happening during the Trump administration in terms of that. Theres been not that much reporting or leaks about what Trump has been doing in terms of messily ramping up internal state surveillance.

So Im really concerned as someone whos written for a decade now about disaster capitalism, apart from the obvious examples of people trying to charge more for hand sanitizer and face mask, which is terrible and that should be condemned. But the bigger picture here is what this means longer term. The States that are very keen not just to make money from it, but this one real quick example. The NSO group, which is an Israeli surveillance company that was used by Saudi Arabia to monitor friends of Jamal Khashoggi recently, last couple of years. Its a surveillance company which is populated by former Israeli military. Theyve been announcing the last while technology to help so they say, fight the coronavirus. Now this technology may well be helpful. We dont know at this stage, but my point is that you have this really worrying blending of the surveillance state and surveillance companies with people who claim to be helping those in society.

And yes, we need to fight the coronavirus and stop it or at least massively arrest its increase. But Im really concerned that there are going to be a lot of private companies, private military companies, surveillance companies, technology companies, utilizing this opportunity to say to a state we can help keep out unwanted people. That could be high walls or borders or surveillance. And were seeing that in much of Europe now as well for that matter. So the fear is that many governments that are utilizing this technology, I call these Israelification almost of the world. And although theres push back against that in certain places, its not a given that itll happen. I think there needs to be a lot more discussion and push back against it because otherwise it becomes business as normal and that is not the society I think that most people want to live in.

Greg Wilpert: Well on that note, unfortunately, were going to have to leave it there. I was speaking to Antony Loewenstein journalist and author of the book Disaster Capitalism. Thanks again, Antony, for having joined us today.

Antony Loewenstein: Thanks for having me, Greg,

Greg Wilpert: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.

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Coronavirus Is The Shock, Dictatorship Is The Doctrine - The Real News Network

Behind that little padlock is cryptographic code that guarantees the security of data passing between you and, for example, the website you are looking at.

In fact, TLS guarantees security on three fronts: authentication, encryption and integrity. Authentication, so that your data goes where you think it is going; encryption, so that it does not go anywhere else; and integrity, so that it is not tampered with en route.

Its the most popular security protocol on the internet, securing essentially every e-commerce transaction, Eric Rescorla, chief technology officer at US technology company Mozilla, told Horizon over email.

In the two decades leading up to 2018, there were five overhauls of TLS to keep pace with the sophistication of online attacks. After that, many experts believed that the latest incarnation, TLS1.2, was safe enough for the foreseeable future,until researchers such as Dr Karthikeyan Bhargavan and his colleagues at the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA) in Paris came along.

Scaffold

As part of a project called CRYSP, the researchers had been working on ways to improve the security of software applications. Usually, software developers rely on TLS like a builder relies on a scaffold in other words, they take its safety for granted.

To improve security at the software level, however, Dr Bhargavan and colleagues had to thoroughly check that the underlying assumptions about TLS1.2 that it had no serious flaws were justified.

At some point, we realised they werent, he said.

After discovering some shaky lines of code, the researchers worked with Microsoft Research and took on the role of hackers, performing some simulated attacks on the protocol to test the extent of its vulnerability. The attacks revealed that it was possible to be a man in the middle between an internet user and a service provider, such as Google, and thereby steal that users data.

It would have to be a fairly complex sequence of actions, explained Dr Bhargavan. Typically, the person in the middle would have to send weird messages to each actor to lure them into a buggy part of the code.

If, as the person in the middle, I was successful, I could potentially steal someones payment details, he continued. Or I could pretend to be Apple or Google, and download (insert) malware via a software update to get access to peoples computers.

Serious threat

Such a hacker would need great expertise and computational power, that of a government agency, for example, as well as access to some of the physical infrastructure close to the key actors. Nevertheless, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an international organisation promoting internet standards, judged the threat to be sufficiently serious to warrant a new version of the cryptographic protocol.

Dr Bhargavan points out that he was far from the only computer scientist to prompt the revision. There were four or five other research groups unearthing problems with the current protocol, pushing one another along, he says, in a healthy rivalry.

Still, he says that his group discovered some of the most surprising flaws in TLS1.2, which he believes may have been the final nails in the coffin for the protocol.

His group was also part of a broad collaboration within the internet community, overseen by an IETF working group, to construct the more secure, and man-in-the-middle-proof successor that is TLS 1.3, using modern algorithms and techniques. Dr Bhargavan was a key player in that effort, said Rescorla who oversaw TLS at the IETF at the time of the work.

TLS 1.3 was officially launched in August 2018. Since then it has been implemented by major internet browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

So long as you click that padlock you have some confidence about safety.

Dr Karthikeyan Bhargavan, INRIA, France

So how much safer are internet users as a result?

Human error

It is true that for most online security breaches, TLS is not to blame. Usually, personal data gets into the wrong hands because of bugs in software what Dr Bhargavans group was working on to begin with or human error.

But Dr Bhargavan believes there is reassurance in knowing that the underlying protocol is secure. Its not everything, but so long as you click that padlock you have some confidence about safety its the most basic thing, he said.

Besides, internet users are not only worried about hackers. Since 2013, and the leaks of Edward Snowden, a former employee of a US National Security Agency contractor, many people are concerned about the amount of personal data amassed by state intelligence and large enterprises.

Designed with the Snowden revelations in mind, TLS 1.3 closes the door to some types of this pervasive network-based monitoring through its encryption of both user data and metadata. It also prevents retrospective decryption one of the previous versions weaknesses.

There was a long discussion in the IETF working group about whether preventing surveillance was one of the goals of TLS, says Dr Bhargavan. And the answer was ultimately in the positive, he said.

Now Dr Bhargavan is returning to the issue of software security. He believes the majority of remaining vulnerabilities can be eliminated at the design stage.

Verified

To do this, he and his colleagues are constructing a library, HACL*, of fully verified cryptographic code, which other developers can draw on when building new software. In this project, known as CIRCUS, they are also creating an easy-to-follow reference paradigm that tells developers how to put software together without introducing security glitches.

The resultant high-assurance software has already been taken up by developers at Mozilla and Microsoft, among others. We want everyone to be following these techniques, Dr Bhargavan said.

Ultimately, his goal is not to secure everything online, but to find the safest spots within our highly complex computer systems. I dont think we will ever get to a point where everything is verified, he said, but we can find the most secure basket in which we can put our keys and passwords and financial data.

The research in this article was funded by the European Research Council. Dr Bhargavan is a recipient of a 2019 Horizon Impact Award for societal impact across Europe and beyond.

If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

Continued here:
The story behind that little padlock in your browser - Horizon magazine

Erica Weidner, Copy ChiefMarch 25, 2020

I watched Sneakers with my parents when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I absolutely loved it: the action sequences, the humorous tone, the clever tricks. The movie, which came out in 1992, immediately shot to the top of my favorites list. Although Sneakers has been shaken from the number one spot, its remained on my top ten list ever since.

This spring break, I decided to rewatch Sneakers to answer the question: Does my childhood favorite movie stand the test of time?

The answer: Yes, it absolutely does.

Sneakers opens in a flashback to 1969. Two college students, Martin Brice (Robert Redford) and Cosmo (Ben Kingsley), are using their hacking skills to play pranks. Despite their humorous attitude, these pranks such as transferring every cent in Richard Nixons bank account to the National Association to Legalize Marijuana are extremely illegal. The police catch Cosmo, but Martin avoids the cops by sheer dumb luck.

Fast-forward to the present day (1992, that is). Martin Brice has rebranded himself as Martin Bishop. Hes built a new life for himself as a security specialist: someone who breaks into banks so that those banks can improve their defenses. Martin leads an all-star team of hackers and sneakers.

Crease (Sidney Poitier) is a former CIA agent whos never quite lost his sense of paranoia or his sense of national duty. Creases foil is Mother (Dan Aykroyd) who will ramble about conspiracy theories to anyone who will listen. Theres also Carl (River Phoenix), a young hacker more interested in girls than in money, and Liz (Mary McDonnell), an ex-girlfriend of Martin who finds herself back in the madness. Rounding out the team is Whistler (David Strathairn). Whistler is blind, but his keen sense of hearing makes him invaluable to any mission.

However, no matter how well this team does, Martins past still comes back to haunt him. His college crimes become blackmail material, and the team gets embroiled in a conspiracy of epic proportions, involving the Russians, the NSA and other spooks.

The movie came out almost 30 years ago, and I still cant bring myself to spoil it for you. Like every spy movie, Sneakers has its fair share of twists and crosses, and like every heist movie, it has its own uniquely convoluted plans. Itd be wrong to ruin those moments, even if were well after the two-week spoiler grace period.

Calling Sneakers a simple spy movie or a heist movie seems like an injustice. Its wildly funny, which is both due to its writing and its cast. The wisecracks that the characters bounce off one another are not only wittily worded but beautifully executed. Some of the funniest moments in this movie focus on the tension between Mother, who believes every conspiracy theory, and Crease, who believes none of them. Aykroyds Mother is lovably petulant in sharing his conspiracies, while Poitiers Crease is amusingly annoyed by his antics; together, they are on fire. Comedy also adds in some more subtle touches, such as Whistler reading a Playboy magazine written in Braille.

Sneakers also has its moments of clarity, where a fun, silly spy movie hits on a deep vein of truth. In a way, the film seems to be ahead of its time. For instance, throughout the movie, theres a direct implication that the NSA is spying on American citizens. Everyone on the sneakers team believes this, and even the NSA agents dont deny it. Edward Snowden confirmed this implication just over 20 years later.

This isnt the only time that the movie looks toward the future. Near the end of Sneakers, the films ultimate antagonist tries to explain how technology has transformed the way we think of the world. As he puts it, Its not about whos got the most bullets. Its about who controls the information. These words rang true when the movie premiered, but today they seem more relevant than ever. Our world is run by data.

Sure, there are times that Sneakers shows its age. Characters laugh at the concept of meeting a date online, which they call compu-dating and in 1992, that concept was laughable. (Today, its one of the most popular ways that couples meet.) The campy soundtrack, characterized by melodramatic piano music, also dates this movie in the 90s.

However, these are small complaints that shouldnt negate how well Sneakers stands the test of time. The movie hasnt lost its excitement or its sense of humor its just as fun to watch now as it was in the past. Amazingly, it also hasnt lost its relevance. For better or for worse, hackers and spies are just as important in 2020 as they were in 1992. The technology they use may have changed, but the reasons have not.

Sneakers holds up, and its cemented its place on my favorites list.

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Classic Review: The Prescient Spy Antics of Sneakers - Fordham Ram