Privacy in jeopardy : when administrations are being questioned ... or whatever !

« L'oeil » (1968), René Magritte

New brand social networks have been currently making easier global intelligence agencies work. Tweeting news articles, sharing “Youtube” videos, accepting “unknown” friend requests, publishing online full biographies, matching friends faces on real exhibitions of holiday (and often personal) pictures directly linked to public profiles … those are the main reasons why social networks are so pretty and trendy among young generations who discover the new cobweb whose new goal is not to hide oneself behind an alias but rather to express oneself as easier and as faster as possible.

Nevertheless those information gathering techniques are not (yet!) the most used among the intelligence community. Agencies are as well able to monitor emails sent around the world by executing computer algorithms looking for keywords such as “bombing attack”, “terrorism” or even “go on strike”. Everyday people are sending emails, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) requests, forum posts … however all theses data are by default totally uncrypted. That is to say, any hacker, any intelligence agency, or even any Internet service provider (for instance : America Online, AT&T, …) who is in charge of anyone’s Internet broadband, is able to read clear data by “sniffing” (computer science jargon). The Internet usually provides a full impression of “hidden identity” as this used to be a very long time ago, when computers were still running slowly and very few people were skilled enough. That fact is no longer true and any computer is registered with a IP (Internet Protocol) address which allows it to get connected … and for sure to get identified in any case of judicial issues. Nowadays, each request, each download, each visited website, are efficient enough to track any suspicious Internet user. Furthermore global surveillance is not only limited to the Internet monitoring, even a simple electronic transportation card allows public policies to watch citizens motion (Parisian transportation cards called “NAVIGO” are being questioned by French organizations like the CNIL).

In any case, even if gathered private information still remain restricted and secretly kept inside secured servers, a simple national security clearance allows any investigator to have almost full-access. Moreover the great number of government databases does not allow citizens to control their privacy. In France for instance, Jacques-Alain Bénisti has been counting more than sixty different databases (EDVIGE, STIC and much more) covering plenty of subjects. Among the quite long list of topics: foreign affairs, national identity, sexual abuse, national security, foreign exchange, commercial transactions and so on. On the American hand, the US Department of Defense, the NSA, the FBI and of course the CIA have been increasing deeper than ever, their use of privacy surveillance leading to actual controversies (DADT controversies about personal emails sent between privates concerning sexual orientation issues). According to “USA Today” in 2006, the NSA (National Security Agency) call database which consists of phone calls made by US citizens from the largest telephone carriers, revealed over 1.9 trillion call-detail records. 9/11 and the fight again terrorism are indeed one of the reasons of this massive increase of the endless control of telecommunications.

Nonetheless, a lot of watchdog NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) have been denouncing governmental excess of surveillance and computer invasions. Each year the Big Brother Awards performs and awards companies, key figures or even organizations whose purposes were mainly focused on privacy intrusion attempts. “Big Brother” was indeed a very well-known UK reality television show whose camcorders were recording 24/7. Not only hackers but also upset computer scientists have been developing solutions such as data encryption algorithms (SSL or PGP for commercial transactions) or “clean” Internet browsers (in that way not including spywares and adwares preventing to a secured browsing), however there are still mathematical restrictions by the law (encoding over 128-bit is forbidden).

To conclude, other worse control systems such as biometric identification are currently being brought into general use but contrary to the public opinion, actual negotiations between governments about the ACTA are still showing how reluctant they are to question them … Who knows, when the time comes where our “NAVIGO” will be implemented in our human bodies, then perhaps all those worries will get funny⁽¹⁾ … or whatever ! ■

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⁽¹⁾ : Could we once again forget our usual transportation card at home every morning as we used to ?

« Your essay about the web and surveillance was very, very interesting and well thought-out. It really asks us to wonder what kind of privacy issues--among other things--are a stake as the world becomes more and more globalized, and at a rapid rate, at that. », Lee Charisma, Paris Diderot University.