Through the prism prism

How to protect yourself from surveillance on the Internet

A specialist in the field of Internet security-about how you are watching you and whether it is possible to protect yourself from this

Screenshot of the Tor program

The Internet is a multi -headed hydra and, as the Hydra supposed, learned to defend himself from attacks of governments and special services. It is no coincidence that now they live, hello and flourish the encrypted anonymous networks of the Tor type (The Onion Router, “Onion router”).

Tor network and others

The Tor network was once created by the US military for its purposes. But today it is used not only by journalists of large media to communicate with informants and dissidents, but also by the dark representatives of the online criminal world - from carders (credit cards abductors) to child pornography merchants. At the same time, no one is doing serious attempts to completely cover the Tor, which the same special services for communication with their agents are needed. Only in some countries, such as, for example, in China, Tor networks can be blocked. However, for those who strive for anonymity on the network, there are always enough options, including the good old VPN (see The New Times dated 09/19/11).

However, special services also show more and more ingenuity. In many countries of Europe, all “wild SIM cards” (that is, SIM cards purchased without an agreement anonymously) are on a “passive wiretapping”. This means that you are recorded, but not listened. And they begin to listen if the filter is triggered on certain “interesting” words or as a result of the suspicious activity of this subscriber. It is in this way that the special services of one of the European countries that did not suffer from terrorism at all time ago “accepted” the Wahhabis - immigrants from the North Caucasus, who had been weapons with a whole arsenal for a long time: they intercepted them just at the moment when they decided to move to another place.

Specialists in the safety of mobile networks with whom the author spoke about this case, unanimously said: the state has the right to track anonymous SIM cards, which de jure does not violate the rights of specific citizens who enjoy registered "SIM cards" formalized according to all the rules.

What is SORM

In Russia, Internet traffic “read” from the late 90s, when the introduction of SORM (systems of technical means to ensure the functions of operational-search measures began). The first SORM allowed to listen to any telephone networks, later, already under Putin, the eternal pain of Russian hosting and Internet providers-SORM-2, which provides special services with the opportunity to track the Russian digital space. From the point of view of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a court sanction is required for the use of SORM, as in the USA. But de facto obstacles to constant monitoring of networks have no technical obstacles-there are always distance access, often (this, first of all, concerns the regions) with the silent consent of the provider who does not want conflicts and, as a result, license loss.

By the way, as the author of these lines could be convinced, some European colleagues also do not always need an official court decision to provide the Cyber ​​Police to the server of their client. Even in Western European countries, a “quiet” viewing of traffic or server files is an unsuspecting client is not a unique phenomenon.

The double life of giants

In the USA, control over the Internet and voice traffic was significantly strengthened by the laws adopted after the attack on September 11, 2001. In 2007, the Protect America Act of 2007 appeared, adopted as one of the amendments to FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)-the law on foreign intelligence supervision (1978). Both laws are not clear of the clarity of formulations than, in fact, the defenders of Snowden used. In 2008, another law on amendments to FISA was adopted. And in 2011, Congress began to consider two more innovations-Protect IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intelle Property Act) and SOPA (The Stop Online Piracy ACT), and against the second law with a fork, the entire online market led by Google and Wikipedia rose

It was these laws that made it possible to order the development of the PRISM monitoring system (it was handed over with the giblets of Snowden), which is collecting data on users of the largest IT companies and online services. Like SORM-2, Prism enables the special services to carefully “drain” the information that interests them, up to the history of authorizations in systems and personal correspondence, directly from the Microsoft, Apple, Skype, Google, Facebook and others.

The sensation for American citizens and world information tapes was not a reliable confirmation of the fact that the state is monitoring users, but rather the scale of the problem and “betrayal” from his favorite IT giants. Those, however, did not decisively agree with this. Google and Microsoft immediately stated: such accusations for them as companies that put the user's privacy in first place are a very serious reputation blow*. After that, Microsoft and Facebook released data on government querys regarding their users - they concerned about 20 thousand accounts in FB and 31–32 thousand - at Microsoft. At the same time, both companies emphasized that the information was transmitted as part of a specially concluded agreement.

However, whether Google actually collaborates with the NSA-it is not so important: all American communication providers, in fact, give special services to the analysis of their traffic-exactly like in Russia. It is easier to competent authorities (thanks to the “anti -terrorist” amendments) to access the traffic of one of the providers serving the “clouds” of Apple, than to send the official requests of Apple itself, not bypassing the need to obtain a court permission.

Take care of yourself

Information protection experts are sure: if the user wants to protect himself from surveillance, he must take care of it himself. Google, Dropbox, Facebook and so on-excellent and convenient benefits of IT cyvision, but it is their use that deprives us of protection from the eyes of a big brother. If the user does not want his personal correspondence at one point to be on the table of third parties, he should think about his own Jabber server-a specially created technology for a quick exchange of messages and information about the presence between any two users of the network. And finally, remove ICQ and Google Talk messengers from their devices and laptops.

If the thought of draining the traffic by the provider of Internet services does not warm the soul, it is time to take care of the question of a reliable and preferably personally tuned VPN service. Finally, it is never too late to study some "cryptography for dummies."