[GLLUG] Fwd: Linux Journal: Awesome Tech Magazine or Extremist Forum?

Stan Mortel mortel at cyber-nos.com
Tue Jul 8 17:26:19 EDT 2014




-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Linux Journal: Awesome Tech Magazine or Extremist Forum?
Date: 	Tue, 8 Jul 2014 07:00:47 -0500 (CDT)
From: 	Linux Journal <LinuxJournalservices at linuxjournalservices.com>
Reply-To: 	Linux Journal <Linuxjournalservices at linuxjournalservices.com>

	



Extreme Linux
/Linux Journal/: Awesome Tech Magazine or Extremist Forum?
	


  NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged
  for extra surveillance
  <http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrc%5EL%7CNFeDb>

*by Kyle Rankin*

A new story published on the German site Tagesschau 
<http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcva%7CNFeDb> 
and followed up by BoingBoing 
<http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcvq%7CNFeDb> 
and DasErste.de 
<http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcv6%7CNFeDb> 
has uncovered some shocking details about who the NSA targets for 
surveillance including visitors to /Linux Journal/ itself.

While it has been revealed before that the NSA captures just about all 
Internet traffic for a short time, the Tagesschau story provides new 
details about how the NSA's XKEYSCORE program decides which traffic to 
keep indefinitely. XKEYSCORE uses specific selectors to flag traffic, 
and the article reveals that Web searches for Tor and Tails--software 
I've covered here in /Linux Journal/ that helps to protect a user's 
anonymity and privacy on the Internet--are among the selectors that will 
flag you as "extremist" and targeted for further surveillance. If you 
just consider how many /Linux Journal/ readers have read our Tor and 
Tails coverage in the magazine, that alone would flag quite a few 
innocent people as extremist.

While that is troubling in itself, even more troubling to readers on 
this site is that linuxjournal.com has been flagged as a selector! 
DasErste.de has published the relevant XKEYSCORE source code 
<http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcvL%7CNFeDb>, 
and if you look closely at the rule definitions, you will see 
linuxjournal.com/content/linux* listed alongside Tails and Tor. 
According to an article on DasErste.de 
<http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcwa%7CNFeDb>, 
the NSA considers /Linux Journal/ an "extremist forum". This means that 
merely looking for any Linux content on /Linux Journal/, not just 
content about anonymizing software or encryption, is considered 
suspicious and means your Internet traffic may be stored indefinitely.

One of the biggest questions these new revelations raise is why. Up 
until this point, I would imagine most /Linux Journal/ readers had 
considered the NSA revelations as troubling but figured the NSA would 
never be interested in them personally. Now we know that just visiting 
this site makes you a target. While we may never know for sure what it 
is about /Linux Journal/ in particular, the Boing Boing article 
speculates that it might be to separate out people on the Internet who 
know how to be private from those who don't so it can capture 
communications from everyone with privacy know-how. If that's true, it 
seems to go much further to target anyone with Linux know-how.

It's bad news to all of us who use and read about Linux on a daily 
basis, but fortunately we aren't completely helpless. Earlier in the 
year I started a series on security, privacy and anonymity in my Hack 
and / column that included articles on how to use the Tor browser bundle 
and Tails. With either piece of software in place, you can browse /Linux 
Journal/ (and the rest of the Internet) in private.

Read this and other privacy-related stories at LinuxJournal.com.

  * A Bundle of Tor
    <http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcwq%7CNFeDb>
  * Tails above the Rest: the Installation
    <http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcw6%7CNFeDb>
  * Tails above the Rest, Part II
    <http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcyq%7CNFeDb>
  * Are you an extremist?
    <http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcy6%7CNFeDb>
  * Dolphins in the NSA Dragnet
    <http://linuxjournalservices.com/portal/wts/uemc%7Cy-e4kqqefyOvL%7CTrcyL%7CNFeDb>


    Are you an extremist?

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