[Hackupy-discuss] Dovetail protester communications system

[Shannon Lee]

What are the other projects?  This would be a great place to plug
alternatives.

The users we're talking about are people who've decided to risk their lives
and their freedom to a greater or lesser extent in pursuit of their goals.
 If you asked the user "OK, do you want this ability, though insecure, or
do you not want this ability," many of them will vote to accept the risk;
the way they'll vote to accept the risk is by using the tech.  I know this
because they *do* vote to accept the risk, over and over and over.

I don't think that supporting people who are willing to take such risks is
a bad thing.  I do think that people should be able to take those
risks consciously.  And I also think it isn't hard: functionality always
outpaces security.  People using a tech ought to be able to choose the
advanced functionality at the cost of the security lagging behind, even at
risk of their lives.

Besides which, this is an *incredibly* useful tech in places where the
security needs aren't that high:  this is a great tool for something like
Occupy, which still needs to be able to communicate if the cell phones go
down in the protest area and which does not, by and large, need to worry
about the police showing up and shooting them in their beds.

--S

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 8:47 AM, Eleanor Saitta <ella at dymaxion.org> wrote:

> On 2012.01.10 16.44, Shannon Lee wrote:
> > Yes, like BitTorrent, which is very public but which people use as
> > though it were sekrit sekurity. Nevertheless, BitTorrent remains a good
> > way to download stuff.
> >
> > It's OK for functionality like this to run ahead of security, so long as
> > that fact is very public.  In this case, if the "how it works" page is
> > accurate, there are some big holes -- for example, it seems as though a
> > couple of sniffers could get a *lot* of data -- but it also seems like
> > an interesting product, if you strip out the security claims and make
> > the risks public.
>
> Bittorrent was never intended for use by activists dealing with hostile
> governments.  If it had been, it would have been an irresponsible and
> unacceptable design.  This is intended for use by people who may be shot
> if their messages are read.  Not protecting those messages is not
> acceptable.
>
> This isn't hard: It doesn't matter if it's new or shiny, do it right or
> don't do it at all.  This *can* and *is* being done right by other
> projects, and coordination and cooperation can ensure the best of both
> worlds here.
>
> E.
>
> --
> Ideas are my favorite toys.
>
>


-- 
Shannon Lee
(503) 539-3700

"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
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