Increasingly, our lives are mediated by the Internet and other digital technologies. For anthropologists like myself, this presents new opportunities for research, but the digitization, exchange, and storage of personal data also generate new privacy concerns for our participants. During my research on Brazilian Internet freedom activists, I learned about both the potentials of the Internet, as well as the way that digital technology can, and is, being abused to violate civil liberties. What I call the “privacy paradox,” refers to the situation in which the U.S. government at once defends research participants’ privacy through Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) while it simultaneously violates their privacy on a massive, global scale through mass surveillance national security apparatus.

The privacy paradox become apparent to me in July 2013, just a month after the Snowden leaks that exposed NSA mass surveillance, when I sat down to interview a high-level official of a Brazilian IT firm. Before the interview, I detailed the measures I was taking to ensure that his personal data would be protected and I explained that this was required by Vanderbilt’s IRB per U.S. law. Upon hearing this, the IT official looked at me incredulously. Over the previous two months the front pages of newspapers had been plastered with articles detailing U.S. government surveillance projects with codenames like PRISM, XKeyscore, and Stellar Wind that used the global telecommunications infrastructure to collect personal data on people around the world. My interviewee was well-versed in issues of privacy in the digital age, so to hear me state that the U.S. government was concerned with his privacy was laughable.

While I had already been paying attention to issues of privacy and mass surveillance in my research, this encounter forced me to re-evaluate the ways that U.S. government policy is impacting the work of researchers worldwide and why it is important for the academic community to defend the privacy rights of all people in a digital era.

Institutional Review Boards and Participant Privacy

In the U.S. virtually all researchers who perform research with human participants are required by federal law to have their methods evaluated and approved by an Institutional Review Board, or IRB, including social scientists like anthropologists, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. According to the federal Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), which oversees IRBs in the U.S., the goal of this oversight is to protect “the rights, welfare, and wellbeing of subjects involved in research.” The current IRB system developed in the second half of the 20th century in response to a number of unethical research projects, which revealed that more oversight was necessary to protect participants. In 1974, the U.S. congress passed the National Research Act that created a government-supervised research evaluation system meant to diminish the possibility of unethical and overly risky research.

A primary concern of IRBs in evaluating research proposals is protecting the personal data of research participants, with good reason, because researchers often collect very personal and sensitive information about people that could negatively affect them if it became publicly available. For example, to protect against the accidental distribution of my participant data, Vanderbilt’s IRB required that all the information I collected digitally (i.e., notes, interview recordings, etc.) be stored on a password-protected computer that only I had access to. In many cases researchers are required to anonymize data and/or use pseudonyms when publishing. Such requirements show the extent to which IRBs are legitimately concerned with participant privacy.

Privacy is one of the topics specifically addressed on many Informed Consent documents –forms that participants must read that detail the research goals, potential risks and benefits to individuals, and rights of participants. For example, the final section in the Informed Consent form I used for my research in Brazil included this standard language:

Privacy: Your information may be shared with Vanderbilt or the government, such as the Vanderbilt University Institutional Review Board, Federal Government Office for Human Research Protections if you or someone else is in danger or if we are required to do so by law.

This language alerts participants that in certain, seemingly limited cases, the IRB and/or the U.S. government may seek to gain access to the researcher’s data. For non-U.S. citizens, it also gives the illusion that the U.S. government is concerned with their privacy and will not collect and store their data without cause. However, it is now apparent that the U.S. government is not always as concerned about individual privacy as it would appear in these informed consent forms. This is particularly true for non-U.S. citizens.

NSA Mass Surveillance

The revelations about NSA mass surveillance exposed how the U.S. government was invading the privacy of both Americans and foreigners in the name of fighting terrorism. The NSA’s mission had always been to collect foreign signals intelligence, but now it was revealed that it was performing a massive dragnet in which it was trying, as the former director General Keith Alexander put it, to “collect it all.” This meant that rather than targeting individuals or groups, the NSA was collecting as much telecommunications data as possible – sometimes all the telecommunications traffic in entire countries – and storing it in massive data warehouses.

The Snowden leaks generated a backlash in the U.S. because they revealed that the NSA was storing and analyzing the cell phone habits of millions of U.S. citizens. For many observers, the collection of such data without a warrant is a violation of the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Indeed, a number of citizens are now suing the government, arguing this practice violates their civil liberties. In response, the Obama administration has pledged to make changes to the NSA program, in part to protect the rights of citizens.

However, there are virtually no protections for non-U.S. citizens. Thus, data collection outside of the U.S., which was always more intrusive because it had no legal limitations, most likely continues unabated. In practical terms, this means that every email and phone call of the Brazilian participants in my research project was fair game for NSA data collection. Furthermore, even U.S. citizens’ communications are swept up by the NSA when one of the people involved in the chain is thought to be outside the U.S. Indeed, just the mention of an individual thought to be under surveillance in an email or computer file is justification for its collection by the NSA under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Critics have called it a “backdoor loophole” to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens. In any case, it is clear that all the communications of non-U.S. citizens, including communication with U.S.-based researchers, is currently being targeted and collected by the NSA.

In practical terms, this means that every email and phone conversation I had with my Brazilian research participants could have been collected by the NSA. Furthermore, had I posted any of the data I collected on my computer (Word document field note files, interview audio recordings, photos, etc.) to Vanderbilt’s server from Brazil, it likely would have been swept up the NSA, tapping the international telecommunications cables on which that data would be transferred. The likelihood is increased by the fact that the Brazilian government was a prime target of NSA surveillance, so my interviews with Brazilian government officials would be even more interesting to the NSA— meaning, as a researcher, I could have potentially abetted U.S. surveillance without being aware of it.

The Privacy Paradox

The privacy paradox emerges from these seemingly contradictory U.S. government policies to protect research participants from unethical studies while invading the privacy of people around the world using the telecommunications infrastructure. Recent attempts to reform the NSA surveillance system are mainly aimed at protecting the civil liberties of U.S. citizens. Thus, there is still little concern for the privacy of non-U.S. citizens whose information is being collected and stored in large data centers in the U.S.

What can researchers do practically and ethically given this difficult situation?  Here are a few ideas about what we can do to protect the rights of our participants:

Encryption:

The most urgent task for social scientists is to become proficient with the technological tools necessary to secure the data they collect and send. Secure encryption can significantly delay the ability of global security agencies to decipher emails, field notes, audio recordings etc. All social science research methods courses need to be updated to teach researchers how to use these tools. A recent Savage Minds post by Jonatan Kurzwelly offers a number of great resources for researchers interested in further protecting the data they collect.

IRB Reform: 

Researchers need to push IRBs to gain a more comprehensive grasp of cyber security issues taking into account government surveillance. For example, currently an IRB might require a researcher to store material on a secure, university-controlled serve. However, the IRB might not recognize that sending data to the server from abroad might put all of the privacy of that data at risk. No longer can IRBs ignore the actions of security agencies like the NSA and how they affect researchers working internationally.

An International Internet Rights Convention: 

Academics need to become strong advocates for national policies that protect civil liberties in the digital age. Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist best known as the creator of the World Wide Web, has called for a global Magna Carta on Internet rights. He launched an international campaign called The Web We Want to help people around the world create digital bills of rights in their respective countries. The Web We Want campaign was, in part, inspired by the success of Brazilian Internet freedom activists who successfully fought for the passage of a pioneering Internet freedom bill in 2014. Indeed, the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, one of the primary topics of my own research, included provisions meant to protect Internet user privacy. More initiatives like this around the world and potentially a global convention on Internet rights would create an environment more conducive to ethical research.

Ultimately, the privacy paradox is not one that shows signs of being resolved in the near future. Thus, social scientists must be aware of how conflicting U.S. government policies regarding privacy impact their work. For starters, this will require thoughtful engagement with technology to protect research participants. Additionally, researchers who value their own privacy and the civil liberties of all individuals need to add their voices to discussions about how to protect privacy in the digital era.

When anthropologist Cathy Small enrolled as an undergraduate in her own university ten years ago to do the fieldwork that resulted in My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student (2005), she knew that she wanted to protect the identities of her participants and institution by referring to them using pseudonyms. She called herself “Rebekah Nathan” (an excellent choice of pseudonym if you ask me) and Northern Arizona University “AnyU” (a play on its initials, NAU).

Small explained that she considered anonymity a standard anthropological practice and that she underestimated the interest her hidden identity would generate. Jacob Gershman, a reporter for the New York Sun, drew from the rich details she included in the book to unmask her and her university before it had even been published. Gershman wrote that, “whether by choice or accident, [she] also planted in her ethnographic study many clues about her identity[:] her university is located near Las Vegas, is surrounded by mountains, and has a hotel and restaurant management school.” The risk of my readers playing detective stuck in my mind as I started working through my own ethical commitments to my participants.

The organization where I did most of my fieldwork — a regional women’s weaving cooperative in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala that exports textiles to the U.S. and Europe — has a strong online presence: in addition to a website, it has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. It has also hosted a large number of tourists, who have recorded their experiences in travel blogs, social media posts, and comments on travel review sites. These materials are typically available for public consumption (with the exception of social media sites that may permit varying degrees of access to their contents, like Facebook, which is an ethical discussion for another day) and present researchers with a tantalizingly rich source of self-presented commentary. However, this easy accessibility also makes it difficult to maintain pseudonyms for the organization and its leaders.

Why was it important for the cooperative federation to have its identity disguised? The board of directors had concerns on a few levels, the most prominent being concern about potential retaliation from members of the military for speaking out about the recent genocidal civil war in Guatemala (1960–1996), which is still highly contested. While the organization’s members spoke freely about their experiences in the war to visiting tourists, they wanted to control the audience and context of their testimonies.

The organization already makes its own decisions about how much information to share and withhold online, in negotiation with its international volunteers. US volunteer “Rosalyn” wanted to share some members’ personal stories of their suffering during the war on the website: “When I came in for a talk they were quite open about their own experiences. The one woman was telling us about how they burned her family alive in their house.” She interviewed the president of the cooperative, who spoke at length about the war and then said that she did not want that material to go on the Internet. Rosalyn discussed a couple of possibilities with the president, including focusing on the parts about her childhood and leaving the war out of the finished interview, or publishing the interview anonymously, without her name or town, and she opted for the former. In talking to tourists and allowing the volunteers to post certain stories and images, the organization is constantly weighing how much risk they are willing to take on, so I viewed my responsibility as mitigating any possible impacts of the stories I shared and using basic techniques to make it so that a casual reader would be less likely to be able to associate the name of the organization with my work.

Practically speaking, is there anything we can do to take advantage of the wealth of data available on blogs and websites without compromising our commitment to our participants? Asking a colleague about this issue, I realized that we had independently come to the same solution to incorporate some blog material without inviting the revelation of institutions’ actual names. We presented a few of the most enticing quotes from blogs, the ones we simply couldn’t let go, as interview material, to discourage readers from plugging the quotes into search engines and finding the original blogs. As a researcher, this is a somewhat unsatisfying compromise, because statements made in a blog, intended to be broadcast to an audience, have a different quality than statements solicited in an interview, and should be analyzed differently. However, our guiding principle has to be to restrict harm above all else.

At other times, I paraphrased what someone had said or deliberately cut out words to make it more difficult to search for the quote online. I also tried to use non-online sources such as flyers rather than web sources when talking about how the cooperative represents itself, and deliberately kept the web sources I used out of the final bibliography.

Once, when I was reading a dissertation about Quetzaltenango, I thought I recognized the organization where I was doing fieldwork, referred to with a pseudonym. The anthropologist cited a substantial amount of online material, and checking the bibliography revealed the organization’s actual name associated with its website! It seems likely that this researcher assigned pseudonyms as a matter of standard anthropological practice, counting on the relative obscurity of his research and site to limit the risk of discovery to the organization. This is the kind of pitfall I hope to avoid by using the strategies described above (and any other approaches you can suggest in the comments).

Scholars have pointed out that many groups and individuals may actually want to be identified by name, to gain recognition or aid in their struggles. However, we don’t always get to take the more straightforward approach of naming names. My goal here is to start a conversation about how to handle situations where our participants have explicitly asked to have their identities masked for reasons of reputation management, legal protection, or personal safety.

Imagine a situation in which everything you do on your computer, tablet or telephone is easily available to local authorities, criminal organizations, corporations or even your neighbors or their teenage children. Imagine that your electronic diary is public and anyone can read everything you have written about the people you work with. Every piece of secret, confidential information you have been entrusted with is being read. It doesn’t matter if you use nicknames and codewords – someone who knows the context of your fieldsite will figure it out. With the use of special software, all your text, photographs, videos and sound recordings can be quickly and automatically analyzed, regardless of the language you write in. Moreover, imagine that all of your communications with your colleagues, sponsoring institutions or supervisors are also publicly available. This includes field reports, emails, video conversations, instant messaging, phone calls.

These are not fantasies but real threats if you are not taking additional measures to protect your data and are using a computer! The aim of this post is to introduce the problem of digital threats for sociocultural anthropologists and their informants. My intention is to bring this issue into public debate within the discipline and suggest introduction of appropriate security training into research preparation. I then describe some free-of-charge methods and tools that increase protection from Internet surveillance and data theft. I focus on the need to protect researchers’ personal computers, as well as the benefits of increasing the digital protection, privacy and anonymity of their informants.

What I’ve described might sound like a crazy conspiracy theory or a Hollywood film. But in December 2011 WikiLeaks started releasing the famous Spyfiles, exposing the enormous industry that provides ready-to-use surveillance tools and training. Companies such as FinFisher or Hacking Team sell products which have been used to spy not only on criminals, but also journalists, activists and political dissidents. In June 2013, Edward Snowden – with the help of journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras – started exposing classified information about NSA and the Five Eyes (an alliance of governmental intelligence agencies, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and United States). Thanks to their work and their courage we now know about the global mass surveillance programs and the governments capacities to have complete overview of our digital activities. Consequentially, the freedom of expression and the use of Internet are changing and will probably have vast impact on many domains of life.

What’s more, there are many freely available tools which can be used to access your computer or spy on your Internet activities. It is not hard to find and download exploits, trojan horses or other malicious software (malware). It is also easy to find video-tutorials and descriptions that teach how to gain remote access to your hard drive or how to control all the traffic on a WiFi network. For example, a photograph you receive on your mailbox might contain a hidden malware that will give the attacker full access to your computer without you noticing it. Besides accessing all your files, the camera and microphone on your computer can be switched on remotely. The attacker could also monitor all the traffic of the Internet connection you are using, capturing all your passwords and everything you send and receive. Anyone can be tempted to try it out, even if it is just out of curiosity. Fortunately, there are means to protect ourselves from these types of intrusion.

It is common practice at many universities to conduct ethical reviews of research proposals and discuss ethical issues. Unfortunately, in my experience digital security is being disregarded. I strongly believe that we should not only discuss the existing threats and educate ourselves and our students, but also introduce security standards to be used in anthropology departments and put into practice during fieldwork. Ethical review commissions should also take these risks into account. It is our moral obligation to protect our informants’ privacy and anonymity with the use of the available means

Both the ASA and AAA ethical guidelines mention the importance of protecting informants’ privacy and anonymity.

Researchers have a responsibility to use appropriate methods to ensure the confidentiality and security of field notes, recordings, samples or other primary data and the identities of participants. The use of digitalization and of digital media for data storage and preservation is of particular concern given the relative ease of duplication and circulation. Ethical decisions regarding the preservation of research materials must balance obligations to maintain data integrity with responsibilities to protect research participants and their communities against future harmful impacts. (AAA, 2012)

While protection of research data is mentioned in both cases, the scale of existing threats is not stressed and there are no comprehensive recommendations of adequate tools and methods. Guidance on anonymization of writing or post-fieldwork archiving is easy to find, but personal computers’ security is neglected. This post aims to fill this gap.

This should be of concern to everyone, not just those who study illegal activities, collect particularly sensitive information, or work in conflict zones or countries which surveil journalists and activists. Due to the unpredictable character of fieldwork we should be prepared for the possible appearance of sensitive topics. There is no way of reliably assessing what kind of information, if disclosed, could cause problems to the individuals or the institutions we work with. We should respect and acknowledge the importance of privacy of our informants. In the same way that we carefully consider what and how to write we should protect our data from theft or interception.

In any case, lack of knowledge or digital sloppiness is not an excuse for negligence. I hope that this text will serve as a motivation to debate, learn and introduce higher digital security standards into social research and anthropology departments. It might also be a good idea, for anthropological associations, or for the World Council of Anthropological Associations, to create an Internet guide of available up-to-date tools and methods.

***

In the second part of this paper I introduce a few selected tools that increase the protection of files stored on your hard drive through encryption; provide guidance for creating strong passwords and managing them; encrypt email, voice communication and instant messaging; anonymize Internet use; and share and erase data safely. Finally, I discuss a ready-to-use operating system dedicated to privacy. Mind however that no computer programs or systems are perfect and there are no warranties for those tools to protect you. All the mentioned tools are available free of charge.

In all cases, refer to the software installation guidelines, recommendations and warnings. It is difficult to master the correct us of the mentioned tools and mistakes can be dangerous. Seek  additional help if your digital security and anonymity are crucial.

This text focuses on personal computers only. Mind that other devices, such as telephones, smart-phones, tablets, and even your car’s electronic system are vulnerable as well. If you are using other devices to make, store, discuss or share research data, make sure you know about the threats and take action to reduce them.

Encryption 1

One of the important methods we should introduce into our daily use of computers is encryption.  Putting a password, even a strong password, in your computer gives limited protection. If someone stole your computer or hard drive, or even managed to get remote access, they would be able to access all your files. Cryptographic algorithms can protect your data by making it unreadable for attackers.

The safest method of protecting the data stored on your computer’s hard drive is full disk encryption. ‘Full disk encryption’ means encrypting all the stored data, instead just some selected files. There are ways around full disk encryption, such as infiltrating your computer before or during the encryption process, or try to decrypt your hard drive. When using strong algorithms, decryption is not feasible with current computing possibilities, as it would take too much time. As a result, encryption will make it harder to access your files. However it is still important to store your laptop safely, especially during research leave. It is also advisable to encrypt external data storage devices.

Some operating systems offer full disk encryption during installation. There are also programs which enable encryption of already-installed operating systems:

Examples:

GNU/Linux – some distributions offer encryption when installing the system. If you have not chosen to apply it, you can use LUKS –  https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup/ (see “Readme” and “FAQ”)

Windows – DiskCryptor – https://diskcryptor.net/

OS X – FileVault – https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837

WARNING: Before initiating a hard-drive encryption, make sure you have done a full backup of all your data. A malfunction might cause losing all your files permanently.

Passwords

Your security is highly dependent on the strength of your passwords. Software exists that can test all possible password combinations (the brute-force method) in high speed, which makes short passwords extremely vulnerable. Fortunately, there is a simple and effective method of creating strong passwords with just the use of a dice and a diceware word list. By matching generated numbers with at least six words from the list, you can create a long, easy to remember and randomly generated passphrase.

Diceware Passphrase – http://diceware.com/

word lists are available in several languages

Short video explanation – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc6NiSrlvVc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc6NiSrlvVc

It is of key importance you do not reuse your passwords at different accounts, even if you modify them slightly each time. If you reuse your password, a potential intruder will have access to all your accounts. To help with keeping track of multiple pass-phrases you can store them in a password manager program. This way, you will only need to remember the one password for the manager.

Examples:

GNU/Linux, Windows and OS X – KeePassX – https://www.keepassx.org/

GNU/Linux and Windows – Password Safe – http://pwsafe.org/

Short video explanation –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrazAxl9Prs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrazAxl9Prs

WARNING: It is important to keep a backup of your passwords – for example, writing them down on a piece of paper.

Email

Secure email is important for ethnographic research because it assures the privacy of your communication with your informants, supervisors or sponsoring institutions. The main threats to confidentiality lies with your email provider and your internet connection. Some of the major email providers have been accused of cooperating with governments and intelligence agencies. Institutional email does not necessarily offer more safety, especially at the universities that entrust their institutional email service to external providers. It is also possible to sniff (intercept) your password from Internet traffic. Thanks to the efforts of software developers, there are a number of ways to make your communications more secure.

The best way to safely send messages is to encrypt them on your computer before sending.

When encrypting email it is important to make sure the recipient can decrypt your message but no one on the route of the email to its recipient can (avoiding a man-in-the-middle attack). A very good cryptographic method for this purpose is the public-key encryption. With this method you need to create two, long and randomly generated, keys. One of them, the public key, only serves for encrypting. You can publish it on the internet for anyone to use. The other key is private and serves for decrypting messages that have been encrypted with your public key. You must keep your private key secure. Public-key encryption uses mathematical algorithms that are easy to compute but impossible, within feasible time, to reverse without knowing the private key. This means that people can send encrypted emails to you without the need to exchange secret keys. It is important to share your key fingerprint together with your email address – short sequence of bytes that refers to your public key and serves to authenticate it.

The same goes for writing to others – you should use their public keys to encrypt your messages. Once you encrypt a message it is impossible, even for you, to decrypt it. All the encryption will take place on your computer and your messages will be sent through Internet afterwards. It is recommendable to encrypt all your communications, not only the sensitive ones, as it could draw unnecessary attention.

GNU/Linux, Windows and OS X

This method requires several simple steps: installing and setting up an email program, installing an encryption plugin, creating your keys, sharing the public key and the key fingerprint, learning how to use it. A very good, step-by-step, guide has been created by the Free Software Foundation – https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/

This guide is available in several languages.

Video explaining how PGP works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5FEqGYLL0o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5FEqGYLL0o

If you wish to use an email provider that respects and enforces your privacy, see this list of alternative email services – http://www.prxbx.com/email/

There are also higher-privacy alternatives to encrypt video conferences, internet telephony or on-line chatting. For example, programs that support the off-the-record (OTR) cryptographic protocol can  encrypt your instant messaging communications.

Example:

GNU/Linux, Windows and OS X – Jitsi – a video, internet phone and instant messaging manager. It supports SRTP and ZRTP encryption for calls and OTR for instant messaging – https://jitsi.org/

Internet Anonymity

If you are connecting directly to the internet, attackers can use traffic analysis to keep what websites you are visiting or who you are communicating with. Even if your communication is encrypted, it is possible to tell who you are talking to and much of what you are doing. To ensure anonymity and privacy you should use internet anonymously. Many universities offer Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, but with this technique the VPN provider can still see your traffic. The currently most popular method of browsing the web anonymously is Tor. Tor is an anonymity network that distributes and directs your traffic through a series of randomly chosen virtual tunnels (nodes – the points through which the traffic passes to reach its destination) encrypting it at every point. In this manner no single node can know the whole route of your traffic, protecting you from Internet surveillance. Journalists use it to anonymously contact sources and whistleblowers. We should also have the possibility to communicate anonymously to our informants. Local authorities, criminal organizations, corporations, or others might be alarmed by seeing that you communicate with someone who is considered a local troublemaker (even if you use encryption and they cannot see the content). With Tor it is impossible to tell who you are communicating with and this can protect your informants from unexpected consequences. Browsing certain web pages might also draw attention, as for example opposition or activist web sites or forums (some intelligence agencies have been accused of monitoring those who browse Islamic webpages and portals). It also allows you to access web pages which are blocked or restricted.

GNU/Linux, Windows and OS X

Tor project website – https://www.torproject.org/

For browsing you can use the Tor-browser – https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

Read warnings before using –  https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en#warning

Using Tor might also draw unwanted attention in areas where few people use it. To conceal that you use Tor, use the provided Tor-bridges.

Tor video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWII85UlzKw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWII85UlzKw

For a more comprehensive understanding of Tor, read the documentation provided on the project’s website and see the talk by Jacob Appelbaum and Roger Dingledine, The Tor network, we are living in interesting times, at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress (27.12.2013) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhJ4sjyj13Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhJ4sjyj13Q

Examples of search engines that respect your privacy:

DuckDuckGo – https://duckduckgo.com/

Additional anonymous DuckDuckGo service for Tor users –  3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion

StartPage – https://startpage.com/

Secure Data Storage

Even if you use the most updated tools and encrypt everything, you might be legally obliged, or in worst case tortured or coerced, to decrypt your files (which some illustratively call rubber-hose cryptanalysis). If you gather highly sensitive data during fieldwork it might be a good idea to store them in a distant geographic location. Anthropology departments could provide their researchers with safe confidential data storing service (preferably air-gapped and independent from the university networks and servers). You could also ask a family member or a friend to store your files at an encrypted external hard drive in their home. This way you could keep backup copies in safe locations and would be free to decrypt your fieldwork equipment under pressure. To do that, you will need to transfer your data to the entrusted person. Smaller files can be send via encrypted emails. For bigger transfers you can use OnionShare, an application for anonymous file sharing through the Tor network.

GNU/Linux, Windows and OS X – OnionShare – https://onionshare.org/

It is also important to know that deleting files from your hard drive does not erase them completely. With a simple recovery tool it is possible to see the files you have deleted, as long as you don’t overwrite them. If you want to erase something permanently, you can use an additional program.

Examples:

GNU/Linux and Windows – BleachBit – http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/

OS X – use the Securely Empty Trash option

For CDs and DVDs – simply shatter them.

Warning: because of wear leveling it is very difficult or at times impossible to permanently erase files from Flash Drives, SSD or SD Cards.

Secure Operating Systems

While I highly recommend taking the time to secure your personal computer and protect your digital activities, all of the tools mentioned above can still be useless if your operating system has already been infected or if it contains security vulnerabilities. I want to emphasize the benefits of using free or open software (e.g. GNU/Linux operating systems). When you choose to use proprietary, closed-source software you subject yourself and your safety to the corporation that created it, which might create backdoors – methods to remotely access your computer. Such access might be discovered and used by potential intruders. Free or open software, on the other hand, is created by community effort and assures open source code for everyone to review and correct.

To learn about the major distributions visit: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Examples of proprietary backdoors: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary-back-doors.html

Alternately, you might want to use Tails. It is a GNU/Linux live operating system, which means you can run it from a DVD, USB stick or an SD Card without modifying the computer and without leaving any trail. Tails is dedicated to assure your anonymity and privacy. All Internet connections are forced to go through Tor and tools necessary for encryptions are pre-installed.   Therefore it is perfect for using on other computers, or in case you suspect that your computer has been compromised.  It might be a good idea to have a working copy always at hand.

Tails – https://tails.boum.org/

If you plan contacting your informants through internet, consider teaching them these safety measures. The Tails system is relatively easy to use and comes with all the tools pre-installed, therefore it might be a good idea to share copies with your informants. It is not recommended to discuss any sensitive information over telephone.

***

This is just the beginning. Here are more on-line guides for a more complete list and in-depth explanations of available digital privacy tools.

Examples:

EFF Surveillance Self-Defense – https://ssd.eff.org/

EPIC Online Guide to Practical Privacy Tools – https://epic.org/privacy/tools.html

Information Security for Journalist – http://www.tcij.org/resources/handbooks/infosec

PRISM-BREAK – https://prism-break.org/

Security In A Box – https://securityinabox.org/en

Journalist Security Guide – https://cpj.org/reports/2012/04/technology-security.php#1

You can also attend a CryptoParty to learn more – https://www.cryptoparty.in/

If digital security is crucial to your and your informants safety, contact experts for training and advice. Professional help might be available from the Center for Investigative Journalism (www.tcij.org) or from the Tactical Technology Collective (www.tacticaltech.org).

Finally, while there are many tools that can enhance your Internet protection, there is no way to assure complete security.

The best way to protect yourself from cyber attacks is to create an air-gap, that is not to connect to the Internet at all. You could choose to have an encrypted laptop which you use exclusively for diary writing and data storage, with all the networking devices switched off or unplugged (i.e. taking your wireless and Bluetooth devices out of your computer or cutting their wires). For air-gapped machines to be secure, avoid plugging in any devices you do not trust. Your security might be compromised with, for example, an USB drive that automatically installs malicious software when plugged.

It is also important to remember that technical knowledge and daily routine do not prevent human error. It is important to be wary of what you discuss with others. Someone might try using simple social engineering methods to gain your trust and gather information.

The Journalist Security Guide discusses many other security issues subjects, beside digital safety

https://cpj.org/reports/2012/04/journalist-security-guide.php

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Different field sites require different methods to assure privacy and security. Although it is easy to be accused of paranoia, I insist that we cannot reliably predict what data and situations will emerge during a long-term-research. We should be prepared to apply highest levels of security to our research, or at least know about the existing tools and methods so that we can apply them if necessary.

It is important to recognize that some of these tools are very difficult for non-advanced computer users. We should hope that software developers will make them easier and that operating systems will have them installed by default. For now, however, it is of crucial importance to address digital security issues in anthropology departments and provide necessary training for researchers, supervisors and students that might not be able to learn it by themselves.

Disclaimer:

By no means is the author responsible for any damage caused by use of the programs or methods described in this paper. The author is not affiliated with any of those programs or their creators. The world of informatics is rapidly changing, therefore it is possible that the tools described here will soon be outdated. It is important to investigate the available applications and methods before choosing one or another.

Acknowledgments:

I want to thank Yaman Cakmakci, members of Chaos Computer Club, Berlin’s CryptoParty for their technical advice and Marina Girona Raventós and Tomi Bartole for their comments. I also want to thank Alex Golub for his encouragement, comments and stylistic help.

Now it seems the company is in discussions to purchase a London start up which has expertise in online payments. And it is this creeping interest in financial technologies that should worry us more than drones or our friends turning our chats into their virtual reality.

If everything goes to plan, Facebook users will apparently be offered the chance to store and transfer money on the site, rather than having to use a service like PayPal.

Facebook reps are said to have been in talks with several London-based peer-to-peer money services that could make Facebook payments a reality. One of these is Transferwise, a company that recently hit a quintessential target for a scaling tech company when it announced that it had processed £1 billion in user payments. Another possible candidate, Dublin-based CurencyFaire, has also hit the billion mark, albeit in dollars.

The convergence of social media and financial services should be seen as a profound shift in how people view, save, use, and are freed of their capital. And Facebook’s interest could mark a tipping point. Social media is being used as agateway drug to get users hooked onto much more pernicious forms of socio-technical circuitry and economic capture.

Why would Facebook sell vague social analytics about our activity to advertisers when it could go directly to our wallets? This is the ultimate “disintermediation” or cutting out of the middleman.

Capitalism requires fluidity – the transformation of static objects into cashable objects. By making money social and digital it becomes more fluid.

And since social media corporations are already learning how to turn individual users into liquid assets, the mix is all the more potent. Fluid money and personal data pools in centralised servers owned by the millionaires and billionaires of Facebook and Google.

Facebook apps for asset management will not be designed for the financial elites whose wealth is already governed by a well-paid professional managerial class. While the discourse is about empowering the working and immigrant poor to be able to send money home without costly fees, it is really about financialising a new market, the formerly private acts that are being unlocked by social media.

The privatisation of our lives is already booming. Visit AirBnB to rent out your home, Girl meets Dress to rent someone else’s high-end clothes, WhipCar to borrow someone’s car, Rent My Items to get your hands on their power tools, or Microworkers to rent minutes of your day to do small time work for menial pay.

This is financialisation masked as the “sharing economy” but at least we get to rent a nice dress or go on holiday as a result.

Facebook has been successful in inviting us to volunteer our free digital labour in producing one of the world’s most valuable companies. Some lovingly call this “participatory culture” while I and others call it exploitation.

Facebook can capture additional users by raining down wifi from drones and by making a scroll through bachelor party pictures more immersive with 3D goggles, but these markets will be small time in comparison to the financial market of online payment and banking.

This is an explicit attempt to transform the means of our digital sociality, our online public sphere and agora into a mall, a bank, a bazaar. If Facebook is successful, users will rarely leave the site. They will forgo the dangers of the wider internet for the safe comforts of our gated virtual community where we are safe to self-promote and shop till we drop.

Or worse, this is an attempt to “gamify” money management. It will be Farmville for personal finance or 3D Candycrush for cash. This sounds stupid because it is. It represents the transformation of a complex system into a simple one. The more our social life is monitored and then digitised, the easier it is to hoard, gamify, and monetise any profitable crumbs.

This will not result in more agency but less. Banking is based on hard-to-understand calculations but it is regulated. Add complex filtering algorithms and financial technological derivatives to the picture and no sane person will understand what is happening to their money.

Online payment isn’t the problem. Facebook, Google, and others who monopolise and monetise our digital lives on closed centralised systems are. The financialisation of our private lives as well as unwarranted, indiscriminate, illegal, bulk surveillance flourish in these spaces where corporations and governments gain direct access to our private lives.

What we need is a social movement to demand an information commons, decentralised servers, and digital literacy along with so-called financial literacy. We don’t need to hand Facebook yet another key to our private spaces.