Anonymity, Encryption, and Propaganda

-- By EthanThomas - 03 Mar 2017

I. The Growing Need for Anonymity and Privacy

A. The Demand for Protected Communication Is Legitimate

Modern communication and information storage is difficult to analyze through founding-era views of privacy. In a world where communication channels were limited and means of snooping were rather blunt (e.g., intercepting parcels and searching physical places), boundaries were simple to draw and it was much easier to expect privacy absent these clear methods of intrusion. Situations calling for a mechanism of storage impossible for anyone in the world to open unless they had an intangible key are hard to imagine.

Now, however, covert observation is widespread. The effort required to tap into years of extremely intimate information about a person is minimal(1). The government can and does conduct wide-scale dragnet surveillance. The public has a stronger need than ever for tools that protect information from unauthorized viewing and mining, both by the government and private actors.

Individual autonomy is drastically undercut when the threat of monitoring always lurks in the background. "Autonomy is vitiated by the wholesale invasion of secrecy and privacy. Free decision-making is impossible in a society where every move is monitored . . . ."(2) The ability to communicate anonymously or free from this fear of eavesdropping is central not only to personhood, but to a functional democracy as well.(3)

B. The Need for Protected Communication Is Stronger Than Ever

Even with relatively secure means of communication, government access is a serious concern. Last year, the FBI sought information about users of the encrypted-messaging app Signal.(4) This request involved account-holder information, but other requests have sought to reach the contents of encrypted messaging -- most notably, encrypted email service Lavabit was required by a court order to turn over its private keys, which would have given the government the ability to break through the encryption of _all Lavabit email accounts.(5) The service opted to shut down rather than compromise user data,(6) but because it was subject to a gag order, it is uncertain how many such services have received and complied with similar requests. The regular use of national security letters in this context amplifies these concerns, because there is little to no judicial oversight.

Users will often never know who is seeing their private correspondence, when it is being monitored, and for what purpose the data is used. Thus the need encryption and reliable anonymity that can provide reasonable assurance against such intrusions is significant if the threat of constant observation is to be curtailed at all.

II. The Campaign of Vilification Against Encryption

The government has taken a strong stance against secure means of communication, and encryption in particular, by highlighting instances where criminals or terrorists use these tools, perpetuating the "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" narrative,(7) and insisting that privacy is compatible with uninhibited government access to records and communications. These tactics and the overall message against encryption ignore legitimate need for the technology, and they reveal troubling motives to the government's approach to technology, privacy, and free speech.

A. Association with Criminality and Delegitimization

One tactic that has recently gained favor is to associate secure or anonymous communication with terrorism. To be sure, the association of tools the government dislikes with criminal behavior is not a new phenomenon. The current narrative, however, creates a strong tie between criminality and the use of certain technologies that aims to stigmatize their use.

In one report (by a private firm), Tor, VPN services, and several messaging applications are identified as "Tech for Jihad."(8) Tor in particular has gained a reputation as "the web browser for criminals,"(9) merely because it helps to anonymize users. Telegraph, an app which can send encrypted and self-deleting messages, has been identified as "the app of choice for jihadists."(10)

The government has itself played a role in associating privacy-protecting or anonymizing tools with criminality. The standoff between Apple and the FBI over the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone brought to the forefront the government's discomfort with encryption.(11) The Manhattan District Attorney's Office argues that "[t]here is an urgent need for federal legislation that would compel software and hardware companies that design or build mobile devices or operating systems to make such devices amenable to appropriate searches."(12).

B. Flaws, Motives, and Dangers of This Campaign

This treatment of encryption and anonymity is essentially propaganda.(13) Such a campaign makes sense: encryption is easy to implement and access,(14) so the best way to keep people from it is to treat it as if it were dangerous or presumptively criminal. In other words, the goal is to change behavior through misinformation and fear, rather than through direct enforcement. This is at its core self-censorship and self-regulation, gradually imposed on the citizenry.

While anonymity and secrecy are directly offended by a war on encryption, autonomy is also a victim. As discussed above, the persistent threat of monitoring and censorship severely limits the ability to express, act, and ultimately think on one's own. The notion that people who seek to act autonomously by guaranteeing freedom from these intrusions are dangerous (or even criminal) demonstrates a troubling lack of respect for these principles of autonomy from those in power, but also threatens to suppress expression and uninhibited behavior by making individuals and communities police themselves. If people are told that they have nothing to hide if they have done nothing wrong, and companies adopt this narrative (for their own purposes or by prohibiting customers from using anonymizing tools),(15) then suppression of ideas and identity could become the norm. Simply put, the best way to ensure that behavior can be comprehensively monitored is to normalize snooping (by both the government and private parties) and to stigmatize evasion of such intrusions.

III. Moving Forward and Embracing Technology as a Defender of Autonomy

The views of the government -- and increasingly, the view of corporations and society -- toward encryption, anonymity, and secrecy are contrary to principles of a free society. They stigmatize true expression and a desire to behave unscrutinized. Privacy is paramount to individual autonomy and functioning democracy. It is not enough to make promises of these rights; the people must have access to tools that guarantee them. Instead of vilifying use of these tools, the government could acknowledge them as central to the guarantees of American freedom and democracy. The public must demand this change of position.

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Notes

1 : Consider access to a Google account containing perfectly archived emails, cloud storage, photos, calendar data, and more.

2 : Eben Moglen, Privacy under attack: the NSA files revealed new threats to democracy, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy-under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy.

3 : See id.

4 : Open Whisper Systems, Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Eastern District of Virginia, https://whispersystems.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/.

5 : Ladar Levison, Secrets, lies and Snowden's email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email.

6 : Id.

7 : For one discission of this argument, see Alex Abdo, You May Have 'Nothing to Hide' But You Still Have Something to Fear, https://www.aclu.org/blog/you-may-have-nothing-hide-you-still-have-something-fear.

8 : See Flashpoint, Tech for Jihad, https://www.flashpoint-intel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/TechForJihad.pdf.

9 : See Business Insider, Comcast Denies It Will Cut Off Customers Who Use Tor, The Web Browser For Criminals, http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-threatens-to-cut-off-tor-users-2014-9.

10 : See Washington Post, The ‘app of choice’ for jihadists: ISIS seizes on Internet tool to promote terror, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-app-of-choice-for-jihadists-isis-seizes-on-internet-tool-to-promote-terror/2016/12/23/a8c348c0-c861-11e6-85b5-76616a33048d_story.html.

11 : See, e.g., NPR All Tech Considered, A Year After San Bernardino And Apple-FBI, Where Are We On Encryption?, http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/12/03/504130977/a-year-after-san-bernardino-and-apple-fbi-where-are-we-on-encryption.

12 : Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Smartphone Encryption and Public Safety, http://manhattanda.org/sites/default/files/Report%20on%20Smartphone%20Encryption%20and%20Public%20Safety:%20An%20Update.pdf.

13 : (See Oxford Dictionaries, Propaganda, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/propaganda "Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.").

14 : For example, RSA encryption utilizes basic number theory, and a simple program can create extremely difficult-to-break encryption

15 : See Business Insider, Comcast Denies It Will Cut Off Customers Who Use Tor, The Web Browser For Criminals, http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-threatens-to-cut-off-tor-users-2014-9; see also PC World, Google's Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments, http://www.pcworld.com/article/184446/googles_schmidt_roasted_for_privacy_comments.html (citing Schmidt's comment that "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place . . . .")

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