... wanted to be able to use
Thunderbird and GnuPG together with Tor,
and so we thought:
oh, it would be really easy, I bet,
to configure Thunderbird to work with Tor
- hah - so a new Free software project
was born.
It's a really simple thing, but basically
it's just a package
that hooks it all together.
So a lot of people were using Thunderbird
and TorBirdy, and GnuPG, and Tor,
and Debian, together for email,
combined with Riseup as an email service.
So it's a literally a real peer to peer,
Free software driven set of things,
actually, that made it possible.
[question]: So one thing I never understood about this
process was exactly how the documents were
handled, and maybe that's because nobody
wants to say, but, you know, did you leave
them on a server somewhere and download
them, hand them over to people, and who
took what where, and how do you...
in case I need to do something really
dangerous with a load of documents,
what's the best way of doing it?
Hmm!
It's a good thing
this isn't being streamed.
I'm sorry, what?
There was a voice from god,
what did she say?
I said good we aren't streaming tonight.
Oh yeah, so hello to all of our friends
in domestic and international
surveillance services.
Well, so I won't answer your question,
but since you asked the question,
it's my turn to talk.
So what I would say is that...
if you want to do clandestine activities
that you fear for your life for,
you need to really think about
the situation that you're in
very carefully.
And so a big part of this is
operational security
and a big part of that is
compartmentalization.
So certain people had access
to certain things,
but maybe they couldn't decrypt them,
and certain things were moved around,
and that's on a need to know basis,
and those people who knew,
which is not me - I don't know anything,
I don't know what you're talking about.
Those people knew, and then you know,
it'll go with them to their grave.
So if you're interested in being the next
Edward Snowden,
you need to do your homework
in finding people that will be able to do
the other part of it, let's say.
But just in general, I mean
compartmentalization is key, right.
So it's not just for AppArmor profiles.
So you need to think about
what you want to do.
And I mean a big part of this is
to consider that the network itself
is the enemy, even though is useful
for communicating.
So all the metadata that exists
on the network could have
tipped people of, could have caused this
whole thing to fall apart.
It really is amazing, I feel like you know
two and half, three years ago,
when you talk about Free software,
and you talk about the idea of
Free software,
and you talk about issues relating to
autonomy and privacy, and security
you have a really different reception now
than you did then,
and that's really what it took
to turn the world half a degree,
or a quarter of a degree or something.
So I'm not going to tell you about
detailed plans for conspiracy,
but I highly encourage you to read about
South African history, in particular
the history of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
They are the clandestine communications
group for MK, or rather the operation
who lay inside of MK, which is
Umkhonto we Sizwe,
and they are sort of with
the African National Congress,
and those people have published so many
books about the revolutionary activities
to overthrow the apartheid state.
If you read these books, especially
the book "Operation Vula"
and "Armed and Dangerous"
by Ronnie Kasrils
they give you some idea about
what you need to do
which is to compartmentalize,
how to find people to do various tasks,
specific tasks,
how to work on building trust
with each other, what that looks like,
how to identify political targets,
how you might use things
like communications technology
to change the political topic on,
and the discussion in general.
And I think the best way to learn about
these things is to study previous people
who have tried to do that kind of stuff.
And the NSA is not the apartheid regime of
South Africa,
but there are still lessons
to be learned there,
so if you really want to know the answer
to that, also Che Guevara's manual on
guerilla warfare is very interesting,
and there's a lot of other books like that.
I'd be happy to talk about it
with you later.
And I have nothing to do with anything
that we may or may not have done.
[laughter]