WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... wanted to be able to use 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Thunderbird and GnuPG together with Tor, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so we thought: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 oh, it would be really easy, I bet, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to configure Thunderbird to work with Tor 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - hah - so a new Free software project was born. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a really simple thing, but basically 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's just a package that hooks it all together. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So a lot of people were using Thunderbird 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and TorBirdy, and GnuPG, and Tor, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and Debian, together for email, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 combined with Riseup as an email service. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So it's a literally a real peer to peer, Free software driven set of things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 actually, that made it possible. NOTE Paragraph 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: So one thing I never understood about this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 process was exactly how the documents were handled, and maybe that's because nobody 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wants to say, but, you know, did you leave them on a server somewhere and download 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 them, hand them over to people, and who took what where, and how do you... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in case I need to do something really dangerous with a load of documents, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what's the best way of doing it? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Hmm! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [audience member]: It's a good thing this isn't being streamed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm sorry, what? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was a voice from god, what did she say? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [audience]: I said good we aren't streaming tonight. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Oh yeah, so hello to all of our friends 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in domestic and international surveillance services. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, so I won't answer your question, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but since you asked the question, it's my turn to talk. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So what I would say is that... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you want to do clandestine activities 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that you fear for your life for, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you need to really think about the situation that you're in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 very carefully. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so a big part of this is operational security 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and a big part of that is compartmentalization. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So certain people had access to certain things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but maybe they couldn't decrypt them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and certain things were moved around, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's on a need to know basis, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and those people who knew, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is not me - I don't know anything, I don't know what you're talking about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Those people knew, and then you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it'll go with them to their grave. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So if you're interested in being the next Edward Snowden, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you need to do your homework 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in finding people that will be able to do the other part of it, let's say. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But just in general, I mean 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 compartmentalization is key, right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So it's not just for AppArmor profiles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So you need to think about what you want to do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I mean a big part of this is to consider that the network itself 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is the enemy, even though it is useful for communicating. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So all the metadata that exists on the network 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 could have tipped people off, could have caused 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this whole thing to fall apart. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It really is amazing, I feel like you know 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 two and half, three years ago, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when you talk about Free software, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you talk about the idea of Free software, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you talk about issues relating to autonomy and privacy, and security 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you have a really different reception now than you did then, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's really what it took 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to turn the world half a degree, or something, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or a quarter of a degree or something. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I'm not going to tell you about detailed plans for conspiracy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I highly encourage you to read about South African history, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in particular the history of Umkhonto we Sizwe. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They are the clandestine communications group for MK, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or rather the operation who lay inside of MK, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is Umkhonto we Sizwe, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they are sort of with the African National Congress, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and those people have published so many books about the revolutionary activities 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to overthrow the apartheid state. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you read these books, especially the book "Operation Vula" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and "Armed and Dangerous" by Ronnie Kasrils 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they give you some idea about what you need to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is to compartmentalize, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how to find people to do various tasks, specific tasks, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how to work on building trust with each other, what that looks like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how to identify political targets, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how you might use things like communications technology 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to change the political topic on, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the discussion in general. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think the best way to learn about these things is to study previous people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who have tried to do that kind of stuff. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the NSA is not the apartheid regime of South Africa, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but there are still lessons to be learned there, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so if you really want to know the answer to that, also Che Guevara's manual 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on guerilla warfare is very interesting, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there's a lot of other books like that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'd be happy to talk about it with you later. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I have nothing to do with anything that we may or may not have done. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: Do you think there is a chance that things may get better 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for example I know that publicly, some programs were not extended 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I don't know what is happening in the background 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so maybe it's the same thing but they are pretending that it's not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How do you see this? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Well I think a couple of things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In general I think what happened, not just with this movie but with all of these things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that in inspired hope, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the hope is very important, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but hope is not a strategy for survival, or for building alternatives, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so what it has also done, is that it has allowed us to raise the profile 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the things which actually do make it better. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example ridding ourselves of the chains of proprietary software 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is something that's a serious discussion with people that wouldn't have previously 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 talked about Free software because they don't care about liberty, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they care about security. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And even though I think those are really simliar things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 previously they just thought we were just Free software hippies, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in tie-dye shirts 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and while that may be true on the weekends and evenings 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or with Bdale every day [laughter] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that actually does make it better 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it also changes the dialogue, in the sense that it's no longer reasonable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to pretend that mass surveillance and surveillance issues don't matter, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because if you really go down the rabbit-hole 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of thinking about what the security services are trying to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it becomes obvious that we want to encrypt everything all the time 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to beat selector-based surveillance and dragnet-based surveillance. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It doesn't matter if something is authenticated 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You could still trigger some action to take place 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with these kinds of surveillance machines 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that could for example drone strike someone, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so it raises that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that gives me a lot of hope too, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because people understand the root of the problem, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or the root of many problems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the root of some violence in the world, actually. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so it helps us to reduce that violence 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by getting people to acknowledge that it's real 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and also that they care about it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that we care about each other. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So that really gives me a lot of hope, and part of that is Snowden 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and part of that is the documents 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but the other part of it is that.. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't want to blow it up and make it sound like we did something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like a big deal, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but in a sense, Laura, Glen, myself and a number of other people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were really not sure we would ever be able to travel home to our country 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we wouldn't be arrested. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I actually haven't been home in over two and half years, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 well, two years and three months or something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I went out on a small business trip that was supposed to last two weeks 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then this happened 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I've been hear ever since. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a really long, crazy trip. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the point is that that's what was necessary to make some of these changes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and eventually it will turn around 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I will be able to go home, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and Laura and Glen will be able to travel to the US again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Obviously, Julian is still stuck in the Ecuadorian embassy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Sarah lives in exile in Berlin, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I live in exile in Berlin, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Ed is in Moscow 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we're not finished with some of these things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's also possible that we are, the set of people I mentioned, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the state we're in, will stay that way forever. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But what matters is that the rest of the world 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 can actually move on and fix some of these problems, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I have a lot of hope about that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I see a lot of change, that's the really big part. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like I see the reproducible build stuff that Holger and Lunar are working on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 People really understand the root reason for needing to do that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and actually seems quite reasonable to people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who would previously have expended energy against it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in support of it, so I think that's really good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And there's a lot of other hopeful things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I would try and be as uplifting as possible. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's not just the rum! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: Near the end of the film we saw something about another source. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I may have been missing some news or something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I don't remember anything about that being public. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Do you know what happened to them? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: As far as I know any other source that was mentioned in the film 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is still anonymous, and they're still free. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm not exactly sure because I was not involved in that part 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I also saw the end of the film 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I've seen a bunch of other reporting which wasn't attributed to anyone in particular 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So the good news... there's an old slogan from the Dutch hacker community, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Someone you trust is one of us, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the leak is higher up in the chain of command than you" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I feel like that might be true again, hopefully. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that guy has a question as well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: Part of the problem initially was that encryption software 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was not so easy to use, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think part of the challenge for everyone 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was to improve on that situation to make it better 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so I'm asking you if you've observed any change and to the rest of the room 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have we done anything to improve on that? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: I definitely think that there is a lot of free software 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that makes encryption easier to use, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 though not always on free platforms, which really is heart-breaking. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example Moxie Marlinspike has done a really good job 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with Signal, Textsecure and Redphone 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and making end-to-end, encrypted calling, texting, sexting, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and whatever apps, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 sext-secure is what I think it's nicknamed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I'm very impressed by that, and it works really well 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's something which in the last two years 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you have a cell-phone, which I don't recommend 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but if you have a cell-phone, and you put in everyone's phone number, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of people that I would classify as non-technical people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that don't care about Free software as a hobby or as a passion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or as a profession. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You see their names in those systems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 often more than some of the Free software people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's really impressive to me, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think there's been a huge shift just generally about those sorts of things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 also about social responsibility, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or people understand they have a responsibility to other people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to encrypt communications, and not to put people in harm's way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by sending unsafe stuff over unsafe communication lines. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I think in my personal view it's better. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the original problem wasn't actually that the encryption was hard to use. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think the main problem is people didn't understand the reason 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that it needed to be done 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they believed the lie that is targetted versus mass surveillance. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And there's a big lie, and the lie is that there is such a thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as targeted surveillance. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the modern era, most so-called targetted surveillance actually happens 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 through mass surveillance. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They gather everything up, and then they look through the thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they've already seized. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And of course there are targetted, focussed attacks. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the main thing is that the abuse of surveillance often happens 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on an individual basis. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It also has a societal cost. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think a lot of people really understand that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's probably because I also live in Germany now for the last two years 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I feel that German society in particular is extremely aware 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of these abuses in the modern world 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they have a historical context that allows them to talk about it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with the rest of the world, where the world doesn't downplay it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So this is how other people relate to Germany 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not just about Germans relate to each other. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that has also been really good for just meeting regular people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who really care about it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and who really want to do things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So people's parents email me, and are like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I want to protect my children, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what's the best way to use crypto with them?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know, things like that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I didn't every receive emails like that in the past 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's to me is uplifting and very positive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: A quick organisational question. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right now we're live-streaming the Q&A. Are you comfortable with that? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: I don't think in the last three years I've ever had a moment 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that wasn't being recorded. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: If you're fine with it, moving on... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: That's fine, just don't do it when I'm trying to sleep. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: I was wondering why Laura and you ended up in Germany 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because what you said about people in Germany might be true 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I'm really ashamed about my Government and how they dealt with ???? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they are doing nothing for this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: The reason that we ended up in Germany 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that I'd been attending Chaos Computer Club events 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for many years 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there are bunch of people that are part of the Chaos Computer Club 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who are really supportive, and good people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who have a stable base, and an infrastructure. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The German hacker scene has this phenomenon which is that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's a part of society. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So there are people in the CCC who will talk with the constitutional court 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for example, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that creates a much more stable society 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and those people were willing to help us. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They were willing to hold footage, to hold encrypted data. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They were willing to help modify hardware. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was a huge base of support where people, even if they had fear, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they did stuff anyway. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that support went back a long time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so we knew that it would be safe to store footage for the film here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In Berlin, not in Heidelberg, but here in Germany. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we knew that, of course, there were people that would be helpful. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the US there's a much bigger culture of fear. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 People are afraid of having their houses raided by the police, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where there's lots of detainments at the borders, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where there's lots of speculative arrests, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 journalists that are jailed, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so the situation was not to say that Germany was perfect. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I revealed in Der Speigel with three other journalists that Merkel was spied on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by the NSA. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it's clear that the Germany government was complicit 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with some of this surveillance. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But in a sort of pyramid of surveillance there's a sort of colonialism 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that takes place. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that the NSA and GCHQ are at the top. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the Germans are little bit below that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The thing is that there's not a lot you do about that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so even though we revealed this about Merkel, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's not clear what she should do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's not clear what anyone should do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But one thing that was clear was that if they wanted to break into our houses 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they would do it in a way that would cost them a lot politically. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It would be very public. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The last time someone raided someone working with Der Speigel 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was in 1962 during the Speigel affair, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and some ministers were kicked out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You may have seen recently the Landersverrat thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with Netzpolitik. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The charges against them now have been dropped. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That would never happen in the United States. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We would not be safe. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I still, for my investigative journalism, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and my work with Wikileaks, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and my work with the Tor project, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I wouldn't even go back to the US, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because there's no chance that if they wanted to do something to me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that I would have any constitutional liberties, I think, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the same is true of Snowden. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You just won't get that fair trial. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we thought at least here we would have ground to stand and fight on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it's exactly what happened, and we won. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: This is also about the fear stuff that you talk about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is in the very old days we used to put red words in the end of every message 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to make sure that it would be hard to find the actual subversive message 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 among all the noise. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And you can think about the same thing here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Should we build our systems so that everything gets encrypted all the time? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: So I have a lot of radical suggestions for what to do, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I'm going to talk about them tomorrow in the keynote mostly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But to give you an example, if you install Debian, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you can give someone the ability to log into the machine 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 over a Tor hidden service for free. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You get a free .onion when you add two lines to a Tor configuration file. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We should make encryption not only easy to use but out of the box 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we should have it possible to have end-to-end reachability and connectivity, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we should reduce the total amount of metadata, to make it harder for people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who want to break the law, that want to break into computers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We should solve the problem of adversarial versus non-adversarial forensics 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so we can verify our systems with open hardware and Free software together. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And there's a lot to be done, but the main thing to do is to recognise 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that if you have the ability to upload to Debian, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there are literally intelligence agencies that would like those keys. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we have a great responsiblity to humanity as Debian developers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to do the right thing: to build open systems, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to build them in a way where users don't need to understand this stuff. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There are a lot of people in the world that will never see this film. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we can solve the problems that this film describes largely with Free software. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we can do that without them knowing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they will be safe for us having done that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And if we can do that, the world will be a better place, I think. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think the world is a better place because of the efforts that were 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 already done in that area, that made this possible. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Tails project made it so that a bunch of people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who were good at investigative journalism, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but absolutely terrible with computers, were able to pull this off. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that is entirely the product, in my opinion, of Free software. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And a little bit of Laura and Glen, but I'd say a lot of Free software. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: How many people do you think NSA has 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 working within the Debian community? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Well, I looked in the Snowden archive about that actually. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah. And as far as I can Debian is not a high priority target for them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean they write exploits for all sort of stuff 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I never found any systematic attempt to compromise or harm the Debian project. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But obviously there are people who are paid by the NSA to infiltrate communities, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's why we have to open transparent processes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so that if those people behave badly, we have an audit trail. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We won't ever stop that kind of stuff, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but what matters is that people do good things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It doesn't matter who they do bad things for as long as we can correct those things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and/or catch them and stop them before it happens. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But as far as I know there are only a couple of people that have ever 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 been associated with the NSA in the Debian community. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I think we shouldn't get paranoid about it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but we should just be prudent about our processes, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because there are lots of intelligence services around the world 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that do not like the values of a universal operating system, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so I don't think it's super-important to look, but I did actually look, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 very specifically for a whole bunch of people in the Debian community 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to see if any of them also were being paid by the NSA 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I didn't find any serious thing that raised concern, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if I did, I would have... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, there were lots of things I found in the archive that I immediately 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 notified security teams about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Where I worked along with many other people to actually fix those things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And one of those things, if we had found them, like infiltrators in Debian, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I absolutely would have just told people about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The problem is that a lot of the journalists don't want to do that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because there's a ten year felony where you go to prison - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a federal American prison - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you reveal the name of an agent. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So there's a tension there, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I think that there's something to be said, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if they're actually actively harming the community 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they're committing a crime, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think there's something to be said about that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So if I found that I think it would be worthwhile, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but just so you know, there's this high cost. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So if there were people in the agency now, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because they say that we used Tails, and Debian, and they wanted to subvert it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there's a really really high bar for punishment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which suggests that maybe people won't tell you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we need to sort of bank on the fact that we'll never know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but we don't need to know, as long as we have good processes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that would catch bad behaviour. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that's one of the strengths of Debian. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There are very few operating systems, I think, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and just in general Free software communities, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that are as diverse, and committed to the openness and the Free software nature 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of this kind of a project, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so it's very important to state that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I do think one of the things that will happen in the future at some point 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that you'll start to find people in the Debian community that are pressured 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by other people to do bad things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so we need to set up processes that will stop that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to create an incentive for that not happening. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it's really tough, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so I think that openness, transparency and accountability are the ways that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we can combat that, because otherwise we won't really be able to solve it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But don't be paranoid, is the other thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They really are out to get you, so be prepared. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: I'm just wondering how trust was established 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because I'm just realizing that this community, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for you to verify your public key and even fingerprint is like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you have you produce your passport, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so I'm wondering how Laura managed to exchange her keys with Snowden 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and make sure that they were really talking to the right person. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Julian]: Well, they had a whole sort of dance for doing key exchange. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think it was a little bit luck, and a little bit transitive trust, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there's a little bit of the web of trust, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it worked pretty well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, I don't think that the key-signing stuff that Debian does is anything close 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to what they were doing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They just wanted to make sure that the keys they had were the right keys, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that they weren't compromised, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that then they would change things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was a point in the movie where they said: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "let's disassociate our meta-data one more time" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And what that means is they changed all of the identifiers that are visible 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the network, new keys, new email addresses, new Tor circuit, etc 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and this is like a key consistency thing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where they had the right key to begin with and the continued to rotate over new keys. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is also sometimes called TOFU. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is, I think, weaker than the web of trust, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but a lot easier for people to do, and very easy to explain, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it worked out pretty well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It doesn't scale really well, but it has a separate good side 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is the web of trust explicitly names a web of co-conspirators. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so you don't want that feature. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's useful for something like Debian; 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's not useful for clandestine conspiracies to commit 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 investigative journalism. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Lots of questions, this is great. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: Somebody working on Tail told me that the NSA has a file on every DD. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Is that true, do you know? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Julian]: Okay, so when you balance your check-book, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just to answer your question in a really strange way, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when you balance your check-book, or you balance your bank account, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you think this is how much my rent is, this is how much food is, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this is how much I have to spend on some new hardware, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you think about money in an individual way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But if you think about is as a state, the way a state thinks about money. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They don't balance budgets the same way that you do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They think about long-term investments very differently. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They have other people's money. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a whole different way of managing it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the NSA is not the Stasi. So it's not that you have to worry about whether 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they have a file on you, or every Debian developer, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but rather there exist some laws in the United States that say 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for cyber-security purposes, you don't have constitutional rights 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and based on your accent, you weren't an American anyway, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you aren't in America, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so you don't have any rights at all, anyway, according to them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They're just allowed to do whatever they want to you, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 up to and including murdering you, with the CIA. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's what they do with drones; that was at the very end of the movie. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So it's not that they have a file on you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's that they have giant databases full of information on all of us, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then when they're interested in you, pull up all your data, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and associative data, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then they use that, and sometimes they use it to target you, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to break into your machines, or to find people to exert pressure on, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or to do psychological manipulation on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 All that stuff, they do all of those things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so it's not that they have one file on you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Though maybe, it depends, if you work on a critical package like the Linux kernel 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they might be more interested in you than if you work on something else. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't want to denigrate anyone's work, but they have very specific focuses, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so they definitely are interested in being able to compromise systems, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so you may also have file, but it's really the meta list that's the new way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of thinking about it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And in some senses I think that's actually scarier, because they just hoover up 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 everything, all across the whole Internet, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and things that are interesting, then they have them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And depending on what interesting things are there, they maybe 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 put those in a database that lasts for ever, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or maybe it's just around for 30 days, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or maybe its full content for 9 days, or something like that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then of course if you are a person of interest 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they do do the same stuff that the Stasi does, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they do that Zersetzung stuff, if you're familiar with this German term, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 disintegration, they do that kind of stuff, along with JTRIG, from GHCQ, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so they harass people, blackmail them, do all sorts of really nasty stuff. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they do that also, so both of those things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So again, I don't think you should be paranoid, you should encrypt your stuff, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and help people do the same, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and know that in a democratic society with a secret political police, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the right place to be is in their database, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You should be proud of being surveilled by them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it means you're doing the right thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nonetheless, we should stop them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: I'm curious about your views about Snowden actually coming out 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and saying he was the whistleblower, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because I know, when he came out, I had some fierce discussion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with friends about it, so I wanted to know what you thought about it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: What do you mean came out? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: He said I'm Edward Snowden, I'm the whistle-blower, here I am, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 instead of just being anonymous the whole way, just sending files to people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Well, I think the main thing is that it's about control of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your own narrative, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean if we could have done everything here anonymous, and gotten away with it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would that have made the same impact 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in getting other people to come forward even if they maintain their anonymity? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I think that what Snowden did, what' beautiful about it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that he basically did enough, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where he could then survive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Our job now for the most part, a very good friend told me, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he's a little bit of a fatalist, he said: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your job, Laura's job, Glen's job, Snowden's job, your job now is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just to survive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's all that you need to do now. You don't need to do anything else. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You should go do other things, like drink a glass of wine, relax, be happy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have a nice life, but just survive, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so other people can see that you do the right thing, you couldn't have done more, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you did enough, and you lived through it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so Snowden coming out and telling us all of these things, I mean, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there are really powerful people saying he should be assassinated, right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hung by the neck until dead, was what one of the CIA people said. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So he probably could have continued to be anonymous for a while, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but imagine if the NSA had got to reveal his identity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How would that have been framed, what would the first impression have been? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think they called him a narcissist, and they called him all these terrible names. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it didn't really stick, because he basically said "come at me bro', 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm ready, and you can do your worst, but you can't get rid of the facts, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so let's talk about the facts." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think the timing of how he did that is good, because he really cared 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about the issues, but he also recognized that it was a matter of time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the NSA police went to his house, they really bothered his family, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they've done that with my family as well, other people's families have had trouble. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I think think it's tough, because I think he probably would have liked to have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 been able to not have that happen, but there comes a point at which 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're the person who has access to all that information 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they're going to figure it out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No amount of anonymity, I think, will last forever, but it can buy you time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He got exactly the amount of time he needed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The really sad part about him coming out in public when he did, though, was that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he got stuck in Russia, because my government cancelled his passport. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think mostly for propaganda reasons. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because in the United States, we denigrate all things relating to Russia. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And there are lots of problems with Russia, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and especially with Vladimir Putin, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but at the same time that seems to be the only country that was willing to uphold 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 his fundamental liberties. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I went to the Council of Europe, and to the European Parliament, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the German Parliament, to the French, sort of to the French Parliament, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they didn't really want to meet with me, but also to the Austrian Parliament, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and to a number of other places, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and everyone said, oh, we would really live to help anybody who needs help, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 oh it's Edward Snowden, never mind. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so though I have a lot of critiques on Russia, the propaganda aspect of it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was very damaging for him to be stuck in Russia, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but on the other hand, he's still alive, and he's still mostly free. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they recognized his right to receive asylum. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So there's a lot of trade-offs to think identifying one's self, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if you were thinking about being the next Snowden, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or helping the next Snowden, or helping Snowden, or something like that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you really have to think that, you really have to think this out many steps ahead, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's easy to stay, oh he should have just stayed anonymous and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 nobody would have figured it out, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but that's very clearly not planning the case that they do figure it out, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then they're going to be in control of the narrative, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and in that case, I think you are better off to do what he did, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and he did so quite reluctantly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He's not an egoist, or an narcissist, he's actually a really shy guy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 from what I can tell. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know exactly what conversation you and your friend had, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I would suspect that the notion is that people are more powerful 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when anonymous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that is true sometimes, but not always, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's important to remember that the anonymity technology is there 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so you have a choice, not a requirement. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that choice is sometimes counter-intuitive, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I think he did the right thing in this way, and I wish that my government 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 had done the right thing by him as well, but they did not. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: So there are lot of questions, do you want to keep going on, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 shall we get in a little Mate? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: I would love some of that rum. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think I have to GRsec, right? GRsec kernel. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then rum appears. Rum as a service. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm really happy to keep taking questions, because to me, what I want is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for every person in this room to feel a part of this, because you really are. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A lot of the people I've met in this community really inspire me to action, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's important to understand that really, it would not have been possible 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 without Debian. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example debootstrap - really important tool, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 With weasel's packaging of Tor, it allowed us to have bootstraps of things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it allowed us to build things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and using Free software really was helpful, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so if you guys have any questions at all, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 really each and every person that helps with Debian should just know 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that you are a part of that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I'm just happy to talk for as long as you want, basically, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to answer all of your questions, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 except the ones that put me in prison. Thanks. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: I just wanted to make a quick note about the question 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "do they have a file on me?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 From all I've read so far, it's just that they're doing the thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that is in the commercial world called "big data". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Yep. Absolutely. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Oh boy. GRsec again? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [orga]: it's not rum, but it's Bavarian whisky. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Oh boy. It's going to be a heavy morning tomorrow. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I saw another couple of hands. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: I was just wondering if that you noticed throughout this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that you think we could improve in Debian to make the next people's lives easier. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Oh my god, I'm so glad you asked that question, that's so fantastic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm going to talk about that tomorrow in my keynote, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but let me tell you about one that I have. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I revealed a specific document about a wifi injection attack system. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a classified document, it's a top secret document, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for a thing called nightstand, and what nightstand is, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's basically like car metasploit, it's a wifi injector... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cheers! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Danke schön. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a wifi injector device... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Whew, jesus! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [orga]: Tonight's whisky sponsored by drunc-tank dot org. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: So this wifi injector device, what it does is it basically is able to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 exploit the kernel of a device by sending malformed data over wifi. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now I have a series of photographs, so all of us.. not all of us, but most of us 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 used these speciallly modified X60s where we removed the microphones, soldered?? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 down things on the PCI bus, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we removed, like, firewire, really modified it, flashed coreboot onto it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 flipped the read pin so it was only read-only, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so you couldn't easily make a BIOS root kit and make it persistent, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we booted TAILS, did all this stuff, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 often we could boot to RAM so that once the machine was powered off 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 basically it would be done, so if someone kicks down your door, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you just pull the power out, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you don't have a battery, and when the power fails you have an 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 instant kill switch. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So things that are in TAILS that are really useful include this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wiping the kernel memory package which I hear is being packaged for Debian 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 soon, which is very exciting. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because everyone should have access to that so we can tie it into something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like GNU panicd or these other things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But one thing I kept having problems with is this wifi injection device, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm pretty sure, was very close to my house. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was a white van outside, it was vibrating a bit like there was a guy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 walking around in it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then all of sudden, an X60 here, an X60 here, and an X60 here, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just booted into TAILS, not doing anything at all, but on the wifi network, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kernel panic, kernel panic, kernel panic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 All the same kernel panic, all the same memory offsets, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the Appletalk driver of the stock kernel for TAILS. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think I filed a bug upstream with TAILS at the time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but this is just incredible because it's clear that all the crap 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the default Debian kernel that you really want for your 1992 Apple network 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 makes operational security really hard, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and one thing that would be really great would be a GRsec enabled kernel... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yes, have to drink. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But as an example, we built different custom machines, and one of the things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we did for some people and in some circumstances was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to build GRsec enabled kernels. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I'm not going to drink again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we built those kernels 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [audience]: Which ones? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacbob]: Yes, exactly, those ones. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that was work which creates a problem for a bunch of reasons. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you build custom kernels, and you only have a few people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that can build those kernels, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you actually build a chain of evidence of who helped who. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And if that was stable, normal package, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that people could install in a Debian pure blend, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 then it would have been easier to do that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We built a lot more sandbox profiles for various different things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we built some transparent TOR-ification stuff, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that required a lot of bespoke knowledge, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it required a lot of effort that a lot of people did not have, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because they had a different set of skills, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's good to have a division of labour, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but having that kind of stuff built into Debian by default, making a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Debian installer that could do that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and also verification, would be great, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I wrote some custom scripts where I could look at a TAILS disk, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or a Debian install, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and know if it had been tampered with. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it would be nice if there was just a disk you could boot that did 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 verification of an installed system 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 very very easily, so easily that Glen Greenwald could use it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I love Glen, I saw that very politely, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but what I means is it needs to be easier than that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because Glen at least knows that he he a reason to need it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so that was something that we really needed help with. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we spent a lot of time on that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And there are lots of other little things like that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I'll talk about some of those things tomorrow, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but one of the really big problems is hardware, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is that you cannot buy a modern Intel CPU which doesn't come 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with a backdoor any more. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that is a huge problem, and I'm not sure that the answer is to use ARM. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It seems like the answer is to use ARM. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But that's only if assume that ARM didn't just add a backdoor that's obvious. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we really need to think about how to, in moving forward, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how to have easy to use, easy to buy on the shelf, Debian hardware, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 available everywhere, all the time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so you can just go and buy this thing and verify it in some way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with some other machine, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to know that you would have the right thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And to that extent we didn't have X-rays for a lot of the circuit boards, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so that made it very difficult to know if when you buy something, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's been tampered with. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'll talk about some of that stuff tomorrow, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but basically, Debian does a lot of stuff right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that is also worth mentioning. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's so many things that just work out of the box, that just work perfectly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So the main thing is to keep the quality assurance at the level, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or to exceed where it is right now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because it actually works super super well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The exception being for very specific targetted attacks, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the kernel attack surface is pretty big, and pretty bad, I think. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And also, we rebuilt some binaries in order to.. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 sorry, I'll get to you in a second. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We rebuilt some binaries to make sure that we had address space randomisation 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and linker hardening, and stack canary stuff, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and for some stuff lately we've been using address space sanitizer, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so it would be really great if all the hardening stuff was turned in, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if there was PAX plus GRsec as a kernel. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [audience]: so the specific problem with GR security is that they don't really 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 want to work with distros. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we could have a Linux kernel package with GR security applied, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it wouldn't have any of the other Debian patches. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: So I talked with Brad Spender about this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I'm so glad that you said that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because what he said was that, as far as I can tell, he's totally interested in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 helping Debian with this but thinks that Debian is not interested. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He actually runs a kernel building service where they actually do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 individual kernel builds, and I think you'd be interested, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and when I told him we'd love to have this in TAILS, he said 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what patches do I need to include in GRsec to make sure that it'll work? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he offered to do the integration into the GRsec patch if there are not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 too many things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I think what we should try and do is build a line of communication, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if it costs money we should find a way to raise that money, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'll put in some of my own personal money for this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I know other people would too. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [distant audience]: I will. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Great. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So securedrop, for example, part of what they do for their leaking platform, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you go to the intercepts website, you wan to leak them a document, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they actually use free software everywhere, but there are a few things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they build specially, and one of those things is a GRsec kernel. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So the people at first look, that helped make this movie, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that work on securedrop, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they would probably also, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm not committing them, I don't know that they would actually do this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I think they would really like it if that was in there, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think it we could find the community will to do that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know I would volunteer and other people would, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know that dkg in the back would love to help with this, I would that ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who is just totally behind funding this work, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I thought that you were there to protect my civil liberties, buddy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I really think that it's possible that we could do this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I definitely think Brad, the author of GRsec, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think he would really love it if Debian shipped GRsec. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it doesn't need to come by default, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but if it was possible to just have it all, that would be great. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Maybe we could have an affinity group where everyone who is interested can 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 meet sometime tomorrow and we could talk about doing this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I would love to have that conversation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who are you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [audience]: Ben Hutchings. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Oh, nice to meet you! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's awkward. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: Hi. Sorry to interrupt the awkwardness, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and replace it with more awkwardness. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nice to see you, Jake. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, I remember reading the documents in 2013 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and seeing the NSA's internal training guide for how to query their 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Hadoop data store, aka xkeyscore, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so I thought I would just ask you if you think Free software net helps us 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or helps them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: I'm really glad you asked that question. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that Free software helps everyone on the planet, and I think that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 purpose-based limitations.. I understand why people want them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think we should try to build a world where we are free, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so putting in purpose-based limitations is really problematic, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think what we should do is try to mitigate the harm that they can do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with those systems, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as opposed to pretending that they care about Free software licensing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 These guys kill people with flying robots, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's illegal to murder people, and they do it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Limiting their use with licenses, first of all, that just means they'll spend 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your tax money to rewrite it if they care about the license, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you won't get their bug-fixes or their improvements, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then additionally they're still not going to obey your license anyway, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because literally some of these people work on assassinating people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So it is better that we keep our integrity and take the high road, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and write Free software, and we give it to every single person on the planet 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 without exception, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's just better. It's better for all of us, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So the fact that they have Hadoop, the fact that they, for example, use OpenSSL, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or maybe they use Tor, or whatever, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Or they use gdb to debug their exploits. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I kind of wish that on them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [laughter, applause] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think it's great, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So one of the things Che Guevara said in his manual about guerilla warfare, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in chapter two, is that (oh, it was chapter three) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He talks about when you have to arm a guerrilla army, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this is not exactly related, but it's an analog. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He says that the most important thing is for the guerrilla army to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 use the weapons of the people that they're fighting - the oppressor. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the reason is that it allows you to resupply, essentially. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you win a battle, you resupply. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When we all use the same Free software, and we're working on these things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the fact that they have to contribute to the same projects and they often do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 means there's a net win for us. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They do have some private things that they don't share, obviously, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with the exception of nice people like Edward Snowden, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think that it is a net positive thing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if we think of it as a struggle, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we are better off to take the high road, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so I really think we should not pretend that we can stop them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and instead we should work together to build solutions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think that Debian is doing that, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think Debian is much harder to compromise than 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of other operating systems, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's much much harder to coerce people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there's a strong ethos that comes with it that it's not just the technical 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 project, there's a social aspect to it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think I was in the New Maintainer queue for 11 years, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 maybe that's a little too long, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but there's a huge hazing process, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so anyone who wants to help, really really wants to help, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if they want to do something wrong there are processes to catch 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people doing things wrong. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we should really stay true to the Free software ethos, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it really is a net benefit. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: Hi Jake. Thanks a lot for saying so much "GRsec". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Just wanted to give a shout out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You mentioned possible backdoors in CPUs and so on, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that ARM might not be the next best thing because it's not so open either. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You might want to have a look at Power 8. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's basically PowerPC 64, so Debian has support for it as far as I know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and most of the stuff is actually open. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Not that actually designs that IBM is using, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but you can have, actually, an FPGA implementation of it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if you have the money make your own ASICs for it, without even knowing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how to do it, which is pretty good, I think. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: I think there are lots of things we can hack right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean I had one of those weird RMS laptops, the Limote, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or whatever it's called, for a while. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I was definitely able to get some Free software running on it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in theory it was a Free software laptop. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But getting other people to use this is the problem, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you need to get everybody to use it, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's a sort of old anarchist cliché, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "None of us are free until all of us are free" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that really applies here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We really need to have Free software that's usable by everyone, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 otherwise we're sort of bound by the lowest common denominator 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of Free, or proprietary tools, depending on what people have to use. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So it'll be great when we have that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there's a thing called the Nokimist??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is a video mixing board that has an FPGA implementing a Free software CPU 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that you can boot Debian on, or OpenWRT, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it does work, and I have used it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and in fact I used to use it as a shell, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and for a long time I used a Debian trick, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 actually I've never talked about that in public, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 let me think about that for a second. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I used to use an IRC client that was really buggy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I couldn't figure out where all the bugs were, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I knew that if I hung out in certain networks that someone else 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would help me find those bugs by trying to exploit my client. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I wanted to make it as hard as possible. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I ran my IRC client inside of a Debian machine that was running an S390 emulator. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who here uses Hercules? Thank you to whoever packaged it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so I would use Hercules, it was a very long install process. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Very slow. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I would do this, and what I'd always dreamed of doing at some point 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was using the Nokimist??? and the Hercules together 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for maximum ridiculously difficult to exploit, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 plus GRsec kernel. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But that's not a usable thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So what we need to do is take these kinds of prototypes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which actually do represent many steps forward, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we need to make sure that they're produced on a scale where 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you can go into a store and puchase them anonymously, with cash, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in a way that you can then verify. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we're actually really close to that with software defined radios 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and open hardware, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but we're not quite there yet. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: What I meant is that Power 8 is basically getting big, currently, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on the server market, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it might get big for other stuff also. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Hopefully. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [question]: I want to come back to the story about the panic 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the Appletalk driver. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The common approach against this is to compile your own kernel with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 all this stuff not compiled in, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but on two of my systems I have a modprobe wrapper which has 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a whitelist of module which may be loaded, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I install that wrapper as the thing that the kernel uses for loading modules. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Do you know if such a thing exists elsewhere, or if not, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I would be interested in developing it into something which is actually useable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: That would be great. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In this case we were using Tails. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so, Tails is very finicky about what it will accept, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so having that in Debian will make it a lot easier to get it into something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like Tails, I think. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the main thing is really that we have to think about the attack surface 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the kernel very differently. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The problem is not Appletalk; the problem is the Linux kernel is filled with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of code, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you can autoload, in certain cases, certain things come in, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and certain things get autoloaded, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I know Bdale loves his ham radio stuff, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I never use ham radio on my machine 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I used for clandestine conspiracies, you know? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's a separate machine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's over here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we just need to find a way to think about that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And part of that could be kernel stuff, but also part of it could be thinking 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about solutions like that, where we don't need to change the kernel. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So if you could package that and develop that, it would be really fantastic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Ben]: Actually, some time ago, after I think it was the econet exploits, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 no-one uses econet, it was broken anyway, but you could exploit it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because it was autoloaded. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I actually went through and turned off autoloading on a few of the more obscure 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 network protocols. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We could probably go further with that, even in the defaults. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: I think it would be great to change some of the kernel stuff so that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at least, I mean, Tails is a special use case, where, I think, it's very important, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it doesn't work for everyone, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but we should just consider that there are certainly things which are really great, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I want to use Debian for it, because Debian is a universal operating system. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But for a modern desktop system where you're using GNOME, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you haven't set anything up, Appletalk for example, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 maybe we would ask those people to load that module themselves. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Ben]: Yeah, for example you could have, a lot of those things are going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have supporting utilities, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so you could put something in the supporting utilities that loads it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at boot time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And if you don't have those installed, you don't need it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Yep, totally. And I think there's lots of ways to do it where 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the network can't trigger it, and that's important. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Ben]: Yeah, that puzzled me, I can't understand, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the protocol module when userland tries to open a socket 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of that type, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it shouldn't happen in response to network traffic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There are things like, I think if you run ifconfig that can autoload 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a bunch of things, for example. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Yeah, I think on either side it should be more explicit, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and in this case with Tails, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there was a time when you looked at the kernel module list 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it was pretty amazing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like I think there was an X25 thing, an Appletalk, thing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wait, this is all about going over Tor, we don't support any of these 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 things at all. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So it's just the way that things are interdependent, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's not a dig at the kernel itself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think the Linux kernel as it works in Debian today works really well 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for a lot of people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but there is definitely a high security use case, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I, for example, if I were a Debian developer, and I had a development 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 machine where I didn't run a web browser, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I took a lot of effort. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It would be really nice if there were a kernel that put in the same 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 threshold of security. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think that the GRsec kernel with some stuff changed about it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like getting rid of Appletalk and a few other things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would be closer to that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and combined with that guy's tool that he's talking about, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you could make autoloadable module, that at least even if the system was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 going to autoload it, you could stop it, in a failing closed sort of way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think there's a lot of stuff, practically, to do on that front, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there's another project called Subgraph OS, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is basically working on becoming in some ways a Debian derivative, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they're going to do stuff like GRsec kernel, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they have a whole sandboxing framework which uses apparmor, seccomp 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and xpra, and a few other things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think that they'll make a lot of interesting security decisions, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which might make sense to adopt in Debian later. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Ben]: I think Matthew Garrett has an interesting criticism about that and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how it wouldn't really work, and Wayland was a better way to go than xpra. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Jacob]: Yeah, I've heard those criticisms, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but Matthew Garrett is wrong. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Not usually, but in this particular case. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example, the sandboxing stuff, if you have a GNOME appstore, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 essentially, that's for one set of users, but for a Debian developer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 writing your own policies, it might be useful, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and if you need Wayland, you might not have a full solution, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we might want to have both for a while. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And think it'd be great. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the main thing is we just need to find people who will think about those 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 issues and try to integrate them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because most people who write exploits, or who understand how to do offensive 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 security stuff, they don't want to help Free software projects, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they just want to exploit them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so some of the Subgraph guys, what I really like about them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that they're trying to improve the Free software products we all use. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Even though they may make different design decisions, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they're making Free software all the same. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 52:17