Mr. Anderson’s Rough Guide to Anonymous Protest

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Note: These methods are not foolproof. Even if you take every precaution described below, you should still assume that you are being watched, tracked, and recorded. Act accordingly.

I. Leave your cellphone at home. It is safe to assume that “Stingrays” (also known as “cell site simulators” or “IMSI catchers”) are being used at every #BlackLivesMatter protest around the country. These devices trick your phone into connecting to them by simulating a cell tower, allowing law enforcement to intercept your text messages and phone calls as well as your location information and International Mobile Subscriber Identity (your phone’s unique identifier). They are small enough to be mounted on vehicles and can even be placed on airplanes and helicopters to track protesters from the sky. It is probably best to leave your cellphone at home. If this is impractical for you, you might want to consider using secure messaging apps such as Wickr or TextSecure. Note that as long as your phone is turned on, your location information and IMSI information can still be intercepted.

II. Avoid exposing your face to cameras. Police love to video record protesters exercising their First Amendment rights. Unless you want to run the risk of having images of your face uploaded to a network of shadowy databases to be matched with driver’s license photographs and other government records for tracking purposes, it is wise to consider covering up your face or applying face paint in a manner that prevents facial recognition software from identifying you. Some believe covering your face is cowardly, but if the choice is between being indexed in a virtually boundless, unaccountable surveillance system and the right to protest anonymously without retribution, I’ll take the latter any day.

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III. Avoid advertising your location or other personal information on social media. Fusion centers and police departments like to track people using social media geolocation software to track social media posts in real-time. This is likely one of the tools used by the Massachusetts fusion centers for tracking #BlackLivesMatter protesters in Boston. You may want to avoid using social media altogether while at a protest; but if you feel the need, it might be a good idea to create a fake account to make it a little more difficult for spies to monitor you.

IV. Use PGP for encrypted emails. Encryption is your friend. “PGP” stands for “Pretty Good Privacy”, and it holds true to its name. Think of PGP as an airtight container that keeps your emails away from the eyes of anyone except the intended recipient(s). Sure, it can be a little tough to set up, but once you have it installed, it’s actually very easy to use.

Here is a guide to installing PGP for Mac OS X.
Here is a guide to installing PGP for Windows and GNU/Linux.

V. Use Tor and/or a VPN. Tor is free software that provides anonymity by routing your Internet activity through a series of other users running Tor relays. The goal is to prevent eavesdroppers from seeing the web pages you visit by bouncing your connection around the network, making it appear as if you are accessing the Internet from a completely random location. Similarly, Virtual Private Networks route your connection through a server of your choice, making it appear as if you are connecting to the Internet from France, Canada, Sweden, or pretty much anywhere. Unlike Tor, good VPNs are not free, but they can be as inexpensive as $3.33 per month.

Midterms & Mass Surveillance, Part IV: Surveillance Doesn’t Pay in MA

Martha Coakley and Maura Healey
Martha Coakley and Maura Healey

Poor Martha Coakley. Oceans of ink have now been spilled on why outgoing Massachusetts Attorney-General Martha Coakley lost her bid for Governor. Arguments have included that she’s a poor campaigner, that many Democrats resented bitterly her loss to Scott Brown back in 2010, that she was a female candidate facing a somewhat sexist electorate.

I’m not going to argue that surveillance issues alone swung the race against Coakley. However, I would like to draw attention to a broader reason, to which her support for expanding wiretapping contributed, that fueled Democratic base disaffection with her.

Continue reading Midterms & Mass Surveillance, Part IV: Surveillance Doesn’t Pay in MA