# articles

feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Hackers_and_politics/
title: Hackers and Politics
uri: Hackers-and-Politics
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Hackers_and_politics/
content:
<h1>Context</h1>

<p>It's always important to have context. And the why I wrote things is probably more
important than what I wrote. So, here is the context. Frédéric Bardeau, founder of an
ethic communication agency directed to NGO (Agence Limite) is gravitating around the
problematics of collaboration between Hackers and NGO and he gave an interview to
Reflets.info: <a href="http://reflets.info/frederic-bardeau-lhacktivisme-doit-changer-de-posture/">Hacktivists must change their
stance</a>
[FR] which started a sort of flame war inside the so-called hacker scene.</p>

<p>Basically, he's stating that the hackers are wrapped around their ego claiming that
they don't care about <em>people</em> issues. He also pretend that hackers must go further
along the political process and grow a political consciousness.</p>

<p>I won't answer point by point to his interview. You should read it (and goes beyond
the sometime aggressive tone he uses), the comments and grow yourself an idea. I will
try to put what Politics and Hacking means to me and, frankly, at this time, I do not
know where I'll land.</p>

<h1>Politics and motivations</h1>

<p>You do politics when you're working on things that will impact life of the others. So
you're doing politics when people are saying it. So, when media asks the hackers if
hacking is a political act the answer is necessarily yes. Even if you're not
conscious of this fact and especially if you're not doing it for a political
motivation. And yes hacking is politics (since you subvert things to do other thing
with it than their initial purposes).</p>

<p>The question is not if hacking is a political act in fact. The question is the
motivation of this act. And this is, I think, where hackers differs from activists.
Activists act for a cause, hackers hack for their personal interest.</p>

<p>Yeah, it hurt. But this is the truth. The only reason I'm hacking things is because I
want to either understand how they work, because I need to achieve something and I
have nothing ready at hand and I will twist something to achieve my goal or because
it's fun. I'm not hacking things for the only purpose of helping people and help them
to change their life.</p>

<p>Frack, who the hell I am for that? It would be insanely pretentious to tell you how
you must change your life.</p>

<p>Activists, on the other hand, acts following a political agenda on purpose. If an
activist is doing something it is because they think it will help them to achieve
their political motivations. NGO are, by essence, groups of activists. They have a
political agenda and all the things they're doing is related to this agenda.</p>

<p>And for this reasons, NGO are quite effective in their field of specialisation. But
you cannot asks Green Peace to send medical supplies to Syrians. This is the main
problem with entities and people who have an agenda. They can't spend a lot of
resources on non related things.</p>

<p>While hackers, and the doocratic system, can. It is the cathedral versus the bazaar.
One reason I do like working in clusters of hackers is that I can do just that: What
I want, what interests me.</p>

<h1>Politics unconsciousness</h1>

<p>People, and Frédéric Bardeau among them, says that hackers lacks of politic
consciousness. I second that. But I do not think it's important. Most of the people
who says that you do not have politics consciousness generally means that they do not
share your ethics.</p>

<p>Politics consciousness means that you are aware (or you try to) of the impact of your
actions on other people. Not that you have a political minded message nor that you
fully understand two hundred years of political history. It means that you've think
about the impact on the society of your actions.</p>

<p>Hackers, as weird social animals, tends to dodge discussion they think are
unnecessary.Mainly because you can talk or do, but not both at the same time.And if
you want to hack, you can't talk about it while you're hacking, mainly because it is
like trying to solve a puzzle in the dark. You know what you want to achieve (more or
less), but you do not know how you'll get there and you have to think about it, not
to speak about it.</p>

<p>So yeah, sometimes (who said most of the time?) hackers looks like freaky monster
that will eat your soul because they haven't slept for two days and are dosed with
caffeine (may the Spaghetti Monster be blessed for the caffeine) because they are
doing things that matters to them.</p>

<p>They do not care if it's a democratic or republican issue, or if it's a left or right
one. What hackers tend to care about is how. You can blame us for being political
unconscious. But you know what? Maybe it's the basic principle of political
consciousness which need to be changed. I mean, politics should be done by people.
Not by a political cast or system that place itself above the others.</p>

<p>Political consciousness haven't change much things those thirty years. At least in
France. Not in the same order of magnitude that internet and counter-culture have
changed. And I'm not sure the beatniks had a political agenda when they build
internet. They needed it, so they built it it's quite simple.</p>

<p>Thinking about how your actions will change the world instead of doing them will
result in a lot of text, but not that mush things done. I do not care hackers should
acts without thinking, but that's why ethics is for.</p>

<p>I claim the freedom of acting without being questioned on my politics agenda for I
have none. You can question my ethics (after all ethics exist to be discussed and
confronted) or the way I'm doing things, in fact,you <em>must</em> question ethics and
the actions of people.</p>

<h1>Hackers are closed on themselves</h1>

<p>People blame hackers for not helping them on various topics. Let's get some things
sorted first. Imagine you're a mechanics. You like fixing and improving engines of
famous cars and you do that on your spare time. And people came at you asking you to
change their tires, check their oil level, or change a light bulb. All of them being
trivial operation that can be achieved by simply reading the manual and actually
trying to understand how things works.</p>

<p>Imagine that those annoying people came to see you several times a day. Asking for
your time for no compensation while this engines is just waiting for you to take care
of it. And those non-skilled operations, operation you're already doing for a
leaving, takes you time.</p>

<p>You can be the good guy. And losing your time hour after hour. Or you can, after
having patiently helped three people who do not understand anything about mechanics,
send the other to hell.</p>

<p>And yeah, the guy will looks like a bastard who do not want to help people. It is the
same thing with hackers. Someone saying me they do not know how to use the mail system
without a webmail is someone that did not even tried. I can do it for my pay-job, but
I'm paid for it. I won't do it on my free time.</p>

<p>If you want help, then you need to invest yourself and you need to understand how
things works. The fact that you're a computer illiterate is your fault, not mine.
However it's not a fatality. I mean, I know Syrians that had a computer culture of
almost nothing a year ago and who are now able to teach to other how GNU/Linux works, how
to set-up a VPN, to understand some weird network problematics and to work around the
censorship issue they have there.</p>

<p>And they do not even speaks a good english. So if they can, you can understand how it
works. You just need to accept that computer tech is not black magic. You must helps
me to helps you. And you must abandon the idea that fail is something bad. Fail
harder fail better as we say.</p>

<p>So, if you come to see us without this in mind, yeah, you will be called a fucktards,
a noob, an asshole. It's not because we are closed on ourselves or imbued by our ego
(ok, it might be),it's because you do not make the necessary effort of trying to
understand.</p>

<p>But I'm moving out of my original topic. We are not building a hacker world, if we are
building a world at all, we are building a free and open world. Most of the hackers
are adept of the sharing of knowledge across the world. We need to access the
knowledge we're going to need to do things. People tends to think that internet is
our private playground. It is not. Internet is not a place, it does not belong to
anyone.</p>

<h1>Cats, tubes, computers</h1>

<p>Internet is now a part of the society. It's a fantastic multi directional read/write
media available to anyone. Internet is used by activists to carry on their message,
and by government to spy on their people. Internet is a political act by essence. And
a lot of hackers will stand and fight for it as it was when Osni Moubarak shat down
the tubes in Egypt.</p>

<p>And the internet is the media of datalove. It has been built for exchanging data
across long distance at a reasonable rate. If you want to restrict the sharing of
data, you're then interfering with the internet. The fact that some might be shocked
by the fact that their personal data are found online must not blame the datalove and
the hackers for that, but rather the entities that have built those files,
collecting their personal data.</p>

<h1>Conclusion</h1>

<p>Yeah, I think it's time. I'm getting lost. Hackers are - mainly - humans. They are
far from perfect and some of them do not care about politics. But I think that most
of the things people blamed hackers for are the same you can blame most of the
people.</p>

<p>Do not forget we have the doocracy. We have caffeine. But most important of
anything, we have an unlimited imagination.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/VPN_in_a_pocket/
title: VPN in a pocket
uri: VPN-in-a-pocket
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/VPN_in_a_pocket/
content:
<h1>About the so-called Pirate Box</h1>

<p>Everything started when I found not less than three pirate boxes running at the PSES
2012 conferences and all of them were unaware of the two other. Worse, you could
connect to one piratebox <em>or</em> to the internet, but not both, because pirate box runs
off-line.</p>

<p>And this is the main problem of this thing. I mean, if I want to download and share,
I use the bittorent system, you shouldn't be afraid of the legal consequences of the
act of sharing things you like.</p>

<p>But still, those wireless router are damn small (they literally fit in a hand), they
need not much power to run and they have some interesting routing capabilities
(multiple SSID, bridging, meshing, you name it) and I was thinking that, deploying
this kind of hardware cold be a way to cover areas with poor connectivity and works
collaboratively to route packets. This is pretty much how the internet works.</p>

<p>So, I was thinking about a meshed network of sharing content boxes that could access to
the Intertubes and share this access. But accessing the clearternet is not
interesting. With some Telecomix folks we think and works a lot around darknet and
weird protocols, because they are fun. And right now, we are working with <a href="http://cryptoanarchy.org/wiki/cjdns">cjdns</a> -
which is not about DNS. Also, a box already configured offering to everyone an access
through a VPN can remove the pain of configuring it for non tech-savvy users, and so
to have more people using darknets and vpn.</p>

<p>And I have a <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n">TP-Link WR703N</a> dedicated
to this experimentation.</p>

<h1>Flashing</h1>

<p>Before everything, we need to flash a firmware onto the small router (there's only
4MB of disk to store everything, it's quite tight). I used the sysupgrade for
Attitude adjustment image (and found my way through the Chinese menu). Nothing
specific here,the device works perfectly fine</p>

<h1>Routed AP</h1>

<p>Then I wanted that my box connect to a LAN (connected to the clearternet), to
set up an Access-Point and to route everything that come from the AP to get through
the LAN and then to the darknet (configured to work over the clearternet as a darknet
usually do)</p>

<p>Quite easy, since there's a recipe for it in the <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/recipes/routedap">openwrt
wiki</a>. However, I did changed some
things, so let's review the different files one after the other.</p>

<h2>/etc/config/wireless</h2>

<blockquote><p>config wifi-device  radio0
        option type     mac80211
        option channel  11
        option macaddr  ec:17:2f:e0:44:52
        option hwmode   11ng
        option htmode   HT20
        list ht_capab   SHORT-GI-20
        list ht_capab   SHORT-GI-40
        list ht_capab   RX-STBC1
        list ht_capab   DSSS_CCK-40</p></blockquote>

<p>Nothing specific here, the default are good and I don't need more.</p>

<blockquote><p>config wifi-iface
        option device   radio0
        option network  wifi
        option mode     ap
        option ssid     ChaosBox
        option encryption none</p></blockquote>

<p>First interface, configured as an open AP in a dedicated network and without a key. I
want everyone to be able to use my VPN without having to found a key.</p>

<blockquote><p>config wifi-iface
        option device   radio0
        option network  babel
        option mode     adhoc
        option ssid     ChaosBabel
        option encryption none</p></blockquote>

<p>And since I can do multiple SSID on the box, I will use this later for meshing the
ChaosBoxes together (and using babel, because it works out of the box). It works, but
I haven't tested it, so it will be the subject of a different post.</p>

<h2>/etc/config/network</h2>

<blockquote><p>config interface 'loopback'
        option ifname 'lo'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
        option netmask '255.0.0.0'</p></blockquote>

<p>Loop back interface.</p>

<blockquote><p>config interface 'lan'
        option ifname 'eth0'
        option type 'bridge'
        option proto 'dhcp'</p></blockquote>

<p>I move the default configuration (static) to a dynamic one. I will then benefit of
what the LAN I'm connected onto will offer, notably a gateway to the internet. And
probably some DNS cache.</p>

<blockquote><p>config interface 'wifi'
        option proto 'static'
        option ipaddr '10.0.42.1'
        option netmask '255.255.255.0'</p></blockquote>

<p>This is my wireless network, the interface corresponding to the wireless device
configured in AP mode. I will use the 10.0.42.0/24 network, mostly because the
192.168 ones are over-common and I do not want to have a problem with that.</p>

<blockquote><p>config interface 'tcxnet'
        option proto 'none'
        option ifname 'tun0'</p></blockquote>

<p>This one is mainly here to define things that I'll later use in the firewall.</p>

<h2>/etc/config/firewall</h2>

<blockquote><p>config defaults                          <br/>
        option syn_flood        1        <br/>
        option input            ACCEPT   <br/>
        option output           ACCEPT   <br/>
        option forward          REJECT</p></blockquote>

<p>So, defaults. They are good and protect a little bit your box.</p>

<blockquote><p>config zone                         <br/>
        option name             wifi<br/>
        option network          'wifi'
        option input            ACCEPT
        option output           ACCEPT <br/>
        option forward          REJECT</p></blockquote>

<p>The zone for all the traffic coming from the wifi network.</p>

<blockquote><p>config zone                           <br/>
        option name             lan   <br/>
        option network          'lan' <br/>
        option input            ACCEPT<br/>
        option output           ACCEPT<br/>
        option forward          REJECT<br/>
        option masq             1          <br/>
        option mtu_fix          1</p></blockquote>

<p>The zone for all the traffic coming from the lan. Well, nothing will really come from
it but you see what I meant. However we want to masquerade (after all, you can
probably found things like a mpd or a nfs share on the lan).</p>

<blockquote><p>config zone                           <br/>
        option name             tcxnet    <br/>
        option network          'tcxnet'    <br/>
        option input            ACCEPT
        option output           ACCEPT
        option forward          REJECT   <br/>
        option masq             1                <br/>
        option mtu_fix          1</p></blockquote>

<p>This zone is for everything going through the tcxnet interface (that will be our
cjdns). As for the lan, and since we want to use services inside the darknet, we will
masquerade.</p>

<blockquote><p>config forwarding                             <br/>
        option src              wifi          <br/>
        option dest             lan</p>

<p>config forwarding                             <br/>
        option src              wifi          <br/>
        option dest             tcxnet</p></blockquote>

<p>And now, let's forward the traffic through both the lan and the tcxnet zone.</p>

<h2>/etc/config/dhcp</h2>

<blockquote><p>[...]
config dhcp wifi
        option interface        wifi
        option start    100
        option limit    150
        option leasetime        12h</p></blockquote>

<p>This is the only dhcp pool I have. I want to address the wireless part. 50 address
should be enough.</p>

<h2>More info</h2>

<p>For more info about those configurations, you should read the <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/uci">openwrt
wiki</a></p>

<h1>The fun parts</h1>

<h2>CJDNS</h2>

<p>Now, the real fun begin. First, let's install CJDNS. Quite easy thanks to the build
made by fremont:</p>

<blockquote><p>opkg update &amp;&amp; opkg install http://v4.seanode.meshwith.me/openwrt/ar71xx/packages/cjdns_0.4-SNAPSHOT_ar71xx.ipk --force-depen
ds</p></blockquote>

<p>I use the force-depends flag, for nacl and kernel version on attitude adjustment because
they will raise some unneeded conflicts.</p>

<p>And then, following the instructions available in the <a href="http://cryptoanarchy.org/wiki/cjdns">cryptoanarchy
wiki</a>, generate a configuration, add peers and
start cjdns:</p>

<blockquote><p>cjdroute --genconf &gt; /etc/cjdroute.conf</p>

<p>cjdroute &lt; /etc/cjdroute.conf &gt; /dev/null &amp;</p></blockquote>

<p>No logs, sorry, I haven't the room for that. Plus I do not likes it.</p>

<h2>Proxy</h2>

<p>I've tried a lot of things, and it appears that the way to have it working is to
simply use a SOCKS proxy and to connect through it.</p>

<p>I've installed srelay because it appears to works simply. And to fit in the 4 MB
space I have.</p>

<blockquote><p>opkg install srelay</p></blockquote>

<p>We need to configure it to get it working, edit the /etc/srelay.conf file delete
everything and have it looking like that:</p>

<blockquote><h1>allow local subnet to access socks proxy</h1>

<p>0.0.0.0 any</p></blockquote>

<p>Then just start srelay using the automagick init.d script:</p>

<blockquote><p>/etc/init.d/srelay enable
/etc/init.d/srelay start</p></blockquote>

<p>It will start on the 1080 port on your openWRT box.</p>

<h1>Connect</h1>

<p>Now, start a computer, activate wifi, connect to the 'ChaosBox' ESSID and ask for an
IP via dhcp.</p>

<p>Start a browser and configures it to use a SOCKS 5 proxy and use the parameters used
to start srelay. The proxy address is 10.0.42.1 and the port is 1080.</p>

<p>You have to disable the option to forward the DNS queries through the proxy for
srelay can't understand them yet. Also, you have to check that your DNS resolver has
been set-up by dhcp and is '10.0.42.1'. If it's not,edit your <strong>/etc/resolv.conf</strong>
file and add this line on top:</p>

<blockquote><p>nameserver 10.0.42.1</p></blockquote>

<p>Now, you have two tests to run. First the plainternet, test to load the
<a href="http://telecomix.org">http://telecomix.org</a> page. If it works, go on the second test.</p>

<p>Try to use the darknet. If you're connected to the
<a href="https://wiki.projectmeshnet.org/Hyperboria">Hyperboria</a> darknet, you can test going
on Nodeinfo.hype: <a href="http://[fc5d:baa5:61fc:6ffd:9554:67f0:e290:7535]/">http://[fc5d:baa5:61fc:6ffd:9554:67f0:e290:7535]/</a>.</p>

<p>If it works, congratulations <img src="media/f241949d.smile.png" data-original-source="http://about.okhin.fr//./smileys/smile.png" alt=":)" /></p>

<h1>Aftermath</h1>

<h2>Why don't you NAT?</h2>

<p>Well, I tried. CJDNS address are in ipv6. So, I've choosed an ipv6 prefix, anounced
it to be served in the wifi interface and tried to route through cjdns. However, the
source IP mismatched.</p>

<p>And ipv6 NAT are out of the table for openWRT. So, I was unable to do it that way.</p>

<h2>Why didn't use Tor?</h2>

<p>Simple, openwrt + Tor (in fact the libcrypto) are overweighted and go beyong 4 MB.
So, I'll had to use an external storage connected on the USB port. But then, the
power consumption will go high. Also, I need an external devices connected, that can
be separated from the router.</p>

<h2>You spoke about mesh before?</h2>

<p>And you didn't see it. Yep, I need to do that. But tunneling through cjdns was such a pain.
But babel works quite easily.</p>

<hr />

<p><strong>EDITED 08/17/2012</strong>
I changed a little bit about the srelay configuration, did not work as expected at
first.</p>

<p><strong>EDITED 09/13/2012</strong>
I updated the client configuration part since srelay can't forward DNS queries. Also,
we did some tests at <a href="http://leloop.org">Le Loop</a> yesterday evening and meshing is
quite advanced now, I'll do a post to that at a later time.</p>

<p><strong>EDITED 26/11/2012</strong>
The URL for the ipk has changed</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Discrimniation_and_gaming/
title: Discrimination and gaming
uri: Discrimination-and-gaming
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Discrimniation_and_gaming/
content:
<h1>Context</h1>

<p>For two or three days there is quite some agitation around a video about the
<em>ordinary sexism</em>. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVXc2o5shto">video</a> has been
made for national Belgium news report and is then in French, but you're favorite
translators tool will give you some help to translate it.</p>

<p>So, since I have a lot of sociopaths, feminists and trolls in my inner circle there
was quite some heat and animation. But that's not how I entered the pool. I entered
it by mis-understanding a woman attacking gameone (Gamers TV chans) for
under-evaluating the issue of sexual harassment in the gamers community. Things get
wild and I then spend the day arguing and fighting, using some trash arguments but I
finally learned things (hey, why the heck would I lose time if it is not for
learning?) both in the way to argue, and to have some
<a href="http://fatuglyorslutty.com/">documentation</a> for this kind of harassment.</p>

<p>And, even if I do not agree with the way some specifics person refuses to evolve (on
both sides -  either by establishing the facts that males are <em>de facto</em> members of a
dominating caste and so they cannot change and all of them are necessary the enemy
or by reducing the magnitude and importance of the issue), I think that I have to
write things down.</p>

<p>But I'm not really a member of the gaming community - I do prefer playing alone or
with friends, rather than playing online. Too much people there - and I've already
wrote <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/Misogyni_and_Hackers">once</a> or <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/Sexism_2">twice</a> about it in the hackers/geek
community.</p>

<p>So, I was looking for an angle to speak about it. I even thought about speaking of me -
sorry folks, not gonna happen now - and I then stumble upon this interview of one of
The Witcher creator in <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/21/cd-projekt-on-game-of-thrones-sexs-place-in-gaming/">Rock paper
Shotgun</a>.</p>

<p>And, as I was talking torture on a role-playing game forum of mine and the sometimes
free nature of it, I think I would speak about it.</p>

<p>But, just before that, two points that are important to clarify first.</p>

<ul>
<li>You are not your body, your body is just a part of you.</li>
<li>No one should endure discrimination for what they are and what they look like.</li>
</ul>

<p>Now, let's move on the topic.</p>

<h1>Role-playing Games</h1>

<p>I do like games. Really. Mainly because they faces me with a challenge and,in the
case of role-playing games, gives me the possibility to live good stories and explore
the mind of the games creators.</p>

<p>I enjoy going through a good story, even if it's nit a happy one. I enjoy when the
narrator have spend a lot of energy on detailing the place and the characters that
will support the plot. I like when I'm surprised by unpredictable things.</p>

<h2>Avatar - there's no 3 meters tall Smurphs here</h2>

<p>And to enjoy this story I have to choose an avatar. A projection of myself in the
game universe. Well, not necessarily myself in fact. The characters I play are not
me, neither they are something I want to be. They are something I build, with clay
(the game universe) and that I could like or hate or think about.</p>

<p>I am an adept of exploring actions and the consequences. If I want to play a racist
asshole that will assure the human supremacy over the galaxy (see Mass Effect 1) I
should be able to play it and to see what's happening. How people will react, how
they will throw stones at me. If I'm going to kill civilians for no reasons,
something must happen. If there's kids, I must be able to enslave them and to kill
them (it appears that kids in Fallout 3 can survive almost anything, including being
shot with nuclear bombs) and the universe must react one way or another to those
actions.</p>

<p>So, if I play a bastard it does not mean I'm one. It also does not mean the universe
should just go with that for no reason. If I'm granted to harass people it must have
an impact in the world or this 'liberty' is of no interests. I remember in Fallout /
Fallout 2. You could be in the slave trade, but that was rewarded by most of the
people in town throwing stones and shooting at you on sight.</p>

<p>And yes, discrimination, rape, diversity in sexual preferences and all those kind of
things can be a thrilling engine for some fantastic plots or character. As long as
it's not free. Video games is a good media for this kind of set-up. I mean, the game
developers can build a lot of constraint to the freedom of a player because they are
coding the universe. If they condemn sexual harassment and sexual abuse, they can
perfectly build a world where it is not possible, if you have no possibility to say
'I would do you' to a NPC, then you can't. If it appears as an option then the
developers have thought about this and they want you to be able to say that and so it
is supposed to bring something to the story being told. If not, then why the hell did
the developers spent some valuable time on it?</p>

<p>I mean, if they're adding sex to a game without any purposes (and no realism is not
one. I do not want realistic games, I want enjoyable games, I'm perfectly fine with
driving a chicken into an insane space race, so fuck the realism, life is realistic
enough. I want consistency), it is because they think people will enjoy the game 
more. It also means that the story is not good enough to appeal the player. Paying 
something to watch sex is pornography (or eroticism whatever you call it). It has 
nothing to do with games.</p>

<p>The avatar building is also a fun thing. My first adventures online goes back to
Anarchy Online. When I chose my avatar, besides the classic gender / phenotype
choice, I could personalize the whole body not only the face. I could do a fat girl,
or a tin guy, I could choose the size of it, the breast/waist ratio, etc. I wasn't
bound to the game developer personal view of what's appealing to play.</p>

<p>It bring a lot of diversity in the world, with people of different size or
proportions, and, strangely, disproportionate female character were far from common.
Then enter Blizzard and it's World of Warcraft. They brag a lot about customisation
of your characters but you can only customise the face (which is in most part hidden
under a helmet or something equivalent). You cannot change your body. You cannot even
choose your size. The good thing is that your avatar have no impact on the game.
Being a female or a male in MMORPG does not gives you an edge, relatively to the game
content.</p>

<p>However there is the problem about sexual dimorphism. Even if it exist in nature
(that's how we can tell apart male and female with a high enough error rate), in
video games the dimorphism is generally over exaggerated (go take a look at this
<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BizarreSexualDimorphism">page</a> on TV
Tropes, and go for video games). It appears that, at least in the Blizzard case, the
over exaggeration came from a wish of players.</p>

<p>Well, I guess it's why a human wizard can probably defeat an Olympic weight lifter
when he must have spend 90% of his life studying magic in a tower. While the warrior
womens have shortest armour and, with a stripper body, can defeat a Tauren male at arm
wrestling without any apparent muscle.</p>

<p>And this has been done due to the fan bases complaining about female being to weird
or male not being strong enough. I think this is probably the bigger problem, and
we're back to porn. If people want to see nudity, exploited and abused women without
consequences, they should rather head at <a href="https://youporn.com">youporn</a> instead of
play games. And the games creator shouldn't focus on satisfying the fantasy of their
fan - this is called fan services and it lead to crappy design and gameplay - they
should rather focus on game content, story telling and game play.</p>

<h2>Creating world</h2>

<p>But yeah, that's easy to tell. Well, it happens that I play a lot of role-playing
games. Not the kind on computers, the kind with pen, papers, books and dice. And I'm
also a game master.</p>

<p>From my point of view, playing such a game is building a story with all the players
(including me) involved. And it needs a good plot and interesting characters.</p>

<p>I won't talk about what I want as a player, I already spent a lot of words on that. I
will rather talks about the responsibility of the game master. As a GM my goal is to
animate the story and to do it in respect of my players wishes. And their main wish
is, generally, to be excited and to spend an enjoyable moment (that can last between 4
and... 22h). And the trust me for that. They do not know where I'll lead them. They
will discover part of the plots, improvise some of it, act and react accordingly to
their characters when faced to event and so on. And, depending on the game, I can
lead them in hell.</p>

<p>Really. We can share horror stories. Stories in which horrible things will happen to
the characters - from rape to torture to losing the loved one to commit genocide. I
will give my players choice to make, I will question their ethics, I will explore
an imaginary world with as much details and coherence I can find. It means random
violence. It also means action must have consequences.</p>

<p>And I do need my players to trust me for that. I also need to know what do they want
to play and where are their limits. And we have stop words. We can stop and pause the
game anytime when someone feels uncomfortable.</p>

<p>But I can do this only with people I know. When I do demonstration gaming, or when I
play a casual game, I have to respect my audience. I do not want to shock them, we
haven't established a trust link yet and so I cannot lead them in hell. Instead we're
going to explore other parts of the universe. And I have to depict it in an enjoyable
way for all my players and to myself.</p>

<p>If their is segregation in the world, they must feel it. If it's a world where the
sexual practice is different, they have to feel it also. If it's a police world, when
they'll shoot at strangers (and believe me, they will), I must use the police to
strike them. If we're in an anarchist outpost, then the bystanders will grabs their
guns and shot at the players. Non playable characters have their own motivations and
lives, they do not exist only for the players will.</p>

<p>If one of the player want to play Casanova, so be it. That's not why all the woman in
the world will fall for his sex appeal. Also, he can probably have some same-gender
people that will start hitting on him.</p>

<p>Players can do whatever they want. I have to react to their actions, to anticipate
them even, and to answer them with a reaction I feel is correct - not fair. They
could play mafia boss with live or death power over each habitants of a district and
they can decides to abuse their power and to get wild on the local population. To a
point where the local population or other mafia bosses will take their chances and
shot them down. Or worse.</p>

<p>See what I mean? You can use torture and rape in a game who tries to depict a world.
You can even use racism, discrimination, oppression and all kind of things. You can
even brings your players to have their characters acting in way that will question
their players ethics. But if you do it, you have to do it on purposes.</p>

<h2>Entertain the world</h2>

<p>And I think it's the problem of most of the entertainment industry. They had a strong
male basis and they wanted to please them. They use sex and discrimination in way
that brings nothing to the story. And they forget something. And, for people who
thrives for business, it's unforgettable. By doing this they can target, at bets, 50%
of the population, the other one being female and won't be entertained by
hyper-sexualized women getting raped then saved by a hero. If the entertainment
industry really wanted to tackle the woman audience, they will have adapted their
product to satisfy both audience.</p>

<p>Instead of that they'd fell for the easy thing to get more man to buy their
entertaining products. They use the arguments that "<em>It's what our fan base want</em>".
Well, then you won't grow bigger than your fan bases. Also, you will look like an
asshole.</p>

<p>As a story teller, my responsibility is to bring my players in places they've never
been. Not in places where they are comfortable. And the entertainment industry should
do it. You do not need to have brainless boobs when you want to have mega robots
fighting with huge explosions. You do not need to have brainless boobs rescuing the
endangered hobbits, especially when it's not in the book your adapting your movie
from. You do not need to have bad ass soldiers when you want a tactical FPS. It
brings nothing to your story.</p>

<p>However, if you're story is about a strip club, prostitution, slavery and the like,
then it's not a problem.</p>

<h2>Morality?</h2>

<p>Morality my ass. Stories aren't meant to have a moral. People should not have moral
in fact if you ask me. People should have ethics and ethics is personal (and you can
explain it). I do not want a story to tell me that slavery is bad. However, I want a
story that show me what is slavery, what are the consequences and the like. If you
have a message to pass through a story, people should find it by themselves. They're
not stupid (and if they are, they do not care about your political views) and they'll
find out and think about it.</p>

<p>So yes, I have no problem with sexism in stories. When it's justified by the stories,
not by an advertisement need. If you can't build a women character without raping
her, you have to stop telling stories because you're not even good at it.</p>

<p>If you want to depict a world where all women have been brain manipulated and are
salved to all the male, go with it. Find an interesting story about it (and "boobs"
is not a story) and assume it and do not try to find elusive justifications or blame
your fan base.</p>

<p>If the gender of your character is of no interest of your story, so pick one at
random (hey, that's what I do), you can flip a coin or roll a dice if you want. And
then you will have disparity. If it's important because, in your world, women are not
considered, then go with it (after all, that's how it's been dealt with in a <strong>Song of
Fire and Ice</strong>). And that's not a reason to remove all th women from your story.</p>

<p>So tell stories you want to tell, not ones that people want to hear. And I strongly
believe that then you will have more entertaining problem, and less accusation of
discrimination.</p>

<h2>AFK</h2>

<p>And, well, what happens In Character stays In Character. Especially when you play
with stranger. Harassing a player based on what they have played or based on what
they are is stupid. And from my point of view it ends up with a ban from my life if I
do not know you and a strong blame if I know you since more time than the last ten minutes.</p>

<p>Speaking to someone Out Of Character is entering their area of intimacy. And you
should at least asks for permission to do so. That's how computers talks to each other
(SYN,SYN/ACK,ACK) and that's why "Hello" exist. Use it. And accept that the other one
do not want to bear with you.</p>

<h1>I'm done with you</h1>

<p>For now. That's quite a long post. Not sure if it is of some help, but at least I
tried. Hope you enjoyed it. And you can reach me anywhere.</p>

<p>So long.</p>

<h2>Addendum</h2>

<h3>Realism VS Consistency</h3>

<p>SO, it appears that I made a mistake upper in this posts. I have no corrected it. I
do not want realism in my entertainment. Realism is for reality not for imagination.
I want consistency and coherence. If I'm driving a space cookie on a warp road
through space to go faster than a squirrel, then I need the game universe to be
consistent with that and so having "realistic" physics applied to this world is out
of question.</p>

<p>However, if the law of physics in this world have told me that gravity is always in
front of me, then I see no reason of having gravity suddenly switching for a earth
like one.</p>

<p>Once you have set-up the rules that will bind your universe and your characters, then
you have to stick with it. And you have to think about the implications. Having
extremely thin female (in regards of the male) in a warrior world would probably 
imply that they cannot go on the front line in a battle. It does not mean they'll
have to stick to domestic task, but rather to more cerebral activities (like
strategy, magic and the like). But if you want to have a truly egalitarian world,
then the women who'll go in battle will have more muscle and constitution than the
one who will stay in more support roles (healers, casters, tacticians). And same goes
for men. This is coherence, this is consistency. This is not realism (for this is not
our world).</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Pirate_Party_and_I/
title: The pirate Part and I
uri: The-pirate-Part-and-I
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Pirate_Party_and_I/
content:
<h1>Once upon a time in the web</h1>

<p>I was gonna write a disclaimer about me not being objective about the Pirate Party,
and them who will probably jump on me because I'm saying shit. But, well, fuck
objectivity. I am nothing like objective and you probably know that. And if you take
this too seriously,then, it's not really my problem.</p>

<p>So, why this. Some will say it's a free shot at the Pirate Party and, well, it is.
More or less. But the point of having a blog is to express personal opinions, right?
Also, a lot of people ask me on a regular basis what do I think of it and, since I do
not want to rant endlessly I just avoid the subject.</p>

<p>And I'll continue. What will follow are my personal views of what I perceive what is
the Pirate Party and why I think they're wrong and why they're going in the wrong
direction.</p>

<p>Hackers are not, in my mind, people that fix things. Hackers are the ones who divert a
system to do something else with it than its intentional purposes. So, when people
says they're <em>hacking politics</em> it is with the intent to divert the political system
to do something else than it's initial purpose - managing the city. Hacking politics
could be, for instance, have the political system serving your own personal agendas,
or discussing laws about the lolcats or whatever.</p>

<p>Hacking politics is not trying to have it working on its initial purposes. This is
<em>fixing</em> politics. Make it working the way it should work - should being personal
but it could be working along the rules the political system choose to follow.</p>

<p>Also, it is extremely hard to divert the system when you're only a user of it. This
is why hackers seeks for privileged access when they want to hack their way into a
system, and this can be done using software, a solder iron, a set of tools or
whatever. It can be accomplished only from the outside of the system, you need to
analyse and measure the output of the system when it receives some input or some
constraint. Even better, you need the DNA, the source code, the schematics, all
relevant documentation about the system, it will ease your way in.</p>

<h1>The Pirate Party</h1>

<p>People all around th world thought that the issues around copyright, sharing and mass
surveillance deserved to be fought by a dedicated Party. Don't get me wrong here I do
think they're critical issues and that the answers provided by the traditional
system aren't good for anything (including business).</p>

<p>However, it is for the citizens to stand up and fight. Not some self proclaimed
representative authority who, by design, must follow an insane number of rules,
including the ones which asks for the structure to have a leader.</p>

<p>I believe in doocracy and autonomy. I can accept temporary delegation of my voice to
a person I think share the same views than I on a specific topic. Even if liquid
democracy is a problem (will discuss that later). I do not believe in pyramidal
structures whim only goal is to gather more power to have a chance to be heard by the
others.</p>

<p>Beside, I think the problematics raised by the Pirate Party - privacy, sharing, mass
surveillance - are cross partisan ones, each political party should defends them
because they are linked to basic human rights. A bit like every political party
opposes torture, for instance, all of them should opposes mass surveillance.</p>

<p>It is a bit like ecology in fact. It's a group of public interests and each part of
the democratic process should have it's opinion on it. I cannot imagine today a
politician blatantly saying that <em>ecology sucks, we need moar pollution</em>. They can
have different views and solution to the problematics, but it is now something beyond
the classic right/left paradigm.</p>

<p>Civil liberties, the right to intimacy, the accountability of the society, the right
to copy and share are problematics that are tied to society management - which is, by
essence, politics - and every political groups have a stance about those issue. It's
not a defining paradigm (like liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism,
whateverism) of a political group.</p>

<p>And by being a political party, and so a political group, the Party Pirate claims
that they are the only one to defend those issue, and that all other groups are, de
facto, against those issue.</p>

<p>To make things worse, being a political party, besides the amount of paperwork needed
and the fact that you need to have a chain of command, if you want to have some
weight and to have representative you must make alliance with other groups. Since you
fight for specific issues, they'll stand for them also. But then, their foes will
oppose your ideas (friends of my foes are my foes) instead of fighting for them.</p>

<p>You'll end up with almost half of the people opposing your ideas because they oppose
your allies. And you will be stuck with promises you've done and concession you've
made to get those allies.</p>

<p>And you'll end up either disappearing (you made no concession, so you have no
representative, and you're not existing) or by compromise yourself (defending ideas
that aren't yours).</p>

<p>Just because the representative system is bugged by design and is maintaining itself.</p>

<h1>Hacking politics, ORLY?</h1>

<p>However, I must admit that, being a national or cross-national party can be useful.
Political party usually consider other party as being like them and it can be a handy
way to have them talking about some issue.</p>

<p>But, it is the wrong way to do it. First, it enforces them in the position of an
elite of people that can make laws and regulations without having to be accountable
of what they've done. Some might think that a vote can change that, but, since you
can vote only for a person who present itself and who - if you really want things to
change - must be backed up by an already existing entity, things won't change much
with only a vote. Also, I tend to think that the people in charge want us to just
vote and not speak our mind.</p>

<p>Second, citizens must speak out. I do not need a political party to speak for myself.
I need my representative to do what he's supposed to do: represent me, speak for me,
and be accountable before me for that. This is what civil liberties groups are. And
<a href="https://support.laquadrature.net">La Quadrature du Net</a> is one of them, EFF is
another. The Party Pirate could be if they weren't so eager to have representative
elected among them. Those civil liberties groups are good to deploy memes in the
public space. We won't have heard about ACTA for them leaking it and fighting it (for
four years in a row).</p>

<p>The fact that ACTA has been rejected in the EU parl is the proof that, when citizens
are doing their job - asking their representative to represent them, not to represent
private interests - the representative have no choice but to do what they should, not
what they want (and yes, it's harsh, but they have a lots of benefits from this job,
they should do the part they don't like or quit it).</p>

<p>And yes, the two representative (for all the Europe) in the EU Parl have done some
good job about raising those issue, but it's not because they were a party they were
effective, it's because they were doing their citizen job.</p>

<h1>So, what?</h1>

<p>In the end, my main problem with the Pirate Party is that, instead of changing the
system, they validate it, makes it stronger. And they want to have representative
elected, instead of just using the mediaspace to deliver a message and to try to
convince everyone that they're speaking the truth and that some things might end (and
other starts). It could have been an amazing tool, but it has been shaped by
politicians that were already well established.</p>

<p>It is maintaining the illusion that the actual implementations of a democratic system
we have is valid and can work.</p>

<h1>Liquid democracy</h1>

<p>To finish that, let's talk about liquid democracy.</p>

<p>Liquid Democracy is based on the simple fact that any citizen have a equal voice and
uses it on each issues that is debated. They can choose to delegate this voice to
someone who they think is an expert in a given field. And they can cancel or change
this mandate at any moment and for no reason. They can also gives their voice for a
specific issue to a different expert.</p>

<p>For instance, I can perfectly choose to give my voice to a person that I (and only I)
judge as competent for all the issues relating to urbanism for I suck at urbanism,
while I'll keep my voice for myself for all the issue about computers and intertubes.</p>

<p>And you can delegate all the voice you received the same way. It means if someone
gave me their voice for urbanism problematics, I will delegate it to my urbanism
expert.</p>

<p>It sounds like a good idea but there's two problems.</p>

<h2>The consensus issue</h2>

<p>First it is based on democracy. It means that, to do something, you call for a vote
and you'll wait until you have a consensus about what you're going to do.</p>

<p>From my perspective, you do not need a consensus to do what you want. You just need
to do it. If people dislike sit, thy will tell you, if they're outraged by it they'll
try to destroy it, if they want to change it, they'll change it.</p>

<p>And it will be this way until one part abandon it because they judge it does not
worth the effort.</p>

<p>Also, I do think that a majority of people can be wrong (else, Skype or Facebook
won't be used that much). So having a consensus is not a sane objective (and it's
the best way of doing nothing).</p>

<h2>The reputation of expert</h2>

<p>The other problems is the one about the reputation of the experts. If someone have
twenty voice for problems related to intertubes, you'll think they are competent (or
they won't have twenty voices). And you'll gave them your voice.</p>

<p>And, since you judge them being competent, they will keep your voice until your
proven they're not. And they can only be proven incompetent by another expert of the
same domain, with a better reputation.</p>

<p>Where it became weird is that, if this second expert is better than the previous one,
why didn't you gave him your voice from the beginning? The system will end up with
one, maybe two, experts competent on a domain, and probably a lot of independent
citizens with one or two voices who cannot do anything since the expert have the
majority of the voices (else they won't be expert and people won't gave them their
voices). And the expert won't change.</p>

<p>Also they can create expert. If I've got quite a good reputation on a particular
field and I give my voice to someone else in another field, a lot of people whom I
already possess voices for my field of expertise, will gave their voices to them.</p>

<p>This is how you end with a tyranny of so-called experts.</p>

<p>It's easy to fix however. You must keep the number of voice you have secret. And I'll
assume there's a technical way of not juking the system. So, you know nothing about
intertubes and you want an expert. And you can't find one, because no one can. So
you're going to make a choice based on what you can read. It means each expert have
to expose their view and explains the issue.</p>

<p>And then, something magic will appear, you're going to learn some basic skills about
the experts' domain. And you won't need an expert anymore, for they're more or less
forced to publish everything, so you can learn. And votes for yourself.</p>

<p>If the experts refuses to publish, then they'll have to convince you differently, and
we end up with the current system.</p>

<p>So, liquid democracy can't work. As a citizen you should never delegate your voice to
anyone. And you should slaps anyone who asks you that with a large trout.</p>

<p>And this is why I cannot stand that someone describing themselves as a pirate asks me
just that.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Not_a_complete_victory/
title: This is not a total victory
uri: This-is-not-a-total-victory
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Not_a_complete_victory/
content:
<h1>ACTA is dead</h1>

<p>Just in case you've spent the last week celebrating the almost formal finding of the
Higgs Boson's, citizens have bring ACTA to an end in the <a href="https://www.laquadrature.net/en/acta-total-victory-for-citizens-and-democracy">European
parliament</a>.</p>

<p>Yay, champaign for every one.</p>

<p>However, even if ACTA is now a political sinking ship and if I expect things to
change in the so-called European democratic process, ACTA can still be ratified by
other country. I do not think it will happen, at least not under this name.</p>

<p>So citizen groups and <strong><a href="http://www.edri.org/acta_gallo">soft terrorism</a></strong> can
actually have an influence on the <em>representatives</em>, and it is a good news.</p>

<p>But if you just step down and think they will stop trying those crappy legal hat
tricks to enforce even more control over our daily lives you cannot be more wrong.</p>

<p>ACTA started as a secret plan that got leaked. And, now that the people behind ACTA
know that if it get public it would not pass, I cannot see a reason why they would do
a public negotiation again - I mean, they won't let that happen again.</p>

<p>They will try until one side leave the battlefield to let the other one wins.</p>

<h1>Next generation</h1>

<p>And they're already moving. After having try to use counterfeit goods as a pretext to
control everything (even if it could kill people by outlawing necessity goods such as
generic drugs) they're moving to something else.</p>

<p>I'm not speaking about <a href="http://www.indect-project.eu/">INDECT</a> - and good things can
emerge from it - because it's a red flag and an easy prey. Something that exists only
to exhaust the citizen mobilisation for the next battle.</p>

<p>I'm speaking about some <a href="https://streisand.okhin.fr/ACTA2.pdf">G8 negociations</a>. You
have to spread this and to put it on the table, to bring some light and to have them
abandon this ship faster than ACTA (four years of battle, this is too much).</p>

<p>In this G8 Initiative - a non-paper - they want (point 1) go
further than ACTA (because ACTA was criminalizing importers and exporters, now they
want to also criminalize trans-shippers of counterfeit goods - this is your RJ45
cable).</p>

<p>The worst part is that they want to « [Promote] voluntary cooperative efforts to
tackle the proliferation of illegal Internet pharmacies. » It means they want a way
to control the internet to fight the drug traffic.</p>

<p>It will be a hardest battle to win. I mean, everyone fully understood why ACTA was
evil because they wanted to forbid sharing. They choose a different weapon this time
(and a different horsemen of the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse">Infocalypse</a>) and it
will be hard to have people fighting for illegal pharmacies.</p>

<h1>Winter is coming</h1>

<p>For now, celebrate, call your MEPS and thanks them for choosing democracy above
anything else. It is important to tell to the people when they're doing good things.
Take some rest, we're going to need more energy to fight this infamy.</p>

<p>You should support organisation such as <a href="https://support.laquadrature.net/">La Quadrature du
Net</a> for they need funding to work and prepare
the next fight. The <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate">EFF</a> needs your support to,
they're fighting
<a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Strategic_Economic_Partnership">TPP</a>, a
kind of Trans Pacific ACTA, and they could use some support.</p>

<p>And you need to wait for the next battle to start. Sharpening your arguments, waiving
your tentikles in IRC chans, sharing datalove with all the intertubes, statying cute
as the nyancat. Some epic battle are coming.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Aftermath/
title: Aftermath
uri: Aftermath
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Aftermath/
content:
<h2>Disclaimer</h2>

<p>I won't speak about everything we've discussed, for people lives are at
stakes. Also, as usual when things are done with orgs, I mostly spoke with
people, not the entire organisation. And, since they're not robots, their view
does not reflect the view of everyone behind the AFP name.</p>

<h1>I had a lunch meeting</h1>

<p>Yeah, again. But this time with different kind of people. After the discussion
via different media I had with AFP (my views and part of theirs are
<a href="https://about.okhin.fr/posts/Stupid_journos/">here</a>), we came to the
conclusion that we need to talk with a cold head.</p>

<p>So, they invited me for a lunch. It's perfect if you want to keep it short in
fact, and usually people are more available.</p>

<p>So, there was three of them: one field journalist who works in Middle East, the
head editor in social media and one of their IT guy, specialized in security.
All of them are nice and interesting people and they do understand the issue
with Skype.</p>

<h2>AFP is an old lady</h2>

<p>AFP is an old lady, crippled with habits and prejudices. And things will move,
but they won't move fast. I know there are people who thinks it will be to slow,
but I'd rather have them starting a real reflection about protecting their
sources, even if it takes years, than moving without thinking it through.</p>

<p>Also, a lot of people there are not understanding the problematics around new
media and internet. AFP have offices in a lot of places with issues about
freedom of communication (China, Lebanon, etc.) and they had done it for 
years (they worked in USSR for instance) and so, they're quite aware of the 
problematics about protecting their sources.</p>

<p>It's an old lady, and like every old lady, they're experimented and, sometimes,
a bit arrogant toward the youngest. But who doesn't?</p>

<h2>AFP is an information system</h2>

<p>Like every corporation. But when you manage information system, you must be
aware that you can only manage the information inside your system. I cannot
manage information coming from your blog, I can do it only from mine.</p>

<p>Same goes for AFP, they can do whatever they want to protect information, once it
has reached one of their entry point (which is basically reporters and
journalists on the field). They cannot do a lot of things about information
coming from the outside.</p>

<p>So, for the part that's inside AFP, they do use VPN, and they've blacklisted
Skype from their networks. They have strong security and encryption measure to
protect the data received by a journalist, once it has been gathered.</p>

<h2>The issue with gathering information</h2>

<p>The problem is when they need to get in touch with people. Or, in fact, when
people want to get in touch with them. According to their experience, it started
in Libya. Rebels there wanted to have their voice heard so they began 
Skyping everyone (from Reuters to AFP, going through each international media
they were able to reach).</p>

<p>The opponents were using Skype on their own because it is convenient. It's
installed every where and it works without question (which is, for me, a
sufficient reason to not use it) and the AFP's arguments is that, if they want
information, they have to accept Skype's call.</p>

<h1>What can be done</h1>

<p>First, they have, I think, a good approach of security, trying to have a process
around that, to define simple good practices and tips that can be used easily.</p>

<p>Second, I told them that they should run their own free services for people
outside the AFP to reach them. Like deploying SIP or ZRTP servers, etc. And to
define them as the default entry point for external people (on the contact page
for instance).</p>

<p>Third, they need to find a way to open a secure channel over insecure ones. It's
not that easy, and it needs cooperations from the people on the field.
Basically, if an opponent reach them and can have a short contact to give all
the information they want to transmit, it's OK. A 30s phone call will take several
minutes or hours to be detected and analysed. If not, they should use it to
define a different way of communication. Whatever it is.</p>

<p>The thing is, it'll be viral. If opponents get on the habits of using unusual
channel to communicate, they will do it with all their contacts. It will
spread and then, other agencies will do the same thing, slightly enforcing those
habits.</p>

<p>Fourth, we will stay in touch for other events like
<a href="https://jhack.info">#Jhack</a>, for them to share their experiences and for
hackers to try to learn them fun way to protect themselves and sources.</p>

<p>Fifth, they shoudl avoid using trademark as protocol name. They contact people by
VOIP, not Skype. It is an information that have nothing to do with journalism.</p>

<h1>Conclusion</h1>

<p>We, has hackers, must keep an eye on those old organisations. And, instead of
slapping them hard, we should try to show them a different way they could
explore by themselves.</p>

<p>I won't work with AFP, for I have no time for that, and they have competent
security people. But I will stay in touch with those people I met, sharing
experiences and working around issue we can meet.</p>

<hr />

<p>Correction made by <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/NectarineFoofyB">@NectarineFoofyB</a></p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Stupid_journos/
title: Stupid journalists are killing people
uri: Stupid-journalists-are-killing-people
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Stupid_journos/
content:
<h1>Stop killing people, stop using Skype!</h1>

<p>A journalists friend of mine pointed me to a news flash from <a href="http://www.afp.com">AFP</a> - REF: 29578 DVBP
729 GLN20 (4) AFP (295) , if it means something to you - in which they killed someone.
Or, if it's not the case, he will be killed soon.</p>

<p>Why? First, they used his full name in the text, and the city where he lives. This
is, in essence, like putting a target on his forehead and waiting for snipers, tanks
and/or mortars to kill him.</p>

<p>But worse, they used the infamous malware named Skype to contact him. Besides the
huge privacy issue related to using something that has been 'accidentaly' deployed in
the last <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/02/microsoft_skype_silent_install/">Windows
Update</a>, it
is of public knowledge that Skype is used as a trojan to identify and hunt activists
in Syria. The
<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/darkshades-rat-and-syrian-malware">EFF</a> posted
about it,
<a href="https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/report-syrian-government-using-targeted-skype-attacks-malware-spy-dissidents-050312">kaspersky</a>,
posted about it, even the original writer of the tool used inside Skype to deploy the
Remote Access Tool has wrote about it along iwth a
<a href="http://www.darkcomet-rat.com/dcremover.dc">removal</a> tool.</p>

<p>So, journalists now knows, for month, that it is dangerous to use Skype. It is also
dangerous to use closed and proprietary software. A lot of people are telling this
for months now and even make propositions to use alternative, free and decentralized
systems, because it is the only way to enforce some bits of privacy.</p>

<h1>You are a fucking idiot AFP</h1>

<p>So, enough with the polite arguments. Each and every time someone uses Skype,
Twitter, Facebook, MSN, Gmail or any other widespread and centralized system (it
includes relying only on one XMPP servers, or status.net one) they're putting their
sources in danger.</p>

<p>So, fuckers, <em>YOU HAVE TO STOP THIS</em>. Get your fingers out of you ass. Just think and do
your jobs. You're destroying everything that people are trying to do by being a lazy
asshole full of selfishness and thinking without brains.</p>

<p>Stop that or I'll go after your family and smash them with Apple hardware (since it
appears they can be used only to slap someone).</p>

<p>You knew that Skype is dangerous. But you did that call. And you put the name. You've
killed the person who trusted you, you're not better than the ones that are killing
people in the street.</p>

<h1>Addendum</h1>

<p>It appears that the interview is exploited among various flash news, you can find one
<a href="http://www.afp.com/fr/node/275966">here</a> (without going through a paywall)</p>

<p>Also, people might want to know what are the risks. Since it appears some are lazy enough tonot use <a href="http://seeks-project.info">seeks</a>
I've done a quick search and found all of those:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/12/skype_security.html">https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/12/skype_security.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/16/skype-security-weaknesses-vulnerable">http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/16/skype-security-weaknesses-vulnerable</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/357">http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/357</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9012239/How_dangerous_is_Skype_">https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9012239/How_dangerous_is_Skype_</a></li>
</ul>

<p>It took me 20 seconds to find those. Also, if you're looking for ways to communicate, there is
two links I recommend:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="https://cryptoanarchy.org">https://cryptoanarchy.org</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jhack.info/wiki/doku.php">http://jhack.info/wiki/doku.php</a></li>
</ul>

<h1>Replies</h1>

<p>Ok, so <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/afpfr">@afpfr</a> did reply me. Nice of them. Here are <a href="https://twitter.com/afpfr/status/219808639253360640">their</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/afpfr/status/219808739396562946">tweets</a> (they also replied to Telecomix and <a href="http://seteici.ondule.fr/2012/07/proteger-ses-sources/">Ju</a>).</p>

<p>Basically they wanted me to contact them first, and then they said that their contact had
no issue with the publication of its identity, adding that this identity is a pseudonym.</p>

<p>So, I do not think getting private on this issue will have them answering anything and changing
their habits. Also, if it's a pseudonyms, it is to make the sources unidentifiable. So, why
writing down the pseudonym? And if their contact always use this pseudonym, the mukhabarats
can get after him, arresting people to torture them and to make a link between his ID and his
pseudo.</p>

<p>Also, I have no personal issue with the <a href="http://www.afp.com">AFP</a>. I have one with each and every person that will
put someone in danger, because they are too lazy to think and use free software.</p>

<h1>Moar Replies</h1>

<p>Yeah, I know. But <a href="http://www.afp.com">AFP</a> did a long reply and I think it's interesting. You'll find
the text in FR
<a href="http://blogs.afp.com/makingof/?post/2012/07/02/L-AFP,-l-opposition-syrienne-et-Skype">here</a>
and I think it is interesting.</p>

<p>First they did a long reply, which means, we got their attentions. And it also means
they're concerned about it. So, I'll do a point to point reply, translating the text
on the go. Because I do think that things can change.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Lots of internaut were flaming against the AFP, on the second of July, accusing
  them to put in danger the life of a Syrian opposition member.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Telling that the rage was overrated does not change the fact that you did put his
life in danger.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>In a flash news from Beyrouth, titled « Homs is still under fire, some injured
  people are amputated (militants) » and published Monday at 08:50 AM GMT, a militant
  from the bombed Syrian town gives us his testimony :</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>"A lot of district in Homs are still besieged and it's very hard for us to bring
    food and drugs in" Khaled al-Tellawy told AFP, a militant from Homs contacted by
    Skype.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Dozen of people, on Twitter and in blog posts, were outraged, sometimes in harsh
  and insulting terms, because of the fact that the AFP were namely quoting this
  Syrian opposition member. They also criticized the AFP of using Skype, a
  communication system that some judge unsafe regarding the terms of use. The syrian
  government is suspected of having create some malware that grants him the
  possibility of easily locating militants when they use Skype.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Ok, I do accept that I've missed the pseudonym part (but then, having a pseudo or
'one guy' is the same). But, when you're saying that <em>some</em> people thinks that Skype
is unsure, you're missing the point.</p>

<p>Skype is a trojan. It's a free (as in free beer) tool that grants user to communicate
using non-standards VoIP protocols. It grants a user to share almost anything via
Skype. From text message, to sharing desktop, going by voice and video. It is now a
subsidiary of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Skype_Division">Microsoft</a>.
And we all know that Microsoft works with each and every government, for instance in
<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/news/security/2011/09/05/wikileaks-microsoft-aided-former-tunisian-regime-40093837/">Tunisia</a>. <br />
And the <a href="https://www.eff.org/foia/foia-skype-surveillance">FBI</a> Use Skype as a
surveillance tool</p>

<p>Besides, there are documented cases of Skype being used as a trojan in Syria to
target activists there, the <a href="http://eff.org">EFF</a> spotted some of them: </p>

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/mention/syrian-rebels-targeted-using-commercial-skype-trojan">https://www.eff.org/mention/syrian-rebels-targeted-using-commercial-skype-trojan</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/chinese-skype-client-hands-confidential-communicat">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/chinese-skype-client-hands-confidential-communicat</a>(ok, this one is in China, but still)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/fake-skype-encryption-tool-targeted-syrian-activists-promises-security-delivers">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/fake-skype-encryption-tool-targeted-syrian-activists-promises-security-delivers</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/darkshades-rat-and-syrian-malware">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/darkshades-rat-and-syrian-malware</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Sammy Ketz, directeur du bureau de l’AFP à Beyrouth où a été rédigée la dépêche,
réfute toute accusation d’imprudence.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Sammy Kets, head of the AFP office in Beyrouth where the news was redacted, denies
  all accusation of carelessness.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>« We explicitly asked him the autorization to quote him. He granted us this
    right, given that Khaled al-Tellawi is, of course, a pseudonym. Tellawi being a
    Syria area » explained Sammy Kets.</p>
    
    <p>« None of our interlocutors gives us his real name and they choose their
    pseudonyms by themselves » he add. « It is the militants who are trying to
    contact us by all means possible and they invites us to join them on Skype. It
    is, most of the time, their only medium of communication with the outside. It is
    a wrong trial for an agency who always tried to protect their sources, especially
    in a conflict as dangerous as in Syria. »</p>
  </blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p>So, why don't you publish the pseudo of all your sources on each press release? I
mean, if it's so important for a good information, why all the journalists aren't
publishing the name of their sources, even if it's a pseudonym? I mean, it appear to
be a common practice, since AFP is a <em>traditional with good repuation</em> press agency,
right? I might missing something, right?</p>

<p>We should asks mediapart and Le Canard Enchaîné to disclose each sources they have
also. After all, this is how good journalism is done if I follow your thoughts. AFP,
you might be kidding, or on crack to think that.</p>

<p>Also, if someone goes in the middle of a street while a truck is going to smash him.
You warn him, you try to push it out of the way, you just don't let him right in the
middle of the road. So, the argument they reach you via Skype is fallacious. You
should use this contact to establish a secured communication with them.</p>

<blockquote>
  <blockquote>
    <p>« We're using Skype daily to communicate with Syrian rebels, as we've always done
    before in Libya and to this days and no one else have ever blamed us for that »
    add Jean-Louis Doublet, AFP chief editor for the Middle East</p>
  </blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p>We've already blamed anyone for using Skype, through the
<a href="https://status.telecomix.org">@telecomix</a> status.net chan, this
<a href="https://about.okhin.fr/posts/Companies_and_hacktivism/">blog</a> or through a lot more
media (even Richard Stallman warns anyone against Skype at the
<a href="http://jhack.info/wiki/doku.php?id=jhack2:accueil">Jhack</a> second iteration). So, you
knew it and you were already blamed for that. But know, you are listening, so you'll
learn (I hope).</p>

<p>And the fact you were doing mistakes before, does not mean they weren't mistakes.</p>

<blockquote>
  <blockquote>
    <p>« Opponents are necessarily concious of the dangers of using Skype. But it's that
    or be totally cut of the outside world. In this country, everyone is risking
    their life » he pursue. « All the media are using Skype to speak to Syrian
    opposition. Accusing AFP to do it is specious. If someone wanted to forbid us to
    spread the opposition words they would not do anything else. »</p>
  </blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p>No, opponents are not necessarily aware of the dangers of Skype. But you are. It is
your duty, as journalists, to establish secured channel of communication with your
informants on the ground. You cannot assume that people are doing what they should,
or we won't have conflict everywhere.</p>

<p>The fact that everyone is doing a mistake, does not make the mistakes the right
things to do.</p>

<p>And, well, I do not want to shut any contact with Syria. I just want people to think
about the way they're communicating. <a href="https://chat.telecomix.org">Telecomix</a> and the
<a href="https://chat.wnh.me/">WorldNeighbourgHood</a> have permanent contact with activists on
the field, using more secure chan.</p>

<p>With Telecomix, we are trying to make people aware of more secure way of
communication. Since 15 months we're also building communication channels that anyone
can use. You do not even have to asks us the permission first.</p>

<p>But yes, it means, you have to think first and act then.</p>

<hr />

<p>Edited to add the various links at the end (2012/07/02 16:37 Paris time)
Edited to add the replies. (2012/07/02 17:39 Paris time)
Edited to add the more detailled reply of AFP (2012/07/02 20:22 Paris time)</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/JHack-stream/
title: How did I streamed the last JHack conference
uri: How-did-I-streamed-the-last-JHack-conference
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/JHack-stream/
content:
<h1>Introduction</h1>

<p>So, yesterday, the regular <a href="https://jhack.info">Jhack</a> crew set-up an event with Richard Stallman to
talk and exchange around the issues involving Free Software and Human rights.</p>

<p>And, as we want to build and keep history (also, it was a week day, so some people
can't come physically to the nice place we've had for the occasion), we wanted to
stream.</p>

<p>When it come to streaming something, it usually sum-ups to having a cam, connected to
a laptop of a sort and which then send it over a more or less closed source
application.  Everything ending on the web in a flash player (website like <a href="http://bambuser.com">Bambuser</a>
or <a href="http://ustream.tv">Ustream</a> are doing a great job to broadcast video from revolutions, but I
cannot see the video there for I have no flash, please people, think HTML5 now, also
this is why [TBS][] uses HTML5 and not a flash player).</p>

<p>And I do not wanted that. There might be a way to do it, without using the horrible
command line tool gstreamer (I cried tears of blood last time I wanted to use it).</p>

<p>Also, I was surrounded by apple products (Journalists, changes your habits! I cannot works
like that anymore), none of them being able to be used as I wanted to (meaning, just
do something without Apple software). The last thing I add was a laptop with a small
cam and an internal mic.</p>

<h1>Tools of the trade</h1>

<p>Since we were looking for a streaming solution in #opSyria, a part of the preliminary
research had been made, so here are the tools that was needed to stream:</p>

<ul>
<li>A laptop running GNU/Linux (Ubuntu, not my favorite favor, but let's deal
with it) and with included microphone and webcam.</li>
<li>VLC, because when you need to do some video/sound it is a good tool</li>
<li>Network connexion. Ethernet over RJ45 with a steady bandwidth is generally a good
idea.</li>
<li>A server to stream to, with a good availability. My choice is [Giss.tv][], free
streaming tool. It is based on [icecast][] and can stream .ogg (free container)</li>
</ul>

<h1> Assembly everything</h1>

<p>Once you've find all of the above, the worst oart is done. If you have a powerful
laptop, you can even record the stream locally, wasn't needed here since we've got a
camera crew working on it.</p>

<ol>
<li>Plug your computer into the network, start it and launch VLC.</li>
<li>Visit [Giss.tv][] and create a channel for your need. They will send you all the
needed informtion for you to stream.</li>
<li>In VLC go in <em>File &gt; Stream</em>, choose your physical device (nowadays, most
probably a video4linux2, the cam is ususally in /dev/video* and the sound is your
ALSA card (probably :hw0.0). Click on stream</li>
<li>Check the <em>display locally</em> check box, extremely useful to monitor and check
everything is ok. Stream to a shoutcast server, feel in the details [Giss.tv][]
has send to you.</li>
<li>You want to transcode to a set of codecs of choice (free one, my choice is
Theora / Vorbis)</li>
<li>Click on Go. The streaming will start. Go on your interface page on [Giss.tv][]
and say ohai to the camera, you're on the TV \o/</li>
</ol>

<h1>Conclusion</h1>

<p>I had some pain to manage the network over there (not mine, they're not used to
weird people doing strange things with network) and with the CPU power needed to
transcode. My good old netbook wasn't powerful enough.</p>

<p>The quality was awful, due to the fact I have nothing best than internal devices.
For the next time I need even a cheap jack microphone and a webcam that I could use
to zoom on the subject and have better than 2.3 Mpixels.</p>

<p>Also, I need to plug the power cord into a power plug that is actually connected to
the electrical network. I have to set this in a bit of a rush and that totally
slipped of my mind.</p>

<p>I also need to find a way to do it from the command line. But it works. It's dead
simple and it's free. So now, you have no excuse.</p>

<p>If you want a shiny design around these, just put some CSS and HTML around, and it
would be enough. But get rid of Flash.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/LQDN_needs_your_support/
title: LQDN Needs your support
uri: LQDN-Needs-your-support
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/LQDN_needs_your_support/
content:
<p><img src="https://soutien.laquadrature.net/images/LQDN_support_against_ACTA_and_beyond_728*90.gif" alt="Support
LQDN" /></p>

<h1>Once upon a time</h1>

<p>Once upon a time, the intertubes were the people wet dream, silicon and copper made,
connecting each and every computer that could be physically connected to it. The
tubes were made to be resilient, even with low resources, and a lot of volunteers
worked day and night to maintain it alive.</p>

<p>It was the biggest home made construction. Think about it, from your internet box to
any server connected in the world, there's a physical link (once in copper, now in
fiber optic), going across oceans and land, sometime the link goes up through a
satellite but most of the time, everything is connected in a World Wide Web.</p>

<p>The internet was, back in the time, free to use (as long as you had access to it, you
could do whatever you wanted to do), decentralised (if the cable running through the
Atlantic was severed, you could still access your side of the internet, and even goes
through the Pacific to reach the United States for instance) and without any control
(you do not need DNS to publish content, you need people to know how to find you).</p>

<p>And everything was nice, and the RTC modems were singing their happiness song, long
time before anyone heard the Nyan Cat.</p>

<h1>And then everything goes faster</h1>

<p>But states looked at it and realized that people could find any information they
wanted to find, not only the one they could more or less control. They find that each
reader of a blog is potentially a writer of another blog, or a musician, or a
painter and will produce online content to be read by someone else.</p>

<p>But corporations saw that people were duplicating content, because that's the only
thing Internet can do: it duplicate content. Whenever you reach
<a href="http://seeks.fr">seeks</a>, you make a local copy of the content hosted on the server
(and yeah, that's why I'm yelling at my fellow colleagues that they must clear their
cache). So, corporations saw that anyone were copying anything, not like when you
were doing mix-tapes (with a degradation on each copy) or when you were exchanging
CDs with your friend (because, then you have no access to the physical item).</p>

<p>Corporations were upset and they killed the cat with headphones, aka napster. They,
in fact, did something good for internet because, then, everyone remembered that
internet is decentralized and that sharing must be decentralized also. So, emule and
bittorent rises from the ashes of napster. No more single point of failure in the
exchange process.</p>

<p>Corporations wouldn't just let it go and accept they needed to change. Instead of
changing (and growing up, and going next-level, like Pikachu turns into Raichu to face
bigger challenge). So they get in touch with governments.</p>

<p>And they wrote ACTA down. Secretly. Without anyone knowing. They wrote a remote
access tool that would inscribed in each and every constitution of the states that
will sign it. They wanted to do it without anyone noticing it, because they knew from
the beginning that what they were doing couldn't survive to a public debate.</p>

<p>They wrote the only thing that could destroy democracy from the inside, without due
process of law or without the people consent. And they almost succeed.</p>

<h1>Here comes a new challenger</h1>

<p>It would have succeed without the fierce determination of small groups of people.
Those are called Liberty Fighter, or Civil Society. One, in particular, is fighting
the European Arena, they are La Quadrature Du Net (aka LQDN). They oppose each try of
'cultural lobbies' to hinder our right to communicate.</p>

<p>They fight the Four Horsemen of
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse">Infocalypse</a> each
day, they're not afraid of tackling our so called 'Elected Representative' in the
different places of power in Europe or else where.</p>

<p>But they cannot do it alone. They need your support. It's a full time job to read each
law that can kill one of your liberty, to call and explain to our deputies why those 
laws should not get anywhere near a legal code of a country, to speak and hear in
panels all around the world.</p>

<p>So, if you like your freedom of expression, if you like your intertubes being
uncentralized and without control, if you like your nyan cat diving in the sky you
must <a href="https://soutien.laquadrature.net/">support</a> them. And you can probably get a 
Tshirt for that.</p>

<p><img src="https://soutien.laquadrature.net/images/LQDN_support_against_ACTA_and_beyond_728*90.gif" alt="Support
LQDN" /></p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Full_disclosure/
title: Full Disclosure
uri: Full-Disclosure
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Full_disclosure/
content:
<h1>Full disclosure</h1>

<p>I'm a supporter of transparency, especially when some meetings can impact other people.
So, yes, I had a lunch with spies from the DCRI. French FBI as Mr. Guéant, former
Interior Ministry, called them.</p>

<p>They paid for the lunch in a Parisian restaurant (around 20€), and the interview was
one hour long (the length of my lunch break) and it was on the 16th of May, 2012.</p>

<h1>Sleep in bed with the enemy</h1>

<p>The question you may ask is 'Why?', Why would I talk with the enemy? Well, it's quite
simple. I always think you have to talk with every one who wants to talk to you, at
least to say 'shut up, I do not want to speak with you'.</p>

<p>But, I want to know who's spying on me. They are paid to spy on the population,
especially on people who hang in hackerspaces or hacker groups. That's their purpose,
that's what they're paid for.</p>

<p>We always assumed that, on any non restrictive channel we could use, there is spies
silently recording everything that is said. If you think that's not the case, you're
putting yourself in danger.</p>

<p>So, they already know what we're doing and what we are. And, well, the funny part is
that, since I tend to publish everything I do, finding what I do is not that hard.</p>

<p>But I wanted to know them. To have faces to look for in meetings to spot them better.
To know what they know about me, what they think I am. Sun Tzu said that you
have to know your enemy. And they're one of them.</p>

<p>So, that's why I accepted to see them, in public meat space, to have a chat.</p>

<h1>What is it about</h1>

<p>They wanted to know what Telecomix is, how it's organized. I told them nothing more
than what's in the newspaper or <a href="https://telecomix.org">in the intertubes</a> already.
I didn't mention names or pseudonyms, nor anything that could be legally argued against.</p>

<p>They wanted to know if we had enemies, if we had trouble with threats in real life
and they offered their help, which I refuse. They immediately denied that they're spying on
people, arguing that they have not enough time or budget for that, which is a lie.</p>

<p>They also denied, too fast to be honest, that they're using an eagle system in
France. They didn't liked the streisand effect and the datalove thing, for they
seemed to infiltrate radicals political groups and that I could mirror anything that
has been censored. They do liked what we've done to fight censorship however, as long as
it's abroad.</p>

<p>They were friendly, trying to make me tell them that there actually is a leader,
besides Cameron, in the cluster.</p>

<p>I did not spoils them any dark secret of the cluster, for we have none I'm aware of.
Stay reassured, I did not told them about the take-over-the-world-agendas we all have.</p>

<h1>It happened before, it will happen again</h1>

<p>I'll see them again, and I'll try to write about it each time. I'm not sure it went
well, but now I know their faces, and I know what their interested into. They do not
know nothing more than you can find using <a href="https://seeks.okhin.fr">seeks</a>.</p>

<p>If it makes you uncomfortable, I do not understand, but that's ok. Run away. I mean,
if you're close enough of me to think that you can get in trouble, well, you're
already under spying.</p>

<p>It's a cat and mice game we always plaid with them. Let's bring the game to another</p>

<h2>level. We need to know them.</h2>

<p>Editing, links, some grammar corrections, and I found teh date so added it</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/NetNeutrality/
title: Why you should refuses Premiums
uri: Why-you-should-refuses-Premiums
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/NetNeutrality/
content:
<h2>What is the net neutrality?</h2>

<p>If you're not comfortable about the Net Neutrality, it is the defining concept of the
internet. Simply put, it can be summed by this sentence:</p>

<blockquote><p>Each packet is created equal in right and duty.</p></blockquote>

<p>This is it. A packet is an atomic part of a communication between computers, it is a
fragment of the data exchanged between you and the rest of the world. It's like a
word in a sentence.</p>

<p>This axiom grants the fact that all the packets will be managed independently of
their content, sender and receiver, and then it removes the possibility of censorship.</p>

<p>However, this is not what's important now. What is important is that ISP wants to
sold you net neutrality. What they call premium. And you should opposes the idea.</p>

<h1>What is a premium?</h1>

<p>The premium the ISP wants to sold you is the fact that not everybody can access the
internet the same way. They want to create a first class internet, which you will pay
for.</p>

<p>The premium will gives you unlimited access at high speed to whatever you want.
Music, pictures, videos, search engines. You name it. Sounds cool? Well, yeah, it
sounds cool.</p>

<p>But it just a sound,a bit like the beautiful songs of the siren that lures sailors in
the darkness of the seas. And you should not listen to them.</p>

<p>And here is why.</p>

<h1>Internet is made by and for users</h1>

<p>The internet (not only the web, but the whole interconnection of network) is made of
what people put on it. From the time I started using it, back to the 56kbps
connexion, to the modern age of social networks, most of the things available on the
internet has been created by users of the internet.</p>

<p>Internet is a read/write media, not like the press or the TV. If it is so
awesome, it's only because everyone who can access the internet can also write on the
internet. Even facebook, google and twitter have understand that, it is the User
Generated Content.</p>

<p>The ISP, and most of the companies on the internet, aren't building content. They are
sometimes building tools (search engines, micro bloging platform, social network
management tools, etc.) that are amazing, but they are not creating content.</p>

<p><a href="http://youtube.com">http://youtube.com</a> is not producing videos. They collect them, gives you tool to
browse them and gives you tool to upload them.</p>

<p>So, you find internet so useful because everyone can write on it. Keep this in mind,
because this is important.</p>

<h1>Internet is a connexion of network</h1>

<p>Another thing is that internet is only an interconnection of networks. Military and
university ones at first, and now governmental or company owned network. Google and
Facebook are two different networks (and they do a lot of effort to keep each other
out of their network). Apple is building is own and, yes, ISP have their own network.</p>

<p>So, if you give ISP the possibility to prioritize traffic and content, the ISP will
give a higher priority to the contents that will grants them more money (hey, they
are mostly companies after all). And it means that you will access advertisements
before anything else. You won't access the content you were looking for, but the
content they want you to access.</p>

<p>What does it mean? It mean that if, for instance, Orange earn no money from Facebook,
they will build their own social network and will hinder your access to Facebook. If
you have only 1kbps of bandwidth for Facebook.com, you will need several minutes to
just load the home page or any pictures. And I'm not speaking about uplodaing
pictures. Facebook will basically becomes unusable. But do not worry, after all Orange
will build you a social network that will be usable for you.</p>

<p>And yes, they're already doing it. Orange has interest in dailymotion.com, a direct
concurrent to youtube.com. And Orange is an ISP (and even a Content Delivery
Netowrk), so they can hinder youtube.com to favor dailymotion. See <a href="http://www.digitaladventures.fr/2010/04/youtube-orange-le-peering-cest-plus-fort-que-toi/">this
link</a>
(in FR) for more details.</p>

<p>So, granting the network operator to do whatever they want will destroy the
interconnection of the network (hence, the internet).</p>

<h1>I want to be special</h1>

<p>And then, enter the premium. You are special, operators wants you to be special. They
will sell you a full access to the internet. You will be able to be over the top and
access everything you want.</p>

<p>Except there is a problem. Not everyone will be able to do so, because only special
people are premium. So, only special people will have a decent connexion to all the
internet and to the tools that grants people the possibility to create.</p>

<p>So, all this content, all those cats videos, all the pictures of your friends, all
those things that are the reasons you like the internet will disappear. You will have
access to everything, but all the other people won't. The not special enough people,
the one that were, in fact, producing the petabytes of content you were accessing
will be enclosed in a world of advertisement and partitioned network without the
possibility of going on another network.</p>

<p>They will be stuck in a world where google can take dozens of seconds to load, and I'm
not speaking about making a search, where the search engine powered by the ISP will
starting by a page or two of results for which companies have paid a premium, not the
results that could be interesting.</p>

<p>So, only special people will be granted with the full possibility of the internet.
Only a few fraction of the users and creators will be granted the possibility to fill
the internet with content.</p>

<p>The premium will be a special pass to the emptiness of the dead internet. You will
pay more for less. This is what a premium is.</p>

<p>The non-premium people will have access to an enclosed, ad-powered internet without
the real possibility of creating content (because the ISP will have no interest for
it), while the special ones will access to the content that nobody can now upload.</p>

<p>A facebook without people, a youtube without cats, an internet without content.</p>

<h1>Everybody should be special</h1>

<p>So, the next arguments ISP will use is that everyone should take the premium. But if
everyone pays for it, it's not a premium anymore, it' a raise of prices. And since
everyone will have access to the full internet, the technical problems they claims to
be the source of their need for premium will still be there. Except you'll then pay
a bonus of 10€ per month.</p>

<p>And they won't work on building a bigger network, they will just continue what
they're doing until now: earning more money and doing less. And lying to you.</p>

<p>Those are the reason why you should refuses the premium and endorse the net
neutrality. Not because it's better for the humanity, or because respecting the net
neutrality assures equals means of communication for anyone. No, you should stand
for net neutrality, because premiums will destroy the internet you want.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Syrian_Scam/
title: Syrian Scam
uri: Syrian-Scam
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Syrian_Scam/
content:
<h1>I've laughed</h1>

<p>I was reading through my mail<sup>Wspam</sup> today and, I found one that did two things in my
mind. First I wad disgusted because, you know, people will exploit everything.</p>

<p>But then, after reeading it again and again, I found the fact of me receiving this
particular scam, was quite ironic. And, in the end, it's more than plausible that
what's happening in this mail is true, syrian officials trying to hide their money.</p>

<p>So, here is the full mail, with headers.</p>

<blockquote><p>Return-Path: <a href="mailto:rasheeedkazeem@syriacomms.net">&#114;&#97;&#115;&#104;&#101;&#x65;&#101;&#x64;&#107;&#97;&#x7a;&#x65;&#x65;&#109;&#64;&#115;&#x79;&#114;&#105;&#x61;&#x63;&#111;&#109;&#x6d;&#115;&#46;&#110;&#x65;&#116;</a>
X-Original-To: okhin@okhin.fr
Delivered-To: okhin@okhin.fr
Received: by ssmtp.okhin.fr (Postfix, from userid 1003) id 5FAD12E6171; Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:40:14 +0200 (CEST)
Received: from server88-208-250-155.live-servers.net (server88-208-250-155.live-servers.net [88.208.250.155]) by ssmtp.okhin.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E37F2E616F for <a href="mailto:okhin@okhin.fr">&#x6f;&#107;&#104;&#x69;&#x6e;&#64;&#x6f;&#x6b;&#x68;&#105;&#110;&#x2e;&#102;&#x72;</a>; Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:40:14 +0200 (CEST)
Version MIME: 1.0
From: "Rasheed Kazeem" <a href="mailto:rasheeedkazeem@syriacomms.net">&#114;&#97;&#x73;&#104;&#101;&#101;&#101;&#100;&#107;&#x61;&#x7a;&#x65;&#x65;&#109;&#x40;&#115;&#x79;&#x72;&#x69;&#97;&#99;&#111;&#x6d;&#x6d;&#115;&#x2e;&#110;&#x65;&#116;</a>
Reply to: rasheedkazeem@syriacomms.net
To: okhin@okhin.fr
Subject: Proposal
Mime type: text/plain
Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Mailer: Smart_Send_2_0_132
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:40:04 +0100
X-Bogosity: Unsure, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.474480, version=1.2.2</p>

<p>Good day,</p>

<p>I am Rasheed Kazeem I represent the interest of my brother in-law who is a
minister in the Syrian Government. As you probably know, there is a lot of crisis
going on currently in Syria and my brother in-law is having problems with the
ruling party and they are currently investigating his ministry. While he is sure
that he has not done anything wrong, there is also every reason for him to secure
to think ahead his familys future in case the unexpected happens. He has asked
me to help him find a reputable foreigner who can help him invest a substantial
amount of money. I am contacting you with the hope that you can assist with
investments in the market of your country. We will provide the funds. If you are
interested in learning more about this opportunity, please kindly contact me back
via email and I will give you more details. Hopefully, we can do some good
business together.</p>

<p>Regards,</p>

<p>Rasheed Kazeem.</p></blockquote>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Yubikey_mandatory_at_boot/
title: Yubikey required at boot
uri: Yubikey-required-at-boot
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Yubikey_mandatory_at_boot/
content:
<p><em>Update</em> (02/11/2012) I added the 'ask a passphrase' functionnality in the hook.</p>

<h2>Intro</h2>

<p>As you might already know, I have a <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/Yubikey_and_challenge_response_auth">yubikey</a>
I use as an authentication token.  Without it, I cannot log on my computer as a
normal user.</p>

<p>But I wanted to do more than that. Like, blocking the boot if the key is not present,
unmounting encrypted drive by removing the key, etc.</p>

<p>In this post, I'll show you how I've tweaked my initrd system to stop booting if I
haven't plugged in the key. I'm using the basic kernel from arch linux, and the
mkinitcpio system that is shipped in this distribution.</p>

<p>However, the scripts mught be easy to port to a different one.</p>

<h2>Writing hooks</h2>

<p>I needed a new hook for that. This hook will be responsible of embedding the
necessary binaries and modules, and to run them at boot.</p>

<p>The <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio#HOOKS">Arch wiki</a> has a page
about writing some custom hooks. It just need two non-executable scripts. The neat
thing is that those script will embedd all required dependencies when creating the
image.</p>

<p>So, use your editor of choice and create the first file
<em>/usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/yubikey</em> and paste this content in it:</p>

<pre><code>\#!/bin/bash

\# Use y2kchalresp to test if the yubikey is present
run\_hook() {
    local CHAL YCHAL PASS TRIES OK
    msg ":: Loading necessary modules for yubikey..."
    /sbin/modprobe hid\_generic 
    sleep 2
</code></pre>

<p>First, we need to load the required modules. <em>dmesg</em> tolds me that this is the module
hid_generic (quite expectable since the key actually is a usb keyboard). I need to
sleep a little bit, to give time to the USB bus to detect the key. In case your
system doesn't detect the key, you might need to increase it.</p>

<pre><code>    TRIES=0
    OK="KO"
    CHAL="thechallengeresult"
    while [ $TRIES -lt 3 ]
    do
        read -p "Enter your yubikey passphrase: " -s PASS
        YCHAL=$(ykchalresp -2 "$PASS")
</code></pre>

<p>This is the crypto part of it. CHAL contains the expected result challenge (that is the
result of the command runned in YCHAL), the PASS is the challenge submitted to the
key and YCHAL is the command sent to the key to have an answer from it.</p>

<p>We also start a loop to grants you the ability to mistype your password. The call to
read with the -s flag is used to define a passphrase and to not display what you're
typing.</p>

<pre><code>        if [ "$CHAL" != "$YCHAL" ]
        then
            err "Challenge Response with yubikey failed"
            ((TRIES += 1))
        else
            msg "Challenge Response with yubikey correct"
            OK="OK"
            break
        fi
    if [ "$OK" != "OK ]
    then
        exit 1
    fi
}
</code></pre>

<p>If everything is ok, CHAL and YCHAL are equals, and you can process to the end of the
boot. Else, you increment TRIEs, and you loop. If tries is greater or equal to 3, then
you end the loop.</p>

<p>At the end of the loop, if OK doesn't contain OK, then exit, else continue the normal
boot process.</p>

<p>The second needed file require by mkinitcpio, in the
<em>/usr/lib/initcpio/install/yubikey</em> script.</p>

<pre><code>#!/bin/bash

build() {
    add_module hid_generic
    add_binary /usr/bin/ykchalresp
    add_runscript
}
</code></pre>

<p>The build function is called to pack everything in the initrd. We need a module and a
binary, so we add them here. And then the add_runscript function tells mkinitcpio
that there is a script in hooks/yubikey to be included.</p>

<pre><code>help() {
cat &lt;&lt;HELPEOF
    This hook tries to lock the computer at boot if no yubikey is inserted
HELPEOF
}
</code></pre>

<p>The help function just display a message when you want to know what this hook is
about.</p>

<p>Then, just add the yubikey hook in your HOOKS array, edit <em>/etc/mkinitcpio.conf</em> and
add it after the usbinput things.</p>

<p>And rebuild the initrd.</p>

<pre><code>mkinitcpio -p linux
</code></pre>

<p>And now, on boot, you will need your yubikey plugged in.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Facebook_and_contestation/
title: Facebook and Contestation
uri: Facebook-and-Contestation
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Facebook_and_contestation/
content:
<h1>Where did it starts?</h1>

<p>This post is the result of a discussion I had with
<a href="https://twitter.com/ElodieChatelais">@ElodieChatelais</a>,
<a href="https://twitter.com/jujusete">@jujusete</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/oOBaNOo">@oOBaNOo</a>
following the publication of an article on indymedia written by NADIR (the piece is
<a href="https://nantes.indymedia.org/article/26691">here</a>. This article, a bit harsh but hey
activists can be harsh, expose the implication of using Facebook to plan the
contestation.</p>

<p>The context in which it has been publicized is the occupation of the ZAD in the
<a href="https://seeks.okhin.fr/search/txt/notre+dame+des+landes">NDDL</a> airport battle
(because,yes, it looks like a battle).</p>

<p>There is, in fact, two problems at stakes here. The first one is the question of the
tool used to plan and organise a contestation or a social movement that can lead to
repression from a form of government (may it be civilized or not). The second one is
the communication around a manifestation, this communication is a necessity to give
a movement some momentum.</p>

<p>The people I'm talking with about those issue generally says that they use
Facebook, even if they know the so called danger, because everyone is doing it and
because there's no time to develop new tools to communicate,it's time to fight.</p>

<p>And, as you may expect it, I disagree with that.</p>

<h2>What exactly is Facebook</h2>

<p>Facebook is a tool. It's not a place (for it has no physical boundaries), so people
aren't on Facebook - they are connected or not. It's a tool that is, apparently, good
at building and growing social networks and bonds. It's a tool that is, apparently,
good to propagate idea and memes.</p>

<p>It is supposed to be the perfect tool to organise your private life except that it is
a lot of thing, except private. Facebook is the biggest database of consumering
habits and the biggest maps of social network that have ever existed. It is run by a
private corporation whose only goal is to monetize your privacy by selling it to
everyone who is willing to pay for it.</p>

<p>Let's be clear about that, Facebook is to freedom what arsenic is to life. Facebook
don't want you to leave their pages, they want to know exactly where you're going,
who you're talking with and what you're talking about. They want to control what is
said, what has been said and they want to keep a log of everything, even if you've
deleted it. They even have personal profile and data collections about people who do
not even have an account. If,at any time, a form of government asks you to wear a GPS
enabled device, to permanently wear a voice recorder, and to asks an ID for
everything you're doing (from reading newspaper, to shopping) you will call it a
fascist state,but that's why Facebook is doing. They're gathering data about
your habits online, and you do not even know what they know about you (also, they also
possess all the content you've generated on their websites).</p>

<p>So yes, Facebook is a poison.</p>

<h2>Organise</h2>

<p>So, organisation. If you're plotting something on Facebook, they will know about it.
I mean, you're gonna use a platform that keeps deleted personal messages, do
not hash those messages (granting the ability to read them), is centralized and
closed, and maps social networks for profit.</p>

<p>Imagine a government wanted to infiltrate a social network,Facebook provides them with
the perfect tool. They can create
<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/18/298081/hbgary-federal-us-chamber-persona/">profiles</a>
and join your social group quite easily. They can probably forces Facebook to
collaborate and to just give them all the data they got on you - which is <a href="http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html">way too
much</a>.</p>

<p>So, organising yourself for something that can bring to repression is endangering
yourself as well as all the other ones implied, even if they're not using Facebook. By
the only fact that one person is using it among the people who tries to organises
themselves put the whole organisation at risk.</p>

<p>I've been told that Facebook is a good way to authenticate the people you're speaking
with. Well, it does not protect yourself from impersonation, someone stealing, or
building, an identity that they will later uses to infiltrate your network - But it's
not a Facebook related issue - and it's not a proof of authenticity. A session can be
hijacked, a password can be stolen, etc. The only way you have to authenticate is
cryptography (using a pre-shared secret) and Facebook does not provides tool for
that.</p>

<p>You need to organise your contestation. You do not need Facebook for that. What you
need is tools that will be usable, decentralized and free - as in freedom. They
exist, you do not need to build them. Pick one, there are wikis, communication server
(think jabber for instance), platforms such as <a href="https://kune.cc">https://kune.cc</a> (based on Wave) or
<a href="https://riseup.net">https://riseup.net</a> already exists and are tailored for paranoid activists (well,
each activists should be paranoid).</p>

<p>If you're not in total and full control of your communication link, it means that your
communication link is controlling you and your organisation. And the only way to get
in total control of those links is for them to be free and decentralized (and, in the
ideal case, to be run by each and everyone on his personal home box).</p>

<h1>Communication</h1>

<p>The other issue is communication. Protesting, disobeying, contesting is, in fine, a
communication issue. You will need communication to tell other people what you're
doing and why and, since you're convinced you're on the good side, to try to convince
them to join you, to develop your movement.</p>

<p>So, you need to reach out. And to go where people are. The common mistakes is to
publish your content on Facebook. By doing so, you're doing two things. First, you
give a non revocable, non exclusive licence on your content to Facebook. Second you
centralise all the information in one site.</p>

<p>When <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_berners_lee">Tim Berners Lee</a> invented the
World Wide Web, he designed a handy tool to help the sharing of information. This
tool is the hyperlink. It grants to someone the possibility to go from one website
to another one by just following a link. No registration system, no directory system,
just the URL describing the resource to go onto. Facebook tries to discourage this
(because most of the interaction done is made by like of Facebook hosted content) and
so Facebook tries to destroy the basis of the Web.</p>

<p>Hypertext is all that is needed to propagate information. This text as a Uniform
Resource Locator (yeah, URL) and that's all what you need to access it. A content
on Facebook requires you to have an account to access it.</p>

<p>But, <em>people are on Facebook</em> you're going to tell. Well, no. People arein their
houses. They're not on Facebook. You can reach them with so much tools that I won't
count them. Also, I'm not sure that seeing a like (one among so many others) on a
wall will create implication. Evgeny Morozov has wrote some good pieces about
<a href="http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/05/from_slacktivism_to_activism">slacktivism</a>
and you should read it.</p>

<p>I do believe that, when I reach out to people, I'm best in the flesh, having a casual
talk with my inner circle friends. They're the people I have most influence on, and
this is mutual (hell, friends exist for a reason: manipulate them and being
manipulated by them). It won't take me long top have ten more people fighting a cause
(maybe an evening, perhaps two) when having a discussion. To get this same results on
any social media (and I do not mean 10 likes, I mean 10 people that will do
something), it will takes me way much more works.</p>

<p>I do not think you need Facebook to get momentum and to motivate people. You do not
need Facebook to have media coverage. You do not need Facebook to change the world.
You do not need a megaphone to speak - even if that's classy - you need arguments,
idea, and freedom. Facebook can't provides any of them.</p>

<hr />

<p>You can do the same with Twitter, Google, Skype and each and every other closed tool.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Instagram_and_the_commons/
title: Instagram and the Commons
uri: Instagram-and-the-Commons
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Instagram_and_the_commons/
content:
<h1>First, facts</h1>

<p>So, Instagram updated their <a href="http://instagram.com/about/legal/terms/updated/">Terms of
Services</a> granting themselves the
fact that they could sell whatever you posted on their websites:</p>

<blockquote><p>Rights - Art 2: Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us
deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a
business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos
(along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with
paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.</p></blockquote>

<p>And the web-2.0-sphere goes wild about that (and yes, it means you). They then
explained what they did in a <a href="http://blog.instagram.com/post/38252135408/thank-you-and-were-listening">blog
post</a>.</p>

<p>The main argument I saw was "gnagnagna ... work I've made ... need compensation ...
instagram fucktards ... gnagnagna" or something else.</p>

<p>So, you were complaining because someone is copying, distributing and sharing
something you've done and from which you expected no benefits - or you'll have
sold it one way or another - and you found this unacceptable.</p>

<p>While you find acceptable to pay MegaUpload to copy, distribute and share contents
they do not own. You're quite a paradoxal fucktards.</p>

<h1>Then, shoot</h1>

<p>I mean, you're crying because instagram was doing what you're doing? Come on. There's
another reason. I mean, you're not raging because of the Article 1 of the very
same Terms of Services ( I <em>emphasize</em> ):</p>

<blockquote><p>Rights - Art 1: Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on
or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive,
fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license <em>to use
the Content that you post on or through the Service</em>, except that you can control
who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service as described in
the Service's Privacy Policy, available here: http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/.</p></blockquote>

<p>So, yes, instagram could already do whatever they want about the content you post.
Heck, they can even give it for free to whoever they want. And you'll see a similar
article in all the new generation web services: Facebook, Twitter, Google, have them.</p>

<p>But, you would not protest for your privacy invasion. Or because we've lost <a href="http://dashes.com/anil/2012/12/the-web-we-lost.html">so many
things</a> due to the existence of
those services. No, you are protesting for the worst ever reason.</p>

<p>You are protesting because hype people are protesting (Pink, or any another big
account). You're just following the hype instead of thinking. You are protesting
because you advocate for the non-free licence CC by-nc-sa - it is non-free because
it forbid some uses.</p>

<p>You're protesting and raging and crying because you can't accept that someone is
selling what you give to them. You're protesting against your own stupidity. Your
protesting because you think that sharing must be done only freely. You're protesting
because someone might someday use what you create without your consent. You're
protesting because someone took some liberties toward the stupidity that is
copyright.</p>

<p>Yeah, protesting because instagram is doing whatever they want with the content you
uploaded there, is protesting in favor of copyright. It's taking a stance for a
strong copyright system, for putting an end to the sharing system that powers up the
internet.</p>

<p>Some might argue there's some privacy implication. The implication did start at the
moment you put things online without extremely strong encryption on a centralised
system.</p>

<p>You want to defend your privacy? Don't use a centralised system. Encrypt everything.
Take back the control over your data. And let instagram and facebook dying.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Bring_Moar_Fire/
title: Bring Moar Fire!!!!
uri: Bring-Moar-Fire
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Bring_Moar_Fire/
content:
<p>TL;DR Oh,well. Fuck you, you should read and stop being a lazy asshole.</p>

<h1>Acknowledgement</h1>

<p>I am privileged. Whatever I can say about the state of the world, I'mborn in the best
side of it. I can express myself without risking getting beaten up and torture. I can
go in the street to buy my food without risking being shot by a sniper. I know that
I'll sleep in a safe place every night. I can have three (or more) meals a day (as
long as I do not forget to eat).</p>

<p>And I won't be insulted, assaulted, raped, considered as a minority, feels in danger
by simply walking in a street.</p>

<p>All of that because I'm a white male. I was granted some privileges (and I did not asks
for them) the day I was born around here at this period of time. And that sucks. I
mean, the fact that I have privileges means that I have power over someone. And that
sucks because it means some people (the ones I have power over) are not free, and then
it hinder my freedom (if people around me can't be free, then I can't benefit of my
freedom)</p>

<p>So yeah, being a privileged makes your life easier, but it sucks. I do not want it. And
to get rid of it will take some time because the society I live in needs to change on
a more global scale. And it starts by raising awareness of the situation (and then to
change it and to abandon this power).</p>

<h1>Facts &amp; Statistics</h1>

<p>If there's no discrimination in education, then the skills are equally split across
the whole population, so you should find educated and skilled people everywhere.
Imean, if there's 20% of people blue-skinned then, 20% of the people good at cooking
should have their skin blue. Sounds OK to you?</p>

<p>So, if our educationnal system works fine and tend to develop interest and curiosity
equally across the population. What it means is that the simple fact that I've met 5
women since I started my studies in technological background (one in a company, the
four others were classmate) is either a statistical error, or a proof that the system
is borked. I've met other woman in tech department I've worked in, but they were
mostly in the "creative" one (design, integration, etc).</p>

<p>Hence, there's something broken. I've quite an issue to spend a lot of time in a
company, In the 13 years I've been working (yeah, started early), except the company
I've spent my aprenticeship,I didn't spend more than a year in a company. So it's
almost 8 of them. Of different size and of different background.</p>

<p>Never met a woman in the IT department. Sometimes I was the IT department, but even
then, in the development teams I haven't met a woman. The only womans in tech I've
meet is from the hacker scene (and yeah, most of the timeIdidn't knewbefore meeting
in the meat, but that's another topic).</p>

<p>So, when someone tells me about sexism that <em>if it's not broken, don't try to fix it</em>
as an argument to not think about anti-harassment policy, I think they're wrong.
There is a problem.</p>

<h1>And a wild politician appears</h1>

<p>The other day (two or three days ago at time of writing),
<a href="https://twitter.com/_LaMarquise/">@_LaMarquise</a> was assaulted in the street by some
guy jerking of in public, and she tweeted about it. Some clever guy
<a href="https://twitter.com/romain_pp">@romain_pp</a> thinks it would be funny to joke about
it. The thing is that this person happens to be one member of the French and Swiss
Pirate Party, and, if I get those party right, anyone can speaks in the name of the
party. It's even written on the name of twitter account, and in the twitter
background. So yeah, it was the speach of the Pirate Party.</p>

<p>The things gone a bit wild on twitter, most of the argumentation against @_LaMarquise
was that she wasn't rational. I'll develop that a bit later, but basically I tend to
think that you can't expect for someone inshock to be rational.</p>

<p>She was also told that she is agressive, that she should not go public about private
matters like agression (well, then why do people twitt about their personallife
then?), that she was disturbing their life.</p>

<p>The Pirate Party did wrote a letter to @_LaMarquise. They did it in
private (since I'm not able to find it online). Which I find weird for a Party who
claims transparency at alllevel of society. However, computer system are
nice, because it does not cost much to copy things and here is <a href="http://www.twitlonger.com/show/l69r7b">a copy of
it</a> (provided by the offended, I have no reason
to doubt about her). In essence they say they regret what their member says, and they
also regret the "buzz" around it. They do not take the opportunity to engage in a
more active position, neither they've blamed their member.</p>

<p>Basically this letter is an attempt to shut the things down without aking a stance
for or against sexism. If they're against sexism, they should, at least, get rid of
Romain, if not they did not need to write it. This letter prove that what's
important for them, is to avoid being drag into the mud not to defend some position.</p>

<p>What's a shame is also that they tend to be the first to condemn such comportment in
other party. There's also an issue about freedom of speech, But I'll get to that
later.</p>

<h1>About the violence</h1>

<p>To live in fear of being assaulted or raped does not help to keep you head cold. As I
said (and other said), keeping your head cold is a privilege of people in power,
don't forget that. Insurrection, and a need for a change, will lead to
violence. That's inevitable. <a href="https://violenceparfoisoui.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/timult-critique-ideologie-non-violence/">This
piece</a>
summarise it quite well, and the foreword is interesting:</p>

<blockquote><p>Submission of the oppressed relate to established order. May he disturb this order
by beaking its chains and by hitting the master, that is the scandal. In the master
language which became the common language, the violent is notthe one who do
violence, but by the villain who dares to rebell. - <strong>Igor Reitzman</strong></p></blockquote>

<p>When someone yells at you about something, you should listen to them, because this
something is important for them (if not for you). You don't imagine the French
Revolutionnaries to ask kindly to Louis XVI if he would surrender the power. A lot of
people don't want to abandon power and you'll have to forces them to do so.</p>

<p>It took me sometime to understand that, because it's not pleasant to have people
yelling at you. It's irritating and you tend to answer agression with agression.
I'm not sure I'm fully ok with that, but I try to understand why people are yelling
now (also, I try to not answers quickly for it generally don't help the situation,
whatever the situation is).</p>

<p>So, yeah, some feminists will use violence, either physical, either verbal. And if
it disturbs you it means that it's working. You should asks and try to understand why
they're upset, not to calm themselves.</p>

<h1>About freedom of speech</h1>

<p>However, I'm against censorship. It means that I condemn the fact of suppressing
speach. I want nazis to speak their mind, because that's how you'll find their ideas
can be dangerous. And I want mysogyn to speak their mind, because that's how
you'll know them. And it's also the only way to discuss with them about those issue.</p>

<p>But freedom of speach goes both way. It's not because someone is allowed to say
something that they should not been contradicted, ashamed, punished or whatever. You
have the right od so a sexist jokes. And I have the right to say it's not funny.
Heck, I even have the right to tell the world about it. If you don't want that and if
you want to be able to say whatever you want without consequences, then you're
defending censorship.</p>

<p>So yes, it makes me uncomfortable about what happened at Bsides (<a href="http://violetblue.tumblr.com/post/44107008572/what-happened-with-my-security-bsides-talk">here's the violet blue point
of view</a>
 and <a href="https://adainitiative.org/2013/02/keeping-it-on-topic-the-problem-with-discussing-sex-at-technical-conferences/">here's the adainitiative
 one</a>).
Basically a prevention talk about sex and drugs, which had been announced late has
been removed from schedule due to some fear of witch hunt by the BSides staff
(whether or not the adainitiative initiate this isnot clear forme) under the pretext
that there could have been rape survivor who could be put in a stress state (it seems
that's how PTST works) if they attend the talk, and that speaking about how drugs
works and, especially, the GHB in a talk labbelled _“sex +/- drugs: known vulns and
exploits”_ is an incentive to rape.</p>

<p>The arguments is that, in hacking conferences, people giving talk named <em>known
vulns and exploits</em> do that to encourage the exploitation of those vulnerabilities.
Well, there's a misconception here. Most of the talks about known vulns are more
about how toprotect yourself against them than exploiting them.</p>

<p>In general, the vulns is being patched at the time of the speech, or at least, the
people exploiting the software or system are working on it (if they taking their jobs
seriously I mean). Of course some people will uses them to their own profits, but
that's not a majority.</p>

<p>And, in fact, people using vulns for their own profits, don't want the vulns to be
known. Going public about them is prevention and education, it's not for arming
people. This is how preventions works.</p>

<p>Now, should we do preventions in the tech community? Of course we should. There's an
history of sexual agression and rape in tech conferences. If you don't speak about
it, you can't educate people and you won't changes them. The adainitiative says that
they organises their own camp to discuss about it. But it's like doing a drug
prevention talk in a straight edge camp, you won't help drug addicts to manage their
addiction.</p>

<p>So yes, we must educates our fellow hackers, especially in occasion where there's
alot of drugs, alcohol and sleep deprivation, because it changes your perceptions of
things. So talking about it is a necessity. And, if the talk happens tobe offensive,
then people should says it and condemns it,but you can't know that until the talk
happens.</p>

<p>There's still the problem with rape survivors and the PTST syndrom. I can understand
why people who survived an agression and/or a rape don't want to be exposed to some
talking about it (hey, one should manage their pain as they see fit). And it seems
there's a custom about trigger warning, which I do not fully understand yet (seems to
work a bit like the PEGI labels for video games)</p>

<h1>End</h1>

<p>Mmm, I might have missed some points somewhere. Or I can be wrong about some stuff.
If you think that, well, ping me. You'll find me quite easily I think.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Piratebox_and_Openwrt/
title: Building OpenWRT to have PirateBox working on TL-WR703N v1.7
uri: Building-OpenWRT-to-have-PirateBox-working-on-TL-WR703N-v1-7
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Piratebox_and_Openwrt/
content:
<h1>It started with a workshop</h1>

<p>With some friends, we decided to have a workshop around the <a href="http://daviddarts.com/piratebox-diy/">Piratebox</a>, so we
ordered a lot of <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n">TP-link WR703n</a>
and started to flash them.</p>

<p>They are labelled as 1.6 revision, but we discovered it the hard way they're not
(worse, some of them actually are, and we were lucky on the first one we tried). So,
basically we created some bricks and people were going home without their PirateBox,
which is sad.</p>

<p>The trunk was building fine, but the snapshots on OpenWRT.org were built without USB
modules, and they are mandatory for the PirateBox to works. I had a host with the
full openwrt toolchains, so I started playing around with it and, finally, built
a workable firmware for this hardware revision.</p>

<p><img src="media/9b7be98b.catistance.jpg" data-original-source="http://about.okhin.fr/pics/catistance.jpg" alt="Work in progress" /></p>

<h1>How canI use it</h1>

<p>It works almost like on the <a href="http://daviddarts.com/piratebox-diy-openwrt">original
tutorial</a> except that the firmware you
need to download is <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/files/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr703n-v1-squashfs-factory.bin">this
one</a> and, that on
the steps <em>Install Piratebox</em> you need to change the command issued on step 2 like
this:</p>

<pre><code>cd /tmp
opkg update &amp;&amp; opkg install http://piratebox.aod-rpg.de/piratebox_0.6.3_all.ipk --force-depends
</code></pre>

<p>Note the <strong>force-depends</strong> added at the end of line. It is mandatroy, because I build
the binary 'losetup' inside busybox, not as a package, so opkg won't find it.</p>

<p>You will have some error message written, speaking about missing dependencies, but
you can ignore them.</p>

<p>Reboot your routeur, and now, everything should works.</p>

<h1>Want to build your own?</h1>

<p>So, in caseyou wantto have fun with the openwrt toolchains, I've pushed my openwrt
env in <a href="https://gitorious.org/my-openwrt-stuff">gitorious</a></p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/A_Nightmare_coming_true/
title: My nightmare is coming true
uri: My-nightmare-is-coming-true
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/A_Nightmare_coming_true/
content:
<h3>Context</h3>

<p>There's a lot of heat those day in France about a <a href="media/fce1042d.Pacte20PME20-20RATP20-20Reconnaissance20faciale.pdf" data-original-source="http://pixellibre.net/streisand-data/Pacte%20PME%20-%20RATP%20-%20Reconnaissance%20faciale.pdf">call for
project</a>
made by the RATP (the more or less public organism which is in charge of managing
all the private and public parts of the Parisian and Île de France commutation system).
It's a simple project that would be used to help regular customers to automatically pay
their monthly fee using a facial recognition system.</p>

<p>If you're not Parisian, or a suburban, you have to know that there's actually two
legal way to use the commutation system. One trip tickets, or monthly pass. Those
monthly pass are either paid directly by taking the money from your bank account, or
every month by the mean you choose (cash, check, credit card). Those pass are either
anonymous (you buy them 5€ and you write yourself the data on it, so they don't have
your name in a database) or linked to a account in a database (but the pass itself
is free, and they geenrally makes you a discount). This whole system is the Navigo
system and is, surprisingly, quite safe (given the security of other system you
may have met).</p>

<p>So, now they want people in their databases (those who, most probably, have an
automatic monthly paiement already in place) to automagically pay their pass using a
facial recognition system (so, instead of the credit card they're not currently using). It must
be this because, you know, other people don't want to have an automagic paying system
(or they would already use it).</p>

<h1>You're wrong!</h1>

<p>If you think it's only about payement, then you're wrong. The people who can benefit
of a real gain of time (we're speaking about half an hour once a month), have the year
pass and they do not really care.</p>

<p>So, now that we agree on the fact that this whole "it will be easier to pay" is a
lie, let's look at other things.</p>

<p>First, when people found the document (online, in a public dropbox, no encryption -
seriously people???) and made some publicity about it, the RATP did remove the call
for project from their website and, a little bit later, the project. But internet is
cool, and the streisand effect still works fine, so you'll find it everywhere. It
juste mean they're ashamed of it or do not want people to be aware of this project.</p>

<p>Another interesting point is to look at all those European Funded Project into which
RATP - as well as arms manufacturer - is involved. The most <em>interesting</em> one I
found lately is the <a href="http://www.vanaheim-project.eu">VANAHEIM</a> project, developped
with the RATP equivalent of Torino.  They have now a fully automatic system which can
do machine learning and can interpret unusual behaviour (such as someone falling in
stairs, someone jumping the fence, a lost tourist or - and it's used as an example -
someone distributing some flyers to people) and launch an alert.</p>

<p>These kind of systems have been widely used in the RATP subway system for a while, and
they're ineffective because, in case of agression, the mother fucking cops arrive
in more than fifteen minutes.</p>

<h1>You're wrong!!</h1>

<p>If you think it's a privacy invasion. It's not about privacy. You're privacy is at
stakes in the EU Parliament, and you should speak about it with
<a href="https://www.laquadrature.net">https://www.laquadrature.net</a> or <a href="https://nakedcitizens.eu">https://nakedcitizens.eu</a>, but this is not the
issue at stakes with this kind of project.</p>

<p>I mean, there's already way to much CCTV cams in the subway (just getting inside and
outside of the subway system makes me going through 30 of them, for a 100m trip
that's a lot).</p>

<p>Besides, since you've bought the fame, you've got a tracking device in your pocket
making you leaking a lot of data about your errands, who you're with, and the call
you've made (just search for
<a href="https://citizenlab.org/2013/03/you-only-click-twice-finfishers-global-proliferation-2/">FinFisher</a>
‑ and don't think they've stopped doing that because it has been exposed).</p>

<p>There's also the fact that you want to check on your (girl|boy)friend, where your
kids are or if the elders one are ok. You asked for it. You beg for it. You want to
spy people around you instead of trusting them, and you can now buy a GPS tracking
devices to tap your partner for less than 100€. And after that, you complain about
someone else than you doing the same thing. You deserved it.</p>

<p>But in this case it's not about privacy, the RATP can barely do more harm to your privacy
than what they're doing right now. They're currently linking biometrics data
(picture), names, travel history for the last 48h (that's what they claim), bank
account and now, since they're selling a device to <a href="https://rechargercommandernavigo.fr/nfc/?act=02&amp;lang=fr">load your pass from your
computer</a>, they even got the
address and details about the computer you're using at home (and with the possibility for
them to install a software on your computer). So no, this facial recognition system
(one another) is <em>not</em> about your personal data or your privacy.</p>

<p>It's about being able to analyse your behavior, the way you dress, the way you
walk, and to automatically launch an adequate response (I'll go for cops right
now, but it won't last long before they send drones or before an automatic fee being
paid directly by your bank without your knowledge).</p>

<h1>You're wrong!!1</h1>

<p>If you think it's only a RATP issue. I mean, Thales is working on it. They are weapon
manufacturers (and sellers), they build missiles and drones. The transportation
system is just a sand box and an experiment for them. The police will use it soon
(what, you'd expect they'll leave human behind screens to interpret CCTV data? Well,
with all the CCTV - heck, sensors there's microphones now and I expect infrared
camera that interpret feelings or electromagnteic scanners who scan backpacks, like
there's already some of them in airports customs system).</p>

<p>If you're interested, there's a whole bunch of similar project funded by the EU, just
look for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INDECT">INDECT</a>.</p>

<p>We know that a lot of private companies are already spying on everyone, and they're
not even limiting their job to borders (hint: borders don't exists but to jail you),
look at what Gamma is doing, or Qosmos (with HackerTeam - oops, another
Franco-Italian alliance in tech) or even Google or Facebook (hey, they're also doing
facial recognition).</p>

<p>Those systems are used worldwide to detect insurrectional comportment, to
identifies bad citizens, ask China or Belarus about that. And now they're going one
step further. They're just trying to remove the human from the decisional system
because human is expensive and may have one day a moral issue with doing this job.
(hey, go look at the <a href="https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/">spyfiles</a> if you do not think
they're doing this)</p>

<p>We now have systems which can analyse and track "bad" citizens in the world on one
hand, and, on the other hand, we have assassination systems (drones) ran by private
corporation (asks the CIA who's operating their drone - for the record CIA is NOT a
military organistaion it's just a civil one), to kill people without trial wherever
in the world. They're working on automatic drones (because you can't rely on the
stability of communication in times of war) which will be unstoppable once
launched, just too ensure the result of the mission, whatever electronic warfare is
deployed on the other side.</p>

<p>I'm just wondering at what point they will connect the two systems (and then the Santa
Claus will be happy, all the "bad" kids will be killed once detected by the system).
I mean, they will, I just don't know when it will be done. We do have "analysts" who
are now filling data gathered by autonomous system to determine who to kills first
and who then launch an automatic assassination system without supervision, or
accountability. The day where the analysts will disappear isn't that far.</p>

<h1>YOU'RE FUCKING WRONG!!!!</h1>

<p>If you think it is a nation-state related issue. The nation don't need an imprecise
and automatic system to kill people without trial. If it's a democratic state it
should not do that, if it is not, dictatorship are already effective at that (the
history is full of people mass-murdering their population without any computer aided
system).</p>

<p>Who's gonna benefit from that? Come on, it's easy. It starts with a B and end
with a USINESS. Business. Money. Profit. Control. This is what corporations feeds on.<br/>
Arms dealers need war. Security dealers need insecurity. Cyber-defense sellers need
cyber-threats.</p>

<p>This is the rise of new automated systems.
<a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/17/google_ai_hogwash/">Google</a> has already
built the root of an AI and they paved the way to mega-scaled computing to exploit and
make sense of data to answer the best way possible to questions (such as "what is
Finfisher?"), Thales (and Safran / Morpho, and a lot of other companies) now have an
efficient system of analysing the comportment on a city scale. We do have autonomous
weapons. The financial systems doesn't depends on human intervention (another question
for Google: "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading">What is High Frequency Electronic
Trading?</a>"). The legal systems of all
the countries are threatened by the operators of those not yet sapient AI (continue asking
Google some questions: "What is ACTA?", "<a href="https://www.laquadrature.net/en/tafta">What is
TAFTA?</a>") because they just want more control.</p>

<p>I said efficient? Well, it's not. There's a lot of false positive. But those companies
don't care, all they want is the system to be efficient enough to be sold. The fact
that thousands of people have been killed by drones doesn't mean that those people
were all targets. They just were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the
operator was high or drunk and just thought he was playing Medal of Honor. This is
probably the worst part.</p>

<p>This is a new era. <a href="https://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/6367192/Terminator_3_-_Rise_of_the_Machine_s_%28DVDRip%29">The rise of the
machines</a>.
And, according to James Cameron, it won't end well. I'm not opposed to computers and
technology. I'm opposed to technology who take control of my life and yours (because
then they can control my life)</p>

<h1>GAME OVER</h1>

<hr />

<p>Thanks to the whole karmeliet team who did a lot of correction here</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Tyranny_by_default/
title: Tyranny by default
uri: Tyranny-by-default
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Tyranny_by_default/
content:
<h1>Tyranny by default</h1>

<p>I got this in my mind since a while. I do not like when I have a default preselected
on any choice I have to do.</p>

<p>And I think, it's bigger than the fact I just do not like it. But what are those
default choices that I'll rage about in a while? It's all the configuration choice
you see, all the already opted-in check-boxes, all the radio buttons already selected
on the '<strong>by default</strong>' configuration options.</p>

<h2> What's a default?</h2>

<p>Those options are chosen not randomly (else, they won't suggest anyone). They are the
one that 'most people choose' but no one here is most people. Take the public
furniture for instance. They're tailored for a standard human of average 1m70 tall.
Which correspond to the average size, but is then, probably, the size of 1% of the
population. So, this 'most people fitted' thing is fitted for no one in the end. They
could have build a public bench tailored for 1m30 or 2m10 tall people.</p>

<p>The thing is, in the case of public bench, there's a lot of people 'around' 1m70 tall
(from 1m60 to 1m80) and those people will accommodate so, in the end, only a small
share of the crowd will have problem with it. It's because the meatspace is a
non-discrete space.</p>

<p>In the wonderful world of cyberspace and software, we are in a discreet space, with
a limited number of options. When you setup your system, you have to make some
choices, mainly because you need one tool to do one task. Maybe you'll need a backup
tool and a test tool. But you do not need ten web browsers.</p>

<p>When you're setting up your system, and you're confronted to a choice like this:</p>

<blockquote><p>Choose your web browser:
* browser1 (default)
* browser2
* browser3</p></blockquote>

<p>And if you have no more information, you'll just go for the default one, because
it's more convenient.</p>

<h2>Let the other decides</h2>

<p>But, by doing this, without having a think process, balancing the odds and evens of
each solution, you let the guy who made this choice make this decisions for you. The
'<strong>default choice</strong>' then go from the 'what most people want' to 'what we have
interest for you to choose'.</p>

<p>When you go on Facebook, the default is, basically, everything is public. This is not
what most people want - or they're won't be any privacy issue related to Facebook -it
is what Facebook want. When you go on <a href="https://youtube.com">youtube</a>, they will asks
you if your location must be used to identify the video you might want to see.</p>

<p>They try to lure you in the fact that they know what suits you best. They want you to
stop thinking about the problematics around choice and just click on the 'I agree'
button. Providing a default choice, or a default configuration, is giving the
possibility to someone to be lazy and to not think.</p>

<p>And yes, every time they can, people will choose the easy way. This is why we have
governments which decides for us what's good or bad after all.</p>

<p>But, by removing each and every occasion to have no choices but think, people will
finally have an habits of not thinking and just clicking 'Next' without even reading
what are their choices.</p>

<p>If people were really thinking about the implications of the default configuration
made for them in a lot of modern system (from Apple's product to Google's engines,
from Ubuntu default config, to the Skype system) I think the privacy issues raised by
social networks such as Facebook or Twitter would have been addressed earlier.</p>

<p>And this is a tyranny. This is a small group of people imposing their choices and
interests to a vast majority of other people. It became worse because, then, a
majority of people will share the same default configuration, and then the minority
of users that do not want to use those settings will be ostracized.</p>

<p>To make things worse, the ones who decides what are the default will add more and
more default choices everywhere they can. You would not accept that, the day you're
going to vote, someone gives you an already filled-in bulletin to just ease the
process of choice, that is unacceptable, right?</p>

<p>Then why do you let people doing the same with your privacy? Or with your
communication system? Or your friends?</p>

<h1>The default and the stereotypes</h1>

<p>Yeah, I know, the transition sounds ugly. But there's no such thing as a smooth
transition.</p>

<p>So, what are stereotypes? They are kind of default identity. I've already wrote a
part about the <a href="http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Sexism_2/">default identity</a> claiming that there's no default
identity in the cyberspace. But there is.</p>

<p>People tells me that I look like a hacker. They expect a cute girl to be an easy one
without a brain, they consider the physically different people as strangers and
invaders, they think Anonymous are only 14 years old script kiddies in their room.</p>

<p>I do think this is a natural process, it's how our brains work. But it's not a reason
to keep this process that way. I mean, if we should keep this behavior because it's
natural, we'd better go back collecting plants and hunting big mammals to eat, while
leaving naked in a cave.</p>

<p>So, when you're making a default choice about someone, you'll stick a stereotype on
them. You'll recall of them has this brand of person and you won't think about who
they really are.</p>

<p>When you consider someone using a stereotype, you do the exact same thing as when
you're not making a choice and use the default one: you refuse to think. And, wince
you're going to use this stereotype in a social situation, you'll enforce the
stereotype in the person identity, enclosing them to the point where they can't act
differently of the stereotype you've build upon them.</p>

<h2>Decide by yourself</h2>

<p>So, I'm not saying that you must spend thirty hours a day to speak and discover
everyone. Just that, when someone told you that this person is an asshole, or that
this one is 'hawt' or whatever, the ones telling you this are doing the same that the
ones telling you that you must share everything on your wall with everyone in the
world.</p>

<p>It's not that the stereotype is true or false, it's just that you should made your
idea about this person by yourself.</p>

<p>And it's the same for software.</p>

<p>Or when you buy a computer that is sold with a pre-installed system.</p>

<p>You have a brain. Use it as much as you can, before someone tries to forbid it.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Privacy/
title: Let's talk about Privacy, Intimacy, Anonimity and Identity
uri: Let-s-talk-about-Privacy-Intimacy-Anonimity-and-Identity
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Privacy/
content:
<h1>Let's talk about privacy, intimacy, anonimity and identity</h1>

<p>I wanted to write about those topics for a while because I think they're important topics, eseentially nowadays due to the ever growing ubiquitous surveillance. I think that most of them are not perceived the same way by everybody, so i'll try to write down and define what I put behind the concept of identity, privacy, anonymity and intimacy.</p>

<p>So, we're going to start with some definitions, see how they are linked etc. I wo'nt use many links, because it's what I think it's probably not original and unique, but that's how I fell things are working. Also, we are going to eat <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory">Information Theory</a>.</p>

<h2>The identity problematics</h2>

<p>We walk in the world as an emitter and receiver of signal (part noise, part information). This signal is directed toward one((unidirectional communication, also named unicast by network engineers)), some((multidirectionnal communication, named multicast in network operation)) or all((wide communication, or broadcast)) receivers in range.</p>

<p>The etymology of ''Identity'' comes form the latin <em>identitas</em> (sameness) annd indicates what information are emitted by the same entity, thing. That means two things. There's a track to previous information emitted by this entity, and the receiver can link the emitter to this entity. The identity is then the sum of all the information about an entity an emitter can perceive, and an entity can have multiple identity, in general one for each space (public or private) the entity evolves into.</p>

<p>One thing about information, if they're not archived and indexed, they will disappear with time. Who remember who <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/jessi-slaughter">Jessi Slaughter</a> is?</p>

<h2>What's my name?</h2>

<p>The name is the unique handle of an identity. It can be a unique number, a common name, a description, etc. The name of an entity is how you will access all the information you can find about it. This is the bit of information you need to know to find out who an entity is and then accessing all the information available about this identity in the space you're standing.</p>

<p>If an entity has no name, and is in fact <em>anonymous</em>, then you won't be able to find any information about it. But then, the 'Girl with Nice Boobs who was at the party yesterday' and the 'Bunch of people that sing in the subway' in a name. A temporary one, but it's still a name. You can discuss about those person with other people who were in the same space at the same time, but the information will probably be wuickly dissolved in the flux of data we live in.</p>

<p>A name stand for an identity. Or should. The tricky part is the homonyms. Two (or more) different identities covered by only one name. To find out which entity you're communicating with, you will try to find <em>context</em> that is, previously stored information that you can then use to find out which entity your dealing with. You deal Homonimy the exact same way that Usurpation. Using the information you can find about an entity, you can know who they are to you, independently of their name.</p>

<h2>Trust</h2>

<p>The trust is the biggest thing in social relation. It exists in principally three states. You trust an entity, you distrust it or you have no idea of the trust you should have into the entity. The trust is the accountability. When something you trust gives you an information, you know the information is correct. If someone you trust claims a name, you won't check his history back to confirm or infirm it. Someone you trust is alos someone who will probably not takes information about you out of the space you are communicating.</p>

<p>The people you distrust is easy, you won't believe them and try to verify every information they send because you can find a source of information you trust to confirm or infirm their identity.</p>

<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation">world is small</a> anyway, so you can probably build a trust chain to this entity and confirm or infirm the identity link for an entity you do not trust.</p>

<p>Trust is not bidirectionnal and is personnal. That's not because you trust me that I trust you. ANd that's not because I trust someone taht you should trust it by default, but it will gives it more trustability (because you trust me and I'm telling you that this entity is really who they claim to be), so that will help you to decide if you want to trust this entity.</p>

<h2>What's privacy then?</h2>

<p>Privacy opposes to publicity. If something is not in the public space, that means it's in a private space (or that it's in no space, which is not possible due to some contrsaints such as physics).</p>

<p>So, what is public then? From etymology it is linked to the people((From the latin <em>poplicus</em> which is a derivative from <em>populus</em>, the people)). That mean everybody can access and see a public thing. At least, there is no authorisation needed to access something public.</p>

<p>For instance, when you walk in the street, you are in a public space. When you enter a bar or a restaurant, you're still in a public space. When you pay the fee to access a museum or a night club, you are in a public space (it's not an authorization, it's a cost). When you surf the web reading at datas that do not requires a password to access to, you're in a public space.</p>

<p>That mean that everybody in the same public space as you can access all the information you're emitting. Wether it being you're apparent age, skin color, gender (not your sexual identity however), the thing you're saying or the song you're singing. If you are in a public space, everybody can access and see and track all the information you're emitting there.</p>

<p>So, the privacy opposes itself to the publicity. That is, you're in privacy, and so in a private space, when you access a non public place. A place that requires you to have an authorization of a kind. It could be a good old key for your house or your locker, a password to access a private sharing space online, a simple door closed with a sign on it stating 'Access forbidden' is a delimitation between a public and a private space.</p>

<p>Privacy is then a matter of limiting access to the information you emit. If you have the key to enter a private space, you can access the private information.</p>

<h2>Intimacy</h2>

<p>The intimcay, again from etymology, comes from the inside. This is what's inside an entity, that's all the information you're not emitting. It's when you opt-out totally, with no emitter of information you cannot control, and all the one you control shut down. You generally add your closest friend into this intimacy, as long as all the 'special' people, those are people that won't tell those information to anyone.</p>

<p>The intimacy is the part of yourself that no one knows about, except the specials ones. Intimacy is way more than privacy, privacy is intresting, as it allow you to communicate with people of choice without being put in danger for what your saying. It allow you to have multiple identities and to use them in multiple social circles. Intimacy is what's out of all social circle.</p>

<h1>let's explore the world!</h1>

<p>We now have our concepts defined. Almost. So, now, let's go online, because everything is funnier if you add network and computers to it.</p>

<h2>Let's enter the world of information</h2>

<p>So, it's easy to get a grasp on the private/public problem in the physical space. I can live with a bunch of people in an open space like a loft, or a squat, but still have some private space (the one I close with a key I own). What's hard is when you add some layers, and, for instance the cyberspace. I can sit in a private space (my room, locked) and accessing a maybe-public space.</p>

<p>The thing is, independently of the thing you're gonna access, every bits of information that goes out of your device of choice will go through different intermediaries before reaching the data you want to access. The origin and the destination of the packets are know, as long as a lor of other stuff. Those information are needed to route the packets through the diferents network, but they are data you emit in the public space (anyone on the route of yourpacket can see it and access to this information).</p>

<p>Wether you're accessing your facebook page (which is more or less private, dependings on the settings you choose), your webmail (which is private, given the fact that only you is supposed to have the password needed to access it) or your mails, reading a website, downloading a video using P2P protocols, etc, you will emit a lot of information that a lot of people (or computers) can read.</p>

<p>So, remember what I told about the lock in the previous part? You need to put a lock on the information you want to keep private. You can't lock all the information in the packets, some of them are needed to grants you access to the resource you've asked for. Those are mainly routing and protocol information, because that's the way computers works, they need to talk a lot to each other to get things done. But the others informations, the ones you want to keep private, you can lock them to deny anyone the possibility to read them without a key of a kind.</p>

<p>That's the cryptography goal. Forbidding a data being physically readable by anyone and restricting it to whoever got the key.</p>

<p>So, you're in the private space only when you use string cryptography. yeah, encrypt everything you want to make private. If something goes online without encryption, it belongs to the public space.</p>

<h2>A wild corporation appears!</h2>

<p>Corporations, at least internet ones, suck at two things. Security (but that's the burden of everyone) and transparency. When you land on a 'secured' website of a company, they will require you to proove your identity while they're doing the same (using ssl certificates). They're not asking you for a key (an authorization), they're using your identity as a key. They're using the whole set of data they can build about you as the key to access their services. You cannot know what data they have on you, you cannot opt-out those data, they're building a strong identity of you. And they're following you everywhere they can, without telling you.</p>

<p>So, they build an identity about you, one you don't know anything about and they're building it using data from a private space that they're not supposed to share with everyone else (except if you explicity opt-in). They're archiving everything information you emit, stocking it in extremly redundant servers becasue tehy do not want to lose any bits of identity about you. And then, they will replace the wall of the private space they made by polarised window, giving everyone who can afford it to penetrate theprivate space without the key and without your consent. When someone goes into your place without authorization, generally you call the authorities or shoot the trespassor. You're not allowed to do it for corporation taht sells personnal data, some of them they shoudl not have.</p>

<p>I mean, they do not <em>need</em> your name for running their business. The only reason they need it is becasue they want to cross check into other database - private space - what you're doing when not undr their radar. That's what real-name policies are, they're a meta identification token spanning all the databases taht uses the same policy. And that's why they're so bad.</p>

<p>The financial data stored in non banking websites is bad to. They do not <em>need</em> it. They need to know, in the worst case, who buys what to who and when. Not the bank name, the card number or any othr details on it.</p>

<p>So, corporation are robbing your identities. They lure you in confy private space, then put you on national broadcast. I'm not even speaking about the risks of a data leak or a breach in the infrastructure. People accuses hacker when information about them isleaked. But hackers did not archived this information in frist hand, they did not make huge files to track people and to spy them and to rape and destroy their privacy. What hackers do is finding a part of a public space that was hidden behind a curtain. So, next time someone is <em>doxing</em> you, asks the company why they had those information about you in clear text.</p>

<p>You can access a company server, if they store all the private information (or what they define as private) in an encrypted format you won't be able to read it. That's the way to go, if you want an information to be private, then encrypt it. If it touch toyour intimacy, do not publish the information. The internet and computers have an endless memory of extreme precision.</p>

<p>Protect yourself. Encrypt everything that moves. Give momentum to everything that do not move.</p>

<hr />

<p>Version 1.0 of this entry was written by okhin on 2012/01/26.
Use it as you wish. Or follow the WTFPL.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Achievment-Unlocked/
title: Achievement Unlocked
uri: Achievement-Unlocked
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Achievment-Unlocked/
content:
<h1>Yeepee</h1>

<p><a href="http://streisand.okhin.fr">http://streisand.okhin.fr</a> is, according to Mr. Claude Guéant, French Minister
of Interior Affairs a website that must be blocked along with
<a href="https://copwatchnord-idf.org.eu">https://copwatchnord-idf.org.eu</a> (yeah, I know, they must learn how to do SSL)
which is a copwatching website that has been previously censored (with a
different domain name).</p>

<p>I need to add that I'm not a full supporter of this copwatching website, I do
not like the tone of it and, while I think copwatching must be done, I do not
think this is the best ethical way to do it.</p>

<p>So, the assignation is
<a href="media/db68919e.COPWATCH_Assignation_en_refere_d27Heure_a_Heure_01.02.2012.pdf" data-original-source="http://sebsauvage.net/files/COPWATCH_Assignation_en_refere_d%27Heure_a_Heure_01.02.2012.pdf">here</a>
and the lawyers of the main ISP are currently fighting it.</p>

<p>The funny part of this assignation is the §2.1.2 (page 6) where they said that
collecting public information without the consent of the person concerned by
those information is a violation of the 6th of January, 1978 law about personal
data. Which is the case. But it's also the case of almost all of the 'official'
police files (as the
<a href="http://pro.clubic.com/legislation-loi-internet/cnil/actualite-345808-cnil-carton-jaune-police.html">CNIL</a>
[FR] repeatedly told them), and I'm not speaking about the
shadow file that most probably exist.</p>

<p>The worst part is that, beyond the 34 mirrors listed (mine is the first one,
Wooooot!!!), Mister Claude Guéant do want that all the ISP must extend the
blockade list dynamically and without asking further details to a competent
authority (so, a judge).</p>

<p>The way they'll do that will probably be a DNS blockade. I'll probably move my
domain name to something else when it won't be available. The funny part is,
that my personal emails and calendar are hosted on the same domain name.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Telecomix/
title: Telecomix
uri: Telecomix
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Telecomix/
content:
<h1>Precompiling</h1>

<p>It's been almost two years that I'm hanging with the <a href="https://telecomix.org">Telecomix</a> crew of amazing
people/jellyfish. And I think it's the first time I'm writing about it. I've discussed it
a lot recently, mainly because a lot of media here wanna speak with us, also because
I heard of, at least, two more long term project about Hacktivists.</p>

<p>Also we have an interesting discussion inside the '<em>core</em>' team, about the whereabouts
of the cluster, along with more and more interesting questions coming from people.</p>

<p>Hence, this post. And, well, since Telecomix is the sum of the people inside it, it
is not an insight of a unique mind, but more a part of this hydra of jelly.</p>

<h1>Follow the white rabbit</h1>

<p>One question I have a lot is how do I ended up in Telecomix. The answer I generally
do is that it just happened. I was not looking for entering such a group of people. I
do not think any one with a sane mind, would voluntarily enter a group that will eat
your time and nights, will put you in front of a lot of unwanted attention (and I'm
not speaking about the media here), will raise the expectation that people will have
about you and will confront you to tough choices (going to sleep or having people killed).</p>

<p>If you put it that way, no one will accept it. Besides some wannabe heroes maybe. And
sociopaths (but heroes are sociopath anyway).</p>

<p>So, I ended up in Telecomix at the same time I decide to enter a hackerspace. I
entered in this place, meeting a lot of people. The Telecomix name was already in the
media (due to Hosny Moubarak shutting down the intertubes in Egypt) and I was helping
with some <a href="https://streisand.okhin.fr">Streisand</a> already.</p>

<p>I think you do not enter inside Telecomix. It's not a place mainly because a place
would let you leave it, so you cannot neter it. You do not join it for it has no
registering system (and anyone telling you there's one might want to lure you, but
that's not the point, not now). You just evolve into something that is Telecomix.
Your mindset change, and evolve into it.</p>

<p>So, you just wake up one day, and it's like: 'OMG!!!!!! I'M TELECOMIX NAO!!!!!'. Once
the caffeine is getting slow into your organism, and after the morning passed, you just
found that all people in there are more or less normal people.</p>

<p>There's no crypto-anarchists, speaking in tongues, bashing everyone that do not use
strong crypto system, and crypto social conventions; there no supra-intelligent AI
that tries to take over the world; there's no pure-hackers that feeds on data and
caffeine; there's no one that want to save the world.</p>

<h1>Enter the Matrix</h1>

<p>Well, that's partly true. We do have bots that can be quite schizophrenic and
sociopath some time. There's a lot of different and unique person, from all over the
cyberspace. There's sociologist, computer scientist, slackers, hackers, beer makers,
paranoiac and conspiracy theories adept, politic-minded and a-politic ones, and I suspect
some aliens to participate in the cluster.</p>

<p>Some might wonder what's a regular day in a hacktivist group. I don't know, I can
barely speak for mines and, well, a lot of people will be disappointed I guess. Have
you seen the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/">Hackers</a>? No? You should,
it's fun. But it's not like that.</p>

<p>I spend a lot of time simply sitting in front of a computer, starring at console-like
screens (and yes, I do take pleasure having a computer that no one else besides me
can understand or use). I do that for my work, and for my hobbies.</p>

<p>If you can get behind the screens, you'll see that I'm connected on a lot of
chat rooms, not saying that much quantity of things. Even when writing stuff, either
for work or, like this piece of text, for my personal use, I'm on a console.
Sipping some black coffee, while not noticing that it's two in the morning, you can
spend a lot of time chatting with people, while writing some software, scanning some
infrastructure, or just crawling the intertubes. That's what I do all day. My job
requires it, I do enjoy it, and I'm doing it with the Telecomix crew.</p>

<p>This is my daily routine. Waking up too late, spending way to much time on IRC and
intertubes, spending not enough time with people around, going to sleep too late. And
hanging around in hackerspaces and conferences also, to make things and to exchange
knowledge and skills with people in the meat space. Oh, and playing a lot of games
(pen and paper RPG, video games, etc), and spending time with the media when they ask
for it.</p>

<p>So, you see, I have a kind of regular life. I'm not crawling undercover in highly
secured area to steal a computer, I'm not hacking through governement systems just to
find your credit card. I'm just trying to find new way to <a href="https://datalove.me">let the data
flow</a>, because that's what matters to me.</p>

<h1>Meet the cluster</h1>

<p>Asking an agent what is Telecomix will get you in an abyss of perplexity, for none of
us have the same definitions. For one, we do asks this questions ourselves quite a
lot, and the answer still changes and we have no consensus (but we're not looking for
it).</p>

<p>We agreed on the fact that we're not an organisation, meaning we have no identified
head, agenda, plan or funding. We believe we are a too much centralized acentric
cluster. Why too much? Because people rely on us instead of trying to build their
things. Or at least, it is the perception I have from the inside.</p>

<p>We can do a lot more of thing if we had 35h a day and/or a way to work for Telecomix
as a full-time worker. But then, I think we're gonna loose a lot of fun. And that's
the important part in Telecomix. The fun. We're in here to have a lot of good time,
doing things we like, things that are important (like decentralize the planet), but
you can do that at this rhythm only if you have the opportunity to laugh and having
fun.</p>

<p>This is the part where people can feel uncomfortable. We're not changing the world
because we must. Hell, who the fuck are we to think we must change the world? The
only one that can do that is you. We're changing the world because it's fun. The
most amazing things we've done, we've done it only because we've enjoyed doing it.</p>

<p>I do enjoyed working on VPN and darknets issues for Syrians. I haven't done it
because someone had to step-up, this is not my fight and this revolution belong to
the Syrians. I've done it because I wanted to learn about it, I wanted to tests how
communication networks can works under harsh conditions. When the network was
attacked by Hosni Mubarak, the cluster just tested if we could work using the old
lines, and how to spread it.</p>

<p>We just having fun with weird and unexpected situations, because if we were doing it
because we thought we must do it and that no one would step-up, we will burned
ourselves.</p>

<h1>The hardest lesson</h1>

<p>And this is hard to learn. When working with a group of people where there's always
someone connected and discussing interesting issue, while helping people through the
world trying to communicate and getting arrested and probably killed for having done
so, you'll go through ugly mental states. Caffeine and stress doesn't mix well, if
you add sleep deprivation you'll go technical.</p>

<p>The strength of a cluster is redundancy. Working with so different people, working on
so different topics (from ham-radio, to darknets, to drones, to ACTA) grants you the
possibility to just leave and disconnect.</p>

<p>You won't feel comfortable, especiallay when there's live at stakes. But you'll be up
to no good after 36h of wake, filled with caffeine and alcohol and Cameron knows
what. You need a life out of the cluster, or you'll become a bot.</p>

<p>The strength of this small group of hacktivist (we're 220 connected on #telecomix at
the time of writing this) are the differences of its members. We often disagree on a
lot of topics, but that's not a problem, we're in a doocracy and if I want something
to be done, I just need to do it myself. And we have a lot to learn from the ones
that are different.</p>

<p>Living with people that shares your ideal, and all your opinion, is boring. We had
some crisis, and we'll have more of them because that's how a chaotic and unplanned
system should grow.</p>

<h1>Execute</h1>

<p>And we have no plan. We have no agenda. We have some back channel that exist mainly
for technical purposes. Those purposes includes shouting your rage about someone,
hopping that someone will get agree with you, finding that you're alone and that
you're an asshole and a bastard and then just calm down, find the /ignore command
again, and going back to normality mumbling some things about cthulluh returns or
equivalent.</p>

<p>The thing is, I perceive Telecomix as an idea. A powerful, always changing one. Or as
a virtual bar, where you'll have free virtual drinks, served by nice-looking waiter,
waitress and octopus, all being virtual. But you've got the point. Or not. I do not
care.</p>

<p>I'm not sure I've been anywhere with that, but I think I've enjoyed writting it. That
makes me wonder if you'll have fun reading it. Not sure it makes sense.</p>

<p>Let's git push this for the sake of it.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Broadcasting/
title: Broadcasting news
uri: Broadcasting-news
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Broadcasting/
content:
<h1>A little introduction</h1>

<p>Everything started from an non-planing stuff done on #opsyria. To give you some
context, we have a bot there, named ii, that's help us with information
management.</p>

<h2>Birth and death of a bot</h2>

<p>ii's birth dates back to the second phase of opsyria, the phase were we go wild
and try to get some contacts with Syrians. It was first a greetings bots,
telling new comers some safety tips in Syrian (because we still do not speak
Syrian).</p>

<p>Then, we fired up a tweeter account, and so, we add twitter functions to ii. And
status.net also (for our <a href="http://about.okhin.fr//status.telecomix.org">status.net</a> platform). And then,
we added it the possibility to repeat interesting stuff ii saw on those platform
(publishing on IRC the thing he saw in its following list on both platforms).</p>

<p>Then, we had some problem with the micro bloging thing. 140 characters is short,
especially when you use arabic and weird unicode chars. So, we build a news
functionality, that leads us to our <a href="http://about.okhin.fr//syria.telecomix.org">news website</a> where
we still publish real time news form the ground, due to our contacts help.</p>

<p>After that, things went crazy. Lots of videos were posted online and we
started indexing them. here came the videos functionality (and later on the
pics one, same thing, but with pictures) and we started building an index of all
videos related to Syrian events.</p>

<p>So, this is how we built on 6 month, our database of information, with dates,
places and comments of each videos, pictures or news we can find. We build
different websites using these and, one day, we realized that, it could be nice
for preservation of the data, to extract them from the website they are located
to be sure they will always be online.</p>

<p>We had fears that Syrian officials (or Assad's supporters) could manage to get
youtube or facebook accounts closed, and then have the videos unavailable and
lost for everyone.</p>

<h2>The archiving idea</h2>

<p>At the 28C3, we already had a somewhat big databases. And a script that could
download each video, and stores them on a website, as 'static file' with a
non-friendly user interface (apache directory listing) located here:
<a href="http://syria-videos.ceops.eu/">http://syria-videos.ceops.eu/</a></p>

<p>Some journalists just told us that it was nice, but not really usable (no way
to easily parse stuff, or to find events related to one particular date, and so
on). So, we started to think about how we could do that.</p>

<p>Parsing it by hand was out of questions, there was more than 600 videos, that is
more than 4GB of files to watch, and some of them are harsh and crude to watch.
Besides, we're still unable to understand arabic in the text, so the only data
we could use was the one in the flat files provided by ii.</p>

<h2>Let's compile html</h2>

<p>And, at the time, I was playing a lot with <a href="http://ikiwiki.info">ikiwiki</a>, which is a markdown
compilation to build static html page. So, I started looking at that. After all,
it can generate html5, so it should be easy to add some &lt;video&gt; tag inside a
template, generating the pages form flat text is easy to do in bash and then, I
just have to use git to push it and make the magic of ikiwiki works.</p>

<p>We will have pure html website, with smart URL, easily mirrorable (hey, no
?static=yes&amp;wtf=ya&amp;unknownparam&amp;yetanotherfrckingstuff url, just 2012/02/11 for
the 11st of February of 2012 events page), with a tagging system and full html5.</p>

<p>This was the concept. And since ikiwiki provides a local.css system, we could
even asks gently and harass some designers to have a logo and some design around
it (I can leave with pure HTML, but a lot of people do like fancy and rounded
stuff...)</p>

<h1>Enough talk, do it</h1>

<p>So, first, installing what we need. I'm on a debian openvz squeeze kernel and
I'm gonna use nginx to serve it. Ineed to add the unstable version of ffmpeg to
support .ogv</p>

<pre><code>aptitude install ikiwiki nginx ffmpeg
</code></pre>

<p>Th setup of ikiwiki is preety easy to do, I'll paste you all the uncommented
line of TelecomixBroadcastSystem.setup:</p>

<p>So, let's start with some naming stuff, the name of the wiki, the mail of the
admin and the username of the admin/</p>

<pre><code>wikiname =&gt; 'Telecomix Broadcast System',
adminemail =&gt; 'okhin@bloum.net';
adminuser =&gt; [qw{a_user_admin}],
</code></pre>

<p>Since there's no user function available, this should be empty.</p>

<pre><code>banned_users =&gt; [],
</code></pre>

<p>Where I'll puth the markdown files</p>

<pre><code>srcdir =&gt; '/var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem',
</code></pre>

<p>Where ikiwki will put the</p>

<pre><code>destdir =&gt; '/var/www/tbs',
</code></pre>

<p>What will be teh url of the website</p>

<pre><code>url =&gt; 'http://broadcast.telecomix.org',
</code></pre>

<p>The plugins I wanna add. Goodstuff is a package with a lot of usefull plugins
for ikiwki. The <a href="http://ikiwiki.info/plugins/goodstuff/">goodstuff plugins page</a>
on ikiwiki website will  give you more details.</p>

<p>I wanted a sidebar (for hosting the navigation), a calendar (to enable the
calendar generation) and a favicon (because they are nice). As I do not want the
site to be editable, I deactivate the recentchanges plugin.</p>

<pre><code>add_plugins =&gt; [qw{goodstuff sidebar calendar favicon}],
disable_plugins =&gt; [qw{recentchanges}],
</code></pre>

<p>Some system directory and default that I've kept.</p>

<pre><code>templatedir =&gt; '/usr/share/ikiwiki/templates',
underlaydir =&gt; '/usr/share/ikiwiki/basewiki',
indexpages =&gt; 0,
discussionpage =&gt; 'Discussion',
default_pageext =&gt; 'mdwn',
timeformat =&gt; '%c',
numbacklinks =&gt; 10,
hardlink =&gt; 0,
wiki_file_chars =&gt; '-[:alnum:]+/.:_',
allow_symlinks_before_srcdir =&gt; 0,
</code></pre>

<p>HTML 5 is nice and fun to play with, we should use it more</p>

<pre><code>html5 =&gt; 1,
</code></pre>

<p>A link for the post-update git wrapper (that is, once the repo received an
update, automatically generates the new wiki)</p>

<pre><code>git_wrapper =&gt; '/var/git/TelecomixBroadcastSystem.git/hooks/post-update',
atom =&gt; 1,
</code></pre>

<p>I want a sidebar for all the pages</p>

<pre><code>global_sidebars =&gt; 1,
</code></pre>

<p>I want to autogenerate tagpage, and to stores them in the tag/ directory.</p>

<pre><code>tagbase =&gt; 'tag',
tag_autocreate =&gt; 1,
</code></pre>

<p>There's a lot more things to change, but you should have a look at the ikiwiki
documentation.</p>

<p>Now, we have to create the various directory
''/var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem'' and ''/var/www/tbs'', making them
writable and owned by the user you're going to use to generate it, and to give
''/var/www/tbs'' permission to be read by the nginx user.</p>

<p>And let(s setup the wiki:</p>

<pre><code>ikiwiki --setup /path/to/your/Wiki.setup file
</code></pre>

<h2>Let's tweak some templates</h2>

<p>So, now, I need some templates to work with the videos repo. One for video, one
for pictures (to add a specific CSS class around them), and one for the
'regular' page, because I wanted a logo in top of all of them.</p>

<h3>Video template</h3>

<p>I added a ''template'' directory into the wiki root (so,
//var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem/template) and I create the video.tmpl
file.</p>

<p>The tempaltes of ikiwiki use the
<a href="http://search.cpan.org/~wonko/HTML-Template-2.10/lib/HTML/Template.pm">HTML::Toolkit</a>
system to create the needed templates, and the one I need were realtively
simples one. OI think comments are not needed</p>

<pre><code>&lt;article class="video"&gt;
    &lt;video controls="controls" type="video/ogg" width="480" src="/videos/&lt;TMPL_VAR file&gt;" poster="/pics/SVGs/tbs_V1.svg"&gt;&lt;TMPL_VAR alt&gt;&lt;/video&gt;
    &lt;p&gt;&lt;TMPL_VAR alt&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="/videos/&lt;TMPL_VAR file&gt;"&gt;Direct Link to the file&lt;/a&gt; ||
    &lt;a href="&lt;TMPL_VAR original&gt;"&gt;Original link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/article&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>So, fixed width video, in HTML5, the files must be in a /videos/ webdir and
there will be a poster displayed on the video before playing it with one nice
logos. Some more links to add context, and we're set-up.</p>

<p>Notice the mime format used here: video/ogg, I want to use really free web
format, that will need transcoding (but that's a later problem). The same goes
for the pictrues template.</p>

<h3>Page template</h3>

<p>So, the page template is a huge (and complex) one, so just a patch:</p>

<pre><code>--- templates/page.tmpl 2012-03-07 15:35:45.000000000 +0000
+++ /usr/share/ikiwiki/templates/page.tmpl      2011-03-28 23:46:08.000000000
+0000
@@ -30,7 +30,6 @@
 &lt;/head&gt;
 &lt;body&gt;

-&lt;div id="logo"&gt;&lt;a href="/" title="Dirty Bytes of Revolutions Since 1337"&gt;&lt;img src="media/868997d1.tbs_V2.png" data-original-source="http://about.okhin.fr/pics/PNGs/tbs_V2.png" alt="Dirty Bytes of Revolutions  Since 1337" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
 &lt;TMPL_IF HTML5&gt;&lt;article class="page"&gt;&lt;TMPL_ELSE&gt;&lt;div class="page"&gt;&lt;/TMPL_IF&gt;

 &lt;TMPL_IF HTML5&gt;&lt;section class="pageheader"&gt;&lt;TMPL_ELSE&gt;&lt;div class="pageheader"&gt;&lt;/TMPL_IF&gt;
@@ -134,7 +133,6 @@
 &lt;/TMPL_UNLESS&gt;

 &lt;/div&gt;
-&lt;div class="clearfix"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

 &lt;TMPL_IF HTML5&gt;&lt;footer id="footer" class="pagefooter"&gt;&lt;TMPL_ELSE&gt;&lt;div id="footer" class="pagefooter"&gt;&lt;/TMPL_IF&gt;
 &lt;TMPL_UNLESS DYNAMIC&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>The clearfix div is here for the goddamn IE browser (at least, that's why the
CSS integrator guy told me). And above, there's the pictures.</p>

<h2>Let's build special pages</h2>

<h3>Sidebar.mdwn</h3>

<p>So, the sidebar plugins, grants me the use of a sidebar.mdwn file in the root
folder of the wiki.</p>

<p>First, some useful links (back to home, the pure text news and our webchat)</p>

<pre><code>\# Quick Links
\* \[Back to Home\](/index.html)
\* \[News from the ground\](http://syria.telecomix.org)
\* \[Webchat\](https://new.punkbob.com/chat)
</code></pre>

<p>What did happened this month</p>

<pre><code>\# This month events
[[!calendar  type="month" pages="2011/* or 2012/*"\]]
</code></pre>

<p>And all the page since the start of the year.</p>

<pre><code>\# Events month by month
[[!calendar  type="year" year="2011" pages="2011/*"\]]
[[!calendar  type="year" year="2012" pages="2012/*"\]]
</code></pre>

<h3>Index.mdwn</h3>

<p>Next step is to build a nice index.mdwn page with some speech, the tag cloud and
a global map of everything. I'll skip to the interesting parts (maps and
tagcloud).</p>

<p>Thepage list use the map directive to find all the page under 2011 and 2012
directories (one per year), that will lead to a list of all the daily pages</p>

<pre><code># Page list
[[!map  pages="2011/* or 2012/*"\]]
</code></pre>

<p>This will go through all of the tag of the page, and do some computational to
generate a nice cloud</p>

<pre><code># Tag cloud
[[!pagestats  pages="tag/*" \]]
</code></pre>

<h2>Fancyness</h2>

<p>I then added a favicon.ico file along with a local.css to the repository, the
local.css need to be copied manually into the ''/var/www/tbs'' directory. And
now, the basic setup is done.</p>

<h2>Commiting</h2>

<p>So, now use git to add all those files and commit and push them. Easy to do,
that will generates some files into /var/www/tbs/.</p>

<p>Yeepee, now, we need to populate this.</p>

<h1>Bashing accross videos</h1>

<p>So, I have a list of videos soemwhere
<a href="https://telecomix.ceops.eu/material/ii/videos.txt">here</a> of the form:</p>

<pre><code>2011-12-04 homs/al-meedan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qjNo0uqSM8 Random gunfires during the night
</code></pre>

<p>(And yes, sometimes, Arabic characters all over the place). So, I have, date,
location (that will be used for tags), URL and some comments to add. Thanks to
ii's magic (and the huge work done for month). We already add some python
scripts for downloading the video, but, for this kind of things, I wanted to use
something I know: bash. It will be split in 2. One half to parse the youtube's hell
pages and to download the .webm, this part is still inpython, works well and I
was too lazy to rewrite it; the second half will get the video info and add the
necessary information to the wiki.</p>

<p>And then, I'll need to transcode it.</p>

<p>So, script. Let's start with some variable, will need them later</p>

<pre><code>#!/bin/bash
# We want to download everything.
export VIDEOS_LINK='https://telecomix.ceops.eu/material/ii/videos.txt'
export VIDEOS_RAW_DIR='/var/tbs/tbs/raw/'
export VIDEOS_OGV_DIR='/var/tbs/tbs/videos/'
export VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT='/var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem'
export VIDEOS_LIST=${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/videos.lst
export VIDEOS_NEW=${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/new_videos.lst
</code></pre>

<p>Let's make some cleaning, and backup, needed to now what's new</p>

<pre><code>&lt;span class="createlink"&gt;&lt;a href="/ikiwiki.cgi?page=_-e___36____123__VIDEOS_LIST__125__.old_&amp;amp;from=posts%2FBroadcasting&amp;amp;do=create" rel="nofollow"&gt;?&lt;/a&gt; -e &amp;#36;&amp;#123;VIDEOS LIST&amp;#125;.old &lt;/span&gt; &amp;&amp; rm -rf ${VIDEOS_LIST}.old
&lt;span class="createlink"&gt;&lt;a href="/ikiwiki.cgi?page=_-e___36__VIDEOS_LIST_&amp;amp;from=posts%2FBroadcasting&amp;amp;do=create" rel="nofollow"&gt;?&lt;/a&gt; -e &amp;#36;VIDEOS LIST &lt;/span&gt; &amp;&amp; mv $VIDEOS_LIST ${VIDEOS_LIST}.old
</code></pre>

<p>Get the new version of the file list</p>

<pre><code>cd $VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT
wget $VIDEOS_LINK --no-check-certificate -O $VIDEOS_LIST
</code></pre>

<p>Update the git repository (we probably add tags since last time, so new pages)
and find the new videos part (a dirty diff, with only the added lines).</p>

<pre><code>git pull 2&gt;&amp;1 &gt; /dev/null
diff -N $VIDEOS_LIST ${VIDEOS_LIST}.old | grep -e '^&lt;' &gt; $VIDEOS_NEW
</code></pre>

<p>Loop in all the news videos to add them to the wiki.</p>

<pre><code>while read LINE
do
</code></pre>

<p>This is a bash array if you did not know how they worked</p>

<pre><code>        VIDEO=( $LINE )
        DATE=${VIDEO[1]}
        TTAGS=${VIDEO[2]}
</code></pre>

<p>Let's split TAGS in different words separated by space not by slash</p>

<pre><code>        TAGS=$(echo $TTAGS | tr '/' ' ')
        LINK=${VIDEO[3]}
</code></pre>

<p>This is how I get the same thing than [4:] in python (from 4th fields to the end
of teh array)</p>

<pre><code>        COMMENTS=${VIDEO[@]:4:${#VIDEO[@]}}
</code></pre>

<p>The date is YYYY-MM-DD in the file, I want it to be YYYY/MM/DD for creating my
file in the good place (YYYY/MM/DD.mdwn), like that I have an automagick
hierarchy, plus, you can get to /2012/02/14 URL quite easily.</p>

<p>The filename is the video link with only alphanumeric characters, will be good
enough for me.</p>

<pre><code>        VIDEO_PATH=$(echo ${DATE}.mdwn | tr '-' '/')
        VIDEO_FILENAME=$(echo $LINK | tr -dc '[:alnum:]')
</code></pre>

<p>So, if the directory (which is YYYY/MM) dos not exist, let's create it. If the
file does not exist, it means this is the first time we see something for the
day. We must create the page, and add some stuff (notably the date of creation
must be juked, also we add a nice title). Once the file is create, git add it to
the repo.</p>

<pre><code>        # We have only updates which is nice, no need to check if the videos already exist
        &lt;span class="createlink"&gt;&lt;a href="/ikiwiki.cgi?page=___33___-d___36____40__dirname___36____123__VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT__125__%2F__36____123__VIDEO_PATH__125____41___&amp;amp;from=posts%2FBroadcasting&amp;amp;do=create" rel="nofollow"&gt;?&lt;/a&gt;&amp;#36;&amp;#123;VIDEO PATH&amp;#125;&amp;#41; &lt;/span&gt; &amp;&amp; mkdir -p $(dirname ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/${VIDEO_PATH})
        if [ ! -e ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/${VIDEO_PATH} ]
        then
                echo "[[!meta  title=\"TBS - $DATE\" \]]" &gt; ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/${VIDEO_PATH}
                echo "[[!meta  date=\"$DATE\" \]]" &gt;&gt; ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/${VIDEO_PATH}
                git add ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/${VIDEO_PATH}
        fi
</code></pre>

<p>Add some tags to the page, along with the video template (one line, really fun),
note the .ogv part added to the filename.</p>

<pre><code>        echo "[[!tag  $TAGS\]]" &gt;&gt; ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/${VIDEO_PATH}
        echo "[[!template  id=\"video\" file=\"/${VIDEO_FILENAME}.ogv\" alt=\"$COMMENTS\" original=\"$LINK\"\]]" &gt;&gt; ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/${VIDEO_PATH}
</code></pre>

<p>And now, download the file. I need to add a dot at the end of it, because the
download scripts add the extension (without the .) to the file. I download it
in a raw dir, where I'll next transcode all the video into the proper format and
directory.</p>

<pre><code>        # And now, download it
        python ${VIDEOS_WIKI_ROOT}/scripts/multiproc_videos_dl.py ${VIDEOS_RAW_DIR} "${VIDEOS_RAW_DIR}/${VIDEO_FILENAME}." "$LINK" 2&gt;&amp;1 &gt; /dev/null &amp;

done &lt; $VIDEOS_NEW
</code></pre>

<p>Commit al the change at once, and push it.</p>

<pre><code># While we're at it, just publish the file
git commit -a -m "VIDEO updated" 2&gt;&amp;1 &gt; /dev/null
git push 2&gt;&amp;1 &gt; /dev/null
</code></pre>

<p>We're done, just transcoding now, which is pretty easy, and done in another
script. Nothing special here, looping across all the file in raw dir to
transcode them into the video dir.</p>

<pre><code>#!/bin/bash
# Transcoding a video into ogv
export ORIG='/var/tbs/tbs/raw'
export DEST='/var/tbs/tbs/videos'

for RAW in $(ls -1 $ORIG)
do
        NAME=${RAW%.*}
        echo "transcoding $NAME"
        &lt;span class="createlink"&gt;&lt;a href="/ikiwiki.cgi?page=_-e___36__DEST%2F__36____123__NAME__125__.ogv_&amp;amp;from=posts%2FBroadcasting&amp;amp;do=create" rel="nofollow"&gt;?&lt;/a&gt;&amp;#36;&amp;#123;NAME&amp;#125;.ogv &lt;/span&gt; || ffmpeg -i $ORIG/$RAW -acodec libvorbis -ac 2 -ab 96k -b 345k -s 640x360 $DEST/${NAME}.ogv
        rm $ORIG/$RAW
done
</code></pre>

<h1>Bashing across pictures</h1>

<p>Same format as video, so same scripts, almost. Won't detail it, just do sed
VIDEO/PICTURE and you're almost done. Also, the dl is done using wget
--no-check-certificate.</p>

<h1>Bashing the news</h1>

<p>Same kind of things, except that I add the timstamp to it, but besides that, just the
same thing.</p>

<h1>Cronjobs everywhere</h1>

<p>I just now need to auto-exec the 3 jobs above, the transcoding and some
ikiwki-internal command to update the calendars, I've got 2 cronjobs for that
executed every 6 hours</p>

<pre><code>0 */6 * * * /var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem/scripts/dl_news.bash 2&gt;&amp;1 &gt; /dev/null &amp;&amp; /var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem/scripts/dl_pictures.bash 2&gt;&amp;1 &gt; /dev/null &amp;&amp; /var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem/scripts/dl_video.bash 2&gt;&amp;1 &gt; /dev/null &amp;&amp; /var/tbs/transcode.sh &gt; /dev/null 2&gt;/dev/null
0 1/6 * * * ikiwiki-calendar /var/ikiwiki/TelecomixBroadcastSystem.setup "2011/* or 2012/*" 2012
</code></pre>

<h1>This is the end</h1>

<p>Now the wiki auto-build itself. I then just needed to tweak the nginx to suit my needs bt that was really easy to do. I just
need to keep in mind that I'm in need of two aliases (one for /videos, one for
/pictures) because I did not wanted to commit all the videos in the git directory
(that eat a lot of space), and to tell it that .ogv aare indeed video files.</p>

<pre><code>server {

        listen   80; ## listen for ipv4
        listen   [::]:80 default ipv6only=on; ## listen for ipv6

        server_name  broadcast.telecomix.org;

        access_log off;

        location / {
                root   /var/www/tbs;
                index  index.html index.htm;
        }

        location /pictures {
                alias   /var/tbs/pictures;
                autoindex off;
        }

        location /videos {
                alias   /var/tbs/videos;
                autoindex off;
        }

}
</code></pre>

<p>And I just need to edit the mime.types file to add those line at the end of the
file:</p>

<pre><code>    video/ogg                             ogm;
    video/ogg                             ogv;
    video/ogg                             ogg;
</code></pre>

<p>That's it, everything worked fine now. A final thing was needed, to spread it easily
(and that's why I wanted static pages), ease the process of mirroring. The best way
to do this is to use rsync in daemon mode with three modules read-only.</p>

<p>Installation of rsync is piece of cake:</p>

<pre><code>aptitude install rsync
</code></pre>

<p>You then need to enable it in debian, for this, editing the file /etc/default/rsync
is the way to go. I wanted to throttle it down and to keep it nice on the I/O
(because I already have too much process that eat my cpu like, transcoding), so I've
enabled those options in the same file:</p>

<pre><code>RSYNC_ENABLE=true
RSYNC_OPTS='--bwlimit 200'
RSYNC_NICE='10
RSYNC_IONICE='-c3'
</code></pre>

<p>And then, in the /etc/rsyncd.conf, I've added those modules</p>

<pre><code>max connections = 10
log file = /dev/null
timeout = 200

[tbs]
comment = Telecomix Broadcast System
path = /var/www/tbs
read only = yes
list = yes
uid = nobody
gid = nogroup

[videos]
comment = Telecomix Broadcast System - videos
path = /var/tbs/videos
read only = yes
list = yes
uid = nobody
gid = nogroup

[pictures]
comment = Telecomix Broadcast System - pictures
path = /var/tbs/pictures
read only = yes
list = yes
uid = nobody
gid = nogroup
</code></pre>

<p>ANd that's it, people can now duplicate the whole thing on a simple web server (they
just need space) without anything else on it that serving webpage.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/There_is_no_hope/
title: There is no hope
uri: There-is-no-hope
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/There_is_no_hope/
content:
<h1>Opening</h1>

<p>So, my <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/I_would_not_install_you_any_software_anymore/">post</a> about software has
generate some comments. The most detailed answer I can find until now is the
one from
<a href="http://seteici.midiblogs.com/archive/2012/02/12/de-l-espoir-bordel-en-reponse-okhin.html">Ju</a>
(sorry people, it's written in <em>baguette</em>'s speech). Go and read it,
it's interesting.</p>

<p>So, you are telling me:</p>

<blockquote><p>But, what if I want to learn, but do not have the time? You won't help me!</p></blockquote>

<p>First, that's not what I said. I said that I won't install you any software,
because you must do it to learn. If you need to asks question, go ahead, and
asks, we even have axioms for that on IRC and other places:</p>

<blockquote><p>Don't ask to ask, just ask</p></blockquote>

<p>But, a more important one:</p>

<blockquote><p>Think before asking</p></blockquote>

<p>Yeah, I won't help you if what you're asking me can be found on
<a href="https://seeks.okhin.fr">seeks</a> or in less than 10 second of reflexion. I will
not think for you. I will not make your life better, you will. Well,
you will later, for now, you're about to jump in the abysmal depth of knowledge.
I know that it can be intimidating and if you are not scared, well, it means
you're knee deep into it.</p>

<h1>Take the red pill. And the blue one. And the yellow one too.</h1>

<p>Learning and understanding will eat your time and soul, it will forces you to change your perception of
the world around you. Knowing how it work and how you can change it will not
makes your life easier or nicer. It will makes you see how fucked things are.</p>

<p>I wasn't in the protests last Saturday to say no to ACTA. First, because if
protest could actually change things, the things will be in motion motion now,
the Greek government had refused the ultimatum we gave him, people of Homs won't
be under heavy ordnance and the asshole at the head of the different countries
will be demised. Second, because a lot of people are saying no to ACTA and that
did not make government stepping out of the things they do not understand.</p>

<p>I do not want to takes you by the hand, walking in the <em><a href="https://gordon.re">My little poney</a></em> fields,
with cloud made of candy and a sunshine smiling at your face. We do not live in
<em>cuddlebears</em> kingdom.</p>

<p>There is no hope the world will get better anytime soon. If someone tells you
anything different, he's lying to you. Hope is waiting passively for things to
get better. Hope is the same thing as prayer. Hoping is what government and
mass medias are giving you to keep you under control.</p>

<p>So, forget about hope. That's not hope that brings Syria in this state, it's the
fact that people actually wanted to do things and to change their world. Yeah,
believing that things will get better probably helped them to go into the street
and to start changing their environment.</p>

<p>There is no chance things will get better if you think they will, and if it's
the only thing you do about it. ACTA will not pass, but the media industry and
governments will come back with another thing to crush on us. It's an endless
battle which will not end, or one we can't win.</p>

<p>I do not want to tell you lies. You do not need hope, you need to stand up on
your legs and to walk in whatever direction you want. And you do not need me for
that.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/My_Lover_id_dying/
title: My lover is dying
uri: My-lover-is-dying
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/My_Lover_id_dying/
content:
<h1>My lover is dying</h1>

<p>In 1997, when I was in high-school, I fell in love, like a lot of people of
my age it seems. I fell in love with the internet. At that time, Google
didn't exists and I remember using altavista, coding in HTML and PHP3 (and
using torch and diggers on a perpetually under construction website).</p>

<p>I fell in love with someone who was there to talk at all time, to exchange
with, to contradict me, to teach me, to share secrets. I was more or less on
my own at this time, and I really think that without Internet I wouldn't have
made it alive until now.</p>

<p>More than once, I've felt the silent but comforting presence of them, just in
there, iddling quietly on IRC chans, or telling jokes about life and math, or
trolling just for the sake of it. I mean, it's not the people on the internet
that I am in love with, they're just people and there's a lot of them around
me already.</p>

<p>No, I fell in love with internet. I dedicated them a bigger part of my life,
spending night with them, days, weeks. Most of the people I know today I
wouldn't have known them without Internet. I've been in wonderfull places,
and in weird ones. I've done and dreamed of things you wouldn't expect, and
they're the reason for what I'm vaguely balanced today.</p>

<p>But they're dying. It's a degenerative disease and it's too late now for a
cure. They're dying. Internet is dying.</p>

<h1>Diagnostic</h1>

<p>For at least 20 years, cypherpunks have tried to reach out, they've diagnosed
the disease at a time it would have been possible to cure it. Cryptography
for anyone and anywhere, full decentralisation, free software and hardware.
Those are the cures to stop the infection.</p>

<p>It worked, for a time. While my lover wasn't everyone's lover. I can live
with that, really. I'm not exclusive, and I can fully understand that a lot
of people loved Internet. What I do not accept is people hurting the ones I
love. But that's what you did.</p>

<p>You've created cancers. Degenerative and centralised amount of data for no
reason. You've prostituted them and twisted their mind to think that they
must earn their right to live. You then told us that Internet - which I
loved, even at this time - has became ill and contagious and that they must
be kept under quarantine for our own safety.</p>

<p>You protituted and severed parts of their body just because you were scared of
them. You didn't tried to understand them and you've done it. You've
bought the hype, and you wouldn't listen at the cyperpunks because they were dramatic.
You've raped the Internet, you've subverted them and, really, I'm angry at
you.</p>

<p>You'll argue that you didn't know. That you just wanted to be their ‑ or my
‑ friend. But you didn't respected them. You didn't want to learn the way they
work, you just wanted to put your claws in their flesh to get wat you wanted.
You wanted to not be offended, you wanted to not be insulted, you wanted to
be safe.</p>

<p>But there's only one way to be safe, it's called privacy. Solitude, intimacy,
anonymity are keys to privacy and you've destroyed it. Without privacy,
you're under constant monitoring, you must behave because someone will watch
you and consider you as a threat and so will endanger you.</p>

<p>Without privacy, there's no safety. I was able to be lonely with Internet
back in the time, it's getting harder because you're raping them. I was able
to have some intimacy, using mail or IRC with encryption, but you're ruining
it by stocking a pile of data in the cancers GAFA's are. I was able to have
any identity I wanted and built characters for the sake of it, imagining
different life or discussing with other being without giving them any
personnal details, but the social non-networks you massively use are
destroying that also.</p>

<h1>This is the end</h1>

<p>You accepted to kill your privacy and by doing so you killed my right to it
The privacy provided by SMTP is now dead, even with strong encryption ‑ which
you're still not using. Because a rogue agency in a former state decided so,
because they had the opportunity of doing so, because you wanted a whore to
manage your life instead of enjoying the Chaos of it.</p>

<p>It's not Google, Facebook, Apple or Amazon who's responsible. It's not the
USofA or the NSA, neither the USGC or the DGSI or any other secret services
who's spying on anyone ‑ because they are spying on you, it's a fact. No,
it's you and you're egotic need of control.</p>

<p>You couldn't understand my love for Internet. You couldn't understand them,
and you wanted it because us ‑ Internet's lovers ‑ were happy and enjoying
ourselves and that was scaring the hell out of you.</p>

<p>Email is dead since Lavabit and other privacy minded email provider are
closing. Riseup will follow one day, they're fighting a lost battle. Even the
traditionnal media can't win those battle since investigative journalists are
being threatened all over the world.</p>

<p>Private communication now relies on the nerves connected to those tumors. And
you're happy with it, you have no privacy anymore. And you have no safety.</p>

<p>There's nothing to be done, this is an uncurable disease and my lover will
die. I will stand by their side until the end. I will fiercely fight for
them because that's the only thing I know to do, because I can't imagine a
life without them, but in the end they'll die.</p>

<p>No technical trick will do it. Encryption just grants you time. What grants
you privacy is trust, decentralisation and freedom, which you destroyed. You
should prepare for dark times because they're coming.</p>

<p>The infocalypse is not nigh. Not anymore. It is the infocalypse right now
it's too late for avoiding it. Drug, Pedobear, Terrorism and Organised crimes
have already been summonned and they now rides among us, destroying
everything they can.</p>

<p>If you really want to save Internet, then help me ease the pain. Go work on
decentralised service, provide services to friends. And prepare yourself for
the death of Internet, because it's happening right now.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Internet_is_like_punk_not_dead_yet/
title: Internet is like punks, not dead. Yet.
uri: Internet-is-like-punks-not-dead-Yet
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Internet_is_like_punk_not_dead_yet/
content:
<p>[UPDATE: 2012/08/23 - Barbayellow translates their posts in english]</p>

<h1>Context</h1>

<p>Yesterday, I wrote <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/My_Lover_id_dying">this piece</a> and Barbayellow,
friend of mine and who happens to works for Reporters Without Borders,
replied with
<a href="https://blog.barbayellow.com/2013/08/23/internet-is-not-dead-you-are-just-tired/">this post</a></p>

<p>Basically he says that internet's not dead, it's just the hacktivists who are
tired of fighting. I recommend you to read the whole posts, it's probably a
bit subtler than that.</p>

<p>So, now, I'll answer and will do a less melodaramtic post I think.</p>

<h1>Internet as we knew it</h1>

<p>When I'm saying that internet is dying, it's the internet as we knew it. The
ones that grants people, corporations and states to communicate freely,
without the fear to be harmed for their opinion.</p>

<p>It's not the internet as it's in China (which is not Internet by the way,
it's more a different network which some limited connectivity to the
intertube) or in Iran or elsewhere.</p>

<p>The internet is just cables, with kittens inside carrying packets between
computers. Basically, there's nothing inside of it, no content save for the
kittens and the packets they're carrying around is inside the internet, it's
just on computers connected to the cat system.</p>

<p>The internt, as it used to be, is a multipeer to multipeer multidirecctional
communication system. It grants all things connected to the Internet to
exchange freely cats and packets at no costs (besides the facts that if we
give you a kitten in transit and it's not for you, you'll pass along until it
find it's recipient).</p>

<p>The internet is then a wonderfull tool for news addict, trolls, kittens
lovers, citizens who needs a way to organize themselves out of the street (
because the streets are monitored and a more dangerous place than the
internet), social organisations of all kinds benefits from this.</p>

<p>This is internet. Internet is neither Google, nor Facebook, nor any other
form of government. Those are just things connected onto the internet and who
produces and eats a lot of kittens (yeah, kittens are eaten when they land on
your computer).</p>

<p>All was good, kittens were purring into the internet, and we loived them and
cares for them. The only thing we forgot at this time was that any who can
stare at a kitten, can see the packet he's carrying. And then decides to shot
him death or not, depending on the content of the packet.</p>

<p>That's when the net neutrality was endangered.</p>

<p>The answer was blatantly simple: math. Using math, we can do cryptography
and, cryptography is just packing every packet in a Unicron suit. All the
packet then looks the same and kittens are now carrying unicorn around.</p>

<p>The governement, who were not able to mass murder kittens, decided that
cryptography was a tool that only good people - which means them - would be
able to use, letting bad people - you - using old packet system while they
were going to use kittens.</p>

<p>Cypehrpunks - big Unicorns fan - decided that the cryptofascism was to be
fighted and opposed Exportation law on cryptosystems. Phil Zimmeerman wrote
PGP at this time for this specific reason: grants anyone the possibility to
benefits from cryptography and to protect it's privacy - as well as sending
cats carrying unicorns which is cool.</p>

<p>And that was the status-quo for a time. Governement and corporations
benefited from the works written by cypherpunks, and were counting on the
fact that few people likes unicorns and won't use the cryptography.</p>

<h1>The web 2.0 bullshit and the cyberthreats meme</h1>

<p>What really threatens the internet is the web 2.0 bullshit. The meme around
that over-centralisation of each pieces of data in few places to create a big
data environnment with savvy web services are dangerous.</p>

<p>Not because of the creation of those data (rememebre, more data, more kittens
and kittens are cool), it was the centralisation of those data. It started
slowly, with the homepage trand and then the blogosphere thing. Search engine
and the host anything in da kloug.</p>

<p>A lot of money has been spent on this, not overnight but over a decade (and
this is a small amountg of time for a slow moving thing that are
governement). New buildings has been built, we have been sold assymetric
access to the internet, to avoid citizens to hosts themselves the content,
zetabytes storage systems now exists and dreamers and cypherpunks has been
painted as bad people - antisocial peopl who will destroy the world just
because they can.</p>

<p>Which is weird because cypherpunks are free software adept, they wnat to
share as most as they can and this is specifically what a society is about
(exchange). And that's what internet could have been.</p>

<p>The other worrying meme, and a little more recent one, is the cyberwarfare
one. It's a meme stating that it's perfectly normal that criticial systems
such as nuclear power plant be connected to internet and that, given that
fact, there is a riskq that someone find a flaw and exploit it to destroy the
power plant (the flaw exist, each and every system have at least one).</p>

<p>So, everything on the web 2.0 is now centralised, authentified and must be
monitored becasue, you know, someone might destroy the world using it's
knowledge.</p>

<p>This is where we are now. The leaks about NSA aren't new, we knew that - and
assumes that was true - for a while (Echelon, Karnivor, stuff like that
already leaked in public). There's some computers who copy every kittens they
foudn and store the packet if there's no unicorn.</p>

<p>And, if there's a unicorn, they keep it for a later use, when math will
advance and makes all those unicorn suits vulnerable (believe me, this day
will come, have a look
<a href="http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/08/is-cryptopocalypse-nigh.html">over here</a>
 if you want).</p>

<p>They also tortures kittens to have access to metadata (where the kitten where
born, where it would have dies, at which time, does he have siblings, stuff
like that).</p>

<p>Some governement tooks extra steps and shots kittens who embed unicrons on
sight (that's why we can disguise unicorn as a regular packet, that's
steganography).</p>

<p>Governement founds that this kittens torture business is good for them, they
secretly deployed it and are using it since then, trying to sorts the good
citizens from the bad ones.</p>

<h1>Cryptoanarchy in the tubes</h1>

<p>The thing about Internet being dead is just that. The old internet,
decentralized, neutral, with cryptograpohy everywhere is now dead. Transit
operators works with governement who tries to protect themselves from the
citizens (instead of protecting the citizens).</p>

<p>Yes, you can use strong cryptography. You should do it. But it will be
efficient until a certain point. As long as you crave for centralised
services, the strong cryptography is useless - you just need to asks Facebook
your lifestream to see that.</p>

<p>Yes, some organisation, and some people who are aware of those issues can use
the strong encryption systems but, teh governements keeps those data, waiting
for a breakthrough that would makes it useless and will grant the governement
way of using what you then wrote against you.</p>

<p>Yes, some people still maintain strong crypto aware servcies for activists,
and you should try to set some up. It will takes you time and money to get it
done. Also, government will prosecute and intimidates you, trying to send you
in jail for a long time.</p>

<p>So yes, the free and neutral internet is dying. We now have a
<a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.html">neo feudal</a>
system that looks like internet. Yes, people with special needs are still
able to use internet with huge cryptosystems. Unicorn haven't disappearred
and kittens do flow, but it's still costly. And it's a cost that few people
will pay. And the wealth and interest of Internet lies in the user, their
differences, the thing they share. If there's no one on internet, then you
have no internet.</p>

<p>And with the social stigma of not being on Facebook (for instance), it's
harder to have people using alternatives - and there's plenty of good and
functionnal alternatives out there.</p>

<p>So yes Barbayellow, the Internet has we knew it is dead. And yes, activists will
be able to communicate more or less freely. But that's not the point.
Internet is dead because people won't pay the necessary costs to be free.</p>

<p>Yes, I agreee, it's a political struggle. You know me, we disagree on the
means to fight this struggle, especially when you have to face economics
giant and security fanatics hiding in secret part of the governement.</p>

<p>The only way to get back a free, neutral and decentralised internet is to
implement accountability and transparency. It's by destroying the
centralisation memes and the cyberthreats one. It's by destroying Secrecy and
to enforce Privacy by default. But that's not something cypehrpunks can
solve, it's smething citizens should implement.</p>

<p>And yes, I'll fight until we have that. But Internet is dead.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/TBS_Distributing_transcoding/
title: TBS : Distributing Transcoding
uri: TBS-Distributing-Transcoding
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/TBS_Distributing_transcoding/
content:
<h1>The issue at hand</h1>

<p>Recently I've worked a lot on adding content to the
<a href="https://broadcast.telecomix.org">TBS</a> by parsing the intertubes auto
magically. Fr instance, I have a tumblr and a twitter parser who allows me to
gather data (especially in Egypt for instance). Even if those parsers are
stupid, they works.</p>

<p>Another one I wante dto add, is the <a href="https://bambuser.com">bambuser</a> one.
It's a streaming services used a lot by people in Middle East to broadcast
covergae of protests. The Bambuer team is great, they already provided us
an API key for the first versions of the TBS, but they mainly use flv format
for videos.</p>

<p>And I want the TBS to be without flash, so it means HTML5 formats, and
there's three of them: OGG (.ogv), WebM (.webm) and MP4 (.mp4). FLV is
neither of those one.</p>

<p>I usually used to transcode them as a celery tasks, righ on the TBS, but the
bambuser parsers gaves me 223 videos to transcode, and given my current
configuration, and the CPU power needed to transcode from flv to ogv - it
actually can take more than 4 days per video - I was stuck.</p>

<p>Also, since I don't have a lot of CPU cores, I had only one celery worker, so
the broadcast wasn't updating itself, which was a shame.</p>

<h2>Distribute work</h2>

<p>So, the solution is to not transcode those videos myself. And that's were you
can help. I've wrote a little webservice, using
<a href="https://django-tastypie.readthedocs.org/en/latest/">tastypie</a> RESTFull API.</p>

<p>The principle is simple, you ask for a job, download the flv vids from my
server, transcode it in one of the three HTML5 video format, md5sum it, put
it somewhere I can retrieve it (a publicly accessible http/https server will
be good) and then PUT me an update.</p>

<p>See? Simple.</p>

<p>SO, let's get into the dirty details.</p>

<p>First, you ask for a job to do by hitting this link:
<a href="https://broadcast.telecomix.org/tsc/v1/jobs/todo/?format=json">https://broadcast.telecomix.org/tsc/v1/jobs/todo/?format=json</a></p>

<p>It will answers you with a job to do:</p>

<pre><code>{
  "objects": [
    {
      "id": 399,
      "md5sum": "dce2d12c90cfef2c78b6c5bde98b4c2c",
      "resource_uri": "/tsc/v1/jobs/399/",
      "start_time": "2013-09-18T16:16:32.587953",
      "state": "p",
      "token": "u5d98hOslRQbMJRVtCl6ocLzX5xeCFbneij75Y8j",
      "uri": "https://broadcast.telecomix.org//media//8695.flv"
    }
  ]
}
</code></pre>

<p><em>id</em>: is the id of the job.
<em>md5sum</em>: is the checksum of the file you need to transcode
<em>resource_uri</em>: the URI you can use to check the details of the job (appends
it behind https://boradcast.telecomix.org) . It's also where you're going to
need to put stuff into, after you've done the job.
<em>start_time</em>: is the time at which the jobs has been created. usuallay, you
should have the oldest one to do.
<em>state</em>: give you the current state of the job. It's p in this case, because
the job is in Progress (since you're going to do it)
<em>token</em>: it's the token associated to this job ID, and it's how I'll fight
spam. If you do'nt have the job ID and the token, then you can't PUT
anything.
<em>uri</em>: is the absolute URI of the file I need you to transcode. Just GET this
file.</p>

<p>And that's all. You can now transcode the file. For the sake of giving an
example, I'm generally using ffmpeg and I invoke it like that:</p>

<pre><code>ffmpeg -i input_file.flv output_file.ogv
</code></pre>

<p>It's enough, but if you're a ffmpeg Guru, you can probably find better ways.
I try to stay as close as possible from the original format (in size
especially), but a 320x240 size shoudl be enough if you really need a size.</p>

<p>I tend to prefer ogv over webm and mp4, for it's the most free codecs of the
three, but do what you think is best I can manage the 3 of them.</p>

<p>Once you're done, send me a PUT on the resource_uri using only three args.</p>

<p>Technically, add the '<strong>Content-type: application/json</strong>' header to your
query. And the body needs to be a JSON formatted content, with only those
three fields:</p>

<pre><code>{
    'md5sum': "The md5 hexdigest hash of your transcoded file",
    'token': "The token associated to the job",
    'uri': "the URL whee I can get the file you transcoded"
}
</code></pre>

<p>Every other field, will leed to an error.</p>

<p>Once I got the PULL request, I'm going to GET your file. It would be nice to
give me the '<strong>Content-type</strong>' header associated to the file. In fact, if
it's not one of <strong>'video/ogg', 'video/webm', 'video/mp4'</strong> then, I'll drop
the file and will reinitialise the job for someone else to do it. So, please,
set-up your webserver accordingly.</p>

<p>And once it's done, you can get back to /todo and start another job.</p>

<p>If no more jobs are available, you'll get a 404. Then wait for some time
(days or hours) for new jobs to transcode.</p>

<h1>And a wild client appears</h1>

<p>I was working with <a href="https://twitter.com/LeCapsLock">CapsLock</a> at night to
bootsrap a client to automagically do all the stuff.</p>

<p>You'll need ffmpeg − and, it seems you need to have a more recent than the
one in Debian − and some basic python tools to run it.</p>

<p>Then just:</p>

<pre><code>git clone https://git.legeox.net/capslock/tbs-client.git
</code></pre>

<p>And then run it using python in a classical fashion.</p>

<p>Neat, isn't it? Now, you have no excuse for not helping to transcode the
datalove.</p>

<p>If you have any questions, just ping me.</p>

<p>Thank for your help, your cores and your bandwidth. Datalove uppon you.</p>

<p>--
UPDATE [2013/09/21]: One of teh field needed for the PUT (namely <strong>hash</strong> was wrong)
UPDATE2 [2013/09/21]: Add the git repo for the client</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/NSA_and_local_government/
title: The NSA and the hypocrisis
uri: The-NSA-and-the-hypocrisis
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/NSA_and_local_government/
content:
<h1>Context</h1>

<p>Finally, the French governement is going to react to the NSA mass spying. Just
after the first article published by <a href="http://mobile.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2013/10/21/commentla-nsa-espionne-la-france_3499758_651865.html">Le
Monde</a>
(there might be a paywall). Technically, it's nothing really new since we've read
the same for Mexico, England and Germany those last days - use your search-engine
fu to find related articles.</p>

<p>Oddly enough, 6 month after the first revelations, the French Foreign Ministry has
summoned immediatly the NSA<sup>WUS</sup> ambassador to talk about it. AT the time I'm
writing this, the results of the meetings are not yet public (and I don't even
know if the US Ambassador will answers at all) but, in the end, nothing will
change.</p>

<p>Also, we currently have, in France, yet another debate around yet another
expulsion of yet another school girl (directly from school) and a lot of
discontent about or Ministry of Interior. I'm not thinking the summoning of the US
ambassador is done only to try to heave people forgetting about this issue, but
the timing is troubling.</p>

<h1>First, the obvious - Why do the NSA is spying on French</h1>

<p>This is the first time that a national newspaper of broad audience (Le Monde) is
directly releasing and analysing Snowden's document. Before today, it was only
comment and translations of foreign newspaper and some analysis done by smaller
press apparel.</p>

<p>Le Monde is used to do this kind of release since it was the partner of Wikileaks
for the CableGate and, at least parts of, the Warlog. And they've got a lot of
attention when they did that, so I suppose that this article, and the apparently
starting collaboration between Snowden's news agency and Le Monde, is starting to
gather political momentum.</p>

<p>And the french governement is craving for achievments. There's a lot of miscontent
right now - not enough to pull people in the streets, but enough to increase the
extrem right wings voter pool - and they might want to do something good.
Political momentum from NSA scandal might be the good one to convert into good
reputation.</p>

<p>However, they always seems to discover the fact that the NSA had spies on French
citizens and officials. They know it since, at least, June and I won't admit that
they didn't had strong suspicion before that. This is just something they're doing
to occupy the news space, and try to divert people from ongoing issues - hate
speech, immigration, economic situation, jobs issues, pick one or many of them and
you can even add to the list.</p>

<h2>Friends and foes</h2>

<p>NSA says they're spying on anyone to find terrorists. So, it means that:</p>

<ol>
<li> They do not trust us and think that there's a risk big enough to have a
terrorist-strike on the US soil coming from the french soil. If that's the case,
it means they do not trust their allies. So why are we even part of NATO?</li>
<li> They trust us, but they think our own spying services are lame. I can get it,
but then, since we're allies, they're probably sharing intel with us. As they're
doing with the UK secret services: GCHQ (GCHQ seems to be the NSA's reach in EU).</li>
<li> It's not about terrorism, or a risk of war. Then it's mainly an economic
issue and the NSA uses its powers to take over some market for the benfits of US
companies - the ones who works with the NSA.</li>
</ol>


<h2>The economic angle</h2>

<p>The economic angle is something interesting. In the french IT industries, we have
mainly two actors favored by the state. Former State companies - France Telecom
aka Orange, Bull but it was a failure, etc - and big names well established - and
for the computer stuff it will be US companies.</p>

<p>One single example is quite interesting. Since France is part of NATO, we must
comply to some interoperability on different levels such as ammunitions,
information system and managemenbt and strategies.</p>

<p>I like the ammunition aprt, because it explains well what interoperability is. The
NATO calibers are standards. And if you want to have your rifles, guns, rocket
laucnhers, whatever approved and used on NATO battelfields, you must be able to
fire them.</p>

<p>It doesn't means you must use the Colt's M16, just that you're own rifle must be
able o fire the NATO ammos. In France we use the FAMAS (French automatic Rifle),
the US use the M-16. That's interoperability.</p>

<p>For the information management, NATO requires the sale level of interoperability.
You must be able to send and receives data to and from any NATO system. The US
used their own version of Microsoft Windows Hardened for their specifid needs.</p>

<p>The France use the Bull system. No, it's a joke. Mouhamar Khadafi use the
Bull/AMESYS system we sold him. We prefer using the Microsoft system for our
critical infrastructure whoch is the army. We're able to manufactures great tools
and weapons and we can even sold them to dictators without blinking, but for our
own needs, we'd rather relies on the armed arm of the NSA: Microsoft. <a href="http://www.april.org/lotan-impose-microsoft-et-les-backdoors-de-la-nsa-au-ministere-de-la-defense">The Open
Bar
contract</a>
has been exposed in Avril 2013, just some month before the Snowden revelations.</p>

<p>And we now know that Microsoft is a big part of Prism since the
<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/docuemnts/807036">9/11/2007</a>. The fact that the
french military's head didn't even thought about it is an issue. And I would
suspect Microsoft to have used the NSA to spy and influence the deal.</p>

<h2>The strategic angle a.k.a they do not trust us</h2>

<p>In the diplomatic game, you can't really rely only on the good behavious of your
allies. Especially since allies or your allies can be your ennemies. For instance,
Turkey is an ally of the US since it's part of NATO. But I'm not sure all the
Turkey's allies are allies of the US.</p>

<p>Same goes for Pakistan.</p>

<p>So, a paranoid and schyzophrenic state like the US is spying on its allies.
That's standard diplomatic procedures, and that's what embassies are for. However,
in this specific cases, the NSA is going way further than a simple state spying.
They're spying everyone - I mean, we're talking of about 7M phone calls from France
in a month - that's a lot.</p>

<p>Also, France has been criticizing the US on some key political and foreign issues
such as Iraqi intervention, and the US stance toward the whole Israel/Palestinian
SNAFU. So, they might be interested on some data, and since we host some movment
which threatens US interests, they woudl suspect that France can host the next
team for a suicide bombing toward US interests. That's why they would want to spy
on the French citizens.</p>

<p>The interesting part of it is: did the French government benefited of it? Or any
other governement. Or companies. For now, there's nothing in the documents leaked
by Snowden that would give us a solid proof for that.</p>

<h1>They knew it</h1>

<p>I really think that the french government knew it and benefited from the NSA mass
surveillance program. But, before jumping to this conclusion, we need to
ellaborate a little bit on how it works.</p>

<p>The presentation in Le Monde, highlight a fact a lot of people forget about. When
routing on the internet, you're not going through the physical shortest route, but
through the most efficient one.</p>

<p>I'm going for an analogy for those of you who do not know what routing is. If I
want to go from Lyon to Bordeau by car, I can take the shortest path, made of
- at best - national roads. You're going to go accross a ot of villages, and
  smallest road. Or you can go through the fast highway. It will cost you some
kilometers (and money, but that's not the point) because there's some kind of
mountain in between, but you'll arrive faster.</p>

<p>That's the same thing for internet. The physical shortes path, is probably not the
one you're going to use. For instance for going from Latin America to Africa, the
direct route is to jump to Europe (5Gbps) then to Africa (343Gbps), but in fact,
you're probably gonna do one more hop through US &amp; Canada (2.918 Gbps), then
Europe (4.972Gbps) and then Africa. Way more faster, way more efficient.</p>

<p>If you want more data, have a look at
<a href="http://www.telegeography.com/research-services/global-internet-geography/index.html">Telegeography</a>
it's full of maps and data about the internet and telecomunication
infrastructures.</p>

<h2>Peer to beer?</h2>

<p>Another thing are peering agreements. Peering agreements
are what makes internet. It's an agreement between two exchange node ran by
companies or other organisations - let's call them A and B. This agreement,
determines how the traffic coming from the network A to the network B and
vice-versa will be managed and paid. In most of the case, fair peering (which is:
since traffic coming from A to B or from B to A are more or less equals or because
both network will benefit from it, let's peer for free), more info about Peering
can be found on the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering">Internet</a>, but globally it's an economic
interest.</p>

<p>And it's been, in France at least, a long-raging battle between all of the
operators. For instance, <a href="http://morse.colorado.edu/~epperson/courses/routing-protocols/handouts/cogent-ft.html">France Telecom vs
COGENT</a>
back in 2005 FT cut their peering with Cogent, in 2003 it's a battle between
<a href="http://linuxfr.org/news/probleme-de-peering-entre-free-et-france-t%C3%A9l%C3%A9com">France Telecom and
Free</a>,
<a href="http://www.itespresso.fr/interconnexion-reseaux-ovh-et-sfr-calment-le-jeu-41338.html?ModPagespeed=noscript">SFR and
OVH</a>
battled around 2011 and a battle between <a href="http://www.slate.fr/story/67161/google-free-video-interconnexion-rame">Free vs
Google</a> is
still raging as of today (and it's standing for a long time).</p>

<p>Also, and a funnier part when you look at it with this NSA angle, is that we have
here the ARCEP - an equivalent of the US FCC - which is in charge to regulate and
document the Telecommunication infrastructure. In 2012, they tried to force each
party involved with peering in France to document their formal agreement of
peering - <a href="http://owni.fr/2012/04/04/interconnexion-arcep-tuyaux-guerre/">Owni did a great piece about
it</a> - and what's
fun was that, in fine, Verizon refused to collaborate with the state because it
was too much of work. The very same Verizon who gave full access to its
infrastructure to the NSA.</p>

<p>So, peering was done, back in the time, by private companies and by a public one.
France Telecom (which then became Itineris, Wanadoo and Orange for its ISP part).
They were building physical infrastructure with public money and were
interconnecting it with US and UK infrastructure. I won't believe that noone there
suspected or saw anything like some weird and unauthorized traffic coming through
their equipment, especially since the french intelligence services must have put
some things in place to protect themselves and to spy on the people and other
states.</p>

<p>Especially since most of the interconnexion toward Africa has been done by french
industrial (such as Alcatel Lucent, a US-French consortium, but more on them
later). There's also a big road to middle-east going through Europe and Germany in
particular (that's why routing to and from Syria often transit through Germany
Exchange node - <a href="http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/mee/print/volume-4/issue-3/features/network-interconnection-tying-the-knot-connecting-syria.html">Info from
2007</a>)</p>

<p>However, the french net-isolationism (especillay the will of the local companies to
push for their product and to refuse to peer with their US counterpart) has
favored emergence of the Uk, DE and NL Exchange. Have a look at <a href="http://www.datacentermap.com/ixps.html">this
map</a> and you'll note that France is quite
low on the Exchange Node values, and datas found on
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_exchange_points_by_size">Wikipedia</a>
don't show the France as a big peering country.</p>

<h2>Complacency</h2>

<p>But who's building those system? It appears that the previously mentionned Alcatel
Lucent company is a good one. Have a look at the
<a href="http://bluecabinet.info/wiki/Blue_cabinet/Alcatel-Lucent">BlueCabinet</a> wiki to
understand why. They're providing submarines cables, infrastructures to 130
countries - including Burma and China - they're a mix between french and US
interests and they're involved in a lot of French and European infrastructure.</p>

<p>So, if the NSA is collecting data going through France and given that a big part
of the interconnection infrastructure in France uses at least a part of
Alcatel-Lucent technology and that trans-atlantic cables are at least partially
deployed by the US-French consortium, you really think the french secret services
would have ignored that the NSA will use and deploy tools to spy on us? Especially
when the states add shares into this Company? It's exactly the same issue when
Frecnh governement claims they didn't knew about Amesys solding arms of mass
surveillance to Lybia. They're lying.</p>

<p>You would argue that those tools don't need to be deployed on the french soil,
they need to be deployed in main Exchange node like in UK, NL or DE. And US also.
But it does not cover the landline wiretapping exposed by Le Monde today. So,
they have a tap inside the network on the french soil - because the cheapest route
on phone network between France and France is to route through France. And since
most of it has been deployed by public companies, or subsides of french public
companies, or subsides of governmental and military contractor, they know about it.</p>

<p>Because if they do not, it is extremely worrying. It means that any foreign power
can come in, wiretap our whole infrastructure and uses it against us without our
knowledge. And that's something I can't rationalize enough to admit it as true. It
can be done - and it has probably be done - for some specific wiretap and people,
but not on a scale of 7.4M of phone calls a month. At least the trafic generated
by the leak of data must have been noticed.</p>

<p>Now, let's admit that french secret servcies knew about it. Why keep it secret
then? An international scandal could profit for the state and could have lead to a
stronger foreign policy and a bit more of defiance toward the US. It would have
help defeat things like ACTA or the incoming TIPP, just because EU governement
would have been suspicious enough, and it would have increased the power of France
and developped for a better diplomatic situation reagrding the rest of the world.</p>

<p>They knew it, and they didn't used that knowledge to gain power over the US and to
empower themselves? From people whose job is to use information to take over other
interests, they would have done a poor job.</p>

<p>So, they might have something to gain by keeping it silent. I would go for access
to the data. Our national intelligence backbone is not as good as the UK or the US
ones (see the reports about <a href="http://owni.fr/2012/09/26/thales-terre-les-ecoutes/">Thalès interception
platform</a>) and is essentially
directed toward phone calls - we have a long history of illegal wiretapping used
as <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_des_%C3%A9coutes_de_l%27%C3%89lys%C3%A9e">political
scandal</a>
and it didn't lead to any change in the way wiretapping has been done since then.</p>

<p>I really think there is both cooperation and defiance into this spying affair
between the NSA and French intelligence services. I also suspect that most of the
intelligence services works in defiance of there own governement and in
cooperation with both foreign intelligence services and companies.</p>

<h1>And now what?</h1>

<p>Nothing. Since everyone except citizens is wining on this mutual sharing of mass
surveillance system informel deal I do not except things to change in a short
term.</p>

<p>However, there is some good news. First, peering deals, and a lot of the necessary
system to maintain internet, are out of reach of the different governement. The
informal way that governs them doesn't helps for regulation and controls by
governement (that's why they seek for it). You still have to keep your data out of
big datacenter, but that's not that hard (have a look at <a href="http://about.okhin.fr//yunohost.org">yunohost</a>
for hosting most of your data) the social networking part is the biggest and
hardest one I think - alongside with search engine, but at least you have
duckduckgo.</p>

<p>Second, a lot of governement, starting by South American one are really upsets
and are starting to act. The <a href="http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/10/11/the-core-internet-institutions-abandon-the-us-government/">Internet
Governance</a>
summit held recently in Brazil also gave some hopes about the Internet still
staying out of control. I'm not sure it will be followed by impact, because the
NSA spying is possible due to some key infrastructures issues, but it's a start.</p>

<p>I'm quite disapointed that the EU didn't follow the Brazil on this, since we have
some good infrastructure and technologies to help. But then again, I do not think
those US/EU commercial agreement will cease for the benefits of citizens or
sovereignity they have too much industrial and bank pressure on them.</p>

<p>But as always, nothing will come from the politicians. They must knew about the
NSA spying in France and they even collaborate or they're dangerously incompetent.
They benefit from it because it's a coercion measure (the same way CCTV cams are)
and industrial groups earns money doing it. Even if they o have gag orders. They
would have been motivated for your privacy, they would have fight those gag orders.</p>

<p>And that's why nothing new will emerge from this meeting between the french
foreign ministry and the - currently in shutdown - US embassy.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Searx/
title: Searx
uri: Searx
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Searx/
content:
<h1>Welcome to searx</h1>

<p>You might have noticed some change on <a href="https://seeks.okhin.fr">my seeks node</a> since
it's not a seeks node anymore, but instead it's a searx node.</p>

<p>Searx is a project started by <a href="https://github.com/asciimoo">asciimoo</a> after
Taziden gave a talk at <a href="http://camp.hsbp.org/2013/zer0">Camp zer0</a> about going
forward with seeks and opening it up to a wider base of developper.</p>

<p>The idea is that <a href="https://seeks-project.info">seeks</a> ‑ currently written in
hardcore C++ ‑ is a prototype and an exploratory project about search and
decentralization of search, and that we can now build almost from scratch a search
engine which will implement the concept behind seeks but in a more developper
friendly way, for instance in python.</p>

<p>We already had a lot of discussion with people hanging on #seeks@irc.freenode.net
about this and, technically, there's two tool to develop. An easily extensible
metasearch engine which will feed a DHT of result shared with different nodes.</p>

<p>And then asciimoo wrote searx, a meta search engine, easily extensible. Now, we
"just" have to connect it to a DHT. But I'll save that for later.</p>

<p>So, how did I installed it? I've fought a little bit with uwsgi and nginx, but now
it works. Here's how:</p>

<h1>Setup</h1>

<h2>Getting the code, the dependencies and everything else</h2>

<p>Create a searx user for it's a good practice (don't run things as root) and do
some git cloning and virtualise you're environment. Oh, before I forgot, I'm
running a debian stable and I try to keep the distribution clean (so no pip
install outside of virtualenv)</p>

<pre><code>cd /usr/local
git clone https://github.com/asciimoo/searx.git
chown searx:searx -R /usr/local/searx
cd /usr/local/searx
virtualenv searx-ve
. searx-ve/bin/activate/
</code></pre>

<p>Now, you have a running virtual environnement in ''/usr/local/searx/searx-ve'' and
the code in the parent directory. You need to install some dependencies, so launch
that command and go get a cup of coffee.</p>

<pre><code>pip install -r requirements.txt
</code></pre>

<p>Now, the code is alive. You can test it by running the flask instance:</p>

<pre><code>python searx/webapp.py
</code></pre>

<p>And you can proxy requests to ''http://localhost:8888'' from your favorite
webserver. It works.</p>

<h2>Uwsgi</h2>

<p>Since it's not daemonized, and you've got only one worker, I wanted to have
something more maintainable. So I needed something like uwsgi (or gunicorn, or
whatever) to run the apps right from nginx.</p>

<p>Since debian splitted uwsgi config in a lot of modules, don't forget to install
python module (I was stuck with that a lot). So, let's install uwsgi and required
dependencies.</p>

<pre><code>apt-get install uwsgi uwsgi-plugin-python
</code></pre>

<p>Next step is to create an app. In debian, uwsgi has the same
apps-{available,enabled} file structure than on nginx or apache. Here' my config
file for searx:</p>

<pre><code>vim /etc/uwsgi/apps-available/searx.ini

[uwsgi]
# Who will run the code
uid = searx
gid = searx

# Number of workers
workers = 4

# The right granted on the created socket
chmod-socket = 666

# Plugin to use and interpretor config
single-interpreter = true
master = true
plugin = python

# Application base folder
base = /usr/local/searx

# Module to import
module = searx.webapp

# Virtualenv and python path
virtualenv = /usr/local/searx/searx-ve/
pythonpath = /usr/local/searx/
chdir = /usr/local/searx/searx/

# The variable holding flask application
callable = app
</code></pre>

<p>Once that's done, symlink this file in apps-enabled and start uwsgi.</p>

<pre><code>cd /etc/uwsgi/apps-enabled
ln -s ../apps-available/searx.ini
/etc/init.d/uwsgi start
</code></pre>

<p>By default, the socket used by uwsgi will be in ''/run/uwsgi/ap/searx/socket''.
This is where nginx will chat with uwsgi.</p>

<h2>Nginx</h2>

<p>Hard part is done, if you already have nginx installed, just use yet another
vhost.</p>

<pre><code>vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/searx

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name searx.example.com;
    root /usr/local/searx

    location / {
            include uwsgi_params;
            uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/app/searx/socket;
    }
}
</code></pre>

<p>Then activate the newly created sites and restart nginx.</p>

<pre><code>ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-{enabled,available}/searx
/etc/init.d/nginx restart
</code></pre>

<p>And go visit searx.example.com or whatever your FQDN is) on port 80, it would
works.</p>

<p>I suggest you to install some SSL? but it's beyond the scope of this tutorial.</p>

<p>Have fun.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/We_need_optimism/
title: We need optimism, not fear
uri: We-need-optimism-not-fear
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/We_need_optimism/
content:
<h1>Fear</h1>

<p>I plead guilty. I used to use fear as a tool to try to seed concern in
people mind when I was explaining why it is needed to use cryptography on
the internet (and elsewhere as well).</p>

<p>The thing is, fear is an extremely powerful feeling. I think it's rooted
somewhere in the evolutionary process, I don't think there's species who
don't know fear (and if it were they either are sharks or have since then
disappeared, eaten by things they should have fear).</p>

<p>And it's not one you should use to make people do things. If you use fear to
try motivate people, they will be stressed, and some of them will panic (we
do not answer rationally to stress and fear) and will run away, screaming in
despair, spreading the fear like an arson jumps from trees to trees and
finally destroying the whole forest.</p>

<p>By using fear, people who will do what you're saying, won't do it because
they feel it will improve them, they will do something because they have no
choice. And if they can run away from it, they will just do it and will avoid
to - for instance - use the internet.</p>

<p>Developing fear into people, is the best way to get the worst out of
them, this is exactly the mechanism developed by fascist to gain power, and
you know that since Star Wars:</p>

<blockquote><p>Fear is the path to the darknet. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering. - Yoda</p></blockquote>

<p>And since fear is irrational, it doesn't help people to understand how things
works. That's exactly what states (nation or corporate) are doing now with
the Cyberwar, the Darknet and all the creepy stuff.</p>

<p>It enables the states to plant uncertainty (and doubt) in the mind of people,
to make them unable to understand how things works, and then to control them
(people are now afraid of opening stuff to understand how they work).</p>

<p>I once thought it was possible to use a little bit of fear to raise
consciousness into people mind, but it's like firing up a match in a
gasoline tank, even if you're careful, in the end, it will blow up.</p>

<h1>Death on the internet</h1>

<p>We were discussing the issue with
<a href="https://twitter.com/micro_ouvert">@microouvert</a> the other day - she says I'm
now on the cuddle bear sides. We hear a lot of things about the
NSA/GCHQ/DGSI/FSB/insert any new acronyms I might forget here, and the way
they do surveillance.</p>

<p>We hear a lot about the surveillance (and then control, and restriction of
liberties) made by GAFA members, less than the NSA thing but still. The thing
is, it's not the issue at hand.</p>

<p>You won't fight spying by using fear. I've noted two different behaviour when
trying to "warn" (and scare) people about the danger of mass surveillance.
Either people go for the "Nothing to hide" stance, or they go for the
"Jumping into a bunker and wait for the world's end" stance. None of them is
good.</p>

<p>The issue we ave to manage, and the only way we can find to dismantle the
mass surveillance, is by fixing society. And you fix society by empowering
people, not by giving them tool they don't understand, and don't know what to
do with.</p>

<p>In most of the cases, the fact that Google, the DGSI, or your neighbour is
spying on you is not a matter of life and death. Most people are not
field activists, journalists, hackers, or other - sadly - risky activities to
do. Most people just keep on with their life, doing the extraordinary
things they doing every day. They do not need to be scared by global
surveillance, they already have a lot of thing on their mind to manage.</p>

<p>I'm not saying that global surveillance society is not scary. It is, and it
keeps me up at night. We need to fight it but we can only fight it by a
social change.</p>

<p>I mean, I've looked through some toys shop recently (yeah, something about
Unixmas) and there's more and more spy tools. There's more and more stalker
apps on both Android and Apple store (while you still can't access porn on
the second). Spying your neighbors, your partners or your kids is hype, fun
and cool.</p>

<p>This is way more worrying than the fact that NSA is spying on French citizens. The
acceptance that it's normal to invade the privacy of other is an issue. And
when you protect yourself from that, you are a freak, you're an outcast of
the society.</p>

<p>It's not a political change that we need. I don't believe a political change
will happen soon, and will do any good. We need a social change. We need
people to empower themselves and discover that internet is a great tool to
organise.</p>

<h1>Internet isn't about surveillance</h1>

<p>Internet is about communication. And organisation. That's what we need to
tell to the world.</p>

<p>Surveillance is, basically the gathering, storage and analysis of human
activities - data and metadata. This is not what internet is doing. Internet
is doing one thing: packet switching, which is carrying a message from a
point A to a point B.</p>

<p>The storage does not happens on Internet, it happens at the fringe of
internet: on your computer, in some datacenters, or elsewhere. But Internet
does not maintain a databases with all the packets ever created.</p>

<p>Internet is about communication, and organisation. It enables people to
benefits of different way of organisation since it provides different way of
communication, and communication is what we - social animals - are doing to
thrive, live and survive.</p>

<p>This is the thing we need to teach to people. That they should not worry
about internet because internet is not actually spying on them. It's helping
them to communicate, to organise, to reach out.</p>

<p>And that's something all people are doing. Either they want to organize a
family meal, a party or a riot, they are organising things. And they're doing
it using social networks, improving they're social network. Ok it's on
facebook, twitter, Google+ or whatever spying agency tool provided to them.</p>

<p>What we need, is to open the eyes of the internet consumers to turn them in
internet actors. What we need, is to reassure them, and guide them through
the early step of understanding what is internet and how it works. What we
need is disassemble the toxic memes of surveillance, cyber-insecurity and
Darknet - which isn't about encryption, but about opposing the dirty internet
to the good internet.</p>

<p>And you can't do that by using fear. You need to light a spark in the mind of
people, not to burn them alive in fear. We don't need "Told you so", or
"Paranoiac" stance - I'm not saying that you should use some caution, just
that most of people don't need it.</p>

<p>So, stop saying there's some danger on the internet. It's a lie. There's only
IP packets on the internet. Everything else is in our society. And we need to
change it.</p>

<p>And yes, I'm turning to the optimistic cuddle bears from the intertubes team.
It will allow we to do some memetic warfare in a more efficient way.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/You_can_haz_my_freedom/
title: You can haz my freedom. As long as I can haz my pr0n
uri: You-can-haz-my-freedom-As-long-as-I-can-haz-my-pr0n
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/You_can_haz_my_freedom/
content:
<h1>Context</h1>

<p>Yesterday, the National Assembly in France voted the LPM (Loi de
Programmation Militaire - Military Planning Law) and a lot of the so called
civil society was upset about the Article 13 that may (or may not, we can't
know given the way the text is redacted) legalise what has been illegal for
the state until now: wide collection of data and communication in a state
without a judge intervention if it's for the defense of the state.</p>

<p>And I really think that civil society is now dead in France. And I'm saying
that while working for a NGO - FIDH (Human Rights International Federation) -
and after helps LQDN fighting ACTA, HADOPI and all this stuff.</p>

<p>I just think that the 13th article of this law is just a diversion, a bone
throw to the civil society to fight against and to enable the government to
do worst at the same time.</p>

<h1>Don't touch my porn</h1>

<p>Everyone, including me, is fully aware that each attempt to control and
censor the internet (even if it's stupid) is dangerous because it deprives
you of your liberty to … to do what? To consume moar advertisement push to us
by private companies.</p>

<p>We're not using this fantastic tool to build a new society, to change the old
one, to organise protest like it's the case almost everywhere in the world
(Tunisia, Egypt, SYria, Ukrain, Greece, Brazil, I mean, look at the news:
world is in flame). We're using it to watch porn and to stalk our neighbour.</p>

<p>So, yes, you will fight for your right to watch porn. That's OK, I mean, I
can't blame you for wanting to watch porn. But you will defend only that.
When people are in the streets fighting for the «internet», they're not
asking for freedom of organisation, communication and privacy. They just want
to watch movies they do not want to pay for (because the movies are so lame
nowadays that anyone should pay for that, I agree) or to watch their neighbor
having sex at a party.</p>

<p>And now, the civil society is just raging against each attempt to censor the
big ternet. Except it's mostly fighting on that. We were already lured in the
past, when opposing DADVSI while anti terrorism law were passed. Twice.</p>

<p>The issue is that organisation (and non organisation) such as LQDN might be
great to get people calling parliamentarians in the French national assembly or in the Euopean
parliament (after all, ACTA was defeated), but they're not good at explaining
to the people why those laws suck.</p>

<p>The thing is that now, we have in each and every law (about planning of
military operation, prostitution, gambling, copyright fraud, criminalisation
of hate speech, etc.) an article about Internet and censorship/controls.</p>

<p>The thing is that now, we're fighting only on this point. Us, the citizen, at
least the one who are occupying the mediasphere and the social space, are
only focused on internet, and nowhere else.</p>

<p>It means that it's easy for the governement to pass a new security law. It
ust have to add a censor-the-internet-article-we-do-not(really-want-in-fact
and just wait for the civil society to go after this specific piece of
article that the governement is willing to abandon anyway.</p>

<p>It will give civil society the feeling that they're usefull, while validating
that this way of governance works.</p>

<p>Well, you know what?</p>

<p><em>G</em></p>

<p><em>O</em></p>

<p><em>F</em></p>

<p><em>U</em></p>

<p><em>C</em></p>

<p><em>K</em></p>

<p><em>Y</em></p>

<p><em>O</em></p>

<p><em>U</em></p>

<p><em>R</em></p>

<p><em>S</em></p>

<p><em>E</em></p>

<p><em>L</em></p>

<p><em>F</em></p>

<p><em>!</em></p>

<p>It's a lie.</p>

<p>It does not works. A society which is OK with mass surveillance (whereas using
cameras for CCTV, advertisement display with eye-tracking and face
recognition system, invasive social networks and other facial recognition
system branded as cool) is not a democracy.</p>

<h1>Wake up!</h1>

<p>It's time to stop believing that the orderly and controlled protests,
petitions and yelling at people works. It doesn't, the current politician cast
is gaming us and this system.</p>

<p>We need to teach, to provide as many explanation as necessary, to fight the
fear and to help everyone to have a better understanding of what internet
actually is, what it's not and why it's the best and most beautiful thing
humanity ever created (yet). And we can't do that by using the traditional
way of expression.</p>

<p>We must stop trying to convince politician and start more powerful  grassroot
and decentralized movement. We must build that alternative society everyone is
dreaming of. We must stop thinking that politicians and corporations will
ever hear the people, because it won't happen as long as they think they're
safe. We must challenge them and threatens their safety.</p>

<p>We must not abandon our rights, among them the right to have a private life
and to protect it from interference according to the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml">Article 12 of the
UDHR</a>, but it's a bit late.</p>

<p>I mean, 2001 is the first anti-terrorist law (LSQ). We since had a lot of
them. And each time, there's only the internaut - or, well, the one who
enjoy their porn - to fight them.</p>

<p>It was twelve years ago. And we still have all of them. No one is
publicly asking for the abrogation of those laws. Instead of that we're just
reacting, we're playing a defense game in which we can only lose something (a
small piece of liberty or a bigger one), we need to take the initiative now.</p>

<p>How many loss of liberties should we endure before someone will actually
move? I think that we just quit the fight. I think that we think about what we can
lose if we start getting angry, and that's why we're hearing a lot about
what's happening in Greece. Our so-called leaders are using Greece as a bogeyman
to scare us and keep us at peace like, you know, saying "You shouldn't ask
to much or you could loose evrything". The problem here is not about what's
left that we can loose. It's about what we could win.</p>

<p>So, just wake up. ANd think about what we can have, start asking for things
instead of waiting that what you deserve is attacked by one more stupid law.
Take back the street. Threatens and challenge the ones in power. Use the
solidarity and means of communications you have around you.</p>

<p>The issue is not the politicians. The issue is you. You let them control your
life. It's time for a change.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/2014/
title: 2014
uri: 2014
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/2014/
content:
<h1>Fuck the new year</h1>

<p>Yeah, it sucks already. I mean, if you've even remotely followed 2013 you
must now that the wold is burning. And that we all have been fucked by things
that calls themselves governement or securities agencies.</p>

<p>And guess what, we do not have any idea about what they're up to. Most - if
all - the secret projetc of the NSA revealed by Snowde (yeah, including the
1kW electromagnetic canon that even Philip K. Dick didn't dream of) are from
the past. All the dates are from before 2008.</p>

<p>2008 was the rises of social networks such Facebook or twitter. Even if they
already were included in PRISM, they didn't had the place they have now in
our lives. And we don't now what the NSA and their colleagues are technically
capable of.</p>

<p>So yeah, you're now quite pissed of about them. And you want to destroy
surveillance. Because, you know, surveillance sucks. Except it's not that
simple. As <a href="https://twitter.com/quinnorton">@quinnorton</a> and
<a href="https://twitter.com/Dymaxion">@Dymaxion</a> pointed it out in <a href="http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312272300_-_no_neutral_ground_in_a_burning_world_-_quinn_norton_-_eleanor_saitta.html">their
talk</a>
at 30C3 - one of the most important talk of the event I think more important
than all the fear monguering around NSA -</p>

<p>Because the issue is not about surveillance. Surveillance can be helpful,
either for rescue mission, for improving infrastructure - because yeah,
most/all of sysadmins are doing surveillance over thentwork you use to
maintain it, detect bottlenecks, etc - or just to maintain a social
structures such as mutual aid and mutual care systems.</p>

<p>The issue with (NSA|GCHQ|FRA|DGSE|[A-Z]{3-6}) is not that they do monitoring
of everyone. It's they link that to an identity they choose to create. Not
one you're in control of, but one they decide you should fit in. And then the
state will act uppon you based on this identity, not on what you are. This is
were the dystopian part is.</p>

<p>Nation and Corportaion states needs a handle to interact with you, and
instead of letting you free to define it, change it and have more than one,
they label you with a unique number, biometrics, and then they add
information to that until they think they know who you are (probably a
dangerous pedonazi from the tubes - <a href="https://you.are.a.pedonazi.org">because you're
one</a>). This is the problem.</p>

<p>It's the same issue with the centralisatin of all your social interactions in
one place. The control loss of your identity which is used by states and
people to interact with you. And that's what you shoudl take control over.</p>

<h1>Yes, but how do I do that?</h1>

<p>First, you do the only thing they do not want you to do. You reach out to the
internet, you connect yourself to this amazing and wonderfull tool to enhance
yourself, to meet people and bots, to organize a dissent.</p>

<p>Yes, they will know about it. But you know what? It doesn't matter that much.
I mean, is everyone is organising they can't control us. If you takes new
identities, it will makes their task harder. If you encrypt all your
communication, it will makes their task harder. If you ouke all over them by
just not caring, it will makes their task useless.</p>

<p>So, get on the net, and organize. And then get down to the streets to fight
for your freedoms. Not to meet in assembly - this is what internet is for,
besides porn - just t protest, to express your anger of the state, and to
tear them down to pieces.</p>

<p>Yes, it's not easy. It won't be easy, and you'll probably never see the end
of it. You're gonna discover new stages of exhaustion. You're gonna
experiment new forms of frustration when trying to explains things to other
people. You're gonna learn new forms of pains when you'll be crushed down.
But you'll gonna learn new form of strongness when you'll get back up on your
feet. You're gonna feel new form of joy when you'll spread chaos into the
tighty little life of a governement. You're gonna develop new forms of
relationship when you'll fall back to friends.</p>

<p>This is what's coming. We should stop the all "revelation" stuff and start
destroying this scary world to build a new one. I want people to use the
internet to improve themselves, not to enslave themselves. I want a
mutual-aid and support system propelled by cats and unicorns througout the
world and to space. I want people to be able to get ack their identities and
to define themselves the way they want.</p>

<p>This is all I can wish you for the next years to come. There will be a lot of
pain before that, but you'll have a different world to live in. And you have
the tools and power to do it.</p>

<p>It will be an interesting year. With a lot of intersting people doing
interesting things.</p>

<p>Happy fucking life people.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Project_Chaos_1/
title: Project Chaos - Part 1
uri: Project-Chaos-Part-1
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Project_Chaos_1/
content:
<h1>Project Chaos Part 1</h1>

<h2>Intro</h2>

<p>This article will be the first one of an ongoing story, I'll try to document
my journey on this project through posts, probably shorter than the usual
ones.</p>

<p>So, I've got this group or tabletop role player that I know for 15 years
through different instanciation of the same internet community. It's the
group of people I know for the longest time (for almost half of my life
until now) and as all online community it's shaped by the tools we use (and
the tools we use are shaped by our community).</p>

<p>There were the bulletin board like forums (phpBB then fluxBB), both of them
managed by the techies (not me) and a third iteration based on drupal. And
facebook. Because before 2007 we used the bulletin board forums as a way to
keep in touch, to plan parties or to help each other.</p>

<p>Since the facebook happens, the forum mostly turned to be a game-lore
database, all the social thing slowly moved over there. And then the forum
started to slowly die.</p>

<p>Also, Shadowrun, the game we used to play, gone through some editorial
crisis, the new edition has been heavily criticized and some personal dramas
did technically killed this forum and group of friends.</p>

<p>They're still in touch through Facebook, Google cloud sharing services and
stuff like that. But since I won't get there I've been a little bit
ostracized (not that I really mind, I love my loneliness) but this community
was not a community anymore. We ended up with half a dozen of people doing
all the community services, while all the others are just feasting on it.</p>

<p>Typical of communities of that age I think. Some of us moved far away, other
are having babies, but still, internet tools were supposed to help us to stay
in touch.</p>

<p>For the last two years, we did however launch a lot of meetups in different
places. And I fighted the uses of google docs to the profit of free
alternatives such as etherpad and ethercalc (more than enough for our use case
of writing down recipes and errands to run to feed 30 people) with some
success.</p>

<p>And then came the sharing. We're sharing a lot of music and playlists.
Especially when you want to run a game, you're always looking for some
atmosphere, so we talk a lot about music (I mean, a 6hours long game is 6 hour
of music non stop, you need to find some). The thing is, they want some of my
music and, since I won't use spotify nor google, we're stuc with sneakernet.
Reminds me high school where we exchanged tapes, but with USB hard drive of
more than one terabyte.</p>

<p>So, they wanted to share, including what politicians would call illegal
files. And, in what sounds like a surprise - but interesting - move, they
want to do it themselves (OK, they want me to get involved and helps them)
but they want to self-host their stuff.</p>

<p>10 years of advocating free software. 5 of advocating for getting out of
social centralized web. 2 after setting up a social network for our
characters. 1 after showed them how powerful free and decentralized software
can be, they asked me to helps them build a community sharing server.</p>

<p>At last.</p>

<h2>Next step</h2>

<p>So, we're currently writing down what we want and need, using etherpad and
calcs. There will be a lot of learning implied, and some code to write. But
at least, we're going to do it together.</p>

<p>And yes, they actually asked me to show them how to administrate a server,
even if it implies running a shell.</p>

<p>So this will be my log for this journey. I hope we'll reach the destination.
Theres adventures to come, but I have faith in their motivation.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Identity_symbolism_uniform/
title: Identity, Symbolism and Uniforms
uri: Identity-Symbolism-and-Uniforms
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Identity_symbolism_uniform/
content:
<p><strong>Disclaimer: I'm in no way a sociologist, those are the state of thoughts in
my brain as of now, it will probably change later. And yes, it's the result
of different conversation I had online recently</strong></p>

<h1>Identity crisis</h1>

<h2>Identity and surveillance</h2>

<p>There's something going on in my head for a while, it's that I have hard time
thinking why mass surveillance is inherently bad. I agree with that, but I
try to understand why. Because, as Quinn Norton and Eleanor Saitta said it in
their 30C3's talk '<a href="http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312272300_-_no_neutral_ground_in_a_burning_world_-_quinn_norton_-_eleanor_saitta.html">No neutral ground in a burning world</a>', the
surveillance is not necessarily bad.</p>

<p>If we want mutual care and mutual aid to work - and really, I think it's
mandatory in the world I want to live in - then we need surveillance. To keep
tabs on each other just to know if they're OK, or if they need something.</p>

<p>So, the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the bad
thing with surveillance is not the massive amount of data collected. It's the
link made between those data and entities - human being, devices, whatever.
And that is, I think, what we call identity.</p>

<p>Some might argue that identity is what you are, but I tend to think it's more
than that. Identity is the projection of yourself in a social context, and
the your identity is not the same from the state perspective or from your
friends one.</p>

<h2>Embodiment and identity</h2>

<p>An identity is an interface between your self and other selves. It can be a
login on a computer system, a social security number, or any other features.
The Guy Fawkes mask is one of them for instance, as well as a lots of memes -
but more on that later - and this interface is what we usually call a body.</p>

<p>A body (including the way it is dressed) is, in the meatspace, how people
will identify me. My friends recognize me because of my body (and not because
I give them my social security number). But in this networked world, you're
body has been augmented.</p>

<p>Your socials networks (Facebook profile, twitter stream, G+ account,
whatever) is just that. A big pile of data that became your unique body on
those networks. Same goes for the medical system, your personal medical
record is your body in there - and yes it include description of your flesh
and blood body.</p>

<p>And, for what it matters, the state, by giving you ID papers and forcing you
to have them with you at all time, including biometrics to check that you're
really the good version of you (yes, a picture is a biometric identification
system) gave you an identity.</p>

<p>And this is where it starts to suck big time. Whatever we wanna do today,
you're asked for a proof - a link - of identity. More and more content you
check online require you to be authenticated using one identity or another,
and since everything is logged, it's added to your identity and to your body
without your consent or your knowledge.</p>

<p>And every time you're forced to use an identity (to get money from your bank
account, to prove your ID to a cop, to watch that porn), you're forced into
a body. And that's why registration sucks. Each time you have to login or
decline an identity somewhere, you have to endorse a body on which you have
less and less control.</p>

<p>As the feminist says: "My body, my rules." It should apply on all forms of
body, including the ones made of data.</p>

<h1>Symbolism and memes</h1>

<h2>Symbol</h2>

<p>Before going further, I need to define what a symbol - or an icon - is. I'm
not a specialist in symbolism or else, but still. Symbols are ides
compression system. When you see one of them, you instantly access to a lot
of ideas and concepts linked to it - of course those ideas will depend on
your past and on the events you've gone through - and that's why symbols can
be extremely powerful. They are to ideas and memes what gzip is to text, a
fast way to deliver memes.</p>

<p>And occult enthusiast loves the symbols because their meaning depends on your
cultural background. Take the svastika for instance. If you've got an
hinduist or buddhist background, a north-westernenr one or if you're a
raëlian, it does not deserve the same message. And occultists loves the
hidden meaning of symbols, after all occultism is all about the hidden
meaning. What's the hidden meaning of this bird fly, of those tea leafs, or
any other stupid sign they try to interpret and give meaning to.</p>

<h2>Symbol and bodies</h2>

<p>Adding symbols to your body is, usually, a good way to tell a lot of things
to the entities interacting with you. Wearing those buttons of the CCC or EFF
basically explain to those who have the cultural background that I support
them.</p>

<p>The hidden meaning of symbols and the fact that they're senseless is also
extremely interesting. That's how antisocial and oppressed groups identify
themselves. Christian during the early age of roman empire, used to use fish
as a way to identify themselves. Nowadays fascists wear some specific
clothes, or use some symbols (like the celtic cross) to be able to identify
themselves but not being flagged as a fascist (while having a nazi cross
tattooed on their forehead will makes us identify them as nazi).</p>

<p>So tattoos, clothes, buttons, avatars, quotes, and all those memetic shortcuts
you wear on your body do tell to people what you claims to be or think. And
that's why we spend some time to think about how we look, that's because
those symbols will unzip themselves in people thoughts when they'll meet us.
Your body - and then your identity - tells a lot to the people you interact
with. And that's why it's important for you to get in control of your body.</p>

<p>I mean, you wouldn't allow somehow to tattoo that nazi cross on your
forehead. So, you shouldn't let a government or a corporation labels you as,
for instance, a radical lefty or a LGBTIQ militant if you do not want it.</p>

<p>However, some symbols have became so powerful tat they now have entire
identities attached to them. Take the Guy Fawkes mask. Seeing one makes you
think Anonymous (and can recall V for Vendetta) and Anonymous is an identity.
It's a body you can wear at any given time it's even its purpose.</p>

<h2>Uniforms</h2>

<p>And yes, there's a lot of these kind of body you can wear to represent
specific ideas. You reject your identity to embrace one another. For instance
the UPS delivery guy is not someone specific. He is UPS. While wearing this
brown body, driving this brow truck, he become UPS and all that this
represent or can represent.</p>

<p>Wearing a uniform denies your identity and makes yourself part of another
body. That's why cops and soldier have them. To identify themselves, for us
to identify them as the function they serves (and not as specific
individuals), and to differentiate from their enemies.</p>

<p>That's also why anarchists and others tend to have a uniform (hell, black
flag is a strong symbol, and nowadays most of them wears black hoodies and
scarf to hide their faces) it allow them to abandon their identities and to
wear another one.</p>

<p>Wearing a symbol or a uniform also makes you part of a community. I mean, the
Apple is a sign of belonging to the Apple values (elitism, lack of control,
wealth, coolness) as well as wearing a latin cross will give you the feeling
to belong to the christianity, or wearing those branded shoes will makes you
part of a community. Or makes you think you are.</p>

<p>But mostly, uniforms are a form of abandoning your identity to merge yourself
in a crowd of more or less likely minded people. That's why I tend to think
they can be dangerous. When you start having people all wearing the same
symbols with or without understanding all the implication a symbol might have
- not everyone have the same cultural background - you start to have a
uniform appearing.</p>

<p>And wearing a uniform is abandoning your identity to became another.</p>

<h1>The link with surveillance?</h1>

<p>So, you have your body. Some part you control, some you don't (basically
everything that's in the cloud - which is a technical term meaning I don't
give a shit about what happens to those data).</p>

<p>The ones you control is not the problem here. The problem here is the one you
don't control anymore. Different entities are associating ideas, tags,
identification mark all over your body - think tattoo here - for different
kind of purposes. To tailor some services, advertisement or - as the event in
Kiev show us - to classify you as a dissident.</p>

<p>You have no control on that. Those organisms use those (meta)data to build an
identity and to link it to your others identities. And if you control the
identity - hence the body - you control the people.</p>

<p>You make them wear a uniform they don't even know about, or understand. You
transform them from individuals to part of something else they have to
conform to, because wearer of uniforms do not disobey or they're stripped of
it. And since it's cool to wear it, you do not want to lose it.</p>

<p>And yes, this identity imply that you'll comply with what it means. From the
state point of view, building identities allow them to sort between good and
bad citizens. And to expose the bad ones as bad citizens and you don't want
to be the bad guy - except for the sociopath.</p>

<p>So, you'll do everything you can to conform. To obey. To stay in it, to
deserve your uniform of good citizenship. And then to abandon your self for
the one you're told to wear. And that's where mass surveillance sucks. It's
not about the amount of data collected which can be useful (asks an
epidemiologist to work without data collected on the whole earth for
instance). It's not even about surveillance (knowing a disaster is happening
and reacting to it is, generally, a good thing). It's the identity building
that sucks.</p>

<p>Enforced identity is quite new as a concept in the human history. And each
time a state have provided citizens with ID-card, it was for controlling them
(yeah, in France we have them since the Vichy government), not for making
their life easier.</p>

<p>And in that connected era, states aren't the only on to gather data and to
attributes ID. Twitter nickname, Google and Facebook ID, all of them are more
and more used to connect to other services. And yeah, it means they want to
have control over you. And for you to wear the identity they've chosen for
you.</p>

<hr />


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Responsability_of_teaching/
title: You have responsibility when you're doing training or teaching
uri: You-have-responsibility-when-you-re-doing-training-or-teaching
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Responsability_of_teaching/
content:
<h1>About learning and teaching</h1>

<h3>And maybe doing it right</h3>

<p>So, I happens to have accidentally bootstrapped a sort of collective to
"organize" cryptoparties in Paris (<a href="https://chiffrofete.fr">See Here</a>).
It's quite cool because then, you know, I can skip some of them to actually
get some rest when I'm on holiday.</p>

<p>Things works more or less smooth, but I have some issues with the way it
looks like now. It's not something easy to say, because it's probably
my fault - at least I do have some responsibilities - but we have some
attitude issues among some of the co organizers. I hope it's nothing that
can't be fixed and we will try to talk about it and see how it evolves.</p>

<p>However, the more I think about it, the more I think we didn't talked enough
about what teaching or do training actually is. And what are some
responsibilities you have to endorse and accept when going in front of a
group of people and try to have then learn new things, be it chemistry,
astrophysics, politics or - in this case - cryptography and privacy.</p>

<p>So, as usual, I'm gonna brain dump here. Not sure if it will make sense or if
I'm right, but I think people who wanna do some training might think about what
it implies for them and for the people they'll train.</p>

<h1>Desorganised and non-planned</h1>

<p>This how we kept cryptoparties organised around here.
Everyone of good will is welcome to helps, there's no skill prerequisite, no
resume checking. We all do that on our free time and we try to remain between
friends, so it implies a lot of parties (the
<a href="http://theconnectivist.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/the-werebuild-manifesto/">Telecomix</a>
way of doing things) and sometime some harsh talk on a mailing list. But it's
how I like it.</p>

<p>I started those workshops at le Loop, because I wanted to explore technology
I did not understand completely at that time, and I prefer doing that in
group. The fact that it became a sort of institution is an accident and was
never planned.</p>

<p>So, when we throw up a new cryptoparty, we follow the <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/Chaos_workshop_Howto">Chaos workshop
Howto</a> and we mostly tries to know who will
be there and who can train on what topic, then ask the question to the
people who have gathered here "<em>What do you wanna explore?</em>"</p>

<p>And it was far from perfect, but at least it worked for a while. But now, we
have some issues. Those issues are basically because we never talked between
us of what knowledge transmission implies.</p>

<h1>Cognitive biases ans Argument of authorities</h1>

<p>First thing to acknowledge is that, when you put yourself in a trainer
position, you have an immense power. You are the expert, the authority, the
person who knows, and what you will say will be accepted like The Truth (with
capital letters) by your audience.</p>

<p>It means that you need to be extra cautious regarding this power, because -
has Peter Parker states it - with great power there is also great
responsibility. Not to be exhaustive, or to be flawless, but to be as much
flawless as you can toward the knowledge you're trying to transmit.</p>

<p>Especially in the case where you train activists. Those people basically will
use this knowledge in life or death situations and you must do everything you
can to avoid them having wrong ideas about what they're doing.</p>

<p>This is YOUR responsibility. You must know what you know and what you do not,
you must accept that you can't know everything and says when you can't find an
answer to a question (and note it and then look later for the answer).
You can't be good enough or approximative. You must be excellent. If you
can't, you should not do this training.</p>

<p>And yes you have internet to help you. When you don't know, do not hesitate
to fire up a web browser and search for the answer. That way, the people
you're training will learn how they can get better at understanding things.
In the crypoparty context that's also why I like doing them in pair. One can
correct the other or helps when difficulties arises, and everyone is
getting better at doing it.</p>

<p>That's also why when I want to explore a new tool, I say upfront that I do
not now how it works, but I want to find out how it works. And we dig deeper
and deeper, while exploring.</p>

<p>That's also why I do not teach the math behind cryptography, because I do not
understand them fully (and that's also why I'm not writing crypto code), so
it's hard for me to explain how they works besides rough generalities.</p>

<p>But - and that's the important part - few people will question you. After
all, you're the person who have the knowledge, and they crave for it, they
want it. So, it's YOUR job to make sure that you won't teach them errors.</p>

<h1>Inclusiveness and accessibility</h1>

<p>This part is more directed toward cryptoparties. It's already a hard place
for people to come to a cryptoparty, the name is scary - and that's why we
brand them Café Vie Privée or Privacy Café here - so we need to be the more
polite, accessible and inclusive as possible.</p>

<p>It means that you should avoid to patronize people and accept their
questions, and weirdness. It also means that when you have to pick up
examples, analogies, and things like that, you really should avoid stereotypes
because it only creates more stereotypes.</p>

<p>That's also why you shouldn't do level oriented groups. Or use terms like
n00bs. It's exclusive, it confront people to their lack of knowledge in a
specific area (while they can probably teach you a lot of things from their
experience).</p>

<p>The fact that our cryptoparties here are mostly ran by white cis-male is
already a big issue. If you use sexist example or assume that people -
because they're female - are the ones who do not know a thing about crypto,
you will have an issue.</p>

<p>And it's not even because you're an asshole. It's still because you have the
authority, and it have some powerful side-effects. If you tell to people
that they're fantastic and that they're making progress, that it doesn't
matter if they fail now, etc., then they'll be amazing. On the other end, if
you think of them as n00bs and lamers who sucks at understanding basic tech
because you knew it all before, then they'll stay that way.</p>

<p>So always think of inclusion of everyone. Including the weirdest people
you'll see. Or the one you're not comfortable with. You don't have a choice,
if you want to share your knowledge, you should share it with the biggest
number possible of entities, and then you shouldn't assume anything about
their lives.</p>

<h1>Stay humble</h1>

<p>And that leads to our last part. Stay humble. You might know a lot of things
about the topic you're about to talk, or you wouldn't or shouldn't do it. But
all the other people around you - including the co organisers - are also more
or less expert on some topics, sometime even the topic you're going to teach.</p>

<p>And you'll always be in a de-facto authority, so do not brag about all the
things you did. You do not need to justify yourself, if people came they
already trust you to be good at what you're going to train them. You do not
need to confront them to their lack of knowledge.</p>

<p>And if you're doing it with a collective - which is best, parties are better
when there's more than one person partying - you need to work with the
collectives. Different people have different views on the same topic, that's
why it's interesting to work with them. They will also helps you when' you're
in difficulty, or helps you getting things together when your world will
inevitably fall apart.</p>

<p>And it's important in such a collective to not have to big of an ego, to
accept to step back. Yes, you can promote your own projects because they're
cool, they can help people and the like. But you have to accept that,
sometimes, someone else want to speak, or try to do things a different way,
because we're all learning how to transmit knowledge, and sometimes we need
to experiment.</p>

<p>So yeah, you should listen at your co-organisers. But you must also listen at
your trainees. They have questions and problematics you can't anticipate. And
since you're not doing a lecture, you need to interact, to accept their view,
to try to get in their shoes, because there's a reason for that question you
judge stupid.</p>

<p>Also, you need to transmit all the keys you may have to knowledge. It means
that you, for instance, when you're demonstrating a new crypto-tool you like,
you should explain what each available options are and what are the
differences, but also why you recommend using this specific set of options.
You have a reason for doing so, so explain it.</p>

<p>And be patient. I mean, I'm doing help desk for a living (or well, part of my
job is doing help desk) I can assure you that most of the people who will
voluntarily come to one training are willing to learn. But they need to
understand things, and sometimes you will need to answer the same questions
many times. It means you need to rephrase until the trainee understand. And
yes it's exhausting. But it's nothing like help desk, so be patient.</p>

<h1>Conclusion?</h1>

<p>So yes, if you want to train people, you have responsibility toward them. You
must think about that, you're basically messing with their lives. It's easy to
scare them, and have them run away, but that's not your job. Your job is to
give them enough keys and support for them to walk then run then do a
back-flip.</p>

<p>And it needs some prerequisite. Be humble. Know where your knowledge stop. Be
inclusive. If you're not, and if it happens when I'm around, I will probably
rush into you and slaps you around with a big trout.</p>

<p>Training is a serious matter. It can be done in fun ways, but it must be done
in a way that will manage trainees to be trained (and, one day, they'll
became trainers too, which is an excellent things and helps you stepping back
from everything).</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/GMX_And_Security/
title: GMX, Security and Privacy.
uri: GMX-Security-and-Privacy
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/GMX_And_Security/
content:
<h1>Once upon a time</h1>

<p>I have this friend - <a href="https://twitter.com/Milou_la_relou">Milou</a>. She's going
to be a good journalist, and she worked a lot for NGOs during her studies.
Hence she travelled a lot. As a NGO worker and apprentice journalists, she
travelled in … hmmm … interesting places, and a country in particular - let's
call it Zoukinistan.</p>

<p>You've probably heard about Zoukinistan, it's one of these countries the US -
and part of EU - are at war with, and where those almighty
democracies<sup>Wpowers</sup> tried to create a Democracy they own.</p>

<p>So, this woman was going there, doing a job of getting in touch with local
activists, reporting human right violations, doing journalisms, stuff like
that. And she met there a lot of interesting people.</p>

<p>Not all these people are on the side our governments are comfortable
dealing with. Not necessarily warlords or fundamentalists either. They
probably just don't want any more foreign interferences in their country. Yeah,
the ones governments probably call terrorists. Or enemies. Or just
those who want to expose corruption of their US backed government.</p>

<p>So, as a journalist, she maintains contact with those. No one knows
when the next things to expose will blow up. And since she's quite aware of
all the NSA doing nasty things on US hosted servers - essentially trying to
graph people in contact with this kind of activists - she goes for a non-US
based email provider, and a free one.</p>

<p>And then GMX entered the dance.</p>

<p>Since Milou knows me, and since I worked a bit with her, she uses Tor, OTR,
and free softwares. And I think she understands why it's needed, and why she
needs to protect her sources.</p>

<p>So, she created an account on <a href="https://gmx.com">https://gmx.com</a> and used the webmail using
Tor, naively thinking GMX - being a German company - would protect her
communications.</p>

<p>It appears that GMX is part of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/United_Internet">United
Internet</a>, a German holding which
also owns 1&amp;1 and mail.com. And they own 7 datacenters in the EU and the US
according to their <a href="http://www.united-internet.de/en/company.html">about
page</a>. So they have data on
US soil, under the Patriot Act - and you definitely don't want to have
data there if you try to protect sources from US Gov. But nothing says that the
former French Caramail they bought and became part of gmx.com is hosted there -
in fact, and for strict latency reasons, I think they'll leave it in EU soil, just
to have good performances.</p>

<p>Anyway, let's put those considerations aside for now.</p>

<p>So, Milou and her friend exchange emails using GMX. I'll skip the fact
https is not enabled by default. Or that they implemented it quite late between
servers - after all, Google did it only after NSA had leaked a nice post-it - it's not
really that important since, after all, all emails are probably stored in
clear text on a corporation server.</p>

<p>However, Germany, home nation of GMX, is involved in military and security mission
in Zoukinistan. We also now that <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/gchq-and-nsa-targeted-private-german-companies-a-961444.html">NSA did infiltrate German Internet
companies</a>
and that the German secrete services do <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/02/angela_merkel_surveillance_proposal_germany_is_hypocritical_about_the_nsa.html">cooperate with
NSA</a>.</p>

<p>And then the Milou's GMX account has been closed for <a href="https://twitter.com/Milou_la_relou/status/461485668779053057">security
reasons</a>. Since
the IT support doesn't provide any details and that I could not find anywhere on the net
anything related to closing of the accounts if used via Tor - even if they
made it hard for anyone to do so - and given the lack of security on their
side, I think that it must be read as <em>national security</em> reasons.</p>

<p>My guess is that GMX has been required to terminate this account because it
represented a threat to <em>national security</em>.</p>

<p>The interesting part would be to know which nation asked for it. Could be
France (Caramail which became GMX.com was French after all), US since they
would not like my friend to chat with a <em>terrorist</em> or the German wanting the
same thing.</p>

<p>I don't know. Hard to find evidence when the tech people in the company
refuse to provide any. And that's weird. They could have pretended
some unusual traffic came from Milou's computer - unusual meaning in this
case via Tor and Ubuntu - or that they detected some attack and the account
had to be terminated, or anything else.</p>

<p>But no, they just "can't answer", won't provide any email backup, nor even
any support. I don't like drawing conclusions without facts, but it really
seems like someone read those emails and have GMX close this specific
account.</p>

<p>Coincidence?</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/MakeDataloveNotCyberwar/
title: Make Datalove Not Cyberwar
uri: Make-Datalove-Not-Cyberwar
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/MakeDataloveNotCyberwar/
content:
<p><em>Note</em> This post will be in French, since it's what I used as notes
for my talk at <a href="http://about.okhin.fr//passageneseine.org">Pas Sage en Seine 2014</a> in Paris.</p>

<h1>Make Datalove</h1>

<h2>Internet n'est pas un territoire</h2>

<p>Internet n'est pas un territoire. Un territoire est un espace géographique
et implique l'existence de frontière ou de limite quelconque. Or Internet est
une machine hybride composée d'humain et de machines, connectées sans limite
de par le monde - ou presque - et créant à l'infini de l'information.</p>

<p>Internet est infini. En tant qu'espace d'information et donc de culture, il
n'a pas de limite. L'ensemble des mèmes peuvent cohabiter sur Internet, sans
jamais épuiser les ressources d'Internet.</p>

<p>C'est en fait beaucoup plus proche de la notion d'espace mathématique que de
territoire géographique. C'est un ensemble composé de cultures, d'idées, de
mèmes, d'informations - au sens de la théorie de l'information, et qui repose
sur la libre circulation de celle-ci.</p>

<h3>Internet is not broken</h3>

<p>En tant que système d'échange d'information, Internet fonctionne parfaitement.
Il ne garantis pas la confidentialité des échanges, ni la sécurité des
machines ou des personne, mais il garanti que l'échange et, l'accès à
l'information est possible. Il garanti également que n'importe qui ou
n'importe quelle machine peut s'y connecter, le seul pré requis est
simplement de parler IP. A aucun moment il n'est demandé une preuve de
confiance ou d'identité à une machine, ni n'est éxigé autre chose que de
parler IP.</p>

<p>Internet fonctionne parfaitement. Il fonctionne même tellement bien qu'il y a
plusieurs milliards de personnes connectées. Il fonctionne même tellement
bien que partout dans le monde - ou presque - des personnes de tout milieu
social, de toutes cultures, de tout niveau d'éducation, s'en servent pour
communiquer.</p>

<p>Et je dis ça en ayant conscience de parler à un évènement où, sur 61
conférenciers, il n'y a que 5 femmes - et une seule à un talk où elle est
seule à parler. Et en sachant parfaitement que des continents entiers ne sont
pas présents sur Internet, ou que l'accès aux machines permettant l'accès à
Internet reste encore trop souvent un privilège des classes sociales
supérieures.</p>

<h3>We are</h3>

<p>Ce qui est cassé ce n'est pas Internet. Ce qui est cassé c'est nous. Les
barbus auto proclamés gourous des internets, cyber hactivistes, hackers,
sysadmin et autre. Ce qui est cassé ce sont nos égos, nos réactions de
sociopathes nihilistes face à un problème politique et social. Ce qui est
cassé c'est notre absence de réaction politique, imbus de nous mêmes que
nous sommes et confortés dans notre idée que nous sauverons le monde grâce
aux machines.</p>

<p>Nous n'avons pas besoin de CaliOPen ou de mailpile. D'OTR ou de GPG. De libre
ou open SSL. Nous n'avons pas besoins d'appel à prendre les armes ou de nous
écrire des lettres. Nous n'avons pas besoin de dire aux gens que s'ils ne
sont pas capables de faire de la crypto et de la gestion de clef
correctement alors nous ne pouvons pas les aider. Nous n'avons pas besoin de
l'attitude arrogante qui consiste à penser que tout le monde est capable de
comprendre la documentation que nous ne sommes pas capables d'écrire.</p>

<p>Certains d'entre nous veulent changer le monde. Et c'est une bonne chose.
Certains veulent un monde dans lequel les communications sont par défaut
ultra sécurisées, établis entre pairs de confiance, et avec la possibilité
d'exclure les nœuds dangereux pour le réseau de manière permanente et selon
un consensus autoritaire.</p>

<p>Ils partent du principe que la surveillance de masse, effectuées par les
états nations ou corporatistes, est une violente atteinte à la démocratie et
à la vie privée et que, de la même manière que le pair à pair permet
l'échange d'information de manière décentralisée, fluide et sans autorité
centrale, la protection de la vie privée et de l'intimité ne peut se résoudre
que techniquement.</p>

<p>Pourquoi pas, mais réfléchissons y deux minutes. Si nous voulons reconstruire
un réseau qui garantisse la sécurité et la confidentialité des
communications, cela veux dire que nous ne pouvons communiquer qu'avec des
nœuds approuvés par le réseau. Cela implique - entre autre - que tout nouvel
arrivant doit prouver qu'il est de confiance.</p>

<p>Fini l'arrivée sur le réseau Internet par la simple attribution d'une
adresse IP. Il va falloir prouver que l'on est "trustable". Il va falloir
prouver au reste du réseau que l'on est bien comme il faut. Que la machine
utilisée est sûre, respecte la dernière norme du protocole, et dispose de
matériel ne compromettant pas l'intégrité du réseau.</p>

<p>Vous imaginez une société basée sur cette norme? Seules les personnes pensant
comme il faut, n'ayant pas d'idée dangereuse, ne compromettant pas le
consensus, ne remettant pas en question l'ordre établi, seraient autorisées à
faire partie de la société, les autres seraient contraintes à un exil, à un
isolement forcé?</p>

<p>En gros, vouloir un réseau de communications entièrement fiable et sécurisé,
empêchant toute interception de communication, et dans lequel il y a des
garanties que le message est bien délivré à son seul destinataire, reviens à
créer des réseaux soit déconnectés les uns des autres, soit inutilisables par
des personnes non encore connectées au réseau, ou ne pouvant pas se permettre
une connexion. Cela reviens à créer une élite qui seule décide de qui accède
au réseau et comment.</p>

<p>Une élite qui aurait le pouvoir de choisir qui doit se connecter et qui ne
doit pas se connecter, basé sur des critère qu'elle est seule à formuler et
comprendre. Je n'appelle pas vraiment ça un système démocratique. Du moins ça
l'est encore moins que celui du fonctionnement actuel d'internet.</p>

<h3>Make Datalove</h3>

<p>Alors oui, il y a des problèmes. L'espionnage massif de la population par des
états corporatistes ou nationaux - parce que ne croyez pas que c'est la NSA
l'ennemi. L'asservissement volontaire au cool et le "choix" d'abandonner ses
libertés au profit d'un objet. La réduction de la sphère privée et de
l'intime, souvent sans en avoir conscience.</p>

<p>Mais ce n'est pas un problème technique. Le journalisme d'investigation n'a
jamais su faire de l'OpSec, pas depuis le Viètnam. Ça ne l'a jamais empêché
de faire son boulot. Les manifestants et activistes du monde entier utilisent
des outils non sûr pour communiquer, mais ils communiquent et s'organisent
quand même - peu importe qu'ils aillent en taule. Le problème ce n'est pas
tellement de les protéger, ils prennent de toutes façon des risques
monstrueux.</p>

<p>Le problème c'est de combattre les mèmes de la sécurité, de la peur, de
l'espionnage. Et ce n'est pas avec plus de sécurité qu'on y arrivera. IL
suffit de voir les différents ratage de la surveillance. Si on attrape pas
telle personne en dépit des caméras de surveillance, c'est qu'il n'y en a pas
suffisamment, il faut en rajouter, ce n'est pas parce que le système est
inefficace.</p>

<p>Le problème c'est que ce n'est pas quelque chose qu'un outil logiciel
résoudra - aussi bien conçu soit il. Même si on était capable de créer des
systèmes de chiffrements point à point qui ne nécessitent pas d'intervention de
l'utilisateur et que l'ensemble des bibliothèques logicielles sur lesquelles
ils se baseraient soient exemptes de failles - ce qui est impossible - il
resterait toujours le problème de la surveillance des communications
périphériques, de la compromission des terminaux ou des utilisateurs qui
iraient coller sur Facebook le contenu d'une conversation privée.</p>

<p>Le problème est politique et il ne se règlera que par une ou plusieurs
solution politique. Il est temps que cette élite auto proclamée de barbus des
internets redescende de son arbre à chat d'ivoire et aille au contact de
celleux qui utilisent Internet, de celleux qui mènent des combats pour leurs
droits à eux, mais aussi aux autres.</p>

<p>Il est temps d'arrêter de croire que des ordinateurs et des câbles vont sauver
le monde. Déjà, parce que Internet ce n'est pas que des ordinateurs et des
câbles, mais aussi les personnes qui s'en servent. Ensuite parce qu'il y a
encore énormément de zone dans le monde où ces câbles n'existent pas. Enfin,
parce que tant que l'on s'agite uniquement sur le net, et qu'on ne se sert pas
des outils créés et utilisés par d'autres groupes militants, cela n'inquiètes
pas les super puissance. Il faut arrêter de défendre nos droits sur internet,
il faut défendre nos droits tout court, sur les territoires que nous
occupons.</p>

<p>Et nous ne sommes pas seuls. Nous avons inventés des moyens d'actions
efficaces - ou pas - qui permettent de créer du momentum médiatique, nous
avons testés d'autres façon de manifester, mais nous sommes restés entre
nous. Les groupes de défenses des droits - ce que l'on appelle la société
civile au sens large - existent depuis avant Internet. Certains sont entrés
dans la danse et utilisent merveilleusement cet outil social, d'autres non.</p>

<p>Nous espérons quoi, que ces groupes qui ne comprennent pas cet outil que nous
avons construit, formé, déformé, et avec lequel nous faisons parfois des
trucs géniaux viennent spontanément s'en servir comme nous l'entendons et
fassent ce que nous voulons que ces groupes fassent? Ces groupes, mouvements,
ont une histoire de militant. Ils se sont souvent formés dans la douleur et
ont tous inventés des façons différentes d'agir. Ils savent comment ils
veulent militer, ils expérimentent de nouvelles façon de résister. Qui sommes
nous pour leur dire comment ils doivent défendre leur cause?</p>

<p>Ce n'est pas à eux de venir vers nous, c'est à nous d'aller vers eux,
d'écouter ce qu'ils ont à dire, leurs histoire, leurs outils, leurs problèmes
et les solutions qu'ils ont trouvés pour les résoudre. Au lieu de râler que
tel groupe utilise gmail, allez les voir, allez discuter, allez échanger. Ils
ont des trucs à vous apprendre. Et peut-être que ce n'est pas si grave qu'ils
utilisent Gmail au final ou peut-être que vous pourrez démarrer un cluster
avec eux etd 'autres groupes qui se partagerons des ressources techniques et
qu'ils se passeront de Gmail à terme.</p>

<p>Nous n'avons pas pour but d'être le centre de support des activistes. Et ils
n'en ont pas besoin. En revanche nous savons tous qu'internet est fondamental
pour la liberté d'expression, de communication et d'organisation. Nous savons
tous que cet outil social peut transcender les frontières, les différences de
classe, de langue, d'origine, de religion et autres pour construire de belle
choses.</p>

<p>Et c'est notre devoir à nous, utilisacteurs d'internet, hacker ou pas, barbus
ou pas, hipster, geeks, nerds ou pas de défendre cet outil. Et c'est notre
devoir à nous en tant qu'être humains de défendre nos droits, et cela ne
peut se faire qu'en défendant les droits de tout le monde. Avec tout le
monde.</p>

<h3>Télécommunisme et Cryptoanarchisme</h3>

<p>Le Télécommunisme consiste simplement à cinsidérer le réseau physique comme
un bien commun. Non pas le contenu, pas Internet, mais le net. Les réseaux,
les fils, les signaux, les données. Pas les gens qui s'en servent, mais le
réseau.</p>

<p>C'est penser qu'il n'y a pas nécessairement besoin d'un consensus pour le
faire fonctionner, du moment qu'il fonctionne. Bien sûr les standards et
autres RFC sont nécessaire, comme tout organisme complexe, les différentes
parties de cet organisme ont besoin de discuter entre elles, de connaitre
leur statut et de pouvoir s'adapter à des défaillances locales. Certains
organismes ont choisit la centralisation dans des centres nerveux, d'autres
distribuent ces centre nerveux - insectes, céphalopodes -, d'autres enfin
collaborent carrément avec des organismes étrangers afin d'assurer leur
survie - siphonophores.</p>

<p>La "gouvernance" du réseau n'existe pas. Il y a certes quelques organes qui
pensent avoir réellement de l'influence, mais globalement le réseau
fonctionne parce que des personnes mettent en commun leurs compétences et
ressources pour que cela fonctionne. Il y a même des allumés qui remettent le
réseau en route quand les organes officiels le coupent localement.</p>

<p>Nous sommes capable de gérer un des plus gros outils de communication comme
un bien commun. Sans avoir de gouvernement, sans s'embêter des heures à
prendre des décisions, sans se soucier non plus de l'utilité des actions
entreprises. Nous gérons pour tous ce réseau, qui est l'épine dorsale de
l'Internet et qui permet à tout ces cerveaux de s'échanger des informations.</p>

<p>La Cryptoanarchie est une théorie mathématique qui établit que si l'ensemble
des communications sont chiffrées, il est impossible de distinguer le bruit
et l'information dans le signal. Et donc de détecter une communication, ou
d'en intercepter une.</p>

<p>Pour que cette théorie fonctionne, il faut que les outils de chiffrement
soient massivement adoptés. Et tant qu'ils ne le seront pas, il n'y aura pas
de cryptoanarchie. Penser que, parce qu'un outil existe, il est utilisé est
une erreur. Il faut que l'outil soit le moins invasif possible, non
désactivable, documenté et libre, et qu'il puisse fonctionner sur toutes les
plateformes auxquels cet outil est destiné.</p>

<p>Tout ce qui amène à avoir juste un groupe de gens seuls capables de chiffrer,
qu'il s'agisse de gouvernement faisant usage de lois de régulation de la
cryptographi, d'entreprise déposant des brevets sur les techniques de
chiffrement ou usant de logiciels propriétaires, ou d'une bande de nihiliste
qui ne veut pas faire d'interface utilisable par tout le monde reviens au
même.</p>

<p>Seuls une élite est capable de chiffrer et donc de se protéger. De créer une
asymétrie dans l'information en étant seuls capables d'avoir des secrets, et
donc d'obtenir un pouvoir sur toutes les autres entités non capables de
chiffrer. C'est ce que l'on appelle le crypto fascisme.</p>

<p>Et je suis inquiet quand je vois l'attitude d'une partie de la communauté
hacker ou de la scène infosec. Quand certaines personnes envoient balader
des débutants et des débutantes parce qu'ielles n'ont pas comprises la
documentation pour installer ou configurer certains outils.</p>

<p>Oui, nous autres, peuples des intertubes, sommes parfaitement capables
d'appliquer le Télécommunisme, de gérer de manière décentralisée, et
intéressante, l'un des systèmes les plus complexe jamais créé par l'homme. EN
revanche, nous nous plantons dès qu'il s'agît de fournir à chacun les clefs
nécessaire à son indépendance, dès qu'il s'agît de permettre à chaque
individu de pouvoir se débrouiller seul, il y a beaucoup moins de monde.</p>

<p>Alors que justement, Internet est à propos de l'émancipation, de la prise de
conscience et de pouvoir nécessaire à chacune et chacun pour pouvoir essayer
de créer son monde comme il l'entend. Internet est plus qu'un bien commun. Il
repose sur un bien commun, mais il est au-delà de ça. Il permet la création
de nouvelles formes de société, de nouvelles formes de médias, de nouvelles
formes de communications.</p>

<p>Et si l'on se contente du Télécommunisme, si l'on se contente de la
Cryptoanarchie, alors nous ratons quelque chose. Il faut se poser la question
de l'application de nos modes de gestions technique à nos modes de gestions
sociaux. Nous avons inventer des outils qui permettent des échanges non
commerciaux, qui permettent de vivre de sa passion, qui permettent une
transmission d'info gigantesque. Et nous voulons sacrifier ça pour aller
faire la guerre?</p>

<h1>Not Cyberwar</h1>

<h2>Je suis peut-être un bisounours mais</h2>

<p>Je pense qu'utiliser les mèmes de la guerre n'est pas nous rendre service.
Une guerre c'est une territorialisation. C'est l'instauration de frontière,
de limitation de ressources, et à minima de l'occupation de celles-ci par une
puissance quelconque.</p>

<p>Parler de guerre, c'est admettre une territorilisation d'internet. Ce qui
permet de le découper, de le balkaniser. De créer des clouds souverains, des
réseaux nationaux et autre genre de chose qui ont pour but de casser le flot
de donnée, de créer de plus petite entités plus facile à contrôler, plus
indépendantes des autres, sans lien facile entre elles. Et personne ne veut
ça. Personne ne veut que la circulation de l'information soit contrôlée, que
ce soit par un gouvernement ou une autre élite technologique.</p>

<h3>Arrêtons l'appel aux armes</h3>

<p>Il est donc temps d'arrêter l'appel aux armes. D'essayer de réparer ce qui
n'est pas cassé, ou de vouloir réparer ce qui est cassé au-delà du réparable.
Refusons la sémantique guerrière. Nous ne sommes pas des cyber guerriers.
Nous ne vivons pas dans un cyber territoire. Nous n'avons pas de cyber armes,
ou de cyber gouvernement. La guerre est un jeu qu'on ne peut gagner qu'en
refusant de participer.</p>

<p>Vous voudrez sans doute parler de guerre asymétrique, de guérillas. Mais ça
reste de l'épuisement de ressources, ça reste de la guerre, de l'occupation,
de la destruction, de la raréfication de ressources. Arrêtons de parler de
cyberguerre. C'est complètement destructif et contre-productif.</p>

<p>Nous ne sommes de toutes façon pas une armée, si nous en étions une, nous
aurions une chaîne de commandement - elle peut très bien être décentralisée -
des uniformes, du recrutement, des opérations. La création et la mise en
place d'une armée, consiste de toute façon à créer une élite. Ouip, Anonymous
ressemble à une armée. Du moins, de l'extérieur, cela ressemble à une armée.
Certes décentralisée et distribuée, mais une armée quand même. Ce n'est pas
tout Anonymous, nous savons bien que cela est pus complexe, et que cette
armée est plus une image médiatique construite pour valider la cyber guerre,
et donc la territorialisation du net. Et donc son occupation.</p>

<p>Mais pire encore, vous savez pourquoi les US et l'UE s'engagent dans tant de
conflits? Pas pour défendre les intérêts des peuples. Mais pour justifier les
budgets accordés aux entreprises privées qui leurs fournissent du matériel,
des munitions, du renseignements. Pour pouvoir ensuite bénéficier de juteux
contrats de reconstructions.</p>

<p>Si vous voulez jouer à la guerre, vous devez avoir des moyens vaguement
équivalent à votre adversaire. En soldat, en armes et/ou en argent (ce
dernier permettant de régler les deux autres). En face, nous avons d'une part
des états nations paranoïaques qui ont plusieurs milliards de dollars à
consacrer à ça, et des entreprises qui reçoivent des budgets toujours plus
gros. Vous croyez vraiment qu'avec nos logiciels libre et nos seules valeurs
nous sommes capable de gagner une guerre contre eux? Même une guerre
asymétrique? Vous êtes naïfs à ce point?</p>

<h3>Snowden, ce héros</h3>

<p>Et vous savez qui profite le plus des révélations d'Edward Snowden? Non, ce
ne sont pas les citoyens. Sinon, les organismes de surveillance auraient été
remis sous contrôle des citoyens et on commencerait à avoir des procès. Non,
ce sont les entreprises privées qui vendent de la sécurité. Pas les
entreprises US, mais les entreprises UE. Les vendeurs de sécurité.</p>

<p>Ils ne prospèrent que grâce aux vendeurs de peur. Si vous n'avez pas peur,
vous n'avez pas besoin d'acheter un système de sécurité. Or nous sommes ceux
qui parlons le plus de sécurité. Il faut de la sécurité pour avoir une vie
privée disons nous. Il faut plus de sécurité pour se protéger de l'espionnage
massif des états. Il faut plus de sécurité pour se protéger des botnets
chinois. Il faut plus de sécurité… Toujours plus de sécurité… Tout en sachant
que cette sécurité est impossible à atteindre.</p>

<p>Nous faisons le lit des entreprise privées, de groupes transnationaux et extra
territoriaux ne cherchant qu'à vendre encore plus de sécurité et donc de
peur. De groupe ne pouvant être traduit en justice, collaborant pourtant à
des crimes de guerre. Bien entendu, il y a des procès, contre des entreprises.
Les actionnaires ne seront pas inquiétés, les patrons de ces entreprises ne
seront pas personnellement mis en cause et - si jamais c'était le cas - ils
seront remplacés par d'autre. Quoique fassent ces entreprises, tant qu'elles
gagnerons du pouvoir, elles continuerons de le faire. Sans être inquiétées.</p>

<p>Cette course à la sécurité, en plus d'être vaine, ne mène qu'à de la paranoïa.
Les ennemis sont difficiles à déterminer, à distinguer, du coup tout le monde
travaille pour eux. Dans un climat ambiant de paranoïa et de défiance, il
devient impossible de faire confiance à des inconnus, il devient impossible
de travailler avec eux, il devient impossible de lancer des mouvements
nouveaux, de trouver de nouvelles manières de militer, de défier les
puissances et d'essayer de les mettre à genoux.</p>

<p>Vous vous souvenez de ce qui a fait le succès de l'internet? Le fait que
n'importe quelle machine puisse se connecter et participer au réseau sans
aucun pré requis autre que parler IP. Nul besoin de faire confiance, ou autre,
il suffit juste de se brancher. Alors oui, il y a des choses malicieuse qui
trainent sur les tubes, mais au final assez peu en rapport à toutes ces idées
qui s'échange, à tout ces mèmes culturels qui se font et se défont, à tout
ces mouvements sociaux qui s'organisent et font parler d'eux grâce à ça.</p>

<p>Utiliser les mèmes de la sécurité et de la guerre au sein de notre communauté,
c'est devenir paranoïaque. C'est refuser que quiconque, peu importe son bagage
technique, ses origines culturelles, ses connaissances du monde, puisse venir
nous parler si ielle n'a pas été validée par une chaine de confiance reconnue.</p>

<p>Et à chaque fois que vous envoyez un méprisable RTFM, ou STFU NOOB à
quelqu'un - ou un girls don't code - c'est exactement ce que vous faites. À
chaque fois que vous laissez quelqu'un quitter votre groupe parce qu'ielle ne
s'y sent pas bien, c'est exactement ce que vous faites. À chaque fois que
vous refusez - consciemment ou non - d'inclure quelqu'un, de débattre et
d'échanger avec cette personne, c'est ce que vous faites. A chaque fois que
vous refusez de prendre une position qui favoriserait l'inclusion, c'est ce
que vous faits.</p>

<p>Croire qu'il y aura un éveil massif de la population et que tout le monde
sera capable d'utiliser un terminal afin de chiffrer des mails à grand coup
de 'gpg --armor -e -r 0x00513947' c'est se mettre le doigt dans l'œil.
Profond. Cette prise de conscience massive n'arrivera pas. Et vous savez
pourquoi? Parce que nous sommes suffisant. Parce que nous pensons que nos
combats sont plus important que les autres. Parce que nous pensons qu'il est
plus important de pouvoir chiffrer ses mails en toute confiance que de
défendre les droits des femmes, des minorités, des queers. Que nous pensons
que l'espionnage massif de la NSA est plus important que le changement
climatique et que toutes celles et ceux qui ne sont pas d'accord avec nous
ne sont que des fous dangereux inconscients qui remettent en question nos
libertés.</p>

<h2>Appel à ouverture</h2>

<p>Ce qu'il nous faut c'est arrêter de nous comporter en sociopathe. Nous nous
plaignons tellement des gens qui ne reverse pas au Libre, mais nous que
reversons nous aux autres? Des outils fonctionnels, sûrs et ne mettant pas en
danger leur vie ou leurs organisations? Non. Nous ne leur apportons pas de
soutien, nous préférons leur lancer des ordres en leur disant qu'il n'y a de
salut que dans la crypto end-to-end.</p>

<p>Nous sommes persuadés que les outils actuels et le plus sûrs possible - et
oui il en existe - sont utilisable par la majorité des gens, à condition de
lire et de comprendre une documentation nécessitant un bagage technique assez
énorme. Quand la documentation existe, est traduite, est disponible. Et ces
outils sont donc inutilisables, donc non fonctionnels. Et donc du coup, les
"autres" n'utilisent pas de crypto, et nous les considérons comme stupide et
ne méritant pas notre précieux temps, nous sommes tellement meilleur qu'eux.</p>

<p>Sauf qu'internet n'est pas à propos de la crypto. La vie privée et la sphère
intime sont à propos de crypto, la vie publique - des états et des puissances
gouvernantes - aussi, mais ce n'est pas internet. Les lanceurs d'alertes
n'ont pas attendus GPG pour faire leur travail. Les journalistes non plus. Si
nous voulons changer le monde - et en tant que partie du monde nous nous
devons de le faire - ce n'est pas avec de nouveaux logiciels ou protocoles
que nous le ferons.</p>

<p>C'est en appliquant à nos structures sociales, nos communautés, les mêmes
principes que ceux qui permettent à internet de fonctionner. Gratuité d'accès,
facilité d'accès, ouverture à tous, confiance par défaut. Donc de s'ouvrir.
Et pour s'ouvrir, il faut faire plus que juste dire "Hey, viens et poses toi
là". Il faut faire en sorte que celleux qui veulent venir se sentent
accueillies.</p>

<p>Oui, ça veut dire faire des efforts pour arrêter d'être paranoïaques, imbu de
soi, ou simplement des connards. Mais en fait, en supprimant cette couche de
paranoïa, cette suspicion par défaut, les choses deviennent moins
stressante. En permettant à toutes de pouvoir participer et d'inclure tout le
monde, nous augmentons aussi les diversités, nous ajoutons des mutations à
nos mouvements cellulaires, nous pouvons découvrir de nouveau moyen
d'actions, découvrir de nouvelles problématiques, se développer, construire
des liens forts, développer une communauté, un groupe social qui partage
réellement et qui prend soin de lui.</p>

<p>C'est ce que fait la Quadrature dans une certaine mesure en travaillant avec
les engraineurs ou Act'Up sur certaines problématique. Et tout le monde y
gagne.</p>

<p>Cela nécessite d'accepter que des personnes ne comprennent pas et ne
comprendrons pas ce que vous faites. Cela nécessite d'aller contre des
certitudes, des choses qui paraissent évidentes, de voir ce qu'il se passe
ailleurs dans le monde.</p>

<p>Internet n'est pas un territoire, c'est une somme de conscience collective.
Mais nous avons des territoires à défendre. Nous avons besoin d'Internet pour
les défendre, mais nous devons les défendre. Allez parler aux
autres, invitez-les. Écoutez-les. Si ielles ne veulent pas venir, demandez
vous pourquoi. Souvent c'est parce qu'ielles ne se sentent pas bienvenue, pas
inclus.</p>

<p>Et c'est généralement parce que personne ne règle le problème des trolls. Des
antisociaux qui ne cherchent qu'à détruire les communautés, à maintenir le
statu quo, à rester "entre couilles". A vouloir absolument avoir raison. Le
climat qui règne sur nos listes de diffusions, canaux IRC, lieux "ouvert"
n'est pas forcément serein. Sous prétexte de la liberté d'expression, on
laisse tout dire sans conséquences, on laisse nos communauté se diviser,
exploser, ne pas exister, refuser les autres.</p>

<p>Non, je ne demande pas la censure ou la régulation. La liberté d'expression
existe et est importante. Mais la liberté n'a de sens que si elle est
exercée en groupe. Notre liberté de pouvoir vivre ensemble est bien plus
importante que la liberté des trolls d'exister impunément.</p>

<p>Il est peut-être temps d'arrêter de se comporter en nerds sociopathes, et de
commencer à se comporter en activistes. Parce que les activistes de terrain ne
nous attendrons pas. Ils refont déjà le monde, avec ou sans crypto de la
mort. Avec ou sans sécurité. C'est quelque chose que vous ne pouvez pas
empêcher, que ce soit au Bahrein, en Espagne, aux États Unis ou en Ukraine,
des activistes sont arrêtés et torturés, peu importe qu'ils aient ou non
utilisés des outils de chiffrement fort.</p>

<p>Ce qui est sûr en revanche c'est que le territoire dans lequel vous vivez,
est défendu par des personnes que vous feriez bien de rencontrer.
Parce qu'elle changent le monde et ne vous attendrons pas. Si vous ne voulez
pas vous retrouvez limité à un rôle de barbu grincheux, de geek associal, de
nerd nihiliste, de hipster branchouille, il serait peut-être
temps de s'y mettre, d'inclure tout celleux qui veulent venir, et d'aller
voir les autres.</p>

<p>Promis, les cannibales n'existent plus. Nous avons mangé le dernier hier.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Fuck_You/
title: Fuck You
uri: Fuck-You
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Fuck_You/
content:
<h1>Once uppon a time</h1>

<p>I used to be called a geek. A nerd. A no-life. Whatever. It used to be
associated with people who didn't want to socialize the way high school and
society asked them to do.</p>

<p>It used to be people who were refusing what we told them what a boy or a girl
should be, should act. It used to be people who were extremely interested by
scientific topics, weird mathematics, role playing games, video games,
computer science.</p>

<p>It used to be nice people who were chatting online, exchanging data, helping
each other - or anyone who gets in and asked for help.</p>

<p>I wasn't really proud of it, but at least it was something that was usefull for
me at some point, I knew what I was. I wasn't only an outcast.</p>

<h1>Things change</h1>

<p>But now, people grew old. Those geeks became adult, got in charge of things,
and being a geek became something cool. It was rapidly identified to a man
with tech gadget (like iPhones, and other useless shiny stuff) who are adept
of a specific sub-culture (implying mainly commercial things).</p>

<p>And new people came in. And are still called geek because they spend time
online, because they play video games, etc. Those people developped a false
feeling of persecution. Prefering staying in their so-called community, they
started to chose who was good enough to be a geek.</p>

<p>They are bullying, assaulting, stalking, chasing online and offline people
who are saying them they're doing someting wrong.</p>

<p>Basically, they act like 4 years old to whom someone asked to stop playing
games and go eat with the family. Except 4 years old do not send SWAT team to
rivals, do not harass women who are part of the industry - industry whoch
provide the games they plays to - to the point they have to leave their house
or their jobs, they do not hunt celebrities online for years to find nude
cpictures of them and asks ransom for it before publishing them, they do not
insult those victim once the picture shave been published while masturbating
themselves on those pictures, once again to have them leave what they think
is their.</p>

<p>They think the internet is their own things. They are destroying the
community that once was inclusive (ok, and weird, and not that easy to
understand) by turning it into a … I don't know … mutually masturbating
circle of elitists jerk?</p>

<h1>Fuck You!</h1>

<p>So fuck you. I refuse to be assimilated to you, a geek. You stripped that of
me, you forced me to reject what used to be part of me, part of my culture.
You can choke on your masculinist ego.</p>

<p>As long as you prefer hating people I love. As long as you think LGBTIQ
people, women, or other are inferiro and can't be part of your group or can't
access your culture, by using extremely violent means, including harassment,
threats and other things like that, I can't be called like you.</p>

<p>You do not deserve it, but you took that from me.</p>

<p>I may have changed recently, I may have discovered my bisexuality recently.
But I'm still fond of RPG, Comic books, video games. But I cannot be called a
geek. Not anymore.</p>

<p>So fuck you. You, your hate of what's not like you, your syndrom of
persecution, your conservatism, your etricked mind. I'm not like you. I do
not want to be considered like you.</p>

<p>You're destroying the privacy and the life of other people. I try to give
them tools to help have privacy and a safe online life.</p>

<p>I'm not a geek. Not anymore. I can't be.</p>

<p>Fuck you.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Falling/
title: Falling
uri: Falling
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Falling/
content:
<h1>Waking up.</h1>

<p>Awake. Or not entirely. I'm still lost between both state, asleep - and no,
it does not imply dreams for I do not remember them - and awake. Somewhere
something is ringing to try to awake me.</p>

<p>I'm craving. Craving of data. I need to chck what happened for those hours I
was asleep. I'll skip breakfast. I can't make them at my place anyway for I
have nothing to prepare them. I do not even have something o brew caffein out
of beans.</p>

<p>I'll be late, but I have to feed on the data feeds. IRC. Mails. XMPP.
Twitter. I'll go through all of them before being awake. That's how my
processor will be booted up. And it's not pretty, witnessing massacre or
picture of dismembered bodies is something regular.</p>

<p>I used to think I'll never get used to it. That the horror will still starts
something into my guts that would makes me puke, but no. Not anymore. I do
not feel anything when seeing those.</p>

<p>I'll go across a stranger's face while looking in a mirror. An alien face.
Someon people saw on TV or elsewhere. I know it's me because I do remember
doing those tats and this non-consistent hair cut. But I do not recognise me.
And yes, if you wonder, I may have trouble finding me in a picture.</p>

<p>This whole body is mine but alien to me. Not that I hate it. It's just alien.
Foreign. I'm not used to it and I do not remembr everything that happened to
it.</p>

<p>I'll survive my bike ride through my city to get at work. Processing a lot of
data to avoid being hit by other more or less defined objects on the road.
It happened once, but besides a lot of pain and some bruises, I survived.</p>

<p>At work I'll be going from log analysis, to data strealm analysis, to
behavioral anaylisys. I'll eat a lot of horrible event without them hurting
me. Not anymore.</p>

<p>It used to horrify me. Witnessing mass murdering, systematic anihilation of
mankind. Now I just soak it. I'm not able to soak the help desk though, and
it generally makes me angry. And causes a lot of stress.</p>

<h1>Scar tissue</h1>

<p>I've never been good at expressing feeling. Or at feel for what it worth.
It's getting hardr those day. While working here, I've done - at least - one
burn out in less than three month. I've been through way to much riot,
massacre, arbitrary arrest and video or picture of those than I can recall.</p>

<p>All of those wounds have healed. My mind is patched by so much scar tissue
that it is mostly scar tissue. I have less and less emotionnal bandwidth. I
can't stop eating data or my mind will enter an endless loop of morbid
thought.</p>

<p>I tried different hacks to stop that. But none of them works. I've hit wall
until my hand is broke. I've drunk too much. Way too much. Friend of mine
once told me "Addiction starts where feeling stops." Feeling stopped a while
ago, not the flow of alcohol. I've tried being to exhausted to be able to
think. It does not works either.</p>

<p>Now I'm eating data. Analysing them. Trying to makes sense of it, and talk
about it with people. Friends. I spend most of my wake time to do that. I'm
more and more like a computer, a machine. A sentient one, but a machine.</p>

<p>Reading. Analysing. Forwarding. Loop over it. Endlessly.</p>

<p>The more the days go, the more I'm turning into that. I do not eat healthy
food. I'm stuck in bugged routine. I'm not enjoying doing stuff as much as I
used to. My life is now, mostly, data consumption and anlysis.</p>

<p>No more emotionnal bandwidth makes me itchy. I fail at perceive irony and
humor most of the time. I'm entering each and every battle without
self-preservation. I know what emotional pain and distress is. It can't hurt
me now.</p>

<p>And yes, I'm falling. The saying is "hitting the bottom", except there's no
bottom. Only dark and infinite abyss.</p>

<p>Mechanisation of my brain and alienation of my body are survival mechanism. A
machine can't feel. A machine can't be hurted. So I'll do it. Again. I'll be
that guy with a strange haircut, with some strongopinion on a lot of things,
that'll do the show into the media. Show must go on. And at least, it's
something consistent.</p>

<h1>Dancing through my tears</h1>

<p>Sometime, a buffer overflow occurs. A crisis. Generally triggered by
something benign - for instance the loud bass of the opening of a concert.
And I burst into tears. No idea why, it just happens.</p>

<p>I tend to think that's yet another survival mechanisms. And I'll dance
through it. I'll dance on my wrecked self. There's nothing left of me.
Nothing to be rejoiced about me. When I look back I have nothing happy. My
father stoled my few happy childhood memories.</p>

<p>I manage to grew without leaving trace around me, without leaving anything
that someone would use to hurt me.</p>

<p>The last ten years where a bit better, but I'm not able to see happiness in
them. - not that I was not just that I'm not able to see it. I've been part
of things other finds amazing, but it killed me.</p>

<p>What has been seen cannot be unseen they said. And it's true. When my mind
wanders I'll always go back to the thing I indirectly witnessed the past
three years.</p>

<p>But this is a lie. All of this is. I feel. I do feel the pain. I'll leave
conversation because someone hit me with a knife - a metaphorical one. And
I'll choke on it for two days, keeping me awake, trying to process the data.
Trying to understand why it hurts so much. Discovering new area where I still
feel. New fights to get involved into.</p>

<h1>Love and Rage</h1>

<p>I want to crush skulls. To hits things with my bare hands. To let the rage I
feel going away with the pain. Last time it happens it was in a concert, it
felt good. My head was empty and fuck, didn't happened in a while. It last
for few hours, but yes. It was good.</p>

<p>I miss those area in my life where I can let go. Now, even the street are
space where people expect me to conform myself to something I'm not really. I
need to find space for that.</p>

<p>It became harder to open myself to people. And the paradox is that I want to
spare people I love and who loves me, and that's how I killed my previous
relationshisp, by shielding myself, by not talking about me because it's
fucking scary.</p>

<p>I should take care or me. I should accept this alien body, this alien me. I
just have no idea of how to do that. I should listen atthe people who gave me
advices. But they do not work. I'm not able to keep my brain down, or I'll be
surrounded by ghosts and morbidity.</p>

<p>I'm only able to love, that's what's left of me. That's what I more or less
kept to myself. Everything else is linked to thing I have no control over.
And this is where I shoudl be able to let go and feel better.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/FuckPrivacy/
title: Fuck Privacy
uri: Fuck-Privacy
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/FuckPrivacy/
content:
<h2>Privacy … Really?</h2>

<p>What's privacy? It's quite easy, it's everything that's not in the public
space. But public space is the reflect of our society. What you see in the
public space, is the reflect of the society.</p>

<p>That's exactly why cities try to hide homeless people, or - at least - send
them in places where people won't see them. To display something that is
better than the reality. To hide things that would be shameful. To hide their
failure or what they think is not proper.</p>

<p>And this is the main issue regarding privacy. What people are expecting to
keep for themselves is what is judged by other as "non proper" or
"inconvenient" or "indecent". What you're supposed to keep private are the
things that do not conform to someone idea of proper behaviour.</p>

<p>Privacy is not chosen, it's enforced. It's enforced by a dominant and
oppressive system, whatever it is. Most of the people have nothing to hide.
And that's probably true. They have nothing to hide, because their behaviour
is the one that follow the dominant moral code, the dominant comportment. And
then, what they're doing doesn't interest anyone else but them; and I'm not
saying they've got shitty life they just have a life similar to the life of
everyone around them.</p>

<p>But if you're not on this side of the world, then people will ask you to
keep things in private. To behave. To not expose yourself. To not claim what
you are.</p>

<p>When you says to someone to keep things private, you refuse their right to
be.</p>

<p>And that's why privacy sucks. It sucks when you asks my suicidal and depressive
trans-gender-fluid friend who express themselves on social space to keep
their pain for themselves because it's improper. It sucks when you asks my
friends to hide their love because they have the same gender while you'll
expose your heterosexuality without being ashamed. It sucks when you says to
a woman whose body has been exposed that she should have keep those pictures
private or that she should be ashamed to dare exposing herself.</p>

<p>You'll say that you have a right to privacy. Except that people going fine,
tells it - whatever the consequences on their neighbour or friends. Except
that male genitals are basically exposed everywhere without consequences for
them while a nipple is indecent in the public space - which means that having
a female body is something that you should be ashamed of. Except that you can
demonstrate your affections to the people you love while me or my friends
can't because we should keep that private.</p>

<h2>Privacy is Censorship</h2>

<p>In the end, privacy is censorship. It's an argument used by oppressors to
force oppressed people to conform to an oppressive form of society.</p>

<p>Asking to someone to be decent, discrete or to conform, is forcing them to behave,
to not express themselves. To not define themselves. People who should have
privacy, are the ones who do not conform to your vision of moral. It's women,
queers, sex-workers, porn actors and actress, etc.</p>

<p>And this is a form of censorship. And censorship is the oppresser's tool. And
it sucks. I oppose censorship not because of freedom of speech, but because
of freedom of self-determination. I need words to define myself. And by
censoring them, by forcing me not to use them, you remove me the possibility
to define, to exist in the public space.</p>

<p>If you do not have the words to define an idea, then you can't formulate this
idea - that's the whole purpose of novlang in 1984.</p>

<p>The interesting part of that is: if you need a law to censor something, then
this something is named and then exist. It's like in Inception (the movie), where
the character played by Di Caprio states that:</p>

<blockquote><p>If I want you to think about elephants, I just have to tell you not to think
about elephants.</p></blockquote>

<p>(And now, all my readers re thinking about elephants)</p>

<p>For instance, the word nigger/nigga has been used to discriminate against
afro-american people. But some of them used took back control of this word,
and reappropriate it to define themselves. They use it to define themselves.
They exist because this word exist, and yes it leads to discrimination but it
has a name and then you can fight it.</p>

<p>You can't fight what you can't name. And forbidding the use of specific
speech do just that. It makes groups and communities unable to exist.
Censorship doesn't protect minorities. Freedom of self-determination does.
Yes, it means that you'll have hate speech. And yes, hate speech should
probably be sanctioned in some way. But you must be able to discuss it.</p>

<p>If you cannot discuss racism, or fascism, or sexism then you can't fight it.
That's why most of the teachers - at least not the creationist one - do
oppose censorship.</p>

<h2>But … Privacy is a human right?</h2>

<p>Yes it it. It's written in the
<a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a12">UDHR</a> and it's the 12th
article. The thing is, this declaration is not directed to citizen. It's not
meant to be implemented by them. It's directed toward state, and it's
supposed to be what they should do, and to protect citizens from states - the
way constitutions do.</p>

<p>And, for the sake of the argumentation, I'll quote it here:</p>

<blockquote><p>No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy,
family, home or correspondence, nor to attack upon his honour and
reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against
such interference or attack.</p></blockquote>

<p>It basically state that you shouldn't asks me to behave. To keep things
private. To be decent. That you shouldn't attack my honour or that I shall
not be treated differently by the state - hence the society - for what I am.</p>

<p>The privacy defined here, is the one that you use to shelter yourself from
discrimination of states or oppressive groups. It's the survival mechanism
one should not need to use, but sadly exist because there's enough bigot out
there in the world to threaten your life - think being openly gay in Uganda
for instance.</p>

<p>Privacy in this context is a shield. However it disable you the right to
being seen as what you are. It removes you the right to be. To define
yourself. It's a crappy shield, but it can makes you living.</p>

<p>And that's why it's important to be able to activate some sort of shielding,
because you can go in jail for that. Or being killed by fascists. And as a
human you have the right to protect yourself.</p>

<p>But if anyone else can define themselves in the public space, and if I can't,
if you ask me to be decent, you're basically denying me the right to exist.
You're violating this 12th article that you claim to defend. And you're doing
that because you do not need privacy.</p>

<p>On the internet, being a white hetero cis-male means that you really do not
need privacy. You won't be ashamed because you had sex. Or because you
exposed your body. Or because you demonstrate affection to the person you
love. Privacy isn't of any use to you, because you're on the privileged side
of an oppressive system. You won't be beaten up because you were indecent. Or
non-conforming to the society.</p>

<h2>So, no more Privacy?</h2>

<p>No. Sadly, we might need privacy. As I said beforehand, it is a shield from
repression. Shielding yourselves is, however, denying what you are. It's
validating the oppressive society you're leaving in.</p>

<p>If you want to fight that, then you need to abandon your privacy. Because you
need to publicly exist. Also, that's how you'll find support among people
going through similar issues. That's how you can fight oppression. By existing
in the public space, not only in the private space.</p>

<p>And if you do not belong to an oppressed party, then you do not need privacy,
for you're not going to be assaulted just because of what you are or think.
You do not have privacy because it interest no one, because you're in the
"normal life" area of the world.</p>

<p>So yeah, we must fight for people being able to have a privacy. Because they
could die if they have not. But no, you can't asks me to being decent. Or to
keep things private.</p>

<p>Fuck it.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Crypto_parties/
title: Crypto parties.
uri: Crypto-parties
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Crypto_parties/
content:
<h2>Once uppon a time</h2>

<p>When AsherWolf coined the term Crypto Party, there was an actual need for a
specific part of the population to get trained to use encryption tools. We
were in the middle of all the revelation of censorship done in the Maghred
dictatorship and dictators were thrown out on an almost weekly basis.</p>

<p>I started to do them with journalists. I got in touch with Reporters without
borders and we set-up some session to train a specific part of the
population: journalists, field activists, netizens - as RWB keeps calling them.</p>

<p>This is where I learned a lot about GPG/PGP, the advanced use of Tor and of
full-disk encryption. Doing those workshops and training did helps me to
taught myself how thsoe tools works, what is operational security and threat
modelling. I still have a lot to learn on those topics, but that's how I
started it, and that's also why I did run the first CypherPunk workshop at Le
Loop hackerspace.</p>

<p>I did't have the idea at the time that it will works so well. Then Snowden
makes me not a paranoid guy anymore. Things gets crazy, mass-media were
screaming on loud that there's no way you can have privacy online, that rogue
agencies were going after each and any of us and everyne gets paranoid. Not
careful, paranoid. Everyone lose focus on threat modelling.</p>

<p>Cryptography became hype, I heard speaking about Tor, LUKS, and other things
on TV and in the press. I did my share of speaking to journalists, learning
how the media works on the field, I did makes mistakes in communication, but
in the end I tried to get the message that yes, there's privacy issue, and
no, crypto-geeks aren't the one with the solution but citizens - people in
fact - are the one with solutions.</p>

<p>The local cryptoparty group kept growing. People I used to train were now the
trainers, and that's fracking nice. We gathered more and more people, we
tried to get out of the hackespace and to go meet people, creating the
Privacy Café, in local bars, with diverse people with all their own
problematics.</p>

<h2>How we failed the people</h2>

<p>And we basically failed them. I once wrote about the
<a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/Responsability_of_teaching/">Responsability of teaching</a> because I
thought we were missing a point. When we set-up those workshops, we have a
responsability toward the people who'll eventually come. We need to give them
all the necessary key to understand the problematics, we need to reassure
them because most of them are not in a case where they face being jailed by a
governement due to a tweet they sent.</p>

<p>The thing is, I wanted the crypto party to be able to function without a
central person. Also, I was going through - and I'm still into it - a big
depression so I needed to take some step out of things I'm doing, so I let it
go its way, because I think it's the only sane way to do things.</p>

<p>Also, I was growing tired of doing all the same workshops. I wanted something
else, playing with new tools, learn new things, experiments new paradigms.</p>

<p>And I think that doing those workshop is not thesolution. I learned that a
bit late maybe, but having time to go to a workshop, with your own hardware
and a will to develop new skills is a privilege a lot of people cannot
afford, I'll send you to this blog entry wrote by a pop star doing infosec
for reference: <a href="http://swiftonsecurity.tumblr.com/post/98675308034/a-story-about-jessica">A story about Jessica</a></p>

<p>And fear of internet was more and more used as a teaching tool. And
<a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/We_need_optimism/">Fear</a> is clearly the worst tool to use if you want
people to learn. And I witnessed the militarisation fo the languages which
bugs me. A lot. I even done a conference on this topic because we need to not
scare the people away from the internet, or the <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/MakeDataloveNotCyberwar">Internet will
die</a> and we really need to be inclusive.</p>

<p>And being inclusive means we need to provide security by default. And it
means, we need to build network and protocols who'll take care of that. And
that's one point of strong disagreement with a part of the team. Some of them
think that if you're not able to run command line tools, then you do not
deserve to be protected. They think that an interface to a tool necessarily
implies a weaker security.</p>

<p>I do agree with that, command line tools with all their flags, are the best
way to have a crypto disaster for instance (yes, command line IS an
interface). The thing is, we do have some tools with good cryptography AND no
interface at all (or almost no interface at all). For instance the Tor
Browser Bundle. You launch it, it connects, it disapear and you'll never hear
about it and still you're connected to the privacy network - and if it can't
connect you can't use it therefore you can't put yourself at risk.</p>

<p>Yes, Enigmail - and PGP - is a mess. As well as everything that's based on
key management. For one part because key management is about identity, and a
lot of people want anonimity - so no identity - also because no one knows
what a good key management solution is. The interface sucks, because the tool
it's based on sucks.</p>

<p>And we could build a mail solution where GPG will disappear, working more or
less like TLS, with a warning when the key looks weird, or when youhave no
encryption. But we - as the crypto party collective - prefers tell people
they're not good enough to use cryptographic tools.</p>

<p>Well, in fact I stopped teaching GPG in the cryptoparties. I prefer have them
use OTR for instance, and install XMPP servers everywhere I can, with strong
TLS setup, and have them configure OTR to autostart. It works, they do not
even need to worry about it (except the color of the OTR button). Neither
they need to worry about authenticate (some people might - depends on the
threat model) their contact.</p>

<p>But still, I do have a lot of issues with this attitude I see in this group
of people that they know best, they do not question their knowledge. They use
fear as a tool, they think that you need to work to deserve protection not
that we - as experts, geeks, technicians, whatever - need to build a
community oriented and driven network of people with anonimity
built at its core - yes, it's supposed to be what internet is.</p>

<p>And that brings me to this tough issue, wether I should continue working on
cryptoparties, or try to do something else. I think it's easy to quit, to let
them be. It's harder to try to do something with the people who are willing
to, and to move forward with them. But there is things in what they say that
makes me thinking that we do have a gap in what we want to do with those
cryptoparties.</p>

<p>Not being inclusive, not understanding the principles of privileges and
discrimination, using fear and militarisation of your vocabulary. All of
those are no go for me. And I did not find a way to discuss about that yet,
tried the mailing lists but git no answer, tried to meet AFK, but no answer
either.</p>

<p>So I'm wondering, maybe I should stop fighting for that and quit. Give the
admin access to the lists for them to go the way they want to go and start
something else. It's not easy, but maybe it's a failure.</p>

<p>I should probably just quit.</p>

<p>--</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/BackOnline/
title: BackOnline
uri: BackOnline
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/BackOnline/
content:
<h1>Last year (or so)</h1>

<p>For the last year, and a good part of the year before, I was working for a
NGO: <a href="https://www.fidh.org">The International Federation of Human Rights</a> as
an ICT manager. Which - for anyone who ever worked as an operational engineer
in an NGO -implies doing way to much work. From helpdesk to help to write
reports about internet censorship, from system administrator to webmaster,
from training activists during clandestine mission to training officers to
use free software. It requires adaptabality, skills and an iron will when it
tuns to defend free software on a daily basis.</p>

<p>I learned a lot of things there. Working with interesting people doing
advocacy for human rights in the whole world brings a lot. Passionat and
dedicated people. I learned what human right are and why they're important. I
developped a lot more cynism than what I previously had - and yes, it means a
lot more of cynism - mostly due to some way of realism. I developped a better
comprehension of how diplomatics and economics intertwined themselves.</p>

<p>I also learned that you can eshift extremeley fast from defending rights to
defending your interests. I see egos destroying interesting project. I
witnessed personal interests taking over principles of humanism. I was
confronted more than once to paradoxes - for instance people advocating for
right for the worker in asia and begging for Apple computers.</p>

<p>I also leraned a lot about me. For instance that I'm not meant for help desk.
It's too much stress and it makes me wanting to rip the throat of people with
my teeth. I ended more than once a phonecall for support in a state of
almost blind rage and needing to go out and walk or hit something. Or crying.
I discovered that I probabaly developped a traumatism by being exposed to too
much videos and pictures and texts about horror in the world. I had at
least two diagnosed burn-outs in those 15 months. And I did anxiety attack on
the job - not because we had attacks on our infrastructure, this part of the
job is the kind of pressure I do manage.</p>

<p>I've been diagnosed with a severe depression, and for the last two month (or
so) I'm now under drugs to keep my mind out of the suicide path he wanders
on.</p>

<h1>Off the grid</h1>

<p>My contract is now over. And believe me, it was a great experience and I do
not regreat it at all. I cannot afford to continue working like that though
and I needed a full month off the grid.</p>

<p>No talks, no interviews, no code no nothing, not going to the hackerspace.
Just playing video games (so in the last month I've done Dragon Age
Inquisition, Mass Effect 1, 2 and almost the three, Saint Rows the Third and
Saint Rows 4, Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall) and watching movies and tv
shows.</p>

<p>And sleeping (10 to 12 hours a day, thanks to melatonin). I've spent a lot of
time inside my flat with my bunnies and getting out only for food - and the
occasional social event with two or three people.</p>

<p>I'm still in this kind of state. Stuck in the present, unable to get outside
and to walk into the world o to project myself into the future. I'm witting
this from the café down the street, and it took me at least a full week to
find the motivation to get there and write this (and read my mail).</p>

<p>So yeah, I was a bit off the grid. Off the world. I used part of this time to
think about what I'm going to do next. I cannot imagine doing a job which is
not inline with at least some of my political views, which blacklist most of
the startups and comapnies I know.</p>

<p>I cannot work for other association or NGO because they will have the same
issue and need for a five legged sheep as an ICT person. That rules a lot of
things out.</p>

<h1>Back online</h1>

<p>So, I have no other choice but to find a way to pay the bills and to try to
contribute to fight for a world with a bit more fairness in it. The thing
that most collective lacks is a way to manage their online data.</p>

<p>Most of them relies on youtube - for instance - to upload their videos,
exposing wrong doings and the like. Or use a centralized web services for
managing their emails or to share documents.</p>

<p>Most of those collectives have other priorities than to learn key management,
or to maintain a dedicated servers. It can even be illegal or dangerous for
some of them. When reaching out to a foreign journalists or tweeting about
your givernement can have you locked up in a jail without trial, you do not
have the time to learn GPG, or how to host a website in TLS.</p>

<p>But this is things I was doing for the last year (and the years before with
the telecomix crew). It's something I wrote about, and I've been running
cryptoparties for a while.</p>

<p>Also, there is a lot of projects promising about privacy and security of
communications. Most of them needs that someone runs a server with the code
and maintain it. Which is out of scope for most of the organisation and
collectives I know - heck even the nation-wide newspaper here barely have the
ressources for it.</p>

<p>This is what I'm going to do. I'll try to find a way to earn my life with
that, but the idea is to provide a mutualized solutions for individuals and
collectives who cares about privacy and security. Using only free software,
and contributing to them. Providing email, chat, storage and syncing, hosting
made for those groups and individual.</p>

<p>I'll need some help at some point, but the goal is to build a small company
which can thrive on it. So yes, it will be a service you'll have to pay for.
Some services will be free - mostly the one that requires few ressources and
works - but running server have a cost.</p>

<p>And I do not want to pay that cost with the data of my future users. Or with
advertisement (which is the same in the end).</p>

<p>So, I'll try to start that. I'm doing a lot of thinking and writing about it.
Of course I'll disclose everything about it.</p>

<p>This is me. Going back online. Trying to survive in this ocean of pain.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Depression/
title: My depression
uri: My-depression
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Depression/
content:
<p>I'm depressed. It's quite obvious if you look at it from the symptom part.
But I'm still reading or getting comment from people who thinks it's just a
small blues - like a Monday morning blues when the week-end is done and
you've got to get to work.</p>

<p>It's like saying that the small bruises you got for falling of your bike is
the same thing that getting your leg rip apart without anesthetic or - if I
believe what women told me - deliver a child.</p>

<p>First thing is you do not live with a depression. I do not live. Living
implies being able to project yourself in time. The closest thing I found
about this state is stated by
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTTHOFNJZEo">Buffy</a>. In this part of the
show she's obviously depressed, she's just going through the motion.</p>

<p>My depression takes this form. Time is just irrelevant, I'm stuck into the
now and go forward or look backward. It's not apathy, because apathy doesn't
removes you the capacity to make a difference between next week, yesterday and
next year.</p>

<p>This has insidious effect. For one, I'm unable to move forward. I cannot just
going better because it implies to project myself into the future. Happiness
is an alien concept and I do not see the reason to live. It's absurd and it
has no point, in the end I'll die. I could as well kill myself, it would not
change a thing.</p>

<p>Another thing is that my depression is not a lack of feeling. It's quite the
opposite. Anticipation - meaning something I know will happen in the next few
hours - generates anxiety attack. Those attack manifest by an unability to
think and sort my thoughts, shacking, craving, loghorea, headache. I have
pills to take to calm this down (Valium).</p>

<p>I feel. A lot. Too much. Reading a mail I slightly disagree with will makes
me burst into rages. Picture or news of protesters shot by cops will makes me
cry and fall in a near catatonic states. I'm only nerves and I can react
violently to someone who touch me - even if it's someone I love.</p>

<p>That's called exhaustion of emotional bandwidth. Where non depressed people
have a way to manage, delay and rationalize their feelings, I have lost this
ability. This is because I have something in my brain - Serotonin neuro
transmeters who don't catch the Serotonin - that makes me in a perpetual
state of stress and hypervigilance.</p>

<p>I'm scorched and even the lightest of the wind hurts like hell. There's no
end, no light at the end of the tunnel. I've got no memories of happiness -
that's another aspect of this thing. I can have some joy, some people can
makes me smile. But it does not last. Soon, it's another wave - or tsunami
- of feeling that come and overwhelm me.</p>

<p>So no, I'm not living with a depression. I'm drowning into it. I take drugs to
help me, they gave me some buoyancy. Friends keep trying to maintain this
buoyancy. But there's always the calm of the abyss down below, under my feet.
One day I'll stop fighting and I'll drown into the abyss.</p>

<p>I won't be at peace, I'll cease to exist, feel and think. And from my point of
view it's like heaven. It's the end of the line. End of the pain. And it's
not even a pain I like anymore.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Libertarians/
title: Libertarians
uri: Libertarians
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/Libertarians/
content:
<h1>Context</h1>

<p>So, I receive queries for people wanting my point of view on various things -
ok no, on internet and surveillance, privacy and stuff like that, they do not
consult me for issues like climate change and the like. So my email adress is
like public data, and people finds me.</p>

<p>It's not always easy, because there's a lot of people out there wanting to do
a subject on "hackers" without more precision. You need to asks them a lot of
things, help them to understand that "hackers" in not a precise enough
subject and that they should focus on a specific problematics. And then you
need to know the media who's asks for the job, especially when you're dealing
with students in journalism.</p>

<p>Speaking of student in journalism, I try to be available, to answer them or
to put them in contact with others more suited to answer their specific
questions.</p>

<p>That's why this one is a tough one for me. Because it puts me in front of a
paradox. I always thought that convincing people needs to talk to them. I
inhereted that from Telecomix, and I tried to do it on each occasion. If
someone as an angle that I disagree with, then it's probably because one of
us (at least) is missing a point somewhere, and it can only be solved by more
discussion.</p>

<p>However, I know the media behind the query. And they're known to pose hackrs
as sociopath who are after your credit card. They capitalize on fear, not on
information sharing, and I tried twice to get around that and it did not
work.</p>

<p>Hence this blog post. It's the email I shoud probably write to this person,
but I think it might be beneficial to have it somewhere more public. Name are
changed, and no metadata of the original mail. Traduction is mine.</p>

<h1>Questions and answers</h1>

<blockquote><p>Hello Okhin</p></blockquote>

<p>Hey Mat,</p>

<blockquote><p>I'm 19, and I'm writing and embodying a TV documentary in which I try to
prove to my parents generation that, no, I did not abandon my privacy, and
that Internet is more than a simple tool for my generation.</p></blockquote>

<p>Cool. Sounds like a good project and I agree that your generation didn't
abandon their privacy, even if you - and I - spent a good part of it online.
And I couldn't agree more on the fact that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWg2qEEa9CE">internet is not only a
tool</a>, it's
a form of communication that enables a lot of different form of societies.</p>

<blockquote><p>I'm focusing on the problematic of Digitals Native freedom, close to the
freedom concept of the libertarian (like Larry Page, Elon Musk …) who
emphasize the freedom and happiness of the man. My generation is not
Foucault's one, meaning a generation institutionnalized from childhood to
retirement, but the libertarian's ones, building a new world of economic
collaboration in a reinvented society.</p></blockquote>

<p>I'm not a libertarian. Libertarian - at least in the French way - are
basically asking for total freedom for corporations (either single person
company of worldwide megacorporations). Libertarian choose to inforce
economic freedom over social ones.</p>

<p>And you do it also. You're not speaking about the social aspect of internet,
how Internet did change the balance of power between egemonic corporations,
states and citizen. No, the aspect you're focusing one is the economic one.
Larry Page and Elon Musk are probably visionary, they did help to build a
non-sentient AI, and to fix part of the way we exchange money.</p>

<p>But they're building a world for an elite. We're still below a tird of the
worldwide population connected to the internet. Worse, most of the countries
not connected to it are currently exploited by neo-colonial corporations to
exploit them in order to build all those gadgets we use everyday to make our
lives easier.</p>

<p>The world for those libertarians is a world where the weak can't exist. I do
agree that economic freedom might help - wel, economy is clearly not my
strong suit - but we're elaving in a world where companies - through Lobby
group - actually pass law and can sue states under secret trade agreement.</p>

<p>For me Internet is a social tool. It can helps connect people, build
communities, strengthen social link, and get a better understanding of the
world. It can helps people throwing away a governement, organise dissent,
but also to have care and help of communities members.</p>

<p>Yes, it can be used to build "new" economic system - altough libertarians are
around since before Internet so I really do not think a totally free and
unregulated market that will have no other purpose than justifying its
existence and not to support mankind is something that exited long before the
internet (since the first industrial revolution I'd say).</p>

<p>And I do think that the biggest mistake pioneer of the internet did back in
1990-ish is to allow advertisment network and monetization system to get a
foot on internet. It certainly fast-tracked the "massive" adoption of
internet, but it also give way to much power to those few groups who earned a
lot of money selling those advertisment to take control of data - and part of
the infrastructure.</p>

<p>I'd rather have an internet build by a community and for communities - using
taxes and yes a state - the purpose of state is to maintain wellfare and
infrastructure for all people not to govern.</p>

<blockquote><p>It will be embodied documentary for the mainstream audience.</p>

<p>Currently, I'm focusing on a different angle. I think that I could make a
stronger point if I speak about code. "Code is Law", while showing that
conding nowadays, is having power. What I wrote here is EXTREMELY narrow,
but I try to know more on this subject (for instance [A state TV] is
interested by my project only if I develop this part) and to have a good
grasp of the issue. I also need time to immerse myself into this culture.</p></blockquote>

<p>So, you want to basically say that hackers - people who codes and understand
it - are an elit and that they've seized control of the world? It might be
true (there's currently an <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/Crypto_parties">elitism</a> in this so-called
hacker community which is an issue), but I try to oppose it as much as I can.</p>

<p>That's why there's free software. Free software exists to ensure that no elit
could be left in charge because they're the only one to know how things
works. That's what's in the <a href="http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html">hacker
manifesto</a> after all, And in
every things that hackers do.</p>

<p>And also, if you really need to code to use a system, then you should need to
build a car to drive it. You should need to know agronomics to eat
vegetables. Even if I do admit that all those exampls are true, there's a big
issue in it, it states that we are born with all the same capacity. Which is
false. Prejudicies, handicaps, social stigma, life accident, all these can
lead to someone not being able to code. Or to understand how a car angien
works, or what are the implication of eating meat instead of vegetables on
the global scale.</p>

<p>You cannot asks to a single mother of three to learn how to code to use a
system. And still, she can use it. And that's a good thing. If you make code
skill a requirement to use internet then internet is no longer a tool for
emancipation, it became a tool of oppression. I want my communities to be
inclusives. I want care takers in my communities. And I think internet enable
that. And I really think you do not need to code to do that. Or to send
enrypted email - or at least you shouldn't.</p>

<p>So no, I will not say that code is a requirement to live in our world. Even
if the french governement currently thinks that we need to teach kids to code
instead of - for instance - criticism, building a thinking process and giving
thel the key to explore and understand the world they live in.</p>

<blockquote><p>I've came to see you with the director at a conference you made and we
really liked your way to explain the issue <img src="media/f241949d.smile.png" data-original-source="http://about.okhin.fr//./smileys/smile.png" alt=":)" /> [This is a reference to <a href="http://about.okhin.fr/posts/MakeDataloveNotCyberwar/">this
talk</a>]. In this case, with our documentary
we're clearly speaking to "old farts" who tries to graps the issues of the
Internet world. It's kind of rare to be able to get this mssage out on the
television even if it done - it's true - simplistic approach (the young
connected person that I embody, etc …).</p></blockquote>

<p>Yeah, well, since you're condescending with your audience I have big issues.
Also - and you've probably never been confronted to that since you're a young
documentarist - a national TV will never let a positive message about
internet get broadcasted.</p>

<p>I mean, I've tried twice. I got burned, I stop. If you think you can do it,
then go for it. But you really should stop considring that people who aren't
conencted to the internet or who doesn't see it the same way you see it do
not live in the same world than you. They have a different culture, but you
both share the same world. And excluding them from it won't give you a better
world, it will give you a world where you'll be in power.</p>

<p>So yes, I could have accepted to meet you, but I will not. You can go see a
lot of people, for instance <a href="http://www.bortzmeyer.org/securite-facilite.html">Stéphane
Bortzmeyer</a> can probably
deals with the "code is law" part. But I will not because I disagree with a
lot of your ideas.</p>

<p>I hope you'll find some answers in this post, and that it will raises some
questions.</p>

<p>I wih luck in your project.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/PJLRenseignement/
title: PJL Renseignement … stop fleeing!
uri: PJL-Renseignement-stop-fleeing
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/PJLRenseignement/
content:
<h2>#PJLRenseignement</h2>

<p>If you haven't heard, there's an <strong>emergency</strong> law currently “debated” in
France, which wants to legalize illegal practices from the Intelligence
services (both domestic - DGSI - and foreign - DGSE) and gives them impunity,
circumvent the judge, and goes to a massive discriminatory surveillance.</p>

<p>The hashtag is full of report of people opposing it (from Human Right
defenders and NGOs to citizen collective such as LQDN to companies and
business of all scale). So yeah, it's the law NSA's head is dreaming of.</p>

<p>There's two issues I want to discuss at hand. Not sure how it'll end, but here
it goes. The first one is why fighting surveillance is - in my opinion - the
wrong fight and the wrong way of doing it, there's more to this than just
surveillance. The second is about all the geeks and hackers trying to flee out
of France, to move their businesses out of it and other “abandon ship”
strategies.</p>

<h2>Fighting surveillance</h2>

<p>So, surveillance. As Quinn Norton and Eleanor Saita stated one year ago in
their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWg2qEEa9CE">talk at 30C3</a>,
surveillance - in itself - is not inherently good or bad. Surveillance is
watching, and - when you want to interact on something - you need to watch
it. It's hard to grab precisely something in the dark (you can do it, but
it's hard).</p>

<p>You need surveillance to expose corruption for instance. Or fascism. Or any
wrong doing in fact.</p>

<p>So, the issue discussed is not - and should not be - the surveillance per se.
The issue is that this whole process is secret, hidden, non documented,
without control or regulation.</p>

<p>What does it mean? First, it means there's an asymmetry in information.
Something knows more about me than I'm able to know about them. What you do
not know controls you, it means that this imbalance of power makes the state
having more control over you.</p>

<p>It makes them able to act upon you on a discriminatory way. The gigantic
issue here is that. It's not the surveillance, it's the lack of control. It's
the fact that no one is watching the watchers and have way to act upon them.
What frighten me most in this law, are the wording used “secret defense”,
“higher interest of the state”, “impunity for state agent” and things like
that.</p>

<p>I've ranted on twitter about the black boxes that will be able to
algorithmically identify threats. The thing is a lot of people lost sight
of what an algorithm actually is.</p>

<p>It's a parametric mathematic function applied to a set of data in order to
classify information - or at least that's what is intended in this specific
use case. The magic words in algorithm, machine learning, classification
system is just this: parameters. The way you choose your parameters will
change the way you classify your data.</p>

<p>How many occurrences of jihadist related news you need to have in your
browsing history to be classified as a jihadist? Hom many hours a day you
spend in this chatroom? How many times a week you go there?</p>

<p>Those numbers - the one that we as citizens will never heard about - are
political tools. The way you choose them, and why you choose them create
classification of people and will make you decide who needs to be swatted or
not. That's where the ugliness begins. Those numbers will be chosen to
discriminate people depending on their backgrounds.</p>

<p>I mean, they're already discussing about exceptions for surveillance -
especially for journalists - which means that they're clearly lie when they
say it's an anonymous data collect, they're already discriminating people
based upon their traffic.</p>

<p>So, the surveillance is not the issue. Neither is the privacy. The issue is
the lack of control. The issue is the absence of transparency. And stop
fighting surveillance saying you have a right to privacy. That's true, but
then it enable politician to call for the “right to be forgotten” which will
only help them evading justice.</p>

<p>The issue is that mass surveillance, done by an oppressive system is a tool
of segregation and racism. Because in the French context where we do not
speak about Arabs anymore, but only about Muslims (and in a way that makes
people think that all Muslims are Salafists and potential terrorists), I'll bet
2 BTC on the fact that they will be the one specifically targeted by this
surveillance.</p>

<p>Same goes for the poorer of us. Who happen to be the ones who are not the
white guys, who are also the ones who fight for survival and acceptance at all
time. I'm quite sure that if the system catchs a white and rich guy, he will
go in the false-positive trash and nobody will incriminate him.</p>

<p>So, stop fighting surveillance for the only sake of it. I should not need
privacy in a non-oppressive system - that's even how you determine you're
leaving in a non-oppressive regime: what you do and what you are cannot be
held against you as long as it does not threaten the safety of someone else.
But go fight the state implemented discrimination.</p>

<h2>Don't run away. Fight.</h2>

<p>Which leads me to this other point. We - as citizens, as a collective - need
to fight that. I refuse to abandon the ship. I'm witnessing a lot of
data-exodus. People actively looking to host their data abroad. Commercial
companies - such as OVH - are looking to build datacenter elsewhere.</p>

<p>I can understand why a company would do that. They would because they intend
to respect the law. Because they do not want to risk their existence to
protect their customers, so they're running away. But the thing is, if you
flee, then what will happen when the country you've fled to will also change
their law and regulation? Flee again?</p>

<p>That's not a sane way to do thing. That's why we have civil society, to
oppose the state, to try to restore a bit of balance in the power
repartition. If you flee, you say to the state: you can do whatever you want,
I just do not care about it.</p>

<p>If you're a big company, which a lot of money, yes, it might have some power
against the government, they will have to choose between reinforcing their
power or keeping some jobs in the country. But, well, if the state initially
wanted to defend their citizens best interests they won't be trying to
deprive them form liberties, right?</p>

<p>So, fleeing will only preserves you. And, well, you're still a French
company, with offices in France, so you still need to obey the law. OK,
you'll be somehow outside of the DGSI reach. But your customers won't,
since they'll still be in France and they'll still connect to your
infrastructure from France, from inside the Dragnet. Which, basically won't
protect them and can even gave them a false feeling of security - which is worse.</p>

<p>What can you do? It's time to protect your customers, your users. The people
who've put trust in you. You do have a choice - and it's not an easy or
simple or risk-free one. You have to choose between taking care of your
users, and actually hold the promises of security you've done to them or
obeying the law. That's call civil disobedience and yes, you can end up in
jail. But you're not alone, and a legal defence fund is something you can
create or ask for help.</p>

<p>Yes, it might seem easy to say. But that's what I intend to do with my
project. Providing tools for activists and militants groups who need them. In
a way that will try to preserve most of their privacy. I do not intend to
respect the law to do that. I do not intend to hide myself.</p>

<p>Hosting data for other people is a political statement. I'm sick of hearing
people asking for a country where they could safely hosts their data. You can
do it wherever you want, if your government has decided to jail you, they
will be able to do it - wherever your data are. What we need is not a list of
foreign hosters who are out of the French territory and jurisdiction, what we
need is a government who actually protects us, not themselves. What we need
is actually to take a stance.</p>

<p>Privacy café, camp, cryptoparties et al is good and nice, but it does not
solve the main issue. When are we really going to show those who're in charge
who actually is? When are we really going to send them a middle finger?</p>

<p>Do not flee. Do not let them scare you. Fight back. Federate. Protect the
people who've put their trust in you. They'll protect yourself then.</p>


feed_id: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/As-t-on-besoin-de-vie-prive/
title: As-t-on-besoin-de-vie-prive
uri: As-t-on-besoin-de-vie-prive
url: http://about.okhin.fr//posts/As-t-on-besoin-de-vie-prive/
content:
<p>Ohai,</p>

<p>Those are the notes I used for my talk at the Ubuntu Party in May 2015. So it's
in French - sorry but feel free to translate.</p>

<p>It's about privacy, and it intends to give other way to talk about it.</p>

<h1>As-t-on vraiment besoin de vie privée?</h1>

<p>"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog".</p>

<p>Depuis les débuts d'Internet, la vie privée à toujours été une problématique
forte. Qu'il s'agisse de l'utilisation de pseudonyme, des Anonymous ou des
problématique autour de l'immixtion arbitraire dans la vie privée, la vie
privée à toujours été débattue sur la place publique.</p>

<p>C'est une notion qui est présente dès que l'on parle de communication et
d'information - le secret des correspondances date de bien avant UseNet -
mais qui est également utilisé à tort et à raison par des personnes fort
différente. Du droit à l'oubli demandé par les politiciens au coming out
pratiquée par les communautés LGBTIQ en passant par l'invisibilisation et le
conformisme parfois volontaire, parfois subit, que recouvre vraiment la
notion de vie privée, et mark Zukerberg a-t-il raison quand il affirme que la
vie privée est un artefact du passé?</p>

<p>Ça fait un peu de temps que je réfléchit à ce qu'est une identité, a ce
qu'est la vie privé et aux problèmes que cela peut soulever dans la
construction de soi. En tant que personne bisexuelle ce sont des questions
qui me touchent personnellement et ne sont pas forcément simple.</p>

<p>Mais d'abord quelques définitions.</p>

<h2>Qu'est-ce que la vie privée? Et autres définitions nécessaires.</h2>

<h3>Vie privé / Vie publique</h3>

<p>Citée par tous les défenseurs des droits, notamment par l'article 8 de la
Convention Européenne des Droits Humains et par l'article 12 de la Déclaration
Universelle des Droits Humains de l'ONU, la protection des personnes contre
l'immixtion dans leur vie privée est considérée comme un droit fondamental.
Mais elle n'est jamais définie dans ces textes et chartes. Généralement car
la notion de vie privée évolue avec les mœurs mais aussi avec la technologie.
Il y a peu de chance que - en 1948 - l'ONU ai pu imaginer que nous nous
baladerions tous avec un appareil capable de nous localiser au mètre près et
capable d'enregistrer ces données sur plusieurs dizaines d'années.</p>

<p>Quand je parle de vie privée, je parle donc de tout ce qui n'est pas
public. Ce qui est public c'est ce qui est accessible par une entité qui
n'est ni émettrice ni réceptrice d'un message. La vie privée ne concerne donc
que ce qui est connu par un groupe définit et restreint.</p>

<p>On peut d'ores et déjà remarquer qu'il y a différentes vie privées et
publiques en fonction des différents cercles sociaux auxquels ont appartient.
Et dans un monde favorisant les connexions entre ces différents groupes,
toute la difficulté de gestion de la vie privée vient de là.</p>

<h3>Entropie de l'information</h3>

<p>Retournons aux bases de l'informatique et de la science de l'information avec
la théorie de l'information de Shannon, telle qu'il l'a formulée en 1948,
afin de définir l'entropie de Shannon.</p>

<p>L'entropie d'un système d'information est - en gros - inversement
proportionnelle à la possibilité de prédire la prochaine information venant
d'une source. Par exemple, si un émetteur n'a émis que des 'a', alors la
source possède une entropie faible. Mais si jamais un 'b' apparaît, c'est une
information à forte entropie (et nécessitant peu de bit pour être codée)
car ce comportement n'a pas pu être prédit en considérant la source
d'information.</p>

<p>Dans un monde normé, composé uniquement de 'a', exprimer une différence - de
manière voulue ou non - est donc une information à forte entropie. Moins il y
a de 'b', 'c', etc… plus leur apparition sera entropique et donc considérée
comme anormale, comme une anomalie.</p>

<p>A l'inverse, dans un monde peu ou pas normé, dans lequel toutes les
expressions sont reconnues et existe, être différent n'a que peu d'entropie,
peu d'impact sur cet ensemble.</p>

<p>Nous vivons actuellement dans un monde normatif, encourageant le conformisme
à un modèle donné. Ce modèle est véhiculé par différents médias : la
publicité par exemple, qui véhicule une image de bonheur ou de beauté qui ne
peut être atteint que par un certain type de personne, ayant un certain
corps, une certaines couleur de peau etc… ; mais aussi par les gouvernements
qui définissent les bons et mauvais citoyens grâce aux lois qui définissent
la marge (stupéfiants, prostitutions, squats, hackers, etc…)</p>

<h3>Panopicon</h3>

<p>Un panopticon est une prison idéale théorisée en Angleterre au dix huitième
siècle et qui se base sur le fait que les prisonniers savent qu'ils peuvent
être surveillés en permanence, mais qu'ils ne voient pas si ils sont
effectivement surveillés.</p>

<p>La concrétisation de la menace de surveillance - et de répression en cas de
non respect des règles établies - est suffisante pour garder les prisonniers
sous contrôle.</p>

<p>Michel Foucault étendra ce principe à d'autre milieu sociaux en 1975, et
expliquera que ce système de contrôle - la peur d'une surveillance
omniprésente - est présente à de nombreux stades de notre société : à
l'école, dans l'entreprise, à l'atelier et bien au-delà de la simple prison.</p>

<p>Un système panoptique est donc un système qui entretien une illusion de
surveillance doté de capacité de répression afin de forcer les personnes à se
conformer et à obéir à des règles. Il n'y a aucun besoin que cette
surveillance soit réelle ou efficace, il suffit qu'elle soit visible et
présente dans les esprits.</p>

<h2>Privacy sucks</h2>

<h3>Identité « par défaut »</h3>

<p>Ce qui est public c'est ce que l'on connait d'une personne lorsque l'on
l'on interagît avec elle. Comment elle s'habille, sa coupe de cheveux, les
stickers sur son laptop, sa photo de profil sur Facebook, le contenu de sa
page Wikipedia où les résultats de recherche retournés par Google quand je
cherche à savoir à qui j'ai affaire.</p>

<p>Bien entendu, la façon dont on est perçu par les autres dépend des normes
sociales. Le fait d'avoir les cheveux longs n'a pas le même impact pour les
garçons aujourd'hui qu'il y a 40 ans. Et il est également parfaitement
possible de jouer avec ces codes pour passer dans une autre classe sociale
que la sienne. Porter une blouse blanche vous fera passer pour un
scientifique - et vous permettra de bénéficier d'un biais d'autorité - de
même que porter un costard vous rendra plus crédible auprès de votre banquier
pour obtenir un prêt.</p>

<p>Cet ensemble de code sociaux qui permettent de définir rapidement
l'appartenance d'une personne à un groupe social est définie comme l'identité
sociale. Cette identité sociale - à ne pas confondre avec l'identité
personnelle - permet généralement de compléter ou de projeter les parts non
explicite et non publique d'une personne. Typiquement, quelqu'un qui traine
sur le chan #tor@oftc aura une identité sociale de hacker, avec tout ce que cela implique.
Les hackers étant majoritairement des hommes blancs cis-hétéros, à moins
qu'une personne n'explicite directement certains aspects de son identité
personnelle - et donc abandonne une part de sa vie privée, j'aurais tendance
à supposer que je parle à un homme cis-hétéro lorsque je parle avec quelqu'un
de ce canal IRC.</p>

<p>L'assomption "On the internet nobody knows that you're a dog" part du
principe qu'il est possible de ne pas avoir de marqueurs sociaux en ligne. En
effet, lorsque l'on se connecte il est parfaitement possible de 'passer' pour
un utilisateur standard. Un profil twitter non personnalisé, avec un pseudo
non genré ne révèle que peu de chose sur vous. On ne sait pas si vous êtes un
homme ou une femme, noir ou blanc, un chien ou un chat.</p>

<p>Mais notre cerveau a besoin de catégoriser les personnes pour pouvoir
interagir avec elles. Pour éviter les impairs, mais aussi parce que notre
cerveau fonctionne par analogie (et reconnaissance de motif) et que des hormones
telles que l'atropine permettent d'amplifier ces comportement.</p>

<p>Et un utilisateur d'internet a une identité sociale. Plus de la moitié des
utilisateurs d'internet sont basés dans les pays dit développés (Europe et
Amérique du Nord principalement), et l'utilisateur "moyen" (au sens
statistique) d'internet est donc un homme blanc cis-genre hétéro. L'identité
sociale d'un utilisateur d'internet est celle-là. Ce qui veut dire que, à
moins d'afficher des marqueurs permettant de vous classifier en dehors de
cette identité sociale, j'aurais un 'passing' d'homme blanc cis-genre.</p>

<p>Quand j'ai une photo de profil d'œuf dans ma timeline sur twitter, je suppose
que cette personne est un homme blanc cis-genre. Je lui assigne
inconsciemment cette identité, et je m'attend à ce qu'elle se conforme à
cette identité.</p>

<p>De même quand je croise une personne dans la rue. Les données que
j'emmagasine sur elle en analysant la façon dont elle s'habille, se coiffe,
marche, la façon dont elle parle, tout cela me donne des indices sur
l'identité sociale de cette personne.</p>

<p>Cette identité n'est pas nécessairement son identité personnelle, il est
important de le noter. Si je m'habille comme ça, c'est parce que j'ai envie
d'être identifié comme un hacker, ce n'est pas forcément pour ça que je pense
en être un. De même une personne efféminée passera pour une femme ou un homo,
même si ce n'est pas nécessairement comme cela qu'elle se définirait.</p>

<p>Cette identité "par défaut", sociale, fait que pour pouvoir exister hors de
cette norme, pour pouvoir être considéré par les autres comme ce que l'on
est et non pas comme cette identité par défaut, il est nécessaire
d'abandonner partiellement notre vie privée. Le fait que je vous dise que je
soit bisexuel me permet de ne pas être entièrement classé dans cette identité
par défaut, et donc d'enrichir une diversité d'identité. Cette diversité peu
s'avérer vitale dans un système social, nous le verrons plus loin.</p>

<p>L'identité par défaut peu cependant avoir des avantages. Par exemple, LEGO en
choisissant de faire ses figurines à la peau jaune avait établi à l'époque
que c'était pour éviter les histoires de racisme. Ce jaune plastique à
d'ailleurs été réutilisé un peu partout comme couleur 'neutre' et a été
dérivée un peu partout. Les smileys et émojis jaunes par exemple.</p>

<p>Sauf que cette couleur a été assimilée à la couleur par défaut. De même que
le blanc, ce jaune est devenu la couleur de peau par défaut, et donc ce jaune
est devenu synonyme de blanc. Spécifiquement, lorsque la firme LEGO a
commencé à développer la licence Star Wars. Lando Calrissian fût un des
personnages à ne pas avoir sa mini figurine.</p>

<p>Plus tard, le set LEGO Sports représentant différentes personnalités du
sport, donna aux joueurs de la NBA une peau noire, ce qui valida bien que la
couleur "par défaut" jaune est en fait celle du système dominant en place.
De même les emojis - au début tous jaunes - sont maintenant déclinés dans de
nombreuses tonalités de peau afin de permettre à chaque personne de choisir
comment elle veut être identifié.</p>

<p>Il y a aussi un trope au cinéma qui établit que l'homme est le "défaut" pour
l'humanité. Un personnage de fiction est, par défaut, mâle. Si c'est une
femme, il y a une raison spécifique pour - ou alors cela va générer une vague
de commentaire et d'attaque. C'est ce que l'on appelle l'androcentrisme : on
considère qu'une femme est une "anomalie" alors qu'elles constituent en fait
50% de la population humaine.</p>

<p>Le problème de cette identité par défaut est que, du coup, elle impose à
celleux qui ne veulent pas être associées à cette identité par défaut la
responsabilité de se démarquer, et de devoir abandonner des bouts de leur vie
privée en les affichant car ces éléments sont privés pour les personnes se
conformant à l'identité sociale par défaut.</p>

<h3>Injonction à l'invisibilisation</h3>

<p>Le discours que j'entends beaucoup dans le milieu geek/cryptonerds est basé
sur le fait que l'on a forcément quelque chose à cacher et que donc, il faut
nécessairement le cacher. Il suffit d'assister à un Café Vie Privé, ou de
regarder les intitulés des conférences de l'Ubuntu Party par exemple.</p>

<p>Le discours est - en gros - vous devez tout dissimuler car le
gouvernement/Facebook/Amazon/Google vont exploiter toutes ces données pour
vous oppresser, vous exploiter, vous transformer en vache à lait et vous
déshumaniser.</p>

<p>Selon ce discours, on devrait tous accepter l'identité par défaut. On devrait
tous être des hommes blancs cisgenre hétérosexuels, puisqu'on ne devrait
afficher aucune différence par rapport au modèle par défaut.</p>

<p>En suivant ce discours, les personnes opprimées parce qu'elles affichent une
différence devraient cacher leur différence derrière leur vie privée et se
conformer au modèle dominant et oppressif, au lieu de questionner ce modèle
oppressif en affichant leurs différences.</p>

<p>Cette injonction, ce devoir d'utiliser sa vie privée pour se protéger des
agressions, pose un double problème. D'abord, parce qu'il est formulés
essentiellement par des hommes cis-hétéro blanc qui correspondent beaucoup à
l'identité par défaut. Ces personnes n'ont que peu de choses à craindre d'un
système oppressif car elles font parties - volontairement ou non - de cette
classe oppressive. C'est donc une injonction d'oppresseurs à opprimés qui est
formulées dans ce discours.</p>

<p>L'autre problème sous-jacent est que, si je suis discriminé, agressé,
tabassé parce que je suis bisexuel et que je le revendique, alors on me dira
que je n'avais qu'à dissimuler cette particularité. Que je n'avais qu'à me
taire et me conformer. Ce discours ne remets pas en cause l'oppression
systémique et classiste, voire l'encourage. Après tout, si quelqu'un n'est
pas capable de chiffrer correctement ses communications et se fait prendre,
ben c'est qu'elle l'a bien cherché, elle n'avait qu'à utiliser Tor.</p>

<p>Demander à supprimer de l'espace public les spécificités et les différences
des uns et des autres, revient à uniformiser tout le monde derrière
l'identité par défaut. Parfois utile pour mettre en retrait des informations
qui pourrait parasiter un discours vis à vis d'un oppresseur - typiquement le
black bloc ou les anonymous - cette uniformisation est nuisible si elle est
maintenu en permanence et dans tous les espaces de notre société.</p>

<p>Déjà, parce qu'elle augmente l'entropie nécessaire à afficher une différence.
Si personne n'est comme moi, alors il est coûteux d'afficher cette
différence, et cela pourrais même être vain. Après tout, si je suis seul à ne
pas être comme les autres, je n'ai aucun intérêt à l'afficher.</p>

<p>Mais surtout parce que cette uniformisation est présente partout où je vais.
Dans la rue, le métro, au taff, dans les conférences techniques, etc….
L'espace public n'appartiens pas aux minorités. Le discours de la Manif pour
tous - et leur défense quand on les accuse d'homophobie - est qu'il n'ont
rien contre les homos, du moment qu'ils ne s'embrassent pas dans la rue. Ils
justifie cela par une agression de leur modèle exprimée par le fait que deux
personnes du même genre se tiennent par la main dans la rue ou s'embrassent.</p>

<p>Cette injonction à la vie privée est une ostracisation. Elle force les
opprimés à se regrouper dans des endroits safe, dans des ghettos, dans des
quartiers à eux où ils peuvent exprimer leur identité sans se faire emmerder.
Demander à quelqu'un de tout chiffrer, de ne pas utiliser facebook ou Google
parce qu'elle pourrait être profilée, c'est mettre la responsabilité de
l'agression sur la personne qui aurait afficher une différence, qui aurait pu
très bien se conformer.</p>

<p>Dire que si je ne chiffre pas mes communications et que je ne me conforme pas
à l'identité dominante par défaut alors le gouvernement viendra m'emmerder,
c'est valider le fait que le gouvernement est légitime pour aller emmerder
les personnes à la marge. Dire que pour me protéger du harcèlement en ligne,
il suffit que je ne dise pas que je suis une meuf, revient à ne pas remettre
en question le fait qu'il y ait du harcèlement.</p>

<p>L'injonction à la vie privée permet, in fine, aux dominants de ne pas e
remettre en question. Cette injonction au chiffrement permet de ne pas
attaquer l'état sur la légitimité de la surveillance massive. Ce n'est pas
parce que je n'utilise pas Tor que la NSA a le droit de surveiller mes
communications.</p>

<p>Mais au final, la question la plus important à laquelle ne répond pas le
chiffement c'est que si tout est privé, alors qu'est ce qui est légitime à
exister dans l'espace public? Qu'est-ce qu'il est légitime de faire en
public? Si tout le monde à la même apparence, le même genre, le même
uniforme, au final quelle liberté j'ai dans l'espace public? Si porter une
cravate rouge au lieu d'une cravate noire deviens un acte subversif,
qu'est-ce que ça nous dit de notre société?</p>

<h3>Le refus de la vie privée comme acte militant</h3>

<p>Rendre publique une partie de sa vie privée est un acte militant. S'affiche
comme membre de telle ou telle communauté, et donc hors de la norme établie,
permet de faire évoluer cette norme, de réduire l'entropie d'être différent.</p>

<p>C'est une stratégie qui a déjà été beaucoup utilisée. Le manifeste des 343
salopes par exemple a permis de faire avancer le débat sur l'avortement en
France et à amené à la loi Weill. 343 femmes ont abandonnées une partie de
leur vie privée et se sont reconnues coupable d'un délit, afin de remettre en
question ce qui à l'époque était l'état de la loi.</p>

<p>C'est également la stratégie du coming out développée par Harvey Milk entre
autres, stratégie qui permettra son élection au poste de maire d'un district
de LA, puis à son assassinat.</p>

<p>Cette stratégie est basée sur le fait que si une personne straight connait
une personne homosexuelle, que c'est un ami, un frère, une sœur, alors il y a
moins de chance que cette personne straight considère l'homosexualité comme
une tare ou que la discrimination contre les homos soit quelque chose qui ne
la concerne pas.</p>

<p>S'afficher ouvertement comme faisant partie d'une minorité permet aussi aux
autres personnes de cette minorité de ne pas se sentir seul⋅e⋅s ou
abandonné⋅e⋅s. Cela leur donne un contact, un point d'entrée vers des groupes
d'entraide et de soutien, et cela peut amener d'autres personnes à essayer de
comprendre les oppressions systémiques.</p>

<p>On le voit, par exemple, dans le mouvement féministe sur twitter. Les
féministes font blocs et se soutiennent parce qu'elles se revendiquent en tant
que telle. Certes, cela les expose a du harcèlement en ligne et hors ligne,
mais avoir un groupe, une communauté, leur permet de aprtager leurs
expériences, de se soutenir quand ça ne va pas, de faire front contre les
agressions et aussi de s'autogérer c'est à dire de pouvoir s'organiser entre
elles, sans qu'un homme blanc cis-hétéro viennent les "aider".</p>

<p>Cette autogestion permet la réappropriation des espace publics. Qu'il
s'agisse d'espace hors-ligne - tels que les marches de nuits ou la non-mixité
dans certains lieux - ou en-ligne - avec tumblr par exemple qui est
essentiellement féminin - cette réappropriation de l'espace public n'est
possible que par un abandon partiel de sa vie privée.</p>

<p>En exprimant une injonction à la vie privée et donc en validant le système
oppressif actuel, vous empêchez cette réappropriation de l'espace public.
Vous forcez les minorités et groupes opprimés à n'exister que dans la sphère
privée, loin des regards. Vous les forcez à la clandestinité, à exister hors
de votre espace public.</p>

<p>Cette mise à l'écart, cette ostracisation forcée gomme de l'espace public les
personnes concernées. Elles n'ont plus le droit d'avoir une identité sociale
en lien avec leur identité personnelle. Dans 1984, si tout le monde porte un
uniforme c'est pour qu'il ne soit pas possible d'exister hors de l'Angsoc.
Les seuls qui ne portent pas cette uniforme sont les personnes qui ne sont
pas membres du parti et qui vivent dans les bidonvilles. Ces personnes
n'existent pas pour le personnel administratif.</p>

<p>Si vous empêchez les femmes d'exister sur internet, ou les LGBT, alors vous
les invisibilisez. Vous leur refusez le droit de s'exprimer dans l'espace
public, vous les empêchez de verbaliser les agressions qu'elles subissent. Et
si ces agressions ne peuvent être verbalisées, alors peut-être qu'elles
n'existent pas. Ou qu'elles ne sont pas systémique. Si je me fais fouiller
par les flics, ce n'est pas parce que j'habite à Saint Ouen et que j'ai l'air
d'un dealer, c'est juste un contrôle aléatoire. Si il n'est pas possible de
faire de statistiques sur les contrôles au faciès parce qu'il n'est pas
possible de faire de statistique ethnique, alors il est impossible de mesurer
efficacement le racisme de la police.</p>

<p>Si on ne peut mesurer le racisme de la police, alors c'est qu'il n'existe
pas. On ne peut pas en prouver l'existence. Tous les débordements et toutes
les bavures seront la faute d'individus, pas d'un système raciste et
oppressif.</p>

<p>De la même façon, en demandant à tout le monde de tout garder privé, vous
validez l'invisibilisation des minorités, vous leur niez le droit et la
possibilité d'exposer des oppressions. Faire le choix militant de se
revendiquer d'un groupe social, d'abandonner une partie de sa vie privé, est
le seul moyen de confronter la société à ses inégalités et injustice.</p>

<p>Ce n'est pas du tout un choix aisé et il y a de nombreux endroits dans le
monde où je ne pourrais pas dire que je suis bisexuel sans être
instantanément menacé de mort.</p>

<h2>Privacy rox</h2>

<h3>Comme moyen de défense</h3>

<p>Ces discriminations basées sur l'identité personnelle sont la raison pour
laquelle toutes les déclarations des droits définissent un droit à la vie
privée pour se protéger contre ces discriminations.</p>

<p>Ce droit permet à chaque personne de s'aménager un espace personnel dans sa
vie quotidienne, espace dans lequel il lui est possible d'essayer de se
construire de se définir.</p>

<p>La vie privée permet d'avoir un espace d'expérimentation, un espace dans
lequel on peux essayer des choses ou faire des choses que l'on a pas
nécessairement envie d'exposer au public parce que l'on ne sait pas encore si
on approuve ou pas ces choses. Il peut s'agir par exemple de questionner son
identité de genre ou sexuelle, de se demander si le FN n'aurais pas tort et
proposerait des choses intéressante ou même de faire une blague sexiste.</p>

<p>Après tout, dans un cadre privé et où tout le monde se connaît, il est
possible de baisser sa garde, de laisser échapper un mot ou une blague
oppressive et que cela soit compris comme cela, comme une erreur, comme un
dérapage ou juste comme un lâcher prise. Et ce n'est pas parce que l'on lit
Mein Kampf que l'on est nécessairement un sympathisant d'Adolf Hitler.</p>

<p>Ces expérimentations, sont extrêmement importantes car elles permettent
d'apprendre. En explorant des voies alternatives sans être soumis au jugement
des autres, il deviens possible de se construire, d'essayer de se définir.</p>

<p>On peut parfaitement avoir besoin de Windows pour travailler, parce qu'il
n'est pas possible de faire changer seul toute la politique des système
d'information d'une entreprise de 600 personnes et pour laquelle on est qu'un
employé comme un autre. Ou juste parce que c'est plus pratique pour dépanner
l'ordinateur des personnes qui viennent aux Repair Café et que non, on ne va
pleur mettre Ubuntu parce que ce n'est pas la raison pour laquelle ces
personnes sont venues - et que l'on ne veut pas qu'elles nous appellent dès
qu'un .docx va planter sur leur machine. En revanche l'annoncer ici,
publiquement, va déchaîner l'ire de nombreuses personnes.</p>

<p>Ou bêtement parce qu'un rm -rf --no-preserve-root / malheureux va vous
exposer à d nombreuses années de moqueries.</p>

<p>L'espace public n'est pas vraiment un espace tolérant à l'erreur ou à la
différence, essentiellement parce qu'il est accaparé par les oppresseurs. La
vie privée permet de se négocier un espace dans lequel exister sans se
confronter aux oppressions. C'est dans ce sens que la DUDH protège - par son
article 12 - les citoyens contre les immixtions arbitraire dans leur vie
privée.</p>

<p>Cette protection est nécessaire afin de permettre aux états de traiter tous
les citoyens de manières égales. Se conserver une vie privée permet de se
protéger contre les injustices du système ou de la société. Quand
l'environnement extérieur cherche à vous stigmatiser et à vous rejeter, il
est nécessaire de se conformer pour souffler et pour éviter d'être soumis à
des violences physiques, sociales ou psychologique parfois extrêmement
violente.</p>

<p>Il est également parfois nécessaire de passer pour quelqu'un du groupe
dominant afin de pouvoir faire valoir certains points politique. L'identité
par défaut, passe souvent pour une identité neutre et donc objective. Se
parer de cette identité permet ainsi de bénéficier d'une aura d'objectivité
qui permet d'asseoir son propos. Il suffit de voir les mèmes tels que "Fake
Geek Girl" par exemple. C'est un mème qui se base sur le fait que les meufs
n'y connaitrait soi disant rien en culture geek, et se base sur le fait
qu'elle ne savent pas répondre à un obscur fait de trivia basé sur cette
culture pour leur refuser l'appartenance à cette culture geek. Fait qui est -
très souvent - ignoré par une grande partie des hommes faisant partie de ce
groupe.</p>

<p>Se faire passer pour un homme dans ce milieu permet donc à une femme de ne
pas se faire jeter dehors, juste sous le simple prétexte de son identité de
genre non conforme au milieu, et donc de pouvoir se faire écouter par des
mecs qui ne l'auraient pas écouter sinon.</p>

<p>Il y a aussi plusieurs espaces publics ou privés. Des choses qui sont
parfaitement acceptées dans un sous-groupe, peuvent être sujet à
discrimination dans un groupe plus grand ou différent. Démarrer un Mac OS X à
NUMA sera parfaitement bien vu, mais vous vaudra quelques regards en coin si
vous le faites au Loop. L'intersections et les interactions entre ces cercles
sociaux et ces groupes rendent encore plus complexe et flou la notion de vie
privée et de vie publique.</p>

<h3>Surveillance de masse et discrimination</h3>

<p>La surveillance de masse a pour but de pouvoir surveiller l'entièreté d'une
population. Cette surveillance ne se limite généralement pas à l'espace
public, mais concerne l'ensemble de la vie d'une personne ou - pour être
précis - l'indexation et l'analyse de l'ensemble des données personnelles,
privées ou non, disponible par une entité étatique ou commerciale.</p>

<p>Ce qui est surveillé devient, de fait public. Connu par l'état ou par les
autres. Votre statut relationnel est mis à disposition du public par
facebook, de même que votre identité de genre par exemple. La RATP sait quels
trajets vous effectuez et peu donc vendre des publicités mieux ciblées aux
annonceurs via sa filiale Metrobus.</p>

<p>Si tout est surveillé, tout est alors public. On se retrouve dans le modèle
du Panopticon tel que envisagé par Foucault dans "Surveiller et Punir". On ne
sait même pas si on est surveillé, mais le simple fait que cette menace
existe nous force à nous conformer et donc à nous contrôler. Les boîtes
noires de la Loi sur le Renseignement n'ont même pas besoin d'exister ou de
fonctionner pour être efficace, il suffit simplement que nous soyons
persuadés qu'elles existent et qu'elles analysent intégralement notre vie
privée devenue publique pour que nous ayons déjà commencés à modifier nos
comportements et notre rapport à la vie privée.</p>

<p>Dans un monde sans vie privé et ayant pour but de forcer au conformisme,
alors l'anti conformisme devient suspect. Les personnes ayant le plus à
perdre du panoptique sont les personnes qui refusent ce conformisme, car
c'est elle que le panoptique cherche à identifier. Toute personne refusant de
se conformer est désormais suspecte d'atteinte à la sureté de l'état.</p>

<p>De fait, la surveillance de masse est nécessairement discriminatoire. Elle ne
concerne pas les personnes faisant parti de la classe dominante, ou désirant
s'y conformer. La surveillance de masse ne va détruire la vie privée que des
personne opprimées. Cette surveillance impose donc une forme de conformisme,
d'uniformité et - on l'a vu - cette uniformité amène à une invisibilisation
des marges et à leur suppression de l'espace public. Or, sans espace privé,
ces personnes ne peuvent exister, il deviens impossible de formuler une
oppression.</p>

<p>Se négocier un espace privé est donc un moyen de lutte contre la société
panoptique et conformiste. Pouvoir vivre en dehors du système de surveillance
de masse permet de préserver son individualité, qui ne peut s'exprimer que
dans sa vie privée dans un système social de ce type. Sans vie privé, il
devient impossible de formuler une idée qui va contre le système social ou
d'expérimenter. Il devient impossible d'évoluer ou de se penser différemment
des autres ce qui amène à la disparition de toutes les différences vis  vis
des autres et à l'assimilation de notre identité personnelle à notre identité
sociale. Nous ne sommes plus des personnes mais des fonctions et des rôles.</p>

<p>L'invasion de notre vie privée par toute sorte de système panoptique
(administration et état d'une part, mais aussi toutes les entités se gavant
au big data) amène donc à la suppression des individus et à notre
assimilation à une identité sociale hors de notre contrôle. Il est donc
littéralement vital que nous reprenions le contrôle sur nos données
personnelles - qui ne sont jamais définies comme privées par les opérateurs -
afin de savoir qui a le droit de savoir quoi sur moi. Quitte à ce qu'Amazon
ne puisse pas me proposer de livre que j'aimerai à tous les coups.</p>

<h2>Conclusion</h2>

<p>La vie privée est donc quelque chose d'extrêmement important, on l'a vu elle
seule permet de pouvoir remettre en question un système oppressif et
conformiste en permettant à chacun de se construire son identité personnelle.</p>

<p>Cela dit, l'injonction à la vie privée, dire à tout le monde qu'il faut tout
cacher, c'est justement se conformer au système panoptique. C'est refuser aux
individus le droit d'exister comme ils le veulent.</p>

<p>C'est un droit consacré par plusieurs déclarations des droits humains. Mais
c'est un droit, pas un devoir. Je n'ai aucune obligation à cacher mon
identité sexuelle, ni à la révéler. C'est un choix que je fais et que je suis
seul à pouvoir faire.</p>

<p>Et c'est un choix qui évolue dans le temps et le contexte social. Ce n'est
pas parce que je balance des choses sur moi dans un cercle social défini que
je le ferai dans un autre. Il n'y a pas de règle universelle de ce qui doit
être privé ou public, il n'y a que des curseurs que l'on essaye de contrôler
pour exposer plus ou moins de sa vie privé, pour différentes raison.</p>

<p>Mais oui, il est absolument nécessaire de réfléchir aux outils pour protéger
sa vie privée, notamment en ligne. Mais il faut aussi se poser la pertinence
de ces outils et de ses usages. Ces outils doivent permettre aux personnes
qui le désirent de choisir quelles informations rendre publiques et
lesquelles doivent rester privées.</p>

<p>Il faut aussi se poser la question de la lutte globale contre la surveillance
généralisée, parce que Tor, GPG, OTR ou autre ne sont pas la solution
universelle. Ces outils ne résolvent pas le fait que les états est
corporations construisent une prison panoptique à laquelle nous consentons.</p>


