{"id":2786,"date":"2014-06-01T19:20:46","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T23:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/masspirates.org\/blog\/?p=2786"},"modified":"2014-06-02T22:26:47","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T02:26:47","slug":"thursday-reset-the-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masspirates.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/01\/thursday-reset-the-net\/","title":{"rendered":"Join us This Thursday, and Reset the Net"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 5th 2013, Guardian published the first of the Edward Snowden-leaked documents, a National Security letter that compelled Verizon<\/a> to produce copies of all of their customer’s call records, and deliver them to the NSA on an “ongoing, daily basis”. By itself, that was a huge deal — very few people had ever seen a national security letter, save for those unfortunate enough to receive one.<\/p>\n

That was a year ago, and it’s amazing what we’ve learned since them. Aside from collecting phone records, the NSA has gathered information from social network<\/a> connections, started a massive facial recognition<\/a> project, tapped fiber optic<\/a> cables, collected vast amounts of information about what people do on the internet<\/a>, bugged the phones<\/a> of world leaders, hacked<\/a> into computer systems, spied on diplomats<\/a> during the G8 and G20 summits, and collected millions of text messages<\/a> and credit card transactions<\/a>. This is not even a complete list<\/a>. The NSA is out to conduct surveillance on everyone who ever had a pulse. Or, perhaps we’re all (at least remotely) suspects in some big “terrorist” investigation. Or, perhaps both.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, there is one thing that will make the NSA’s job far, far more difficult: encryption. Encryption is a form of personal security — much like the lock on your front door — and anyone can use it. You’re as justified in using encryption as you are in locking the door on your way out.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the main topic of this post. Thursday June 5th is the one-year anniversary of the first Snowden leaks, and the Massachusetts Pirate party is one of the many groups working in coalition to Reset the Net<\/a>. As part of our participation, masspirates.org is now served only over HTTPS (with the exception of a few old Android devices, that can’t digest our X509 certificate). We value your privacy, and that’s why we’re encrypting traffic to and from masspirates.org.<\/p>\n

We’re also putting on an event. Join us from 7-9pm on Thursday June 5th, at Encuentro5<\/a><\/strong> (9 Hamilton Place, Suite 2A, Boston, MA — about a block from the Park Street T station). Quartermaster Steve will give a talk about Privacy and Surveillance, and we’ll have an informal PGP keysigning. We hope you can join us.<\/p>\n

Reset the Net<\/a>. Don’t ask for your privacy. Take it back.<\/p>\n


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