-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 10/25/2012 02:07 PM, micah anderson wrote: > > full disclosure: i'm with riseup (and consider myself > trustworthy!), and I know a lot of activists also have a high > degree of trust in the work we do at riseup, perhaps partially > because we've been around for 12 years and have a lot of history > with social movements. > *** History is how trust grows within networks. I completely agree with the importance of that factor in choosing to cooperate (use that network) or defect.
> > Issues of trust > *** Many factors come into play when you have to make a choice: among them, ignorance, emulation, and necessity (or the feeling of it) can put a lot of people in danger. Cooperate-first is a common strategy that's rewarding when it works, and, in that case, can be devastating when it fails. But you can't avoid people "feeling lucky". How to raise awareness of relevant information in a noisy, saturated, but distributed environment, so that it reaches the right people when they need it? For example, one of the most visible resources on using VPN services does not mention Riseup[1]. (the following are hints to evaluate the danger, not in any case a statement that the software is insecure.) Steganos Software, the maker of OkayFreedom, is a German company, and has been around since 1996. As a Microsoft Partner, Steganos makes software for running on Microsoft's proprietary operating system as administrator. The OkayFreedom proprietary client program is available for download on major (commercial) software providers. It allows to "invite friends" by providing their email address, Facebook or Twitter accounts, in order to get "bonus traffic" (otherwise limited to 1GB per month in the gratis version). So, there's an incentive to go viral in order to augment the transmission capacity, which can help explain its popularity. In case of the user's device is confiscated by the police, usage of the software is not deniable. (disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so take the following with a mountain of salt.) Article 5.1 of the Terms of Service[1] seems to provide legal ground for Iran to sue Steganos Software, and forbid Iranians from further using the service, but that remains to be seen in a German court. The Terms of Service of OkayFreedom state that they restrict "the usage of OkayFreedom in any way that violates valid laws or regulations." It does not mention anything about jurisdiction, so the Iranian government could theoretically sue Steganos Software in Germany and eventually obtain some user data (email if transmitted) if so compelled by a German court of law--unlikely, but not excluded. In another point, users are held responsible for any damage they might cause to any third party while using the service: if Iran sues the company, and wins, the company can in turn sue its users according to the terms of their license agreement. How the company identifies the client for legal purpose, etc., remains unclear: it could be a unique client identifier, and what data is linked to that is unknown... Regards, == hk [1] http://en.flossmanuals.net/bypassing-censorship/ch025_what-is-vpn/ [2] http://www.okayfreedom.com/tos/ P.S.: I shamelessly say https://help.riseup.net/en/donate -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJQiaBZAAoJEDhjYTkcokoT1SgP/RZkLX+SSsyDcQguwR5zhl8S tOAP1nm4dAp8ekWvpRjy6nseW5F30C46glNOZcJmqquMcil4EIDhlUv0B1krCj3O KkIS1rIHcFu+6pROwWRkdEiNxhvBxS6nYEvaAZz3cTmfN2a40oCwjFtIhBZmc22+ Zw5s5xXjyqGSd2vcK8KfwD2/mM03/DL3TYr9tOdRrOjgvvA26otU3zva6TaYHpK8 biDdweeVWi/QHiGvCFgXsavWaUCVD9O3x6S9ECXfCZ8KPGHCkk5pA13zpopkcoft ihCUpUfOLGxFrletfSW8gq+LnfR3soMuzA/Hv+/7SqfBfKVQT9oYbZcdt57KU7VH KNx3SDgax0x9T90QsTxFALt2yBeKDAU91G4lGuArxPs4HuXiXTsbgidE2Z4zSRze n+Krpn0+1BsRolVsRXnkHHYLWQV0Og+OeboM0vzKLvwFpQ2QfrDunqHQuCPNX3+/ VHTCF4sMYr7DgE5xfVpt3mtVlwu43y6Kju9mZkJi1RZTEgovu5wd2Lx5vUuy0ZDw 1hWevtdAQjgoSz8QBorhuwlPqSdI0/Te8dZyiRTo9CZ2jzIODjd9ENtB6FLBGKcC 0aWrCqmCR0q/Dxn7e8EFxEVdmKd0zux4SBhVcOvo7bbRr4W0NvJevuFyyGeKPgin +huXg9zHZzFZwRjfNhb3 =d2dp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
