harrystottle's favorite privacy pages, page 1

Last login: 13 hours agoHarrystottle: Harry is a guy from Bristol, England, UK.; Likes 3,770 pages, 126 videos, 20 photos • 95 fans • Received 13 reviews; Member since Oct 03, 2005

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Web World Wide & 50 Free Internet Tools for Tin-Foil Hat Wearers: Aug 15, 9:28am 53 reviews internet, privacy, web-security
http://www.great-isp-deals.com/blog/2008/08/50-free-internet-tools-for-tin-fo...; excellent collection of online privacy protectors, use and spread...

Ixquick Protects Your Privacy !: Jul 25, 12:28pm 1 review search, privacy
http://eu.ixquick.com/eng/protect_privacy.html; Thanks to Chongololo for the heads up on this site. About to try them out as a default search engine...

IPS finds no nuggets in ID checking goldmine | The Register: Jul 4, 9:01am 1 review privacy, security, identity
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/04/ips_validation_service/; I'll come back to this later but one of the consequences of my Glastonbury project (which I can now announce to have been a modest triumph - to the extent they're asking me to commit for the next two years) is that I have come up with a much better solution to Identity verification than the typically clumsy and intrusive Government solution.

Mother pleads not guilty in cyber-bullying suicide test case | The Register: Jun 18, 8:34am 1 review internet, privacy, anonymity, police-state, bullying
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/17/myspace_suicide_plea/; Example of how and why the State over-reaches itself.

Everyone is duly horrified at the "bullying" in this case but there is no relevant breach of existing laws. Instead of creating new laws (simply based on the "Do No Harm" principle) which could be democratically discussed and agreed, they attempt instead to bend existing laws to suit their vengeful purposes. This involves finding a judge willing to endorse a false interpretation of existing laws and, in the process, criminalising millions of anonymous posters.

The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions...

Why We Protest: May 25, 8:49am 31 reviews activism, privacy, anonymity, liberty, police-state
http://www.whyweprotest.org/; two reasons I like this site. a) it demonstrates the occasional need for high profile anonymity which is a topic close to my heart and b) it attacks Scientology (and specifically, it attacks Scientology's attempts to bully the rest of us)

Now don't get me wrong. I recognise the valuable service these guys are performing. I'm not, however, convinced that so much effort is necessary. Seems to me that Scientology is a much easier target than the longer established cults of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism. They've had thousands of years of trial and error in obscuring their central claims to the point that they've insulated their memes from external attack in ways Scientology hasn't begun to grasp.

Why do you think they are so defensive? Because once their narrative is exposed, potential recruits, who have not been carefully conditioned to accept this fairy tale, just laugh. And once you've laughed at the fairy tale, it can no longer infect you.

Their narrative of how we came to this sorry state is truly childish. Once anyone with an IQ hears their fairy tale they are immunised. Quick Version:

"Thetans" created themselves TRILLIONS of years ago. They became bored and decided to cut themselves off from their acquired knowledge and insight by projecting themselves into our primitive and limited brains. Now their task is to win the game by getting back to their original state.

As a plot line it's not a million miles from the Mormon fairy tale but without the sacred underpants. It is certainly at least as imaginative as the FSM.

The thing is, it is absolutely vital, if you're going to make someone swallow shit on this scale, that you prepare them as well as Derren Brown prepares his subjects.

Premature exposure breaks the spell. Which is all you need to know to explain the behaviour of the CoS. And it's all you need to do to break the clowns. Just spread - and/or copy and/or upload to your own blogs or websites and/or link to sources like the Thetan link above and any other amusing narrative nonsense which you find the cult espousing. Once enough people understand the content of their particular fantasy, their pool of potential recruits will gradually dry up. They will wither and die.

So, though I admire it, I don't see the need for the head on confrontation these guys are risking. But, having said that, I find it peculiarly inspiring. Because what they are doing is building a model of resistance against the much more powerful enemy we all need to confront: The Police State.

I shall develop this theme elsewhere...

Data from Columbia disk drives survived the shuttle accident: May 10, 4:24pm 1 review science, privacy, security, secrecy
http://www.physorg.com/news129557606.html; bear this in mind when you try to hide those secret files! If they can recover data from a drive this damaged, you're going to have to work very hard to stop them getting at your data...

Ohio man cuffed for shagging picnic table | The Register: Mar 31, 8:34am 2 reviews bizarre, privacy
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/31/picnic_table_incident/; the critical question here is whether it was a public or private performance. I can concede the complaint if it was public, but if it was private, what business is it of any third party? Or are we supposed to assume that anything which can be captured on video by nosy neighbours is automatically public from now on?

German Constitutional Court rejects government snooping of PCs - heise online UK: Mar 27, 4:33pm 1 review internet, privacy, police-state, trusted-surveillance
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/German-Constitutional-Court-rejects-govern...; now, bear this one in mind while I go look for... Lidl Snooping Staff

Of laptops and US border searches | The Register: Mar 25, 9:40am 2 reviews computers, privacy, police-state, thought-crime
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/24/us_border_control_laptop_searches/; One could raise all sorts of legalistic objections to these searches but they're all secondary. The real issue here is that a laptop (or home computer) is now becoming an adjunct to your brain; a place where you can - and many people increasingly do - keep your most private thoughts. Invasion of your private thoughts is about as totalitarian as we can get. Furthermore, penalising someone for material found in such a search is, by the same logic, a straightforward "thought crime".

If there are any woolly minded authoritarians out there who think there are any circumstances under which such a search could be considered reasonable, let me ask you to stretch your imagination forward a few years to the point (and very real prospect) where we no longer need laptops but instead have implants which serve the same purpose (and a lot more besides) and which we can address with pure thought. Would you also consider it reasonable for the various police states to open you up to get at your implant? Why not have done with it and simply insist that on entry to the country, we must all submit to having our minds read by the new generation of brain readers? Where, in other words, would you draw the line?