About that awesome time I was an "extremist":
My extremist profile:
• foreign national/foreign resident
• Linux user/coder
• occasional Linux Journal reader
• occasional Tor/TAILS user (past tense)
• occasional i2pMessenger user
• frequently read, write, email & blog on subject of security, encryption & anonymization
• frequently participate in forums on subject of security, encryption & anonymization
So how do I know this identifies me as member of an "extremist forum" and qualifies me for tracking by
XKeyscore, potentially subjecting my communications to
deep packet inspection?
Because these news stories published by Tagesschau [English] and Der Erste [English] ... [with English summary articles here, here, here, here, here and here] describe how NSA targets certain Tor relays to identify Tor and TAILS users as well as tracking the users of various websites and on-line forums and blogs that discuss these subjects using rules that exclude "5 Eyes" citizens/residents but fingerprint others for tracking.
In other words, if you merely read about these subjects on-line you are considered a suspect, "extremist" and fair game.
And, specifically, I know this because ......
...... this section of published XKeyscore code says so:
As I've said here on numerous occasions, it is rather foolish to assume that any encryption or anonymization scheme is totally foolproof, either to brute force hacking (difficult for high level encryption) or other forms of hacks including social engineering.
Now I'm unhappy to be proven right again: in this case, given enough resources, identification of assets (Tor servers) and just some good old mass surveillance (filtering the traffic to/from sites where the subjects are discussed) users or potential users can be identified and then passively tracked by security agencies, and then data collected and stored for future use.
Keep in mind that, under the present rules, NSA treats any traffic that is encrypted, regardless of the origin, as "Foreign" and fair game.
And it would seem, if you are outside of the 5 Eyes countries (USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand), just reading about these subject in an open public forum can get you tagged as an "extremist" and subject to invasive, deep packet inspection.
Warning Daily Kos Members - be on the lookout for Tor and TAILS users, Linux users or readers of Linux Journal that maybe cruising the Internet: