Big Brother gets bigger

More cyberpunk than ecopunk but important all the same. The government is going to snoop on us even more than they already do. All web, email and mobile phone traffic is to be monitored.

As I have said in the past, the rise of China will not mean that we make the Chinese government more Western but that Western governments will become more Chinese.

Some say that there will be checks and balances and that the government will not be able to do anything without a court order.

Over the past few months we have seen organisations (News International et al) circumvent the law with regards to surveillance so I am sure our government will do so too.

Ostensibly, it is to target individuals or terrorist cells. In reality it is snoop on everyone, to gauge public dissatisfaction and to divide and conquer. Eventually, as in China, it will lead to an on/off switch that the authorities will flick when they need to pull the wool over our eyes.

So, are we going to continue watching talent shows on television and let the decline in our living standards continue to wash over us?

Some of the things I will be doing or have done...

1) I do not have a mobile phone contract. I only use Pay As You Go SIMs.

2) I do not make calls with a mobile phone but I do accept them from known people.

3) I use anonymising software to browse the web on certain occasions. If I did so all the time then I would attract attention. Innocuous browsing is done through my ISP. Anything that gives away my politics, beliefs or dissatisfaction with the authorities is done anonymously.

4) I use free or crackable WEP WiFi links for downloading BitTorrents rather than my usual ISP.

5) I am considering encrypting my emails but at present I do not use email for politics, beliefs or dissatisfaction with the authorities.

6) Social Media - I have a public face on LinkedIn but it is not associated with Ecopunk or my views. I have two Facebook accounts; one for Ecopunk and a private one for people I know. The private one is paired down to the minimum and gives nothing personal away. More often than not, the private account is shutdown and I only reinstate it for short periods of time.

7) I use very long, random passwords for all online accounts. A different password for each account. I store the passwords in an encrypted store called KeePass (aka KeePassX on Linux). I only have to remember one long password to access all my passwords.