[About XDA developers] Absolon:
A deeper perspective....

I am still for https, but I know the problem there is behind it because it's not just switching.

Tehcnical

Considering that XDA is #49 in the TOP-50 sites (last years estimate) and with visitors counted in millions each day browsing through pages

means that switching must involve an investment into hardware that can handle all that SSL-traffic and also having enough entropy-pool for it.

(Read about SSL etc on Wikipedia, they have excellent stuff about that)

For such high volume you need to either have dedicated hardware for it in the machines (SSL-card/entropy generator) or a front switch that

handles that and that is not cheap. Of course, you could most probably take a few Linux machines that just use the software there is for that

and let it crunch as other "Top sites" that lives on donations and not commercials. So if you skip Cisco and their overpriced solutions and do

your own SSL-machines (let me know. I'm for hire! ;)) you would probably not have to invest in the 100k-figures but 1/10th of that.

So it's not THAT easy and just pull a switch. You need some investment. Should we have it? Yes we should. Why? Privacy.

RANT!

A deeper perspective

If you take a look at my posts you see that I am a strong advocate for the right of privacy. This is a part of my engagement in Human Rights but

where this is as important because if it goes the wrong way there will be no way of having the rights of privacy.

This is sent in plain text. It's a text-file in html (check the source of a message) so it's at least 5 kb.

Since I'm "known" for making "walls of texts" it's probably closer to 50 kb ;)

If I count low this clear text has traveled passed at least 6 "information tapping" points. Depending on where you live you can add up a few so

let's say at least 10!

I live in the Land of Polar Bears, that is the "Uhm" of the EU (check the 1 Euro coin). ;)

In EU we have this "Storage directive" that means that my provider must store the things listed "for at least 6 months"..

They store:

The ip and who is behind it

The time I was using it

The point I connected too

Most probably the type of traffic

You have to hunt the pirates and terrorist you know!!!.....

If someone know about the "Digital rights/surveillance" in USA please give me a PM since I have no idea how the law looks like.

It is, of course also stored in the database here at XDA. Since I can track a users all messages from the first one he/she did I guess forever..

Since XDA must verify my credentials that I am who I am here and allowed to post my username/password has been sent over clear text as well.

What will happen with this database if XDA is sold or something we don't know. The information is there. Our posts are there. Our views on things

are there (well, I am at least putting views and not just asking for a new version of a ROM).

I also had to create this account with an verifiable email and I did it as probably most with my Gmail. What, how, where and accessible by whom

that is we don't know. I have my mails stored there, I get the link for this post there, and the data is replicated around the world and we don't know

for how long that is stored.

To create the "real" Gmail I need to use my phone number (they have it anyway since I login with my phone). I have to use my Gmail since

having an Android phone I MUST use it because without it I can't do jack tish.

Companies say one thing but gladly build in back-doors when asked. So I don't give that much for Google's assurance as the guardians of my privacy...

So this message have now "grown" with all the stored data to at least 50 times the size not to mention how it has been processed by the

"tapping points" and stored there. We don't know what they are storing or if they are discarding this or if they leave some digital bits to me as

a citizen. But it IS processed. Several times.

And if someone say that "If you don't have anything to hide bla bla", please give me your address and I will come by,

install IP-cameras with sound in every room in your home, mirror your computer screen, your location and all phone calls in mp3.

In real time on the net. I even register a domain and a webhotel for just this purpose! Still ok with it?

You have nothing to hide, right

?

I stole that example from here. but I think it's nice and shows how unintelligent that statement is.

Emails are STILL sent in plain text even if you have an sophisticated logins.

Maybe if I write "privacy, terror, darknet, avoid Prism, talk somewhere safe" and Afghanistan this will generate a few more crunchings?

The version before Prism, in the 80-ies, Echelon, made many of us adding a signature with probable "words of interest" to overload it.

Today we don't have to store the data itself but can store "meta-data". Statistics if your best friend here and with the ever growing magnitude

of Grid-computers, that the Top-50 list grows with petaFLOPS. And remind you. This is the ones that are made public.

Who knows what else there is? Do we have any data about Russian "Super-computers"?

If I would be a "greenie" and concerned about emissions and energy wasted, this post is probably polluting more then cold starting my old Volvo

at -30C (-22F) without a catalysator, filter and run on kerosene (Land of the Polar Bears you know). Only Volvo starts at -30C (-22F)! :good:

But my Igloo, where I do watches and chocolate, is heated with whale blubber so it's "re-newable" energy. ;)

I don't want to start some flaming war because that is not my intention of this post but the justifications of all this after 9/11

(it was a tragedy but in Europe we still are comparing the numbers with WWII) so you could call it an enormous overreaction to invade privacy

in the name of hunting terrorists (that failed quite badly in Boston last year) and the consequence of population control.

So by data-mining, meaning putting the bits of databases together it's not hard to make a profile of little "Absie".

And this is not the normal thing people yell at me like "conspiracy freak", "foliohat" when I talk about Samsung and the things they do and what

we have found that are just.. bad.

This is hard facts and as I've said, I'm a nobody but I still generate all those fingerprints, a nobody or not. Imagine a "person of interest"...

So yes, HTTPS! Invest! Why make it easy and why should my PM to someone be read in clear text?

The current situation is that you could pretty easy build up a mirror of XDA if you wanted, and if you can tap the PM's if we would do something

illegal (and rooting IS NOT illegal) it's easily found and caught.

It's about principle and privacy

and we have been giving it up bit by bit and people HAVE to wake up and just say "NO, it's ENOUGH"!

Because if we don't then we will end up with a closed source Android that Samsung is trying. No way of making MY property as I want because

rooting will be impossible because of hardware design. It's like Volvo would come and punch me in the face for installing a new radio in my car!

So ON and OFF topic but trying to put this is a deeper perspective and justification of the investment that I think is small compared to the gain.

But then not all understand this or know or even care. Sadly many care more about their warranty then their freedom.

Rant over.

Ok, time to have our Sunday family walk and to let the kids club some baby seals. ;)