Comment by awakeasleep
15 years ago
Don't use a search engine to look for it either, or visit websites related to it from a browser or location that could be tracked back to you.
And don't leave voicemails about it to someone with google voice, or talk about it to someone using google to call you. Don't talk about it internationally on skype, and don't visit untoward locations with your smartphone in your pocket. Don't drive there using gps, either.
Is there a plausible way to spread disinformation about your activity, such that if anyone ever brought up your past electronic activities you could show that there's no way to tell what's a true record and what's just random shit created by some service?
Well, there's always
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging
which gives "perfect" forward secrecy
I wasn't thinking about secrecy, but about false openness. For example, having eight Facebook accounts, and (somehow) making sure your trusted friends knows which is the real on, while each of them present a different personae. Decoy sites, suppose.
I am not much of a crypto but I'd be curious to know if this is open to goverment monitoring. Do you know?
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There are laws regarding the recording of conversations, and GPS usage does not leave a trail.
If the call was already being recorded (say for voicemail) it can simply be subpoenaed. In the eyes of the law the defendant wiretapped themselves.
Of course the actual GPS service, involving beeping atomic clocks in space and a passive receiver in your device leaves no trail. But everybody appears to use 'GPS' to refer to "directed navigation" applications running on small computers that like to keep logs of waypoints and intended destinations. The iPhone's Maps app even takes a screenshot when you switch away from it to make it feel snappier when you return, and these pictures can be recovered forensically.
Indeed, although they're surprisingly inconsistent (at least as regards telephonic conversation): http://www.callcorder.com/phone-recording-law-america.htm
I don't really see any qualitative difference between that and logging IMs, it's just that the latter is technically much easier to do. But as a record of a private conversation between two people, I feel it ought to be subject to the same evaluations of admissibility.
Not really, since IMs are expected to be logged they can even be subpoenaed, but a recording made outside of a warranted wiretap would not be admissible evidence.
Ditto email, log files and so on, basically any textual communication is subject to subpoena, but the 'spoken word' is expected to be transient unless you have a microphone stuck in your face or have been warned very explicitly that one is present.
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Why not talk on Skype? How does someone set about recording or listening in to a call made on Skype?
The issue here is that Zuck's IM buddy probably logged the conversation and then released to the media or as part of the law suit later. So calling is nice but there is plenty of equally efficient skype plugins for recording voice. duh.
Without the "duh" this is a good comment. Why sully it?
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Some buddy! In my naivety I was thinking of a third party.
Thanks for the 'duh'. This is not a term I use or have heard used by anyone I know (well, that's how the world can be sometimes for English speakers outside the US) but I have now looked it up and have therefore learned something.
I was referring to something I had heard a while ago about the NSA requiring keys to skype encryption because it can cross international borders. Don't know how true it is.