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Berlin – Sunday, July 6, 2014 – 5J-blogger Henrik “HAX” Alexandersson just after his latest posting on HAX.5July.org. He wrote a piece about how payment providers are curtailing privacy, security and liberty on the Internet, through refusing clients like Wikileaks, VPN providers and so forth. Protonmail is a new and tragic case, showing where we are heading. Read How to kill free information and privacy by stealth by HAX and what one can do!

We even found a t-shirt of the right size for our impressive blogger. Look into our shop to get one!

5th of July Foundation is proud to present a passionate and disobedient civil rights activist and critic. 

From today, 5th of July 2014, we are happy to offer Henrik “HAX” Alexandersson a platform to spread his mission and insights to an international audience, in English.

HAX has five years of full-time work behind him for the Swedish Pirate Party MEP (Member of European Parliament) Christian Engström in Brussels and Strasbourg. June 30 was his last day, since The Pirate Party was voted out.

During these years HAX worked almost exclusively with the questions that 5th of July Foundation burns for: A free and open Internet. And he was an avid blogger – in Swedish.

We now invite the world to follow HAX. He is able to present himself better than we. He is never shy and always fun to read:

So, Let’s Unfuck the Internet! as HAX himself so eloquently formulates his mission.

Oscar Swartz, Chairman 5th of July Foundation

After the NSA revelations many of us wonder whether cloud services are advisable. Do we wish to entrust a third party with our private and corporate data?

The big corporations provide smooth services, no question about that. Syncing data via Apple’s iCloud means that, well, that data is stored with Apple. Of course all these giants tell us that they do nothing outside what law requires from them. But admittedly “law” can include secret executive orders from authorities.

Long before the NSA revelations it turned out that Dropbox did have the keys to decrypt data that users had uploaded to them, using their encryption service. This was not clear at all from their user terms. Read this Wired story about this instructive case.

Swedish public intellectual Rasmus Fleischer, a founder of and activist in the now defunct “the Pirate Bureau”, just published a book (in Swedish) with “net-political” musings. He claims that we become less free when we hand over physical control over information: “To store files on a hard-disk starts to appear like having money on the bank – nothing for the broad masses …”.

At 5th of July Foundation we believe that it has become more important to consider who is behind different services, what is their track record, where are servers located, in what jurisdiction and so forth.

  

One initiative was taken by Swedish ISP Bahnhof (whose main owners stands behind this foundation): A “Based in Sweden” seal for certain service providers. Info In English.

The U.S. government regularly seizes laptops, smart phones, tablets, when people enter the country. They don’t have to suspect a crime. Copying the information on electronic devices and look into people’s whole lives are seen as equivalent to opening a suitcase and go through some clothing. This “border search” happens both to American citizens and visitors. We have seen it used against dissidents and critics. Jacob Appelbaum is a well-known case.

On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2013, this principle was upheld once again in court. ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, tried to challenge the doctrine but the court did not agree.

Here is a report about the case when it was filed some years ago, less than two minutes of informative video.

The “border” has been interpreted to stretch 100 miles into the country from the borders, making up a “constitution free zone” according to some interpretations.

EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, has even published Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices.

One of their advice is to simple not carry the most sensitive data on a laptop into the U.S. It may be financial records, business negotiations, very personal items, whatever. If one needs this data, EFF recommends leaving it at home and download it in secure manners once inside the U.S.. One could e.g. use a VPN tunnel out from the U.S., transporting the information in an encrypted way “under the border”. OpenVPN should be safe, even if NSA is more competent than previously thought.

5th of July Foundation recommends watching – or listening to – Edward Snowden’s Alternative Christmas Message, delivered on Britain’s Channel 4. It is meant as an alternative to the Queen’s speech. His message is short, not even two minutes long, so don’t hesitate!

Channel 4’s own original video is found here, but it is only available for one month. There are numerous other sources however, just search the web. This is from the YouTube channel of AP, Associated Press.

We started talking about the 5th of July Foundation in 2012 after a resolution was passed in the United Nations that stated that freedom of expression must be as well protected on the Internet as outside. We found it hypocritical since two major forces behind the resolution was Sweden and the U.S., nations that were known to intercept and scan (at least!) virtually all Internet traffic that passed the borders of the country, before storing and analysing huge amounts of that data.

In Februray 2013 we signed the founding documents of the 5th of July Foundation. Little did we know that a certain Edward Snowden had already struck up secret conversations with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras (who also filmed Snowden’s message above). In June 2013 The Guardian published the first documents from Snowden’s leak.

At the same time we launched a VPN service, Integrity.st (so far only sold via Swedish “free speech ISP” Bahnhof, but getting closer to a more public release).

As Internet veterans, entrepreneurs, activists and thinkers we knew a lot about surveillance of communications. But the extent shown by Snowden’s leak was unexpected.

We have lingered behind the scenes so far but will be more public from now. We will launch both “for pay” and free services for the public that enhances Security, Privacy and Liberty on the Internet. Services from a trustable source. Such are needed.

It is 2014. Stay tuned!

The world’s largest computer expo is going on in Hannover, Germany: CeBIT 2013. German’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was given a tour at the opening and proudly displayed a new smart phone that will be ready for her use in mid 2013. The quirk? The phone is wire-tap protected: Both speech and data are to be encrypted and stored according to the highest security standards. She will be able to choose from a modified Samsung or Blackberry.

Not only she. Supposedly 10 000 such phones are to be delivered to employees in German administration at a price of 2 500 Euro per piece. Yes, of course those who run the state must be able to communicate in a safe way. This is true for a lot of employees in corporations also. A lot of confidential business data is transmitted via smart phones. And so is a lot of other personal data between ordinary citizens.

At 5th of July Foundation we believe everyone deserves a high-security smart phone, just like Angela Merkel. Maybe that will not happen, but in fact anyone can achieve a higher security via a smart choice of trusted services.

From Pcwelt.de and Arcor.de (in German)