Ask HN: How Edward Snowden Do His Computing?

[sanosuke]

I recently read the "How I do my Computing" by RMS. And I wonder, is there any internet article which have information about which Software Mr. Edward Snowden uses? Operating System, EMail Service, Phone, Etc. I'm getting paranoic about all this privacy talk.

[alansmitheebk]

I would imagine he uses Tails and TOR.

He used to use Lavabit for email. The founder of Lavabit chose to shut the company down rather than comply with subpoenas from the US government. There is probably pending litigation to this day. He's obviously not going to disclose his current email provider as it would suffer the same fate.

I'd be curious to know his choice of OS. It's probably a Linux distro, but it could also be a BSD.

If he uses a cellphone at all, it's probably a blackphone: https://blackphone.ch/phone/ I believe Glenn Greenwald has talked about the Blackphone and was a beta user.

It's unlikely that Snowden would reveal any details about his computing as they could potentially be used compromise his comsec.

Here are some resources for surveillance self-defense: https://ssd.eff.org/.

[Tomte]

The founder of Lavabit was perfectly willing to cooperate with the US government, including giving up customers' data, until some point when he just reverted to childish behaviour.

[alansmitheebk]

He was forced to consent to having monitoring hardware installed. When the government demanded that he hand over the encryption keys as well he refused. You can read his side of the story here: http://lavabit.com/

I don't see anything childish about upholding his fiduciary responsibilities to his users and standing up to the agents of a surveillance state which far exceeds even the wildest dreams of the East German Stasi.

[Tomte]

You're wrong.

He was perfectly willing to hand over customer data before Snowden.

[jpetersonmn]

Handing over specific user data when requested is a lot different that handing over your encryption keys though.

[Tomte]

He handed over specific user data for other users, refused to do that in the Snowden case. Only then (and after long stalling) did the US government demand the keS, in order to get the data themselves.

Had he handed over the requested data, just like all the data before, noone would have demanded any keys.

[BorisMelnik]

For most of his work, he is probably using a PC without a video camera (webcam / mic) operating under a fake identity. Good chance he is just using a normal OS / setup.

Phone, I agree he probably has to have some sort of blackphone unless he is altering his voice.

Now, when he goes to communicate with his family / reporters I'm sure he has a whole setup with Tor / Tails and a whole lotta encryption.

If you watched the recent documentary you will see he did a lot of command line stuff and was a huge advocate of PGP.