BSidesSF 2018 - Privacy for Safety - OPSEC When the Threat is in the Home (Stella)

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yeah thanks for coming to troll me so many of you I'm delighted so I'm I'm really really pleased to be giving this presentation because it's very very important to me I speak from some personal experience and from the people who I work with on a voluntary basis and so this isn't a technical talk so I do apologize this is more like me yelling again about things that have already been said and to a large extent by people like violet blue I hope I'll just keep doing this and it'll like so what yeah so I work with a large amount of targeted groups and and when we come to talk to people in tech whether they're developers or anything else

they often ask us why it's important for people to have safe have extra privacy options that don't exist for them at the moment and what we say is that it's the current threat model is for the a threat outside the home it's signal external one and so we're designing with the threat model of the line on the tear and gety rather than the mouse okay or the the threat model of the the the white guy who's driving to work in his Tesla from Los Gatos and he doesn't really have that many threats okay so it's really important that we think about those and make them less of an edge case when we're designing and we're thinking

about how we design privacy options so you go to the next one so the scariest question for anyone in a targeted group is why are you smiling and yeah so if I ask my best friend that and we're sitting there in a bar on our phones which we never do because obviously we socialize and we talk to each other I might say to her you know what are you smiling what's funny and there's two options she's gonna have that she'll either showing me her screen and say well yeah this is really funny look somebody send me this or she would say I can't show you you know because it's private or something outside that no

they both those scenarios are completely acceptable a normal are they for most of us we would accept that but if you're in a targeted group if you're in ER and who do we mean by targeted groups so say if you're in abusive relationships say if you are unsure of your sexuality and you are exploring their sexuality and you're in a very conservative area what if you are a political activist in certain countries or certain areas because even here in the US or in my own country there are certain things that you shouldn't shouldn't be saying even there so and in certain areas so the the question when when you get asked that question it's really terrifying and if

you so I always use that and we use that quite a bit in their present presentations that we do and certainly in their the work that I do that's their Twitter handle if you want to go and have a look at some of the really really good stuff that they do because I'm basically representing a lot of the things that they say so yes so triumph trying to think about and imagine what somebody's life might be like if they they can't even look at their phone and smile or without somebody challenging them and asking for physical access to that device or you can getting physical access to that device and so we say the the Internet is perfectly safe

but it's not a safe space is it we when we do security awareness we try and make sure that end-users are feeling comfortable and then it's basically like driving all you have to do is just you know wear a seatbelt it's the same principle as using two-factor authentication and that kind of thing but unfortunately the internet isn't safe for people who are in targeted groups trans people for instance get very a lot of online abuse and harassment and we've seen I'm not going to call out too many platforms specifically or go into too many details what we do see shoes with things like Twitter where they just there's issues with harassment and you end up reporting it and you get

your your account get suspended so we know that there are issues with that so what we need to do is while we're saying to people you know the Internet is is a safe space and tech isn't scary and yes you just need to use this you know certain different things to methods to keep yourself safe online we also have to recognize that people are targeted people are not safe and people can be put in a great deal of danger if information is is exposed and so that's why even when you have things like the Equifax a breach that's that's a really big deal for somebody who's maybe living under a new identity and working and

that's even when you're using a service that you're paying for that you could reasonably expect to be well-run and then you look at services like have the issues with Facebook and people saying oh well you know you're stupid why did you use Facebook you're the product you are the product you have to expect that when you give a certain amount of information online you'll be or entering into that kind of contract with them and it's all really very obvious when you're a little bit stupid you shouldn't be using it but even when you even when you use services like that you know people the fact that messages have been exposed if it's really worrying and it's really

scary the Ashley Madison hack was was another situation where newspapers actually printed and you can still get these lists you know the emails and addresses and things of people who were using that service you know I'm not going to go into you know the whys and wherefores of adultery but we have seen increasingly government agencies or people who just have nefarious motives setting up fake websites or fake platforms to to entice people it so fake LGBTQ groups fake black life matters so groups things like that and so people sign up they exchange ideas and and thoughts and then to have that information kind of dropped is it's a major big deal for them also I put this

up because I get a lot of comments on Twitter particularly about the fact that I shouldn't be complaining about white men and I did start my comment with a comment about why I'm sorry so this is um women we need to do better as well we do just the same thing and this is wrong in my opinion and there's also a uk-based site I think called tube crash net and there's loads of things I mean these things exist all over the world wherever there's public transport okay so how am I trying to say whether you are on a social network or not you still run the risk of having your identity or your act so your thoughts kind of

exposed and so if any of these men are creating a new identity somewhere for whatever reason I mean not even necessarily I don't mean in like a witness protection program I mean just because they might want to live in new lives they might have come from a really you know really conservative area somewhere where they couldn't express themselves or maybe they have political views from the country or the area they come from and there they are and these when you click on these like images you get a whole information about what they were you know the line the um at the time that they were there what they do some women on and just actually say I

see him every day and he does and he carries this and this is the stop he gets off that that's we shouldn't do that it's wrong and it's stop troubling me so what we would like to see is a new kind of when we're developing privacy options and we're thinking about when we develop certain services that we try and provide them to be lockable and we as much as possible potentially with decoy icon options and I'll share are there are some links to these kind of things in the resources section at the end of the talk and also to have layers so that and what I mean by layers is when you've so if you're on

Facebook its use an example the reason why I think it's very difficult to say to people you shouldn't be using Facebook for whatever reason all those kind of platforms is because some people just don't have a choice and Facebook is is a benign app on your on your phone on your device right if you are being asked why you're smiling by somebody who can then get into your device and people do share devices and and passwords and all these kind of things within relationships or within families and so if they see Facebook on your on your phone they're not gonna think anything of it whereas I work with a lot of people and they say well I can't install

what's up I can't install signal because they'll ask me why I've got it on my phone and arguably and people have said well you know something you can see their phone they should just lock it that isn't always possible some people have these situations where people will either force the phone and find out all get spyware on it or they will just expect these things to be shared and when if you just we because we can't kind of imagine that necessarily doesn't mean it doesn't happen and it puts people in a great deal of danger so when you have your your Facebook profile or your Twitter profile for instance it would be really really useful if you

kind of close it's almost and only so if you wanted to escape an abusive partner you could keep that account because as soon as you delete your account as soon as you don't have that presence anymore somebody else can come and take it and and we have had instances where abusers have then you know taken that account and then use that to to take to cut people off from their friends and family and you don't necessarily want to delete your into our account because then it does cut you off that's why people don't as well people use it and why people need to carry on using it when they're in these situations so if you could have an account that you could

just shut down slightly and then keep so you were only talking to certain people that would be really really good because it would allow people to stay in contact and keep that level of support and it's really really important to them because the the route out whether it's because you want to go and live somewhere more call like California where everybody can be who they want to be and you just want to get out of somewhere in Texas no offense or or with you you're a domestic abuse victim and you were trying to get out the way it taken those like three stages it's the planning and the preparation and then you actually do it

and so these layers and these locks and things they allow people to to plan their exit route out because it's very very difficult to leave you can't just go okay for whatever reason you can't just go to a more liberal that area you can't just move house because you might be young if you're if you think that you are questioning your sexual identity or something like that you cut you might be only 14 or you might be 18 you might not have the power to leave equal if you know domestic if you're in a beauty of relationship you can't just walk out the door as nice as that might seem so what we want to try and get people to do is

to use empathy for privacy and I love saying this because I think we do need more empathy when we're designing tech because that's a major thing people ask me when I work when I talk with people who are working in privacy they fear but we don't you know we don't need to do this it's only for a small amount of people and why can't they just look their phones and stuff and it's a bit more complicated than that so our advice is always that you should do this because it's basically true or worse than okay thank you I didn't make this up myself so what was I gonna say yeah you just got to really be aware

that people people who have a threat when it's in their home they have the the layer that there's a level of access to their personal details and information the phishing campaign or a phishing campaign whichever one you know social engineers dream basically it's a social engineers wet dream the whole idea of having somebody who can just you know open a drawer and get their SSN and you know they know your mother's maiden name they know where you grew up they know all the security questions that you might have set four years ago and never even thought about again okay because my ex could get into my bank account because their questions on one of the accounts was so all the security

questions were so rubbish and I had to speak to the bank about this and say you know he knows everything you can't just ask me and I can you know obviously you can make these questions different which I then had to but then that means it's not you know it's just complicated so and it's horrible when somebody knows exactly what you've been up to yeah I'm just reaching my son's privacy there as well so just because you can doesn't mean that you should and that's what I tell him all the time so when we're designing in privacy options we often don't think like we heard Mark Zuckerberg say last week I just didn't we didn't realize the

engineers couldn't understand they couldn't have envisaged this was going to happen and so how do we expect end users to understand that and how do how do we why do we suddenly have to kind of use a really bad situation as a stress test we should be thinking about people in targeted groups as our stress test it's kind of like a use case or something so that we're designing for people who have seen the worst of society rather than just from our own perspective which is probably we've only ever seen good things that happen and when you you say you really need to have people around you and when you're designing things I'm thinking about this

who've kind of said well I think it's um somebody told me that there's a company here that uses designs their privacy with the focus of a lot of the threat model of a Syrian dissident so that works as somebody who needs encrypted services who needs a certain level of communication that might end up being destroyed quite quickly but also isn't necessarily very tech-savvy because I was working talking to an app which has a decoy facility which is called The Raven app and so you can set it up on your phone and it looks like it can look like the app itself it's a messaging app like signal but then it changes so you can be a weather or

shopping or horoscope or anything like the nine which is obviously very nice to have on your phone and you can then press it and you touch the screen a certain wearing it then brings up a password option and then you have information messaging behind that but these developers were some it's a great app and I'm not endorsing it or criticizing it either way here but the way that you pay for it is with cryptocurrency and that just isn't something that's possible for people who are you know trying to flee an abusive relationship for just leather at 18 and they just need some privacy you know it leaves a trail it's not easy but if you

can make something if you make something free really good or if it's going to be payable then have that not charge to something obvious on the Apple Store just make it look like a horoscope app or something so yeah I'm finally if so the message again is if we can design for our for life but not just your life and your threat model because there are people out there they really need our help and support and at the moment like we'd signal just thank God they just introduced the thing on them which means you can lock it with a pin and that means a huge amount because that means I can now go to people and

say well that you can have this one than it looks because it's even if you open signal and all there is is just time chats and with people who you might say you know auntie auntie Benita or something it might look normal they can still see that there's a time chair that all the things have been deleted if they're going in there so it matters okay and these are the resources I'll put this up later if you are interested in privacy especially for targeted groups like and people we're working quite a bit with the sex workers now after foster sister you can go to open privacy dot CA and that is run by Sarah Jamie Lewis and you can donate as well

that she on page but all the other things there yeah these books and websites all about bias and algorithms of bias and things so have a think about that thank you very much thank you all right so I don't so she's not gonna take questions so I can fake unless anyone has a question anyone up one back there

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all right good question thank you so the question is where should people go if they're developing or they're interested in finding out and understanding the voices and opinions and needs of targeted groups this is my favorite subject so thank you there's a lot of if you go to people like violet blue or Sarah Jamie Lewis they have excellent resources and thoughts there and Sarah actually wrote a well um violet wrote the the smart girls guide to privacy Sarah wrote queer privacy which is also an excellent read they both complement each other really and they talk about those kinds otherwise I think because obviously my big thing is diversity I think if you is why we need

diversity in our employment and things like that and the and the the groups we use to test because if you're only surrounded by people who are like you it's kind of like the example I use with women's restrooms well I see that all the time that is a really good example of bias why women's restroom lines still in 2018 really really long I mean it's not a major issue even with everything we've got going on politically but you know hello that is because over 90% of architects and mail and because bathrooms aren't like multi gender either and if you could get people going through and when they actually do like multi-gender bathrooms it makes everything move faster but

because it's designed from one perspective but equally I'm a woman so I'm I'm presenting this from my perspective so I need to talk to a lot of other people so yeah diversity please yeah let's make it happen my rant in a very good a great question I love you all right any other questions all right well thank you so much for your presentation Stella here is a clip from b-side as well as Autodesk so