This thesis is the culmination of more than a decade of research into the topic of surveil- lance and the uses of data collected through surveillance. The research that follows in- cludes discussions with insiders and analysis of both previously published and unpub- lished information. We still lack full information on many topics, notably the names of perpetrators. This has several causes: the nature of the topics covered, the legally threat- ening markings on many documents, and the political power of those who would suppress publication. There can be considerable personal consequences for following this direc- tion of research. Several colleagues face serious legal, political, social, and health issues resulting from their participation in, and contributions to, this research topic. Many aspects of this research started as investigative journalism rather than science. Documents first published by news organizations under the byline of the author of this thesis are reproduced here in full and credited appropriately. Sensitive, classified, or otherwise secret internal documents are provided to ensure that their content is witnessed firsthand, to make them freely accessible on the Internet and in libraries, and to ensure that they are not erased from history. The perspective in this thesis is necessarily dominated by the United States of America, whose activities impact nearly every person on planet Earth. The focus on America is deeply political: it is the moral duty of every citizen of the United States to address serious faults in policy and to assist in the process of accountability. Democratic discussion covering technical and non-technical topics of various government or corporate activities is important and necessary. The evidence and findings discussed in this thesis touch on myriad controversial issues ranging from political spying on world leaders to drone assassination of human beings who faced no legal charges and are afforded no day in court. The sheer number of the surveillance systems that we document in subsequent chap- ters reflects the industrial scale of data collection in the twenty-first century. We hope that future researchers will take up the challenge of addressing each covert program as a research subject to fully and completely explore, and to freely share their findings with the wider world in the spirit of open academic discussion. This kind of basic research is crucial to anti-surveillance software and hardware development. One example is the gen- eral idea of the mixnet, an anonymity mechanism designed to withstand very powerful adversaries who possess a long memory. How might the evolution of mixnets be shaped by understanding the concrete systems that attack privacy and anonymity infrastructure? Researchers may even feel inspired to build their own countermeasures, and perhaps full solutions, that encompass more than the purely technical. We offer several examples of such solutions in the chapters that follow. By applying mathematics and computer science to build countermeasures to surveillance systems, we can protect people individually and at scale, reducing these systems to historical footnotes. Mass surveillance programs present a temptation so great that even very intelligent people imagine the trade-offs to be worthwhile. Many people cannot imagine a future in which their government is blatantly corrupt, or has indeed collapsed. Yet history teaches unambiguously that such changes may come quickly, unexpectedly, and those who seek to exploit the entropic nature of the situation will use all technical, social, economic, and political levers to accomplish their goals. This knowledge should, but often does not, temper support for mass surveillance; this is a blind spot that is not to be dismissed lightly. The machinery of mass surveillance is simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist. We must work to ensure that no one will be able to say that they did not know, or that they were not warned. We must use all of the tools in our toolbox – economic, social, cultural, political, and of course, cryptographic – to blind targeted and mass surveillance adversaries. The goal is justice [Pon11, "The method is transparency, the goal is justice."] and this thesis encourages a method of designing, building, deploying, and using crypto- graphic protocols centered around human liberty to ensure it Continua su https://pure.tue.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/197416841/20220325_Appelbaum_hf.pd... Giacomo