Progressive political movements and Tor - Uses, traps and necessity.

I have recently seen the BBC's Dark Web a documentary that details the development and use of the Tor encrypted virtual private network. Where privacy is needed, especially in communication with vulnerable people who are subject to persecution by government's this system represents a valuable tool and a life line to external support. Vulnerable people can refer to persecuted ethnic, and political groups, but also to whistle-blowers. The Tor network has been invaluable in exposing the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs(including “collateral murder”), as well as chapters of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement under negotiation.

What use is Tor to a progressive political movement outside of the above uses, and what if any are the risks?

Certainly, participating individuals could speak freely, openly, even crassly or with dark sarcastic humour, without fear of their words being taken out of context as was done in the “fit up” better known as Operation 8.
A risk is that such measures to preserve privacy rival the extent to which establishment reactionary institutions, fascists, and corporations protect their secrets from the public. With the example of the TPPA, being one where if the public knew what was in it, few of the participating governments would find supporting it politically tenable. A legitimate question would be, in the case of a progressive political movement in regard to the use of a tool like Tor, what is being hidden – from the public, or from the prying eyes of the political establishment or law enforcement? While it is unlikely and unforeseeable that anything of legitimate concern to the establishment or law agencies would be transmitted, the question could be pushed by external interests to harm public perception
That use of this technology for a movement's general, policy, strategic and tactical communications would look peculiar to the public, and segments of the media could and likely would play up the paranoia concerning the purpose for which this technology is being employed. In regard to these communications, it seems to me the risks offer greater political costs than the privacy gains.
Typically, the executive membership often lack the technical skill to deal with the management of encryption keys. Just as losing your car keys can ruin your day, failure to correctly deal with encryption keys can leave people completely locked out. However, this problem can be reduced through training, but it can not be eliminated from a large organisation.
The difficulties of managing encryption keys, will lead to frustration among users, and there will be a natural inclination to use other communication channels which may or may not be protected.
The public to which progressive movement are trying to attract are often wary of secrecy, it bothers them, because they have seen a history of secrecy used against the interests of ordinary people like themselves.

Hacking

While a communication technology may be for all intents and purposes, completely secure, people are not, Security experts and hackers, have been known to successfully break into systems by communication with authorised users, and administrators in order to gain credentials and access to secure systems.

In conclusion

This technology should be used sparingly, for what is known as back channel communication with vulnerable individuals and groups. To reduce political backlash, it may be wise to state up front that this is the purpose of this technology, to get ahead of fear-mongering that may have more media leverage if use of the technology was revealed accidentally or by hostile-investigation.
Public support for a progressive political movement, I believe, would be very likely harmed by loss of trust, if secure technology is used for work traditionally done in the open as the public that support progressive ideas, largely see openness as an important, even a core, value.
In short, use sparingly, and be clear about it.
This poorly form and inadequately expressed opinion is based on by experience as a software developer and information technology professional which does not include an in-depth understand of the Tor platform software. I welcome the advice an opinions of those who are more familiar with the technology.

Greens turn to the Sun...

Yesterday, the Green Party of New Zealand announced it's solar energy policy, cheap loans attached to the property. The loans combined with solar energy production will see a $100 p.a. saving  on energy costs during the life of the loan, with much greater savings possible once the loan is fully recovered.

This policy is functionally equivilent to Germany's loan guarantee policy, allowing people to invest in roof top solar without the worry of being stuck with the loan if they move.

To date, the New Zealand roof top solar industry is worth about $41m. considering it has been the tiny Tim of energy generation in  this country for years. Previous high prices made such installation economically infeasible, since a typical install in c 2004 could cost $40k.  Now such an installation can be around $10k.  And prices continue to fall, as new technology brings cheaper more efficient cells in to the market.

Researches are busy looking for even cheaper options, graphene and Iron Pyrite are two lines of enquiry under active research at moment. Battery technology is coming along too.

Although solar offer more efficient delivery because it does not suffer the typical 30% transmission losses, the main issue with solar is that peek production, and peek consumption don't synchronize, so storage is needed. One option is to pump water below a hydro damn back into the hydo-lake, this is already being done overseas.

Roof top solar is typically generated close to where it is consumed, and reduces the draw on hydro electric sources. Pumps at the hydro dam can use the unused energy to return water to the hydro-lake in preparation for peek demand over the next 12 hours.

Increasingly, electricity will become a bigger part of transport in New Zealand's urban areas, more e-bikes, trolley  busses, light rail,  even the Tesla and its competitors. So the future of energy generation will demand more electricity, even if Te Whai Point goes belly up.

We could seriously shift our balance payments deficit, if we quit forking over NZ$8b every year to big carbon for fuel. As Russell Norman pointed out even halving this bill would seriously increase our ability to invest in development in New Zealand. To give you an idea how much money that is, even the Aussie banks are struggling to extract that amount of money from this country, and they mainline right into the cash system. It's better it seems to be a tape worm than a leach.

The policy is not without its critics, Minister for Mining and Resources, Climate Change Issues, Public Transport Tantrums, Simon Bridges has called the policy "magic money." An ad hominem that will surely play well in an audience that keeps slipping out of straight jackets, but is devoid of any substance.

Even though some point to panels having an energy conversion efficiency approaching 25% or 15% for older panels, and claim that's not efficient, keep in mind Germany's heavily industrialized powerhouse economy on some days gets more than half of it power from solar generation and has to export energy to it neighbours so as to not blow up their grid. Invercargil gets about same amount of sun as Germany, which makes a nonsense of claims by Wellingtonian residents that Wellington does not get enough sun to be effective. Previously the economics were in feasible but falling prices now mean grid parity is now here according to some companies.

Clearly there are misconceptions out there, which brings forth the question where did these misconceptions come from? Are they the random noise of an ill informed public, or has a special interest group been feeding them fact free propaganda in order to forestall the inevitable rise in competitive production technology?

See also
   Minister for Public Tantrums.
   Greens' Solar Homes policy launch.
   Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity

Did solar fail in Germany?

Over the last couple of years I've had a few people tell me online and to my face that the German government were back peddling on solar investment because solar energy is a failure there. Often in response to mentioning that Germany creates more than half of it's energy needs from solar on some days, and even has to export energy to its neighbours.

Annoyingly, I never had the facts available to refute the claim if that were possible. And now it seems that it is entirely possible to refute this typically right -wing pro-carbon nonsense.

Solar it seems is not a failure, the original goal was to produce as much energy as 2 yet-to-be-built nuclear reactors after running the numbers solar worked out cheaper than building the reactors. But more than that, the programme was so enthusiastically adopted by home owners that solar generates the equivalent of 10 reactors, and over-supply started to threaten the stability of the grid. This is less of a failure than it is more of a sign the programme has become a victim of its own blow-the-doors-off success.

In recent years, the German government has chosen to reduce the programme and now expects to phase out the subsidies by 2018.

While some solar companies have run into insolvency, this marks a change in the market dynamic that should be expected with saturation. It is typical at this point in a market lifecycle to see consolidation. And this is normal with the emergence of green field technology into the mainstream.

In Conclusion...

Failure? Far from it, the policy has been more successful than originally envisaged, creating more energy at times than could be consumed within Germany's borders. So from the technical perspective it is too successful while the business failures are no more than a predictable effect of a maturing market.


Sea also...
  AFP - Germany to pull plug on solar subsidies by 2018.
  BigPictureRT - Conversations with great Minds.