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Mikhailangelo Llanos
Matthew Moberly
Writing 10
22 April 2014
Argumentative Proposal
Executive Summary:
Each and every day, information is being gathered on every individual living in the
United States. The NSA (National Security Agency) has a considerable amount of information in
their records about each individual in the United States. With the recent efforts of whistle blower
Edward Snowden and previous efforts of Wikileaks.org, the topic of the government over
extending their surveillance on people and intruding on peoples personal privacy has spread
throughout the nation having everyone question the methods of the government such as phone
tapping and recording phone calls which makes people question if the use of their information is
ethical. Many see this as an ethical issue and have voiced their opinion to have the government
cease gathering information on every individual and to be more transparent with their actions.
The NSA now has a majority of their tactics of gathering information exposed to the public
which has a lot of people feeling uneasy and violated. Within this proposal, I will explore how,
through promoting that all types of communication be encrypted, the problem of the government
overextending their surveillance on people and intruding on peoples personal privacy will be
finally addressed.
Background:
The storage of data has steadily increased from the early 2000s up until now with now
slowing down in sight. Back in the early 2000s only one fourth of all data was stored online
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(Price). But just in the past two years, about 90 percent of all data is now stored online (Price).
This sudden growth of data stored online is attributed to the now common use of social media
services such as Facebook, Twitter and Emails. These social media services are some of the most
popular ways people communicate with each other now. The ability to express what youre
thinking, interested in, doing at the moment or to simply communicate with someone has never
been so easy, and many people are taking advantage of this technology. This would, however,
not be possible without access to a smartphone or the internet. The number of people who
identified themselves as smartphone users has increased from 35% in May 2011 to 56% in May
2013 with that number steadily growing (Smith). The use of a smartphone or the internet has
become infused into the daily lives of most people which has officially made our country a
smartphone country with nearly everyone connected to the internet.
Problem:
The use of social media services comes with a price (Clemmitt). With every user posting
picture, tweets or information in general online, we have become subject to government
surveillance. With the recent efforts of whistleblower Edward Snowden, one of the many tactics
of the NSA that was revealed to the public was their use of, Supercomputers that amass and
analyze massive amounts of what has become known as big data phone calls, tweets and
social media posts to spot potential terrorists activity (McCutcheon). Although we all
willingly decide to post information on these social media services and the internet, it is not
ethically right that the government is constantly keeping a tab on each individual without our
consent. This is an overextension of government surveillance and intruding on the personal
privacy of people.

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Solution:
Based off the information from my research articles, the solution many companies
involved with massive amounts of data storage and transfer have come up, is to implement or
reinforce their encryption of data to counteract the governments overbearing surveillance tactics
(Peralta). There are five types of encryption methods that are currently being implemented as
industry standard best practices (Cardoza, Higgins, Opsahl). The first type of encryption is
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). With this encryption, users will now be connected
to a secure channel between the user and the website, encrypting any information transferred
from their computer to the website (Cardoza, Higgins, Opsahl). The second type of encryption is
flag all authentication cookies as secure. What this means is that, websites will automatically
recognize cookies through an encrypted transmission only. This will eliminate websites
authentication step of cookie information through an insecure connection and prevent the
government from stealing cookie data from the user within that short time period of insecure
connection (Cardoza, Higgins, Opsahl). The third type of encryption is HTTP Strict Transport
Security (HSTS). This means that all users will be required to use a secure connection between
themselves and websites, which will eliminate any transfer of data or communication from an
insecure connection (Cardoza, Higgins, Opsahl). The fourth type of encryption is STARTTLS
for emails. This a method in which email servers that use Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
will have their emails encrypted when communicating with each. For example, if the person you
are sending an email to uses Hotmail and you use Gmail, your emails will be encrypted because
of STARTTLS. This will standardize all email servers to us SMTP and STARTTLS so that the
government cannot look into your emails (Cardoza, Higgins, Opsahl). The final type of
encryption is Forward Secrecy, also known as Perfect Forward Secrecy. This purpose of this
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encryption is so that if a server is compromised by a hacker or government surveillance, they
will not be able to access previous encrypted data that was unattainable to prior to compromising
the server (Cardoza, Higgins, Opsahl).
If all these encryption methods are properly implemented into all types of data transfer
and storage, the government will have a difficult time collecting information with the techniques
and methods they are currently using. The public has a right to privacy, and the government
should not be overbearing with its surveillance of its people. The government has not indicated
any signs of slowing down its surveillance efforts so the implementation of these encryption
methods are a key to the fight of digital privacy.
Conclusion:
The war on digital privacy has entered a whole new realm with the revelation of the
NSAs tactics from wikileaks.org and the recent efforts of whistleblower Edward Snowden. The
revelation that the government has been using various questionable methods to collect
information from people has brought the discussion of government surveillance to almost every
American citizen. Some will say that to counteract the government, we should just stop using
any kind of social network services. However, the usage of social media services has become
implemented so much into our everyday lives that that is an almost impossible deed to ask
American citizens to do. Luckily, if all major companies that transfer and store data (primarily
social media services) were to implement the five types of encryption listed above the
government would have a hard time with their government surveillance tactics. This war for
digital privacy is an ongoing fight and data encryption is the first step to winning this fight.


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Works Cited
Cardozo, Nate, Parker Higgins, and Kurt Opsahl. "UPDATE: Encrypt the Web Report: Who's Doing
What." Electronic Frontier Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Clemmitt, Marcia. "Social Media Explosion." CQ Researcher 25 Jan. 2013: 81-104. Web. 22 Apr.
2014.
McCutcheon, Chuck. "Government Surveillance." CQ Researcher 30 Aug. 2013: 717-40. Web. 22
Apr. 2014.
Peralta, Eyder. "Google Says It's Beefed Up Encryption Because Of NSA Revelations." NPR. NPR,
n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Smith, Aaron. "Smartphone Ownership 2013." Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project
RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.