Read Snowden’s ‘Permanent Record;’ Naturally Bought a Server

Over just a couple of days I read Edward Snowden’s memoir, Permanent Record. Naturally I bought a home server right after.

If you saw Oliver Stone’s dramatization of Ed Snowden’s story starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it doesn’t quite convey how difficult it was for Snowden to do what he did to protect people’s right to privacy. That’s not Oliver Stone’s fault; it’s the fault of the medium itself. The book is always better than the movie, and Snowden’s Permanent Record is no exception to that rule.

Ed Snowden was a personal hero of mine the moment he blew the whistle on the United States government’s mass surveillance program he unwittingly helped create. When I saw Oliver Stone’s Snowden I became a super fan. Now that I’ve read his memoir and seen the Academy Award-winning documentary, Citizenfour, I’m a super, super fan.

First of all, Barack Obama’s characterization of Ed Snowden as little more than a “hacker” is offensive. The former President is simply mad Snowden caught him. Snowden is one of the smartest voices I’ve ever read in print or heard recorded. He’s a genius like Noam Chomsky in the sense that he speaks books that don’t need much revision. Snowden’s mind might be even better organized than Chomsky’s given the approachable way he explains complicated technology and bureaucracy. He’s quite the teacher, and I don’t think I’ve ever learned more about more subjects than I did reading Snowden’s Permanent Record.

Permanent Record also reads like a spy novel because it’s a nonfiction version of one. Not only is it ultra-informative on topics of technology, mass surveillance, governmental organization and privatization, politics, and civil rights, but it’s also a captivating story of a true American hero and patriot for privacy rights. So both of my heroes are in exile. The other is Colin Kaepernick.

I was already aware of the permanent record we leave on the internet prior to reading Permanent Record, thanks to Oliver Stone’s Snowden. But the book made me act on that awareness, purchasing a home server for storing sensitive data and, hopefully, host my many websites. I got such a good deal on it that the hard drives alone are worth more than what I paid. Thank you, Craigslist. And thank you neighbor.

I’m typing this on the refurbished Mac desktop, on which I also got a great deal. The next few days of my life will be spent transferring files, setting up this computer and the server to my liking, backing up my website data, installing Ubuntu on my old, Acer laptop, and migrating my website data to be hosted from home.

Hopefully, the migration of my website data to my home server will improve loading times at my websites since I’m now competing with many others with shared hosting services from HostGator. The idea of paying HostGator any more money makes me shiver, and the privacy and security afforded by a home server is something I value. If I’m going to leave a permanent record, I’m going to do it on my terms, on my private server, encrypted to my liking, connected to a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to protect my IP address from being monitored by my Internet Service Provider (ISP).

If you are not already, you should be browsing the web using the secure Tor browser available for free at the Tor Project. In the very least, you should make Duck Duck Go your preferred search engine. It won’t track or share your search data with marketers. You can read something I wrote about protecting your online privacy here.