So, what would you do if Danny Casolaro asked for your help?

[Penguin]

Everything is patterns.
What they mean, if anything, is another matter altogether.

[daba64]

This blog is still available.
You don't have to go thru way back. http://dreamsend.wordpress.com/

It's the new stuff that he's pulled.

Somebody HTTrack it before it disappears

Now it's all gone except for an old About Me section.

Weird that an ARG pops up here and DE disappears. Coincidence? You decide.

Well we know he is watching since he just deleted that entire site within the last few hours after it was linked here.

Also, there are no coincidences, its all connected somehow I am sure.

Yep, you're right. Now even the About Me section is gone. Hi, DE. *wave* Good to see ya.

[nathan28]

Penguin:

I had written a pretty lengthy reply, but just now managed to pull the congressional and court papers on some of the Inslaw affair, which was legit. I largely agree with much of what you said--suggesting that '70s software (that's what it is, right? or is it hardware? or both? to me it's always sounded like a dial-up database that updates automatically, not exactly super-secret spy stuff there) is somehow this super-powerful thing is, well, ridiculous.

IMO--it's just that, and speculative--there's a lot about PROMIS that wasn't and isn't disclosed. I suspect it may have been a backbone or ur-technology that's still in use, hence all the talk of "PROMIS derivatives" and "Enhanced PROMIS" (which the US gov't stole, by the courts' findings). Likewise, I suspect that some of it might be an embarassment--e.g., the theory that bin Laden used an Israeli/Russian derivative PROMIS to cover his tracks suggests that in the mid-90s everyone was still using legacy software/OS/networking hardware (depending on WTF PROMIS is).

I am loathe to look into it too deeply, however, because I do sense a certain vacuum of information, one all too likely to be filled with bullshit... I mean, fucking hell, this was back when if you wanted to run a program you put a 5 1/2" literally floppy disc into a drive. I agree, pics or it didn't happen. I just want to see a couple photographs of someone using it, that's all.

[Penguin]

nathan28:
Yep, that is fine and I think we basically agree.
In my opinion, whatever it was, what is happening now under different names and different institutions is more important for the present.

Guess how I was looked at when I was opening a new account and mentioned Swift and CIA to the bank teller in relation to him telling me of new account numbers (IBAN, related to Swift)... "One of those nuts yeah".

I do that a lot with info clearly in the mainstream, never with the more questionable stuff, because if the person ever happens to look into it and first thing he finds is something else than a mainstream source...Well, wasted effort.

I am loathe to look into it too deeply, however, because I do sense a certain vacuum of information, one all too likely to be filled with bullshit... I mean, fucking hell, this was back when if you wanted to run a program you put a 5 1/2" literally floppy disc into a drive.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

[justdrew]

well, at least the primary version of it ran on DEC's PDP11. DEC's stuff was much better than the crappy PCs around that time, but still, it may know in theory how to access a wide variety of DBs and formats but still those DBs have to be made available and configured for it's access. My feeling is it was a nice case-management system and legendary stuff got built up around it. I would kinda like to trace the history of the wild claims about it (or about later versions of it I guess), many of the claims of vast world wide-info-matrix capabilities seem to maybe have come "From the Wilderness"

[nathan28]

well, at least the primary version of it ran on DEC's PDP11. DEC's stuff was much better than the crappy PCs around that time, but still, it may know in theory how to access a wide variety of DBs and formats but still those DBs have to be made available and configured for it's access. My feeling is it was a nice case-management system and legendary stuff got built up around it. I would kinda like to trace the history of the wild claims about it (or about later versions of it I guess), many of the claims of vast world wide-info-matrix capabilities seem to maybe have come "From the Wilderness"

Lulz @ the tape drives on the front of the PDP11.

From what I can gather in the past two hours of reading the sources cited at Wiki, rather than the tinfoil-plus resources Google brings up, PROMIS was a fairly customizable "up-to-the-minute" piece of DB software, developed with public money. Inslaw took it private after funding dried up and got a lucrative contract for their private version--then some people (close to Meese, Brian et al.) conspired, fairly openly, to steal it, and did so successfully. That's all clear-cut and was estabished in and resolved by (to the tune of 6.8 million) the courts.

http://www.beyondweird.com/conspiracies/ins-rich.html

At this point it gets murkier. The Hamiltons (the couple that owned Inslaw) claim to have learned that a version of PROMIS was in use by the Navy and to have discovered that PROMIS gotten around overseas. Their daughter got a call from the Canadian Dep't of Commc'ns asking for help with creating a French-language version, b/c they had it installed in 900 locations. The Communications people pointed her to the Mounties who claimed not to have it. The Canadians backtracked and said it was all a mistake. The Hamiltons also had heard tell from various intel agents that PROMIS derivatives were in use widely internationally. Then this Riconosciuto character shows up with the Wakenhut and Cabazon
connection.

[Bridge It]

What is that thing where people see patterns in everything and feel that they are enlightened somehow because they see it and others don't.

"Hugh Manatee Wins"?

Oh, wait, you probably mean

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Yeah - I think that's what I'm talking about. Hugh's thing seems to be more of a six degrees of separation concept pertaining to all things governmental and black opish. Dreams End on the other hand, tried to find coded patters between anything confined to planet earth, could be government related, could be Hollywood related, could be NFL related, or maybe related to the latest stamps issued by the post office. It was all "connected." But in the last however many months, none of it was at all engaging. Like the Michael Jackson/Bob Fosse thing I mentioned. It just boiled down to "dance lessons - so what." I don't think he's schizophrenic, but I think "the deep end" may apply.

[Percival]

What is that thing where people see patterns in everything and feel that they are enlightened somehow because they see it and others don't.

"Hugh Manatee Wins"?

Oh, wait, you probably mean

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Yeah - I think that's what I'm talking about. Hugh's thing seems to be more of a six degrees of separation concept pertaining to all things governmental and black opish. Dreams End on the other hand, tried to find coded patters between anything confined to planet earth, could be government related, could be Hollywood related, could be NFL related, or maybe related to the latest stamps issued by the post office. It was all "connected." But in the last however many months, none of it was at all engaging. Like the Michael Jackson/Bob Fosse thing I mentioned. It just boiled down to "dance lessons - so what." I don't think he's schizophrenic, but I think "the deep end" may apply.

Dreams End, Deep End, DE, I see a pattern here!




I actually dig DE, he had some really good stuff going for a while, I didnt see his latest stuff but his older stuff was some of the best ARG research ever done IMO. He seemed to be a pretty decent fellow for the most part, I am sad to see that his blog has been taken down again and I hope he resurfaces soon and that he is ok physically and mentally, sometimes researching such things can be very taxing and you need to step away.

[Percival]

Since it says that PROMIS has to installed on the computer you want to spy on for it to work are we safe to assume that WINDOWS has PROMIS within it?

[Penguin]

Since it says that PROMIS has to installed on the computer you want to spy on for it to work are we safe to assume that WINDOWS has PROMIS within it?

If the bad guy gets physically on your computer, it doesn't make fuck all difference what the operating system is - physical access means you are fucked, and your system compromised.

There are even exploits to read the contents of your RAM (memory) sticks that have been pulled out of the computer...

http://everything2.com/node/1528211?boo ... alBookmark

One of the truths of computer security, to which there are a few exceptions. See also: physical security.

Even if a system is impenetrable from over a network, unrestricted physical access is an easily forgotten or disregarded security vulnerability. If an attacker can simply walk into the room the machine is in without restriction of her actions there, it is only a matter of time before she can begin to do Bad Things to it, such as changing its root password.

Means by which to exploit such a weakness include:

Exploit a lack of access control on the console.
Some operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, do not or can be configured not to require someone at the machine's console to authenticate (usually by entering a password) at all. Alternatively, if the system does require such authentication at the console, but someone is still logged in there, then you can use whatever privileges they have, such as access to sensitive data.

Exploit a lack of access control in the boot loader.
This can be accomplished by means such as pressing F8 while recent versions of Microsoft Windows are booting, specifying 'init=/bin/sh' as a boot parameter to Linux (usually done at LILO's 'boot:' prompt), etc.

Use a bootable floppy disk or CD-ROM.
Reboot the machine and boot from it, and voila, you can do whatever you like. The program on your boot disk might simply give you an unrestricted command prompt, or it might be some automated procedure for e.g. installing a rootkit. The machine's BIOS might be set to not boot from floppy or CD-ROM, in which case that setting will need to be changed. On an IBM PC-like machine, if a BIOS password is set which prevents this, it can be removed by opening up the chassis and pulling out the battery on its motherboard that powers the NVRAM that holds this password. However, all of the other BIOS settings will be erased as well!

Pull the recording media.
If you only need to get at what's on it, and you have the time, you can simply power off the machine, physically remove its recording media (usually one or more hard disks), and leave. The machine probably won't work after you do this, in which case it will be apparent that someone has done something to it; if you close everything up and make it look like it hasn't been tampered with (e.g., by replacing the chassis cover and plugging everything back in), it may take longer for someone to realize what's happened.

Swipe the whole thing.
If you can do so without being noticed or stopped, you may want to unplug the entire machine and haul it out. Stealing the machine outright means that, aside from getting at whatever is on its recording media, you can then use the machine itself for a new Web server or something. The viability of this method is significantly affected by the physical size of the machine: laptops and PDAs are a lot easier to steal than mainframes.

Destroy the machine.
If you only need to sabotage the system, rather than use it or get at its data, it might be easier or otherwise more viable to simply render the machine permanently inoperable. There are, of course, plenty of ways to accomplish this: shoot it, blow it up, hack it to pieces with an axe, etc. Use your imagination. It will probably be important that any recording media are properly destroyed, so a post-mortem inspection of the machine before leaving would be wise.

And as I said, Microsoft co-operates with the NSA in building their software.
Your guess is as good as mine as to what that co-operation entails, in its entirety.

[Percival]

Since it says that PROMIS has to installed on the computer you want to spy on for it to work are we safe to assume that WINDOWS has PROMIS within it?

If the bad guy gets physically on your computer, it doesn't make fuck all difference what the operating system is - physical access means you are fucked, and your system compromised.

There are even exploits to read the contents of your RAM (memory) sticks that have been pulled out of the computer...

http://everything2.com/node/1528211?boo ... alBookmark

One of the truths of computer security, to which there are a few exceptions. See also: physical security.

Even if a system is impenetrable from over a network, unrestricted physical access is an easily forgotten or disregarded security vulnerability. If an attacker can simply walk into the room the machine is in without restriction of her actions there, it is only a matter of time before she can begin to do Bad Things to it, such as changing its root password.

Means by which to exploit such a weakness include:

Exploit a lack of access control on the console.
Some operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, do not or can be configured not to require someone at the machine's console to authenticate (usually by entering a password) at all. Alternatively, if the system does require such authentication at the console, but someone is still logged in there, then you can use whatever privileges they have, such as access to sensitive data.

Exploit a lack of access control in the boot loader.
This can be accomplished by means such as pressing F8 while recent versions of Microsoft Windows are booting, specifying 'init=/bin/sh' as a boot parameter to Linux (usually done at LILO's 'boot:' prompt), etc.

Use a bootable floppy disk or CD-ROM.
Reboot the machine and boot from it, and voila, you can do whatever you like. The program on your boot disk might simply give you an unrestricted command prompt, or it might be some automated procedure for e.g. installing a rootkit. The machine's BIOS might be set to not boot from floppy or CD-ROM, in which case that setting will need to be changed. On an IBM PC-like machine, if a BIOS password is set which prevents this, it can be removed by opening up the chassis and pulling out the battery on its motherboard that powers the NVRAM that holds this password. However, all of the other BIOS settings will be erased as well!

Pull the recording media.
If you only need to get at what's on it, and you have the time, you can simply power off the machine, physically remove its recording media (usually one or more hard disks), and leave. The machine probably won't work after you do this, in which case it will be apparent that someone has done something to it; if you close everything up and make it look like it hasn't been tampered with (e.g., by replacing the chassis cover and plugging everything back in), it may take longer for someone to realize what's happened.

Swipe the whole thing.
If you can do so without being noticed or stopped, you may want to unplug the entire machine and haul it out. Stealing the machine outright means that, aside from getting at whatever is on its recording media, you can then use the machine itself for a new Web server or something. The viability of this method is significantly affected by the physical size of the machine: laptops and PDAs are a lot easier to steal than mainframes.

Destroy the machine.
If you only need to sabotage the system, rather than use it or get at its data, it might be easier or otherwise more viable to simply render the machine permanently inoperable. There are, of course, plenty of ways to accomplish this: shoot it, blow it up, hack it to pieces with an axe, etc. Use your imagination. It will probably be important that any recording media are properly destroyed, so a post-mortem inspection of the machine before leaving would be wise.

And as I said, Microsoft co-operates with the NSA in building their software.
Your guess is as good as mine as to what that co-operation entails, in its entirety.

Yes true, all I am saying is that if this PROMIS thing is what the tin foil hatters claim it is then I think it is safe to assume it is probably a part of the windows software itself, that would be the one sure way to get it on most of the worlds computers.

I have spent years researching the octopus stuff myself and at this point I dont know what to believe, there are a lot of shady characters involved in it and most of what we know about it comes from those very shady characters. I have found that many if not all of the documents that they claim to be authentic and use to prove their case that the octopus is real, have been shown by some folks that I know personally and therefore trust, to be fakes. On the other hand, most of what the octopus is all about really isnt that hard to imagine happening, drug running, Iran/Contra, Mena etc, is certainly all within the realm of possibility but it is becoming more and more difficult for me to believe anything I read on the internet anymore, between ARGs and disinfo and straight up crazy fucks looking to make a name for themselves, it is just becoming increasingly difficult to believe anything on the web anymore and I am starting to become fed up with it all.

[Penguin]

it is just becoming increasingly difficult to believe anything on the web anymore and I am starting to become fed up with it all.

Don't worry...It just is that way.
Complex systems carry an inherent element of paranoia, that can only be countered with hearty abandon and a humorous yet firm disposition

There have been people who say Microsoft is the Devils work for a long time... As well as people who say they can't use free software because Richard Stallman (of GNU and Free Software Foundation fame) is jewish.

Im sure part of the Microsoft, Apple (insert any corporations name) fears are well based in reality - some have been documented too. So is the fact that the internet logs, surveils, observes, records, transmits data and works to serve the goals of a plethora of different groups and ideals. Including us...

Jacques Vallee's book "The Heart of the Internet" is good reading, by the way, even though it is from a decade ago. His insights have withstood time pretty well, anyway.

http://www.jacquesvallee.net/heart_of_the_internet.html Has a link to Google books, the whole book is there for free

Or here:
http://lix.in/-2cb913

[nathan28]

it is just becoming increasingly difficult to believe anything anywhere anymore and I am starting to become fed up with it all.

Don't worry...It just is that way.
Complex systems carry an inherent element of paranoia, that can only be countered with hearty abandon and a humorous yet firm disposition

Fixed. Also hence, the Jeerleader.


And it doesn't have anything to do with Windows having PROMIS installed. Kind of long, but:

Windows Vista has better security than the previous Windblows versions. I was initially impressed. But then I noticed that some of the updates require your confirmation while others are automatic.

And (similar to Mac) the superuser function is hidden even at the "administrator" level. I didn't learn that until I had to access it to remove some files, and even the local superuser doesn't have full superuser rights vs. some programs and scripts! E.g., the Norton shovelware suite automatically re-installed parts of itself that I had removed (incompletely, but manually removed none the less) as the goddamn superuser. The next step in the user/security hierachy is to fill the computer with dog shit and mail it to the nearest MSFT office***.

So what does that mean for your security?

On Windows you're fucked. Vista is safer against low-level hacking, but IMO is so obviously, intentionally backdoored to the right parties that it's utterly mind-boggling.

As a further tangent I don't understand, in the least, why they're so apeshit over access to personal machines. I'm a nut tinfoiler and I don't have anything worth hiding on my disk.

***That's a joke, I don't support bioterrorism.


But, like Penguin says. PROMIS at this point really seems like a distraction. It is fascinating from a historical point but I am beginning to think that while it's easiest to chase down the Reagan-era deep state / "secret team" players, increasingly this is a historical exercise. Who makes these decisions now? Were the '80s a crucial juncture where a certain infrastructure needed to put the whole thing on automatic was laid down? Who are the deep state players today? How many of them will never get the slightest bit of exposure? Etc.

[Col. Quisp]

As most people here know, I live in Louisville. Where and when?

[Penguin]

So what does that mean for your security?

On Windows you're fucked. Vista is safer against low-level hacking, but IMO is so obviously, intentionally backdoored to the right parties that it's utterly mind-boggling.

As a further tangent I don't understand, in the least, why they're so apeshit over access to personal machines. I'm a nut tinfoiler and I don't have anything worth hiding on my disk.

Exactly. And legally too - they own the software, they can do what they like with it regarding updates and "future added functionality" (the EULAs have nice stuff in them when you take the time to read them).
And spying on you to see if you are using genuine, paid for licensed software etc...

And in a case on National Security, I am 100% sure the update functions could be given to the use of, well, national security

But usually, the FBI can email you a trojan horse that the antivirus vendors have agreed to not detect, or if that fails, someone can break into your apartment and install the keylogger themselves.

No reason to show their hand either, if its not needed. Most surveillance is becoming automatic, even voluntary (think all social web apps), call records, cell phone location records, where you were driving (automated traffic cameras, car gps), ad infinitum.

There is a joke about cryptographers discussing how unbreakable their algorithm is ... And in actual life, it will probably be broken with a baton and some hard questioning of the person who has the encryption password...