How the Spooks Would Attack YOU and ME Too.

[justdrew]

Wisconsin GOP uses sunshine laws to harass prof who speculated about links with pressure group
Cory Doctorow at 6:53 AM Fri

William Cronin is a historian at the University of Wisconsin -- Madison. His work has recently led him into an inquiry into the shift in Republican policy in his state, and he published some preliminary notes linking that change to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC, a conservative pressure group that drafts "model bills" that it promulgates through its members, including many local, state and national legislators; they claim responsibility for Arizona's controversial immigration legislation).

Cronin's speculation about ALEC's link to Wisconsin politics has hit a nerve: for the first time in his career, the chaired, tenured professor has found himself to be the subject of a freedom of information act request from the Republican Party of Wisconsin, seeking the disclosure of any emails relating to Republicans in general, ALEC, various Republican politicians, labor, unions, etc.

Cronin is understandably alarmed: it appears that the Republican party is using sunshine laws to harass scholars who investigate its workings; Cronin points out that the inquiry that the GOP has requested will result in the unlawful disclosure of academic reports on students, as well as confidential (but not improper) discussions with other scholars. He thinks that the GOP is looking for a pretense in his email -- some personal or political communique that violates state rules against using his official email for personal work -- with which to discredit him.

Cronin claims that there is no such skeleton in his closet -- but he still wants to fight the disclosure, on the grounds that it is an improper use of sunshine laws for partisan intimidation.

In the meantime, there's a Streisand Effect aborning: if the Wisconsin Republican Party goes berserk any time someone speculates about a link between it and ALEC, well, perhaps more of us should be looking more closely at whether such a connection exists.

Abusing Open Records to Attack Academic Freedom

http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/15/alec/

[Stephen Morgan]

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/03/china-cuts-off-calls-for-prote.html

Chinese spooks are still spooks, right?

[eyeno]

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... F9E3175076

[JackRiddler]

By Lee Fang on Apr 11th, 2011 at 11:00 am

New ChamberLeaks Presentation Emerges, Details More Plans To Sabotage Liberals

In February, ThinkProgress broke a story revealing that attorneys for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had communicated with a set of military contractors — HBGary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies — to develop tactics for sabotaging and spying on the Chamber’s progressive critics. The Chamber attorneys and the security firms discussed targeting ChamberWatch, the SEIU, MoveOn, ThinkProgress, and other groups. The proposals details efforts to steal private computer information, spy on the families of the Chamber’s critics, and plant false documents within organizations opposed to the Chamber’s agenda.

ThinkProgress has uncovered yet another presentation from one of the private security firms describing plans for the Chamber. Because of a technical glitch, a few emails of the 75,000 emails leaked to the public from one of the defense firms did not process. One of the emails now processed correctly reveals yet another proposal, created by HBGary Federal executive Aaron Barr, and forwarded to the other security firms. Although it appears not to have been completed, the last slide in the presentation lists tactics — labeled “Discredit, Confuse, Shame, Combat, Infiltrate, Fracture” — to “mitigate [sic] effect of adversarial groups while seeking litigation.” View a selection of the slides below:

H&w presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/AmericanProgr ... on-7590718

I can't figure out how to embed the slideshow but you must follow this link - very fucked up.

The presentation was emailed on November 17, 2010, a period of time in the midst of several meetings between the private security firms and lawyers representing the Chamber. As we have detailed, emails obtained by ThinkProgress indicate that officials working directly for the Chamber may have also had direct knowledge of at least some of the proposals.

The Chamber has distanced itself from the controversy. In a blog post, a top Chamber official says they never finalized any deal with the security firms for the hacking proposal against the Chamber’s progressive critics.

Currently, there are a handful of lawmakers looking to investigate the ChamberLeaks controversy. Last week, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) again requested contract information about the U.S. government’s relationship with the firms HBGary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies. At an Armed Services subcommittee hearing, Johnson pressed Teri Takai, acting assistant secretary for the Department of Defense office of Networks and Information Integration, about current government contracts with the firms involved in the ChamberLeaks scandal. Takai avoided Johnson’s question about the ethics of taxpayer-funded defense firms using military-style technology against political opponents, but said she would follow up with his request for disclosure. Watch it:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... eyQ1Xm4Kt0

[wallflower]

Are You Following a Bot? How to manipulate social movements by hacking Twitter http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/05/are-you-following-a-bot/8448/

JamesMTitus was manufactured by cyber-security specialists in New Zealand participating in a two-week social-engineering experiment organized by the Web Ecology Project. Based in Boston, the group had conducted demographic analyses of Chatroulette and studies of Twitter networks during the recent Middle East protests. It was now interested in a question of particular concern to social-media experts and marketers: Is it possible not only to infiltrate social networks, but also to influence them on a large scale?

The group invited three teams to program “social bots”—fake identities—that could mimic human conversation on Twitter, and then picked 500 real users on the social network, the core of whom shared a fondness for cats. The Kiwis armed JamesMTitus with a database of generic responses (“Oh, that’s very interesting, tell me more about that”) and designed it to systematically test parts of the network for what tweets generated the most responses, and then to talk to the most responsive people.

After the first week, the teams were allowed to tweak their bot’s code and to launch secondary identities designed to sabotage their competitors’ bots. One team unleashed @botcops, which alerted users, “You might want to be suspicious about JamesMTitus.” In one exchange, a British user confronted the alleged bot: “What do you say @JamesMTitus?” The robot replied obliquely, “Yeah, so true!” The Brit pressed: “Yeah so true! You mean I should be suspicious of you? Or that @botcops should be challenged?” JamesMTitus evaded detection with a vague tweet back—“Right on bro”—and acquired 109 followers over two weeks. Network graphs subsequently showed that the three teams’ bots had insinuated themselves into the center of the target network.

[JackRiddler]

.

Damn it, my domain is currently down and the graphics I have posted up there aren't displaying (first page).

To add to my IT troubles, I can't get this torrent to work... anyone have better luck? Or a clue?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/3 ... ts-Chamber

Fri Apr 29, 2011 at 11:58 PM PDT

UPDATED: Anonymous Hits Chamber!

by
Muskegon Critic

Howdy...a lot of people are downloading this doc, and we could use some tech support in the comment thread. Those more experienced, please take a moment to answer a question or two from people looking for answers. I'll do my best to do so, too...though this is my first torrent, so....

As we speak I'm sitting on a mile high pile of data released about the US Chamber of Commerce. Thousands and thousands of docs released a few hours ago. Wanna help read through the docs and see what crazy things the Chamber is up to? There's thousands of these docs. It's a 1.2 GIGABYTE download. My computer is choking on it. Looks like a lot of docs scraped from their sites.

This evening I came across a reference to a torrent on Twitter that caught my eyeball -- A "torrent" in this case is basically a document dump. Basically. The message intrigued me not only because it mentioned secret documents from the US Chamber of Commerce, but also....

A. It's a document dump from Anonymous

and

B. It contains documents from an organization that particularly makes my teeth curl, the Michigan based Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Those are the dudes who brought us the Overton Window. They're kind of nuts.

This document release contains content from the American Legislative
Exchange Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Mackinac Center.

The Chamber of Commerce came to our attention via the HBGary email
dump. Their connections to ALEC and the Mackinac Center are not entirely
clear, but the information we provide should help clarify things.

Both files are encrypted using the http://truecrypt.com system. We
don't feel a great need to protect this content since we're distributing
it, but we do feel a need to help you improve your tradecraft.

The larger file, ALEC-Chamber-Mackinac.tc, is the content itself. The
password for this is "Barrett Brown".

The smaller file, Press-Release-2.tc, contains clarifications that may
or may not be needed, depending on how wise those who download this
data prove to be. If the need becomes apparent we will provide the
password to Barrett Brown, with the expectation that he will release it
via http://anonnews.org and other channels.

We are Anonymous.
`
We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

The torrent contains information about:
- The US Chamber of Commerce
- The ultraconservative think tank the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan
- The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)


All three, of course, are organizations that the Koch brothers are understood to have significant influence over, and all three HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE unions. And the middle class. And puppies. And probably popcorn.

It took a long time, but I managed to download the torrent and it's filled with thousands of documents. Mostly I'm poking through the Mackinac Center ones, which makes for filthy, nauseating reading at 3 AM.

But it could definitely use more people downloading the torrent and reviewing documents for weird, unethical, reprehensible behavior and unseemly connections and dealings.

Download the documents here:

Important: You'll also need a torrent client like utorrent or BitTorrent to receive the documents...and you'll need TrueCrypt to decode it

To open the file you will also need something called TrueCrypt which you can download here.

Instructions:

1. Download TrueCrypt after you've finished loading the massive data dump to your computer.

2. Then open TrueCrypt (click the TrueCrypt icon)

3. Click Select File and locate the huge file from your local computer.

4. Select a directory in the top window...I used the Z directory

5. Click Dismount

6. Ignore the warning the system gives you about armageddon and system failure -- if it actually gives you a warning.

7. Enter the password Barrett Brown

8. Then...you'll get a choice of which file you want to open...and from there on out it's pretty much millions and millions of pdf files.

Happy reading! Bring a barf bag.

.

[JackRiddler]

Ooops! Woah, hang on...

Anonymous posted this to their site anonnews.org

On April 29th a person using the twitter account “@septscelles” released a large file to Barrett Brown that purportedly contained secret US Chamber of Commerce documents. This file was later made available via File Dropper as a (strangely truecypted) torrent named "chambersecrets2". It is also reported to have been made available in an unencrypted form on the Pirate Bay.

Despite the promise of secrets and leaks, early research has thus far shown that this information is publicly available through a simple Google search. It's very possible that “@septscelles” is just an attention seeking troll. Despite this, there is a more insidious possibility. We learned from the HB Gary emails that the Chamber of Commerce was advised to “feed the fuel between the feuding groups, disinformation." Specific mention was made of " messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization submit fake documents and then call out the error…”

The file is very large, and will therefore take some time to fully examine. Nevertheless, we would like to state that this information was provided by an unknown party and may be an attempt to discredit Anonymous through a campaign of misinformation. More information will be coming soon.

-snip-
Alert

What I've seen posted so far, for example here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 41#4833332

is mostly published brochures and a few general lobbying letters espousing the usual ALEC and Chamber crusades: charter schools, break unions, abolish minimum wage, etc. But not HBGary type dirty tricks revelations.

.

[crikkett]

I posted this a few days ago to its own thread but it fits here too

India Enacts Repressive Online Speech Laws
There are embedded links in the original article.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/in ... h_laws.php
India Enacts Repressive Online Speech Laws
By Curt Hopkins / April 27, 2011 12:00 PM / 1 Comment
Hacker News

indian_flag.pngAn innocuous-sounding set of rules called the "Information Technology (Electronic Service Delivery) Rules, 2011" [pdf] went quietly into effect last month in India. These rules, possessing the force of law, practically guarantees that no user of electronic communications in one of the world's largest countries will ever be completely safe from persecution again.

Under the new rules, anyone who objects to content online will be able to effect that content's immediate removal. The justifications for removal are so extensive and so vague that virtually anything will qualify for removal.
"Won't someone please think about the children!?"

yahoo bangalore.jpgHere are the many, many grounds upon which a disgruntled person may now compel the censorship of online content in India.

That content...

(a) belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right to; (b) is grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever; (c) harm minors in any way; (d) infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights; (e) violates any law for the time being in force; (f) deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of such messages or communicates any information which is grossly offensive or menacing in nature; (g) impersonate another person; (h) contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource; 13 (i) threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or or public order or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any other nation.

My favorite is "harm minors in any way." In any way, mind you.
Some are more equal than others.

This law will allow anyone - let's be reasonable, anyone with money or power - to shut down any critic, journalist, blogger, satirist, religious or ethnic minority, woman, gay person, union member, attorney, activist, loud-mouthed poor person or smart aleck.

india farm.jpgTheoretically, the law is open to anyone. In other words, a poor farmer could demand a rich software CEO take down a blog post. That, of course, won't happen. However, should the farmer start a blog criticizing the CEO for riding around on an American software tycoon's cigarette boat while his employees go without health care, that executive could demand the blog be censored because it interferes with "friendly relations with foreign states."

"Intermediaries," such as ISPs and Internet cafes, are also liable for any such criminal act. So, the small Internet cafe our farmer uses would also be charged with breaking the law.

This sort of "law" is common in highly repressive, authoritarian, non-democractic countries. India deserves better.

This law is, plain and simple, a tool of control, one that doesn't belong in a democracy. Of course, given India's authoritarian decisions regarding everything from the Blackberry to national ID cards, the term "democracy" in this context seems a little inexact.

Yahoo Bangalore photo by Eirik Refsdahl | farm photo by Parag Purandare | other source: New York Times

[elfismiles]

SAIC calls for the 'stigmatization' of the 'unattractive' types who discuss govt secrets in public...

DoD Paper Proposes National Security Through a Culture of Restraint (and Stigma) 308

"An SAIC analyst has written a paper [PDF] calling for the 'stigmatization' of the 'unattractive' types who tend to discuss government secrets in public. The plan, described in the Naval Postgraduate School Homeland Security Affairs journal, is to promote self-censorship as a 'civic duty'. Who needs to censor themselves? Amateur enthusiasts who describe satellite orbits, scientists who describe threats to the food supply, graduate students mapping the internet, the Government Accountability Office, which publishes failure reports on the TSA, the US Geologic Survey, which publishes surface water information, newspapers (the New York Times), TV shows, journalism websites, anti-secrecy websites, and even security author Bruce Schneier, to name a few."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/05/27/ ... and-Stigma

http://www.hsaj.org/?fullarticle=7.1.10

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2011/05 ... raint.html

[Plutonia]

Quickly, Barrett Brown's For-Profit-Security-Apparatus Wiki, is showing signs of life:

Palantir

http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Palantir

From Echelon 2
Jump to: navigation, search

Palantir Technologies is a major component of the intelligence contracting system, producing cutting-edge software and services for a range of government and private sector clients. The firm was founded in 2004 by a small group including Peter Thiel and Dr. Alex Karp with an investment of $30,000,000 from Thiel's investment body The Founders Fund as well as $2,000,000 from In-Q-Tel, the de facto investment arm of the CIA which itself was formed for the purpose of encouraging the development of capabilities perceived to be of potential use to the U.S. intelligence community.

Palantir is an entity of interest in large part by virtue of its involvement with HBGary and Berico under the rubric of Team Themis, assembled for the purpose of providing "intelligence" capabilities to those firms willing to pay for them. Although plans were drawn up at the request of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by which to target Wikileaks, left-wing activist groups, and the journalist Glenn Greenwald for various forms of online attacks, the plot was unveiled when an Anonymous team took control of HBGary's servers in early February of 2011 and released over 70,000 e-mails, including some to and from Palantir employees Matthew Steckman and Eli Bingham revealing details of Palantir's involvement in the plot. At least one contract pursuant to the Team Themis conspiracy is signed by Palantir general counsel Matt Long, and several e-mails refer to aspects of the proposed deal having been approved up the chain of command to Dr. Karp himself. Nonetheless, Palantir has claimed to have had no knowledge of what was being done by two of its employees in concert with two corporate partners on behalf of two major corporate clients.

Visual depiction of Namebase.org name proximity info on Palantir: http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_P ... HNOLOGIES_

The document below was prepared by Anonymous participants in late February; it provides a comprehensive analysis of the e-mails in question and facts surrounding the case.

The following emails clearly establish Matthew Steckman's involvement in the creation of the leaked presentation/proposal entitled, "The Wikileaks Threat," including content allegedly considered unethical by the Internet security firm, Palantir, and possibly illegal under U.S. law. According to emails sent and received by Steckman, Matthew Steckman:

Was the first to correspond with Bank of America's legal representation, Hunton & Williams regarding Wikileaks, a publisher allegedly holding leaked documents from Bank of America;

Was aware that Hunton & Williams had been recommended to Bank of America by the U.S. Department of Justice;

Solicited the involvement of the security firms Berico and HBGary, in addition to his own firm, Palantir;

Outlined the format of the presentation to be made to Hunton & Williams by Palantir, Berico and HBGary, including the number of slides and the possible content of slides;

Received and approved suggestions for the proposal from representatives from HBGary, Berico and Palantir, including HBGary CEO Aaron Barr;

Specifically approved suggestions for the proposal, made by Aaron Barr, regarding strategic "attacks" on journalist Glenn Greenwald and others in the media for the purpose of undermining Wikileaks' support in the media;

Specifically approved suggestions for the proposal, made by Aaron Barr, regarding the exploitation of weaknesses in Wikileaks' infrastructure, including its network of staff, volunteers and leakers; its submission servers; its finances; its founder, Julian Assange; etc;

Incorporated the above-described suggestions for the proposal, made by Aaron Barr, into the finished proposal;

Personally created, formatted, revised, edited, approved and distributed the presentation document in question.

Listed emails also detail correspondance between employees of the firms HBGary and Palantir (including Aaron Barr and Matthew Steckman) among others, concerning the internet movement called Anonymous, its alleged connections to Wikileaks, and Aaron's Barr's research on Anonymous, including its alleged connections to Wikileaks.


List of emails TO Matthew Steckman RE: Wikileaks John Woods (Hunton for BoA) requests slides for a presentation to a "large US bank" re: Wikileaks:

http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15036

Eli Bingham (Palantir) requests for sec reps from Palantir, Berico and HBGary to join a conference call regarding the "large US bank" opportunity discussed above:

http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15039

Aaron Barr informs Matthew Steckman that he cannot open a file attachment from Steckman's previous email (linked):

http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15059

Aaron Barr discusses sending analysis information to Matthew Steckman, regarding BoA/Wikileaks. Barr mentions "mapping" [speculation: the analysis maps seen in the presentation made to Hunton for BoA]:

http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15061

Aaron Barr, to Matthew Stuckman, explicitly lays out potential "attack" strategies against Wikileaks' "weak points," citing Wikileaks' volunteers, staff, financials, submission servers, Julian Assange, the perceived security of leakers, etc. [speculation: this appears to be the origination of most of the points made in the palantir/berico/hbgary presentation to BoA legal defense]:

http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15069

Aaron Barr introduces Matthew Steckman to the idea of attacking Glenn Greenwald specifically, and makes a case for strategically undermining Wikileaks' support in the "liberal" media. Barr explicitly uses the word "attack" in relation to organizations/individuals supporting Wikileaks: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15070 Aaron Barr informs Matthew Steckman that he cannot open a file attachment sent by Steckman. Attachment appears to be a draft of the presentation to be made to Hunton for BoA: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15075 Aaron Barr agrees with Matthew Steckman that they should find out "later" on whose end is the technical issue keeping Barr from accessing Steckman's BoA/Wikileaks proposal file attachments: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15079


List of emails FROM Matthew Steckman RE: Wikileaks Matthew Steckman invites Aaron Barr (and reps from Palantir and Berico) to join a conference call about an opportunity from a "large US bank" re: Wikileaks (mentioned in previous email): http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15038 Matthew Steckman summarizes, for Palantir, Berico and HBGary sec reps, a phonecall from Hunton and Williams; outlines BoA/Wikileaks opportunity as "internal investigation;" mentions BoA seeking injunction against wikileaks; mentions US Department of Justice's recommendation of Hunton & Williams, specifically Richard Wyatt, whom steckman refers to as "the emperor," to BoA's general counsel; mentions roles of Palantir, Berico and HBGary; mentions potential prosecution of Wikileaks: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15041 Matthew Steckman outlines possible presentation slides for proposal to Hunton for BoA, and organizes logistics of upcoming conference call: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15044 Matthew Steckman sends "a cleaned up version" of a document for sec reps to "work from" [original attachment is not included at listed link, document is an early draft of the BoA proposal.] Steckman informs sec reps from HBGary, Palantir and Berico that he is only collecting information for the time being, regarding the BoA/WIkileaks proposal: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15050 Matthew Steckman sends Berico and HBGary reps another "cleaned up version to work from": http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15051 Matthew Steckman informs John Woods (Hunton for BoA) that the three firms (Palantir, Berico, HBGary) will have coordinated an early proposal by "tonight" [Dec 02, 2010]: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15052 Matthew Steckman and John Woods (Hunton for BoA) organize logistics of morning conference call: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15055 Matthew Steckman sends "working draft" of BoA/Wikileaks proposal to sec reps from Berico, Palantir and HBGary: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15057 Matthew Steckman sends conference call details [date, time, phone number] to John Woods (Hunton for BoA) and Berico, Palantir and HBGary sec reps: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15058 Matthew Steckman sends proposal notes ["document"] for upcoming conference call/presentation to John Woods (Hunton for BoA) and Berico, Palantir and HBGary sec reps: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15067 Matthew Steckman informs Aaron Barr that he approves of Barr's earlier suggestions regarding Wikileaks' strengths/weaknesses and that he plans to "spotlight" an attack on Glenn Greenwald in the upcoming presentation, also per Barr's earlier suggestion [see earlier emails TO Steckman]: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15071 Matthew Steckman informs Aaron Barr that Barr's suggestions have been added to the updated proposal and thanks Barr for his suggestions [detailed in emails/synopses above]: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15073 Matthew Steckman sends Aaron Barr a "Pfd" [sic] and suggests that they need to work out Barr's technical difficulties opening steckman's email attachments "afterwards": http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=15076


List of emails TO/FROM Aaron Barr RE: Anonymous Research and/or Anonymous Connections to Wikileaks Aaron Barr contacts John Woods (Hunton for BoA) about Barr's research on Anonymous. Barr claims to have information about Anonymous that possibly no one else has regarding "organization operations and communications infrastructure as well as key players by name." Barr mentions possible application of this information to another "opportunity" previously discussed with Woods, but does not elaborate: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=16499 Aaron Barr and Matthew Steckman discuss sharing Barr's research on Anonymous: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=16379 Aaron Barr and Matthew Stechman discuss meeting and sharing Barr's research on Anonymous: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=16419 Aaron Barr contacts Dawn Meyerriecks (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) and informs her of his research on Anonymous. Barr claims to have put together "a significant data set" and offers to discuss his "results, methodologies, and significance of social media for analysis and exposure": http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=16574 Aaron Barr corresponds with John Woods (Hunton) and claims that he has mapped out 80-90% of Anonymous' leadership. Barr claims to be meeting with "govies" [speculation: government officials] "next week" [dated 01/31/2011.] Follow-up to email in which Barr alleges ties between Anonymous and Wikileaks. http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=16834 Aaron Barr discusses with Bill Wansley (Booz, Allen, Hamilton) the possibility of researching ties between Anonymous and Wikileaks; Barr claims there are "many" such ties: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=16633


List of emails TO/FROM Other HBGary Employees RE: Wikileaks and/or Anonymous Bob Slapnik (HBGary) recounts to HBGary's sales department a recent conversation at a "customer site" about potential markets created by the Wikileaks release (i.e. China's resultant access to classified US security intelligence and the US's subsequent need for new sec.) Slapnik stresses the importance of targeted language when proposing such products: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=31460 David Willson informs Ted Vera (HBGary) that the Bank of America/Wikileaks news has been broken by FOX: http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id=43197


"The Wikileaks Threat" (Original Document) Discussed in Listed Emails WikiLeaks Response v5: http://www.mediafire.com/?d08n3fiw6c02bju WikiLeaks Response v6: http://www.mediafire.com/?ki4tjk8iaunn5f6 Differences between drafts/versions: Organizational breakdown expanded White space changed Minor wording changes The rest seems to be identical

Background Brief


Based on what I’ve seen of their corporate positioning, Palantir seem to be invested in the idea that they are one of the good guys. They claim to offer technology which better distinguishes and discriminates amongst information acquired via mass-surveillance, and to permit the ‘tagging’ of this information so that it is accessible only to those with the appropriate clearance and jurisdiction.

“ dedicated to working for the common good and doing what’s right”


“That deeply felt commitment has been clear since the company’s inception and is evident in the company’s roster of advisors, leaders, engineers, and technology experts.”

White Paper: ‘Privacy and Civil Liberties are in Palantir’s DNA’
http://www.palantir.com/privacy-and-civil-liberties

“Dam it feels good to be a gangsta...”

Matthew Steckman
(worthwhile background: positioned as trying to make a bad system better
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... t=1&f=1014


They’re also pretty high profile, with a market capitalisation of over $1 billion (mostly courtesy of PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel) - ie, they’re a little more serious than the HBGary fools.


http://blogs.forbes.com/oliverchiang/20 ... hnologies/


All of which makes it likely that they’re going to be looking to isolate Steckman, emphasising the disparity between their corporate values and his conduct. Obviously, having THEIR emails would make it easier to determine just how much upper management knew about his work without having to actually ask them only to receive the standard incredulous insistence of virtue. Either way, probing this is likely to give some insight into the scale of the threat as they presently perceive it.

On that threat, I think the safest thing to say at the moment is that nobody is quite sure where all of this is going to end up. Equally safe is that whatever we might be able to reduce the ‘Anonymous’ position to, it will likely be directly contrary to Palantir and their ilk – they want this to be a momentary blip, we want it to be the chink that proves the undoing of this sick machine we’ve all ended up serving and despising. The following is intended to outline some of the bigger picture factors in the form of some choice extracts from authoritative sources. This will hopefully yield insights into particular pressure points, fissures and weaknesses to be exploited.

Privatization and the Federal Government: An Introduction December 28, 2006 Kevin R. Kosar Congressional Reporting Service http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33777.pdf

Furthermore, the movement of an activity from the governmental sector to the private sector, or vice versa, has significant ramifications. Most obviously, the behavior of the entity carrying out the task will differ because each sector has different incentives and constraints. One public administration scholar has suggested that the incentives amount to this: a government entity may do only what the law permits and prescribes; a private entity may do whatever the law does not forbid.

Government agencies, unlike private firms, usually operate under complex accountability hierarchies that include multiple and even conflicting goals. Federal agencies, for example, are subject to the corpus of federal management laws. These laws serve as means for keeping executive branch agencies accountable to Congress, the President, and the public. They also embody principles of democratic justice, such as the allowance for public participation and government transparency.

Thus, in shifting an activity from the governmental to the private sector, the nature of government oversight is transformed. As the components of government provision of goods and services are privatized, the jurisdiction of federal management laws, Congress, the President, and the courts is reduced.

Privatization’s Pretensions Jon D. Michaels [77:717 2010] The University of Chicago Law Review http://lawreview.uchicago.edu/issues/ba ... chaels.pdf

Workarounds provide outsourcing agencies with the means of accomplishing distinct policy goals that—but for the pretext of technocratic privatization—would either be legally unattainable or much more difficult to realize.

Consider the following scenario: Exploiting Legal-Status Differentials. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would like to establish a data mining operation to gather intelligence on potential terrorist threats. Bristling under stringent federal privacy laws imposed on government officials—laws that inhibit DHS’s ability to collect and analyze personal information without court authorization—policymakers turn to private contractors. Contractors, like most other private individuals, are largely beyond the scope of these federal laws. For the most part, these laws were enacted well before contractors were hired with great regularity to assist with law enforcement and counterterrorism initiatives. Now, in an era where outsourcing is the norm, DHS may use the statutes’ narrowness to its advantage and award government contracts to the unencumbered private data brokers. The contractors can then acquire the information more liberally on their own and submit raw data or synthesized intelligence to the government. DHS thus gets the benefit of more sweeping, intrusive searches than would otherwise be permitted of government officials, short of their first obtaining warrants or securing legislative change.


Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Thirteenth session A/HRC/13/37 28 December 2009 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hr ... -13-37.pdf

[20]States that previously lacked constitutional or statutory safeguards have been able to radically transform their surveillance powers with few restrictions. In countries that have constitutional and legal safeguards, Governments have endangered the protection of the right to privacy by not extending these safeguards to their cooperation with third countries and private actors, or by placing surveillance systems beyond the jurisdiction of their constitutions.

[41]The Special Rapporteur notes that since September 2001 there has been a trend towards outsourcing the collection of intelligence to private contractors... [raising concerns about] lack of proper training, the introduction of a profit motive into situations which are prone to human rights violations, and the often questionable prospect that such contractors will be subject to judicial and parliamentary accountability mechanisms

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Tenth session

A/HRC/10/3 4 February 2009 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/te ... C.10.3.pdf

B. Recommendations For legislative assemblies 65. The Special Rapporteur recommends that any interference with the right to privacy, family, home or correspondence by an intelligence agency should be authorized by provisions of law that are particularly precise, proportionate to the security threat, and offer effective guarantees against abuse. States should ensure that competent authorities apply less intrusive investigation methods than special investigation techniques if such methods enable a terrorist offence to be detected, prevented or prosecuted with adequate effectiveness. Decision-making authority should be layered so that the greater the invasion of privacy, the higher the level of necessary authorization. Furthermore, in order to safeguard against the arbitrary use of special investigative techniques and violations of human rights, the use of special investigative techniques by the intelligence agencies must be subject to appropriate supervision and review. 66. There should be a domestic legal basis for the storage and use of data by intelligence and security services, which is foreseeable as to its effects and subject to scrutiny in the public interest. The law should also provide for effective controls on how long information may be retained, the use to which it may be put, and who may have access to it, and ensure compliance with international data protection principles in the handling of information. There should be audit processes, which include external independent personnel, to ensure that such rules are adhered to.

67. The Special Rapporteur also recommends the adoption of legislation that clarifies the rights, responsibilities, and liability of private companies in submitting data to government agencies.

For the executive power 71. The executive should have effective powers of control, provided for in law, over the intelligence agencies and have adequate information about their actions in order to be able to effectively exercise control over them. The minister responsible for the intelligence and security services should therefore have the right to approve matters of political sensitivity (such as cooperation with agencies from other countries) or undertakings that affect fundamental rights (such as the approval of special investigative powers, whether or not additional external approval is required from a judge).


[edit] News Reports

Palantir raises $50mil from unknown investors 5.5.11

[Wombaticus Rex]

This thread is a goldmine even by RI standards. Thank you all. Bumping.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... ance/print

n a luxury Washington, DC, hotel last month, governments from around the world gathered to discuss surveillance technology they would rather you did not know about. The annual Intelligence Support Systems (ISS) World Americas conference is a mecca for representatives from intelligence agencies and law enforcement. But to the media or members of the public, it is strictly off limits.

Gone are the days when mere telephone wiretaps satisfied authorities' intelligence needs. Behind the cloak of secrecy at the ISS World conference, tips are shared about the latest advanced "lawful interception" methods used to spy on citizens – computer hacking, covert bugging and GPS tracking. Smartphones, email, instant message services and free chat services such as Skype have revolutionised communication. This has been matched by the development of increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology.

Among the pioneers is Hampshire-based Gamma International, a core ISS World sponsor. In April, Gamma made headlines when Egyptian activists raided state security offices in Cairo and found documents revealing Gamma had in 2010 offered Hosni Mubarak's regime spy technology named FinFisher. The "IT intrusion" solutions offered by Gamma would have enabled authorities to infect targeted computers with a spyware virus so they could covertly monitor Skype conversations and other communications.

The use of such methods is more commonly associated with criminal hacking groups, who have used spyware and trojan viruses to infect computers and steal bank details or passwords. But as the internet has grown, intelligence agencies and law enforcement have adopted similar techniques.

"Traditionally communications flowed through phone companies, but consumers are increasingly using communications that operate outwith their jurisdiction. This changes the way interception is carried out … the current method of choice would seem to be spyware, or trojan horses," said Chris Soghoian, a Washington-based surveillance and privacy expert. "There's now a thriving outsourced surveillance industry and they are there to meet the needs and wants of countries from around the world, including those who are more – and less – respectful to human rights."

In 2009, while a government employee, Soghoian attended ISS World. He made recordings of seminars and later published them online – which led him to be the subject of an investigation and, ultimately, cost him his Federal Trade Commission job. The level of secrecy around the sale of such technology by western companies, he believes, is cause for alarm.

"When there are five or six conferences held in closed locations every year, where telecommunications companies, surveillance companies and government ministers meet in secret to cut deals, buy equipment, and discuss the latest methods to intercept their citizens' communications – that I think meets the level of concern," he said. "They say that they are doing it with the best of intentions. And they say that they are doing it in a way that they have checks and balances and controls to make sure that these technologies are not being abused. But decades of history show that surveillance powers are abused – usually for political purposes."

Another company that annually attends ISS World is Italian surveillance developer Hacking Team. A small, 35-employee software house based in Milan, Hacking Team's technology – which costs more than £500,000 for a "medium-sized installation" – gives authorities the ability to break into computers or smartphones, allowing targeted systems to be remotely controlled. It can secretly enable the microphone on a targeted computer and even take clandestine snapshots using its webcam, sending the pictures and audio along with any other information – such as emails, passwords and documents – back to the authorities for inspection. The smartphone version of the software has the ability to track a person's movements via GPS as well as perform a function described as "remote audio spy", effectively turning the phone into a bug without its user's knowledge. The venture capital-backed company boasts that its technology can be used "country-wide" to monitor more than 100,000 targets simultaneously, and cannot be detected by anti-virus software.

"Information such as address books or SMS messages or images or documents might never leave the device. Such data might never be sent to the network. The only way to get it is to hack the terminal device, take control of it and finally access to the relevant data," says David Vincenzetti, founding partner of Hacking Team, who adds that the company has sold its software in 30 countries across five continents. "Our investors have set up a legal committee whose goal is to promptly and continuously advise us on the status of each country we are talking to. The committee takes into account UN resolutions, international treaties, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International recommendations."

Three weeks ago Berlin-based hacker collective the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) exposed covert spy software used by German police forces similar to that offered by Hacking Team. The "Bundestrojaner [federal trojan]" software, which state officials confirmed had been used, gave law enforcement the power to gain complete control over an infected computer. The revelation prompted an outcry in Germany, as the use of such methods is strictly regulated under the country's constitutional law. (A court ruling in 2008 established a "basic right to the confidentiality and integrity of information-technological systems".)

"Lots of what intelligence agencies have been doing in the last few years is basically computer infiltration, getting data from computers and installing trojans on other people's computers," said Frank Rieger, a CCC spokesman. "It has become part of the game, and what we see now is a diffusion of intelligence methods into normal police work. We're seeing the same mindset creeping in. They're using the same surreptitious methods to gain knowledge without remembering that they are the police and they need to follow due process."

In the UK there is legislation governing the use of all intrusive surveillance. Covert intelligence-gathering by law enforcement or government agencies is regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa), which states that to intercept communications a warrant must be authorised by the home secretary and be deemed necessary and proportionate in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic wellbeing of the country. There were 1,682 interception warrants approved by the home secretary in 2010, latest official figures show.

According to Jonathan Krause, an IT security expert who previously worked for Scotland Yard's hi-tech crime unit, bugging computers is becoming an increasingly important methodology for UK law enforcement. "There are trojans that will be customer written to get past usual security, firewalls, malware scanning and anti-virus devices, but these sorts of things will only be aimed at serious criminals," he said.

Concerns remain, however, that despite export control regulations, western companies have been supplying high-tech surveillance software to countries where there is little or no legislation governing its use. In 2009, for instance, it was reported that American developer SS8 had allegedly supplied the United Arab Emirates with smartphone spyware, after about 100,000 users were sent a bogus software update by telecommunications company Etisalat. The technology, if left undetected, would have enabled authorities to bypass BlackBerry email encryption by mining communications from devices before they were sent.

Computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum is well aware what it is like to be a target of covert surveillance. He is a core member of the Tor Project, which develops free internet anonymising software used by activists and government dissidents across the Middle East and north Africa to evade government monitoring. A former spokesman for WikiLeaks, Appelbaum has had his own personal emails scrutinised by the US government as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the whistleblower organisation. On 13 October he was in attendance at ISS World where he was hoping to arrange a presentation about Tor – only to be ejected after one of the surveillance companies complained about his presence.

"There's something to be said about how these guys are not interested in regulating themselves and they're interested in keeping people in the dark about what they're doing," he says. "These people are not unlike mercenaries. The companies don't care about anything, except what the law says. In this case, if the law's ambiguous, they'll do whatever the law doesn't explicitly deny. It's all about money for them, and they don't care.

"This tactical exploitation stuff, where they're breaking into people's computers, bugging them … they make these arguments that it's good, that it saves lives," he said. "But we have examples that show this is not true. I was just in Tunisia a couple of days ago and I met people who told me that posting on Facebook resulted in death squads showing up in your house."

The growth in the use of these methods across the world, Appelbaum believes, means governments now have a vested interest in keeping computer users' security open to vulnerabilities. "Intelligence [agencies] want to keep computers weak as it makes it easier to surveil you," he says, adding that an increase in demand for such technology among law enforcement agencies is of equal concern.

"I don't actually think breaking into the computer of a terrorist is the world's worst idea – it might in fact be the only option – but these guys [surveillance technology companies] are trying to sell to any police officer," he says. "I mean, what business does the Baltimore local police have doing tactical exploitation into people's computers? They have no business doing that. They could just go to the house, serve a warrant, and take the computer. This is a kind of state terror that is simply unacceptable in my opinion."

Jerry Lucas, the president of the company behind ISS World, TeleStrategies, does not deny surveillance developers that attend his conference supply to repressive regimes. In fact, he is adamant that the manufacturers of surveillance technology, such as Gamma International, SS8 and Hacking Team, should be allowed to sell to whoever they want.

"The surveillance that we display in our conferences, and discuss how to use, is available to any country in the world," he said. "Do some countries use this technology to suppress political statements? Yes, I would say that's probably fair to say. But who are the vendors to say that the technology is not being used for good as well as for what you would consider not so good?"

Would he be comfortable in the knowledge that regimes in Zimbabwe and North Korea were purchasing this technology from western companies? "That's just not my job to determine who's a bad country and who's a good country. That's not our business, we're not politicians … we're a for-profit company. Our business is bringing governments together who want to buy this technology."

TeleStrategies organises a number of conferences around the world, including in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Every country has a need for the latest covert IT intrusion technology, according to Lucas, because modern criminal investigations cannot be conducted without it. He claimed "99.9% good comes from the industry" and accused the media of not covering surveillance-related issues objectively.

"I mean, you can sell cars to Libyan rebels, and those cars and trucks are used as weapons. So should General Motors and Nissan wonder, 'how is this truck going to be used?' Why don't you go after the auto makers?" he said. "It's an open market. You cannot stop the flow of surveillance equipment."

[dqueue]

This thread is a goldmine even by RI standards. Thank you all. Bumping.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... ance/print

...
In the UK there is legislation governing the use of all intrusive surveillance. Covert intelligence-gathering by law enforcement or government agencies is regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa), which states that to intercept communications a warrant must be authorised by the home secretary and be deemed necessary and proportionate in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic wellbeing of the country. There were 1,682 interception warrants approved by the home secretary in 2010, latest official figures show.

According to Jonathan Krause, an IT security expert who previously worked for Scotland Yard's hi-tech crime unit, bugging computers is becoming an increasingly important methodology for UK law enforcement. "There are trojans that will be customer written to get past usual security, firewalls, malware scanning and anti-virus devices, but these sorts of things will only be aimed at serious criminals," he said.
...

I wonder what technology News Corp. deployed when conducting illegal surveillance against their targets? I admit my own laziness, such that I haven't done the research (nor do I recall reading about exactly how News Corps successfully hacked voicemail of so many targets). News Corps' contacts within law enforcement passed along phone numbers. Then what? Did News Corps brute force hack voicemail passwords? Did they spoof caller-id and exploit users' expectations of privacy and security? Or did they aim their high-tech surveillance suite at a target?

Maybe I want too much for these stories to overlap...

[Plutonia]

This thread is a goldmine even by RI standards. Thank you all. Bumping.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... ance/print

...
In the UK there is legislation governing the use of all intrusive surveillance. Covert intelligence-gathering by law enforcement or government agencies is regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa), which states that to intercept communications a warrant must be authorised by the home secretary and be deemed necessary and proportionate in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic wellbeing of the country. There were 1,682 interception warrants approved by the home secretary in 2010, latest official figures show.

According to Jonathan Krause, an IT security expert who previously worked for Scotland Yard's hi-tech crime unit, bugging computers is becoming an increasingly important methodology for UK law enforcement. "There are trojans that will be customer written to get past usual security, firewalls, malware scanning and anti-virus devices, but these sorts of things will only be aimed at serious criminals," he said.
...

I wonder what technology News Corp. deployed when conducting illegal surveillance against their targets? I admit my own laziness, such that I haven't done the research (nor do I recall reading about exactly how News Corps successfully hacked voicemail of so many targets). News Corps' contacts within law enforcement passed along phone numbers. Then what? Did News Corps brute force hack voicemail passwords? Did they spoof caller-id and exploit users' expectations of privacy and security? Or did they aim their high-tech surveillance suite at a target?

Maybe I want too much for these stories to overlap...

Calling what they did hacking is extremely misleading.

It’s actually pretty simple — to access your voicemail from a remote phone, you need to enter a PIN. In the past, most carriers would assign a generic PIN to customers. Since customers usually access voicemail on their own phones, they never needed to use or change the PIN. That meant anyone else could access the voicemail remotely and just use the default PIN to get in.

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2011/07/ ... they-hack/

Gah!

[Stephen Morgan]

This thread is a goldmine even by RI standards. Thank you all. Bumping.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... ance/print

...
In the UK there is legislation governing the use of all intrusive surveillance. Covert intelligence-gathering by law enforcement or government agencies is regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa), which states that to intercept communications a warrant must be authorised by the home secretary and be deemed necessary and proportionate in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic wellbeing of the country. There were 1,682 interception warrants approved by the home secretary in 2010, latest official figures show.

According to Jonathan Krause, an IT security expert who previously worked for Scotland Yard's hi-tech crime unit, bugging computers is becoming an increasingly important methodology for UK law enforcement. "There are trojans that will be customer written to get past usual security, firewalls, malware scanning and anti-virus devices, but these sorts of things will only be aimed at serious criminals," he said.
...

I wonder what technology News Corp. deployed when conducting illegal surveillance against their targets? I admit my own laziness, such that I haven't done the research (nor do I recall reading about exactly how News Corps successfully hacked voicemail of so many targets). News Corps' contacts within law enforcement passed along phone numbers. Then what? Did News Corps brute force hack voicemail passwords? Did they spoof caller-id and exploit users' expectations of privacy and security? Or did they aim their high-tech surveillance suite at a target?

Maybe I want too much for these stories to overlap...

They mostly took advantage of people not changing default passwords, along with a bit of bribery of phone company personnel.

[Elihu]

has anything similar to this ever happened to anybody here? insights / opinions appreciated.
[quote][/quote]redacted