WikiLeaks supporters download ‘Low Orbit Ion Cannon’ software en masse

Associated Press

WikiLeaks supporters on Friday downloaded increasing amounts of the spam-shooting software used to attack companies seen as hostile — a development that could challenge even Internet giants such as PayPal and Amazon.com during the crucial Christmas shopping season.

U.S. data security company Imperva says downloads of the attack program used to bombard websites with bogus requests for data have jumped to over 40,000, with thousands of new downloads reported overnight.

“It’s definitely increasing,” Imperva Web researcher Tal Be’ery said in a telephone interview from Israel.

The freely available software is a critical part of the campaign by “hacktivists” seeking to take revenge on sites they believe have betrayed WikiLeaks, the group that has outraged American officials by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables and military intelligence reports.

Read Full Article

RELATED ARTICLE:
Wikileaks defended by anonymous hacktivists

Hacker – Wiki Image

Tom Burghardt
Dissident Voice

As the Obama administration expands Bush-era surveillance programs over the nation’s electronic communications’ infrastructure, recent media reports provide tantalizing hints of Pentagon plans for waging cyberwar against imperialism’s geopolitical rivals.

On May 31, The Wall Street Journal disclosed that the Pentagon now asserts “that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.”

One sound bite savvy wag told journalist Siobhan Gorman, “if you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.”

Also on May 31, The Washington Post reported that America’s shadow warriors have “developed a list of cyber-weapons and -tools, including viruses that can sabotage an adversary’s critical networks, to streamline how the United States engages in computer warfare.”

That “classified list of capabilities has been in use for several months,” with the approval of “other agencies, including the CIA.” Post reporter Ellen Nakashima informed us that this “sensitive program … forms part of the Pentagon’s set of approved weapons or ‘fires’ that can be employed against an enemy.”

Not to be left in the dust by their U.S. and Israeli allies, The Guardian reported that the “UK is developing a cyber-weapons programme that will give ministers an attacking capability to help counter growing threats to national security from cyberspace.”

Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey told The Guardian that “action in cyberspace will form part of the future battlefield” and will become “an integral part of the country’s armoury.”

It appears that Western military establishments are in the grips of a full-blown cyber panic or, more likely, beating the war drums as they roll out new product lines with encouragement from corporate partners eager to make billions developing new weapons systems for their respective political masters.

And why not? As Bloomberg News reported back in 2008, both Lockheed Martin and Boeing “are deploying forces and resources to a new battlefield: cyberspace.”

Bloomberg averred that military contractors and the wider defense industry are “eager to capture a share of a market that may reach $11 billion in 2013,” and “have formed new business units to tap increased spending to protect U.S. government computers from attack.”

Linda Gooden, executive vice president of Lockheed’s Information Systems & Global Services unit told Bloomberg, “The whole area of cyber is probably one of the faster-growing areas” of the U.S. budget. “It’s something that we’re very focused on.”

As part of the new strategy to be released later this month, the Post reports that the military needs “presidential authorization to penetrate a foreign computer network and leave a cyber-virus that can be activated later.”

However, when it comes to espionage or other activities loudly denounced as illegal intrusions into the sacrosanct world of government and corporate crime and corruption, the “military does not need such approval.”

We’re told such “benign” activities “include studying the cyber-capabilities of adversaries or examining how power plants or other networks operate.”

“Military cyber-warriors,” Nakashima writes, “can also, without presidential authorization, leave beacons to mark spots for later targeting by viruses,” an “unnamed military official” told the Post.

But wait, aren’t those precisely the types of covert actions decried by politicians, media commentators and assorted experts when they’re directed against the heimat? Is there a double standard here? Well, of course there is!

Along with a flurry of Defense Department leaks designed to ratchet-up the fear factor and lay the groundwork for billions more from Congress for giant defense firms servicing the Pentagon’s unquenchable thirst for ever-deadlier weapons systems–cyber, or otherwise–”threat inflation” scaremongering described by researchers Jerry Brito and Tate Watkins in their essential paper, Loving the Cyber Bomb?, take center stage.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Just last week, former Democratic party congressional hack, current CIA Director and Obama’s nominee to lead the Defense Department, Leon Panetta, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “the next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples America’s electrical grid and its security and financial systems,” The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Cripple the financial system? Why greedy banksters and corporate bottom-feeders seem to be doing a splendid job of it on their own without an assist from shadowy Russian hackers, the People’s Liberation Army or LulzSec pranksters!

However, the Pentagon’s propaganda blitz (courtesy of a gullible or complicitous corporate media, take your pick) is neither meant to inform nor educate the public but rather, to conceal an essential fact: the United States is already engaged in hostile cyber operations against their geopolitical rivals–and allies–and have been doing so since the 1990s, if not earlier, as journalist Nicky Hager revealed when he blew the lid off NSA’s Echelon program in a 1997 piece for CovertAction Quarterly.

Read Full Article

RELATED ACTIVIST POST ARTICLE:
Worldwide Freedom is Being Hacked

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

Wiki Commons

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars

Despite the corporate-driven hubbub surrounding the inevitability of “the cloud” replacing personal hard drives as the pre-eminent storage center for all web content, this system represents another dangerous trojan horse for the establishment to complete their agenda to regulate and shut down the free Internet.

Apple, Google and Amazon amongst other tech giants have all jumped on board with “the cloud,” a remote server network that allows users to store their data without using hard drives.

“It’s all part of a generational trend away from owning physical media content and towards renting media content from the computing universal cloud,” reports Investmentu.com.

However, despite the convenience of having all your files easily accessible in one place wherever you go, the drawbacks are ominous.

The Cloud is basically a YouTube for everything, and the problem with this is that You Tube routinely blocks, censors and deletes content when ordered to by governments. As we reported back in May, YouTube is now following orders from governments to remove videos that show protests, demonstrations and other sensitive information the state doesn’t want others to see.

Indeed, Amazon’s Cloud network notoriously deleted the entire Wikileaks website from its servers following a phone call made by Senator Joe Lieberman’s Senate Homeland Security Committee demanding the website be axed.

Lieberman has been at the forefront of a push to purge the Internet of all dissent by empowering Obama with a figurative Internet kill switch that he would use to shut down parts of the Internet or terminate websites under the guise of national security. Lieberman spilled the beans on the true reason for the move during a CNN interview when he stated “Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too.”

The cloud is therefore the perfect compliment to cybersecurity. The goal is to force everyone to use one of the cloud networks run by a major corporation, first by taxing, regulating, and making the normal Internet prohibitively expensive, and eventually by shutting it down all together. Once the vast majority of data is confined to the cloud network, harsher copyright, free speech and defamation laws will slowly be tightened, which will force the alternative media out of business.

When you agree to have your content hosted on the cloud, you are virtually handing it over to a large corporation which then through “terms of use” has the power to access or delete your information.

For example, Amazon’s Cloud Locker’s “binding agreement” with users mandates that Amazon can exercise, “the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files”.

Handing your data over to the cloud also makes it that bit easier for the government to obtain your private information.

“It’s not like putting your data in a desk drawer,” Chris Calabrese of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Washington Post. “Although the government needs a judge’s order to seize a hard drive, a subpoena is often enough authority to obtain cloud data.”

Security is also virtually non-existent on Amazon’s cloud. Amazon writes that “We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You’re responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of Your Files.”

So if a hacker or Amazon itself deletes your files – tough luck – there’s no recourse.

Technology buffs have also predicted problems for people who later decide to switch between clouds, say moving from Apple to Google.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

“Providers of cloud services like Apple, Google and Facebook will have strong profit incentives to hold on to their users to maximize revenue,” writes Tony D’Altorio. “They’ll do their best to limit consumers’ freedom to roam freely from cloud to cloud.”

“So consumers may get stuck in Apple’s iCloud and not be able to get out without a hassle. Mark Little, an analyst at Ovum, remarked, “Switching costs [from cloud to cloud] is likely to be one of the biggest parts of the cloud story.”

The cloud is nothing more than a trojan horse to eviscerate the free Internet. It’s an effort to assimilate the alternative media into a borg hive before destroying it from within. It’s one component of Internet 2 and the move towards a world wide web that resembles something more like cable TV than what we know as the Internet today, a system where a small number of giant corporations will work with governments to decide what can and cannot be published.

The cloud will kill the free Internet unless we get the message out that it is a tool perfectly honed for shutting down free speech on the world wide web.
—
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

M. Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Regardless of what you think about the illegal immigration laws in Arizona, you must take notice of the fact that the group known as Lulz Security or LulzSec has targeted the state more heavily than any previous target.  You might also notice that even though LulzSec allegedly disbanded several days ago, their attacks on government cyber-infrastructure has continued unabated.

Sure, now they are operating under the banner of Anonymous (the same group that they emerged out of), but their activities have not changed a bit. They have continued their “Operation Anti-Sec” unabated, despite the clear warnings that these attacks will be used to justify a draconian crackdown on the Internet freedoms we have all grown to enjoy.

You wouldn’t be out of line to wonder what, if anything, this group of so-called “hacktivists” is trying to accomplish by giving the government perfect reasons to destroy our rights. The RIAA is already using the Anonymous/LulzSec attacks as a justification for the China-style PROTECT IP act. Literally no positive progress has been seen as a result of these breaches of government security, other than a few “lulz” for immature hackers who get their kicks from ruining the reputations of well-meaning cybersecurity professionals while giving corrupt Washington bureaucrats a laundry list of reasons to clamp-down on the Internet.

One thing that most people do not realize who are not involved in the IT industry, which includes myself, is that these breaches do not only serve as viable reasons to exert governmental control over the Internet. As you will learn if you watch the unreleased documentary Hackers Wanted (which, unfortunately, was removed from YouTube and is only now available via Torrent which I do not advocate in any way) these attacks also serve to humiliate and destroy the careers of those who are charged with securing these networks.

Knowing all of the negative consequences of these attacks, one would have to be an extremely childish individual to carry these breaches out just “for the lulz.” Sure, maybe they are just imbecilic, immature, inutile teenagers who missed the excitement of egging houses with their friends on Halloween and thus have resorted to Internet vandalism.

However, as I have pointed out time and time again, these attacks serve the exact same purposes regardless of the intentions of the groups carrying them out. Even if they are just teenage cyberspace vandals, the fruits of their labors are identical to what a government-controlled or sponsored red team/red cell would work towards.

Since the mainstream media loves to deride this notion and point towards an alleged IRC log as irrefutable evidence, I have no problem accepting this conjecture and moving on, for argument’s sake.

As I have repeated so many times since LulzSec’s activity started making headlines in the mainstream corporate-controlled media, it really does not matter if they are actually involved with any government agencies. Thus, we can toss this to the side and continue to analyze recent events.

The mainstream media never fails to amaze me with their incredible ignorance, even with my expectations as low as they are. For instance, in a recent MSNBC article, Anonymous was described as, “a loose collective of hackers.” That is nothing short of completely false.

Anonymous, as it is now, evolved out of the popular website 4Chan and the many other “Chan” sites which sprung up out of this popularity. Their activities were not relegated solely to hacking, and anyone with any memory whatsoever can verify this. The writer of the MSNBC piece, and their hilariously incompetent editorial staff must have missed the large-scale protests staged by Anonymous against the Church of Scientolgy. Of course these live protests have nothing to do with hacking, but I guess that distinction and the few minutes of research that would be required to elaborate on this fact are beyond the capabilities of MSNBC.

Not to heap all of the blame on this one mainstream publication, the Christian Science Monitor characterized them the exact same way.

Just as is the case in Libya, the corporate mainstream media acts as if this issue is cut-and-dried, when in reality it is far from it. Anonymous is not just a collective of hackers, and all of Libya does not want Qaddafi out of power. Just like Libya, the gigantic and hardly cohesive group known as Anonymous is not as easily characterized as the mainstream media would like you to believe.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

The group, just like all groups throughout history, have had inner-conflicts, splits, and sects which work towards different ends. To call LulzSec and their Anonymous hacker allies representatives of the entirety of Anonymous is nothing short of ignorant. This is just like the conflation of militant Islamic extremism with Islam as a whole. This is also the exact same tactic used to lump every single person who questions the government and holds anti-government sentiments with criminals who just happen to dub themselves “sovereign citizens.”

The most recent attack on government cyber-infrastructure at the hands of LulzSec/Anonymous has garnered nothing more than allegedly racist e-mails and more support for China-style Internet control.

So what is the point? I can’t be sure, I’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments!

M. Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

Mayor of Orlando, Buddy Dyer (Photo: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

I never used to have a problem with Anonymous and their sometimes hilarious exploits, especially when it came to the “Church” of Scientology. However, when they start doing things that police departments can construe as a direct threat against a public servant, I start to worry. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that these types of actions are exactly what the government needs to push through China-style Internet legislation.

To be fair, this was not a direct threat. In fact, all they did was take a picture outside of his house. This is the newest move made by Anonymous members carrying out “Operation Orlando.” The picture was taken at night, outside of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer’s home and included the signature Guy Fawkes mask.

According to the Orlando police department, they are going to patrol the neighborhood more heavily attempting to find “anybody who looks like they don’t belong there.” Is it just me or does that sound like the justification police give for pulling over and/or hassling anyone who doesn’t look rich enough to be in the neighborhood? This is commonly known as racial profiling, although maybe the Orlando PD is on the lookout for a teenager running around in a Guy Fawkes mask?

Either way, declaring that you’re going to be looking for (and likely detaining) anyone who seems to not fit in to the College Park neighborhood of Orlando, Florida is somewhat worrisome. This is the part that Anonymous never seems to weigh before conducting their operations: the impact upon society.

I wholeheartedly support the efforts of activists in Orlando to feed the homeless, regardless of absurd laws that are resulting in arrests for keeping hungry Americans from starving. However, is a hacking campaign at all constructive? I do not find this to be the case.

What exactly are they hoping to accomplish by doing nothing other than annoying people by bringing down city websites? If Anonymous really cared about this horrendous breach of civil liberties, why wouldn’t they participate in a way that actually contributes something to the cause? How about raising money for legal aid for those arrested, or organizing massive homeless feedings across all of Orlando, to the point where it would be impossible for the Orlando PD to shut them all down?

I could come up with several options that do not have the negative impact that these futile hacking attempts do. The most important thing is actually feeding the hungry, underserved, and struggling homeless Americans in Orlando. Bringing down city websites does absolutely nothing for this.

The insane law that Anonymous is attempting to help fight requires anyone who seeks to feed hungry people to obtain a city permit. Furthermore, the ordinance limits “each group to no more than two permits per park, per year,” as reported by the Orlando Sentinel. There’s no doubt that this is a completely un-American and ludicrous ordinance that cannot be rationally justified.

Anonymous was able to breach a secure area of the Democratic Party of Orange County’s website which resulted in the release of passwords, names, addresses, and phone numbers of members. Just like the release of over 62,000 emails and passwords of everyday people carried out by LulzSec, there is absolutely no upside to this, unless you’re one of the many corporations and politicians pushing the Protect IP act.

What exactly was Anonymous expecting to gain with the release of personal information of persons not directly involved with the ordinance and the arrests that are made because of it? Again, would it not be more constructive to take direct action and actually feed people instead of leaking passwords?

The only gain I see these attacks garnering is the support of the public for the law currently being considered by Congress known as the Protect IP act. A more accurate name would be the More Restrictive Than China Act. In fact, over 90 law professors from across the nation have penned a letter to Congress detailing the unconstitutionality of the act.

Interestingly, Anonymous hacked some of the corporations that are advocating this bill, Universal Music and Viacom.

The most frightening thing about this preposterous bill is that it would allow the United States to seize domains that have absolutely no connection with America, even if they have country-specific Top Level Domains (TLDs) like .sy (Syria) .ly (Libya) .nz (New Zealand) .fr (France), etc.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Does anonymous realize that they are not helping, but actually hindering the activists while lending plenty of support for the Protect IP act or whatever legislation will be proposed if it fails?

In an exclusive interview with the Raw Story, the media liaison for the Orlando chapter of the human rights group Food Not Bombs, revealed that:

‘We feel that what [Anonymous is] doing is a distraction to dealing with the real issues,’ he said. ‘The real issues here are very simple: We have a city that’s trying to stop people from sharing food in public parks to meet a community need. We have a mayor who’s trying to criminalize poverty.’

So with the group directly involved in feeding these starving people while knowingly being subject to arrest calling the Anonymous hacks “a distraction,” why would they continue? The only logical conclusion I can come to is that they really have no interest in helping these causes and are instead rallying support for draconian Internet control systems. Of course, they could just be a little confused, immature, and short sighted. It is something to consider and watch for in the coming weeks and months.

RELATED ACTIVIST POST ARTICLE:
It’s Official: Anonymous Hackers Are Now Controlled Opposition

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

Wikimedia Commons

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

In early June of this year, the Pentagon announced their change in policy that now allows the United States to respond to cyber-attacks with physical bombs and guns. This shift signaled a new era in warfare, a shift from the tried-and-true physical conflicts to the mysterious new world of cyberwarfare.

This month the Pentagon has officially declared cyberspace as an “operational domain” which is nothing more than a domain in which war is waged like land, air, and sea.

When Leon Panetta stated that the next Pearl Harbor could be a cyberattack on American infrastructure, the Western media had a field day. The LulzSec controversy helped to solidify the idea of a cyber-threat in the minds of the American people.

With the Internet portrayed as a battlefield like any other, the people of the United States only needed a direct attack on government systems to justify the escalation of cyberwarfare strategy.

Well this is exactly what we got in March of this year when 24,000 files were stolen from a United States defense contractor according to Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn III. Lynn has stated that the files were stolen by a foreign intelligence service.

The target of the attack and the name of the nation allegedly responsible have not been released nor have any details of what the breached files contained. Still mysterious is exactly what will come of this attack in terms of military response.

One thing we can be sure of is that it is just another excuse to push forward with the China-style legislation known as the Protect IP act. This event is far from alone, as it seems that Anonymous continues to add fuel to this anti-internet freedom fire.

Earlier this week hackers under the banner of the LulzSec/Anonymous Operation AntiSec (Anti-Security) breached American defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton’s servers. This resulted in 90,000 e-mails and encrypted passwords being released belonging to military personnel.

The military contractor refused to comment on the breach but this marks a massive new leap in the severity of the breaches being carried out by so-called hacktivist groups.

In addition to leaking 90,000 e-mails and passwords which will allow criminal “phishing” groups to fraudulently access bank accounts and so much more, the hackers deleted an entire 4 GB of Booz Allen Hamilton’s source code.

While the hackers aren’t necessarily praiseworthy for their actions, it appears that Booz Allen Hamilton’s security measures were far from adequate. According to AntiSec’s post on PirateBay.org they, “infiltrated a server ont heir network that basically had no security measures in place.”

The LulzSec-Anonymous hybrid group has also attacked the FBI contractor IRC Federal among other high profile targets.

As I have pointed out so many times, these only serve to beef up the argument for the implementation of draconian internet legislation in the United States. I have yet to hear a compelling argument in support of a single thing LulzSec and Anonymous are doing currently.

Even the groups they are attempting to help, like Food Not Bombs of Orlando, Florida, have called their hack attacks a “distraction.”

While no real activists and civil libertarians seem to be pleased with the actions of these hacking groups, the Pentagon is likely quite happy with their work.

It makes it a lot easier to sell violent military retaliation or over-the-top Internet control when you have a laundry list of cases to point to in which normal people have their information breached as well.

Some military officials are already criticizing the Department of Defense’s cybersecurity plan as “way too predictable.”

General James Cartwright of the United States Marines Corps said that the Pentagon needs to prepare offensive measures to wield over potential attackers.

Despite the Pentagon’s clear statement that military force can and will be utilized against hackers, General Cartwright thinks that defensive measures are too expensive and not efficient.

Cartwright is under the impression that the only thing that will deter potential attackers will be the threat of retaliation. The massive logical hole in Cartwright’s assumptions is that cyber-attacks are not easily attributable to a single country or government.

If Chinese hackers breaches Pentagon networks without the consent or support of the Chinese government do we bomb China? Or should we just retaliate with a malicious virus?

If an American teenager from Chicago breaks into military servers should we send him a nasty virus via e-mail or just kick down his door and kill him?

Proponents of the retaliation tactic have yet to explain these major concerns. These issues will shape international diplomacy in the decades to come.

If the U.S. military’s cyber command estimates that the Pentagon networks are probed by over 250,000 possible hackers every hour, how would offensive strategies be even remotely efficient?

The fact is, the networks are not secure as is, and threatening hackers in Romania with military force is going to be no more effective than a thorough finger-wagging.

If the United States chooses to take the policy that any cyber attack will be retaliated against even if it is not directly attributable to a nation’s government, we will find ourselves even more alienated than we are currently.

The federal government has already been sinking billions into their attempts at cybersecurity measures.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

All of these efforts seem to fall far short of the mark, evidenced by the fact that a foreign intelligence agency was just recently able to make off with thousands of secret documents.

When Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn III outlined the Department of Defense’s new cybersecurity strategy far too many questions were left unanswered and ambiguity continues to reign supreme.

Meanwhile, on the legislative front, the battle against Internet freedom wages on as Senator Patrick Leahy’s Protect IP Act is discussed in Washington.

According to more than 90 law professors from across the United States the proposed act is not only unconstitutional but it is actually “more restrictive than Chinese law.”

However, experts have pointed out that the internet bill could actually help hackers. Of course, the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA, one of the largest backers of this legislation vehemently denied such claims.

Regardless of the fact that the MPAA has absolutely no evidence to back their claims, the legislation moved out of committee even after the security concerns were raised by several experts and presented in May of this year.

The battlefield of the Internet is getting uglier by the day and we are just seeing the growing pains of what will likely become the largest front in coming decades.

I sincerely hope that the American people can stand up and refuse to have our Constitution thrown out the window completely in the name of cybersecurity. This is neither necessary nor acceptable.

RELATED ACTIVIST POST ARTICLES:
Living in the Shadows: A World of Black Ops and Cyber Wars
Worldwide Freedom is Being Hacked

Madison. Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

Activist Aaron Swartz

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars

The government is going out of its way to create show trials in order to make the case that hackers are out of control and threaten our national security. The latest propaganda effort coincides with so-called cyber security legislation floating around the district of criminals.

Coinciding with the ludicrous assertion by the government that hackers will take down the power grid and pitch the country into the Stone Age, the DOJ and FBI have arrested more than a dozen people in the PayPal Ddos case. Now they are going after a hacker who “stole” non-profit public domain documents. They want to throw him in prison for 35 years.

A number of companies claim they are victims of hackers, including the death merchant Lockheed Martin. The corporate media has highlighted a number of hacking cases in the most lurid and exaggerated fashion.

All of this coincides with an effort by the Pentagon to integrate the private sector into a massive surveillance network in the name of protecting the country from elusive hackers in China and Russia.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has teamed up with Israeli intelligence to take down Iran’s nuclear energy computer network with a sophisticated virus called Stuxnet. It’s okay when we do it.

It should be noted that the Pentagon now says it will put a missile down the smokestack of anybody who messes with its networks and those of its corporate partners.

Aaron Swartz is being set-up in an ongoing effort to demonize hacktivists – hackers with political beliefs – and send the message that political activism over the internet might land you in prison.

Read Full Article

Aaron Swartz – Founder Reddit and DemandProgress

Glenn Greenwald
Salon

Several weeks ago, a New York Times article by Noam Cohen examined the case of Aaron Swartz, the 24-year-old copyright reform advocate who was arrested in July, after allegedly downloading academic articles that had been placed behind a paywall, thus making them available for free online. Swartz is now being prosecuted by the DOJ with obscene over-zealousness. Despite not profiting (or trying to profit) in any way — the motive was making academic discourse available to the world for free — he’s charged with “felony counts including wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer” and “could face up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.”

The NYT article explored similarities between Swartz and Bradley Manning, another young activist being severely punished for alleged acts of freeing information without any profit to himself; the article quoted me as follows:

For Glenn Greenwald . . . it also makes sense that a young generation would view the Internet in political terms. 

“How information is able to be distributed over the Internet, it is the free speech battle of our times,” he said in interview. “It can seem a technical, legalistic movement if you don’t think about it that way.”

Read Full Article

The H Security

UK VPN and web proxy service provider Hide My Ass! (HMA) says that it helped identify the alleged member of the LulzSec hacker group who was arrested by the FBI last week. The company explained that it had complied with a court order to disclose the IP address that the suspect used to log into HMA.

HMA says that the issue first came to its attention through a LulzSec IRC chat log that was released on the web; in this chat log, users discussed various VPN services, including HMA, in early June. Among the chat members was a user who went by the online nickname of Topiary and who was arrested by the UK police at the end of July, as well as a person called “Recursion”; allegedly, the user behind this nickname is a 23-year-old man who has now been arrested by the FBI. HMA said that the chat conversation itself wasn’t illegal and didn’t warrant a response by the company, but that a court order to disclose the data was received later.

Read Full Article

Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post

The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), a think-tank for Internet policy in Britain that facilitates “understanding and dialogue between business, government and NGOs across Europe”, is warning the UK government that their ability to tap into homes via smart meters is allowing the possibility for that information to be seized by hackers, and used against the energy corporations during fuel shortages that may happen in the future.

FIPR is urging that this information may be used as blackmail or fuel for a hostile attack against the UK government by a foreign power or terrorist group. This information would be most likely sold to identity thieves as well as able to be manipulated by energy corporations.

Smart meters have the capacity to spy on you in your home. They collect data on the electrical usage in your home, then that information is remotely sent to a central database at your utilities corporation.

Caroline Speilman, UK Environment Secretary, has been using smart meters to force families to conserve water through monitored usage and price gouging.

The House of Lords of Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment EU Sub-Committee released a report calling for a price hike for water. Lord Carter added:

Having taken our water resources for granted for so long, we must start looking at ways in which we can protect the quality and availability in the face of challenges such as climate change and population growth. Price increases may well be an inevitable part of helping to secure our water supplies.

Ross Anderson, Cambridge University computer science professor and chairman of FIPR, warns that:

Once you have the ability to turn off meters remotely, then it becomes a strategic vulnerability. If the Iranians or Chinese want to attack Britain, they could do so easily through smart meters. This is the modern day equivalent of a nuclear strike.

British Gas has installed over 400,000 smart meters in homes across the UK and has plans to install more by 2019.

The plan, authored by former Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and supported by former Liberal Chris Huhne contend that smart meters assist customers in reducing energy expenditures and meet environmental targets of the UK government.

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, says:

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

We are witnessing a massive intrusion into what goes on in millions of homes. This comes when there is increasing surveillance of our society. Smart meters are a step towards our homes becoming the next line of attack for state snoopers.

Anna Fielder, member of Privacy International and former senior policy advisor to the National Consumer Council in the UK, states:

This could mean risks of identity theft, real time surveillance, unwanted publicity, profiling or targeting for commercial purposes and also potential discriminatory practices by power companies targeting tariffs to maximize profits. As these are essentially communication devices, transmitting data over a network, there are the associated security risks if the right measures are not taken.

Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism. Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporately funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

/* */




/* */

Aaron Swartz protesting SOPA (Demand Progress)

Tony Cartalucci, Contributor
Activist Post

In your standard dictatorship, activists are brought out back and shot.

In the United States’ crypto-dictatorship, activists are bullied by the state until they go bankrupt, are buried under a mountain of legal woes, are publicly discredited or humiliated, or as in the case of activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, made to crack under the constant pressure, and commit suicide.

While superficially the United States may seem more progressive, a dead activist bullied to death for his political views, is a dead activist – whether it was a bullet in the back of the head by SS officers, or a mountain of litigation dumped upon someone by the US Department of Justice.

We are All Aaron Swartz.

Swartz was an active opponent of the media industry’s various assaults on Internet freedom and sharing, including the scandalous SOPA/PIPA and ACTA bills.

Aaron was the director of Demand Progress, which pursued the following campaigns:

Click here to read the text of the bill and voice your opposition.

2. Oppose Protect-IP

We knew that members of Congress and their business allies were gearing up to pass a revised Internet Blacklist Bill — which more than 325,000 Demand Progress members helped block last winter — but we never expected it to be this atrocious. Last year’s bill has been renamed the “PROTECT IP” Act and it is far worse than its predecessor.

The new PROTECT-IP Act retains the censorship components from COICA, but adds a new one: It bans people from having serious conversations about the blacklisted sites. Under the new bill, anyone “referring or linking” to a blacklisted site is prohibited from doing so and can be served with a blacklist order forcing them to stop.

More than 50,000 Demand Progress members have already signed our petition opposing the bill, and you can join them here.

3. Bin Laden Is Dead. Will The Patriot Act Live On?

The Patriot Act was enacted as a supposedly temporary measure in the wake of 9-11. With Bin Laden’s passing, the era of the Patriot Act, of spying on Americans who aren’t suspected of crimes, of heavy-handed abuse of our dearly held civil liberties, must come to an end.

>
We need to act now to make sure we win this fight. Tens of thousands of Demand Progress members have already urged Congress to fix the Patriot Act. Will you ask Congress and the President to return us to the legal norms that existed before 9-11 and start respecting our civil liberties?

Click here to read more and sign the petition.

4. Tell Facebook: Stop Censoring Political Speech

A range of Facebook users, from political dissidents to technology bloggers, are reporting the sudden blocking of their pages. Facebook provided no prior warning, nor was there a clear process established to restore access to the blocked pages.

Will you fight back?

The best way to get Facebook’s attention is to make the story go viral on their own site.

5. Tell The DOJ: Investigate Goldman Sachs

Investigators discovered that Goldman traders bragged about selling “shitty” deals to clients and the mega-bank bet against the same financial products it was selling to investors. And they’ve lied about it all the way to the bank.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and small-time homeowners are in jail for mortgage fraud, but no CEOs have been prosecuted for their roles in the financial crisis. It’s time to change that.

Join Senator Levin’s call for accountability by urging the Department of Justice to investigate Goldman Sachs and its CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Sign our petition and we’ll deliver this message above to the DOJ.

6. Tell Your Lawmakers: Shut Down The New Debtors’ Prisons

Americans are in more debt than ever before, and the banks are going to new extremes to squeeze us for every last penny: If you can’t pay up, they’ll try to get you locked up.

Read more here and add your name. We’ll automatically send an email to your state legislators.

7. Could the Government Really Shut Down Facebook?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are out of control. They’ve been seizing domain names without due process: they shut down 84,000 sites by accident last month, arrested a man for linking to other websites, and government officials think ICE and DHS are claiming powers that would even threaten sites like Facebook.

Watch our video — then sign our petition.

8. Fight Internet ‘Kill Switch’

Are our leaders better than Egypt’s? Across the globe, governments know that the Internet is increasingly the lifeblood of democracy — that’s why Egypt’s oppressive regime just shut down the Internet there.

But even as American politicians condemn Egypt for doing so, they’re pushing legislation to give our government the power to do the exact same thing here at home! The so-called ‘Kill Switch’ would let the president turn off our Internet — without a court even having to approve the decision.

Join over 40,000 in fighting it. Add your name!

9. Let the PATRIOT Act Expire

The most noxious parts of the USA PATRIOT Act are about to expire — but Congress wants to extend them again. These provisions let the government spy on people without naming them in a warrant, and secretly access your library and bank records under a gag order prohibiting anyone from letting you know.

Join over 60,000 in opposing extension. Add your name!

10. No Mandatory Internet IDs!

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke just announced that he’s developing virtual ID cards for Internet users — and they could pose a severe threat to our privacy! The program’s called the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace” and the draft proposal indicates that we’d be forced to use the IDs for any online transactions with the government, and for online interactions with businesses that use them.

Over 30,000 have told Gary Locke to back off. Add your name!

11. Protect Whistleblowers at Big Banks

Crimes committed by the big banks helped crash our economy — and WikiLeaks is saying that a whistle-blower has sent them enough evidence to take down Bank of America. So now the big banks are fighting back by trying to get the government to muzzle future whistle-blowers.

Tell the SEC not to listen to them. Add your name!

12. Don’t Let them Outlaw WikiLeaks!

Politicians are leading the charge to outlaw WikiLeaks and undermine freedom of the press. First Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) successfully pressured Amazon.com to stop hosting the WikiLeaks website and now, as Julian Assange has been arrested in the UK, he’s introduced a new bill changing the law to make WikiLeaks illegal.

More than 30,000 have signed our petition to stop him. Add your name!

13. Stop the TSA’s Nude Scanners!

Across the country, TSA is replacing airport metal detectors with scanners that take nude photos of you — violating your rights, zapping you with X-rays that could cause cancer, and slowing down the lines. And if you opt-out, they feel up your “sensitive regions.”

Lawmakers in New Jersey and Idaho are trying to stop them. Let’s get a similar bill introduced in every state! Contact your lawmaker!

14. Stop the Internet Blacklist!

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are out of control. They’ve been seizing domain names without due process: they shut down 84,000 sites by accident last month, arrested a man for linking to other websites, and government officials think ICE and DHS are claiming powers that would even threaten sites like Facebook.

Over 300,000 signers! Add your name!

PLUS: Download our new flyer for our Stop The Internet Blacklist campaign and start a grassroots movement in your area!

Clearly, Demand Progress is not just another faux-NGO working in tandem with special interests under the guise of “human rights,” “freedom,” and “democracy” to peddle further exploitation and expansion of the powers that be – but rather identified these special interests by name, and exposed both their agenda and the means by which they attempt to achieve it. Swartz’ death is a tragic one, and compounded by the dismissive, almost celebratory atmosphere across the corporate-media of the passing of a man they labeled a suspected criminal.

Swartz was targeted b the US Department of Justice, MIT, and their corporate-financier sponsors because he was a prominent and particularly effective voice against real creeping oppression. He was a pragmatic, technical individual and proposed solutions that short-circuited the typical and ineffectual political infighting that drives most disingenuous or misguided causes.We all stand the potential of being targeted like Swartz if we allow these monopolies to continue dictating the destiny of human progress. We are all Aaron Swartz – and must realize his targeting and subsequent suicide is the manifestation of the real danger these insidious monopolies pose to us.

Sharing is Not a Crime.

Technologically empowered openness and generosity across the corporate-financier dominated Western World is no more a real offense than was being Jewish inside Nazi Germany. But like Nazi Germany, anything can be “outlawed” if it suits political and economic special interest. Are we truly “criminals” for not respecting laws born of special interests, detached from the will and best interests of the people? No, we most certainly aren’t.

Swartz allegedly downloaded scholarly files from an open and unsecured academic archive (and here).

The original files are still very much intact and at the disposal of the organization that maintains the archives. Nothing was stolen, yet Swartz was accused of “theft,” facing 30 years in prison and a 1 million dollar fine – this in a nation where rapists and murders can spend less time in prison, and elected representatives involved in willfully selling wars based on patently false pretenses walk free without even the faintest prospect of facing justice.

Swartz’ crusade against the corporate-financier interests attempting to monopolize and control communication and technology is surely why he was targeted by the federal government, academia, and their corporate-financier sponsors. It is no different than an activist being brought out back of a kangaroo court in a third-world dictatorship, and shot. The silence from so-called “human rights” advocates over the treatment, and now death of Aaron Swartz is deafening – exposing them yet again as another cog in the machine.

It is time to fight back – and time to fight back without the help of these disingenuous NGOs and their purposefully futile tactics of solely protesting and petitioning. Pragmatic, technical solutions must also be explored and deployed at the grassroots to shatter these corporate-financier monopolies at the very source of their power – that is – our daily patronage and dependence on their goods and services.

The Plan. 

An alternative to the networks, media, services, and even hardware must be devised and deployed across our local communities. Laws born of special interests and flying in the face of the people’s best interests must be exposed, condemned, and entirely ignored. Taking away a human being’s freedom because they copied and shared a file is unconscionable – as unconscionable as imprisoning a human being because of their political, religious, or racial background. We would ignore laws imposed upon our society singling out blacks or Jews, but not laws criminalizing sharing solely for the benefit of corporate special interests?

In December 2012’s “Decentralizing Telecom,” a plan for establishing a second Internet, locally built and maintained, and connected with neighboring networks to run parallel to the existing Internet – but be free of large telecom monopolies – was proposed.

Also published in December of 2012, was “Sharing is Not a Crime: A Battle Plan to Fight Back,” which illustrated the importance of shifting entirely away from proprietary business models and instead, both using and producing open source hardware, software, news, and entertainment. 

Establishing local, and eventually national and even international parallel networks is possible, but will take time. Turning toward open source software can begin today, with a visit to OSalt.com and exploring alternatives that are already being used by millions today.

A bridge between where we are now and a truly free Internet made by the people, for the people, and entirely maintained in a decentralized, local manner, is what are called “Pirate Boxes.” David Darts, an artist, designer, and coder, describes a Pirate Box as: 

PirateBox is a self-contained mobile communication and file sharing device. Simply turn it on to transform any space into a free and open communications and file sharing network. 

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Share (and chat!) Freely Inspired by pirate radio and the free culture movements, PirateBox utilizes Free, Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) to create mobile wireless communications and file sharing networks where users can anonymously chat and share images, video, audio, documents, and other digital content.

Private and Secure PirateBox is designed to be private and secure. No logins are required and no user data is logged. Users remain completely anonymous – the system is purposely not connected to the Internet in order to subvert tracking and preserve user privacy.

Easy to Use Using the PirateBox is easy. Simply turn it on and transform any space into a free communication and file sharing network. Users within range of the device can join the PirateBox open wireless network from any wifi-enabled device and begin chatting and sharing files immediately.

Under David’s FAQ’s regarding Pirate Boxes, a particularly useful question is answered: 

Can I make my own PirateBox?

Absolutely! The PirateBox is registered under the GNU GPLv3. You can run it on an existing device or can be built as a stand-alone device for as little as US$35. For detailed instructions, visit the PirateBox DIY page.

For the media-industry to stop the spread of local hardware solutions like Pirate Boxes, they would have to literally be in every single community, inside every single person’s house, to prevent people from taking legally purchased or freely available media, and sharing it – akin to publishers policing the entire population to prevent readers from lending their friends and family their copy of a particular book.

The basic principles and experience one gets from building and using a Pirate Box can allow them to tackle larger mesh networks and eventually, decentralize telecom.

By encouraging local meetings where PirateBoxes are used, the foundation for new local organizations and institutions can be laid.

New Paradigms Require New Institutions – Join or Start a Hackerspace

Not everyone possesses the knowledge and skills necessary to create local networks or develop alternatives to the goods and services we currently depend on corporate-financier monopolies for. Even those that do, cannot, by themselves, effectively research, develop, and deploy such alternatives. By pooling our resources together in common spaces called “hackerspaces,” we can. Hackerspaces are not just for technically talented individuals, but a place where anyone with the inclination to learn can come and participate.

Hackerspaces can be organized under a wide range of templates – including clubs where dues are paid, spaces that earn income through providing courses or services to the community, and many others. It will be in hackerspaces, and local institutions like them, that a truly people-driven paradigm shift takes place – one of pragmatism and progress, not endlessly broken political promises from elected officials.

People can visit Hackerspaces.org to see the closest organization near them where they can join in. Conversely, for those who either don’t have a hackerspace nearby to join, or simply want to start their own, see, “How to Start a Hackerspace,” for more information on where to begin.

Finally…

Aaron Swartz’ passing becomes even more tragic if we do not recognize what he spent his life fighting for, and realize that no matter where we think we stand on the issue of Internet freedom, the interests driving the debate from Wall Street and Washington, do not have any of our best interests in mind.

We are all Aaron Swartz – to reclaim the battle cry abused so flagrantly by the West’s faux-democratic “awakening” in the Arab World and beyond. And we must all become active opponents of this agenda to usurp our ability to determine our own destiny. Aaron Swartz was an exceptional proponent of Internet freedom and openness – but by all of us joining the ranks of this cause, we exponentially complicate the system’s ability to target and destroy any one of us.  If your cause is just, and your means constructive and pragmatic, there isn’t just “safety” in numbers, there is invincibility.

Tony Cartalucci’s articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at 
Land Destroyer Report, Alternative Thai News Network and LocalOrg. Read other contributed articles by Tony Cartalucci here.

var linkwithin_site_id = 557381;

linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’

/* */




/* */