Infinite Unknown

- Introducing Strongbox: Aaron Swartz’s Last Project (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 19, 2013):

I remain haunted by the death of Aaron Swartz.  In fact, his passing is still one of the first things I mention to people when I want to provide an example of how out of control and drunk on power the government is.  The incredible accomplishments he achieved in his short life are nothing short of extraordinary, and the fact the feds mercilessly attacked him and drove him to suicide epitomizes the unfortunate rapid decline of our culture and civilization. Amazingly, Aaron continues to bless the world with gifts from his brilliant mind even after his passing.  In this case I am referring to Strongbox, an encrypted and more secure way of providing information to journalists.  It was a project Aaron was working on with Kevin Poulsen before his death and was launched by the New Yorker a few days ago.

From Techdirt:

- Aaron Swartz’s Last Project: Open Source System To Securely & Anonymously Submit Documents To The Press (Techdirt, May 16, 2013):

The New Yorker has announced a new anonymous document sharing system called Strongbox, that will allow people to anonymously and securely submit documents to reporters from the New Yorker. Other publications have tried to set up something like this — often inspired by Wikileaks — but for the most part, they’ve been full of security holes, sometimes big and serious ones. What may be more interesting than the fact that this system is being set up is the story behind it. It’s based on DeadDrop, an open source system that was put together by Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen.

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Tags: Aaron Swartz, DeadDrop, Global News, Internet, Society, Strongbox, Technology

- Saudi Religious Police Chief Goes on the Attack…Against Twitter (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 19, 2013):

You know something isn’t right in your country when you have a “religious police force.”  You know something is really, really not right in your country when the head of that religious police force starts condemning twitter and saying its users will go to hell as a consequence.  Talk about pathetic.  Just more strange and panicked behavior from the Saudi government.

From the BBC:

The head of Saudi Arabia’s religious police has warned citizens against using Twitter, which is rising in popularity among Saudis.

Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said anyone using social media sites – and especially Twitter – “has lost this world and his afterlife”.

Twitter was the platform for those who did not have any platform, he said.

If that’s the case, then why are you so scared of it? Continue reading »

Tags: Global News, Internet, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Society, Twitter

- IRS demanded Facebook posts, book titles, names of donors during politically-motivated targeting of non-profits (Natural News, May 18, 2013):

The scandal surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s illicit, politically-motivated scrutiny of conservative, patriot, Tea Party and pro-Israel groups continues to expand daily, as more information is learned about its depth, breadth and scope.

In addition to delaying tax-exempt status for these organizations, the IRS also demanded donor rolls and printouts of Facebook posts to determine who was contributing to the organizations and what sort of information they were putting out in regards to the current administration, and what books people were reading, according to a Politico review of documents from 11 of the targeted groups.

That review “shows the agency wanted to know everything – in some cases, it even seemed curious what members were thinking,” the website reported. “The review included interviews with groups or their representatives from Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere.”

Some tea party groups even worried they’d be punished for followers’ Facebook comments, Politico reported – a chilling prospect, given the huge First Amendment implications of any such shenanigans. Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Facebook, Global News, Government, Internet, IRS, Politics, U.S.

- How the FBI Wants to Penalize Internet Companies for Providing “Too Much” Security (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 13, 2013):

Remember my recent post titled: Former FBI Agent: All Phone Conversations are Recorded and Stored? Well now they now want to ensure doing the same on the internet is as easy as possible.  The latest proposal by the FBI, which would require companies to provide a backdoor for the feds to spy on American citizens on the internet, has been covered extensively in the mainstream media over the past couple of weeks, first in the Washington Post and then later in the New York Times.  It centers around this push to make communications on the internet “wiretap capable” and would impose fines of $25,000 per day for companies that do not comply with Big Brother.  Julian Sanchez of Wired has written and excellent article explaining how this proposal would not only crush privacy rights of law abiding citizens, but would also help cyber criminals, enable totalitarian governments, make the internet less secure and stifle the remnants of innovation that remain in the economy.  Oh, and unsurprisingly, Obama backs the proposal.  My favorite excerpts:

The FBI has some strange ideas about how to “update” federal surveillance laws: They’re calling for legislation to penalize online services that provide users with too much security.

I’m not kidding. The proposal was revealed in The Washington Post last week — and a couple days ago, a front-page story in The New York Times reported the Obama administration is preparing to back it.

While it’s not yet clear how dire the going-dark scenario really is, the statutory “cure” proposed by the FBI — with fines starting at $25,000 a day for companies that aren’t wiretap capable — would surely be worse than the disease.

The FBI’s misguided proposal would impose costly burdens on thousands of companies (and threaten to entirely kill those whose business model centers on providing highly secure encrypted communications), while making cloud solutions less attractive to businesses and users. It would aid totalitarian governments eager to spy on their citizens while distorting business decisions about software design. Perhaps worst of all, it would treat millions of law-abiding users with legitimate security needs as presumed criminals — while doing little to hamper actual criminals.

Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, Barack Obama, Dictatorship, Fascism, FBI, George Orwell, Global News, Government, Internet, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Society, Surveillance, U.S.

- Government can now snoop on your SMSs, online chats (The Times Of India, May 7, 2013):

BANGALORE/DELHI: The government last month quietly began rolling out a project that gives it access to everything that happens over India’s telecommunications network—online activities, phone calls, text messages and even social media conversations. Called the Central Monitoring System, it will be the single window from where government arms such as the National Investigation Agency or the tax authorities will be able to monitor every byte of communication.

But privacy and internet freedom advocates are worried that in the name of security, the government could end up snooping on people, possibly abusing a system that does not have enough safeguards to protect ordinary citizens.

“In the absence of a strong privacy law that promotes transparency about surveillance and thus allows us to judge the utility of the surveillance, this kind of development is very worrisome,” warned Pranesh Prakash, director of policy at the Centre for Internet and Society. “Further, this has been done with neither public nor parliamentary dialogue, making the government unaccountable to its citizens.”

Continue reading »

Tags: Big Brother, Global News, Government, Internet, Politics, Surveillance

“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.”
- Adolf Hitler

Related info:

- President Obama’s Graduation Speech At Ohio State University: Reject Voices Warning Of ‘Tyranny’

- 18 Year Old Faces 20 Years in Jail on “Terror Charges” for a Facebook Post (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 6, 2013):

Guess why 18 year old Cameron D’Ambrosio is being held on one-million dollars bail and faces twenty years in prison?  The answer is “terror charges.”  This case is a perfect example of why I am so against using the word “terrorist” in general at this point.  Think about all the pointless wars and erosion of domestic civil liberties that have been justified in the name of this never-ending Orwellian “war on terror.” We’ve been tricked, and in the future anyone that does anything the oligarchs and politicians don’t like will be named a “terrorist” and be subject to the aggressive terror laws that most states passed after 9/11.  We need to take a giant cultural deep breath and react to terrorism in a sane way before we lose what’s left of our dignity and freedom.  Be very suspicious of anyone who uses the word “terror” too often.  They are trying to keep you in fear, and if you are in fear, you are easily controlled.

From Gawker:

Yesterday, D’Ambrosio was absent from school, but messing around online, changing his profile photos and tweaking his status updates. At approximately 12:20 pm, one of his peers alerted MHS administration that the Methuen native had posted “disturbing verbiage” on Facebook, lyrics menacing enough for the school to call the city police.

Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, Children, Dictatorship, Facebook, Fascism, Global News, Government, Internet, New World Order, Police, Police State, Politics, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S.

- ACLU: CISPA Is Dead (For Now) (US News, April 25, 2013):

The Senate will not take up the controversial cybersecurity bill, is drafting separate legislation

CISPA is all but dead, again.

The controversial cybersecurity bill known as the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week, will almost certainly be shelved by the Senate, according to a representative of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Continue reading »

Tags: CISPA, Global News, Government, Internet, Law, Politics

- IRS: We can read emails without warrant (The Hill, April 10, 2013):

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has claimed that agents do not need warrants to read people’s emails, text messages and other private electronic communications, according to internal agency documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, released the information on Wednesday.

In a 2009 handbook, the IRS said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users “do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.” A 2010 presentation by the IRS Office of General Counsel reiterated the policy. Continue reading »

Tags: 1984, ACLU, Barack Obama, Big Brother, Civil liberties, Constitution, Dictatorship, eMails, Fascism, Freedom of Information Act, George Orwell, Global News, Government, Internet, IRS, Law, New World Order, Politics, Privacy, Society, U.S.

- Twitter Caves to Vladimir Putin, Censors Content Within Russia (PJ Media, March 27, 2013):

If you have been following the Internet crackdown underway in Russia, you will not be surprised to learn that Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has recruited many websites — which are either terrified of his wrath or interested in currying his favor — to help crush and eradicate criticism of his government online.

However, you may be surprised to learn that one of those websites is Twitter.

The Moscow Times reported last week that — according to the Kremlin itself — for the past several weeks Twitter has been blocking Russian access to any tweets designated by the Kremlin as “extremist.” Twitter has also deleted at least one user account at the Kremlin’s request.

On its applicable agency website (known by its acronym Roskomnadzor), the Kremlin praises Twitter’s management team for its “constructive position” in reconfiguring its website in a manner “acceptable to Russian side.”

Here is the full Kremlin statement, via Russian wire service Interfax: Continue reading »

Tags: Censorship, Dictatorship, Global News, Government, Internet, Politics, Russia, Vladimir Putin

- US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email (Reuters, March 22, 2103):

The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.

As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.

Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.

The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.

DHS as the middleman

By using DHS as the middleman, the Obama administration hopes to bring the formidable overseas intelligence-gathering of the NSA closer to ordinary U.S. residents without triggering an outcry from privacy advocates who have long been leery of the spy agency’s eavesdropping.

Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Big Brother, DHS, Dictatorship, eMails, Fascism, Global News, Government, Homeland Security, Internet, New World Order, NSA, Obama administration, Politics, Society, Surveillance, U.S.