Anonops #9: Get Los(t) Zetas

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LA Councilman: Leaked Info On LAPD Officers Could Put Families At Risk

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A City Council member called on Monday for state lawmakers to help the personal information of law enforcement officers remain confidential.

Councilman Dennis Zine wants the California Legislature to move quickly to protect police, fire and other officers after family photos, property records and campaign contributions of LAPD police commanders was posted online last week.

And according to Zine, the department should use the Department of Motor Vehicles as a privacy model.

“The DMV recognized a number of years ago they do have the confidentiality for law enforcement personnel and it’s been use-effective, so we’re trying to extend that to the assessor’s office, which maintains those records,” Zine told KNX 1070.

Punitive measures to be determined would be assessed for violators under the plan, he added.

A former police officer himself, Zine said he wants to work on legislation that will standardize protections for law enforcement agencies across the state in effort to protect what’s most important to the officers.

“The bottom line is the ability of law enforcement not to be intimidated or not to feel intimidated and their families to be protected,” he said. “When they start posting the children’s names, addresses, it causes concern with the officer’s and their families.”

The LAPD has launched an investigation into a number of cases involving the personal information of police officials that ended up on the internet.

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Op maandag 12 december 2011 10:38 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Anonymous Leaks Anti-LGBT Movement Member Emails

After yesterday they leaked information on the members of the Florida Family Association (FFA) for their discrimination campaigns launched against Muslims, the members of Anonymous leaked the email addresses and passwords of what they call “The Most Active Anti-LGBT Members on the Web.”

A total of 600 email log-in credentials were published in a Pastebin document, but since the passwords are in clear text, I’m not going to provide a link.

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Members of the Anonymous hacktivist collective are known to fight for those who are often targeted by the public for being different. LGBT rights opposition organizations are most often affiliated with right-wing religious and socially conservative political organizations.

If not long ago Anonymous punished those who oppose Muslims, now it’s the turn of those who actively oppose gay and transgender civil rights.

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Guy Fawkes Mask, 'Anonymous' Milieu, Used in Teen YouTube Threat That Got SoCal High School Shut Down, Cops Say

​A threat against Bishop Montgomery High School made very publicly via YouTube landed a 16-year-old suspect in handcuffs, police said today.

Torrance police Sgt. Steven Jenkinson tells the Weekly the video featured an Occupy-style Guy Fawkes mask and the graphic stylings of the hacker group Anonymous. It made a statement indicating "something very bad is going to happen" today at the campus attended by the sophomore, he said.

The kid was arrested Sunday on suspicion of making terrorist threats. But following calls from concerned parents Saturday the school ...

... already made plans to shut down Monday, Jenkinson said.

It'll be back up and running tomorrow: A statement today by the Torrance Catholic school's principal, Rosemary Libbon, states that "the situation has been resolved."

The video allegedly featured threats made in a voice that is processed through robotic, Autotune-style software, police told us.

As a precaution, as school was closed today, administrators and security personnel swept the campus to ensure that there were no "suspicious items or devices," Jenkinson said.

He said police checked to see if the teen suspect was involved with the hacker group but found no connection.

The video, unfortunately for us, has been taken down.

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The academics of Anonymous

If the word “doxing” makes you think of puppies, and the word “hacker” has you imagining a zit-faced, social outcast eating junk food in his or her parents’ basement, it’s time to head to the anthropology section of your local library or bookstore and start reading up on “hacktivism,” or online activism.

Academics have been studying the very non-academic undertakings of hacktivists, predominantly groups such as Anonymous, for years. These include the repeated hacking of the Church of Scientology Web site, the infamous online message board 4Chan, and the philosophy of “doing it for the Lulz.” Their findings, while not your average classroom fare, are helping to paint a picture for policy makers of a leaderless, geographically and socio-economically diverse and powerfully disruptive group.

“Anonymous is by nature, as well as design, difficult to define,” said New York University Assistant Professor of media, culture and communication Gabriella Coleman during a gathering at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 9. ”It made my life as an anthropologist very difficult at times.”

Coleman has spent the past decade studying hackers, meeting with members of the hacking community and using formal academic tools to understand this emerging sector of society. She joined Richard Forno, director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Cybersecurity Program, and Paul Rosenzweig, the founder of Red Branch Law and Consulting and former assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security, at Brookings. The group was convened by Brookings’s Director of the Center for Technology Innovation, Allan Friedman.

“I tend to say they’re geeks — they’re geeks and they’re hackers,” said Coleman when asked about the demographics of the hacking populace, “and yet, when you say geeks, often times the problem with using the term like that is that it kind of conjures one image, and one image alone: basement, pimples, and psychological pa­thol­ogy. That is wrong.”

Coleman has met with a “remarkably diverse group,” with people who “are near royalty” in Europe and others who are “below working class” and “at the bottom of the barrel at some level.”

“They just have very unusual backgrounds,” said Coleman of those in the group willing to engage in illegal activity, “which may be one of the reasons they me be willing to go where they go.”

Beyond understanding who Anonymous is, there’s the additional question of how to protect society against its destructive power. This, argues Rosenzweig, depends on which value is deemed to be predominant among the group. Is it hacktivism, vigilantism or collective action?

If it is a hacktivist group or a criminal group, such as Mao in China or the VietCong, perhaps anti-insurgency tactics, such as the employment of good intelligence, empowering hactivist resistance movements and public education campaigns should be used, said Rosenzweig. If vigilantism is dominant, the solution could lie in improving criminal law enforcement and diplomatic activity. If, however, the group is deemed to be dominated by an attitude of collective action, then it falls under First Amendment-protected speech, meaning that reinforcing First Amendment protections and vigilant policing of the margin between protected speech and criminal activity are all that can be done.

“I see less of the political speech and more of the criminality,” said Rosenzweig, “but I am certainly willing to acknowledge that I might be wrong.”

Right or wrong, the subject of online activism can be expected to only grow as a subsection of anthropological study in the coming years. A far cry from the social outcast in mom and dad’s basement.

Given this, we spoke with Coleman afterward about what to expect from Anonymous, what companies can learn from the group’s behavior, and what aspiring and current anthropologists can expect in terms of how these activities stand to change the academic landscape.

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Anonymous hacker arrested and bail on 10k bond, faces 15years for LOIC attack

Well once again, a person who downloaded the infamous LOIC and used it in a widespread attack, the attack was on gene simmions website.

Kevin George Poe, 24, of Manchester, Connecticut, who used the screen name “spydr101,” was taken into custody today without incident in Hartford and later was released on a $10,000 bond, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles said in a statement. He’s accused of waging a denial of service attack on GeneSimmons.com.

If found guilty he faces the same problem all the other anons do…a possible 15years behind bars for using a simple program. Its amazing they can even have such a high bail bond for just computer hacking…

Poe made his first appearance in U.S. District Court, where a judge ordered Poe released on a $10,000 bond and required Poe to come to Los Angeles at a date yet to be determined.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned an indictment last week that accused Poe of being affiliated with the Anonymous hacking group.

The FBI alleges that during a five-day period in October 2010, Poe and others linked to Anonymous allegedly conducted a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against Simmons’ computer systems, sending tens of thousands of electronic requests designed to overload the computer server and render the website useless.

By now everyone knows that LOIC would have to be the most stupid way to attack anything at all,

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'Time-persoon' 2011: de demonstrant

Time Magazine heeft 'de demonstrant' uitgeroepen tot persoon van het jaar. Die heeft namelijk niet alleen zijn eigen ongenoegen kenbaar gemaakt, maar ook de wereld veranderd, vindt Time.

Volgens het Amerikaanse blad is 2011 vooral het jaar van demonstraties. "Massaal en effectief straatprotest was een wereldwijde eigenaardigheid totdat het een jaar geleden plots het bepalende thema werd. De betoger maakte weer geschiedenis", aldus het blad.

Onder 'de demonstrant' schaart Time onder anderen de Tunesische fruitverkoper die zichzelf in brand stak en daarmee min of meer de Arabische Lente ontketende.

Wanhoopsdaad

De 26-jarige Mohammed Bouazizi was een gewone Tunesische jongen met een universitaire opleiding. Na zijn afstuderen kon hij geen werk vinden. Omdat hij inkomsten nodig had, ging hij op straat groente en fruit verkopen. Bij een controle nam de politie zijn spullen in beslag, omdat hij geen vergunning had.

Op 17 december 2010 overgoot hij zichzelf met benzine en stak zichzelf in brand. Bouazizi belandde op de intensive care met ernstige brandwonden. Hij overleed 4 januari dit jaar. De wanhoopsdaad van Bouazizi leidde tot protesten in het hele land

Eervolle vemelding

De Occupy-beweging die in september in de VS losbarstte en daarna de hele wereld veroverde, en de demonstranten in Griekenland die protesteerden tegen de bezuinigingen, krijgen ook een eervolle vermelding.

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PVV steekt tóch geen stokje voor 'geheim' ACTA-verdrag

Minister van Economische Zaken Maxime Verhagen kan zonder problemen namens Nederland de onderhandelingen voeren over het ACTA-verdrag. Dat bleek tijdens de stemmingen in de Kamer vandaag.

Lang leek het erop dat de PVV daar een stokje voor zou steken, maar uiteindelijk steunde de partij een motie van D66-Kamerlid Kees Verhoeven niet. 'Teleurstellend en een gemiste kans', vindt Verhoeven.

Het ACTA-verdag is een overeenkomst tussen de Verenigde Staten, Japan en de Europese Unie en moet door copyright beschermde goederen waarborgen. Er moeten afspraken in worden gemaakt hoe piraterij, met name op internet, te voorkomen en te bestraffen. Het verdrag bevat afspraken die het illegaal downloaden van films en muziek moeten tegengaan. Minister Verhagen voert namens Nederland de onderhandelingen. Op het verdrag bestaat kritiek: het zou de vrijheid van internetters drastisch inperken bijvoorbeeld - maar niemand weet precies wat er in het verdrag staat.

Turbulent
Het verdrag kent in de Kamer een korte maar turbulente geschiedenis, 'een soort van afvalrace', aldus Verhoeven. De Kamer verzocht Verhagen twee weken geleden unaniem om openbaarheid over de onderhandelingsdocumenten voor het verdrag. 'Die documenten hebben juridische waarde. Zonder deze documenten kun je het verdrag niet goed beoordelen', zegt Verhoeven.

Verhagen schreef op dat verzoek een brief, waarin hij aangaf dit niet te kunnen, omdat Nederland dan allerlei verdragen zou schenden. Toen de Kamer daarop nogmaals verzocht om openbaarmaking, stemden VVD en CDA tegen, maar de PVV bleef voor openbaarmarking. Verhagen wilde de documenten alleen vertrouwelijk ter inzage geven, waardoor een debat erover onmogelijk werd.

Hierop diende Verhoeven vandaag zijn motie in, om Verhagen ervan te weerhouden namens Nederland op te treden bij de verdere onderhandelingen en ondertekening van ACTA. Maar nu stemde de PVV niet meer voor.

Gebeld
Verhoeven: 'Ik denk dat Verhagen met Wilders heeft gebeld en heeft gezegd: zorg ervoor dat jouw fractie tegen de motie stemt. Het is een gemiste kans. We hadden als Nederland nog invloed kunnen uitoefenen op Europa, maar het omgekeerde gaat gebeuren. Daar zit 'm de crux. Er komt nu een ratificeringswetje, maar dan gaat het er alleen nog maar over hoe we het verdrag in de Nederlandse wetgeving gaan invoeren.'

Downloadverbod
Volgens de D66'er is dat geen goed nieuws. In het ACTA-verdrag zou worden vastgelegd dat individuele internetters hoge boetes opgelegd kunnen krijgen en is er wellicht ruimte voor een downloadverbod. Een verbod dat onlangs door de Kamer - met steun van de PVV - is tegengehouden.

Kamerlid Jhim van Bemmel (PVV) deelt de visie van Verhoeven niet. Hij zegt op de site van Webwereld: 'We hebben ons laten informeren door de minister, en hij is met handen en voeten gebonden aan de afspraken met Europa. Nu kunnen we onze gedoogminister het zo moeilijk mogelijk maken, maar daar voelen we niets voor.'

Volgens hem is nu niet gezegd dat Nederland ook daadwerkelijk instemt met ACTA. Het uiteindelijke verdrag moet door de Eerste en Tweede Kamer worden goedgekeurd. Pas wanneer alle landen van de Europese Unie instemmen met het verdrag, kan ook de Europese Commissie het ondertekenen.

Goed moment
Volgens Van Bemmel zou het moment dat het verdrag in de Kamer komt nog een 'heel goed moment' kunnen zijn, om tegen te stemmen. Verhoeven ziet dat anders; 'op het moment dat Verhagen het ACTA-verdrag heeft ondertekend, kan Nederland niet zoveel meer doen'.

Volgens Verhagen leidt ACTA niet tot strengere regelgeving in Nederland. D66 heeft daar zo zijn vraagtekens bij.

De Limburgse PVV-leider Laurence Stassen laat via Twitter weten niet achter het standpunt van de landelijke fractie te staan: 'Voor alle duidelijkheid: PVV eurofractie was en is tegen geheimhouding ACTA en is voor 100% openbaarheid! Dus oneens met Haags PVVstandpunt!'

twitter:

BarrettBrownLOL twitterde op woensdag 14-12-2011 om 22:39:16 An important #Anonymous participant and #ProjectPM member has been arrested in Europe. reageer retweet

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Globalsign confesses to certificate attack

CERTIFICATION AUTHORITY Globalsign has admitted that it was the target of a recent attack, but added that its systems and certificates were not compromised.

The threat of exposure followed the efforts of the Comodohacker, who in early September hacked certificate authority Diginotar and issued bogus certificates as a result. At the time it was suggested that Globalsign had also been affected, but if it was, apparently it was not severely affected.

In a security incident report just released by the firm, it said that despite earlier suggestions it had found no evidence of any rogue certificates having been issued, that no customer data was exposed, and that no harm was done to its infrastructure or systems.

It did confirm that a peripheral web server, which is not part of its certificate issuance infrastructure and hosted a public facing web property, had been breached, however. This means that some data could have been exposed, including publicly available HTML pages, publicly available PDFs, and the SSL certificate and keys issued to www.globalsign.com. According to its statement these were deemed compromised and revoked.

Globalsign said that it responded to the threat with an immediate, strong response, including nine days of service disruption when it stopped issuing certificates.

"The self-titled attacker 'Comodohacker' has been assumed to be a credible threat to security providers," said the firm in its disclosure about the hacking.

"The same post also stated that several other CAs had been compromised, including a reference to GlobalSign. GlobalSign deemed the threat credible and immediately began a thorough network analysis, assuming a highly sophisticated attack had been executed on, or was in process against, multiple Certificate Authorities. GlobalSign deemed the most responsible reaction was to halt issuance of new Certificates."

Globalsign worked with Fox-IT, the company that raised awareness about the security threat, in resolving the issue and resuming its services. µ

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Adventures in #Hacking / #Programming - #links and #tutorials for evey skill level.

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http://pastebin.com/dvE67a3c

Anonymous - OPBLACKOUT

NEW LEAKS OF OFFICIAL HEADS
Case 3:09-cv-01952-CFD

The following people are part of a murder conspiracy. All are being sued under official capacity:

George Bush
1725 Lakepointe Drive
Lewisville, TX 75057

George H. W. Bush
10000 Memorial Dr. Suite 900
Houston, TX 77024

Richard Cheney
c/o The Harry Walker Agency, Inc.
355 Lexington Avenue, 21st Floor
New York, NY 10017

John Kerry
218 Russell Senate Office Bldg
Washington DC, 20510

John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Bldg
Washington, D.C. 20510

Joe Lieberman
706 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington DC, 20510
***"Mr. Liberman is a primary driving force behind this multiple murder conspiracy, working on both sides of the political spectrum."***

FULL COURT CASE: http://www.mediafire.com/?d7c5flgdp048l CASE 7!!!!

Contains: More information leaks on people such as Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and the NFL.
Shows how much they have in the bank. Growth Hormones with bribery in the NFL. This leak is the mother load of all leaks. Everything you need to know about the GANGSTER GOVERNMENT running us is in it. The other court cases contain assaults Sarah Palin was involved in assaults against countless people (ie. stabbed some guy in the eye, sexual) (Court Cases: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8) SPREAD LIKE FUCKING HELL.

WE ARE ANONYMOUS.
WE ARE LEGION.
WE DO NOT FORGIVE.
WE DO NOT FORGET.
To the United States Government, IT'S TOO LATE TO EXPECT US.

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Anonymous declares cyber war on Congress over indefinite detention act

Hacktivists are continuing their mission to take on politicians causing the collapse of constitutional rights in America, with operatives from the online collective Anonymous keeping up a campaign against the signers of controversial legislation.

As RT reported on Thursday, members of Anonymous began a campaign this week to expose information on the lawmakers who voted in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, a bill that will allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens, the reinstating of torture methods and the creation of the United States as a battlefield. Despite the implications of the act, the Senate allowed for the bill to leave Capitol Hill on Thursday, leaving only the inking of President Barack Obama’s name as the final step for ratification.

President Obama had earlier insisted on vetoing the bill, but the White House retracted that statement in the days before it cleared Congress. Before the final draft left the Senate yesterday, Sen. Carl Levin asked that a statement from the administration be added to the record in which the president’s press secretary, Jay Carney, said that the president will not be advised to strike down the bill.

On Thursday, Anonymous hacktivists launched a campaign against Senator Robert Portman, a Republican from Ohio. Not only did Portland vote in favor of NDAA FY2012, he received $272,853 from special interest groups that also backed the bill.

“Robert J. Portman, we plan to make an example of you,” an Anonymous operative posted to the Internet on Thursday. Along with the warning was personal information pertaining to the senator, including his home address and phone number.

On Friday, Anonymous says that this is just the beginning of the campaign against those that are creating the collapse of the US Constitution. With NDAA FY2012 almost guaranteed to be approved by Obama any moment, a second piece of legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is close to clearing a Congressional committee. Should that bill be brought before the president and signed into law as well, Internet access and content across America and the world will become largely censored.

“We've been watching you systematically destroy the rights of your own people, one law at a time. No longer shall we stand by and watch you enslave our fellow citizens,” writes an Anonymous operative in an open letter to Congress posted Friday. “You have continued down this path of treason by creating acts such as the National Defense Authorization Act, Stop Online Piracy Act, Protect IP Act, and more. You've tried to conceal the true purpose of these bills, and pass them without the consent of the American people.”

As a result of the recent legislation which has managed to make its way through Congress, Anonymous operatives write on Friday, “We are now here to undo your sordid life's work in its entirety. No longer will your transgressions go unnoticed. No longer will you enslave the people. The world will know of your violations against the rights of the citizens you were elected to represent.”

In the memo from the hacktivists, they include a copy of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution that have been crushed in-part by the latest congressional meetings. “Every time you violate these amendments we will ensure the people are aware of your actions,” says Anonymous. “You may have previously succeeded in concealing your actions, but that time has come to an end. You were elected by us, and you can be removed by us.”

Anonymous members are using the trending topic #OpAccountable on Twitter to spread the campaign against the congressman involved in the legislation. On Friday, one hacktivist tweeted that the topic is even being used by known members of the Tea Party movement.

“Goes to show this year’s outrage is far stretching," adds the operative.

twitter:

littlelisa8 twitterde op vrijdag 16-12-2011 om 21:37:46 #OccupyWallStreet is #Winning #SOPA vote postponed till #2012 #Anonymous reageer retweet

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Quorvis Dox

While the employees at @Qorvis are sitting at happy hour drunk off of their asses (https://twitter.com/#!/qorvis/status/142715730557796353) celebrating another ‘successful’ year of facilitating the oppression of foreign nations at the behest of their leaders who contracted it to them, we have been busy compiling their professional data and pouring through already existing public intel. Apparently, 1/3 of your firm leaving because of your disgust with the firm’s actions against the freedom-desiring people of countries such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, amongst others is worthy of a celebration. Who knew!

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#LulzXmas the modern day robin hood, takes control and gives gifts out

Many off you will of seen, heard of or even received the very Merry spirit from just 2 Hackers this Christmas.

The Hacker “Charrie Wong” who has been seen on CWN a few times before and even Australian TV on SBS insights & lulzfunny who seems fairly new have been on a Jolly “rampage” of taking from the rich and giving to the poor and have taken the robin hood style to a WHOLE new level with a modern touch.

Giving nearly $100,000 away in Presents ranging from “Pizzas to Servers & Domains to iPads”.

#LulzXmas is the name they have taken and it seems they have fulfilled exactly what they have set out to do.

With heart wrenching story’s off their amazing generosity, it seems this Christmas is dedicated to the 99%.

Merry Christmas from all the Staff at CWN & Destructive Security ( CWN is not affiliated with these attacks or operations at all )

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Approval of covert offensive cyberwar sneakily inserted into NDAA

I just came across yet another portion of the NDAA that is getting barely any attention, via the Federation of American Scientists‘ Secrecy News.

Why this isn’t getting more press is beyond me, as this represents a significant upgrade of the unnecessary and absurdly costly cyberwarfare apparatus operating mostly in secret in the United States.

We are regularly being inundated with blatant propaganda like the claim that Russian hackers had destroyed a water pump in Illinois, which turned out to be a total and complete fabrication.

Incidents like this — be they contrived or genuine — are then used to push increased control and monitoring of the internet, along with the growing push for total centralization of the American power grid under the control of a single government agency.

This increased control is something that the government has been promoting for some time with the irrational fear that at any time the entire United States could be brought down by a hacker or hackers, along with the corporate backers that would be granted all of the lucrative contracts to create such a system.

This little gem tucked away in the NDAA, Section 954, allows the Department of Defense, upon the Presidents direction, to “conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our Nation, allies and interests.”

While this authorization is conditional in that it must be compliant with the law of armed conflict and the War Powers Resolution, the President and Congress don’t care too much about these measures as evidenced by Libya.

In the conference, they affirmed, “because of the evolving nature of cyber warfare, there is a lack of historical precedent for what constitutes traditional military activities in relation to cyber operations and that it is necessary to affirm that such operations may be conducted pursuant to the same policy, principles, and legal regimes that pertain to kinetic capabilities.”

This is also remarkable because it explicitly allows for covert operations as shown in the passage which reads, “The conferees also recognize that in certain instances, the most effective way to deal with threats and protect U.S. and coalition forces is to undertake offensive military cyber activities, including where the role of the United States Government is not apparent or to be acknowledged.”

I am constantly amazed by the brazenness of our illegitimate criminal government and our so-called Representatives and the examples only seem to get more absurd by the day.

They claim that the War Powers Resolution “may apply” but as Steven Aftergood points out, “This is an odd formulation which suggests that the War Powers Resolution may also not apply. In any case the Resolution is a weak reed that has rarely been used by Congress to constrain executive action.”

This is precisely what we saw in the case of Libya where Obama flouted the War Powers Resolution and then claimed he had no responsibility to adhere to it because the operation didn’t qualify as hostilities under the Resolution.

Section 954 could easily be used to run around the War Powers Resolution as covert operations need not ever be so much as admitted by the President or the Department of Defense if they so choose.

Plus our castrated Congress has proven themselves to be wholly subordinate to the dictatorial Executive, indicating that even if they were aware of an operation they likely wouldn’t wield their rightful power over it.

Lawfare goes over some of the technicalities, but I think we all know that our government pays very little attention to the meager constraints that they are subjected to. When they want to go to war, they will go to war, even if they have to conduct a false flag operation like the Gulf of Tonkin incident to justify it.

This section is completely unnecessary as Wired points out in writing, “Despite mainstream news accounts, there’s been no documented hacking attacks on U.S. infrastructure designed to cripple it.”

Therefore, whatever justification they attempt to utilize to push this is completely irrelevant and illegitimate. This is just another warmongering effort by our insane government which will keep the money flowing out of the pockets of the people and into the coffers of the war profiteers.

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Anonymous donors pay off Kmart layaway accounts

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.

"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.

Deppe, who said she's worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.

"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.

[See also: 5 Super Stocking Stuffers for Under $10]

Most of the donors have done their giving secretly.

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

"I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again."

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system.

The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executives said.

"It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway.

The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen some layaway accounts paid off.

Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks.

The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.

"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."

"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said.

Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.

"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."

[See also: White House Christmas Trees: Then and Now]

Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.

Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layaway.

In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments.

Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.

"She was yelling at the nurses, 'We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said.

A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.

Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job.

"My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said.

Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she learned the woman next to her was paying off her account.

"I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and gave her a kiss."

quote:

Anonymous Retaliates: Massive Information dump released on Senators who Passed NDAA

This year’s National Defense Authorization Act passed quickly through the Senate and as expected President Obama signed the bill. 86 Senators in a bipartisan move, signed off on this controversial bill, which opens the door to invasive acts against Americans. Almost everyone has felt the effect of Anonymous’ presence online and off and now, the 86 Senators will feel their ubiquitous presence as well.



The collective activist group just released a massive dump of information, which begins with, ”Robert J. Portman is a Republican Senator from the state of Ohio. He has made himself a target as an advocate of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act), but we are truly disturbed by the ludicrous $272,853 he received from special interest groups supporting the NDAA bill that authorizes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. Robert J. Portman, we plan to make an example of you.”

Also included in the dump are Twitter accounts for each Senator who use the social site. Feel free to tweet your grievances:

quote:

SOPA Markup Runs Out Of Time; Likely Delayed Until 2012 [Update: Or Not...]

So this was a bit of a surprise. Lots of people expected Lamar Smith to keep the SOPA markup process going until he could get a vote out, even if it was late tonight. But it looks like he ran out of time. With Congress settling it's other business and closing up shop, Smith abruptly ended the markup, saying they'll resume at the next available date -- which likely won't be until late January. They only had time to go through two amendments, the second of which was withdrawn. That was from Rep. Chaffetz who asked that the DNS/IP blocking sections not be put into effect until after a thorough analysis was done by experts on their impact on online security. Somewhat surprisingly, Smith seemed willing to agree to something like this. He came close to suggesting that perhaps they should, in fact, have hearings with some of these experts concerned about the internet blocking part of SOPA (perhaps because he realized that SOPA wouldn't get voted on today). Of course, now we'll have to see what actually happens.

In the meantime, this represents a very brief, but significant, victory for those in favor of internet freedom and against internet censorship in the US. Have no fear, however, that Hollywood and the US Chamber of Commerce will be pushing very, very, very hard to get SOPA approved as soon as possible. This fight isn't over by a long shot, but there does appear to be a brief and thankful reprieve. The momentum is also on the side of those opposed. When PROTECT IP came out early this year, it was seen as a slam dunk. Congress would bend over backwards to grant Hollywood its wishes. The fact that it's getting pushed into the new year is big, big news. On top of that, people have really jumped up on this one. The grassroots efforts have been amazing -- as an issue that normally gets little attention (copyright) has become a very mainstream issue in a matter of months. We keep hearing about SOPA from random and surprising places. This needs to keep up and Congress needs to learn that giving in to Hollywood's short-sighted whims isn't going to go over well with the public.

Update.... Or not. Despite the fact that Congress was supposed to be out of session until the end of January, the Judiciary Committee has just announced plans to come back to continue the markup this coming Wednesday. This is rather unusual and totally unnecessary. But it shows just how desperate Hollywood is to pass this bill as quickly as possible, before the momentum of opposition builds up even further.

twitter:

nermin79 twitterde op zondag 18-12-2011 om 10:31:53 "@Psypherize: #Anonymous, Egyptian and Arab hackers out there. We need you to hack #Maspero and shut it down." reageer retweet

quote:

http://pastebin.com/2DjbMAUE

Project PM - Barrett Brown.

INTRODUCTION:

"UK PR firm Bell Pottinger looks out for its clients -- so much so that it edits their Wikipedia pages, reports Dave Lee at the BBC.

And that doesn't sit well with the big wigs at the online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales in particular doesn't appreciate his site being used as a PR platform, telling the BBC that he was "highly critical of their ethics" and "embarrassed their clients."

Then, he slammed Bell Pottinger some more: "I offered to pop by their office next week and give them a speech on ethical editing of Wikipedia - but I guess they didn't think that was too amusing so they didn't respond."

Source: http://www.businessinside(...)jimmy-wales-2011-12?

QORVIS DOES ITS OWN DIRTY WORK:

Bell Pottinger is not the only PR firm editing Wikipedia for its clients. US based QORVIS has its own long history of edits at the site. But unlike Bell Pottinger, who were caught out bragging about their 'extensive edits' and secretly recorded, QORVIS made it public themselves.

There is a lengthy page of Wikipedia edits for an unnamed user with the IP 38.100.14.250.

Check-host - http://check-host.net/ip-info?host=38.100.14.250
Robotex - http://www.robtex.com/ip/38.100.14.250.html

The IP belongs to gw20.qorvisnet.com.

A WIKIPEDIA TEAM:

User 38.100.14.250 was not alone. Another 3 named accounts made their way around the same pages all of which appear to have a connection to QORVIS as clients or staff.

As this appears to have a degree of co-ordination behind it, it backs up accounts of online manipulation or 'black arts' from the Geo-Political Solutions division of QORVIS.

(For More: See 'Attack on Maryam al-Khawaja' at http://www.echelon2.org/wiki/Qorvis)

QORVIS EDITS OF CLIENTS OR STAFF PAGES:

Below are some examples of QORVIS edits made by the following users:

USER: 38.100.14.250 Edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)lter=&year=&month=-1

USER: Underscore77 Edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)&target=Underscore77

USER: Aadd01 Edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)it=600&target=Aadd01

USER: Ratfinx Edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ratfinx

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Client - Assisted Living Federation of America (promotor of 'Silver Alert'). Their website is created by Qorvis.
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=250&action=history
Created and edited by: Underscore77 Edited by: Aadd01, 38.100.14.250.

Client/Staff??? Edward Weidenfeld
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=250&action=history
Created and edited by: Aadd01 Edited by: 38.100.14.250.

Client - Equatorial Guinea (http://blogs.reuters.com/(...)l-guineas-pr-crisis/)
Wiki edit history of US Embassy in Malabo - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)alabo&action=history
Created & edited by: Ratfinx
Wiki edit history of 17th Ordinary African Union Summit - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)ummit&action=history
Created & edited by: Ratfinx
Wiki edit history of Bioko - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bioko&action=history
Edited by: Ratfinx
Wiki edit history of Embassy of Equatorial Guinea in Washington, D.C. - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)_D.C.&action=history
Edited by: Ratfinx
Wiki edit history of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)asogo&action=history
Edited by: Ratfinx

Client - Fiji (http://rawfijinews.wordpr(...)-black-arts-company/)
Wiki edit history of Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)arama&action=history
Edited by: Ratfinx

Client - Finmeccanica, military contractor (http://www.qorvis.com/node/802)
Wiki edit history for Simone Bemporad (CEO of Finmeccanica) - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)porad&action=history
Edited by: Aadd01

Client/Staff??? - Jason A. Johnson
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=250&action=history
Created and edited by: Underscore77 Edited by:38.100.14.250

Client - Koch Industries
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=500&action=history
Edited by: Aadd01

Client - Kuwait (http://www.odwyerpr.com/b(...)-Kuwait-PR-Beat.html)
Wiki edit history for Prime Minister Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=500&action=history
Edited by: Ratfinx, Aadd01, 38.100.14.250.

Client - Massey Energy (http://www.prnewswire.com(...)aigns-130579713.html)
Wiki edit history for Massey Energy - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)nergy&action=history
Edited by: Aadd01
Wiki edit history for Upper Big Branch Mine disaster (Massey Energy own the mine) - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=250&action=history
Edited by: 38.100.14.250, Aadd01

Client - Mexico (http://www.capitolcommuni(...)yID/542/Default.aspx)
Wiki edit history of Mexico's Ambassador to the US Arturo Sarukhán - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)3%A1n&action=history
Edited by: Edited by: Underscore77, Aadd01, 38.100.14.250.

Client - Mike Rowe (http://www.mikeroweworks.com/2010/09/i-make-america-campaign/)
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=250&action=history
Edited by: Aadd01

Client - Plasan, Israeli owned military contractor (http://www.bloomberg.co.j(...)900&sid=ak1AcMxkZlX4)
Wiki edit history for MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle) - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=250&action=history
Edited by: 38.100.14.250

Client??? PQ Media
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PQ_Media&action=history
Created and edited by: Ratfinx. Edited by Avalos2008.

Employee - Sam Dealey
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)ealey&action=history
Edited by Ratfinx and Avalos2008.

Client - Sri Lanka (http://www.globalpeacesup(...)s-US-lobby-firm.aspx)
Wiki edit history for Jaliya Wickramasuriya (Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Mexico & USA) - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)uriya&action=history
Edited by: Aadd01, Underscore77

Client - Vitol (http://www.qorvis.com/node/824)
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)t=250&action=history
Edited by: Aadd01, 38.100.14.250.

Client - Washington Kastles, pro tennis team (http://www.qorvis.com/blo(...)-washington-kastles/)
Wiki edit history - http://en.wikipedia.org/w(...)stles&action=history
Edited by: 38.100.14.250, Ratfinx.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:

Global Effort: Hackers Arrested

Hacking arrests, while not a plentiful as victims would like, are beginning to mount as a joint effort between U.S. and Philippine authorities busted four members of a hacker collective suspected to have attempted a hack AT&T.

The investigation that led to the arrest of the Filipinos started in March when the FBI requested the aid of Criminal Investigation and Detection Group’s Anti-Transnational and Cyber Crime Division (CIDG-ATCCD) concerning a hacking operation targeting AT&T.

The suspects, aged between 21 and 31, who officials believed got their funding from a Saudi Arabian terrorist group, caused damage of up to $2 million to the communications company, officials said.

The suspects are in custody after the FBI and the ATCCD raided several locations in the Metro Manila area. The raid netted computer and telecommunications equipment believed used in the attacks.

One of the suspected hackers, Paul Michael Kwan, faced similar charges in 2007 as a result of an international operation led by the FBI and Philippine authorities.

This is not the only reason why law enforcement representatives believe there is a connection to terrorist funding activities. ATCCD chief Gilbert Sosa said in 1999 when the FBI was investigating a series of hacking operations targeting telecom companies, they uncovered a trail of banking records linking local hackers to terrorists.

It turns out there are connections to criminal organizations from Pakistan and India since in 2007. A Pakistani man suspected of funding operations in India, also supplied the necessary funds for the Filipinos.

#Occupy #Anonymous - Message to World Leaders #Globalrevolution

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

quote:

Plannen voor drijvend Silicon Valley in internationale wateren

Het Amerikaanse bedrijf Blueseed heeft grote plannen voor de Silicon Valley. Het bedrijf wil namelijk een gigantisch schip voor de Californische kust leggen om daar buitenlandse ondernemers onderdak te geven. Daardoor is het visumprobleem meteen van de baan. Dat meldt The Huffington Post.

Volgens Blueseed is de huidige immigratiewetgeving

quote:

zo streng dat er zonder twijfel veelbelovende ondernemers zijn die niet in de Verenigde Staten mogen werken. 'Wij zijn ervan overtuigd dat hierdoor een groot potentieel onaangeroerd blijft, en veel banen niet gecreëerd kunnen worden', zegt Max Marty, medeoprichter van Blueseed. Het schip zou in internationale wateren komen te liggen, zo'n 20 kilometer ten zuidwesten van San Francisco.

Ook de Amerikaanse president Barack Obama heeft zich al eens uitgesproken over het probleem. Hij wil de wetgeving zo snel mogelijk aanpassen. 'Beloftevolle buitenlanders die hier studeren, moeten ook hier aan de slag kunnen. Het is niet de bedoeling dat wij betalen om hen op te leiden, en andere landen kunnen profiteren van de bedrijven die ze oprichten.'

De ontwerpen van het schip zijn al klaar. Zo zouden er duizend mensen op kunnen leven en werken, op voorwaarde dat ze daarvoor 1.200 dollar (920 euro) per maand betalen.

Voorlopig worden de plannen van Blueseed echter nog niet in de praktijk uitgewerkt. Daarvoor moet het bedrijf in de volgende achttien maanden tussen de tien en dertig miljoen dollar verzamelen. Aan het hoofd van die zoektocht staat Peter Thiel, de oprichter van internetbetaaldienst PayPal. Het doel is om tegen het einde van 2013 operationeel te zijn.

quote:

RIAA and Homeland Security Caught Downloading Torrents

If there’s one organization known for its crusade against online piracy, it’s the RIAA. Nevertheless, even in the RIAA’s headquarters several people use BitTorrent to download pirated music, movies, TV-shows and software. And they are in good company. The Department of Homeland Security – known for seizing pirate domain names – also harbors hundreds of BitTorrent pirates.

Last week we wrote about a new website that exposes what people behind an IP-address have downloaded using BitTorrent. The Russian-based founders of the site gathered this data from public BitTorrent trackers, much like anti-piracy outfits do when they track down copyright infringers.

In response to the article many readers commented that they indeed saw a few familiar downloads, and they are not alone.

YouHaveDownloaded currently lists information on more than 50 million users. Although this is only a fraction of all public BitTorrent downloads, it shows that in pretty much every major organization people are pirating content.

Earlier this week we already showed that there are BitTorrent pirates at Sony, Universal and Fox. A few days later it was revealed that torrents are being downloaded in the palace of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and today we can add the RIAA and the Department of Homeland Security to the list.

After carefully checking all the IP-addresses of the RIAA we found 6 unique addresses from where copyrighted material was shared. Aside from recent music albums from Jay-Z and Kanye West – which may have been downloaded for research purposes – RIAA staff also pirated the first five seasons of Dexter, an episode of Law and Order SVU, and a pirated audio converter and MP3 tagger.

quote:

Ron Paul’s Iowa Win: Hackers Threaten to Disrupt Caucus Vote

Now that it looks like Ron Paul will take the Iowa caucus hands-down, the shadowy hacker group Anonymous has vowed to disrupt the vote.

“Republican Party officials in Iowa are taking new steps to secure their vote counting systems after an anonymous threat suggested computer hackers could attempt to disrupt next month’s presidential nominating caucuses,” reports the Associated Press.

A video on YouTube was allegedly posted by Anonymous. It calls the political system corrupt and urges supporters to "peacefully shut down" the January 3rd caucus.

“Investigators aren’t sure whether the video is authentic, but party officials have instructed precinct caucuses to use paper ballots as a backup system and taken other steps to protect the database and website that displays caucus results,” the AP adds.

According to a survey conducted between December 16-19 by Public Policy Polling, Ron Paul dominates the pre-election caucus in Iowa. “Newt Gingrich’s campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He’s at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson,” the organization reports.

Since 1972, the Iowa caucuses have been the first major electoral event of the nominating process for the presidency and have served as an early indication of which candidates might win the nomination of their party at the national convention.

The establishment is sincerely perturbed by Paul’s rise and widespread support. Last week Chris Wallace of Fox News said if Paul wins Iowa it does not matter because the GOP doesn’t believe he can win.

As polls demonstrate, Ron Paul can indeed win not only the Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses, but also the primaries, the nomination and ultimately the presidency.

The GOP does not want an anti-big government constitutionalist who has vowed to end the wars and abolish the Federal Reserve to win and will likely engage in skullduggery to make sure Mitt Romney or Mitt Gingrich take the nomination and lose in the race against Obama.

#OpESR - Occupy Iowa Caucuses

quote:

The FBI’s warning about doxing was too little too late

quote:

“In response to law enforcement activities that have occurred against Anonymous and LulzSec since January 2011, members of these groups have increased their interest in targeting law enforcement in retaliation for the arrests and searches conducted... As more arrests are made against suspected members of Anonymous and LulzSec, the FBI expects hacking activities and ‘doxing’ that targets law enforcement and government interests will continue. This could compromise investigations and result in harassment and identity theft of the individuals named in the ‘dox’,” the memo explains.

The problem is, and this is somewhat explained by the memo, Anonymous has been doxing other Anons, victims, and law enforcement for some time.

Days before the memo was released to the law enforcement community, Anonymous (in support of the AntiSec movement) released the personal information of nearly 7,000 people, including names, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, usernames, passwords, and Social Security Numbers.

At the time those people were exposed, AntiSec supporters raided a total of 77 law enforcement domains within the span of a week, and subsequently released additional law enforcement dox, along with more than 7GB of email and sensitive information.

While the FBI’s warning on doxing came too late to make any type of difference, the message is important. Yet, the memo itself failed to address one of the larger issues that led to the exposure of personal information to begin with in any sort of context.

All of the victims doxed and exposed by AntiSec, LulzSec, or Anonymous proper, had their personal information stored in the clear, with no real protection whatsoever in many cases.

In fact, in order to expose the 7,000 people the way they did, AntiSec supporters simply used recycled passwords to access the Missouri Online Training Academy database, located on mosheriffs.com.

quote:

Are NDAA, SOPA, Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous Off-Limits on Twitter?

NDAA, SOPA, Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous may be off-limits on Twitter. As Twitter users who extensively discuss those topics continue to find their accounts being shut down or otherwise restricted, it seems increasingly likely that the phenomenon is more than a coincidence.

My Twitter account was severely limited for a little less than an hour Monday afternoon in a pattern of what appears to be censorship sweeping across the social media site.

The account limitations were imposed shortly after I published a story looking into infringements on the accounts of Twitter users who have been criticizing the National Defense Authorization Act and the Stop Online Privacy Act--or backing OWS or Anonymous--too fiercely.

At 11:06 a.m. Monday I published "NDAA and SOPA: Are Provisions of These Bills Already Impacting Web Users?" on the International Business Times website.


The story regaled the tale of Business Insider reporter David Seaman, who announced in a Sunday column that his Twitter account had been shut down earlier that day, and that he believed it had been shuttered because he had been "talking too much about Occupy Wall Street ... and talking too much about the controversial detainment without trial provisions contained in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act."

The story went on to explain that his account was reopened later that day and that Twitter explained that he had been erroneously shut down for spamming. But Seaman and others believe something more sinister may be afoot.

At about 12:30 p.m. Monday I noticed that my Twitter had stopped performing properly. I was unable to access any Twitter users' profile pages, including that of the New York Times, the New York Yankees and other users whose accounts have not been compromised.

Instead of being taken to the profile pages of users I clicked on, I was instead sent to a generic Twitter page bearing the same message each time: "Sorry that page doesn't exist."

I verified that the profiles that were coming up as nonexistent on my Twitter were working properly elsewhere by having two of my colleagues bring them up without incident on their own accounts.

I tweeted Seaman at 12:39 p.m. Monday about my predicament, and he retweeted me to his followers. The Tweet spread to a few other followers while I was at lunch, and when I returned at about 2:00 p.m. my account had been restored to full functionality. Was it because awareness had been raised about the restriction and Twitter wanted to avoid negative publicity? That's impossible to determine, as Twitter has not responded to a request for comment I sent Monday morning.

"Brian" (Twitter handle @weezmgk) at the Citizen Media Guild wrote an article Monday that took Seaman to task for allegedly spreading "innuendo and conspiracy theory," alleging that he decimated his credibility with his Sunday piece for Business Insider.

"This is what we in the biz call being a hack," Brian alleged in the piece, which did not even disclose the author's last name. "When you depart from the facts and rely on fact-free innuendo (notably that Twitter are somehow in cahoots with the government) to carry your tale, you're not a journalist, you're a gossipy propagandist and should really consider presenting your CV to Fox News or Andrew Breitbart."

But the fact of the matter is Seaman's article was an opinion piece, and he only went so far as to point to what is now becoming an alarming trend, stopping short of saying he had proof of a systematic effort to censor Twitter users.

And the assertion that he was spamming seems to be a tenuous one, as a log of his account posted by Twitter user @sickjew shows what appears to be a spam-free list of Tweets leading up to the suspension.

In fact, Seaman and I are not the only two Twitter users who have been vocal on OWS, NDAA, SOPA, Anonymous and other controversial issues to experience mysterious Twitter service disruptions, account shutdowns or more in the past two days. And it has all happened while OWS continues to rage nationwide, NDAA awaits President Barack Obama's signature and SOPA is before the U.S. Congress.

Twitter user @Kallisti tweeted that she attempted to Tweet Seaman's Sunday piece and was thwarted in her efforts, instead being greeted by an error message telling her "Something is technically wrong--Thanks for noticing. We're going to fix it and have things back to normal soon."

Other users have faced similar issues, and a number of people have reported their accounts being closed, including @occupybay_2, whose account remained closed as of 3:45 p.m. Monday.

The trend is an unprecedented one, as Twitter user @aliceleuchte said in a prescient comment she posted on Seaman's Sunday article.

"In my experience on Twitter, I have never seen accounts (via RT attempts) just disappear," she wrote. "This was the first time I had run across such 'glitches' and all the user tweets had contained the #NDAA tag. Given other various timely 'glitches,' as with trends, this error is 'unfortunate.'"

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: c.sheets@ibtimes.com

quote:

There are many organizations, corporations, governments, schools, private citizens and service providers that all own pieces of the infrastructure that make up the internet, but there is no one entity that owns it all. How can the US government decide to block access to parts of the internet that the US government does not even own?

quote:

Twitter sells stake to Murdoch-linked Saudi prince

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Arab world's richest man, sinks £300m into site, acquiring 3.75% of Twitter shares

The Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Arab world's richest man and News Corporation's second largest shareholder after Rupert Murdoch, has taken a $300m (£193m) stake in Twitter.

Alwaleed, a nephew of Saudi Arabia's king estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of about $20bn, has secured a stake estimated at about 3.75% in the micro-blogging site after "months of negotiations".

The timing of his investment has raised eyebrows given the key role Twitter has played as a tool for Arab activists across the Middle East to organise protests and voice their opposition to oppressive regimes. Several Arabs tweeted that they were worried Alwaleed's purchase could influence Twitter's strategy negatively

While Arabic accounts for just 1.2% of all public tweets, the volume of messages has grown by a factor of 22 over the year due in large part to the Arab Spring uprisings, according to French research firm Semiocast.

The micro-blogging site has more than 100 million active users.

Alwaleed has made the acquisition in conjunction with Kingdom Holding Company, his investment vehicle, which has an array of ventures. Earlier this year, the company announced a £736m deal to build the world's tallest tower in the Red Sea city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

The prince has a wide range of media interests, including a 30% stake in a publishing business that runs influential Arabic language newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, and has plans to launch a new Arabic news channel that aims to challenge established players such as al-Jazeera.

"Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact," said Alwaleed.

The prince's wife, Princess Ameerah al-Taweel, is a regular Twitter user and has more than 83,000 followers on the site.

A spokeswoman for Twitter confirmed that the investment had taken place but would not provide any further detailed comment on whether Alwaleed or KHC has gained a seat on the board that could lead to influence over the business or any of its future output.

However, Ahmed Halawani, executive director of private equity and international investments at KHC, said that while Twitter will "fundamentally change" the media landscape, the investment was strategic, not political.

"Twitter will capture and monetise this positive trend," he said. Alwaleed's investment could value Twitter at $10bn, according to some analysts.

The research firm eMarketer estimates Twitter will generate close to $140m in ad revenue this year and $260m in 2012.

Alwaleed's KHC has stakes in companies including Citigroup, Disney, Apple and Canary Wharf.

In the mid-1990s, his interest in the US entertainment industry led to a joint venture with Michael Jackson. They launched Kingdom Entertainment, to develop movies, books, hotels, recordings and theme parks all based on "family values", but the project eventually ran out of steam.

Alwaleed holds a mixture of western and Islamic values and he has in the past upheld women's rights; his wife leads a charitable foundation and appears in public without a veil.

While upheaval in the Middle East has put many regimes on the defensive – Saudi Arabia announced a $130bn social spending initiative to avoid Arab spring style protests – he has argued in print for broader political participation, fair elections and job creation.

He has been a longtime ally of the Murdochs, backing the reappointment of Rupert and his sons James and Lachlan to the News Corp board amid a shareholder revolt at the company's annual general meeting in October, and has previously talked about the importance of ethics.

An interview given to BBC Newsnight aboard his yacht in Cannes in July is widely credited as contributing to the resignation of the News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks. She resigned the day after his comments on ethics; reports around the world claimed it was a result of Alwaleed's interview.

Last year, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation took an initial 9.09% stake in Rotana Media Group, which is Alwaleed's film, TV and music business, with an option to increase that to 18.18% over the course of 18 months.

In August, social media investor DST Global, the investment fund led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, took a $400m stake in Twitter. DST Global also owns stakes in Zynga and Groupon.

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op dinsdag 20-12-2011 om 00:00:32 The @CabinCr3w is currently taking down all of Egypt... reageer retweet

quote:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/desopa/

DNS Evasion to Stop Oppressive Policy in America

# DeSopa

SECTIONS:
------------------
I. ABOUT
II. HOW TO USE
III. KNOWN LIMITATIONS

I. ABOUT:
---------------
Powerful special interests are attempting to force legislation for tighter control of the Internet, because they believe such legislation will preserve their power. The bill they have sponsored, SOPA, not only has severe consequences for the Internet, it doesn't even achieve their objectives. SOPA, under the innocuous banner "Stop Online Piracy Act" will have the following repercussions:

1) Make organizations, such as Google, Facebook, Digg and Reddit liable to censor user generated content. Censoring billions of records for billions of possible violations is expensive. One of these companies has already stated that it may be forced to shut down as a result of the financial burden caused by SOPA. Other companies may have to scale back the services they offer for free, or otherwise charge for them.

2) Provide well financed trade groups such the MPAA and RIAA with leverage to shape the future of the internet for the benefit of the organizations they represent, by threatening closure of services that they believe are not in their interest.

3) Create a high barrier to entry for start-ups and a rough legal landscape for small businesses. If SOPA was implemented 10 years ago, there is a high probability that we would not have many of the online services we take for granted such as YouTube and Pandora.

4) The probable dissolution of DNS caused by the natural circumvention of blocked sites will result in wide array of security problems, bleeding the digital economy of integrity.

The internet creates market efficiencies that forces industries to adapt, thus pushing forward progress for humanity as a whole. Public freedoms should not be curtailed and the Internet, built by the masses, should not be destroyed, so that a powerful few may have a false sense of security that their business models are sustainable without technological evolution.

This program is a proof of concept that SOPA will not help prevent piracy. The program, implemented as a Firefox extension, simply contacts offshore domain name resolution services to obtain the IP address for any desired website, and accesses those websites directly via IP. Similar offshore resolution services will eventually maintain their own cache of websites, without blacklisting, in order to meet the demand created by SOPA.

If SOPA is implemented, thousands of similar and more innovative programs and services will sprout up to provide access to the websites that people frequent. SOPA is a mistake. It does not even technically help solve the underlying problem, as this software illustrates. What it will do is give undue leverage to predatory organizations, cripple innocent third party websites, severely dampen digital innovation and negatively impact the integrity and security of the Internet.

Please bring this to the attention of congressmen responsible for voting on SOPA. SOPA will not technically achieve its stated objectives. Anyone voting in favor of it is morally responsible for destroying the freedoms, innovation, hard work and aspirations of many.

II. HOW TO USE:
---------------------------
- Enable the Status/Add-on bar if it is not enabled (View->Toolbars->Add-on bar)
- Click on the yellow DeSopa button in the Status/Add-on bar, at the bottom of the browser window, to access websites by IP.
- Click the green DeSopa button to switch back to DNS resolution.

III. KNOWN LIMITATIONS:
---------------------------------------
- Does not resolve subdomains.
- Can only resolve tabs one at a time.
- First time resolution is a bit slow because three services are checked serially and compared. This may be done in parallel in the future, or a trusted single source may be used.
- Although a number of domains may not be directly accessible via IP because they are on virtual hosts, etc, assuming that any of these domains were blocked by SOPA, it would be trivial for them to configure a dedicated IP address, hence becoming world accessible via DeSopa. Thus, SOPA remains ineffective, even for these domains.

DeSopa Readme: http://pastebin.com/9fz7AaZK

quote:

Wikileaks-supporters krijgen taakstraf

Twee Nederlandse jongens van 17 en 20 jaar hebben vandaag taakstraffen gekregen van het Landelijk Parket, omdat ze eind vorig jaar onder andere creditcardmaatschappij Mastercard en OM.nl digitaal aanvielen. Dat deden de beide jongens uit sympathie voor Wikileaks.

Mastercard was het slachtoffer, omdat ze geen donaties meer toelieten aan Wikileaks. De jongen van 20 viel de site van het Openbaar Ministerie aan. Achteraf zegt die laatste dat dit een stomme actie was. Hij heeft er ook spijt van.

De Haagse jongen van 17 moet onder toezicht van de Kinderbescherming 26 uur werken. Hij heeft bekend dat hij Mastercard,Visa en betaalsite Paypal heeft aangevallen. De andere jongen van 20 uit Hoogezand-Sappermeer viel de site van het Openbaar Ministerie aan. Hij is veroordeeld tot een taakstraf van 80 uur. Ze hebben de relatief lichte taakstraf geaccepteerd omdat ze anders strafrechtelijk vervolgd kunnen worden door het OM. Ook trok het Landelijk Parket de tijd die ze in voorarrest hebben gezeten van de straf af.

De computers die bij beide jongens in beslag zijn genomen, zijn ze wel kwijt.

quote:

“Spanish Napster” Victorious As Court Rejects Major Label Copyright Case

Some of the world’s biggest record labels have failed in their attempt to sue a file-sharing developer for copyright infringements carried out by users of his software. During a 2009 trial, Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner had demanded 13 million euros in compensation from Pablo Soto, the creator of the Blubster, Piolet and Manolito P2P sharing applications. A court has now ruled that Soto’s technology is “completely neutral”.

In 2008, Universal, Sony, EMI, Warner and “Spanish RIAA” Promusicae (Productores de Música de España) joined forces to file suit against MP2P Technologies, a company created by Spaniard Pablo Soto.

Born in 1979, Soto had been in the computer business since he was 16 years old and had created several file-sharing applications including Blubster (the so-called “Spanish Napster”) Piolet and Manolito.

But the record companies claimed that Soto designed the software with the express intent of providing a platform for Internet users to download and share music for free, a situation they describe as “unfair competition.” Pablo was also accused of creating file-sharing applications in order to profit from infringements of the plaintiffs’ copyrights.

Following a 2009 trial and several years of litigation, Madrid Commercial Court No. 4 has now delivered its verdict. It rejected the compensation demands of the labels and ruled in favor of the developer, declaring that his technology is “totally neutral.”

“An analogy would be like if we created a private group of friends to share some information, photographs for example,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “But you can not then blame the developer [if people chose to share copyright material], since the only thing he has done is connect the friends.”

The court also rejected the claims of unfair competition, noting that Soto isn’t in the business of making and marketing records, and the plaintiffs aren’t in the file-sharing business.

“We are extremely grateful to the court for finding not only in our favor, but in favor of justice, innovation and in equal access to digital distribution,” said Pablo Soto, founder and CEO of MP2P Technologies. “The copyright conglomerates would like to stifle innovation but today’s significant ruling against this tactic echoes around the globe.”

In an interview with 20minutos.es, Soto extended thanks to his lawyers Javier de la Cueva and David Bravo and noted that although delighted with the outcome (“I feel like i’ve crossed the Gobi desert with no water”), both he and his company have been deeply affected by the litigation.

“I had a company with eight years of work behind it but following the lawsuit I had to reduce staff by more than a half,” said Soto. “The funding was reduced to zero, no-one wanted to invest in a company being sued for 13 million euros.”

Aside from the generalities of the complaint, the case has been controversial since the start. In preparation for filing suit the labels went as far as to hire a private detective who turned up at Pablo’s offices masquerading as a customer. Using a hidden camera the detective took photographic ‘evidence’ which later turned up in court filings.

Promusicae president Antonio Guisasola said the decision will be appealed and expressed hope that in future the new Spanish government would take “resolute action” against people like Soto.

quote:

UK Copyright Consultation Wants Facts Not Fiction

Perhaps the point that sticks in people’s heads most about the Hargreaves review of Copyright, which was published in April of this year, wasn’t any of the actual recommendations about copyright, such as personal-use exceptions, but a claim made about the way copyright had been handled by governments.

“We urge Government to ensure that in future, policy on Intellectual Property issues is constructed on the basis of evidence, rather than weight of lobbying,” was the damning indictment on past copyright consultations and legislation efforts, and has clearly prodded Her Majesty’s Government into action.

Last week, the UK’s Intellectual Property Office opened a consultation into the topic, covering several proposals. Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Wilcox stated:

“The Government is focused on boosting growth and some freeing up of existing copyright legislation can deliver real value to the UK economy without risking our excellent creative industries. We are encouraging businesses to come forward with thoughts and evidence on our proposals to help us achieve this.”

Along with the 171-page consultation document comes a handy little 5 page document (pdf) on data and evidence which is going to leave people at the British Phonographic Institute, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, and other similar industry lobby groups feeling a little sick.

Claims will now have to be backed with numbers, and those numbers will have to be attributed, and where possible, peer-reviewed. Graphs should be accompanied with the raw data in an electronic appendix (to avoid visual manipulation of data) and studies cited will have to include the name of the group that funded it.

Of course, tech-heads also put on notice.

“Documents to be written in clear language: a summary to be given, where possible without the use of technical language”. This is a clear warning for those of us who talk of technical issues beyond general knowledge, since as a rule, politicians don’t understand the Internet.

Yet it’s in the footnotes that the barbs really dig deep into the sides of Big Copyright’s lobby groups, with a demonstration of how figures can be manipulated. In the example given, they show how an actual loss of £55 can be turned into an estimated loss of £451. The press have started to doubt some of the claims by the copyright industry, but now it seems governments are too.

It’s almost as if someone’s been reading our articles…. (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 etc.)

The consultation closes March 21st 2012, and can be found here.

quote:

Spanish novelist Lucía Etxebarria quits writing in piracy protest

Author says more copies of her book have been downloaded illegally than sold, and claims politicians too scared to act

An award-winning Spanish novelist claims that the illegal downloading of ebooks has forced her to give up writing and start looking for a new job.

"Given that I have today discovered that more illegal copies of my book have been downloaded than I have sold, I am announcing officially that I will not publish another book for a long time," Lucía Etxebarria announced on her Facebook page.

Etxebarria told the Guardian that Spanish authors faced a difficult future as online piracy spreads from music and film to literature.

She pointed to Spain's position at the top of the world rankings for per capita illegal downloads. "We come after China and Russia in the total number of illegal downloads but, obviously, there are a lot more of them so we win on a per capita measure," she said.

"People are making millions out of online piracy by setting up in places like Belize, which is where the money goes," Etxebarria said. "They are a powerful lobby and our government doesn't dare legislate."

quote:

The outgoing socialist government of the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, ditched a proposed anti-piracy law this month. "They were too scared," said Etxebarria.

She said she was not convinced that the new conservative People's party government of Mariano Rajoy, who became prime minister on Tuesday, would be any braver.

Etxebarria, who has won several of Spain's best-known literary prizes, said she could no longer justify devoting three years of her working life to producing a book.

Her latest novel, The Contents of Silence, was published in October and although previous books have been bestsellers, this one is ranked low down the sales list on Amazon's Spanish site.

It is not available as a legal ebook but can be downloaded in pdf format from numerous websites. The print edition costs more than ¤20.

"We decided against publishing it as an ebook because that is easy to pirate. It would have been like throwing it straight to the lions," Etxebarria said.

She said she was now considering a job offer, and was also thinking of allowing her books – which have been translated into 20 languages – to be published only in French and German, as the laws in France and Germany offer greater protection to authors.Her vow to stop writing provoked a torrent of abuse from downloaders who filled her Facebook wall with insults. Some said they did not earn enough to buy her books.

"Literature is not a profit-making job, but a passion," said Kelly Sánchez, one of the least vitriolic critics. "If you had a real vocation then you wouldn't stop writing."

Others wanted to know how Etxebarria had spent one of the world's richest literary prizes, the Planeta prize, now worth ¤601,000 (£502,000), which she won in 2004. She has also won the Primavera prize, currently worth ¤200,000, and the prestigious Nadal prize.

Writers currently near the top of the Spanish-language illegal downloads list include the British novelist Ken Follett and John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

quote:

Did the US already Privatize Big Brother?

What do you think of the following: YouTube has an "informal system" that allows companies with copyrights to automatically scan all uploads for potential violations. If the software detects the "possibility" of a violation (image, tune, trademark, etc.), it automatically tells YouTube to delete the content. This software is so automated, it can censor millions of uploads a day without human intervention.

Here's an example of how this censoring system was used to block speech that Universal music found objectionable:

quote:

Can the U.S. Government close social media accounts?

The Obama administration and The New York Times are teaming up to expose and combat the grave threat posed by a Twitter account, purportedly operated by the Somali group Shabab, and in doing so, are highlighting the simultaneous absurdity and perniciousness of the War on Terror. This latest tale of Dark Terrorist Evil began on December 14 when the NYT‘s Jeffrey Gettleman directed intrepid journalistic light on the Twitter account maintained under the name “HSMPress,” which claims to be the press office of Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahedeen, the Shabab’s full name. Gettleman’s article included this passage early on in its account:

. But terrorism experts say that Twitter terrorism is part of an emerging trend and that several other Qaeda franchises — a few years ago the Shabab pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda — are increasingly using social media like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter.

That has to be the single most amusing phrase ever to appear unironically in the Paper of Record: Twitter terrorism. And, of course, the authority cited for this menacing trend is that ubiquitous sham community calling itself “terrorism experts,” which exists to provide the imprimatur of scholarly Seriousness on every last bit of inane fear-mongering hysteria. That cottage industry (like the government’s demands for greater power and Endless War) remains vibrant only if Terrorism does (that is, Terrorism by Muslims: a propagandistic redundancy). Thus, with Osama bin Laden dead, a full decade elapsed since the last successful Terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and the original Al Qaeda group rendered inoperable, these experts are now warning the nation about lurking sleeper tweets.

quote:

Op dinsdag 20 december 2011 15:35 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

twitter:

YourAnonNews twitterde op dinsdag 20-12-2011 om 00:00:32 The @CabinCr3w is currently taking down all of Egypt... reageer retweet

twitter:

anonopsbrazil twitterde op dinsdag 20-12-2011 om 20:20:47 Tango Down - http://t.co/R6xFDIAo #Anonymous #AntiSec #OpEgypt >>> http://t.co/Ws6hpZMG reageer retweet

quote:

RIAA: Someone Else Is Pirating Through Our IP-Addresses

A few days ago we reported that no less than 6 IP-addresses registered to the RIAA had been busted for downloading copyrighted material. Quite a shocker to everyone – including the music industry group apparently – as they are now using a defense previously attempted by many alleged file-sharers. It wasn’t members of RIAA staff who downloaded these files, the RIAA insists, it was a mysterious third party vendor who unknowingly smeared the group’s good name.

Over the past week we’ve had fun looking up what governments, Fortune 500 companies, and even the most dedicated anti-piracy groups download on BitTorrent. All we had to do is put their IP-addresses into the search form on YouHaveDownloaded and hit after hit appeared.

To our surprise, we found out that even IP-addresses registered to the RIAA were showing unauthorized downloads of movies, TV-shows and software.

This curiosity was quickly picked up by other news outlets to whom the RIAA gave a rather interesting explanation. Apparently these file-sharing transactions weren’t carried out by RIAA staffers, but by a third party who’s using the RIAA IP-addresses to share and distribute files online.

“Those partial IP addresses are similar to block addresses assigned to RIAA. However, those addresses are used by a third party vendor to serve up our public Web site,” a spokesperson told CNET, adding, “As I said earlier, they are not used by RIAA staff to access the Internet.”

This is all a bit confusing. First of all, the addresses are not similar, they are simply assigned to the RIAA. Everyone can look that up here, or here.

Secondly, while we are prepared to believe that RIAA staff didn’t download these files, we are left wondering what mysterious third party did. Also, is it even allowed by the official registry to register a range of IP-addresses to your private organization, and then allow others to use these IPs?

Also, just as a bit of friendly advice, it’s generally not a good idea to let others use your organization’s addresses to browse the internet. This time it’s “just” copyrighted material up for debate, but who knows what else they may be sharing online.

Considering the RIAA’s past of suing tens of thousands of file-sharers for copyright infringement, the excuse is perhaps even more embarrassing than taking full responsibility. When some of the 20,000 plus people who were sued by the RIAA over the years used the “someone else did it” excuse this was shrugged off by the music group’s lawyers. Can these people have their money back now? We doubt it.




Elsewhere, Henrik Chulu from the Free Culture blog discovered that someone at the infamous Johan Schlüter law firm downloaded the Danish movie Dirch. But Maria Fredenslund from anti-piracy group RettighedsAliancen had their excuse ready.

Were working for right holders, who obviously have given us permission to collect their material online as part of an investigative work, she told Comon.dk in response.

Notably, Sarkozy is staying quiet and not attempting to justify any infringements carried out in his name. Perhaps a case of least said, soonest mended

quote:

This multi-part article, with original artwork by Mar, is a follow-up to a one hour panel discussion at DEFCON 19 titled “‘Whoever Fights Monsters…’ Confronting Aaron Barr, Anonymous and Ourselves” moderated by Paul Roberts, discussed by Josh Corman, Brian Martin and Scot Terban. The views of the authors are not meant to be a criticism of Anonymous, nor are they meant to be encouragement for future criminal activity. It is an inevitable fact that Anonymous, or similar groups, will become bigger, stronger, and more effective. Discussions on how to build a more potent digital hacktivism group (illegal hacking to achieve a political goal) have occurred for over a decade. This article will not attempt to introduce groundbreaking new ideas, but rather will summarize many existing ideas and subject them to analysis from two security practitioners on two sides of this issue. If anything, this will serve more as a ‘Lessons Learned’ with the aim of broadening the reader’s understanding of the topic, while demonstrating that the “problem” is not going away; the “problem” is evolving and growing.

quote:

<sub>Copyright 2011 by Josh Corman and Brian Martin. Permission is granted to quote, reprint or redistribute provided the text is not altered, appropriate credit is given and a link to the original copy is included. Custom graphic courtesy of Mar - sudux.com.

Should you feel generous, please donate a couple of bucks on our behalf to any 501(c)(3) non-profit that benefits animals or computer security.</sub>

quote:

EXCLUSIVE: Twitter Censorship Firestorm Rages on as New Accusations, Denials Emerge

Instances of alleged censorship of Twitter profiles aligned with controversial topics such as Occupy Wall Street, SOPA and NDAA continue to be exposed, and leading Web experts are scrambling to debunk the claims.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation responded in a lengthy e-mail Tuesday evening to a request by the International Business Times to explain why the Internet advocacy organization does not believe Twitter censors or blocks users based on the content of their Tweets.

"#NDAA has generated at least 117,000 tweets in the last seven days. Does that sound like censorship to anyone?" Trevor Timm, an activist with the EFF wrote in the Tuesday email. "Most importantly, Twitter--as official company policy--is vehemently against SOPA. So even if they did censor (which, again, they don't), why would they ever censor its users for expressing the company line?"

Timm's full response is included at the end of this story.

The issue became a firestorm of sorts over the past several days, as Twitter denied closing the Twitter account of Business Insider reporter David Seaman on the grounds that he was writing too much about the Stop Online Privacy Act, National Defense Authorization Act, Occupy Wall Street and other controversial topics. He made the claims in a Sunday BI column that garnered massive buzz.

A representative from the social media site said its administrators "never mediate content. Period," and the company's support team later told him his account was tagged by an automated spam-removal system and that "it looks like your account got caught up in one of these spam groups by mistake. I've restored your account; sorry for the inconvenience."

But a number of Twitter users have contacted the IBTimes since the censorship allegations emerged to tell tales of having their accounts shut down in what they too believe are acts of content-based censorship.

Doug Johnson Hatlem, an administrator for the open @OccupyBayStreet and shuttered @OccupyBay2 Twitter accounts, contacted the IBTimes on Monday to report the struggles he and his fellow Tweeters have had maintaining a presence on Twitter to get out messages related to the Occupy Toronto movement.

"On the day Occupy Toronto was raided (Nov. 21) we were tweeting and aggregating tweets on police location ahead of the raid. Several of us were tweeting, and we were sent to twitter jail (for the first time--we'd tweeted about 4,000 tweets at that point)," Hatlem wrote. "We opened up a backup account--@OccupyBay2. Just about the time we left twitter jail @OccupyBayStreet, @OccupyBay2 was suspended. It's still down a month later even though we've sent several notes of explanation to Twitter."

Hatlem said he believes that the fact that @OccupyBay2 tweeted out Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's cell phone number in one of its mere 16 posts may be one of the main reasons someone reported the account for spamming.

A Twitter representative confirmed that it had been reported for spam, but Hatlem said he does not believe Twitter took the initiative to censor his account. Instead he believes Ford or someone else with a vendetta against the Occupy Toronto group reported them for spam, knowing that such a move could get the account closed at least for a short period of time while the Nov. 21 raid was underway.

"In other words, we think twitter's spambot remover is the culprit, but that twitter doesn't take into account the use of that blocking function for political means," Hatlem said. "It is furthermore too slow to follow up on reports that what is going on is politically rather than spam motivated. David had his account restored quickly once it became a media issue; ours is still down."

Despite the fact that Occupy Toronto is based in Canada, Hatlem's suspicion dovetails with the increasing evidence that the American government and law enforcement agencies are delving ever deeper into social media.

In one of the most cases regarding Twitter censorship to date, The New York Times exposed on Monday that "some American officials said the government was exploring legal options to shut down the Shabab's new Twitter account," referring to the @HSMPress account supposedly run by Somalia's Shabab militant group.

IBTimes was also contacted by Brian Flowers, an administrator for the Occupy Penn State movement's @occupypennstate Twitter account. He said the account was shuttered "within a day" of it being launched, and was not reinstated until a week later, when he was told it had been caught by Twitter's spam filters.

"My personal account has never been suspended however, even though it's dormant around 11 months out of the year, and when I do use it it's in the same manner I used the occupy account (though about different events) -- sending the same tweet with an @ mention to 5-10 different organizations to keep them updated on protests and other activity," Flowers wrote. "When I do it from my personal account about our 'corbettville' protest, twitter doesn't care. But when I do it from the 'occupypennstate' account, suddenly I get banned. Smells fishy to me."