Anonops #11: Stop ACTA

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Hacked e-mails reveal Mexico manipulating climate change facts, destroying Indian sacred lands

The hacked e-mails of Mexico’s mining industry of Camimex exposed by Anonymous reveal that the government of Mexico is manipulating climate change facts in order to protect coal mining and other dirty industries from taxation.

The e-mails expose the government of Mexico is engaged in the corporate rape of the environment, with total disregard for the air, water and land of Mexico. The e-mails reveal there is no consideration or protection, by Mexico or mining corporations, for Indigenous sacred lands and ceremonial places.

In the Camimex member e-mails, First Majestic Silver Mining of Canada is exposed in the state of Durango, Mexico. The company is now targeting the sacred lands of the Wixarika, Huicholes, with silver mining. The Wixarika's sacred place is where Wixarika pray for all mankind to keep the world in order and balance.

The hacked e-mails reveal the destruction to lands in Sonora, Mexico.

O’odham, who live on both sides of the Arizona/Mexico border, are fighting Silver Scott Mines, based in South Carolina in the US, which has targeted their ceremonial community of Quitovac, a place of annual pilgrimage, with gold mining. The mining of Quitovac, about 30 miles south of the Arizona/Mexico border in O’odham territory, would destroy the land and poison the water.

Further, the emails reveal that the University of Guanajuato is assisting mining corporations that are now destroying Mexico and Indigenous sacred lands. The university offers courses which promote and secure mining by professor Juan Jose Cervantes Silva. The university's promotion of mining also reveals the role of US universities in the exploitation and destruction of Indigenous lands, since Cervantes was trained at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The University of Arizona has taken a lead in the militarization of Indigenous border lands, by designing drones and offering courses that target people of color on the border. Further the University of Arizona has taken the lead in the destruction of Native sacred lands in Arizona, including placing telescopes on sacred Mount Graham over the objection of Apaches and other Native Americans. Further the university has engaged in global spying of activists in its global cyber spy program and partnered with both Homeland Security and the US Border Patrol in its programs.

Anonymous hacked Mexico’s mining industry in defense of Indigenous Peoples struggling to protect their sacred lands, and their fellow campesinos who are victims of Mexico’s mining industry. Anonymous sent a clear message to the global mining industry targeting Indigenous Peoples and their lands with abuse, violence and exploitation, that their private communications will no longer be private.

Anonymous hactivists said they were robbing the e-mails because the mining industry is robbing the miners.

“You only took out our minerals, exploiting our miner brothers,” said the statement of Anonymous posted online. So far, 730 MB of e-mail accounts and the data base of Camimex were exposed.

Anonymous said the mining companies in Mexico and the mining syndicates are together “only to steal our minerals.” Anonymous said the value is $200,000,000 and miners are forced to work in extremely dangerous conditions. Anonymous said the leader Napoleon Gomez Urrutia “stole more than 55 million of dollars,” which was for mine security. It resulted in the tragedy of “Pasta de Conchos,” where 65 miners died due to the insufficient security measures, Anonymous said.

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Op donderdag 16 februari 2012 11:38 schreef sinterklaaskapoentje het volgende:

[..]

A challenger appears

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UPDATE 16/02/2012 10:53am: The owner of the exotz@hushmail.com email address has contacted the IBTimes UK clarifying Team Matrix AnonyOps claim is false: "I am mad about how 'TeamMatricHacking' [sic] claimed that they defaced the anonyops. They DID NOT. Exotz and 'ONE MAN ARMY' has been written there for reason," read the email.

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The Internet strikes back against Tory surveillance bill

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper began backing off on his own online surveillance bill Wednesday, one of his ministers is learning a lesson that should be common adage by now -- don't anger the Internet.

After a vicious online backlash, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews indicated the government will consider amendments to Bill C-30 -- the proposed legislation that would give authorities greater access to citizen's private data without needing a warrant.

The proposed bill has gone over so poorly with Canadians that even some Tories suggested they couldn't vote for it.

New Brunswick Conservative MP John Williamson said he had concerns about the bill as it is now.

"It's too intrusive as it currently stands and does need to be looked at. There's a lot of concern, I think, across the country," he told reporters Wednesday. "It'll go to committee and we haven't had a frank discussion on it yet in caucus, so that will come."

There's little doubt the Conservatives are noting the bill's unpopularity with Canadians, many of whom have gone online to air their grievances.

Toews' aggressive defence of the bill has led to the debate getting personal as details of his messy divorce went online and went viral.

An anonymous Twitter account has been publishing excerpts of what are purportedly affidavits from his 2008 divorce. In less than 24 hours, it gathered about 5,000 followers.

"Vic wants to know about you," says the description for the account. "Let's get to know about Vic."

Toews has neither confirmed nor denied that the Twitter feed is accurate.

"I won't get involved in this kind of gutter politics," he said on his own Twitter account.

Details of Toews' divorce have been available online for years and are displayed prominently on his Wikipedia page.

Earlier this week, Toews said in the House of Commons that those who oppose the bill -- which would give authorities greater access to citizen's private data -- "can either stand with us or with the child pornographers."

The next day when CTV Power Play host Don Martin paraphrased Toews' statement back to him, the minister responded "I didn't say exactly that . . . in fact it was a far cry from that."

Part of the bill would allow authorities access to Internet subscriber information, such as names and addresses, before even getting a warrant.

NDP MP Charlie Angus has been a vocal critic of Toews throughout the week, but refused to address the Twitter account.

"I have absolutely no interest in Vic Toews' private life," Angus told reporters Wednesday. "I've got enough on this guy's public statements to say this man has some explaining to do to Canadians."

However, Liberal MP Justin Trudeau was hardly so kind.

He sent out at least two tweets to his 100,000-plus followers in mock support of Toews, linking to the Toews divorce Twitter account several times.

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews(...)20215/#ixzz1mYjoEfyX

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EU-hof: geen gedwongen filter op sociale netwerken

Sociale media en webhosters kunnen niet worden gedwongen om bestanden te filteren die gebruikers uploaden en met elkaar delen. Dat heeft het Europese Hof van Justitie vandaag bepaald.

De Belgische auteursrechtenorganisatie SABAM, die de rechtszaak had aangespannen, wilde het gebruikersmateriaal van de socialenetwerksite Netlog kunnen filteren om zo de verspreiding van illegale bestanden tegen te gaan.

Persoonsgegevens
Maar het hof oordeelde dat dit de vrijheid van ondernemerschap van Netlog ernstig aantast, want verplicht filteren zou het bedrijf op heel veel extra kosten jagen. Bovendien wordt het recht van bescherming van persoonsgegevens voor de gebruikers aangetast, alsmede de vrijheid om kennis van informatie te nemen en te geven, aldus het hof. Netlog heeft ongeveer 95 miljoen gebruikers in Europa.

Het Europees Hof had in november al een soortgelijke uitspraak gedaan in een zaak die SABAM had aangespannen tegen de Belgische provider Scarlet/Tiscali. De uitspraak van vandaag is echter veel breder, en geldt dus ook voor hosters en de bedrijven achter de sociale media.

Pirate Bay
Voor uitspraken over bijvoorbeeld het blokkeren van downloadsite The Pirate Bay heeft de uitspraak niet direct gevolgen. Het hof oordeelde vandaag namelijk over een breed algemeen filter met een preventieve werking en voor onbepaalde tijd, en die door de hoster wordt bepaald. Bij andere omstandigheden kan de afweging anders zijn, zo schrijft Webwereld.

De rechtbank in Den Haag oordeelde onlangs dat de blokkade van The Pirate Bay door providers Ziggo en XS4ALL niet in strijd is met richtlijnen van Europees Hof. In dat geval gaat het namelijk over specifieke site die al eerder door de rechter is veroordeeld.

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‘We respectfully ask all activists, bloggers, and other journalists to immediately remove all of these documents and any quotations taken from them, especially the fake “climate strategy” memo and any quotations from the same, from their blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.

The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation.’

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RIAA: The Pirate Bay is The Worst of The Worst

The RIAA has responded to The Pirate Bay’s decision to change its domain name from .org to .se. The torrent site made the switch to prevent a seizure by US authorities, and according to the music industry group this is a clear indication that tougher laws are needed to deal with “rogue websites.”

riaaTwo weeks ago The Pirate Bay redirected the site to a Swedish .se domain, safely outside the reach of US authorities.

This change hasn’t gone unnoticed by the RIAA, as Vice President Mitch Glazier just published a scathing reply. Describing The Pirate Bay as one of the worst offenders, the RIAA boss argues that the industry needs better tools to topple such ‘rogue’ websites.

“Talk about Exhibit A for addressing rogue websites in a meaningful manner,” he writes.

“A blatantly illegal file-sharing site, proud that it’s an online bazaar of every conceivable U.S. copyrighted work, found criminally responsible by its own country’s legal system and who has been ordered by courts in at least seven European countries to be blocked by ISPs, has publicly acknowledged changing its domain name to escape U.S. laws.”

“It is motivated by its brazen philosophy of thumbing its nose at the basic rights of America’s creators. It is, in a phrase, one of the worst of the worst.”

The RIAA boss then seizes the opportunity to call on lawmakers to pull sites like The Pirate Bay offline before it does more damage to the entertainment industries.

“It is one of the most clear and obvious examples of why meaningful tools are needed to target foreign rogue sites that steal American jobs. Responsible leaders in the tech community should come to the table with constructive ideas and work with us and others to address this blatant theft before more damage is done to our economy and the creative community.”

Although the punchline above is expected from the music industry group, the response does raise an interesting point. Apparently the RIAA also realizes that domain seizures are completely useless as websites can simply switch to foreign domains. If that is the case, then why risk breaking the Internet by baking it into law?

The Pirate Bay, meanwhile, is seriously offended by Glazier’s writing. They decided to respond with a rebuttal, describing the RIAA as a delusional outfit that has to be stopped.

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Pirate Bay: The RIAA Is Delusional and Must Be Stopped

The Pirate Bay is not happy with a recent article published by the RIAA, where the torrent site is portrayed as the prime example of why tougher anti-piracy laws are necessary. In a rebuttal, The Pirate Bay argues that the RIAA is delusional, behaving like a spoiled kid that has lost touch with reality.

The Senior Executive Vice President of the RIAA (wow, what a long title), Mitch Glazier, has published a blog post on why TPB is one of the worst of the worst. The piece gives us ample information on just how delusional the recording industry really is, and shows why they must be stopped.

In the very first sentence Glazier uses the phrase copyright theft. Its an interesting concept if anyone in history ever stole copyright, it must be the record industry. At least they tried, as in the Swedish TPB case where they sued over a record they did not have the copyright to.

A small lesson to Mr Glazier: If someone steals something, you dont have it anymore. If you copy it, both have it. This means: If someone steals your copyright (aka copyright theft) you dont have the copyright anymore. Im having a hard time to see that happening though, since copyright isnt really physical.

The jobs that you say are being stolen in the US are somewhat physical though. And if someone steals them where do they go? Maybe they just arent needed anymore! Thats what technology does! Sorry, its 2012 not 1912 do you want to forbid robots as well, since they steal jobs?

Let me quote the title of Peter Sundes latest piece in Wired: Its evolution, . If you search for it, youll find the rest of the title for that piece. It might be illegal for me to put that in print since a new censorship law was passed in Syria. Since you apparently think that US law should control people around the world, shouldnt we follow laws in Syria as well?

Yes, Glazier is upset that TPB moved away from a US-controlled domain name. He doesnt seem to understand that there is a worldwide problem when one single country tries to take control over a global infrastructure. TPB has no connections to the US so why should the US be able to control it?

Its a very undemocratic procedure which obviously the RIAA is supportive of. Apparently escaping US laws means not being born in the US, not living there, not working there or not wanting to kiss your ass.

And Mr. Glazier, talking about the countries in the EU that you have forced ISPs to block TPB (and other sites) is interesting, as the European Court has just decided that these types of censorship are just that censorship, and should be treated as illegal. Could we see your view on the matter, as the RIAA is clearly supporting illegal censorship?

The RIAA wants the tech industry to sit down and talk to them. Fuck that. Youre not in charge. If you want the help of the tech industry, ask for it. Youll probably get it since most tech people are nice. Youre not in charge anymore and thats probably why youre pissed off.

Plz stop calling yourself the creative community. Youre not a community, youre a coalition of some of the richest companies in the world. And the only thing you seem to be creative with is your accounting procedures.

The recording industry is like a kid screaming for candy. The problem is that the kid has diabetes.

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US Returns Jotform.com Domain; Still Refuses To Say What Happened

There's been a lot of interest in the story of the Secret Service completely shutting down Jotform.com through a request to GoDaddy. It appears that the suspension is now ending, though it hasn't fully propagated. What's amazing is that no one in the US government (or at GoDaddy) seems to be willing to explain what happened. When GoDaddy completely shut down JotForm.com with no notice, the folks at JotForm had to inquire as to what the hell happened to their entire website. They were merely told to contact a Secret Service agent. That agent then told JotForm she was too busy to respond to them and would get back to them within a week.

Think about that for a second. The US government completely takes down a small business' website and then is too busy to explain why.

JotForm noted that it was willing to cooperate fully if there were specific users that were a problem, but the Secret Service did not seem to care that it had almost destroyed an entire startup's business:

. When I contacted the Secret Service, the agent told me she is busy and she asked for my phone number, and told me they will get back to me within this week. I told them we are a web service with hundreds of thousands of users, so this is a matter of urgency, and we are ready to cooperate fully. I was ready to shutdown any form they request and provide any information we have about the user. Unfortunately, she told me she needs to look at the case which she can do in a few days. I called her many times again to check about the case, but she seems to be getting irritated with me. At this point, we are waiting for them to look into our case.

So far, the Secret Service still isn't talking, returning a bland and meaningless statement to press requests:

. "We are aware of the incident and we're reviewing it internally to make sure all the proper procedures and protocols were followed."

GoDaddy, similarly, appears to be staying almost entirely silent.

All of this is completely unacceptable. Almost everything about this sets off alarm bells about over aggressive (and potentially illegal) censorship by the US government of protected free speech. We've been seeing a much more aggressive and overreaching effort by US officials against websites over the past 18 months or so, and at some point, they're going to get smacked down by a court who will explain to them the nature of the First Amendment and the fact that you can't unilaterally take down entire websites without recognizing the collateral damage on legitimate web businesses.

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Chris-Mouse (profile), Feb 17th, 2012 @ 6:26am

The government may get smacked down by a court, but only if it ever gets to a court. The government seems to be doing a very good job of delaying things until their victims either give up or run out of money.

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The seizure came two weeks after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it had seized 307 domains allegedly engaged in unauthorized live sports streaming and for selling fake professional sports merchandise.

Tank speculated in a Hacker News forum that the investigation surrounds an e-mail phishing program being run by a customer using a hosted JotForm form.

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Even if the forms were being used for some illegal purpose, Masnick said, I still cant fathom a reason why it should lead to everyone else getting censored and an internet startup facing a massive hardship wherein tons of users have had their service disrupted with millions of useful forms being suddenly disappeared.

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SOCA speaks out about music web site takedown

THE UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has spoken out about its takedown of the Rnbxclusive web site yesterday, saying the arrested individual is suspected of alleged "fraud".

SOCA's revelation comes after SOCA put a splash page on the web site after taking it down, warning users that they faced 10 years in prison for visiting the web site. The splash page has now been removed and replaced with something less alarming, and SOCA is claiming that the takedown and arrest was a 32 hour operation.

A SOCA spokesman told The INQUIRER that the individual arrested in conjunction with the music blog is suspected of fraud, rather than copyright infringement. He confirmed that the operation has a name designation but would not reveal the name or elaborate on the details.

He claimed that the web site had music that had been obtained "by data breach" and in some cases had been "stolen directly from the artist" before it was released.

When asked to explain the somewhat dramatic threat of 10 years in prison for those who visited the web site, the spokesman said, "If you download music that has been illegally obtained, you can be accused of fraud, if you are deemed to be part of the conspiracy to defraud."

We put it to him that most users would have unknowingly downloaded the allegedly illegal content anyway, and he admitted that the web site splash page was aimed at "warning people about how they use the internet".

A statement on SOCA's web site yesterday said, "A warning has been directed at users frequenting a music download site which was taken offline on 14 February by the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The action has prompted wide-ranging responses from website users, the general public, and other sites.

"The targeted SOCA activity, which lasted 32 hours, was part of an operational programme aimed at protecting UK businesses and the wider economy.

"The website in question specialised in RnB and enabled access to music obtained by hacking, including some which had not yet been released.

"SOCA has monitored responses since 08.30 on 14 February when rnbxclusive.com was taken offline following the arrest of a man for suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. He has now been released on bail pending further enquiries.

"Responses to the takedown have included action by three more music sites. One has taken itself offline voluntarily, one claims to be considering taking itself offline, and another has posted a claim on its home page to now only be dealing in legal music files following the activity. A number of site users have deleted their download histories. Commentary on Twitter and other social media has been global.

"SOCA's holding message to users who had been frequenting the website was taken offline at the conclusion of the first phase of the operation on 15 February."

Pirate Party leader Loz kaye told The INQUIRER, "The SOCA press release raises more questions than it answers. What was the purpose of the 32 hour operation? Was it really to monitor people visiting the site? In which case, they will have an excellent set of journalist contacts now.

"It should simply not be the job of a serious crime agency to 'warn' us about how we use the Internet. I'm sure if you ask voters whether they are more worried about gun crime or music blogs, it won't be RnB that is seen as the major threat.

He added, "In a broader sense, this whole episode is a chilling warning of what the post-ACTA Internet could look like." µ

Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/15Iv0)

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Facebook hacker jailed for eight months

Glenn Mangham claimed he was an 'ethical hacker' who wanted to show how Facebook could improve its security

A student who hacked into Facebook in the "most extensive and grave" case of social media hacking to come before a British court was jailed for eight months on Friday.

Glenn Mangham, 26, admitted infiltrating the website from his bedroom in his parents' house between April and May last year.

His actions were said to have risked destroying "the whole enterprise" and sparked fears among American authorities of industrial espionage.

Mangham, a software development student from Cornlands Road, York, had previously shown the search engine Yahoo how it could improve its security and said he wanted to do the same for Facebook.

But prosecutor Sandip Patel rejected his claims, saying: "He acted with determination, undoubted ingenuity and it was sophisticated, it was calculating."

Facebook spent $200,000 (£126,400) dealing with Mangham's crime, which triggered a "concerted, time-consuming and costly investigation" by the FBI and British law enforcement.

"He said he wanted a mini project and chose Facebook because of its high-profile internet presence," Patel said.

"The prosecution does not accept that the defendant's actions were anything other than malicious."

He told Southwark Crown Court in London how Mangham had "unlawfully accessed and hacked into Facebook and had stolen "invaluable" intellectual property, downloaded on to an external hard drive.

"This represents the most extensive and grave incident of social media hacking to be brought before the British courts," Patel said.

Passing sentence, Judge Alistair McCreath told Mangham his actions were not harmless and had "real and very serious potential consequences," which could have been "utterly disastrous" for Facebook.

"You and others who are tempted to act as you did really must understand how serious this is," he said.

"The creation of that risk, the extent of that risk and the cost of putting it right mean at the end of it all I'm afraid a prison sentence is inevitable."

Mangham, a Sherlock Holmes fan described by his lawyer as a "computer nerd", targeted multiple servers, bypassing Facebook's security.

As part of his ruse, he hacked into the account of a Facebook employee and through it obtained restricted internal data while the staff member was away on holiday. He later tried to delete the electronic footprints to cover the hacking. The breach was discovered in a routine security review by the website. On 2 June FBI knocked on Mangham's door. His home was raided and he was arrested.

Mangham insisted financial gain was not his motive and vowed he was willing to explain to Facebook how he had compromised their servers, the court heard.

Tony Ventham, defending Mangham, said he was an "ethical hacker" who had described himself as a security consultant.

"He saw this as a challenge," he told the court. "This is someone who in previous times would have thrown everything aside to seek the source of the Nile.

"It was common currency within the community of computer nerds or geeks, if I may refer to him as that, where there was this interesting relationship between companies and people who ethically point out vulnerabilities."

He had not tried to sell any of the information he obtained or pass it on to anyone else, Ventham said.

He added: "He was in his own world, his own bedroom, his own mind, his own project and certainly his intention throughout was to contact Facebook in due course when he had rectified their problems."

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MI6 attacks al-Qaeda in 'Operation Cupcake'

British intelligence has hacked into an al-Qaeda online magazine and replaced bomb-making instructions with a recipe for cupcakes.

The cyber-warfare operation was launched by MI6 and GCHQ in an attempt to disrupt efforts by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular to recruit “lone-wolf” terrorists with a new English-language magazine, the Daily Telegraph understands.

When followers tried to download the 67-page colour magazine, instead of instructions about how to “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom” by “The AQ Chef” they were greeted with garbled computer code.

The code, which had been inserted into the original magazine by the British intelligence hackers, was actually a web page of recipes for “The Best Cupcakes in America” published by the Ellen DeGeneres chat show.

Written by Dulcy Israel and produced by Main Street Cupcakes in Hudson, Ohio, it said “the little cupcake is big again” adding: “Self-contained and satisfying, it summons memories of childhood even as it's updated for today’s sweet-toothed hipsters.”

It included a recipe for the Mojito Cupcake – “made of white rum cake and draped in vanilla buttercream”- and the Rocky Road Cupcake – “warning: sugar rush ahead!”

By contrast, the original magazine featured a recipe showing how to make a lethal pipe bomb using sugar, match heads and a miniature lightbulb, attached to a timer.

The cyber attack also removed articles by Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and a piece called “What to expect in Jihad.”

British and US intelligence planned separate attacks after learning that the magazine was about to be issued in June last year.

They have both developed a variety of cyber-weapons such as computer viruses, to use against both enemy states and terrorists.

A Pentagon operation, backed by Gen Keith Alexander, the head of US Cyber Command, was blocked by the CIA which argued that it would expose sources and methods and disrupt an important source of intelligence, according to a report in America.

However the Daily Telegraph understands an operation was launched from Britain instead.

Al-Qaeda was able to reissue the magazine two weeks later and has gone on to produce four further editions but one source said British intelligence was continuing to target online outlets publishing the magazine because it is viewed as such a powerful propaganda tool.

The magazine is produced by the radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the leaders of AQAP who has lived in Britain and the US, and his associate Samir Khan from North Carolina.

Both men who are thought to be in Yemen, have associated with radicals connected to Rajib Karim, a British resident jailed for 30 years in March for plotting to smuggle a bomb onto a trans-Atlantic aircraft.

At the time Inspire was launched, US government officials said “the packaging of this magazine may be slick, but the contents are as vile as the authors.”

Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst said it was “clearly intended for the aspiring jihadist in the US or UK who may be the next Fort Hood murderer or Times Square bomber.”

In recent days AQAP fighters have capitalised on chaos in Yemen, as the country teeters on the brink of civil war.

Tribal forces marching towards the capital, Sana'a, clashed with troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh for a third day running yesterday.

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Piotr Czerski
We, the Web Kids.
(translated by Marta Szreder)


There is probably no other word that would be as overused in the media discourse as ‘generation’. I once tried to count the ‘generations’ that have been proclaimed in the past ten years, since the well-known article about the so-called ‘Generation Nothing’; I believe there were as many as twelve. They all had one thing in common: they only existed on paper. Reality never provided us with a single tangible, meaningful, unforgettable impulse, the common experience of which would forever distinguish us from the previous generations. We had been looking for it, but instead the groundbreaking change came unnoticed, along with cable TV, mobile phones, and, most of all, Internet access. It is only today that we can fully comprehend how much has changed during the past fifteen years.

We, the Web kids; we, who have grown up with the Internet and on the Internet, are a generation who meet the criteria for the term in a somewhat subversive way. We did not experience an impulse from reality, but rather a metamorphosis of the reality itself. What unites us is not a common, limited cultural context, but the belief that the context is self-defined and an effect of free choice.

Writing this, I am aware that I am abusing the pronoun ‘we’, as our ‘we’ is fluctuating, discontinuous, blurred, according to old categories: temporary. When I say ‘we’, it means ‘many of us’ or ‘some of us’. When I say ‘we are’, it means ‘we often are’. I say ‘we’ only so as to be able to talk about us at all.

1.
We grew up with the Internet and on the Internet. This is what makes us different; this is what makes the crucial, although surprising from your point of view, difference: we do not ‘surf’ and the internet to us is not a ‘place’ or ‘virtual space’. The Internet to us is not something external to reality but a part of it: an invisible yet constantly present layer intertwined with the physical environment. We do not use the Internet, we live on the Internet and along it. If we were to tell our bildnungsroman to you, the analog, we could say there was a natural Internet aspect to every single experience that has shaped us. We made friends and enemies online, we prepared cribs for tests online, we planned parties and studying sessions online, we fell in love and broke up online. The Web to us is not a technology which we had to learn and which we managed to get a grip of. The Web is a process, happening continuously and continuously transforming before our eyes; with us and through us. Technologies appear and then dissolve in the peripheries, websites are built, they bloom and then pass away, but the Web continues, because we are the Web; we, communicating with one another in a way that comes naturally to us, more intense and more efficient than ever before in the history of mankind.

Brought up on the Web we think differently. The ability to find information is to us something as basic, as the ability to find a railway station or a post office in an unknown city is to you. When we want to know something - the first symptoms of chickenpox, the reasons behind the sinking of ‘Estonia’, or whether the water bill is not suspiciously high - we take measures with the certainty of a driver in a SatNav-equipped car. We know that we are going to find the information we need in a lot of places, we know how to get to those places, we know how to assess their credibility. We have learned to accept that instead of one answer we find many different ones, and out of these we can abstract the most likely version, disregarding the ones which do not seem credible. We select, we filter, we remember, and we are ready to swap the learned information for a new, better one, when it comes along.

To us, the Web is a sort of shared external memory. We do not have to remember unnecessary details: dates, sums, formulas, clauses, street names, detailed definitions. It is enough for us to have an abstract, the essence that is needed to process the information and relate it to others. Should we need the details, we can look them up within seconds. Similarly, we do not have to be experts in everything, because we know where to find people who specialise in what we ourselves do not know, and whom we can trust. People who will share their expertise with us not for profit, but because of our shared belief that information exists in motion, that it wants to be free, that we all benefit from the exchange of information. Every day: studying, working, solving everyday issues, pursuing interests. We know how to compete and we like to do it, but our competition, our desire to be different, is built on knowledge, on the ability to interpret and process information, and not on monopolising it.

2.
Participating in cultural life is not something out of ordinary to us: global culture is the fundamental building block of our identity, more important for defining ourselves than traditions, historical narratives, social status, ancestry, or even the language that we use. From the ocean of cultural events we pick the ones that suit us the most; we interact with them, we review them, we save our reviews on websites created for that purpose, which also give us suggestions of other albums, films or games that we might like. Some films, series or videos we watch together with colleagues or with friends from around the world; our appreciation of some is only shared by a small group of people that perhaps we will never meet face to face. This is why we feel that culture is becoming simultaneously global and individual. This is why we need free access to it.

This does not mean that we demand that all products of culture be available to us without charge, although when we create something, we usually just give it back for circulation. We understand that, despite the increasing accessibility of technologies which make the quality of movie or sound files so far reserved for professionals available to everyone, creativity requires effort and investment. We are prepared to pay, but the giant commission that distributors ask for seems to us to be obviously overestimated. Why should we pay for the distribution of information that can be easily and perfectly copied without any loss of the original quality? If we are only getting the information alone, we want the price to be proportional to it. We are willing to pay more, but then we expect to receive some added value: an interesting packaging, a gadget, a higher quality, the option of watching here and now, without waiting for the file to download. We are capable of showing appreciation and we do want to reward the artist (since money stopped being paper notes and became a string of numbers on the screen, paying has become a somewhat symbolic act of exchange that is supposed to benefit both parties), but the sales goals of corporations are of no interest to us whatsoever. It is not our fault that their business has ceased to make sense in its traditional form, and that instead of accepting the challenge and trying to reach us with something more than we can get for free they have decided to defend their obsolete ways.

One more thing: we do not want to pay for our memories. The films that remind us of our childhood, the music that accompanied us ten years ago: in the external memory network these are simply memories. Remembering them, exchanging them, and developing them is to us something as natural as the memory of ‘Casablanca’ is to you. We find online the films that we watched as children and we show them to our children, just as you told us the story about the Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks. Can you imagine that someone could accuse you of breaking the law in this way? We cannot, either.

3.
We are used to our bills being paid automatically, as long as our account balance allows for it; we know that starting a bank account or changing the mobile network is just the question of filling in a single form online and signing an agreement delivered by a courier; that even a trip to the other side of Europe with a short sightseeing of another city on the way can be organised in two hours. Consequently, being the users of the state, we are increasingly annoyed by its archaic interface. We do not understand why tax act takes several forms to complete, the main of which has more than a hundred questions. We do not understand why we are required to formally confirm moving out of one permanent address to move in to another, as if councils could not communicate with each other without our intervention (not to mention that the necessity to have a permanent address is itself absurd enough.)

There is not a trace in us of that humble acceptance displayed by our parents, who were convinced that administrative issues were of utmost importance and who considered interaction with the state as something to be celebrated. We do not feel that respect, rooted in the distance between the lonely citizen and the majestic heights where the ruling class reside, barely visible through the clouds. Our view of the social structure is different from yours: society is a network, not a hierarchy. We are used to being able to start a dialogue with anyone, be it a professor or a pop star, and we do not need any special qualifications related to social status. The success of the interaction depends solely on whether the content of our message will be regarded as important and worthy of reply. And if, thanks to cooperation, continuous dispute, defending our arguments against critique, we have a feeling that our opinions on many matters are simply better, why would we not expect a serious dialogue with the government?

We do not feel a religious respect for ‘institutions of democracy’ in their current form, we do not believe in their axiomatic role, as do those who see ‘institutions of democracy’ as a monument for and by themselves. We do not need monuments. We need a system that will live up to our expectations, a system that is transparent and proficient. And we have learned that change is possible: that every uncomfortable system can be replaced and is replaced by a new one, one that is more efficient, better suited to our needs, giving more opportunities.

What we value the most is freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of access to information and to culture. We feel that it is thanks to freedom that the Web is what it is, and that it is our duty to protect that freedom. We owe that to next generations, just as much as we owe to protect the environment.

Perhaps we have not yet given it a name, perhaps we are not yet fully aware of it, but I guess what we want is real, genuine democracy. Democracy that, perhaps, is more than is dreamt of in your journalism.



___
"My, dzieci sieci" by Piotr Czerski is licensed under a Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa-Na tych samych warunkach 3.0 Unported License:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

quote:

Syrian government blocks live video streaming site Bambuser

Bambuser chief executive says Syrian activists are working around attempted blackout to continue to post videos

The Syrian government has blocked a premiere live stream website a day after one of its users broadcast images of a bombing believed to have been carried out by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Bambuser – a mobile live stream service based in Sweden – has been in close contact with activists on the ground in Syria for over eight months. The dissidents use the service to broadcast streaming video of conditions in their country in real time. With foreign media blocked, online citizen journalism has become a crucial medium for telling stories from within Syria's borders. Bambuser's executive chairman, Hans Eriksson, says approximately 90-95% of the live video coming out of Syria is streamed through Bambuser.

"The prime purpose of it is to get pictures out of the country, and show the world what's going on, both in terms of the violence but also of the determination of the citizens," Eriksson told the Guardian.

On Thursday, a number of those citizens informed Eriksson and his colleagues that Bambuser was no longer accessible. While the site has been blocked by the Assad regime before in a limited capacity, Eriksson says this time the government has attempted to eliminate access nationwide.

"From yesterday morning we heard that you couldn't access Bambuser.com and you couldn't use the Bambuser mobile application to stream live video," Eriksson said. Syrian activists have managed to work around the attempted blackout and videos are still emerging, Eriksson noted.

The blackout came after a Syrian citizen using Bambuser streamed video of the aftermath of a pipeline bombing in the besieged city of Homs. Archived footage from the scene shows a massive cloud of smoke billowing over the neighborhood of Baba Amr while gun shots and shelling can be heard in the background. Activists claimed the government was responsible for the bombing. The live stream was picked up by several international news organizations including al-Jazeera, CNN, the BBC and Sky News, who referred back to Bambuser.com.

"We can only assume that some people from the Syrian government were watching those pictures as well," Eriksson said. He believes the blackout was a concerted effort on the part of the regime to stifle any similar broadcasts. "We're just assuming that's the rationale behind it and we would be very much surprised if someone else had taken an action and blocked Bambuser."

It's not the first time an authoritarian regime has imposed a nationwide blackout on the site. Shortly before his ouster last year, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak blocked Bambuser. Bahrain, meanwhile, has been preventing access to the site for at least seven months.

According to Eriksson, "between 50 and 200" Syrian activists use Bambuser on a given day. He says the individuals Bambuser works with in Syria are highly organized and well aware of the potential risks they face. Last week a Syrian broadcaster filming from a rooftop was shot at. While he escaped unharmed, his partner was hit in the leg, Eriksson said.

"They're taking risks, but they know what risks they are taking," he said. "When it gets on every TV channel in the world, it means a lot to these guys down there being shot at, being arrested, being tortured, being killed."

Eriksson stresses that Bambuser is not in the live streaming business to make a profit, but are operating in the interest of free speech. "We've been watching live video now for 11 days in a row from Homs. Pretty much 10, 12 hours a day and it's basically constant gunfire and shelling," he said. "As a human being you understand that this is a situation that is not acceptable."

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News and info about Anonymous Hackers from #antisec and other groups.

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Ever wonder who has been DDOSing you? chances are they are bragging about it somewhere on some forum. this could be on IRC, facebook, twitter, or blasted all over PasteBin.

I'm not sure how Pastebin is still allowed to operate. They welcome the hacking community (mainly anonymous with antisec and lulzsec) with open arms and encourage the posting of confidential information.

If you're wanting to see if anyone is talking about you, try using the search option on www.pastebin.com for your name, business name, or government agency.

chances are very good that something will come up where some group is either planning to attack your servers, or they have already been there and released your private data.

Congress needs to act now on shutting these websites down, and stop allowing such a easy free flow of illegal information. make it harder on them, force them to host their own leak data, and increase the risk of getting caught.

quote:

Both businesses and Government underestimate what hackers are willing to do so they can get what they want. There are some people who are willing to get a job as a business so they can spy on the company or government facility next door.

In the picture above, you have a simple parking lot. notice the red car in the front row facing the business. the parking lot behind is a nuclear research lab. because the driver of this red car works for the business they are parked at, they have a reason to be parked there. the placement of the car is not random. they parked so their antennas are aimed at the lab behind them.

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The House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Intelligence was not pleased. (Insert "angry" emoticon here.)

At a Congressional hearing this morning that veered into contentious arguments and cringe-worthy moments, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spilled the beans on their social media monitoring project.

DHS Chief Privacy Office Mary Ellen Callahan and Director of Operations Coordination and Planning Richard Chavez appeared to be deliberately stonewalling Congress on the depth, ubiquity, goals, and technical capabilities of the agency's social media surveillance. At other times, they appeared to be themselves unsure about their own project's ultimate goals and uses. But one thing is for sure: If you're the first person to tweet about a news story, or if you're a community activist who makes public Facebook posts--DHS will have your personal information.

The hearing, which was held by the Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Intelligence headed by Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), was highly unusual. Hacktivist collective Anonymous (or at least the @AnonyOps Twitter feed) sent a sympathizer to the visitor gallery to liveblog the proceedings under the #spyback hashtag.

Interactions between the DHS officials and representatives were often strained--both Chavez and Callahan were scolded and chastised by Representatives from both parties. Reps. Billy Long (R-MO), Meehan, Jackie Speier (D-CA), and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) all pointed out issues relating to what they variously saw as potential First Amendment violations, surveillance of citizens engaged in protected political speech, the fact that an outside contractor handles DHS' social media monitoring, DHS' seeming inability to separate news monitoring from disaster preparedness, and a massively unclear social media monitoring mandate on the DHS' part.

Meehan Asks Additional Questions of Witnesses at Hearing on DHS Social Media Monitoring

quote:

Dutch businesses were blindsided by ACTA

Treaty negotiated in secret is rejected

THE DRACONIAN Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is suffering from the fact that it was negotiated in secret.

Business in Holland have expressed dissatisfaction with the trade agreement, and half admitted that they had never heard of it before, suggesting that negotiation of the treaty that is supposed to protect 'intellectual property' involved insufficient opportunities for industry discussion.

The Dutch Chamber of Commerce has published the results of its study of business perceptions about the agreement. Where there are opinions, they are not in favour of it.

A 55 per cent majority of Dutch entrepreneurs said that they did not know what had "prompted ACTA", and only 40 per cent said that they had heard of it. Just five per cent of the small businesses that ACTA was supposedly written to protect know what it is.

The Dutch Chamber of Commerce is pondering whether to approve the agreement, a decision that other countries have wrestled with.

Of the entrepreneurs surveyed, 22 per cent said they thought that the Netherlands should not approve ACTA and should instead consider other methods such as technology for protecting their intellectual property.

Only 14 per cent of businesses in Holland surveyed support the agreement as it stands. µ

Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/15Jq3)

quote:

Anonymous Promises Regularly Scheduled Friday Attacks

Anonymous, a group not known for discipline, is giving itself a weekly deadline, a new attack every Friday.

Following the Tuesday compromise of the website of tear gas maker Combined Systems, Inc., the Antisec wing of Anonymous struck a Federal Trade Commission webserver which hosts three FTC websites, business.ftc.gov, consumer.gov and ncpw.gov, the National Consumer Protection Week partnership website.

Claiming this hack in opposition of the controversial international copyright treaty known as ACTA, which had been widely protested around the world for its potential to curtail freedom of expression on the internet, Anonymous continued the political messaging that has marked much of its recent high-profile actions.

Anons claiming responsibility for the attack spoke to Wired.com in an online chat just as it happened, freely admitting that there was nothing technically remarkable in this hack. As one remarked, “own & rm and move on.” (rm being a unix command to delete data.)

But this week’s attacks came with a promise, first articulated in the defacement of CSI, and restated on the FTC websites: Every Friday will bring a new attack against government and corporate sites under the theme of #FFF, or Fuck the FBI Friday.

“We are already sitting on dozens of unreleased targets,” said an Antisec anon, who went on to describe an inventory of already compromised servers that could fill five months or more of #FFF releases.

“Yes, each and every Friday we will be launching attacks… with the specific purpose of wiping as many corrupt corporate and government systems off our internet,” the anon continued.

The choice of the FTC is an odd one, given the independent agency has no role in ACTA negotiations. Instead, it’s tasked with fighting unfair business practices, sanctioning companies like Google and Facebook for privacy violations, and running the Do-Not-Call list – hardly the stuff of Big Brother stomping on online rights forever.

While many attacks are likely to be simple defacements like the FTC website, Antisec claims to also be going through mail spools, SQL databases and password files on dozens of corporate and government servers which are unaware of their presence.

The anon speaking to Wired described the string of hacking as having “no foreseeable end in sight,” going on to say “the more we own, the more we steal credentials to even more targets.”

They’ve decided try to balance between protest defacements like the two this week, and sifting through the data for material that can damage firms and agencies. “It’s more than just delivering a message or speaking truth to power… we are trying to disrupt their ability to operate and do business or exist at all on the internet,” the same anon said.

Jerry Irvine, a member of the National Cyber Security Task Force told the New York Times last week that attacks would become more frequent, describing the amorphous collective as “unstoppable,” because of the poor state of security online.

In an environment of heightened political tensions around protest movements like the Arab Spring and moves to restrict the internet like ACTA, those vulnerabilities are likely to play more of a role in Anonymous’ political dialogue.

“We’ve been saying it for the longest (time),” the Antisec anon explained, “this is war.”

Agent Smith - Me too

twitter:

Furbybrain twitterde op vrijdag 17-02-2012 om 21:27:54 #OpAbandonShip !!! It's time to leave Twitter and Facebook and have a look at Diaspora... https://t.co/dXiwBygJ reageer retweet