4/14 defcon: opt-out botnet & fakebook revolutions

law would let you 'opt-out' of online web tracking*
private records of 3.5m people exposed by texas*
in a surprise appeal: tjx hacker claims US authorized his crimes as 'key undercover secret service informant'*
'facebook revolutions' & people-powered coups: US trains activists to evade security forces*
with an actual court order, fbi hijacks 'coreflood' botnet, sends kill signal*
police increasingly peeping at email, instant messages*
report: chinese far outstrip US cyber-spy fight for military, business secrets*
rhode island lawmakers look at law to school cyberbullying*
dozens apply for space pilot jobs at virgin galactic*
kochab star in little dipper about to go supernova;
last supernova observed by galileo in 1604*
audio satire: fbi director wishes he had some alien thing to cover up*

satire?: cia 'facebook' program dramatically cut agency's costs

from onn: The CIA's invention of Facebook has saved the government millions of dollars.

goldman invests in facebook at $50b valuation

why are taxpayers subsidizing facebook & the next bubble?
from nytimes: Goldman Sachs has reached out to its wealthy private clients, offering them a chance to invest in Facebook, the hot social networking giant that is considering a possible public offering in 2012, according to people familiar with the matter. On Sunday night, a number of Goldman clients received an email from their Goldman broker, offering them the opportunity to invest in an unnamed “private company that is considering a transaction to raise additional capital.” Another person briefed on the deal said that Goldman clients would have to pony up a minimum of $2 million to invest and would be prohibited from selling their shares until 2013. A Goldman spokesman declined to comment. Facebook has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor in a transaction that values the company at $50 billion, according to people involved in the transaction. As part of its deal with Facebook, Goldman is expected to raise as much as $1.5 billion from investors for Facebook.

12/16 defcon: strategic partnersnitch

warrant needed to get your email, appeals court says*
'killswitch' inside intel's new processor*
allegations of fbi backdoor in openbsd denied by named participants*
napolitano calls for strategic partnerships in cybersecurity defense*
bill would require government & private sector to require 'minimum cybsersecurity standards' for devices that connect to the internet*
army wants smartphones for soldiers*
yet another iphone snitch app released*
facebook biometrics finds friends in pics*
ufo shot down over israeli nuke plant*

cyber attack threat next pearl harbor

Head of British Intelligence and Security Committee Sir Malcom Rivkind warns of cyberthreat, infiltrating industrial systems, "...to interrupt the National Grid to prevent proper instructions going to power stations, which are under computer control," in article "Cyber attack threat 'could be next Pearl Harbor'" at Telegraph.co.uk. Rivkind relates fear of very senior American intelligence figure, "...cyberattacks...were to be United States' next Pearl Harbor". October declared National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Internet, as we know it, lives on borrowed time!

'hate blogger' hal turner burned by government he served

racist provocateur & radio host, hal turner, worked for fbi
from kurt nimmo: On Friday [aug13], a jury found “National Security Intelligence” asset Hal Turner guilty of threatening to kill a judge. Prosecutors argued the former radio host threatened federal judges Richard Posner, William Bauer and Frank Easterbrook after they upheld a law banning handguns in Chicago. “Let me be the first to say this plainly: these judges deserve to be killed,” Turner posted on his website in June 2009. He also posted the judges’ phone numbers and office addresses. Two previous attempts by the government to convict Turner resulted in mistrials with deadlocked juries.

Hal Turner’s conviction and possible ten year prison term is yet another example of the government habitually burning trusted assets.

Turner was not a garden variety operative working for the FBI. He was a National Security Intelligence asset and worked for the FBI on “National Security, terrorism, foreign counterintelligence. There are people that are giving information that affects the national security of the United States, terrorism, matters that are going to affect the population or people overall, something that’s really going to hinder and hurt a large group of people or the national security of the United States,” Assistant Special Agent in Charge Amy Pickett, the third highest ranking FBI Official in New York City, said in December, 2009. His code name was “Valhalla” and “he received thousands of dollars from the FBI to report on such groups as the Aryan Nations and the white supremacist National Alliance, and even a member of the Blue Eyed Devils skinhead punk band,” according to The Record. Turner’s service was apparently so valuable to the government he was sent to Brazil where he reported a scheme to send non-military supplies to Iraqi resistance fighters.

Government burning formerly prized minions and those who follow illegal directives is nothing new. After Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued orders to torture Iraq detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions, a number of military personnel were prosecuted. Eleven soldiers were convicted of various charges relating to torture at Abu Ghraib. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison.

In 1934, Hitler betrayed and had the Gestapo murder trusted members of of the Sturmabteilung, also known as the Brownshirts, a paramilitary group responsible for engaging in terrorism and mass murder as Hitler ascended to power. “The measures taken on June 30, July 1 and 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defense by the State,” Hitler declared after the Gestapo killed hundreds of people.

In much the same way, the formerly trusted operative Hal Turner was declared a threat to the state, although he has yet to suffer the fate of Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, who was assassinated.

If anything, the case of Hal Turner should serve as a warning to those considering cooperating with the government in its ongoing effort to infiltrate and “neutralize” — as the late FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover characterized the actions of his COINTELPRO — any organized opposition to the establishment.

shadowy spy group building dossiers on internet users for feds

from paul joseph watson: An organization that tracks 250 million IP addresses a day has been developing portfolios on Internet users and handing the information to U.S. federal agencies as the latest incarnation of the supposedly defunct Total Information Awareness spy program is revealed.

A group calling itself Project Vigilant went public at yesterday’s Defcon security conference in an effort to add more recruits to its 600 member strong cyber spy force. The outfit announced that it had been tracking “Internet villains” for no less than 14 years and handing the information to federal authorities as part of a massive intelligence gathering program.

However, the target of one such investigation did not fall into the category of cyber criminals - “terrorists, drug cartels, mobsters” - that the group claims to be fighting.

The organization “encouraged one of its 'volunteers', researcher Adrian Lamo, to inform the federal government about the alleged source of a controversial video of civilian deaths in Iraq leaked to whistle-blower site Wikileaks in April,” reports Forbes.

Project Vigilant director Chet Uber used Lamo’s friendship with Bradley Manning, the former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who allegedly released the classified video, to out Manning, who now faces criminal charges...

Uber also founded InfraGard, the ominous FBI-affiliated public-private partnership that is a key component of the unfolding implementation of martial law in the United States. InfraGard made its intentions to act as a political police force clear in March 2009 when the group announced that questions surrounding Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility were “potentially harmful to civil order and national security”.

Uber’s organization poses as a volunteer orientated crime-fighting private outfit, and yet it is nothing more than a tentacle of the military-industrial complex’s sprawling unconstitutional internal spy apparatus.

related updates:
project vigilant is a fraud*
wikileaks posts mysterious 'insurance' file*
wikileaks' julian assange & conspiracy theories*
diarydig.org: 'afghan war diary' search tool*
jacob appelbaum, wikileaks volunteer, detained at US border for 3hrs*
pentagon demands wikileaks return all documents*

google's wi-spying & intel ties prompt call for congressional hearing

consumer watchdog wants hearings on google's ties to cia/nsa
from prnewswire: Citing new information about Google's classified government contracts and the Internet giant's admitted Wi-Spying activity, Consumer Watchdog today said it is more imperative than ever for the Energy and Commerce Committee to conduct hearings into possible privacy violations by Google. In a letter to Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Ranking Member Joe Barton, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group's John M. Simpson wrote:

"Based on today's Washington Post, it appears that Google holds classified U.S. government contracts to supply search and geospatial information to the U.S. government. In addition, White House records show that Google executives have been holding meetings with U.S. national security officials for undisclosed reasons. Finally, it also appears that Google's widely criticized efforts to collect wireless network data on American citizens were not inadvertent, contrary to the company's claims... As history has repeatedly shown, alliances between the U.S. intelligence community and giant corporations that collect data on American citizens can be a toxic combination where the U.S. Constitution is concerned.

US infowar op takes down site used to plan attacks on americans in iraq

surprise: the site was set up & run by cia/saudi intel!
from washington post: By early 2008, top U.S. military officials had become convinced that extremists planning attacks on American forces in Iraq were making use of a Web site set up by the Saudi government and the CIA to uncover terrorist plots in the kingdom.

“We knew we were going to be forced to shut this thing down,” recalled one former civilian official, describing tense internal discussions in which military commanders argued that the site was putting Americans at risk. “CIA resented that,” the former official said.

Elite U.S. military computer specialists, over the objections of the CIA, mounted a cyberattack that dismantled the online forum. Although some Saudi officials had been informed in advance about the Pentagon’s plan, several key princes were “absolutely furious” at the loss of an intelligence-gathering tool, according to another former U.S. official...

The Saudi-CIA Web site was set up several years ago as a “honey pot,” an online forum covertly monitored by intelligence agencies to identify attackers and gain information, according to three of the former officials. The site was a boon to Saudi intelligence operatives, who were able to round up some extremists before they could strike, the former officials said.

'virtual flag terrorism' is next threat

webster tarpley: US readies cyberwar, virtual flag terrorism
from russia today: Cyber wars and cyber security are no longer fictional plots from science fiction movies. They are very real and very serious concerns for the American people, being tracked by politicians and the government in Washington. Webster Tarpley gives his opinion on the seriousness of the cyber threat.

related: china warns google over search censorship

defcon 3/9: einstein, cybershield & serious defects

download: comprehensive national cybersecurity initiative

obama's cybersecurity initiative puts nsa in driver's seat*
fmr dni calls for 're-engineering' the internet*
time's running out - einstein's coming:
cybershield disclosed by white house*
uncle cyber sam wants you*
cyberczar schmidt says 'there is no cyberwar'*
cyberwar may have same impact as well-placed bomb*


cybersecurity program has serious defects, gao says*
mars phobos flyby a success*
pentagon-backed venture aims for 'google underground'*
cyberwar declared as china hunts for the west's intelligence secrets*
korean baby dies as parents raise virtual child online*
global agency reconsiders .xxx for porn sites*
woman tries to shut down cern over apocalypse fears*
internet aids terrorist recruiting & radicalization, pentagon says*