as smartphone scandal grows, tech firms run for cover

while they reap windfall profits...
from antifascist calling: Recent revelations that Apple's iPhone and iPad, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating systems collect, store and transmit records of users' physical locations to central databases--secretly, and without consent--have ignited a firestorm over Americans' privacy rights in an age of hypersurveillance.

And with a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Florida by two iPhone users, The Register reports, Apple guru Steve Jobs was forced to respond to complaints after the firm's usual tactic--deafening silence--failed to assuage customer's anxieties.

The lawsuit alleges that "irreparable injury has resulted and continues to result from Apple's unauthorized tracking of millions of Americans," plaintiffs Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito averred. They are requesting their case be granted class-action status, a move likely to send shudders along the silicon spine of the secretive Cupertino high-tech powerhouse.

In response to the outcry, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple "is scaling back how much information its iPhones store about where they have been and said it will stop collecting such data when consumers request it, as the company tries to quell concerns it was tracking iPhone owners."

But as journalists Yukari Iwatani Kane and Jennifer Valentino-Devries point out, "a week of silence on the growing controversy, raised new questions and criticism about its data-handling practices."

related video: assange calls facebook 'most appalling spy machine' ever

assange: internet greatest spying machine

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange warned Cambridge students, who waited hours to hear him speak, internet is "greatest spying machine the world has ever seen," in article at guardian.co.uk. Assange continued, "It [the web] is not a technology that favours freedom of speech. It is not a technology that favours human rights. It is not a technology that favours civil life. Rather it is a technology that can be used to set up a totalitarian spying regime, the likes of which we have never seen. Or, on the other hand, taken by us, taken by activists, and taken by all those who want a different trajectory for the technological world, it can be something we all hope for." Has Assange been directed to convince Anglo-American elite the internet represents a threat? The present writer views Assange as an agent for the global elite and enjoys a relationship with Israel as related in a previous post here.

Assange also responded to an inquiry about Bradley Manning, "we have no idea whether he is one of our sources. All our technology is geared up to make sure we have no idea...there is no allegation that he was arrested as the result of anything to do with us. The allegation is that he was arrested as a result of him speaking to Wired magazine in the United States."

Is Assange's message shutdown the internet to stop "totalitarian spying regime"? Is there a war on technology? It seems, both, the web and nuclear power are under attack. The global elite do not fancy technology as it represents a challenge to their control and domination!

related defcon updates:
nasa to use lasers to shoot space junk around earth*
nytimes again seeks to charge for web news*
'homefront': new video game features nkorean invasion of US*

2/17 defcon: cyber-coup, backdoor & track more

cyber-attack hits canadian government computers*
report: egypt shut down net with big switch, not phone calls*
voice of america uses social media to aid foreign dissent*
surveillance footage & code clues indicate stuxnet hit iran*
cia head panetta warns of possible cyber-pearl harbor*
lynn urges partnership against cyber threat*
dod talks up plans to deploy cybercommandos 3.0*
video: hillary announces expanded US cyber-coup campaign*
US intelligence officials concerned about cyber attack*
'kill switch' internet bill alarms privacy experts*
cyberwar issues likely to be addressed only after a catastrophe*
fema loses official lesson reports on katrina, floods, fires*
feds seize 18 more domains in piracy crackdown*
fbi to announce significant new wiretap push:
backdoors galore in everything from skype to bittorrent*
online 'do not track' bill introduced in congress*
internet searches beginning to be used as evidence in trials*
obama/holder case against assange dribbles away*
jobs, schmidt & zuckerberg meet with obama in san francisco*
reminder: facebook & google are cia fronts*

2/3 defcon: killswitch, bandwidth, floodgates

as egypt returns to the internet: lieberman says US internet killswitch bill is different than egypt's internet killswitch*
US tests system that beats internet censorship by dictatorships*
certified lies: detecting & defeating govt interception attacks against ssl*
vodafone volluded with egyptian regime's information warfare psyop*
metered bandwidth isn't about stopping bandwidth hogs; it's about preserving old media business models*
US p2p traffic lower than world average*
US cyber challenge partners with lockmart & microsoft*
US recruiting young cyber warriors*
docs in assange rape investigation leak onto web*
video: assange's boring 60 minutes interview*
no, hackers can't open hoover dam floodgates*
nasa spots 54 life-friendly planets*
video: ufo hovers over jerusalem*

1/27 defcon: congress, connections & 'the company'

s3480: 'protecting cyberspace as a national asset act of 2010' - bill to give president right to shutdown net back in congress*
doj seeks to have all web surfing tracked*
mozilla proposes 'do not track' addition to firefox*
google comes under fire for 'secret' relationship with nsa*
apple hires a military grade security chief*
zuckerberg's facebook page hacked*
social networks under attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US; they don't connect people – they isolate them*
report: US can't link manning to assange*
police arrest five over 'anonymous' wikileaks attacks*
video: tarpley on wikileaks & assange -
limited hangouts in the service of 'the company'?*

update: internet down in egypt ahead of protests*

1/13 defcon: crimestop, doublethink, disconnect

child porn probe leads to fbi headquarters*
ex-tsa worker gets 2yrs for planting 'logic bomb' malware in colorado springs screening system*
US subpoenas twitter for wikileaks info*
how secret were the wikileaks state dept. cables?*
wikileaks contributes $15k to bradley manning's defense*
assange claims 504 'insurance files' on news corp.*
algorithms take control of wall street*
cyberdyne is real & making thought-controlled exoskeletons*
video: 'stop. think. connect.' - dhs announces new fear agenda of 'crimestop. doublethink. disconnect.'*

1/6 defcon: bad calls & fake claims

warrantless cell phone search gets green light in california*
voip decision means skype now illegal*
first solar eclipse of the year jan4*
quadrantid meteor shower due jan4 night*
reporter behind wmd claims calls assange 'bad journalist'*
fake white house holiday email is cyber attack*

wikileaks: a big dangerous US government con job

William Engdahl provides, perhaps, the best summation of America's plight in a recent article and podcast. In last month's article, "Wikileaks--a Big Dangerous US Government Con Job," Engdahl's observations are chillingly apt. Wikileaks is too well-scripted to be true. Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker, had impossible access and his leaked material's content is not "top secret". Manning is, now, incarcerated and incommunicado - all too convenient. Once, the 250,000 leaked pages reached Julian Assange and Wikileaks, "Assange decides to selectively choose several of the world’s most ultra-establishment news media to exclusively handle the leaking job for him...The New York Times even assigned one of its top people, David E. Sanger to control the release of the Wikileaks material... sits as a member of the elite Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Aspen Institute Strategy Group..." observes Engdahl.

The clear conclusion of the article is, "but for anyone who has studied the craft of intelligence and of disinformation, a clear pattern emerges in the Wikileaks drama. The focus is put on selected US geopolitical targets...".  F William Engdahl sees right through the entire operation. "The Wikileaks is a big and dangerous US intelligence Con Job which will likely be used to police the Internet." You may catch today's Deadline Live interview of Engdahl here, which makes a great audio companion to the article!

12/31 defcon: high chance, top threats & the cloud

top cyber threats of 2011*
living with our heads in 'the cloud'*
paul allen tries patent megasuit again*
apple sued for app privacy violations*
man quits job to sue spammers*
with 15 minutes of fame ticking; assange signs $1.5m-worth of book deals*
smith, assange, soros & claims that assange is helping the neocons*
assange: 'high chance' i'd be killed 'jack ruby-style’ in US prison*
video: 'reality of illusion 4: julian assange, the white brotherhood & the nazis'*

busted! wikileaks struck a deal with israel over cable leaks

Gordon Duff, at Veteran's Today, reveals why there were no damaging leaks concerning Israel!  Duff explains in article, "Busted! Wikileaks Struck a Deal With Israel Over Cable Leaks", “Assange met with Israeli officials in Geneva earlier this year and struck the secret deal." The sources added the documents, which originated mainly in embassies in Tel Aviv and Beirut, were removed. The only person with password to open the documents, is [Julian] Assange. "Assange had allegedly struck a deal with Israel before the recent ‘cable gate’, which may explain why the leaks “were good for Israel,” as the Israeli prime minister put it."

Other statements seem revealing, "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a press conference that Israel had 'worked in advance' to limit any damage from leaks, adding that “no classified Israeli material was exposed by WikiLeaks. In an interview with the Time magazine around the same time, Assange praised Netanyahu as a hero of transparency and openness!" 

Cynics will only find more ammunition by reading following report, "according to an Arabic investigative journalism website, Assange had received money from semi-official Israeli sources and promised them, in a 'secret, video-recorded agreement,' not to publish any document that may harm Israeli security or diplomatic interests." Suspicions have simmered since the the cablegate document dump and this report only seems to confirm them!

tarpley's take on wikileaks

Webster Tarpley reveals the self-exposure operation of Wikileaks on the Alex Jones Show recently. Julian Assange is a MK-Ultra zombie, the product of an Australian mind control cult led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne, in Tarpley's view. Assange's peroxide blonde hair color is noted as significant, as the Australian cult members' hair was dyed peroxide blonde or platinum, and reveals his cult ties. Assange is compared to Daniel Ellsberg and may be an expendible intelligence asset? Tarpley summarizes the Wikileaks document dumps, observing there are no damaging references to a George W. Bush or Richard Cheney and concludes they are most damaging to the CIA's enemies. Please take a moment to listen how Julian Assange and Wikileaks may be controlled intelligence assets and the present operation bears similarities to the Pentagon Papers of the early seventies. Tarpley believes Wikileaks is the product of White House information czar, Cass Sunstein. Sunstein pledged government infiltration of extremist groups, some time ago, and wrote the following paper: "Conspiracy Theories". It's must listen and available, here.

wikileaks is not a psy op?

Anok Black, in a blog entry at www.seismologik.com, offers the reader four reasons why Wikileaks is not a tool of the agenda. Black lists them: 1) it would be irrational and damaging for US government to use Wikileaks to build support for war, 2) it would be ineffective since patrons of Wikileaks already have anti-establishment views, 3) Julian Assange is anti-authoritarian not a CIA asset with supporting links to Assange's personal essays and an archive of Assange's blog, and 4) Wikileaks is not Julian Assange. Non-sequiturs flow from each of the four points. This is from someone who is, ostensibly, finishing a PHD in analytic philosophy!

Readers should ask why defend Wikileaks, because it's exposing injustice worldwide? It doesn't make sense for US government to use a platform such as Wikileaks? The conclusions do not follow from the arguments for each of the above reasons. Wikileaks history is suspicious at best. Where does the money for this project come from and how does Assange pay for his world travels? The only response to Black's blog entry may be the biggest knock against Wikileaks, Julian Assange aside, "...what seems missing from the leaks tells a stronger tale".

is internet 9/11 under way?

Zen Gardner shares signs in "Is the Internet 9/11 Under Way?" that Wikileaks may lead to another watershed event as 9/11? Gardner questions, rightfully so, the website's high visibility and constant media references. "Where's anyone else trying to expose the agenda? Only Julian [Assange]. Hmmm." Perhaps, the biggest red flag Gardner points out, is when Assange "...says the 9/11 truth issue is 'a distraction'". The sketchy backgrounds and a building crescendo, where Assange is labeled a new kind of terrorist and compared to bin Laden only adds to the cloud.