Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

Stasi App

I don’t know what to think about this one but the implications are frightening. Via Dvorak Uncensored I was lead to an article on a site I generally take with a grain of salt. The only reason it’s getting mentioned on here is the article is about a Stasi App for the iOS platform and I actually found it.

I’m calling it the Stasi App because the claim of the application developers is the app is integrated with services from various departments in the United States government. If the app does what it claims to do then it runs akin to the secrete police of the East Germany. Basically the app is supposed to follow the Department of Motherland Fatherland Homeland Security’s, “If you see something, say something” program. It supposedly allows you to report “suspicious activity,” “report crime,” and generally become a member of the secret police.

You’ll notice I’ve been careful with my language and constantly saying things in a tense that isn’t accusatory. The reason for that is because I doubt this app does what it claims to. I’d actually have to download it and try it to know for sure but there is no way in Hell I’m putting something like this onto my devices. One of the red flags is the fact the terror threat Crayola color guide is included even though that’s been dumped as the only color in the crayon box was orange.

Still such an idea is frightening to say the least. The fact somebody thought this was a good idea, made an application, and then made it available for download is scary. It’s good to see it’s been rated very poorly with people citing 1984 (why does our government have such a hardon for that book?). I do agree it is very 1984-esque right down to the doublespeak name of the app.

Honestly if I were Apple I’d have rejected such an app on grounds of it being too reminiscent of actions taken in socialist nations to control citizenry. Apple has rejected applications for less after all.

I Think It’s Time for a Denial of Service Attack

How’s this for creepy shit? Walmart is sucking the cock of teaming up with the Department of Homeland Security to place video displays in stores with Janet Napolitanio telling people if they see something say something. That’s right when you go to your local Walmart you’ll soon be indoctrinated by Homeland Security propaganda advising you to do something that doesn’t actually help secure anything.

Being a troublemaker and an overall anti-authoritarian man I have a proposal. I think it’s time for a denial of service attack against this new Homeland Security measure. The concept is simple. To quote Bruce Schneier, “if you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get amateur security.” If you try to get everyday Joes to report potential terrorism you’re going to get a ton of false positives. These false positives need to be investigated by the local police departments as a cover their ass measure. If the number of calls in areas where this Homeland Security bullshit is being implemented increases dramatically it’ll become an expensive failure.

Thus the proposal is simple, if your local Walmart (or any other store) implement these monitors start calling the police about every stupid little thing you see. Every person with a camera, speaking in a foreign language, looking nervous in any way, looking suspicious in anyways, tying their shoes funny, or wearing clothing that is of a color you don’t generally like gets reported to the police. Hell I’d say report yourself as well but the police won’t actually waste any effort investigating an obviously fake call (thus you want to keep your reports semi-believable but obviously amateur). Eventually the cost of investigating all these reports will grow high enough that the local police will want to videos removed.

I did find this last line interesting:

The program has already partnered with the Mall of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, sports and general aviation industries, and other organizations across the country, DHS said.

The Mall of America is right in my backyard (on the other end of the Twin Cities). I’ll have to actually go there sometime and see if these videos are playing and if they are start making some phone calls. Lord knows I’m still pissed that the Mall of America thinks they can ban firearms on the premises even though they are a landlord (who legally can’t ban in the state of Minnesota).

The Science is In

File this under another reason to be against the war on drugs and government policy involving things we can and can not put into out bodies. The United Kingdom got a little irked when they told a group of scientists to do some research into various drugs. Unfortunately for the government the research didn’t give the results they wanted so now they’re making a new proposal that would remove the requirement for scientific advice when doing drug classifications:

The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government’s treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

And I love this wording:

“Removing the requirement on the home secretary to appoint to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at least one person with experience in six specific areas will allow us greater flexibility in the expertise we are able to draw on.

In other words it will allow the government the flexibility to classify things however the fuck they please.

I just want to emphasis the main point in this post, the United Kingdom government didn’t like the results of scientific research so they are moving to abolish the requirement of scientific input on drug classification.

Wikileaks

I haven’t spoke up about my opinion on the recent Wikileaks fiasco. Frankly I don’t know what to think here. I’m all for the information being released because a government that keeps secrets from it’s citizens is a government that is up to something bad.

What I find most interesting is the recent movements against Wikileaks. Some people are calling for Assange to be charged with treason which is moronic because he’s not an American citizen (so note to Sarah Palin, Wikileaks itself committed no treasonous act). Others are clamoring for him to be charged with Espionage under the Espionage Act of 1917. I find this rather interesting for the following reason:

(a) of this section in time of war shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for not more than thirty years; and

(b) whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, shall collect, record, publish or communicate, or attempt to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the armed forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval of military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification of any place, or any other information relating to the public defence, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for not more than thirty years.

Emphasis mine. Under our Constitution the only way the United States can be at war is if Congress declares it. Congress has declared no war since World War II so can Assange really be lawfully charged under the Espionage Act? I’m not stating either way but I find it a most interesting observation.

Strangely enough you’ll notice many stories about people calling for the head of Assange. Do you want to know a little secret? Assange isn’t Wikileaks, he’s just their figurehead. Nabbing Assange will not shut down Wikileaks as there are far more people behind the scenes doing the real work of keeping the site up.

I’d also point out the fact that any potential damage has already been done. You can’t erase information from the Internet, especially a heavily mirrored site such as Wikileaks. Shutting down the main Wikileaks servers, high jacking the domain name, or any other such nonsense will accomplish absolutely nothing. The base technologies of the Internet were designed as a decentralized method of communication that would be difficult to take down should the Russian decide to let nukes fly. It’s incredibly resilient and does not lend itself well to censorship.

The United States government should realized the damage is done and there is nothing they can do to take the information back. They need to realize the only method of correcting this problem is to stop conducting backroom deals that would be embarrassing if they should ever come to light.

I Thought 1984 was 26 Years Ago

A student found a rather interesting thing attached to his car a short while back, an FBI GPS tracking device. Of course being a smart guy he posted photos of it online. Well it seems the FBI wants their stuff back:

It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back, the student told Wired.com in an interview Wednesday.

The answer came when half-a-dozen FBI agents and police officers appeared at Yasir Afifi’s apartment complex in Santa Clara, California, on Tuesday demanding he return the device.

You know the second I found it I would have destroyed it and claimed I didn’t know it was federal property. “What? It was an FBI tracking device? Oh, I’m sorry I destroyed it as it was attached to my vehicle and I had no idea what it was. Maybe you should leave a phone number to contact on them or something.” I also love how the FBI confirmed everything by not saying anything

An FBI spokesman wouldn’t acknowledge that the device belonged to the agency or that agents appeared at Afifi’s house.

“I can’t really tell you much about it, because it’s still an ongoing investigation,” said spokesman Pete Lee, who works in the agency’s San Francisco headquarters.

So it’s an ongoing investigation meaning… there’s an investigation into this guy.

If you find anything attached to your vehicle that you didn’t specifically put there I recommend that item’s destruction.

Down the Memory Hole

So our Department of Defense (DoD) decided to do a book burning at the taxpayers’ expense because some content irked them off. The publisher apparently didn’t see the possibility for infinite revenue though. Instead of publishing more copies of the book for the DoD to purchase Bruce Schneier informs us that the publisher has reached an agreement with the DoD. The agreement involves removing all the “offending” material from the book. What a poor business decision.

An Old Fashion Book Burning

In a bastion of free speech an expression no such thing as a book burning can take place:

The Defense Department is attempting to buy the entire first printing – 10,000 copies – of a memoir by a controversial former Defense Intelligence Agency officer so that the book can be destroyed, according to military and other sources.

So much for America being a bastion of free speech and expression. I’d say at least it’s going to cost them a lot of money to censor this book but it’s our taxpayer money so it’s actually costing us a lot of money to censor ourselves.

When We’re Big Brother

There are many things I’m not a fan of including the surveillance state. Apparently Ramsey County thinks differently than me since they now have a new service available via their web page. Yes by going to Ramsey County’s Web Cop page you can gain access to cameras dispersed throughout Ramsey Country:

We need your help. Join our “Neighborhood eWatch” and help prevent crime by reporting any suspicious activity you observe on one of our cameras. Log into the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office “Web Cop – View Commander Software” to view 10 of our wireless surveillance cameras. To enter the site click here. When prompted, enter the following:

Username: public
Password: public

If you witness suspicious activity, call the East Metro Real-Time Information Center (EMRIC) at 651-266-9450, where analysts are able to pan, tilt and zoom the cameras to get a better look at the incident.

If you see a crime in progress, call 911 immediately and ask for Ramsey County Dispatch.

Thank you for helping to make our community a safer place.

So Ramsey County is now trying to get average people to be Big Brother in their place. Beyond the obvious surveillance state implications here there is another problem with this system. Ramsey County is essentially relying on amateurs to be a front-line security force. Bruce Schneier did a nice write up explaining why relying on amateurs for front-line security will only nab you amateur results. In other words all the money spent on this setup will be meaningless because the police will most likely receive more false positives than useful reports of crime.

With that said there is one useful feature on this site, the crime reports. They post up reports on crimes that have occurred in Ramsey County and do a glorious job of justifying why you should get a carry permit and have a firearm on you as often as possible.

Making Recording the Police Illegal

There is a rather frightening article about the police and their love of cameras, so long as they’re the only ones who have them:

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

More or less the same group of individuals who often say nobody should fear being under surveillance unless they’re doing something wrong doesn’t like being under surveillance. This seems to imply they know they are doing something wrong using their logic. The justification for these laws is also sickening:

The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where “no expectation of privacy exists” (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

If you or I are out in public we can’t sue somebody for recording us specifically because there is no expectation of privacy under the law. Apparently since the police are better than us lowly surfs they are getting an exception in some states. This is a classic case of rules being applied differently depending on your status (in this case a police officer is a civilian but since they’re employees of the government the government is giving them special treatment). Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying all police officers are beating people on street corners but any officer supporting laws banning citizens from recording their actions while on duty makes it appear as though they have something to hide (by many officers’ own logic).

Society and technology are now at a point where a majority of people are carrying video recording devices in the form of cell phones. Coupled with the cellular Internet access we can share recorded videos with the entire world instantly. Even if the police confiscate your cell phone upon discovering you are recording them the video can already be uploaded to any number of websites making the confiscation meaningless.

This has been used quite a few times to record instances of police abuse which is later used to reprimand the recorded officers. So now the citizens can monitor the police force instead of only the police force being able to monitor the citizens. Some people join the police force because they want the authority and power that goes along with it. Of course these same people don’t want to responsibility and accountability that also goes along with it hence empowered citizens are a bad thing to them.

Banning the recording of police officers (or any public servant) while they are on duty is nothing more than government empowerment at the sacrifice of the peoples’ liberty (which is always the case). It’s one of the few methods we have at our disposal to play checks and balances with the police force. Otherwise it simply becomes a case of our word against theirs which almost always goes the way of the officer under question.