Tag: You’re Doing it Right

You Can’t Stop the Signal

If you research the development of communication technology you’ll notice two trends. First, when the technology first begins to gain popularity there are always government busybodies arguing that it must be controlled. Second, any attempt to control the technology utterly fails in the long wrong. When the printing press started gaining prominence the Inquisition wanted to control it to prevent the printing of heresy. While they achieved some limited success in controlling what was printed in certain languages, namely the languages the Inquisition officials that works in censorship knew such as Italian, the result was that people printed censored works in languages, such as German, that Inquisition officials were less familiar with. Today the same game is being played with modern communication technologies. Every government seems hellbent on censoring modern communication technologies and some states have been especially tyrannical in their efforts. Cuba is one of those states. But the watchful censors of the Cuban government have been continuously outsmarted by a bunch of kids:

HAVANA (AP) — Cut off from the Internet, young Cubans have quietly linked thousands of computers into a hidden network that stretches miles across Havana, letting them chat with friends, play games and download hit movies in a mini-replica of the online world that most can’t access.

Home Internet connections are banned for all but a handful of Cubans, and the government charges nearly a quarter of a month’s salary for an hour online in government-run hotels and Internet centers. As a result, most people on the island live offline, complaining about their lack of access to information and contact with friends and family abroad.

A small minority have covertly engineered a partial solution by pooling funds to create a private network of more than 9,000 computers with small, inexpensive but powerful hidden Wi-Fi antennas and Ethernet cables strung over streets and rooftops spanning the entire city. Disconnected from the real Internet, the network is limited, local and built with equipment commercially available around the world, with no help from any outside government, organizers say.

Never underestimate the power of kids wanting to communicate with one another. Unlike many adults, kids haven’t have the fear of the state beaten into them and therefore are more willing to flip it the bird and do as it wants. Combine this willingness to disobey with an amazing capacity to learn new technologies quickly and you have a recipe for rendering state censorship efforts impotent.

As long as we have states we will likely have attempts to censor communications. But you can’t stop the signal. Humans have an innate desire to communicate with one another and will smash through any barrier that lies between them and their friends.

Court Rules FBI Can’t Cut Your Cable and Show Up Pretending to Be The Repair Crew

In October of last year the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) pulled off the mother of all warrantless searches. The agency cut the cable service for suspects they wanted to surveil, showed up pretended to be the repair crew, and collected evidence while pretending to fix the lost service in order to get a warrant to search the property. Well a federal magistrate decided that that little stunt crossed the line and tossed the search warrant:

A federal magistrate is tossing a Las Vegas search warrant that led to the arrest of as many as eight people accused of running an illegal, online bookmaking operation last year from posh villas at Caesar’s Palace. The court found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s warrant application was “fatally flawed” and was “supplemented with material omissions.”

To obtain a search warrant, the authorities cut DSL access and posed as the cable guy, gathering evidence along the way that made up the basis for the bulk of a search warrant that resulted in the arrest of high-stakes gambler Paul Phua, his son Darren, and others.

Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen ruled that the failure to mention that the original case was born from the “ruse” meant the judge who signed a search warrant this summer didn’t have all of the facts. Nowhere in the search warrant request, however, did the authorities mention that they allegedly saw illegal wagering on computers after posing as technicians who in reality briefly disconnected the DSL.

It seems like the magistrate was more unhappy about the FBI lying to the original judge than she was about the stunt being a complete violation of due process. Fortunately for the FBI they can appeal this up the chain. Eventually it should find a court more sympathetic to its needs and rule the warrant as good.

Make no mistake, the fact that the FBI agents involved in this stunt weren’t arrested themselves demonstrates just how much of a police state we live in. When law enforcement can do things like this without consequence then there is no hope of curtailing their abuses of power.

Minnesota Law Makers Making Big, Empty Promises

I actively avoid following politics these days. There’s just no point. Everything politicians say is vapid and empty. Nothing they do changes anything in any meaningful way. But sometimes they do something that amuses me a bit and the Minnesota laws makers have done exactly that. They’re hinting at doing all the business of their two year terms in one year:

Minnesota lawmakers may consider completing the entire 2015-16 Legislative session this year alone, opting to stay home next year as renovation is expected to shut down much of the Capitol.

So far, the idea has simply been floated among House and Senate leadership, Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie said Tuesday, shortly after the House and Senate opened the session.

Hann said it was routine for the Legislature to meet only once every two years before the 1970s, when lawmakers alternated between a short session during bonding years, and long sessions during budget years.

I fully support this. In fact they should take every year after 2016 off as well. Hell, I’d even be willing to pay them to not show up. It’s a win-win for Minnesota since the only thing law makers do when they’re at the marble building in St. Paul is cause damage.

Arrests Apparently Down in New York City

Let me preface this post by saying that the source in the New York Post so take it with a grain of salt. But according to the Post arrests are down in New York City. Apparently the police officers of thew New York Police Department (NYPD) are slacking off in response to two of their fellows being killed:

Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.

It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.

Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.

Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.

Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241.

A lot of people are talking about this as if it were a bad thing. The only thing bad about this is that it sends a message to the people of New York City that if they want to reduce the rate of extortion they suffer they need to kill a couple of cops. But any reduction in the rate of extortion is a good thing and people should be happy to see NYPD scaling back operations. Especially when you see that the laws they’re not enforcing rigorously are the victimless ones such as traffic violations and public drinking.

Hopefully NYPD continues to slack off and even slacks off more. When the biggest and most violent gang in a city starts tapering off everybody wins.

Using Gun Buybacks for Agorism

Gun buybacks are one of the dumbest ideas that have ever popped into the heads of gun control advocates. These buybacks works off of the idea that state can steal money from the people then use a portion of that stolen money to buy some of the people’s guns. But they’re an easily exploitable. While the idea is to further increase the disparity of force between the state and its subjects, smart individuals can use these programs to recover some of the money stolen from them. Much to the chagrin of gun control advocates, gun owners are actively working to recover some of their wealth:

The self-described “gun rights activist,” who we are not naming, brought in a duffel bag full of home made, “slam-fire” shotguns (all of legal length). He was paid $50 for each of these improvised guns. This low ball price shows just how unrealistic it is for anyone but criminals to turn guns in to the police when they have these buy back programs.

While this was a low buy back, sometimes programs go as high as several hundred dollars. Activists have turned in a few dollars worth of pipes for what added up to thousands out of the police department’s pockets.

Agorists should take note of this. With a few dollars in parts from the hardware store you can net $50 or more from any police station holding a buyback. Not only does this extract wealth from the state but it specifically extracts it from one of the worst parts of the state, the police.

I’m Available for Picking Lottery Ticket Numbers

Remember when I said Sony pulling The Interview was a marketing gimmick and it would be releasing it in theaters? I was right:

According to LA Times reporter Joe Bel Bruno Sony Pictures has confirmed the plan, and indie theaters “are lining up” to show North Korea’s least-favorite movie while CEO Michael Lynton is trying to get the widest release possible. Citing anonymous sources, several outlets have reported the plans include a video-on-demand release, and will be announced publicly later today.

This “limited” release will turn into a full on release after patrons flood the theaters showing it because they want to see the “banned” movie.

Happy Birthday Chelsea Manning

Although I know she’ll not see this on account of the fact that she’s rotting in a cage for informing us of American war crimes I still want to take a moment in joining people in wishing Chelsea Manning a happy 27th birthday.

Without her bravery we may have never learned about some of the war crimes being perpetrated by the United States military. But her plight is also a reminder that the state, not matter how transparent it claims to be, does not like it when people air its dirty laundry. Although it seems doubtful maybe someday there will be a president in office that will pardon her. Or maybe a group of people will get together and come up with a workable plan to break Chelsea out of her cage. Anybody who managed to do that would be heroes in my book.

The Impact of Edward Snowden

As if anybody had any questions about whether or not Edward Snowden’s actions resulted in a safer Internet we now have a survey with some interesting results:

There’s a new international survey on Internet security and trust, of “23,376 Internet users in 24 countries,” including “Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States.” Amongst the findings, 60% of Internet users have heard of Edward Snowden, and 39% of those “have taken steps to protect their online privacy and security as a result of his revelations.”

[…]

I ran the actual numbers country by country, combining data on Internet penetration with data from this survey. Multiplying everything out, I calculate that 706 million people have changed their behavior on the Internet because of what the NSA and GCHQ are doing. (For example, 17% of Indonesians use the Internet, 64% of them have heard of Snowden and 62% of them have taken steps to protect their privacy, which equals 17 million people out of its total 250-million population.)

After we learned about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) massive domestic spying program a lot of people who previously didn’t care about security suddenly began showing an interest. I saw this firsthand when participating in several local CryptoParties. Past attempts to even get enough people to bother throwing one failed miserably but after Snowden let us all in on the game interest spiked. I’m still busy assisting people interested in computer security because of Snowden. And that’s just individuals who developer a personal interest. Many companies have greatly increased their security including Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

In addition to better security Snowden’s leaks have also been good for agorism.

So I think it’s pretty clear that Snowden’s actions ended up benefiting us all greatly.

Bathroom Wars in Minneapolis End Well

What bathroom should we use? That seemingly irrelevant question has drummed up a lot of political drama as of late. Arizona was looking to pass a law that would make it a criminal offense to use the “wrong” bathroom. A bigoted dipshit attempted to scare everybody into opposing a policy that wouldn’t criminalize “improper” bathroom and locker room use. In Minneapolis the question came up and, thankfully, ended in a relatively sane manner:

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — Minnesota’s high school sports league passed a set of guidelines for transgender student-athletes on Thursday, bringing months of fevered debate to a close.

Dozens of supporters and proponents packed the Minnesota Sports High School League’s boardroom, hoping for one last chance to sway members with signs, buttons and speeches about how the rules would give students a sense of acceptance or could cost them a spot on their high school volleyball team.

The policy, which will take effect next school year, allows transgender athletes to pick the team that fits with their gender identity and provides an appeal process for students whose schools turn down their request.

The new process for establishing eligibility will include written statements from a student’s parents or guardians and health care professionals regarding the student’s “consistent or sincerely held gender-related identity.”

I’m not a fan of begging for permission but at least this is a damn side saner than sending out costume clad men with guns and a liability shield to arrest individuals who fail to use bathrooms in a manner prescribed by a bunch of suit wearing bigots in a marble building. And this decision sticks it to the fucksticks that posted a full page ad full of fear mongering, which is awesome.

Irony at It’s Finest

Anonymity is very important, which is why I hold Tor’s developers in high regard. Tor has helped political dissidents in especially tyrannical regimes speak out, made the drug trade safer by raising a barrier of anonymity between buyers and sellers, and gives people with jealous significant others a way to keep their communications secret. So when I see somebody harass any of the Tor developers my initial reaction is “Fuck that guy!”

Well an unsavory dude decided to harass Andrea Shepard, one of Tor’s developers, and learned a lesson about how valuable online anonymity is:

What happens when you troll Tor developers hard? You get unmasked.

Towards the end of last week, a troll who had sent various aggressive tweets to a host of security experts and privacy advocates associated with the Tor project and browser, which enables online anonymity, had his identity exposed. To some, that may seem hypocritical. To others, it seems like justice.

Andrea Shepard, the Tor developer who uncovered the real identity of her troll, says she was being harassed on and off for a year by a range of tweeters, all believed to be the sockpuppets of one man. The main source of abuse came from a Twitter account @JbJabroni10, but others included @JbGelasius, @SnowdenNoffect, @LimitYoHangout, @HaileSelassieYo, @thxsnowman and @PsyOpSnowden.

[…]

Things came to a head when some lighter mockery was aimed at Shepard last week, using information the troll had gleaned from her LinkedIn profile and personal website.

Unfortunately for the troll, this gave Shepard an IP address belonging to an iPhone that used a work network at atlantichealth.org to access her site. She also had some job information through LinkedIn’s “profiles that viewed yours” feature.

After searching LinkedIn for anyone with the role at Atlantic Health, she came across two profiles: one which didn’t have a name connected to it, another for a man named Jeremy Becker. She then used the Spokeo service to search for Jeremy Beckers in New Jersey, and a search for pharmacist licensees, and found only one, which gave her the middle initial ‘T’ and a hometown of Princeton, New Jersey.

She also had his father’s name, Edward Becker, and was able to find a Twitter account @ebecker which followed @JbJabroni10 and an inactive one for @JoyBecker52, apparently matching his mother Joyce Becker. Shepard had her man.

And then on 28 November, seven of the Twitter accounts linked to Becker seemed to go dark. He’d been scared off the face of the internet, to the cheers of the pro-Tor and anti-troll crowds.

Now that’s justice porn. And it should prove to be a valuable lesson to others who feel it necessary to harass security professionals. If somebody’s job is developing one of the most successful online anonymity tools chances are pretty good that they know how to uncover personally identifiable information. After all, you need to know how an attack works in order to defend against it.