January 2016 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

some bold idiot sold El Chapo bunk kit
by coderman 12 Jan '16

12 Jan '16

''' Penn noted in his article his own concerns about being tracked in the plane but said that Chapo's son put him at ease by pointing out a "red scrambler switch below the cockpit controls" that he claimed blocked ground radar and that an inside man provided them with information about when the military's high-altitude surveillance plane has been deployed. "He has great confidence that there are no unwanted eyes on us," Penn wrote. Military technology and weaponry expert, Dr. Robert J. Bunker, was confused. "It doesn't make any sense," Dr. Bunker, Adjunct Faculty for the Division of Politics & Economics at Claremont Graduate University, told VICE News. "If this existed it would be on all our planes." Bunker said he knew of no invisible radar scrambling systems for small planes, and listed several hypothetical ways it could function before discounting them by saying they would be in "the realm of 'Dr. Evil' planning and technology that borders on simple fantasy." Bunker suggested that somebody may had "sold the narcos a 'high technology scrambling system'—but it really doesn't work." Another possibility could be that Penn was told a story to calm his fears. ''' --- https://news.vice.com/article/the-actress-who-linked-up-sean-penn-with-el-c… The Actress Who Linked Up Sean Penn with El Chapo Was Under Surveillance Since 2014 By Nathaniel Janowitz January 12, 2016 | 1:05 am Kate del Castillo — the actress who took Sean Penn to interview El Chapo — had already been under surveillance for her links to the drug lord for 14 months before the meeting took place in a mountain hideout. In the wake of the kingpin's recapture on Friday, Mexican authorities said that the monitoring of contacts with actors and producers aided the manhunt launched in the the wake of his tunnel escape from prison in July. An unnamed official told The Associated Press that the Penn interview in October directly led to an operation that almost caught up with him then. Related: Sean Penn Interviewed El Chapo – And It Helped Lead to the Drug Lord's Capture Now El Universal has published details of the surveillance of Del Castillo it claims was well-established before his escape from the Altiplano maximum-security prison and continued after he was a fugitive. It said their contact included letters exchanged while he was in jail, as well as several meetings between the actress and Guzmán's lawyers prior to their mountain encounter. The article is backed up by photos purported to be taken before and during the meetings, as well as snaps of her and Penn meeting Guzmán's associates upon arrival in Mexico on October 2 on their way to interview El Chapo. The paper said the surveillance of Del Castillo began in August 2014. El Chapo reportedly instructed one of his lawyers, Andrés Granados Flores, to contact her about making a biopic about his life. Through Guzmán's legal team the actress and drug lord wrote to each other regarding the project. Related: How Kate del Castillo Became the Rebel Celebrity Who Took Sean Penn to 'Chapo' The first face-to-face meeting between Del Castillo and Granados reportedly took place on June 16, 2015 — still nearly a month before Chapo's jailbreak — in an upscale restaurant named the San Ángel Inn, located in the south of Mexico City. The paper claimed it has seen photographs from the meeting showing the actress wearing a black blouse and a white skirt, while the lawyer wore a black suit. El Universal said that Del Castillo and Granados met again after Chapo was on the run, on September 25, in the Western City of Guadalajara. A published photograph purports to show her after arriving on the airline Aeroméxico, flight 783, from Los Angeles. Another from the following day claims to show her sitting in a restaurant with Granados and another member of Guzmán's legal team, Óscar Manuel Gómez Núñez. The report said she saw the lawyers twice on that occasion. First for dinner and the following morning when they gave her a phone with some sort of special features that would allow her to communicate directly with Joaquin Guzmán. The timing of this meeting appears to be reinforced by Sean Penn's Rolling Stone article in which he says that on September 28 he got confirmation from his contact with Del Castillo that he would be able to meet Chapo. Penn wrote that he and Del Castillo flew from Los Angeles to an unnamed "city in mid-Mexico" in a chartered plane four days later. According to the article in El Universal, the city was Guadalajara and the plane was a Hawker 900XP private jet. The paper published a photo it said was of the actors meeting the lawyer. From there they reportedly went to the Hotel Villa Ganza where they registered, dropped off their equipment, and left. >From Guadalajara the paper cited the surveillance tracking the two actors in two vans to Tepic, the capital of Nayarit state. Penn also said they travelled to another city that he did not name. Both accounts say the group boarded two private planes — El Universal says one was white and the other yellow — at a tourist resort with a private airstrip that took them into the Golden Triangle mountain region. According to Penn's article, they were accompanied by one of El Chapo's sons, Alfredo Guzmán. Penn noted in his article his own concerns about being tracked in the plane but said that Chapo's son put him at ease by pointing out a "red scrambler switch below the cockpit controls" that he claimed blocked ground radar and that an inside man provided them with information about when the military's high-altitude surveillance plane has been deployed. "He has great confidence that there are no unwanted eyes on us," Penn wrote. Military technology and weaponry expert, Dr. Robert J. Bunker, was confused. "It doesn't make any sense," Dr. Bunker, Adjunct Faculty for the Division of Politics & Economics at Claremont Graduate University, told VICE News. "If this existed it would be on all our planes." Bunker said he knew of no invisible radar scrambling systems for small planes, and listed several hypothetical ways it could function before discounting them by saying they would be in "the realm of 'Dr. Evil' planning and technology that borders on simple fantasy." Bunker suggested that somebody may had "sold the narcos a 'high technology scrambling system'—but it really doesn't work." Another possibility could be that Penn was told a story to calm his fears. After the flight, they arrived in the Golden Triangle. After a long road trip they met El Chapo for seven hours of chatting, tequila, and tacos, before agreeing to meet eight days later for a two-day long interview. This interview never took place because three days after Chapo, Penn and Del Castillo met, the kingpin narrowly slipped a navy operation to capture him. An unnamed source in Mexican federal law enforcement told The Associated Press that it was the Penn interview that triggered that operation. Some, however, are not so sure. Mexican columnist Raymundo Riva Palacio wrote on Monday on the website ejecentral that the authorities had already identified Chapo's precise location in the Sierra before the interview. While he says that surveillance of Del Castillo would have provided useful information in the manhunt for the fugitive after his escape, her presence in the area alongside a major movie star actually postponed the operation to try and capture him. "The US requested that the operation to capture him be postponed 72 hours," Riva Palacio told VICE News, insisting he had two reliable Mexican sources confirming this. "My theory is that they are putting the emphasis on the actors because they are protecting somebody, perhaps undercover people." In the end Chapo escaped that operation and was not tracked down until Friday, January 8, in the northern city of Los Mochis, Sinaloa. A gopro video was released on Monday showing the initial stage of the raid on a safe house where Guzmán was hiding. Gun shots and arrests take place for 15 minutes as they search for El Chapo in the video. The drug lord had slipped out of the house into the city's sewage system through a hole tunnel reportedly built in a closet. He was caught hours after resurfacing, stealing a vehicle, and attempting to flee the city. Penn's article created a major stir when it was published on Saturday night. The star said he had "nothin' to hide" in a brief email exchange with The Associated Press. Del Castillo has yet to make any comment at all, other than to tell a reporter from Univision, "Everything when and how it should be. Don't call me again."

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Re: US Pres. Cand. Marco Rubio Comes Out For Surveillance State, Bashes Snowden
by John Young 12 Jan '16

12 Jan '16

This is how everyone talks after being "read into" secretkeeping conditions, no matter what they said before then. After a few years of abiding these conditions, a few begin to send canary cheeps about needing less secrecy and more openness but do not go back across that one-way in, no way out border -- for life, as a primary condition to being read into. A much smaller number go across the red line of secretkeeping but become hounded -- for life -- as traitors, or worse. That is also a condition of being read into the black-hearted world (with corollary benefits). These conditions are described in secrecy agreements. At some point, all presidential candidates are read into secretkeeping or are advised to speak as though they have. What this diabolism has led to is a large enterprise worldwide of liars and dissimulators, leaks, fake leaks, spy stories, gov-com-org spying and secretkeeping revolving door industry, led by and enforced by the three branches and their like worldwide. This world is georaphically borderless but has a near impenetrable border at the edge of secretkeeping. There is, as customary of secretkeeping, gulags for violators populated with pseudo-violator implants to keep track of miscreants who must be held to a high standard of obedience. repentance and reeducation, indefinitely, to embrace and intenralize pantopticonic self-censorship, to speak and behave dissimulatively, ambivalently, duplicitously. Whistleblower organizations is one type of implanted gulag. Others are legal, financial and political support systems for whistleblowers and those wishing to whistleblow, leak, violate oaths, ignore NDAs. Entrapment of prospective whistleblowers is facilitated by the press which relishes its privivleges not available to the whistleblower. El Chapo got hoodwinked by "journalist" Sean Penn, as Snowden was, as Manning was, as was Sterling, Kiriakou, Brown, Hammond -- the list is getting longer thanks to the perfect entrapment and tracing device, digital technology. It will be interesting to see what the great human flood borderless immigrants will lead to, by that is meant the cellphone seduction operation, the vast array of cell antennas currently visible for easy attack, digitally and physically but hardly as easy pickings as cellphones themselves spying, informing, guiding the Rubios and Snowdens. At 03:12 AM 1/12/2016, you wrote: >http://www.dailydot.com/politics/marco-rubio-freedom-act-surveillance/ >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqM7IFUasE0 >http://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/01/11/1541256/marco-rubio-we-need-to-… > >"We are now at a moment in this country where we don't just need to >keep the authorities we already have, we need to add to these >programs," > >"I never believed Edward Snowden was a good public servant... that he >had done a public service for America," Rubio said. "Edward Snowden is >a traitor. He took our intelligence information and gave it to the >Chinese and gave it to the Russians. We cannot afford to have a >commander-in-chief who thinks people like Edward Snowden are doing a >good public service."

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US Pres. Cand. Marco Rubio Comes Out For Surveillance State, Bashes Snowden
by grarpamp 12 Jan '16

12 Jan '16

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/marco-rubio-freedom-act-surveillance/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqM7IFUasE0 http://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/01/11/1541256/marco-rubio-we-need-to-… "We are now at a moment in this country where we don't just need to keep the authorities we already have, we need to add to these programs," "I never believed Edward Snowden was a good public servant... that he had done a public service for America," Rubio said. "Edward Snowden is a traitor. He took our intelligence information and gave it to the Chinese and gave it to the Russians. We cannot afford to have a commander-in-chief who thinks people like Edward Snowden are doing a good public service."

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Re: FOIA adventures
by dan＠geer.org 12 Jan '16

12 Jan '16

Federation of American Scientists current news brief, in part: -----------------8<------------cut-here------------8<----------------- HOUSE POISED TO PASS FOIA AMENDMENTS The House of Representatives is expected to approve a new package of amendments to the Freedom of Information Act this week, in a bill known as the FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2015. The sponsors of the bill said it "would strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to increase transparency and accountability in government, and improve access to government records for citizens. It amends FOIA to provide for more disclosure of records, through both proactive disclosure and limitations on the use of exemptions. [It] also encourages enhanced agency compliance with statutory requirements and improves the FOIA process for both agencies and requesters." The bill would codify a presumption of openness, limit the application of the exemption for deliberative records, facilitate electronic submission of FOIA requests, strengthen the Office of Government Information Services (the FOIA ombudsman), mandate Inspector General reviews of FOIA processing, and several other steps. Detailed justification for the bill is provided in a January 7 report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2016/foia-rept.pdf The bill was subsequently modified by the House Intelligence Committee to affirm that its provisions would not require the disclosure of properly classified information or of information that "would adversely affect intelligence sources and methods" that are protected. The term "adversely affect" is not defined but is clearly intended to limit disclosure. http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2016/hr653.pdf Truth be told, the Freedom of Information Act is a strange law that seems engineered to create an unresolvable tension if not a complete stalemate. The FOIA empowers individual members of the public (including me and you) to impose a legally binding obligation on a government agency. But while there are no limits on the number or type of requests that a requester may submit at no cost, agencies are nominally supposed to accommodate the demand within a fixed period and with fixed resources. And though it only takes minutes to submit a request, the time required by an agency to fulfill even a simple request is much longer. A sophisticated systems analysis is not needed to anticipate the growth of the backlogs that have in fact developed. In a further conundrum, those agencies that are more responsive to the FOIA process thereby tend to generate more demand. There is little point in submitting a FOIA request to the Defense Intelligence Agency, to pick one example, because they won't produce a substantive response in this decade. But other agencies that do respond faithfully are rewarded-- with more requests. The best way to untangle and realign these conflicting imperatives is not clear. More proactive disclosure of information might help, or it might simply shift the burden to more specialized and challenging requests. But just encouraging and making it easier to file FOIA requests is probably not the solution.

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New Lies For Old / The Perestroika Deception
by Michael Best 11 Jan '16

11 Jan '16

If you've never read them or even heard of them, I highly recommend them. Whether you dismiss him or think there's something worth listening, the Nosenko / Golitsyn permanently affair changed U.S. intelligence (not to mention the JFK and Watergate connections). New Lies For Old: http://www.spiritoftruth.org/newlies4old.pdf The Perestroika Deception: http://www.spiritoftruth.org/The_Perestroika_Deception.pdf In his book Wedge - The Secret War between the FBI and CIA (Knopf, 1994), Mark Riebling stated that of 194 predictions made in New Lies For Old, 139 had been fulfilled by 1993, 9 seemed 'clearly wrong', and the other 46 were 'not soon falsifiable'. Golitsyn was a figure of significant controversy in the Western intelligence community. The military writer General Sir John Hackett, and the former CIA counter-intelligence director James Angleton identified Golitsyn as "the most valuable defector ever to reach the West". However, the official historian for MI5, Christopher Andrew, described him as an "unreliable conspiracy theorist". Andrew believes that although intelligence data provided by Golitsyn were reliable, some of his global political assessments of the Soviet and KGB strategy are questionable. New Lies for Old In 1984, Golitsyn published the book *New Lies For Old*, wherein he warned about a long-term deception <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception> strategy of seeming retreat from hard-line Communism designed to lull the West into a false sense of security, and finally economically cripple and diplomatically isolate the United States <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>. Among other things, Golitsyn stated: "The "liberalization" would be spectacular and impressive. Formal pronouncements might be made about a reduction in the communist party's role: its monopoly would be apparently curtailed. An ostensible separation of powers between the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary might be introduced. The Supreme Soviet would be given greater apparent power, and the president of the Soviet Union and the first secretary of the party might well be separated. The KGB would be "reformed." Dissidents at home would be amnestied; those in exile abroad would be allowed to return, and some would take up positions of leadership in government.Sakharov might be included in some capacity in the government or allowed to teach abroad. The creative arts and cultural and scientific organizations, such as the writers' unions and Academy of Sciences, would become apparently more independent, as would the trade unions. Political clubs would be opened to nonmembers of the communist party. Leading dissidents might form one or more alternative political parties.There would be greater freedom for Soviet citizens to travel. Western and Unitized Nations observers would be invited to the Soviet Union to witness the reforms in action." Angleton and Golitsyn reportedly sought the assistance of William F. Buckley, Jr. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley,_Jr.> (who once worked for the CIA) in writing *New Lies for Old*. Buckley refused but later went on to write a novel about Angleton, *Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton*. The Perestroika Deception In 1995 he published a book containing purported memoranda attributed to Golitsyn entitled *The Perestroika <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika> Deception* which claimed: - "The [Soviet] strategists are concealing the secret coordination that exists and will continue between Moscow and the 'nationalist' leaders of [the] 'independent' republics." - "The power of the KGB remains as great as ever... Talk of cosmetic changes in the KGB and its supervision is deliberately publicized to support the myth of 'democratization' of the Soviet political system." - "Scratch these new, instant Soviet 'democrats,' 'anti-Communists,' and 'nationalists' who have sprouted out of nowhere, and underneath will be found secret Party members or KGB agents."

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Techniques for Tactical Radio Operations
by Michael Best 11 Jan '16

11 Jan '16

Army ATP https://archive.org/details/ATP602x53TechniquesForTacticalRadioOperations

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shipping hardware through mail
by coderman 11 Jan '16

11 Jan '16

On 1/11/16, coderman <coderman(a)gmail.com> wrote: > ... > have you played with USB Armory yet? it's my new favorite ARM platform. > https://github.com/inversepath/usbarmory since 2014 i don't buy hardware shipped (to me) anymore. this is obviously more complicated for hardware not readily available, like USB Armory, if you don't like in Portland. friend and i had discussed tamper evident shipping strategies to experiment with. has anyone had success with such experiments, and what technique used? anyone want to play a game? :P best regards,

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North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Historical Summaries, 1967-1974
by Michael Best 11 Jan '16

11 Jan '16

http://www.governmentattic.org/18docs/NORADhistSumms_1967-1974.pdf 71.6 MB Document Title # of Pages | Release Status# 1 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1967 154 Full 2 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1967 3 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1968 286 Partial 4 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1968 s NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1969 292 Partial 6 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1969 7 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1970 192 Partial 8 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1970 9 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1971 238 Partial 10 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1971 11 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1972 210 I Partial 12 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1972 13 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1973 UNK Refer to AFHRA 14 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1973 15 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jan-Jun 1974 UNK Refer to AFHRA ' 16 NORAD Historical Summaries for Jul-Dec 1974 I

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Censor or die: The death of Mexican news in the age of drug cartels
by coderman 10 Jan '16

10 Jan '16

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/censor-or-die-the-death-of-me… Censor or die: The death of Mexican news in the age of drug cartels By Dana Priest December 11, 2015 CONTROLLING THE STORY: This is the fifth installment in an ongoing series examining the human cost of reporting the news around the world. One journalist's experience on Mexico's deadliest beat REYNOSA, Mexico — As deadline descended on El Mañana’s newsroom and reporters rushed to file their stories, someone in the employ of a local drug cartel called with a demand from his crime boss. The caller was a journalist for another newspaper, known here as an enlace, or “link” to the cartel. The compromised journalist barked out the order: Publish an article saying the mayor in Matamoros had not paid the cartel $2 million a month in protection fees, as an El Mañana front-page story had alleged the day before. “They want us to say he’s not guilty,” the editor who took the call told his colleagues during the episode in late October. Knowing glances passed between them as a visiting Washington Post reporter looked on. They all knew that defiance carried a high price. The enlaces are part of the deeply institutionalized system of cartel censorship imposed on media outlets in northeastern Mexico abutting the border of Texas. How it works is an open secret in newsrooms here but not among readers. They are unaware of the life-and-death decisions editors make every day not to anger different local cartel commanders, each of whom has his own media philosophy. Submitting to cartel demands is the only way to survive, said Hildebrando “Brando” Deandar Ayala, 39, editor in chief of El Mañana, one of the oldest and largest newspapers in the region with a print circulation of 30,000. “You do it or you die, and nobody wants to die,” he said. “Auto censura — self-censorship — that’s our shield.” Readers get angry when they don’t get the news they need, he said. Resentment against El Mañana grew so strong two years ago that reporters took the logos off their cars and stopped carrying their identification on assignments. “The readers hate us sometimes,” Deandar said. “But they don’t know the real risks we go through.” Mexico has long been a deadly place for reporters. Some 88 journalists have been slain in the last two decades, according to Article 19, a worldwide advocacy group that promotes press freedom. With its endless drug wars, Mexico is one of the most dangerous places in a world that has seen a recent upswing in violence against journalists, with scores of reporters killed or jailed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Arab Spring countries, Central America and the former Soviet bloc. [Read previous stories from this series] The risks have been especially high for El Mañana because its circulation area is bounded to the west by the birthplace of the Zetas criminal network in Nuevo Laredo and to the east by the Gulf crime syndicate’s home base in Matamoros. In February, the last time El Mañana defied a cartel’s censorship rules, an editor in its Matamoros bureau was dragged outside, stuffed in a van and beaten as his abductors drove around threatening him with death. “Next time, we’ll kill you!” one yelled before pushing him out of the vehicle. Four El Mañana journalists have been killed in the past 10 years. Others survived assassination attempts, kidnappings, and grenade and machine-gun attacks on their offices. Deandar has been shot, kidnapped and had his home set on fire, he said. Hildebrando “Brando” Deandar Ayala, editor in chief of El Mañana, center, checks in with different departments at the newspaper’s office in Reynosa, Mexico, on Oct. 29. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) The worst assaults began in 2004, when an editor in Nuevo Laredo was stabbed to death. Two years later, gunmen broke into the bureau there, detonated a grenade and sprayed machine gunfire, leaving one employee paralyzed. Afterward, bulletproof glass and electronic security keys were installed at its three offices, where the blinds are always drawn. In March 2010, when the Gulf cartel defeated the Zetas for control of Reynosa, it took revenge on three El Mañana reporters whom the Zetas had forced to watch one of its mass executions. The cartel called the three Reynosa reporters and told them, “ ‘either you come in or we’ll pick you up,’ ” an editor there at the time recalled. They surrendered to the cartel and were never heard from again. Their presumed slayings were never reported by El Mañana, editors said, because that’s what the Gulf commander demanded. The enlace passed word that the killings were a one-time message to the Zetas, not a tactic the cartel intended to repeat against the newspaper. Twice in 2012, gunmen from the Zetas shot up the offices of the Nuevo Laredo bureau. Not long after, El Mañana announced it would no longer print cartel news in its Nuevo Laredo edition. Articles about Nuevo Laredo crime sometimes appear in other editions, but without a byline or names in the story. Five of nine bodies are shown hanging from a bridge in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas state, in the early morning of May 4, 2012. The bodies showed signs of beating and torture. (Raul Llamas/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) North America’s ISIS The cartels’ tactics resemble those most Americans would associate with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The display of multiple beheaded corpses and bodies hanging from bridges are a regular occurrence. Hundreds of young people have disappeared. Mass graves are commonplace. The comparison with terrorist groups 7,300 miles away frustrates journalists here. They watch the endless international coverage of Middle East violence yet know that the terrorism just across the U.S. border is largely ignored by the American media. Mexico’s 2014 murder rate of 13 per 100,000 is twice as high as Afghanistan’s. “We have a war here, and we’re doing war reporting,” said Ildefonso “Poncho” Ortiz, a deeply sourced reporter for Breitbart News Network’s Cartel Chronicles, one of the only American outlets to track cartel maneuvers. “Sometimes AP [the Associated Press wire service] will pick up a story, but other than that, it never leaves the valley.” The three largest U.S. newspapers nearby — the Brownsville Herald, the Monitor in McAllen, Tex., and the Laredo Morning Times — forbid their reporters from crossing to report because it’s too dangerous, according to the editors at the newspapers. Pervasive corruption abets the violence. The local police forces have been disbanded and replaced by the army and federal police in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which includes Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa. A car bomb killed the Nuevo Laredo mayor one week after he was sworn in. The new Matamoros mayor survived an ambush in March. Cartels install surveillance cameras throughout their cities and employ lookouts with cellphones to keep watch. U.S. Border Patrol officers are regularly indicted for cooperating with organized crime. “Tamaulipas is a black hole when it comes to information,” said Aaron Nelsen, a reporter based in McAllen for the San Antonio Express-News. “It’s so hard to get anyone to talk about it,” even elected U.S. officials. Hildebrando Deandar Ayala, editor in chief of El Mañana, sits in the newspaper’s office in McAllen, Tex., in October. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Ildefonso “Poncho” Ortiz, a reporter with Breitbart News Network, lives in the United States but regularly reports on cartel activities along the Mexico border. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) A cartel media director El Mañana’s circulation area includes major U.S. border cities; its online editions are read as far north as San Antonio and Houston. It is a third-generation family enterprise, founded in 1924 as an anti-establishment voice. Over most of its 91 years, its formidable enemies were corrupt politicians and their hand-picked prosecutors. The newspaper now maintains a working relationship with the local governments, as evidenced by the government advertising it receives. Withholding state advertising dollars is a common and effective economic hammer used against media outlets whose investigations upset the status quo. “When it’s not the politicians against us, it’s the drug dealers,” said Heriberto Deandar, 78, who co-owns El Mañana with his brother, Brando’s father. “He who is not afraid has no courage.” Brando was raised in Reynosa but moved to McAllen in 2007 for safety reasons. He commutes to work. Asked why he doesn’t find a safer job, he said simply, “It’s in my blood. I cannot leave.” During a recent visit to the town, the eerie atmosphere was inescapable. Reynosa’s wide boulevards were nearly empty. Heavily armed soldiers patrolled in black masks to protect their identities from cartels resentful of the army’s two-year occupation. Military helicopters whooped periodically overhead, racing to shootouts or hunting suspects. At dusk, hundreds of cars streamed slowly across the international bridge to McAllen, where an increasing number of well-to-do Mexicans have moved their families to safety. The Metros faction of the Gulf cartel controls much of civic life and all contraband — drugs, sex slaves, immigrant smuggling, fuel, stolen vehicles — in or moving through Reynosa, said journalists and media experts here. Its commander, whose parents are from Reynosa, has a more liberal view of the media than his counterparts in the other two cities. He seems to care about his image, too, they said, as evidenced by the “narcobanners” that appeared on city bridges in November. “This is to make it clear that I am a narcotrafficker, not a terrorist like you’ve been saying in the media,” the cartel boss declared in one handwritten sheet-sized banner. “Investigate and check your facts. Crime has lessened since I took charge.” In Matamoros, though, the commander of the cartel’s Ciclones faction tolerates no coverage. In Nuevo Laredo, the Zetas have a commander of finance, assassinations, logistics, stolen vehicles and fuel, weapons, prostitution, immigrant smuggling — and media. The Zetas media director, a clean-cut, 30-something man described by one person who knows him as “a pretty friendly guy,” calls enlaces and beat reporters at El Mañana and other media outlets every day to tell them what stories the cartel wants published or censored. One day it’s a story critical of new government limits on imported cars; the next it’s a birthday party in the social pages featuring a cartel boss’s daughter. Sometimes the media director provides photos and video for an article. “It’s a common conversation every day,” one reporter said. Reporters have learned to consult him on nearly everything, one media expert said. Even a car crash isn’t a simple car crash. “You have to call somebody to make sure you can write about it,” one journalist said, because it might actually not be an accident but a purposeful vehicular homicide organized by the cartel. Critical coverage of local politicians is also forbidden. For his own security, the media director changes cellphones often, but his online avatar always stays the same: a rabbit. The three cartel commanders’ differing media philosophies force El Mañana to produce three distinctly different editions. “If you want to find out what’s happening in Nuevo Laredo or Matamoros, you read El Mañana de Reynosa,” Deandar said. For example, when Mexican troops captured the leader of the Matamoros faction in October, known as “Ciclón 7,” El Mañana did not print a word about it in its Matamoros edition. But in Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, it was banner news. With Ciclón 7 gone, Deandar said, “we are waiting to see who is the next chief, so we’ll know the rules.” Hildebrando Deandar Ayala, editor in chief of El Mañana, right, and Enrique Juarez, his Matamoros editor who was kidnapped by the cartel in February because the paper defied its news blackout, discuss coverage in Deandar’s office. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Mechanics of self-censorship After hearing the enlace’s demand to exonerate the allegedly corrupt mayor in Matamoros, the editor on duty rubbed his head trying to contain himself. “First they tell us what not to publish, now they are telling us what to publish!” he yelled before heading upstairs to his office. He dialed the editor in Matamoros who had passed the enlace’s message to Reynosa, put the phone on speaker mode and upped the volume so the whole room could hear. Enlaces pass instructions via phone calls, text messages, apps and in personal meetings. They often communicate cartel demands to crime reporters who show up at the scene of shootouts, blockades, car bombs and executions. Sometimes a cartel member will run into crime reporters at the scene. “They’ll say, ‘Get the hell out of here! We’ll kill you!’ And we have to go,” one reporter said. Three minutes into the conversation with the Matamoros editor, the senior editor began raising his voice about the enlace. “Give me his name and number!” he shouted. “And tell him you’re not going to take any more messages! No more! Tell him if you take any more messages, I’m going to fire you!” He hung up, waved around the piece of paper with the enlace’s name and phone number on it and then stood up. It was getting dark. Time to leave for a safer city. The front-page story that upset the cartel was a reprinted interview with the new mayor of Matamoros, Leticia Salazar, an anti-corruption crusader. The interview was conducted by the national Excelsior newspaper. In it, she accused her predecessor of paying the Gulf cartel more than $2 million a month in protection fees from public works funds and towing fees. El Mañana’s editors felt safe publishing the interview in all editions because it seemed like a political corruption story, not one about the cartel. The cartel demand that followed was to run an interview with the former mayor quoting him as saying he was innocent of the allegations. But the former mayor had not requested an interview. As he left the building, the duty editor said he planned to call the former mayor on the way home. Speeding through Reynosa’s back roads in the dark, he called the former mayor, who said he had not requested an interview and did not know the cartel had demanded one on his behalf. It was time for a decision. “If you want an interview, we can do it in our office or over the phone,” the editor said. If it’s in the office, “we will need a photo of the interview; if it’s over the phone, we’ll have to record it. Either way, we need to show it was real,” not something made up by the cartel. We won’t publish it right away, the editor added, so the cartel won’t think it can tell the newspaper what to print. The interview ran three days later, in all editions, including Matamoros, where it mattered most to the cartel. But there was no byline, not even in the Reynosa edition. Instead, it read simply, El Mañana/Staff. A photo shows a notice attributed to an organized crime gang that was left next to the decapitated body of Maria Elizabeth Macias, the 39-year-old chief editor of the newspaper Primera Hora who was found in Nuevo Laredo. The message was signed “ZZZZ,” normally associated with the Zetas drug gang. (Agence France-Presse via Getty Images) Social media steps up Several years ago, shopkeepers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, local government workers and students began to fill the void in local news with social-media coverage. It took the cartels a while to understand what was happening on anonymous Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. Once they did, retribution followed. On Sept. 26, 2011, the decapitated body of a female blogger was left at the Christopher Columbus monument in Nuevo Laredo. Next to her corpse were two keyboards and a handwritten warning, signed “ZZZZ.” But social-media crime reporting has only grown in the four years since. It includes real-time maps of shootout locations, slayings and kidnappings as well as endless cellphone videos of crimes in progress. During the Post reporter’s visit in October, alerts and bulletins about news that went unreported by El Mañana were rife on social media: Oct 17, 2:39 p.m. @MichaelNike8: Near the exit to San Fernando, tires burning to distract the authorities Oct 21, 1:50 p.m. @SSPTAM: Avoid the area between Reynosa and Monterrey. Authorities are responding (to a situation) Nov. 3: @Codigo Rojo [Code Red]: Yesterday, federal agents captured 3 men and a female commander of Toro [the local cartel commander in Reynosa] and seized 3 new trucks and around 20 guns, including 5 or 6 guns covered in gold and diamonds; This photo shows what was taken out of just one of the trucks. Also trending on Twitter the same week was the one-year anniversary of the killing of @Miut3. @Miut3 was a prolific citizen crime reporter. She tweeted the location of shootouts, explosions, carjackings and the identities of disappeared people. On Oct. 15, 2014, her anonymous account was hacked. Soon afterward, she became unreachable. A tweet from the account of Maria Del Rosario Fuentes Rubio seen in a screenshot, which has been modified by The Washington Post to protect the identity of other Twitter users and with respect to Rubio's family. Her followers frantically refreshed their Twitter feeds trying to find her. The next morning, at 5:04 a.m., a tweet from her account appeared: “Friends and family, my real name is Maria Del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, I’m a doctor and today, my life has come to an end.” Minutes later, two photos appeared on her account. One showed Fuentes Rubio in distress. “Close your accounts, don’t risk your families the way I did,” her account read. “I ask you all for forgiveness.” The second photo showed what appeared to be her bloodied face and corpse on the ground. No one has been arrested. An opening In February, a few months after Fuentes Rubio was killed, the two factions of the Gulf cartel in northeastern Mexico went to war again. The chaos provided El Mañana with the kind of journalistic opening it hadn’t had in 15 years. With the cartel preoccupied, El Mañana became the newspaper it might otherwise be had circumstances been different. The entire newsroom deployed to cover the battles. Dramatic photos, detailed articles and screaming headlines won Mexico’s attention. Readers in Reynosa finally got the full story of what was happening around them: Day One: “Border in Shock,” “Shoot-Outs and Roadblocks . . . ” Day Two: “Border Under Siege: Marines Attacked, Three Armed Men Killed, Soldiers Wounded” “We were all excited in the newsroom,” said a longtime senior editor who shepherded the coverage. “It was an adrenaline rush.” “No other newspaper in the state” provided such detailed coverage. “They were all afraid,” he said, nodding toward Deandar. “We have a courageous boss.” This was such big news, Deandar said he thought at the time, that he wanted to share it even with readers in Matamoros despite the standing cartel news blackout there. To be cautious, there would be no bylines and no names of cartel members. The cartels would not approve, cautioned Enrique Juarez, his Matamoros editor. Just after midnight, the red printing press in Reynosa rolled out Day Three’s edition. “Nine Dead in Fighting: Third Day Siege in Urban Areas and Roads.” Delivery trucks dashed to their distribution hubs. By 3 a.m., El Mañana employees discovered that the truck carrying the newspapers for Matamoros had vanished. Deandar rallied a posse; they found the vehicle at noon in an abandoned field, still full of newspapers. He ordered the papers be delivered to Matamoros, where they hit the streets an hour later. Juarez, up in his second-floor office, got threatening phone calls right away. At 4 p.m., as deadline loomed, someone called from the lobby asking him to come down. He found a knife and braced himself. Armed men burst in. One picked up a big jug of water and threw it at him, causing him to drop the knife. “We’re going to break you!” one yelled, as they dragged him away. They stuffed him into a van, beat him about the head and back, and shoved him onto the pavement an hour or so later. Four frightened El Mañana employees in the Matamoros bureau resigned the next day. A story about Juarez’s abduction and a photo of him at his desk, with the assaulting water jug, ran on Day Four next to the headline, “30 Dead Already, Mayor Suffers Grenade Attack, US Consul Suspends Operations” It did not appear in the Matamoros edition. Juarez and his family left the city. He no longer works in Matamoros. He is still not right, he said in an interview. “I don’t feel safe. I look around when I go out.” He worries that the fighting cartel factions will team up again and come after him. “If I had the opportunity to leave . . . ” His voice trails off. Enrique Juarez, an editor who was kidnapped over a story the cartel did not like, is shown in the El Mañana office in Reynosa, Mexico, in October. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Rosario Carmona, a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at the University of Maryland’s Phillip Merrill School of Journalism, where Priest holds the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism; Alexander Quiñones, a graduate student there; and Post researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Cicada 3301: 2016
by grarpamp 10 Jan '16

10 Jan '16

https://twitter.com/1231507051321/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301 http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com/ > "Please give people some indication as to what these links are about. > Edit this and resubmit and I'll send it thru. Thanks." Due to retarded policy, you apparently need the following handholding... THESE LINKS ARE ABOUT CRYPTO PUZZLES. DO NOT CLICK THESE LINKS UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT AND SOLVE CRYPTO PUZZLES. MODERN INTERNET ACCESS IS REQUIRED. THESE LINKS MAY GIVE YOU EPILEPTIC SEIZURES. THEY MAY INFECT YOUR COMPUTER. THEY MAY BE PART OF CONSPIRACIES, NEW WORLD ORDER, GOVERNMENT PSY OPS, ALIEN X FILES, FINCRIME, MAFIOSO, TERRORISM, CHILD PORN AND DRUGS. THEY MAY STEAL ALL YOUR BITCOIN. THEY MAY LEAD YOU TO THE DARK SIDE VIA THE DEEP WEB. THEY MAY ENCRYPT ALL YOUR FILES. 21=DS9-S3JDSj*sd2%31TY/0kn+bs;o MAY OR MAY NOT BE THE KEY. THEY MAY CHANGE YOUR RELIGION. SOMEONE MAY ASK YOU FOR THE PASSWORD TO YOUR LUGGAGE. IF YOU ARE PRONE TO ADDICTION, DO NOT PLAY. ZUMBA NFERU IS NOT A NIGERIAN PRINCE AND DOES NOT HAVE $21M FOR YOU. DO NOT CLICK THEM IF YOU'RE TOO DAMN LAZY TO CLICK THEM. OR TO READ. OR TO LEARN. OR TO EXPLORE ANYTHING ON YOUR OWN WITHOUT BEING BABIED BY YOUR MOMMA. CHEERIO.

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