April 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

News from Nowhen
by professor rat 02 Apr '22

02 Apr '22

New book, "Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday's Tomorrow." https://phys.org/news/2022-04-steampunk-quantum-physics.html Yunger Halpern, a fellow of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Maryland, uses steampunk, which marries Victorian style and futuristic technology, to introduce readers to the complex and fantastical world of quantum thermodynamics.

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Biometric system with records of at least 2.5 million people in Afghanistan
by zeynepaydogan 02 Apr '22

02 Apr '22

[https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/30/new-evidence-biometric-data-systems-imp… A Reminder:American government is responsible for Taliban entering the city. New Evidence that Biometric Data Systems Imperil Afghans Taliban Now Control Systems with Sensitive Personal Information The Taliban control systems holding sensitive biometric data that Western donor governments left behind in[Afghanistan](https://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan)in August 2021, putting thousands of Afghans at risk, Human Rights Watch said today. These digital identity and payroll systems contain Afghans’ personal and biometric data, including iris scans, fingerprints, photographs, occupation, home addresses, and names of relatives. The Taliban could use them to target perceived opponents, and Human Rights Watch research suggests that they may have already used the data in some cases. “Governments and organizations that helped amass vast quantities of personal data on large numbers of Afghans may be inadvertently assisting the Taliban repression,” said[Belkis Wille](https://www.hrw.org/about/people/belkis-wille), senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Data collection’s highly intrusive nature and inadequate protections could put people at heightened risk of Taliban abuse.” Foreign governments such as the United States, and international institutions, including United Nations agencies and the World Bank, funded and in some cases built or helped to build vast systems to hold the biometric and other personal data of various groups of Afghans for official purposes. In some cases, these systems were built for the former Afghan government. In others, they were designed for foreign governments and militaries. Afghanistan currently has[no data protection law](https://www.privacyrules.com/media/careers/Members%20Materials/Afghan%…. Having such a law, even assuming it met international standards, would not have guaranteed adequate data protection, but it could have helped to ensure better practices and to reduce the potential harm to those whose data has fallen into Taliban hands. Human Rights Watch interviewed 12 Afghans with expert knowledge of the country’s biometric systems, including 6 judges; 5 foreign privacy and human rights researchers documenting the potential impacts of the systems being accessed by the Taliban; 3 UN staff members working on Afghanistan; and 2 US military officers formerly based in Afghanistan. A former military commander still in Afghanistan said that Taliban detained him for 12 days in November and took his fingerprints and scanned his irises with a data-collection tool. “They told me they took my fingerprints to check if I was military and if they could confirm it, they would kill me,” he said. “I was very lucky that for some reason they did not get a match.” Human Rights Watch examined six systems built by private companies for or with the assistance of foreign governments and international institutions: - Afghan National Biometric System, used to issue Afghan national identity cards, known as[e-Tazkira](https://asan.gov.af/Eng/); - US Defense Department Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), used to identify people whom the US believed might pose a security risk as well as those working for the US government; - Afghan Automated Biometric Identification System (AABIS), used to identify criminals and Afghan army and police members; - Ministry of Interior and Defense Afghan Personnel and Pay Systems (APPS) for the army and police, into which the AABIS was integrated in early 2021; - Payroll system of the National Directorate of Security, the former state intelligence agency; and - Payroll system of the Afghan Supreme Court. In late 2021, several[privacy](https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/4615/afghan… media[outlets](https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/30/1033941/afghanis… their concerns about the Taliban gaining access to some of these systems, particularly the APPS and ABIS systems. Concerns about Taliban access to the other systems has received little coverage. However, information that a former government adviser shared with Human Rights Watch suggests that the Taliban may not have access to APPS. The Taliban’s access to this data comes at a time when they are targeting individuals because of their past association with the former government, particularly members of the[security forces](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/03/afghanist…, judges and prosecutors, and[civil servants](https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/22/afghanistan-taliban-forcibly-…, including[women](https://rukhshana.com/en/these-women-were-looked-down-on-w… in these fields. The Taliban have also detained and abused people who have criticized their policies. Human Rights Watch in November[documented](https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/30/afghanistan-taliba… Taliban’s killing or enforced disappearance of 47 former members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) – military personnel, police, intelligence service members, and militia – between August 15 and October 31, with the UN[reporting](https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/EN_… allegations of the killing of at least 130 security forces members or their relatives. The Taliban have[targeted](https://www.refworld.org/docid/61d851cd4.html)[journalists](… threatened human rights activists, including women’s rights activists, women working in roles the Taliban believes are unsuitable for them, and people who are[lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)](https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/26/afghanistan-taliban-target-lgbt-…) Since the Taliban takeover on August 15, many people who believe themselves to be at risk have been in[hiding](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/18/afghanistan-female-jud… moving frequently. Taliban[access](http://afghanpaper.com/nbody.php?id=116936)to these systems may make it much harder, or impossible, for these people to remain hidden. The Taliban have also taken[steps](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220227-taliban-say-no-… block people from fleeing the country. The Taliban have previously used biometric data to target people. In[2016](https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/taliban-used-biometric-system-dur… and [2017](https://www.pajhwok.com/en/2017/02/14/taliban-subject-passengers-biom…, journalists reported that Taliban fighters were[using](http://afghanpaper.com/nbody.php?id=116936)biometric scanners to identify and summarily execute bus passengers whom they determined were security force members, all the Afghans interviewed mentioned those incidents. Aziz Rafiee, executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum, who is familiar with many of the systems and the risks posed, said, “The international community might have thought it was helping us, but instead it played with our fate and ended up creating systems more dangerous than they were helpful.” A person familiar with the development and management of one of the systems examined, who asked to remain anonymous, said that some people who had been working for the company that maintained the system were still in Afghanistan and at risk from the Taliban. He said the Taliban had detained two senior staff members to force the company to continue supporting and maintaining the system, something it refused to do. On August 21, Nawazuddin Haqqani, a Taliban brigade commander, reportedly[told Zenger News](https://www.zenger.news/2021/08/28/taliban-team-is-using-us-made-biometric-database-and-scanners-to-hunt-american-and-afghan-enemies/), a US-based online media outlet, that his unit was using US-made handheld [scanners](https://www.army.mil/article/32609/bats_helps_id_insurgents_hosta… to tap into Interior Ministry and other national biometric systems to gather data, including on “journalists and so-called human rights people.” “Those who were barking about having US dollars in their pockets until a few days back — they won’t be spared,” he said. “They can’t be spared, can they?” Human Rights Watch, on February 10, 2022, wrote to the US government, European Union, International Organization for Migration, World Bank, Grand Technology Resources, Leidos, and Netlinks Inc asking what steps they took before and after August 2021 to protect Afghans’ biometric data and to alert individuals of data breaches. The International Organization for Migration replied, as well as one company, which said its response was not for publication. Human Rights Watch also wrote to the Taliban, asking for details on which systems with Afghans’ biometric data they had access to and, if any, what they intend to do with the information. The Taliban have not replied. Given events since August 2021, all those involved in funding and building these biometric systems, including the US government, the European Union, UN agencies, and the World Bank, should make public the kinds of data lost or potentially seized by the Taliban, the architecture of these systems, the human rights and data protection impact assessments carried out before and during the life cycle of these systems, and the steps they have taken to inform data subjects of what has happened to their data. “Governments, international organizations, and companies should work together to help protect the people at risk because of the Taliban’s access to some of these systems,” Wille said. “They should also learn from this fiasco so that data systems are better conceived and protected in the future.” National Biometric System In 2010, the Afghan government[began a campaign](https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2018-07-19/afghanis… the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to collect Afghans’ biometric and other personal data and issue electronic identity cards. The digital identity system is known as[e-Tazkira](https://asan.gov.af/Eng/). The system holds at a[minimum](https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/pdf/reports/af_civil-documentation-study_081116.pdf)a person’s name, father’s and grandfather’s name, national identity number, physical description, place of origin, place and date of birth, sex, marital status, religion, tribal links, ethnicity, first language, profession, level of education, level of literacy, and biometrics (iris scan, fingerprints, and photograph). The Afghan government[contracted](https://mcit.gov.af/en/mcit-signed-national-id-project-gtr-grand-technology-resources-8)Grand Technology Resources to[build](https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghan-e-tazkira-distrib… manage the system. The government received funding from at least the[United States](https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-16-LL.pdf),[Europ… Union](https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/rights-freedom/the-t… Bank](https://www.biometricupdate.com/202010/digital-id-a-surprising-qualif…. Ministry offices in the seven main regions of Afghanistan have computers that can access information on everyone registered from their region, but not other regions, said Rafiee, of the Afghan Civil Society Forum. In Kabul, the ministry staff with the requisite permissions can access information on anyone enrolled in the system. A former armed forces deputy commander said that when he signed up for e-Tazkira, he listed his profession as a farmer. “Already for years we knew the Taliban could get its hands on those records,” he said. Five of the judges interviewed said that they did not say that they were judges when signing up for fear of Taliban access to personal data collected for the system. Rafiee said that while he did not sign up for e-Tazkira, he did sign up for the earlier nonelectronic version: “When I signed up for that, I didn’t tell officials I was an engineer. Instead, I said I was a student. I didn’t want to reveal my level of education and work, fearing one day this information would end up in the hands of extremists.” Human Rights Watch asked the US government, the European Union, and the World Bank what assessments they had made about this risk and what safeguards that were put in place to protect the data held in the system, but they have not provided substantive information in response. Then-President Ashraf Ghani ordered a[technical review](https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/rights-freedom/the-… the system in 2015, which identified various concerns relating to issues including data processing and data security, the securing of data transmission and data storage, the possibility of data loss, issues of connectivity, and the lack of robust testing of the system. US Defense Department Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) In[2004](https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/4615/afghanistan-wh…, the US Department of Defense created the[Automated Biometric Identification System](https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=788293)(ABIS), which serves as a central[repository](https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2013/… personal data, including biometrics (iris scan, fingerprints, and photograph) collected by US military officers and other department staff of people in Afghanistan and Iraq who might pose security risks. Among other companies involved, the Defense Department[contracted](https://investor.northropgrumman.com/news-releases/n… Grumman](https://www.defensedaily.com/northrop-grumman-nabs-141-million-tas…, a US-based company, to build and manage the system, but the contract was[taken over](https://www.defensedaily.com/contract-awards-147/uncategorized/)by Leidos, a US-based company, in 2015. The system includes those considered a US national security concern, among them detainees, people who applied to work on US military bases in Afghanistan, and Afghans[working](https://www.dvidshub.net/video/141293/bat-system)for any US-funded projects. While the system was designed for these purposes, investigative reporter Annie Jacobsen said in her book[First Platoon: A Story of Modern War in the Age of Identity Dominance](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/624446/first-platoon-by… in 2020 the Pentagon had[aimed](https://news.sky.com/story/afghanistan-the-biometric-social-and-… gather biometric data on[80 percent](https://www.economist.com/asia/2012/07/07/the-eyes-have-it)of the Afghan population. For example, the “[Commander’s Guide to Biometrics in Afghanistan](https://info.publicintelligence.net/CALL-AfghanBiometrics.pdf)… drafted by the US military for US coalition and allied forces stated that: > [e]very person who lives within an operational area should be identified and fully biometrically enrolled with facial photos, iris scans, and all 10 fingerprints (if present). This information should be coupled with good contextual data, such as where they live, what they do, and to which tribe or clan they belong. In her book Jacobsen stated that the longer-term[goal](https://twitter.com/AnnieJacobsen/status/1430197854140657… the military was to hand the system over to the then-Afghan government. The system[contains](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329625190_Catalys… records of at least 2.5 million people in Afghanistan. After the Taliban’s takeover of the country, their forces were[reportedly](https://twitter.com/dastageermuska/status/1431061228047241… to[capture](https://theintercept.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-taliban-militar… of the machines that US military personnel used to record this data, including the Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment ([HIIDE](https://theintercept.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-taliban-military-bio…) giving them access to some of the data. Two US military personnel said that at the time of the takeover, the US military was using two generations of the HIIDE machine. The first generation had much of the collected data stored on a local internal drive. The second generation had improved internet capabilities so that less data stored locally, but still had the profiles of people working for US projects in the area stored locally. The sources said that the local memory drives of both generations of the device could store at least several thousand profiles and that these profiles included information regarding what US agency Afghans were working for. One US military members said: > My concern is that the Taliban might have found a defector who had a HIIDE device, and the ability to use it, and as a result have access to at least the profiles stored locally on that device. It could use that to go locally door to door, to see who was working with us. Alternatively, a foreign state’s engineers might help the Taliban get access to the data in the device to download. A former military commander currently in Afghanistan said that since their August takeover, he has seen Taliban forces manning checkpoints throughout the area he is living in and stopping people to check their names and faces against lists of names and photographs of former army and police. He said that in early November, Taliban forces stormed his house in the middle of night and detained him. They held him in various locations for 12 days. During his detention, Taliban forces took his fingerprints and scanned his irises using a[HIIDE](https://theintercept.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-taliban-military-b…, which he was familiar with because of his time in the military and in US military training programs, though luckily did not find a match and eventually released him. Neither the US government nor Leidos replied substantively to a letter from Human Rights Watch regarding measures they had taken to protect the system and to alert data subjects to breaches. Afghan Automated Biometric Identification System (AABIS) Modeled after the ABIS and formally established in late 2009 to[keep](https://www.vgbsi.com/aabis)criminal suspects and Taliban members from infiltrating the army and police force, the Afghan Automated Biometric Identification System (AABIS), run by the Afghan government,[holds](https://www.wired.com/2010/09/afghan-biometric-dragnet-c… biometrics (iris scan, fingerprints, and photograph) of former Afghan military and police members. The system was[used](https://www.wired.com/2010/09/afghan-biometric-dragnet-could-snag… cross-check the data against biometric records held by the Afghan National Detention Facility, Kabul Central Police Command, Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) prison enrollments from Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar. The FBI[supported](https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/mission-afghanistan-biometr… creation of the system and helped with data sharing, mentoring, and training. Whether the Taliban have access to this system is not known. Ministry of Interior and Defense Afghan Personnel and Pay Systems (APPS) In 2007, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) created a police payroll system called WEPS. It included the names of police, their father’s and grandfather’s names, rank, and banking details, but no biometric data, UNDP staff said. In February 2021, as part of a donor agreement reached in 2014, the implementation of which was[delayed](https://erc.undp.org/evaluation/documents/download/11429)for many years, the Combined Security Transition Command–Afghanistan created a new integrated human resources and payroll system, APPS, that holds personal data on members of the army and police. The US Defense Department paid for the[creation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/23/us-taxpaye… APPS in 2016 and[contracted](https://govtribe.com/opportunity/federal-contract-opportuni…, an Afghan IT-company, to manage the system and integrate AABIS biometric data (iris scan, fingerprints, and photograph). Ministry of Interior and Defense staff said that APPS includes additional details on where individuals live, and their height, eye color, immediate and extended family members’ names and personal details, province, village, district, permanent address, current address, language, ethnicity, religion, and the names, addresses, employment, and family ties of two character witnesses who vouched for their candidacy when they applied for their jobs. “All of this data belongs to the Afghan government, and since the Taliban is now the government, they have unfettered access to every government system,” said a UNDP staff member, who requested anonymity. The servers storing data on police were housed in the Interior Ministry, said an Afghan former NATO employee managing the system and a former police officer working with the system. Two former Afghan military officials believed the servers housing the military staff data sat in the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Kabul. Although the officials could not link to the data system, they said that the Taliban had rounded up and[killed or forcibly disappeared](https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/30/afghanistan-taliban-kill-d… military officials they knew in the previous four months. The NATO employee said: > If the Taliban gets access to these payroll systems, they will get all the information they need on Ministry of Interior, Defense, and National Security staff, including individuals’ national security status and where they are from. I am most worried about the safety of our thousands of female officers. And even if these people have made it out of the country, the Taliban might go after their families. An unnamed former Afghan government official who worked on the biometric gathering[told a journalist](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2287750-us-built-biometric… the Taliban did have access to the APPS systems. However, on March 28, Human Rights Watch spoke to a former adviser to the government who said that he had spoken to technology officers from the Ministries of Interior and Defense and a senior staffer at Netlinks who all said that one week before the Taliban took control of Kabul, staff in the ministries lost access to APPS and they believed that the US government removed the servers holding the data in the systems from the country and had blocked access. Human Rights Watch sent an inquiry to the US government and Netlinks about APPS and the extent to which the Taliban had access to the system but received no substantive responses. Supreme Court Payroll System The six Afghan judges interviewed included four men and two women. Three of the six are in hiding in the country. Those interviewed said that the Supreme Court has a payroll system with extensive personal data on all judges and their families including their biometrics (fingerprints, iris scans, and photographs), current addresses, and their car’s model, color, and license plate number. European Union reporting suggests that it may have helped[fund](https://eeas.europa.eu/archives/ifs/publications2006-2009/articles/rep1/reportage_vol1_chapter2_afghanistan_-_reform_of_the_justice_sector.pdf)the payroll system. The judges said that they believed that the biometric data stored in the system would make it impossible for judges to hide their identities indefinitely. This was of special concern to the judges still in Afghanistan, who said they were in hiding because they feared being arrested or[killed](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/world/asia/afghan-judges-wome… Taliban members or criminals whom they had sentenced to prison but were[released](https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/afghanistan-taliban-kandahar-prison-jailbreak-prisoners-released-video-1839742-2021-08-11)after the Taliban took control. All six judges thought that the Taliban was using the system to try to find or arrest them or others. A judge known for her work combatting domestic violence said that the first night the Taliban took control of her city, its members stormed her home after she had already fled. Taliban members then went to her mother’s home looking for her. “How did they have the details of my mother’s home?” she asked. “She doesn’t even live with my father. Those details were only in the Supreme Court system.” Other judges shared a screen shot of a post in early December on a Telegram group for Afghan judges about a judge in Bamiyan whom Taliban officials arrested at the local passport office after learning his occupation. The judge had been trying to renew his passport so he could leave the country. The judges said that according to the Telegram group members, the judge’s fingerprints helped the Taliban identify him as a judge. The judges were convinced that the Taliban could access the servers housing the system, which they thought were in the Supreme Court headquarters in Kabul. One judge said that in late November, his court administrator told him that the Taliban had called him into the courthouse and ordered him to hand over his password to enter the system of criminal cases. This is separate from the system with data on judges but demonstrates the ease with which the Taliban were able to get access. One judge said that in November and December, he heard but could not confirm that gunmen killed two judges in Kabul near their homes, one of whom he knew personally. Human Rights Watch asked the European Union whether it had funded the system but was unable to confirm that or to determine the risk assessments donors undertook or the safeguards put in place to protect the data held in the system. National Directorate of Security Payroll System The National Directorate of Security (NDS), the former government’s intelligence agency that was long implicated in[torture](https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/torture-tra… killings](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-rights-report-idUS…, had its own human resources and payroll systems that contain the same sensitive information on their staff, with servers housed in its Kabul headquarters. The former military commander for government security forces said that when the Taliban released him after holding him for 12 days, he discovered that they had been holding him in the local NDS office in his area. Human Rights Watch was unable to verify whether the Taliban have been able to access the payroll systems, but an unnamed former Afghan government official cited in the[New Scientist](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2287750-us-built-biometrics… that the Taliban had seized equipment from the NDS, adding, “It was left behind in the rush to exit. They have everything.” In his August[interview](https://www.zenger.news/2021/08/28/taliban-team-is-using-us-made-biometric-database-and-scanners-to-hunt-american-and-afghan-enemies/), Nawazuddin Haqqani, the Taliban brigade commander, specifically mentioned the service, saying its staff would not be “let off.” The NDS was established by the US Central Intelligence Agency after 2001 and entirely funded by the US government. Human Rights Watch sent an inquiry to the US government but was unable to determine the risk assessments donors undertook and the safeguards put in place to protect the data held in the system. International Law The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Afghanistan is party,[affirms](https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.as… right to privacy in article 17, which may not be subject to arbitrary or unlawful interference. The United Nations Human RightsCommittee (HRC), the international expert body that authoritatively interprets theICCPR, has[held](http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/undocs/html/vws488.htm)that “any interference with privacy must be proportional to the end sought and be necessary in the circumstances of any given case.” It has also[stated](https://www.refworld.org/docid/453883f922.html)that “gathering and holding of personal information in computers, data banks, and other devices, whether by public authorities or private individuals, must be regulated by law” and that every individual should have the right to know “what personal data is stored…and for what purposes” and “which public authorities or private individuals or bodies control or may control their files.” If a person is concerned that data has been collected or used incorrectly, they should have recourse to remedy the problematic information. The HRC, in its[General Comment No. 16](https://www.refworld.org/docid/453883f922.html)(1988) on the right to privacy, stated that governments are obligated to take effective measures to ensure that information concerning a person’s private life does not reach the hands of persons who are not authorized by law to receive, process, and use it, and that it is never used for purposes incompatible with the ICCPR. Effective protection should[include](https://www.refworld.org/docid/453883f922.html)everyone’s ability to ascertain in an intelligible form, whether and, if so, what personal data is stored in automatic data files, and for what purposes. Every individual should also be able to ascertain which public authorities or private individuals or bodies control or may control their files. Recommendations Donor governments, international organizations, companies, and the former Afghan government should not have built these potentially dangerous systems without conducting a thorough human rights and data protection impact assessment that includes a contextual analysis, an analysis of the technology to be deployed within that context, a system threat model to assess the risk and possible outcomes of system failure, and a data protection and cyber security assessment specific to the Afghanistan context. Once they decided to proceed with the systems, they should have meaningfully engaged with data subjects to explain how their data would be used, and how they were managing and mitigating risk. They should have revisited these assessments and communications regularly, as the political and security landscape in Afghanistan evolved. Given events since August 2021, all those involved in funding and building these biometric systems, including the US government, the European Union, UN agencies, and the World Bank, should make public: - The kind of data that may have been lost or seized following the Taliban takeover, including data they transferred to the former Afghan government or collected on their behalf; - The architecture of any systems used to hold biometric or other data of large populations so that those affected will have a clearer understanding of possible impacts and measures they can take to mitigate risk. This should include data flow and critical security measures such as monitoring, encryption, authentication/authorization, and wipe/destruction capability; - The human rights and data protection impact assessments that were conducted for these systems (if any) and how these assessments were tailored to address the context and threats present in Afghanistan. This includes whether these assessments were updated to reflect the Taliban’s territorial gains over the years or whether separate analyses were conducted more broadly on the likelihood of theft or seizure of data by the Taliban; - The steps they have taken to inform people whose data was held in the compromised systems, where doing so will not put data subjects at further risk. This includes information about the systems themselves at the time of data capture or implementation (for example a fair processing notice, consent statement, and transparency notice) and, subsequently, about any safeguards or mitigating steps they have taken for people whose biometric data may now be in the hands of the Taliban, and whether they have issued breach notifications, in line with good information handling and data protection practice. If they decide that informing data subjects would put them at further risk, they should make public how frequently they will review the decision not to inform them that their data was compromised and what further mitigating steps they are taking to protect those affected. Given the events in Afghanistan, donors should make a commitment to develop a set of best practices in similar contexts, including procedures for the destruction of sensitive data that was collected using their funding and putting in place effective limits on the collection of data in accord with the principles of proportionality and necessity. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and countries considering Afghan refugee claims should take into account the risks that Taliban control of biometric systems have created when making refugee status determinations. Where they are supplying, building, or advising on systems and tools that may be used in conflict zones, fragile spaces, or humanitarian settings, private sector actors should ensure that their partnerships include a clear commitment to the right of privacy. Such commitments should also be reflected in the principles, scope, and undertaking of that partnership.

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Barrett Brown
by zeynepaydogan 02 Apr '22

02 Apr '22

https://twitter.com/barrettb/status/1509590943065944071?s=21&t=jSqBDpl2018N… A few minutes after I posted documents showing certain people have been lying about their ties to the intelligence community while soliciting whistleblower documents, it suddenly turned out that there are credible rape allegations against me.

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Leaks: The Publishing Game... Bias Motivation Corruption Ops Agents and Balls, DDoSecrets
by grarpamp 02 Apr '22

02 Apr '22

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/02/18/hacking-canadian-trucker-convoy-us-canad… Was the hacking of Ottawa trucker convoy donors a US-Canadian intelligence operation? [51][IMG][52]Kit Klarenberg.February 18, 2022 Aubrey Cottle, the hacker claiming credit for stealing convoy donor info, has boasted of work with the FBI and Canadian law enforcement. The data was published by DDoSecrets, an anti-Wikileaks non-profit whose founder has disclosed "work in national security/counter-intelligence." [53]On February 13th, the names and personal details of almost 100,000 individuals who donated sums to support the Canadian truckers’ protest against vaccine mandates through the crowdfunding site GiveSendGo [54]appeared online via Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), an online archive seeking to easily connect journalists and researchers with leaked information. The mainstream media used the trove to frame the convoy as [55]essentially foreign-funded, and [56]harass small donors from average backgrounds. Numerous fascinating nuggets, such as the gifting of $215,000 by a donor whose identity, email, IP address and ZIP code was not recorded by the website, unlike every other giver, were in the process ignored. The hack-and-leak represented just the latest broadside against the convoy activists. Hours later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau activated the Emergencies Act for the very first time in Canadian history, an unprecedented move effectively suspending the civil rights of the protesters and granting federal law enforcement the power to seize their bank accounts without a court order. An [57]alleged founder of hacktivist collective Anonymous, Canadian Aubrey Cottle, took credit for the hack of the convoy donors’ information in the form of an [58]online “manifesto” and accompanying video overlaying a clip from the Disney musical Frozen. Echoing Liberal Canadian politicians, Cottle accused the convoy of holding Ottawa “hostage for weeks while terrorizing the peaceful citizens who live there.” The hacker went on to baselessly allege the donations were being used “to fund an insurrection,” and that individuals who had contributed had also bankrolled the January 6th, 2021 riot at the US Capitol. Next, Cottle warned without evidence that the global “convoy movement” could be “a cover for a type of Trojan Horse attack where extremists and militia groups arrive in large numbers with weapons,” as “large convoys of trucks moving in capital cities will look normal given the theme of these world wide protests.” Absolutely nothing I say could EVER prepare you for this video of Aubrey Cottle, dude who hacked [59]#GiveSendGo, writhing, preening, full-throated screaming into the camera “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO ME HUHHHH??!?”[60]pic.twitter.com/852h2RB6UB -- Mandy Stadtmiller (@mandystadt) [61]February 18, 2022 It was a characteristically volatile outburst from the eccentric hacker, who has been praised in mainstream media for taking on the far-right despite his [62]history of overtly anti-Semitic commentary. Operating in broad daylight for many years, the prolific cyber-warrior has somehow been able to function freely without any legal repercussions. Cottle’s impunity may stem in part from his apparently intimate relationship with a variety of intelligence services. In 2007, [63]Cottle was reportedly visited at home by a representative of Canada’s Security Intelligence Service, the nation’s equivalent to the CIA, which wished to exploit his hacking nous to battle “al-Qaeda and terrorist groups.” He allegedly declined the offer after some consideration. Nonetheless, [64]Cottle claims to have “often...dealt with feds" such as the FBI and Royal Canadian Mountain Police. His activities include running “child porn [65]honeypot operations” involving multiple sites that “still give [him] nightmares.” "I've done work for the fbi before and i give zero fucks," Cottle wrote on Twitter on January 20, 2017. As the right-wing outlet American Greatness [66]noted, Cottle has boasted that he has been “lucky” enough to be granted “the blessing of alphabet agencies” - slang for intelligence services - to “weaponize Anonymous” for “antiterrorism” purposes. Further indications of Cottle's ties to law enforcement arrived in July 2021 when journalist Barrett Brown [67]released documents revealing how the hacker had collaborated with [68]notorious neo-Nazi cyber-activist “weev” to conduct major hacks that could be blamed on Antifa. Brown suggests this “just happened” via GiveSendGo. We released documents in July showing FBI assets led by Nazi leader Weev and fronted by racist police asset Aubrey "Kirtaner" Cottle were planning to conduct major [69]#Anonymous hacks that would be blamed on [70]#Antifa. It just happened via [71]#GiveSendGo. [72]https://t.co/VnSb7NK5TY -- Barrett Brown (@BarrettB) [73]February 17, 2022 Cottle has recently taken to Twitter to praise the Canadian government for activating the Emergencies Act. The hacker declared that “THEY F***ED AROUND AND FOUND OUT.” Though his Twitter account has since been locked, he has continued to brag about his GiveSendGo hack in a [74]series of bizarre [75]videos. In another possible hint of national security state involvement, a non-profit self-styled whistleblower site called Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets, has taken possession of the information supposedly obtained by Cottle, and begun distributing it to mainstream media outlets. Besides targeting right-wing websites, DDoSecrets has previously been implicated in hacking operations against the Russian government. Its founder, Emma Best, has disclosed a record of "work in national security/counter-intelligence" in court documents. Further, Best is a vitriolic antagonist of Julian Assange and has gone to extreme lengths to paint him as an asset of the Kremlin. Emma Best of DDoSecrets DDoSecrets’ founder smears Assange, implicates Wikileaks Before its role in publicizing the GiveSendGo donors list, DDoSecrets published lists of GiveSendGo donors to causes [76]such as the [77]heavily-FBI penetrated Proud Boys, [78]Kyle Rittenhouse, and an effort to fight [79]“voter fraud” in the 2020 US Presidential election. Clearly aligned with liberal and Democratic Party objectives, DDoSecrets has also been a key hosting ground for terabytes of hacked data on private and public communications between members of militias, neo-Nazi and far-right groups hacked from social networks [80]Gab and Parler, which Cottle claims to have obtained themself. Data scraped from Parler, including video from the January 6th riot, [81]was subsequently used in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in February 20201. DDoSecrets is a largely opaque outfit. [82]Operated by an almost entirely anonymous or pseudonymous team living across the globe, its founder, Emma Best, is the group’s most prominent public-facing member. A former WikiLeaks collaborator and [83]prolific Freedom of Information requester, Best’s dissident bona fides seem on the surface to be beyond doubt. In 2016, after hammering the FBI with seemingly endless FOI demands, the Bureau [84]appears to have considered prosecuting Best for “vexsome” activities. Five years later, it [85]outright banned Best from filing such requests at all, but the decision was later overturned. Best also played a pivotal role in [86]compelling the CIA to publish its 13 million-strong declassified document archive online in 2017. Likewise, DDoSecrets’ June 2020 release of 269 gigabytes of sensitive US law enforcement fusion center data - dubbed “BlueLeaks” - exposed all manner of abuses, corruption, criminality and excesses on the part of American police forces, leading to [87]official investigations, and the [88]seizure of servers hosting the information in Germany by local authorities. So why have mainstream media enthusiastically embraced DDoSecrets while advancing the Western security state’s crusade against WikiLeaks? The latter organization has faced condemnation, censure, and designation by the CIA as a “non-state hostile intelligence agency,” leading to the Agency hatching plots to kidnap or even kill its founder, Julian Assange, while subjecting his collaborators to intensive surveillance and harassment. By contrast, [89]in 2019, the same year Julian Assange was arrested in London’s Ecuadorian embassy and hauled off to Belmarsh Prison to face extradition to the US, the federally funded Congressional Research Service recognized Best’s organization as a legitimate “transparency collective” – and not long after the IRS [90]granted it 501(c)(3) non-profit status. The [91]repeated hailing by mainstream and US government sources of DDoSecrets as a WikiLeaks successor – or even its replacement – is all the more perverse given that Best has [92]repeatedly published private Twitter communications between the Wikileaks collaborators. The contents of these private discussions were [93]dished out to corporate news outlets like Buzzfeed, which presented them as proof Assange was deliberately seeking to secure the election of Donald Trump, and knowingly collaborating with Russian intelligence to do so. You now have evidence? Emma Best's role in 2016 was to obtain evidence for BuzzFeed that would tie Guccifer2 to WikiLeaks. Emma shopping leaks that we're already in WikiLeaks possession is the proverbial dish "best served" cold. Thanks for playing. Game over. [94]https://t.co/MHiZEbLtSf -- Pirate Party Weekly<U+1F3F4><U+200D>☠️ (@PiratePartyINT) [95]April 6, 2018 [96]Numerous interviews conducted by Best over the years [97]amplified the fraudulent narratives used to frame Assange as a Russian asset. In the eyes of many, they have played a role in justifying or minimizing his [98]life-threatening incarceration in Britain’s Gitmo on trumped up, bogus charges. A handful of independent journalists have been harshly critical of Best as a result, wondering how the public interest was served by publishing private communications that implicated Wikileaks in a security state intrigue. The DDoSecrets founder has [99]consistently attempted to parry criticism by claiming their actions were not an attempt to attack or undermine Assange, [100]and were “curated for relevance.” However, Best overwhelmingly curated [101]comments and interactions painting Assange and WikiLeaks in the worst possible light, which inevitably proved extremely alluring to a hostile media. Any exculpatory content included in the leaks was summarily and unsurprisingly ignored. What’s more, the DDoSecrets founder’s own surging contempt for Assange is unambiguous. Over the years, Best has [102]branded Assange as among things a “cowardly, transphobic, antisemitic trash person made of tepid mayo and a bleached wig.” What do such statements tells us about the motivation for publishing ? [103]https://t.co/wL0gglC6w7 [104]pic.twitter.com/DHoV7jo3kq -- Emmy B (@greekemmy) [105]July 14, 2020 Court documents detail Best's pursuit of "counter-intelligence work" The Grayzone has obtained [106]court documents from November 2013 related to Best's application to change their name from Daniel Mac Curdy Burnet to Mike Best. The files indicate Best was "currently actively pursuing a course of study in national security and counter-intelligence work," and intended to be employed full-time in the field of national security/counter-intelligence." Court documents filed in November 2013 by Emma Best (formerly Daniel Mac Curdy Barnet) requesting a name change One of the reasons Best requested a name change was as follows: "[concerns] about possible harassment from extremist activists against his family and relatives as a result of his work in national security/counter-intelligence if a connection can be easily found through Google between his family birth name and his professional name." This dubious background is referenced in a glowing May 2020 [107]Der Spiegel article covering Best's work in exposing the offshore financial arrangements of wealthy Germans. The report noted that "a few years ago," Best had worked for subcontractors "hired by US counterintelligence," but had left allegedly "after running into bureaucratic obstruction and disregard for source safety from an international organization." Without providing further detail, Best claimed to have not kept in touch with "old colleagues." Nonetheless, in 2019, [108]the digital activist embarked on a research project with an [109]ex-NSA hacker to unearth US government documents related to historical cyberattacks. On Twitter, Best [110]batted away a request for comment by this reporter about the court documents detailing their "work in national security/counter-intelligence," stating, "I don't plan on answering all your inane questions." Whatever such activities entailed, Best's DDoSecrets's work has often advanced the critical priorities of US intelligence. CIA hack-and-dump ops against Iran and Russia raise further suspicions [111]In November 2021, Yahoo! News reported that the administration of US President Donald Trump authorized the CIA to “run wild” with covert actions in a bid to destabilize Iran. In 2018, Trump sanctioned the Agency to conduct “much more aggressive” offensive cyber activities, leading to the CIA launching “covert hack-and-dump operations” against Iran and Russia and “cyberattacks on Iranian infrastructure” with “less White House oversight” than before. Given that DDoSecrets was launched in December that same year, the timing of the effort was striking. The first major coup of DDosSecrets arrived weeks later when it [112]published 175 gigabytes of “messages and files from Russian politicians, journalists, oligarchs, religious figures, and nationalists/terrorists in Ukraine.” The collection was dubbed “The Dark Side of the Kremlin,” and avowedly sourced from a “hacking spree” conducted against Russian targets. Transparency activists release massive trove of hacked, leaked Russian documents [113]https://t.co/pyYTBtsW7W [114]pic.twitter.com/hd550XKTXX -- The Hill (@thehill) [115]January 26, 2019 Best claimed to The New York Times that the tranche was not published “explicitly as payback” for Russia’s alleged release of the DNC emails in 2016, while remarking that “it does add some appreciable irony.” She also used the opportunity to take aim once again Assange and WikiLeaks, stating she was “disappointed” at their “dishonest and egotistic behavior.” Best insisted that her organization had also posted material favorable to Assange “leaked from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.” This refers to internal files from National Intelligence Secretariat (SENAIN), a now-defunct Ecuadorian intelligence agency charged with protecting the WikiLeaks chief and extracting him to safety. The Guardian [116]reported on these documents in 2018 and went to great pains to present SENAIN as villains in the process. Oddly, those files have [117]since been removed from the DDoSecrets archive. In November of that year, The Intercept and New York Times published a [118]number of articles titled “The Iran Cables” based on an “unprecedented leak” of 700 pages of reports supposedly compiled by Tehran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The series sought to expose the scale of Iranian “influence” in Iraq, in the process revealing “the surprising ways in which Iranian and US interests often aligned” in the years following the illegal war. News about Trump’s loosening restrictions on CIA cyberwarfare to authorize hack-and-dump ops makes me wonder if Langley was behind the ICIJ’s [119]#ChinaCables and the Intercept’s Iran Leaks, among other leaks targeting designated enemies [120]https://t.co/YMl3XbPMgM [121]pic.twitter.com/MdDskVoRHB -- Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) [122]July 16, 2020 The release of the leaked files may have played a role in escalating conflict between the US and Iran. A New York Times story based on the material [123]focused heavily on the alleged role of Iranian General Qasem Suleimani as the shadowy puppet master of the Iraqi government, claiming he “more than anyone else” had employed “the dark arts of espionage and covert military action to ensure that Shiite power remains ascendant.” Two months later, Soleimani was incinerated in an illegal US drone strike launched as he left Baghdad International Airport for a peace conference. [124]An Intercept article purporting to tell the true “story behind” the cables’ release wove a dramatic narrative straight out of a Le Carré novel, and which may have been just as fictional, claiming a nameless Iraqi approached the publication with the material in order to “let the world know what Iran is doing in my country.” Even if the outlet’s narrative was accurate, and the Russian and Iranian document troves had not been obtained through the CIA “hack-and-dump operations” sanctioned under Trump, it would be an extraordinary if not inexplicable coincidence that content which precisely matched that description was released the following year. CIA hack-and-leak operations are an increasingly common information warfare tactic. For example, [125]in June 2021 a US government official acknowledged Washington was secretly financing “investigative journalists and investigative NGOs” and employing “components of the intelligence community” including the Agency to expose corruption by public officials abroad, having created the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP) to serve as a funnel for this material. OCCRP is [126]funded by a welter of US intelligence cutouts, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy. [127]In October 2021, the OCCRP released the Pandora Papers, [128]raising obvious questions about whether the underlying information was obtained through a US intelligence-related hack. Back in December 2019, DDoSecrets [129]partnered with the OCCRP to publish documents and data related to the operations of Formations House, which registered and operated companies for organized crime syndicates, dubious state-owned companies, and fraudulent banks. Whether DDoSecrets and its founder are witting or unwitting pawns of the CIA is a moot point. Its commitment to publishing and hosting as much leaked material as possible makes the organization an extremely attractive conduit for ill-gotten sensitive documents, and the origins of this material is never questioned by news outlets that report upon it. After all, the imprimatur of DDoSecrets lends its releases credibility and legitimacy. DDoSecrets has been scrupulous about attributing sources in particular cases. For example, the [130]DDoSecrets entry on the DNC emails released by WikiLeaks forcefully asserts the documents were “hacked by Russian intelligence services.” This claim was undermined, however, by the admission of the CEO of CrowdStrike – the cybersecurity firm that made the attributions – [131]admitting under oath there is no “concrete evidence” the emails were “actually exfiltrated” by anyone. Meanwhile, [132]other entries are [133]careful to note constituent material was released by individuals associated with Russian intelligence, [134]and may include “forged” documents. The only comparable disclaimer that can be found in respect of any Western intelligence service anywhere else on the DDoSecrets website today relates to [135]Syrian government emails originally dumped by WikiLeaks. The emails now include an accompanying blurb noting “the hack itself was not [emphasis in original] directly sponsored or conducted” by Washington, although its subsequent release was “carried out under the direct supervision of the US via FBI informant Hector ‘Sabu’ Monsegur.” Since its foundation, DDoSecrets has provided a reliable archive for compromising information and data tranches stolen from the servers of foreign states which happen to be in the US government’s crosshairs. Following Biden’s call to Trudeau, during which he demanded swift action against the truckers’ convoy filling downtown Ottawa and blockading US-Canadian border crossings in protest of vaccine mandates, DDoSecrets surfaced once again as a promotional platform for hacked data on convoy donors. And while Assange languishes in prison, DDoSecrets is once again shopping its data to mainstream media outlets and advancing the critical interests of crisis-wracked Western governments. [136]Aubrey Cottle[137]Canada[138]CIA[139]DDoSecrets[140]Emma Best[141]Freedom Convoy[142]Iran[143]Julian Assange[144]Justin Trudeau[145]Qasem Soleimani[146]Russia[147]trucker convoy[148]Wikileaks [149][IMG] [150]Kit Klarenberg Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. 51. https://thegrayzone.com/author/kit-klarenberg/ 52. https://thegrayzone.com/author/kit-klarenberg/ 53. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/more-data-canada-truck-convoy-donors… 54. https://gizmodo.com/givesendgo-leak-freedom-convoy-canada-trucker-protest-d… 55. https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/14/22933772/givesendgo-funding-freedom-conv… 56. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1494429455590334469 57. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/founder-of-hacker-group-anonymous-reveals… 58. https://rentry.co/2noy3 59. https://twitter.com/hashtag/GiveSendGo 60. https://twitter.com/IrishAmerican27/status/1494006282566709250 61. https://twitter.com/mandystadt/status/1494492508482461698 62. https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/15/canadian-hacker-who-claims-to-have-worke… 63. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/hacker-group-anonymo… 64. https://stopactivistsurveillance.noblogs.org/post/2021/10/13/aubrey-cottle-… 65. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/531020-fbi-photos-online-esnare-predators/ 66. https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/15/canadian-hacker-who-claims-to-have-worke… 67. https://twitter.com/BarrettB/status/1494150548307816459 68. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1335&context=d… 69. https://twitter.com/hashtag/Anonymous 70. https://twitter.com/hashtag/Antifa 71. https://twitter.com/hashtag/GiveSendGo 72. https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1nAJEYDYVBkJL 73. https://twitter.com/BarrettB/status/1494150548307816459 74. https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1494024855745753089 75. https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1494039402800054273 75. https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1494049285641433090 76. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/10/proud-boys-far-right-givesend… 77. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-before-jan-6-fbi-collected-infor… 78. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/16/us-police-officers-public-o… 79. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/06/04/givesendgo-da… 80. https://www.wired.com/story/gab-hack-data-breach-ddosecrets/ 81. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-riot-vi… 82. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/emma-best-ddosecrets.php 83. https://www.spiegel.de/international/database-exposes-offshore-holdings-of-… 84. https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/dec/12/fbi-foia-investigation/ 85. https://emma.best/2021/06/13/fbi-tried-to-ban-me-from-foia/ 86. https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/jan/17/cias-declassified-databa… 87. https://bangordailynews.com/2021/04/10/opinion/contributors/maine-legislato… 88. https://www.zdnet.com/article/german-authorities-seize-blueleaks-server-tha… 89. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11143 90. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/85-2177863 91. https://newrepublic.com/article/163106/ddossecrets-new-wikileaks-julian-ass… 92. https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kyv9n/activist-publishes-11000-wikileaks-t… 93. https://hornet.com/stories/emma-best-wikileaks-chats/ 94. https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/982005748350595072 95. https://twitter.com/PiratePartyINT/status/982059184056184832 96. https://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/journalist-emma-best-published-wikileaks… 97. https://www.spiegel.de/international/database-exposes-offshore-holdings-of-… 98. https://thegrayzone.com/2021/11/17/files-australian-julian-assange-prison/ 99. https://twitter.com/NatSecGeek/status/1283106293490814976 100. https://www.cyberscoop.com/assangeleaks-ddosecrets-wikileaks/ 101. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/07/30/11000-wikileaks-twit… 102. https://twitter.com/greekemmy/status/1283107645898076160 103. https://archive.is/N3aoQ 104. https://twitter.com/greekemmy/status/1283107645898076160 105. https://twitter.com/greekemmy/status/1283107645898076160 106. https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/DocumentHandler-4.pdf 107. https://www.spiegel.de/international/database-exposes-offshore-holdings-of-… 108. https://www.vice.com/en/article/vb9bjj/hacking-history-foia-project 109. https://www.vice.com/en/article/9knqv5/this-ex-nsa-hacker-is-building-an-ai… 110. https://twitter.com/NatSecGeek/status/1495397344531169290 111. https://news.yahoo.com/frustrated-with-cia-trump-administration-turned-to-p… 112. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/world/europe/russian-documents-leaked-dd… 113. https://hill.cm/QnKoXXQ 114. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1089233764620877824 115. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1089233764620877824 116. https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/operation-hotel 117. https://ddosecrets.com/index.php?search=senain&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go 118. https://theintercept.com/series/iran-cables/ 119. https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChinaCables 120. https://news.yahoo.com/secret-trump-order-gives-cia-more-powers-to-launch-c… 121. https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1283806625162199040 122. https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1283806625162199040 123. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/18/world/middleeast/iran-iraq-s… 124. https://theintercept.com/2019/11/18/iran-cables/ 125. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/536539-cia-leak-pandora-papers/ 126. https://www.occrp.org/en/aboutus/who-supports-our-work 127. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/536539-cia-leak-pandora-papers/ 128. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/536539-cia-leak-pandora-papers/ 129. https://www.occrp.org/en/29leaks/ 130. https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/DNC_Emails 131. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/05/13/hidden_over_2_y… 132. https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/Category:Allegations_of_State_Sponsorship 133. https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/CEIEC 134. https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/CEIEC 135. https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/Syria_files 136. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/aubrey-cottle/ 137. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/canada/ 138. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/cia/ 139. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/ddosecrets/ 140. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/emma-best/ 141. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/freedom-convoy/ 142. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/iran/ 143. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/julian-assange/ 144. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/justin-trudeau/ 145. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/qasem-soleimani/ 146. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/russia/ 147. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/trucker-convoy/ 148. https://thegrayzone.com/tag/wikileaks/ 149. https://thegrayzone.com/author/kit-klarenberg/ 150. https://thegrayzone.com/author/kit-klarenberg/

1 0

UK stop the war scam
by professor rat 02 Apr '22

02 Apr '22

The Stop the War Coalition, which he supports, doesn't oppose all NATO intervention, but -- in effect -- instead demands that NATO work together with Russia to find suitable territorial and political concessions to force on Ukraine. It doesn't demand Russian troops out of Ukraine https://groups.io/g/marxmail/topic/ukraine_debate_between/90172464?p=,,,20,…

1 0

Down among the Azov
by professor rat 02 Apr '22

02 Apr '22

Oh, this Assange Nazi militant guy is just taking a selfie with some of his Ukrainian citizens after he tied them up to a pole, sprayed their faces & leached their derrieres till they got bloody. His trophy for the day. Stella Moris #FreeAssangeNOW on Twitter: "I spoke to Julian ... https://twitter.com › StellaMoris1 › status 25 Feb 2022 — We contacted Julian Assange in prison. He says that everyone in #Ukraine should install @BriarApp NOW before the internet goes down . . . " NO WEAPONS FOR NAZI's!

1 0

Russia using automated social influence
by professor rat 02 Apr '22

02 Apr '22

No one with net access need ever be curious who originally sold or leased such technology to them. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.h… in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

1 0

Back in the USSSR
by professor rat 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

School students turn teacher in to police for alleged anti-Russia comments A Russian teacher could be facing 15 years in jail after her students secretly recorded her and then turned her in to the authorities. https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/school-students-turn-teacher-in-to-pol…

2 1

[ot][wrong] coreboot community thing
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

coreboot is currently experiencing a small disagreement about removing the intel quark board from the tree. i'm experiencing paranoia around it. the arguments to plan to delete it are persistent and quick, and seem to generally completely ignore logic to the contrary. it would be appropriate to call something out or express important community practices, to protect the project, but with my paranoid psychosis I can't tell what's true and would contribute to the problem. problems don't seem immidiately imminent, but I feel responsible, and i've seen projects break apart a lot. it's unfortunate when proposals to remove things align with burdenedness or distractedness of those using or maintaining them. simply watching to learn hasn't really worked in the past, since I learn so poorly now. coreboot had its major deletion last decade, when swathes of boards were removed. the board i'm tinkering with porting forward was one of them. on a blockchain git system, i'd just follow the forks that don't delete stuff. but without p2p organisation, my fears start building; I imagine people coming in and removing every board from coreboot until it is empty! or removing boards that suppressed voices need at important times. gerrit: https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/63283 mailing list thread: https://mail.coreboot.org/hyperkitty/list/coreboot@coreboot.org/thread/YRJQ… I engaged some discussion on irc, dunno if that's logged though

1 0

Query for Jakob
by professor rat 01 Apr '22

01 Apr '22

Can you tell us what's up with @snowden since his "suspended from the ceiling tweet" as he realized how badly he misjudged Putin?

1 0