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How Citizen Diplomacy Broke Through the Iron Curtain
by Zenaan Harkness 12 Jun '16

12 Jun '16

With the endless NATO approach to Russia's borders, Poland and Baltic states putting bullseyes on their foreheads with America's supposedly "anti" ballistic missile "shield", endless anti Russian MSM propaganda and known psychopathic criminals in charge of most (or all) of the western ICBM nuclear bomb arsenal from USA to UK, and what looks on the face of it to be pretty serious ongoing escalations as we speak, the following is I say quite apt for the times, a good reminder that the stereotypes (Russian state is repressive, Putin's a fascist, Russians are drunkards and madmen all the way down) fail in the face of meeting actual fellow humans, with their own families, mothers, grandfathers, children, hopes, tragedies and loves. We are all human. ------------- How Citizen Diplomacy Broke Through the Iron Curtain http://www.opednews.com/articles/Lessons-for-Peace-from-Bac-by-David-Swanso… http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/lessons-peace-back-ussr/ri14805 One American woman determined to visit the USSR ignored US government warnings and established more contacts and learned more about the country than US officials had in decades David Swanson In the early 1980s almost nobody from the United States traveled to the Soviet Union or vice versa. The Soviets wouldn't let anybody out, and good Americans were disinclined to visit the Evil Empire. But a woman in California named Sharon Tennison took the threat of nuclear war with the seriousness it deserved and still deserves. She got a group of friends together and asked the Russian consulate for permission to visit Russia, make friends, and learn. Russia said fine. The U.S. government, in the form of the FBI and USAID, told them not to go, warned that they would not be permitted to move freely once there, and generally communicated that they, the U.S. government employees, had internalized their own propaganda. Tennison and company went anyway, had a wonderful experience, and spoke at events with slide shows upon their return, thus attracting many more people for the next trip. Now it was Tennison's turn to brief the flabbergasted and ignorant U.S. government staff who had virtually no actual knowledge of Russia beyond what she gave them. This was back in the day when President Ronald "Is this a film or reality?" Reagan said that 20 million dead Americans would be acceptable in a war. Yet the so-called intelligence so-called community didn't know its assets from its elbows. War as a "last resort" was being considered without having considered literally any other resorts. Someone had to step in, and Sharon Tennison decided she'd try. Those first trips took courage, to defy the U.S. government, and to operate in a Soviet Union still monitored by a nasty KGB. But the Americans went with friendship, were generally permitted to go wherever they wanted, and encountered friendship in return. They also encountered knowledge of cultural differences, the influences of history, political and social habits both admirable and lamentable. They became, in fact, a bridge between two worlds, experts on each for the other. They expanded their work as Gorbachev came to power and the USSR opened up. They hired staff and opened offices in both countries. They sponsored and facilitated all variety of exchanges from art schools to Rotary clubs to police officers to environmentalists. They began bringing Russians to the United States as well as the reverse. They spoke all over the United States, even -- in some examples Tennison gives in her book The Power of Impossible Ideas -- converting gung-ho members of the U.S. weapons industry into volunteers and staff (in one case a man lost his job at General Dynamics as penalty for associating with them, but this freed him to more closely associate). Tennison's organization worked on sister cities, citizen diplomacy, alcoholics anonymous, and economic development. The latter would, over the years, become increasingly central and certainly focused on privatization and Americanization in a manner that might well be criticized. But it was not U.S. citizen diplomats who created the oligarchs of the 1990s or any culture of oligarch admiration. In fact, Tennison and her philanthropists made grants to Russians dependent on their making donations to others, working to build a culture of philanthropy. Alcoholics Anonymous can also be criticized, of course, but this was an effort to assist Russians with a real problem, not to threaten them with nuclear annihilation. All of these projects built relationships that have lasted and that have influenced U.S. policy for the better. Through the 1990s, the projects evolved to include food and financial donations, orphanages, aid modeled on the Marshall Plan's Productivity Tours, the creation of urban gardens and sustainable agriculture, and numerous business-training initiatives. Tennison met Vladimir Putin before he rose to power. She also met and advised top officials in the U.S. government. She accepted huge grants from USAID, the agency that had advised her never to begin her work. Of course, USAID has been involved in coups and hostile propaganda around the world, and a closer look at that problematic association might have been helpful in The Power of Impossible Ideas. But the work Tennison describes was all for the better, including taking U.S. Congressional leaders to dine in ordinary Russian homes. (I wonder how many current U.S. Congress members have done that.) I can't possibly recount all the amazing stories in Tennison's book, which lives up to its vague and extravagant title; I strongly recommend you read it yourself. The critical development in the later chapters is the diversion Tennison encountered between reality and U.S. media. She found Putin to be a force for reconciliation, and the U.S. media to be intent on demonization -- at least from the moment that Russia refused to participate in attacking Iraq in 2003. Putin had tried to partner with the United States, challenging the demands of Russian hardliners. He allowed the U.S. to use Russian bases in Central Asia. He overlooked the United States withdrawing from the ABM treaty. He accepted NATO expansion right to Russia's border. He supported, up to a point, the U.S. "war on terrorism." Washington didn't care. "During the 2000s," writes Tennison, "I watched as the reservoir of goodwill from the Gorbachev/Reagan years evaporated." In 2004 the State Department cut off its funding for Tennison's work. In 2006 the Council on Foreign Relations produced a report hostile toward Russia. That same year, Russia gave the United States the 10-story-tall monument that stands in Bayonne, New Jersey, but it was too late to have the U.S. media inform many people of it. In 2007, the U.S. was pushing to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Now, following the Ukrainian coup, the U.S. is seeking "partnerships" with NATO for those nations. The U.S. also announced its plans to put Ronnie's "Star Wars" into Poland and the Czech Republic, later changed to Poland and Romania. Finally, Putin began pushing back, warning against aggression toward Russia. In 2007, Tennison brought a group of 100 Russians to Washington, D.C., to speak to Congress. But the hostility only increased. (By 2016 Pentagon staff would be openly saying ( http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/army-internal-fight-russia-d… ) the motivation of this hostility is bureaucratic and profit-driven.) In 2008, Tennison and others in her organization ( http://ccisf.org/ ) launched a blog ( http://russiaotherpointsofview.com/ ) to correct bad U.S. media. But with tensions growing ever worse ( http://davidswanson.org/node/5151 ), Tennison has lately returned to where she started and begun taking groups of interested Americans to visit Russian cities and get to know members of the demonized foreign land. These trips are as badly needed as they were in the 1980s, though they may require less courage. In fact, what seems to me to require the most courage, or the greatest delusion, is to not participate in this potentially world-saving project.

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Fwd: [tor-talk] CULT OF THE DEAD COW Statement on Jacob Appelbaum / ioerror
by Cari Machet 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

The dead rise ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "ja.talk" <ja.talk(a)yandex.com> Date: Jun 7, 2016 10:10 PM Subject: [tor-talk] CULT OF THE DEAD COW Statement on Jacob Appelbaum / ioerror To: <tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org> Cc: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2853643-Jacob-Appelbaum-CULT-of-the… https://www.facebook.com/cultdeadcow/posts/10157076402890360 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 06-June-2016 CULT OF THE DEAD COW Statement on Jacob Appelbaum / ioerror Like much of the hacker community, we were troubled to hear the allegations of sexual abuse, manipulation, and bullying leveled against one of our members, Jacob Appelbaum, A.K.A. ioerror. We’re also aware that the Tor Project is conducting an internal investigation, and encourage anyone with relevant testimony to come forward. For some, it won’t be easy. There can be shaming or humiliation, or the fear of not being believed. It is also our responsibility to create an environment where people feel safe to come forward. We have always stood for freedom of speech and expression, which sometimes necessitates the right to anonymity. This is something that victims of abuse often require. We stand by their right to be anonymous. Others, like our friend Nick Farr, who decided to go public with his own difficulties, deserve our respect and support. Everyone will do this in their own way. We know that it may be scary, but we also encourage victims to contact their appropriate local authorities. We understand the complicated relationship we all have with law enforcement, but there is a time and place for government intervention. If the most extreme of these allegations are true, they should be addressed in a court of law, and dealt with appropriately. CULT OF THE DEAD COW is known for a lot of things, but treating people horribly is not one of them. If communities are to thrive and remain relevant we have to do some housecleaning from time to time. As we have become aware of the anonymous accusations of sexual assault, as well as the stories told by individuals we know and trust, we've decided to remove Jake from the herd effective immediately. EOM -- tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk

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2 year concise recap - US, Syria, lying like a clinton, dissolving the EU
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

This is concise in wording, so I appreciate it, yet detailed so not particularly short. Journal-Neo.org is nearly always in depth like this it seems. The US Congress Debates: The Funding of World War III http://journal-neo.org/2016/06/07/the-us-congress-debates-the-funding-of-wo… I guess someone will record the old song "Cryin like a refugee" as "Lyin like a Clinton". And to pre-empt a retort from last year, no, the facts of America's actions is not a beat up on America, it's simply facts. If you can spare the time, this article's a great and succinct read covering a lot of territory. Enjoy.

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global censorship
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

So I try to load the following news item in TBB: http://www.pravdareport.com/news/hotspots/crimes/10-06-2016/134690-donbass_… It just comes up completely blank. No worries a quick "new circuit for this site" and ... still blank. OK, let's search google cache. google.com redirects to google.ch. paste in url, search - no cache, no results, but 403 "that's an error. Your client does not have permission to get URL /...". Rinse repeat, new circuit for this site, paste, search, same result 403. Netherlands, switzerland, at this point I give up and use firefox. I just want to read the news article, which happens to be a little topical - lynch mob, but this one's in Ukraine, physical net. Bingo, page appears. What gives? Why so many blocks to this particular article (since, BTW, I loaded 4 other articles from the same website, within the same minute or so, and they all appeared in separate tabs in tbb no problems) ??

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Tor (and other nets) probably screwed by Traffic Analysis by now
by grarpamp 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

Re subject thread, betanews, ars... https://cryptome.org/2016/06/800-backbones-tapped.pdf https://cryptome.org/2016/06/transnational-cables-tapped.pdf Also, search employment postings at cable landings / hubs, note the two post pattern of identical position descriptions, except one of them requires clearance, the other doesn't. Two sides to the room...

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Re: [digital-rights-activism] Oklahoma Police and your money!
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 04:13:16AM -0500, Cryptobits wrote: > It's easier to lose all your money in Oklahoma than it is in Las Vegas! >⋅ > https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/north_america/america… On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 09:00:02PM +0000, Jack Liddy wrote: > It's a shame, there was once a a few people (two or more, depending on which version you believe) in Oklahoma who > bravely stood up to the authorities and refused to allow their massive overreach. Now this is common place and > people are helpless. "People are helpless" Well, perhaps that's the mindset that results in the few who stand, only to find that almost no one jumps on board. Or perhaps I'm overestimating and you are not one of the few who stood, in which case the only shame is that -you- did not stand with those who did. Now here's a huge firetruckin irony: last year, or perhaps early this year, slashd0t.0rg went through some management process of attempting to monetize the site (again) in a way which some of the users (perhaps most) really did not appreciate. This new website layout issue was evidently a momentous human rights trigger, since saw quite a huge campaign from quite a few members of that website, "troll" the beginning of the comments of EVERY new article, to make their point, and they proclaimed they would not stop until the website reverted to its old layout. And wouldn't you know it? Within a couple weeks (don't quote me) of sustained and diligent and united (amongst the protesters) action, they got what they wanted and the weebsite was mostly reverted back to its old layout. But having your assets/ car /bank account/ life/ anonymity of travel to be raped and pillaged? Seriously, who cares? One or two "constitutional extremists" who protest and my god, the gall of them, even go to court against the respective local, state or federal government organ? Man, how extreme, they're like, you know, like terrorists or something, our whole democracy might crumble or you know, like the end of the world, so nah, can't get up to help them... "riseup"? You're kidding me right? Humans ... get what they f**kin deserve.

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Re: [tor-talk] Graffiti "rapist lives here" at Jacob Appelbaum's house
by Zenaan Harkness 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 06:42:04PM -0400, Kevin wrote: > We talk about how internet bullying is wrong. Well, this is internet > bullying. This is internet bullying, descended into an internet lynch mobbing, descended further into physical net vigilante crimes. The mindset allowing for such descent, and such crimes, I believe arises from the not-handled suppression/ repression from our government organs. When we don't handle the bully in our face (papers please show your license, insert this piece of plastic into an orifice of your body so we can verify your DNA^Bblood alcohol level, your bank account has just been fleeced for your oustanding $3K of fines since that's all you had stashed their and we will take the rest next time you pass, etc etc), we repress ourselves. We have submitted to a bully, we have accepted by default (tacitly) an injustice. We are leaving the problem to the next guy as well, and to who knows perhaps our grandchildren. And the problem is, we are not leaving the same problem, we are leaving a bigger problem because the bully got a little bit more confident with his/her bullying. There are state sponsored bullies, and there are individual bullies. And the sense of powerlessness which arises since we let so many bullies (mostly the state sponsored ones) prevail in our weekly lives, leving these bullies "to the next guy", is a foundation which is ripe for YOU jumping into a lynch mob! "Oh look, a single non state sponsored individual who REALLY did something wrong! Yeah let's crucify him! Crucify him now! I know the courts are fucked and the police are corrupt, so we must crucify him/her NOW so we can finally FEEL a bit of justice!" Fact is, the foundation of a lynch mobber is one of intense cowardice. The public cricifixion is nothing but a release valve, and the weak (non state sponsored) individual target of the mob, pays a very high and very public price for the cowardice of the many. EVERY one must ask themselves, am I a coward? Am I not doing my part to handle the bullies in my own life? Am I leaving the problems to the next guy "who I'm so fucking grateful for, my heroes"? When will I start living my part for the world I want to live in, which starts in my own home, my own communities, my own country? Or will I continue to cowardly leave shit to the next guy...

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Re: [tor-talk] Bittorrent starting to move entirely within anonymous overlay nets
by grarpamp 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

On 6/10/16, Jaromil <jaromil(a)dyne.org> wrote: > On Fri, 10 Jun 2016, grarpamp wrote: >> > FTR there are I2P plugins for a vast range of external clients and > even an embedded new client. I2P embedded client is a webfront toy that does not scale. Define scale as 100 to 1000+ torrents loaded in the app's index for seeding. > Oh and BTW there is even a C++ > reimplementation of I2P. This is known. Hopefully it ends up being lighter. > why "a bit harder"? Onioncat 80 is harder in I2P due to I2P address width.. There needs to be a better wider more cross darknet inclusive solution, but as you may know, that's already up for grabs in a recent former thread you can easily find / participate. > Please, lets be frank. I2P supports torrenting on its network since > many years and it works perfectly fine. As a minimal tool for small users of a few torrents. It scales worse than the combo Tor + Onioncat UDP + Transmission, plus opentracker forming initial meetup space to prime into PEX / DHT. Which people are also using right now today, entirely within Tor, and linked to some other networks via other tunnel interfaces which I won't bother to detail here. See dark docs. > need for Tor to push more "marketing" to race above "competitors". The > linked gist to conquer a new fronteer to bring more relays to Tor: BS! Didn't write it, don't share all its plan either. In particular, dislike every clearnet app on the planet having to link against library for this net, library for that net, deal with Tor's stupid lack of anything but TCP transport, talk socks5, not be peertopeer endtoend bidirectional, etc over these darknets. Leads to social balkanization and one-net specific apps like each darknet creating dinky little private tools like Snark. Not knocking i2p / snark, knocking lack of vision and cooperation to make apps interoperable across many darknets at once. As important as competitive race, is inclusion. Which yields faster adoption. Similar to how the subject line is yielding faster adoption among some percent of the 100M+ torrenters out there. > direction of best implementations and there is no doubt that I2P is > the best for torrents. Subjective statement. Best you can do is put them all in a comparison table.

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Re: [tor-talk] Bittorrent starting to move entirely within anonymous overlay nets
by grarpamp 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

On 6/10/16, Aymeric Vitte <vitteaymeric(a)gmail.com> wrote: > [stuff] The OP subject is that - major bt indexes are now operating as onions. Though those indexed torrents specify clearnet trackers, there are also now darknet trackers and users connecting to them and sharing among themselves with their favorite udp enable bt apps by using onioncat. No hacks or other software needed. Thanks for the various subthread though.

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PGP survey invitation
by Kivo Eba Ng 10 Jun '16

10 Jun '16

This came to my inbox. However, I wouldn’t touch this with a 10’ pole. > Dear PGP/GPG user, > > My name is Sven Braun and I am an MSc candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. > > You receive this message, as your email address is publicly available on PGP public key servers. > > I am running a study on the usage of the email and data encryption software PGP/GPG to understand who is using PGP/GPG and encryption in society. > > I kindly invite you to participate in my survey: https://oii.qualtrics.com/SE?Q_DL=2cwWZBfUIKuwBYV_blrVb70dci9gK5T_MLRP_cOr2… <https://oii.qualtrics.com/SE?Q_DL=2cwWZBfUIKuwBYV_blrVb70dci9gK5T_MLRP_cOr2…> > > If you have any further questions about this research, please do not hesitate to contact me <sven.braun(a)oii.ox.ac.uk <mailto:sven.braun@oii.ox.ac.uk>> (+44 1865 986891) or my advisor Dr Anne-Marie Oostveen <anne-marie.oostveen(a)oii.ox.ac.uk <mailto:anne-marie.oostveen@oii.ox.ac.uk>> (+44 1865 287208). > > Many thanks in advance for your participation, > Sven > > -- > Sven Braun > MSc Candidate, Social Science of the Internet > Oxford Internet Institute > University of Oxford Mike

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