CITIZENFOUR

[odinn]

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At the risk of being repetitive, I simply wish to ask the following to
whoever is reading this thread, be it random cypherpunks list
subscribers that are just trying to clear out their e-mail on the
weekend, John Young, Glenn Greenwald, or anyone who knows something
that I do not (and that's quite a lot):

1) Who might have access to a list known as Main Core?  This is such
an old story that it would seem that some kind of list would now be
available, but I haven't found it. Has it ever been leaked, FOIA'd,
successfully released in partially redacted form in some other
mechanism, or made searchable somewhere?

[[ Main Core notes / background:  Salon reported on Main Core in July
of 2008 with an article by Tim Shorrock. Apparently, William Hamilton,
a former NSA intelligence officer who left the agency in the 1970s,
had heard of Main Core at some point in 1992, according to the Salon
article. Hamilton, who (was then, and still is) president of Inslaw
Inc., a computer services firm that includes clients in government,
indicated that the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance
operations used Main Core - it is not known if it is still used today
in 2014.  Main Core was first widely reported on in May 2008 by
Christopher Ketcham and in July 2008 by Tim Shorrock, which included
in July of 2008 an interview by Amy Goodman of Tim Shorrock.  However,
I am unaware of any release of names, e-mails, etc. which might be on
this list, and it seemed kind of obvious that those who were reporting
on it probably had never seen the Main Core list.  This may involve
use of PROMIS software, and according to Adm. Dan Murphy (a former
military advisor to Elliot Richardson who later served under President
George H.W. Bush as deputy director of the CIA, who 'died' shortly
after his meeting in 2001 with William Hamilton), did not specifically
mention Main Core. But he informed Hamilton that the NSA’s use of
PROMIS involved something “so seriously wrong that money alone cannot
cure the problem.” ]]

2) What kind of process (if any) exists for myself or anyone else to
get access to this 'list of targets' which Greenwald referred to some
long time ago?
[[ For clarification, I think that this 'list of targets' which I
referred to in my prior message on this thread, and the list of
targets which I am inquiring about now, is the “FISA recap”
spreadsheet containing email addresses, with a “Collection Status”
column and “Case Notation” codes beginning with the prefix “XX.SQF”
directly followed by a number ]]
A redacted version is shown here (which is not searchable):
https://edwardsnowden.com/2014/07/09/fisa-recap/

3) Are there any indications that Main Core list might have just been
merged into another list (such as the 'FISA Recap' or some other such
thing)?  Any news story which provided some kind of statements about
merging of lists, lists being glommed together and used by DHS, etc.?

4) Would it be necessary for me to peruse the entire (in the case of
the  FISA Recap / list of targets) source document of over 7,000 names
or e-mail addresses?  I hope not.  I am interested in some kind of
item that would allow me to search to find out if my name and / or the
names or e-mail addresses of those I am familiar with is in lists such
as MainCore and the FISA Recap (which by now is undoubtedly rather
dated, but I would like to find out anyway).
By the way, I am not the only one interested in being able to search
that list:
https://twitter.com/StanleyCohenLaw/status/472823508008177664

5) For reference:  When vulnerabilities come out that affect millions
of people in the internet world, and when those turn into situations
that result in people's e-mails being divulged somehow, usually there
is someone who is quick to provide a website to make this whole
process searchable by e-mail address so you can find out if you are
affected --
like this excellent site:
https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Just by way of suggestion, I know haveibeenpwned is actually for the
purposes of checking if you have an account that has been compromised
in a data breach in the past (and yes I've used it to check all my
e-mail addresses, and I took appropriate action to protect myself
after the Forbes hack/breach...), but  I see no reason why that same
site (or another site using the same searchable model) should not
present the e-mail addresses of who ended up on Main Core and / or the
'FISA Recap' and reveal if your e-mail address is on there, So That
You Know.  If you know your e-mail address, you can check, and if you
are one of the over 7,000 individuals in the FISA Recap list, a little
thing should notify you of that when you use a search page, just like
it does in haveibeenpwned.  This should have already been made
available long ago (seriously, I hope someone from First Look is
reading this).

Also, if I am being really foolish and if such a page already exists
that would allow me to search for my e-mail address to find if it is
in a FISA Recap, please by all means enlighten me as to the URL (with
protocol identifier as http or https please!) of that page, so I can
go search.


Respect,

- -Odinn



John Young wrote:
> This John Young corrects a data point: 97% of some 59,000 Snowden
> documents have not been released or even less percentage if the DoD
> count of 1.7 million is used. This confirms that those documents
> which have been released are misleading by omission, so
> cherry-picked and dramatized that understanding of them is most
> likely false, biased, distorted, more like narrative fiction (spy
> stories, breaking news) than credible evidence. It certainly
> confirms that media-legal fiction is the intention of the 
> distributors, publicity and legal teams rather than allow full 
> access for widely-based, for ordinary and specialized readers to
> assay the collection through a free public access methodology. 
> (Greenwald's book states that at one point he and Poitras 
> considered setting up a public web for that purpose, maybe 
> apochryphal to gloss the slow drip method adopted.)
> 
> Perhaps the full access will come about after sacred cow of
> profitability and celebrity has been milked, or it may be that full
> access has been granted in confidence to skilled readers in the
> black arts of comsec, infosec and natsec.
> 
> To date, there has been slim pickings of technologically useful
> material short-shrifted in favor of lurid civil liberties scandals
> which the spies can easily massage into messages of of course we do
> that. Except for a tranche of techno material covered by Jacob
> Appelbaum at 30C3, nearly all the rest is simple-minded promotional
> material with dollops of legal shenanigans of the sort Greenwald
> and journalists can handle comfortably.
> 
> A few days ago Bruce Schneier blogged that he had been cut off from
> access to the Snowden material and Matthew Green said he had been
> shown only a few documents for comment. WaPo has had a techie 
> advising Barton Gellman. That's pretty much it for coverage of
> technical material needed to devise countermeasures, that is,
> virtually none at all.
> 
> Hoopla has prevailed in news coverage and books, mostly of it
> valorizing journalists and even Snowden in stock journalist source
> noble cariacture, and it looks as though Poitras and Hollywood will
> continue the practice. What an ethical shame, what criminality of
> monetization ($250M and rising) placed above public protection.
> Snowden is being degraded as a poster child for this venality and
> ambition. Trapped in a bubble of media, legal and diplomatic
> fanfare. A fate suffered by Assange, Manning and a slew of others 
> some paraded from forum to forum as entourage for the 
> Snowden-streaming video circus acts like that hosted by The New
> Yorker at the NY Film Festival and now Poitras melodramatic
> confabulation positioning Greenwald as Machiavelli to the Prince
> Edward of Snowden.
> 
> At 07:27 PM 10/24/2014, you wrote: Hello,
> 
> John, for some reason your name reminds me of someone who I think
> was the ninth person to walk on the moon?  Same John Young? (long
> shot I know) Just kidding though - you are the founder of Cryptome,
> right?
> 
> Anyway, It's not my intent here to ruffle any feathers (on this 
> thread), but I did want to suggest (and I'm sure someone has
> already thought of this) that people be able to search for their
> names or IDs in (searchable) databases of leaked info.
> 
> I think this came up in a thread on twitter some while back
> actually... 
> https://twitter.com/AnonyOdinn/status/344585372216487937
> 
> (That twitter thread was from a discussion in mid-2013[!] which 
> referenced MainCore and also (different than MainCore) a 'list of 
> targets' that Greenwald had mentioned, but regardless of if it's 
> MainCore or Greenwald's 'list of targets' or other such thing, I
> think searchability is really important, which of course implies
> that really all the data should be made available in some kind of
> format to allow keyword searches.)
> 
> -Odinn
> 
> 
> John Young wrote:
>> Thanks for the comments.
> 
>> Screenshots most welcome. cryptome[at]earthlink.net or pointers.
> 
>> Greenwald's mercenary greed is why only 97% of Snowden docs have 
>> been released. His and cohorts criminal behavior puts citizens
>> in harms way to protect the natsec apparatus including natsec
>> media.
> 
> 
>> At 02:58 PM 10/24/2014, you wrote:
>>> Saw this last night - an obvious must-watch for all CPunks. I 
>>> think it was probably the most important documentary film of
>>> all time. As Roger Ebert said, "it’s as if Daniel Ellsberg
>>> had a friend with a movie camera who filmed his disclosure of
>>> the Pentagon Papers every step of the way. Or if the Watergate 
>>> burglars had taken along a filmmaker who shot their crimes and 
>>> the cover-up that followed. Except that the issues 
>>> “Citizenfour” deals with are, arguably, a thousand times
>>> more potent than Vietnam or Watergate." Truly, this is the
>>> Snowden story we have been waiting for since 2013.
> 
>>> The main revelation of the film, however, is what an
>>> incredible boob Glenn Greenwald is. I had some idea of this
>>> after seeing him give an extremely disappointing talk earlier
>>> this year, but I don't think I quite understood how useless
>>> this guy really is. He's constantly asking the wrong questions,
>>> displays a technical ineptness (to the point of deliberate
>>> ignorance) that obviously hampers the journalism, and at very
>>> step shows a very clear desire to keep the document cache to
>>> himself for careerist purposes. At one point Ewen MacAskill
>>> brings up the idea of there being a Wikileaks-esque document
>>> explorer, and Ed says that this would be the best outcome for
>>> the documents, and Greenwald quickly dismisses the idea to talk
>>> about his publishing schedule. I still have immense respect for
>>> him, but I found it very frustrating and quite cringey to watch
>>> him treat the whole event in news-cycle terms, while everybody
>>> around him is obviously thinking in historical context. For
>>> instance, there is a moment when they are prepping for Ed's
>>> first on-camera interview and he asks the reporters how much
>>> background he should give about himself, and they give
>>> different answers. Poitras asks for as much detail as possible,
>>> and Greenwald basically says that isn't important, just be
>>> short so we get a good soundbite.
> 
>>> More importantly, I think the film also misses an opportunity
>>> to talk about power. This is something Edward himself has
>>> addressed, but it isn't really covered in Greenwald's reporting
>>> or books, and the only time it's mentioned in the film is when
>>> Jacob Appelbaum, while speaking before a European council of
>>> some sort, quite astutely comments that surveillance and
>>> control are one and the same. I think the film should probably
>>> have spent another hour or so investigating, naming and
>>> confronting those who profit from that control. Other than a
>>> few choice C-SPAN snippets, the enemy is completely faceless,
>>> which plays well for the pervading sense paranoia which
>>> envelops the film, but also leaves many questions unasked.
>>> Perhaps that's left as an exercise for the viewer, but I think
>>> the general take-away message from both the reporting and to a
>>> slightly lesser extent the film is that any "solution" will be
>>> token reform of policy and not dismantlement of power
>>> structures.
> 
>>> Also, very nice of the Russian government to let Ed have his 
>>> girlfriend back. I didn't know that had happened, and it gives
>>> a rather unexpected happy ending to a film which otherwise made
>>> me want to cry desperately.
> 
>>> Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear what you lot thought of 
>>> it. (JY, you should throw a torrent up ASAP! I'm sure people
>>> will be screenshotting and analyzing all of the new document
>>> shots the film contains.)
> 
>>> R
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

- -- 
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn
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