Anonymous statements on Gaza / Israel Conflict & Ceasefire
Security researcher Andrew Aurenheimer found guilty of conspiracy and identity fraud in ‘hackless’ AT&T iPad breach
Ex-navy SEAL & War Criminal Erik Prince sets trail for Chinese & International Investors into Africa
RANDOM QUICK HEADLINES
Uruguay President, Jose Mujica, Donates Most Of His Pay To Charity
Show Transcript
Introduction: A Personal Note and Tonight’s Topics
November 21st, 2012. The last few days have been very important for me and ultimately my future. It was one of those manifestations in which a choice is offered. I feel most fortunate to have been afforded that choice in the first place. It was something weighing on my mind for the last few months, and I knew it would ultimately come to fruition. I could not be happier to be here before this microphone and to put it to you that I’m thrilled with my choice and the ability to continue this project I call Decrypt the Matrix. I call it a project because it will never be finished. It is something that could never even be finished. The other side of this choice was an alternate possible reality that I did not choose, one that had a significant chance of jeopardizing the project that is Decrypt the Matrix. So we may continue to enjoy this ride together. Remember the wise Bill Hicks, whose comedy reminds us this is only a ride that we choose to be on. Take it seriously only when completely necessary. The rest is party time, because hey, that’s what it’s all about, right?
Now without further ado, tonight’s show is packed with interesting news and some remarkable headlines. We’re going to go deep on a few of these. First, the great news: a ceasefire has been proposed in the Gaza Strip, which has been under siege by Israel the last few days. Many have lost their lives. As the old saying goes, one life lost is one life too many. There’s no excuse for it. A lot has happened in the last few days, so much that we can only scratch the surface, but we’ll do our best.
For those who are regular listeners, it’s been a little while since the last news episode. We’ve done quite a few interviews. We were fortunate enough to have Eric Jon Phelps on for Vatican Assassins Part Three, another mind-blowing episode. Of course, every episode of his lasts a few hours. If you haven’t tuned in, check them out over on the YouTube channel. They’re all uploaded now. Listen to them to your heart’s content.
Anonymous, Operation Israel, and the Gaza Ceasefire
Tonight we cruise through the headlines, the first of which is Anonymous and Operation Israel. Before we revisit that, a quick message for all the teenagers listening: your teenage years are the prime of your intellectual and revolutionary development. The absolute prime. If I could go back to my teenage years, I would do many things differently that would only have accelerated my own growth and development. Do not waste your teenage years. The world has never needed you more than it needs you right now. Start your own radio show, start your website, whatever it is that you do to express your creativity, your awareness, your knowledge. Share that with humanity so that everyone can benefit.
So, Anonymous has issued a statement on the Gaza ceasefire. There is also an interesting article about a fifteen-year-old Egyptian cyber activist who takes on Israel. Pretty interesting story. Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Force has a gamer-ified war blogger turning the conflict into a game. You know how many children are dying? This kind of attitude being programmed into people is not good. It doesn’t matter which faith, which creed, which color. What matters is that humans are killing humans, and it must come to an end.
Here is the statement from Anonymous: “Greetings, citizens of the world. For the past week, we Anonymous have converged with many other operations around the globe for Operation Israel. Our mission was threefold and clearly stated: to do everything in our power to keep the innocent people of Gaza connected to the world, to interfere with the brutal aggression aimed at them by the IDF, and to give voice to the voiceless. We feel that we have succeeded in these goals. We are immensely relieved, as is everyone in the world, to hear of the announcement of a ceasefire.
“No one in the world desires a just and lasting peace more than Anonymous. While we as a collective have no problem interfering in war, we do not believe it is productive to interfere with peace. We will therefore stand down from all cyber attacks upon the IDF and Israel so as not to risk this delicate and narrow ceasefire arrangement. Likewise, we encourage all those other groups working with us to also cease aggressive acts and give the ceasefire a chance. We ask this not on behalf of or for the benefit of the government of Israel or Hamas. We beg this of you on behalf of the innocent people of Gaza, that they may no longer be slaughtered with impunity.
“Let no one misunderstand us. Anonymous will continue to monitor the internet and communications into and out of Gaza. We will continue to watch closely both sides in this war. We will continue to advocate by all peaceful means at our disposal for a just and lasting peace for Palestine and Israel, as well as the entire world. We will be active. Operation Israel is not going anywhere, and the innocent people of Gaza will never be alone again. Let this operation be an object lesson to any government or entity anywhere who believes they can turn off the internet.” Powerful statement from a powerful group.
A quick recap of what has actually been taking place: we’ve seen what amounts to a green light from Obama for Israel to attack Gaza. There was a short interview broadcast by CNN late last week. The trick was that the two participants, a Palestinian in Gaza and an Israeli within range of rocket attacks, did not follow the usual script. For once, a media outlet dropped its role as a gatekeeper. The immediate understanding of what’s taking place between Israel and Palestinians became a simple window into reality.
Usually, interviews relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict present a false picture, reassuring the audience that both sides of the story are being presented. They barely disguise the potential outrage at the deaths of Palestinian civilians by giving equal time to the suffering of Israelis. But the deeper function of such coverage, given the media’s assumption that Israeli bombs are simply reactions to Hamas terror, is to redirect the audience’s anger exclusively toward Hamas. In this way, Hamas is made implicitly responsible for the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians.
The pre-recorded interview via Skype opened with Muhammad Suliman in Gaza. From what looked like a cramped room that was serving as a bomb shelter, he spoke of how he was too afraid to step outside his home. Throughout the interview you could hear the muffled sound of bombs exploding in the distance. Muhammad occasionally glanced nervously to the side. The other interviewee, an Israeli official, spoke of his family’s terror, arguing that it was no different from that of the Gazans except in one respect: he seemed to add that things were worse for Israelis because they had to live with the knowledge that Hamas rockets were intended to harm civilians, unlike the precision missiles and bombs dropped on Gaza.
The interview returned to Muhammad. As he started to speak, the bombing grew much louder. He pressed on, saying that he would not be silenced by what was taking place outside. He began to say that he refused to be drawn into comparisons about whose suffering was worse. Then one enormous explosion threw him from his chair and severed the internet connection. Switching back to the studio, the anchor reassured viewers that Muhammad had not been hurt. The bombs, however, spoke more eloquently than Muhammad ever could have.
The fact is that a Palestinian civilian in Gaza is in far more danger of being killed or injured by one of Israel’s precision armaments than an Israeli is by one of the more primitive rockets being launched out of Gaza. This is a fight that Israel always picks. They start the bombing. Of course the other side will respond. But what you’re shown is the response, as if that’s actually the provoking attack. You’re not being shown the provoking attack.
The Israeli Defense Force intentionally targets quote-unquote Hamas locations that happen to be media outlets broadcasting the reality of civilian deaths. Then the news tells you it was just a Hamas hideout, that Hamas are the terrorists. Well, it can be argued who really ultimately created Hamas. Some folks would assert it was started by intelligence services. However, Hamas is technically a democratically elected government of Palestine. They’re there to protect the Palestinian people. When their homeland is attacked, of course they will fight back with the means available to them.
Anonymous made a significant impact on the infrastructure of Israel, downing hundreds if not thousands of websites in a span of a few days. Operation Israel was extremely successful.
Anonymous also issued a response to those labeling them as terrorists: “Greetings from Anonymous. It has come to our attention that conservative and pro-Israeli groups throughout the blogosphere are taking advantage of Operation Israel, attempting to solidify opinion against Anonymous. One blog posted an editorial which stated the following: ‘If you ever doubted that Anonymous is a terrorist organization, I have now removed all reason for doubt.’ The article contains only fifty-five words of original content by the site itself. The other ninety percent of the article was selected quotations by mainstream media sources.
“Let us once again be perfectly clear. Anonymous does not in any way support the use of violence. Anonymous is a worldwide collective of individuals whose means of pursuing human rights and justice are universally equal for the citizens of every nation. Pro-Israeli groups throughout the world have grown from a foundation of Israeli-U.S. propaganda and lies. They routinely dismiss the apartheid system of radical segregation and oppression imposed by the Israeli government on the Palestinian people.
“The fact of the matter is that in the eyes of the media, only the United States and its allies are permitted to designate organizations as terrorists. Throughout the campaign, we’ve been inundated with one response in particular: references to Hamas hiding in school buildings or using women and children as human shields. Selective memory seems to have given pro-Israeli organizations the ability to forget that in 2005, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz appeared in court to defend the practice of using Palestinians as human shields in combat, after the Supreme Court banned the practice, noting it violated international law.
“The reasons for Anonymous intervention in Israel should be abundantly clear. What is happening in Palestine is not a war. There is no army or air force. There is no war in Gaza. There is only the continuous application of military force by Israel in an attempt to push every last person out of the Palestinian state. Despite international laws that make these efforts illegal, the systematic seizure of territory by Israel into the Palestinian state has been ongoing since 1948, making refugees of over seven hundred thousand Palestinians.
“Today, Palestinians are not permitted to live in Israeli settlements, drive on Israeli roads, or even travel in security areas surrounding them. Meanwhile, Israeli housing developments are being built on stolen land, settlements deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice. The violence inflicted upon civilian residents of Gaza is well-documented, despite the fact that Israel has adamantly opposed intervention by human rights organizations. The IDF constantly blocks and harasses international journalists.
“Despite these facts, Anonymous has not used any anti-Semitic language during the campaign, nor have we voiced any support for Palestinian military operations or resistance groups. Our goals were purely the rights of the Palestinian people who were threatened with silence as Israel made early attempts to shut down phone and internet service from Gaza. We know what happens to victims of oppression when the lights go dark.
“It is also worth noting that as of yesterday, members of Anonymous sympathetic to Israel were making attempts to augment the Gaza care package for civilians in Tel Aviv by translating the same documents into Hebrew, in the event that they lose access to internet services. We do not racially or geographically differentiate between victims of violence or oppression anywhere in the world. Both Palestinians and Israelis need to find common ground.
“The deaths of innocent people, including children, Israel’s advancement and the racist oppression of the Palestinian people, needs to end. Governments that wage wars, practice deceit, begrudge citizens, condone corruption, and turn a blind eye to the deaths of innocent people are terrorists. The word ‘terror’ does not belong to Israel or the United States, and we will judge you by your actions. Peace and freedom for all. Operation Israel. Anonymous.”
As clear-cut as you can get. It is obviously arguable for scholars of history whose land it really is. Is it Israeli land? Is it Jewish land? Is it Palestinian land? It is human land. This is Earth, for humans on Earth. The fact that humans are killing humans over sacred land is disgusting and needs to stop.
AT&T iPad Hack: Security Researcher Found Guilty
Security researcher Andrew Auernheimer, known online as “weev,” figured out a way to probe AT&T’s systems in a non-invasive way that allowed him to obtain unique identification numbers and email addresses of iPad 3G users. He was convicted, found guilty of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization. The defendant is facing two consecutive five-year felonies for his online activities.
What makes the case significant is that he cracked no codes, stole no passwords, or in any way broke into AT&T’s customer database, something that company representatives confirmed during testimony. Back in 2010, AT&T was making its iPad 3G users identifiable to anyone with the associated ICC-ID, a unique number that authenticates and identifies the SIM card with AT&T.
According to transcripts posted by Wired, twenty-seven-year-old Daniel Spitler wrote a script that randomly pinged AT&T’s website with ICC-IDs, harvesting email addresses. Spitler ended up pulling about one hundred and fourteen thousand users, allegedly including people like Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, and Diane Sawyer, before contacting Gawker in June 2010. AT&T then fixed the security hole.
The 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which Auernheimer was found to have violated, predates the web and contains language that is frequently criticized for being unintelligent in an era of ubiquitous networked computers. It makes it illegal to access a computer without authorization or exceed authorized access on any protected computer. A protected computer is any networked computer. His attorney asked the jury: have you ever received permission from Google to go to Google? You access protected computers every day.
Despite the guilty verdict, Auernheimer remained upbeat, telling his Twitter followers that he planned to appeal. His attorney stressed, and AT&T’s own team used the words, “there was no security bypass.” They could not be clearer than that. The definition of authorized access has to include bypassing a security measure. There was no security measure to bypass. Best of luck to him and godspeed. I definitely agree with his position here.
Erik Prince’s New Africa Venture and the Business of War
Ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince of Blackwater fame is setting up a company that will serve as a sort of radar for firms to manage the risks of investing in Africa. This comes from the South China Morning Post. Prince sold Blackwater about two years ago. The former officer in the Navy SEALs, the special U.S. military force, has set up a new company called Frontier Resource Group, an Africa-dedicated investment firm partnering with major Chinese enterprises, including at least one state-owned resource giant that is keen to pour money into the resource-rich continent.
Prince traveled to Hong Kong last week to meet potential Chinese investors in person. “The problem is if you go alone, you can’t get the rest of the support and maintenance,” Prince told the South China Morning Post. So here he is, preparing other foreign countries to go invest in Africa and actually extract money and massive profits from resources that should probably belong to the native African people.
Pentagon’s Afghan Drug War and the Opium Problem
The Pentagon stations a small group of officers to oversee the U.S. military’s various operations to curb the spread of Afghanistan’s cash crop. At a ten-acre Afghanistan headquarters of the private security company formerly known as Blackwater, whether you call it Xe Services or Academi, it’s still Blackwater, private mercenaries. Those officers work for an obscure Pentagon agency called the Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office, or CNTPO. Quietly, it has grown into one of the biggest dispensers of cash for private security contractors in the entire U.S. war. One cluster of contracts from CNTPO was worth more than three billion dollars. It sees a future for itself in Afghanistan over the long haul.
They claim to protect against the cash crop that is heroin. Marijuana has nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with stopping the flow of money into the Taliban. It mostly has to do with the flow of money going back into U.S. and other international interests. Meanwhile, opium and poppy cultivation has been rising sharply from 2001 to 2012. The United Nations report shows poppy cultivation nationwide increased by eighteen percent between 2011 and 2012, with a significant increase in Helmand Province, the biggest opium-producing region, despite an aggressive campaign by the governor to eradicate the crop and promote alternative jobs.
They refuse to admit that these drug operations are being protected and more crops are being allowed to cultivate. It is ridiculous. The War on Drugs is an absolute joke, an absolute complete sham, a cash cow for internationally corrupt governments. Untraceable cash that they can do whatever they want with. Of course these intelligence agencies and private contractors protect those cash flows.
RFID Tracking, Spy Mannequins, and Surveillance Headlines
A school in San Antonio, Texas is attempting to suspend a student for refusing to wear a school-issued RFID tracking badge. The Northside Independent School District began issuing RFID chip-embedded student ID cards when the semester began in the fall. The ID badges contain a bar code associated with the student’s security number. The RFID chip monitors pupils’ movements on campus, from when they arrive to when they leave. RFID is everywhere now. They’re expected to eventually replace bar code labels on consumer goods, and schools across the nation are slowly adopting this technology. The suspended student was notified by the Northside Independent School District that she would be able to continue attending John Jay High School if she wore the badge around her neck, which she has been refusing to do on religious principles.
In other surveillance news, stores are starting to use spy mannequins to boost sales. This comes from Bloomberg. Fashion brands are deploying mannequins equipped with facial recognition technology used to identify criminals at airports to watch over shoppers in their stores. Five companies are using a total of a few dozen mannequins. The devices cost about four thousand euros, roughly fifty-one hundred dollars. The stores use them to adjust displays, store layouts, and promotions to keep consumers walking in the door and spending. A camera embedded in one eye feeds data into facial recognition software like that used by police. It logs age, gender, and race of everyone who passes by.
Meanwhile, more Americans used food stamps to buy Thanksgiving dinner this year than ever before. According to a report from the nonprofit government watchdog the Sunlight Foundation, a person on food stamps has a budget of about a dollar twenty-five per meal. In other words, a family on food stamps must buy an entire meal per person for roughly the cost of an average cup of coffee. Usage of food stamps among low-income families has spiked since the financial crisis four years ago. Average participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has increased seventy percent since 2007.
On the topic of privacy, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced a bill that would have allowed more than twenty-two agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, to access Americans’ email, Google Docs, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It would also have given the FBI and Homeland Security more authority in some circumstances to dig into internet accounts without notifying either the account owner or a judge. Fortunately, the bill was dropped. But this is what they are already doing on a large scale, as we know from NSA whistleblowers. They have been doing this for a long time. These bills are just attempts to legitimize it.
Stanford researchers have advanced the design of the fastest, most accurate mathematical algorithm yet for brain-computer interface prosthetic systems that can help disabled people move a computerized cursor with their thoughts. The algorithm’s accuracy of natural movement approaches that of real movement.
The Department of Homeland Security spent four hundred and thirty million dollars to switch its radios to a new frequency, and it failed. Of four hundred and seventy-nine field users the inspector general tested, only one knew how to tune in to the common channel. The rest either did not know the channel existed, could not find it, or switched to an outdated channel inherited from the Treasury Department. Close to five hundred million dollars blown on Homeland Security trying to figure out a new frequency for their radios, and not a single one could find it.
Also, NASA’s Curiosity rover scientists are sitting on some apparently exciting new results from one of the rover’s instruments. On one hand, they’d like to tell everybody what they found. On the other hand, they have to wait because they want to make sure the results are not just some fluke or error in the instrumentation. Scientists frequently find themselves in this position. By their nature, scientists love the unresolved, but at the same time they’re cautious because no one likes to make a big announcement and then have to retract it.
Obama’s Hypocrisy on Gaza and the Uruguay President
Here is a quote from President Obama regarding the Gaza conflict: “No country on earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” This is said by a man who regularly bombs Pakistan and Yemen. Obama defended Israel’s counter-assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip by saying there’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. “We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself,” Obama said at a press conference in Bangkok at the start of a three-nation tour of Asia.
It is a very interesting thing to say at a time when the U.S. is regularly raining missiles down on Pakistan and Yemen from flying robots forty thousand feet in the air, known as drones. And yet he’s got the nerve to say that Hamas started it and that Israel has the right to defend itself because no country should tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders, while the United States is bombing Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and other countries it is not even at war with.
On an uplifting note, we turn to the president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica. He donates most of his pay to charity. He is called the world’s poorest president. Mujica is the current head of state in Uruguay, a South American nation of some three point three million people, about the size of Washington state. As BBC News reports, the president forgoes the luxurious house that Uruguay provides for its leaders and stays in his wife’s farmhouse, located off a dirt road outside the capital, Montevideo. Beyond forgoing the physical comforts that go along with being the nation’s chief executive, Mujica donates about ninety percent of his monthly salary of twelve thousand dollars to charity, and is thus labeled the world’s poorest president.
Mujica admits that he may appear eccentric, but says this is a free choice. His charitable donations bring his salary roughly in line with the average Uruguayan income of about seven hundred and seventy-five dollars a month. The donations benefit the poor and small entrepreneurs. His personal wealth, which Uruguayan officials must disclose on public records, was about eighteen hundred dollars in 2010, the value of his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle. This year he added half of his wife’s assets: land, tractors, and a house valued at two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. “I’ve lived like this for most of my life,” he told the BBC. “I can live well with what I have.”
He is driven in his choices by concern for the world’s poor. “The question is whether the planet has enough resources for seven or eight billion people to consume as much as the most wasteful societies produce and discard,” he says. “It is the level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet.” What’s more, he says many world leaders are pushing their nations toward a modern consumer economy as a way to build prosperity, but that achievement would likely mean the end of the world as we know it.
Wise man. He gives away most of his income, ninety percent, to charity, back to small businesses and small entrepreneurs. He lives simply. High-five to the Uruguay president, Jose Mujica. When you compare him to Barack Obama or Benjamin Netanyahu, these guys have nothing on Mujica in terms of awareness of self, human spirit, the importance of love and compassion for those who trust him, for those who put faith in him that he would do the right thing. He is a real human being, no phony. Meanwhile, someone receives the Nobel Peace Prize in one hand while using flying robots to bomb people with the other, and no one is talking about it. Uruguay’s president Jose Mujica donates most of his salary to charity and doesn’t even live in the state palace typically provided to the leader of Uruguay. He lives on a farmhouse off a dirt road.