Cyber Security Industry Explosion, Intelligence Spying, Data-mining, Black-Hats, White-Hats, Gray-Hats abound. Alphabet Agencies, Corrupt Globalist Corporations exploiting your info. Micro Tutorial on Protecting Your Computer, Securing Your Internet Connection, Maintaining ‘some’ Privacy Online
Show Transcript
Week in Alternative News
Ladies and gentlemen, hope you like the new intro as much as I do. You are listening to the Decrypted Matrix with your host Max Maverick on Revealing Talk Radio. Tonight we have an exciting show. We’re going to touch on hacking, cyber security, viruses, and Anonymous. The security and technology landscape is vast, and it is a major topic to be decoded in and of itself. We want to learn some of these really dark secrets, tricks, and pathways — interesting subjects that don’t often see the light of day. You’ll certainly learn a few things that you hadn’t known before, secure your computer a little bit better, and not worry about browsing the internet whether you’re online in public locations or at home.
We’ve got WikiLeaks. Julian Assange is currently in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The USA wants to extradite him, but they can’t do it directly. They’re using the alleged offenses in Sweden to extradite him. Sweden is refusing to go into the Ecuadorean embassy in London to interview Assange. In any other case, even murder cases and more serious cases, they would go visit and conduct the interview. That leaves open the excuse for them to extradite, and the only reason is the influence of the United States of America. There was speculation that the London Olympics could be used as some kind of event to stage the next false flag. We’ve got talk of martial law as a possibility from a former CIA general. We’ve got the World Bank on red alert about the global economy. You’ve got the mind control angle with the James Holmes Batman shooter — you can read all about that incident. People are outraged over the Chick-fil-A homosexual controversy, and yet nobody cares that hunter-killer Skynet artificial intelligence drones are killing innocent civilians daily overseas. The police state is coming in hot, and you want to pay attention.
Black Hats, White Hats, and Grey Hats
There’s a war out there — a war between black hats, white hats, and grey hats. Let me highlight what these terms really mean, because the media gives the public a completely wrong perception. Black hats are the true criminals. They might be self-taught, they might have come out of government and gone to the dark side. They trade in credit cards, do strictly illegal things, mostly following the money, not really caring what the law says, doing whatever for whoever will pay them the most.
White hats are the corporate guys and girls paid by corporations and private agencies to protect their networks and do penetration testing. They act like a malicious hacker, trying to deploy trojans, worms, back doors — anything that would allow someone to manipulate systems — to see how real-world bad actors could attack. These guys are considered the good guys, as opposed to the black hats. But from what I’ve read, most articles say there’s literally no such thing as a pure white hat. Grey hats are really more common. They’re slightly illegal, more selective about what laws they break. They’re calculated and precise about what jobs they take on, what money they accept, and what levels they’re willing to go to.
A good description of a grey hat: anybody who’s seen Die Hard 4, also known as Live Free or Die Hard. Justin Long plays a well-known hacker character. The plot involves hacking and is certainly relevant to the subject. The entire grid gets hacked by a former government agent who’s ticked off. He got creative, found a way to rob them blind and run off with the world’s money, credit cards, and account numbers. Justin Long’s character was a hired hand who freely thought he was doing something not terribly legal, but he was being paid under the table. He didn’t realize what he was actually getting into with the fire sale.
Problem, Reaction, Solution
What they’re trying to do is push more legislation, new rules and regulations for corporations and companies to store more information and implement certain security protocols at our expense. They need third parties to come in and provide solutions they’re required to use. All the good old boys are getting contracts they’ve lobbied for, pushing for these rules for a long time. Luckily, every cyber crime bill is dying in the Senate right now, but don’t expect that to last. The motivation is still there for them to continue pushing for control of the internet. Our entire existence online could be monitored and controlled. The internet used to be a place of innovation, exploration, and creativity, but it’s becoming just a corporate profit mechanism.
This is problem, reaction, solution. They want to bring something into reality, but they need the public to accept it. So they create a problem in a way that the public reacts negatively, and then the solution is brought in. We’ve got to watch out for this. Who benefits? When bad things happen, look at what happens afterward: money gets spent, the same people in power get even more empowered with more financial backing and contracts, and they get more manipulating control.
What Hacking Really Is
The idea of hacking needs to be defined so we really understand what it means. Hacking is really about curiosity — making things that were originally designed to function a certain way do something new and not necessarily predictable. Think about the kid who tinkers, who sticks things into places they shouldn’t go. That same idea of poking and prodding to see if the results change — it’s curiosity, bringing things together, making them work in ways that are new. Hacking can be used for positive or negative purposes. It’s up to us to apply the label.
Is hacking inherently a negative thing? It could create new technology, or fix a problem with parts you already have lying around and no new money needs to be spent. There could be quite beneficial hack jobs with software — bringing elements of a computer system or software together, including programming languages and applications that were never meant to work together, and it does something completely new. We see this kind of innovation all the time. But the current legislation is trying to kill or squash that quickly. The intention is really censorship and overall control, policing the internet and bringing that into our cyber reality.
Anonymous: The Internet’s Immune System
Anonymous could be thought of as the immune system of the internet. These are activists, researchers, hackers, and people out there who see injustice in the world and want to do something about it. Maybe from the comfort of their parents’ basement, maybe from their own home — they have some knowledge, some free time, and they want to make a difference. They get on their computers, they target internet cafes, they share information and spread knowledge. Maybe they hack into Android and Windows systems. Most of them are out there trying to make the world a better place, and I think that’s the general frequency of Anonymous.
It started with the Scientology debacle and evolved from there. Their primary technical skill is mostly SQL injection, which involves getting a database to give up information it wasn’t supposed to. It’s basic but effective against those who haven’t protected themselves. They’ve taken on some proud operations — taking down child predator networks, running honeypots far more effectively than the government has. Anonymous in a single weekend took down three or four different pedophile networks with really creative strategies, and this continues to happen every couple of months.
There’s no leadership in Anonymous. Nobody can speak for them, but people rise to the top and are looked at as leaders or figures. Certain Twitter accounts are followed and trusted more than others, but ultimately anyone can say they speak for Anonymous. It’s up to the hive to accept or reject them. Anonymous very well could have been an insider government creation designed to create a perceived threat online so they could start pushing security legislation. We saw this with the arrest of Sabu, who was looked up to as a leader but turned out to be an FBI informant from the beginning.
WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, and the Leaking Community
WikiLeaks is now under attack because they released cables and classified documents. Despite claims, there was no evidence of damage whatsoever. Bradley Manning hasn’t even been proven guilty in court — there are only chat logs where he supposedly admitted things to another hacker who turned informant, who had connections and worked with the FBI and government for a long time. Julian Assange is locked up, Bradley Manning is in jail, and ironically we’ve got the Sea Shepherd captain detained as well. Freedom fighters — anybody fighting for something good in this world is getting locked away, tortured, and given inhumane conditions. It’s ridiculous that we allow this to go on while corporations control the news and the government.
WikiLeaks has an interesting connection to John Young, who runs Cryptome.org. He’s been in the leaking community for a long time. Cryptome may not be as polished, but it doesn’t forget and doesn’t take things down. You can find some very tantalizing information on Cryptome. Young was really connected to Assange and they worked together early on, but Young bailed out because he found the top-down organizational structure troubling. He bowed out gracefully and now posts cryptic messages that usually have to do with exposing the dirty industry and the nature of how these problems are created. He’s a big proponent of understanding problem, reaction, solution and knows exactly how it works.
The Cyber Security Industry and Antivirus Profit Motive
The security companies play into the problem, reaction, solution cycle. Companies like Symantec, Kaspersky, and AT&T are the biggest players, and you know they’re there to make profits however they can. The cyber security industry — Raytheon, Lockheed, and others — these are massive operations. If antivirus companies are trying to stop viruses, wouldn’t it be more profitable for them if there were more viruses, so you had another reason to buy their software and get your computer back to work? These guys are absolutely in bed with black hats and grey hats, creating additional viruses, creating unique signatures. There are people out there being paid to create viruses just to perpetuate the industry and give these companies more reason to exist.
That’s why your computer is so choked up. It’s probably not the hardware — it has everything to do with resources and how much multitasking it’s trying to do. It’s like somebody trying to answer a question while standing on their tiptoes on one leg trying to balance, juggle basketballs, and run a chainsaw. Your computer is overwhelmed and overloaded and doesn’t have time for you. When you think your computer is dying, you probably don’t need a new computer. It’s almost never hardware related — it’s almost always software related.
Protecting Yourself Online
For the last segment, I want to help you learn how to protect yourself, browse anonymously, and be safe online — especially at Wi-Fi hotspots and public locations. One move is to use a new operating system. Linux is an excellent alternative to the corporate trap that is Windows and Microsoft. GNU/Linux is run by Linus Torvalds, and the Linux kernel has gone into many variations called distributions. You can find many flavors that are good for different reasons. Hackers prefer one over another, explorers prefer different ones. These are curious people figuring out how to make innovative things and use systems in ways they weren’t particularly designed for.
Use multiple programs to look out for viruses, trojans, and backdoors that could be running on your computer without your knowledge. One good free tool is Spybot Search and Destroy — that’s a classic favorite, always updated and pretty good. You probably don’t need a new computer; it’s just overwhelmed with too much multitasking.
For hotspots, you want a VPN — a virtual private network. This allows your computer to connect to another secure computer and access the internet through it, so your connection is encrypted, safe, and secure. This prevents people on the same network from seeing what you’re doing or targeting your traffic. But nothing is one hundred percent secure. The government has Echelon technology that captures every character crossing internet wires, landlines, and radio waves. It brings everything down, looks for keywords, and builds profiles. Stay away from free VPN providers, as they likely hand over data to authorities. Use Bitcoin to pay so you don’t stay with one provider too long. Be more savvy — use Linux, use proxies, use VPNs. That’s what activists in the Arab Spring used to organize and get news stories out while governments were targeting them, shutting down internet signals, and snatching people up.
