Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1341

Hackers Anonymous disable extremist social media accounts

stuartbramhall:

 

 

Less harmful to civilians than air strikes. Funny Obama never thought of that.

Originally posted on thekirkshow:

Hacking group Anonymous has issued another warning against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.

It came during a video posted on YouTube where the hackers claimed to have shut down Twitter and Facebook accounts used by the terrorists.

“ISIS, we will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails and expose you,” warns the video.

Anonymous “declared war” on jihadist websites last month after an attack on a magazine’s offices in Paris.

In this latest post, which lasts just over two minutes, the hackers explain “operation ISIS” is continuing.

“We are Muslims, Christians, Jews, we are hackers, crackers, Hacktivist, phishers, agents, spies, or just the guy from next door,” says the voice in the video.

“We come from all races, countries, religions and ethnicity – united as one, divided by zero.

“Remember the terrorists that are calling themselves Islamic State are not Muslims.”

The hacking group is…

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Financial Exploitation of Communities of Color

Dream 2015 is a shocking new report describing the systematic impoverishment of people of color. By denying them access to banking services (eg checking accounts to cash their pay checks), Wall Street forces them to rely on fringe financial services, such as check cashing outlets, payday loans and auto title lenders. As Robert Manning writes in Credit Card Nation, many of these predatory outlets are owned by the big banks. Charting interest rates as high as 730% a year, they siphon off $103 billion annually from desperately poor communities.

In 2014, 16.7 million Americans were “unbanked,” ie had no access whatsoever to banking services. Another 50.9 million were “underbanked.” The “underbanked” typically have a checking account but lack access to small dollar loans and other banking services.

A total of 53.6% of black households and a total of 46.4% of Latino households are unbanked or underbanked. The most common reasons given are the absence of full service banks in communities of color and insufficient income to meet minimum balance requirements and overdraft fees. Ninety-three percent of all bank branch closings in 2008 were in zip codes with below median income.

Dream 2015 proposes a number of practical solutions to a problem that clearly plays a major role in growing poverty and income inequality. Among other potential solutions, they propose

• Enacting federal legislation capping interest and limiting the size and length of payday loans. Seventeen states have anti-usury laws, but according to Manning, fringe financial companies evade these laws by incorporating in states that don’t have caps. An existing federal law prohibits lenders from charging military personnel more than 36% annual interest – this protection needs to be extended to all Americans.

• Strengthening the Community Reinvestment Act to require all banks to provide small dollar loans to the communities they serve.

• Strengthening the Consumer Financing Protection Bureau.

• Strengthening public-private partnerships such as Bank On and Lending Circles  that provide microlending* services to communities of color.

• Modernizing US electronic payment technology. In the US electronic transfers take three to five business days to be credited to the recipient bank account. In most other countries (including New Zealand and Mexico), electronic transfers take at most a few hours.

• Expanding financial services at all 36,000 US post office branches to include checking, debt, savings and small loan services.

In my view, the latter is the most practical and easily implemented. Last year Senator Elizabeth Warren argued eloquently argued for it in the Huffington Post. There are post offices in most communities, regardless of income level, postal workers already get financial services training (because they sell money orders), and it would provide a new source of income now that digital communications are eroding the demand for snail mail service.

The US post office used to offer postal savings accounts between 1911 and 1917. They were phased out because they couldn’t compete with the higher interest rates banks offered (no longer an issue now that US banks pay less than 1% interest on savings).

Presently France, Germany, Japan, China, Brazil, India and New Zealand offer banking services in their post offices. New Zealand’s Kiwibank is a full service bank offering low cost credit and debit cards and mortgage loans in addition to checking and savings accounts. They also have some really clever TV ads.**

*Microlending or microcredit is the extension of small loans to enterpreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

**The surly looking suits represent the Australian banks that own all but one of our private banks.

 

How Vaccine Hysteria Could Spark A Totalitarian Nightmare

stuartbramhall:

 

 

The right of choice (whether over abortion or vaccination) isn’t a partisan issue. Sadly the political elite are determined to make freedom of choice a wedge political issue, dividing liberals and conservatives when they should be uniting to resist corporate fascism.

Originally posted on wchildblog:

Exclusive: Lee Hieb, M.D., shares ‘dirty little secret’ immunization pushers don’t reveal

Source: WND, byLee Hieb, M.D

Gov. Chris Christie has been vilified for making a very simple statement – that parents (and presumably patients themselves) should have the freedom to choose whether to vaccinate their children. I have been asked for years what I thought about vaccination, so let me lay out the issues.

Before getting into the science, lets discuss the philosophy:

The voices shrieking to forcibly vaccinate people are the same voices shrieking to support a woman’s right to choose abortion under Roe v. Wade. If a woman’s body is sacrosanct, if she has the right to choose to deliver a child or not, if she has total authority over her body, how can she not have the right to accept or refuse a vaccination?
Medical ethics are clear: No one should be forced to…

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Pirate Bay, Wikileaks and the Swedish Pirate Party

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyword

Simon Klose (2013)

Film Review

This film’s title comes from hacker jargon – AFK (away from keyboard) means “in real life,” as opposed to “virtual.” It’s about the Swedish trial of the world’s largest file sharing site. In 2009 when the Swedish government shut them down (for the first time), TPB controlled half of all the BitTorrent* traffic internationally. The film’s main them concerns the clash of values between a younger generation adamant about Internet freedom and an older generation fixated on dominance and control and toadying to US interests.

The Birth of the Pirate Party

The four defendants in this case had immense support from Swedish youth. The Pirate Party organized numerous demonstrations and rallies in their support. Following their guilty verdict, the Pirate Party gained 10,000 new members and ultimate won two seats in the Swedish parliament.

Activists? Or Common Thieves?

Although the prosecution and judge (who just happened to be a member of the industry group the Swedish Association of Copyright) portrayed TPB defendants as common thieves, the filmmakers portray them more as Internet freedom activists. They talk about being inspired to start TPB (in 2003) after the music industry sued Napster** and shut them down and Big Pharma sued South Africa for prescribing generic antiviral drugs for AIDS patients.

One of the four defendants also started the “America’s Dumbest Soldiers” website around the same time. The site asked visitors to rate the intelligence of GI’s killed in the US occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration demanded the Swedish government shut their server down. Site administrators mounted fierce resistance. Until the whole thing became too much of a hassle and they started using the server for TPB instead.

In their defense, TPB argued their website merely providing a blank page – that the users who created the content were ultimately responsible for illegally downloading copyrighted material. They also argued that the purpose of copyright was to reward artistic creative, not to allow powerful record and motion picture companies to become filthy rich by locking up large numbers of copyrights.

TPB’s crusading spirit is clearly evident from their determination to restore the site after the Swedish government shut it down. The Pirate Party would ultimately provide servers for TPB and for Wikileaks when they came under attack from the Obama administration.

No Financial Motive Established

Although the prosecution claimed that TPB generated more than $1 million annually from ad revenue, they couldn’t produce bank records to prove this. Actual TPB revenue (from four ads) seems to have been closer to $100,000. This possibly explains the light sentences TPB defendants ultimately received.

*In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, as well as a list of the network locations of “trackers,” computers that help participants in the system find each other.

**Napster was a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing service devoted to sharing audio files, typically music, encoded in MP3 format. The original company ran into legal difficulties over copyright infringement, ceased operations and subsequently became an online music store.

Evidence Emerges that Measles Outbreaks Are Deliberately Encouraged by Big Pharma to Ignite Vaccine Hysteria

stuartbramhall:

 

Recent court case accuses Merck of systematic research fraud in the testing of measles and mumps vaccine. Test results were falsified, evidence destroyed and vaccine whistleblowers threatened with arrest and imprisonment.

It now appears that the main reason for the recent measles outbreak in California is an ineffective vaccine (defined as less than 95% effective). It’s not, as claimed in the corporate media, refusal of some parents to vaccinate their kids. That line of reasoning never made sense to me to begin with. If unvaccinated kids were the cause of the outbreak, they would be the only ones getting measles. When high numbers of vaccinated children get measles, it means the vaccine isn’t working.

Originally posted on Counter Information:

By Mike Adams


Global Research, February 06, 2015


Natural News 5 February 2015

While the mainstream media is busy making a mockery of itself with runaway hysteria “witch hunt” hate speech against parents who choose not to poison their children with toxic vaccines, the real story on the measles outbreak remains entirely unreported in any mainstream media outlet.

What story is that? The true story about how Big Pharma’s own vaccine scientists blew the whistle on MMR vaccine research fraud taking place over a decade ago, warning that the vaccine’s approval by the FDA was based on “falsified results” and that the fraudulent MMR vaccine was the “primary cause” of a measles outbreak in 2006, as they state in their own words (see below).

The senior management of the world’s top vaccine producer was actively engaged in the fraud, according to the whistleblowers, even going so far as to test…

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Tor 101: Protecting Yourself Against Internet Surveillance

Inside the Dark Web

BBC (2014)

Film Review

Inside the Dark Web is about Tor, a technology that prevents government and corporations from spying on us when we use the Internet.

The World Web has been described as the world’s best tracking device, thanks to the wealth of information it provides about our daily activities. Many families have computerized home appliances that are connected via the Internet (referred to as the Internet of Things). This enables coffee makers, furnaces, coffee makers, etc to turn themselves on and off automatically when we wake up or enter or leave the house. These set-ups allow private companies to collect and store vast amounts of information about our personal lives.

Government and Corporations Are Building Dossiers on Us

No one realized how much Internet data NSA and their British counterpart GCHQ were collecting until Edward Snowden began leaking documents about it in 2013. Private technology companies compile even more detailed documentation (which they regularly turn over to NSA and GCHQ about our Internet activities). Every time we browse, they build detailed dossiers about our reading and browsing habits and sell them to multiple advertisers. For example, if a young woman Googles for pregnancy related information, within hours, she will be bombarded with pregnancy and childbirth ads.

The Onion Router

Tor, which stands for The Onion Router, was develop by the US Naval Research Laboratory in the 1990s for the purpose of protecting online intelligence communications. It combines three layers of encryption with three relay computers belonging to Tor volunteers. Each relay computer removes a layer of encryption and passes the original signal to the intended recipient without revealing the original user.

In 2004, the Navy released the code for Tor under a free licence, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) began funding its continued development. The State Department actively encouraged its usage by anti-Assad activists in Syria and various Arab spring organizers. The US government is less happy about American dissidents using Tor to expose his criminal activities. Whistleblowers used Tor to leak documents to Wikileaks and Snowden used it to leak confidential files.

Silk Road

The term “dark web” refers to criminal enterprises that use Tor to escape detection by government authorities. The most notorious is Silk Road, a website that connected anonymous illicit drug dealers and buyers. Purchases were paid for in bitcoins, a virtual currency created by computer algorithm as opposed to a bank. Like cash, bitcoins are totally untraceable because the users are anonymous.

On Silk Road, people responded to a drug offer by depositing the specified amount of bitcoins in an escrow account. Once they notified the Silk Road administrators they had received the drugs, the bitcoins held in escrow were released to the seller.

In 2013 the FBI temporarily shut down Silk Road by arresting its anonymous founder Ross Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts), a Texas investment advisor. Ulbricht has just recently been convicted of conspiring to sell narcotics, hacking and counterfeiting documents. You can read all about the trial on Wired

Criminal enterprises also use Tor and bitcoins for other illegal activities, such as websites that sell guns, stolen credit card details and the sexual services of children.

To download free Tor software go to: https://www.torproject.org/

Moussaoui Confirms Saudi Royals Sponsor Al Qaeda

stuartbramhall:

 

 

Moussaoui is currently on trial for his role in 9/11. Something tells me his days are numbered. I can see a jail house hanging in his future. Either that or getting skanked in the shower.

Originally posted on Political Film Blog:

The New York Fucking Times, no less???

Moussaoui Calls Saudi Princes Patrons of Al Qaeda

…former operative for Al Qaeda has described prominent members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family as major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a Stinger missile with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

And the punch line is that we’re all being played for fools… (well not so much me)…

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A Suspense Thriller About Hacking

Algorithm: the Hacker Movie

By Jonathan Schiefer (2014)

Film Review

From the title, I mistakenly assumed this film was a documentary. It’s actually an extremely well made thriller about a group of hackers who are kidnapped and tortured by Homeland Security.

The film noir style is vaguely reminiscent of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Algorithm is the better film in my view.

Besides making an important existential statement about the brutal thuggishness of the US security state, it’s also a good introduction for novice hackers to TOR (a protocol developed by Naval Intelligence that prevents the hack from being traced), the “can of worm” (the hardware patch used to break into a computer network), “port knocking” and “black rooms” (where you cover the walls with tinfoil to exclude wi-fi signals).

The easiest way to break into a computer network is to cut the power and install the hack while the system reboots. This is because the firewall always loads last.

I also learned some interesting new torture techniques.

Lavrov Says Obama’s Remarks Prove Direct US Involvement in Ukraine Coup / Sputnik International

stuartbramhall:

 

 

The article refers to an Obama interview with CNN in which Obama (inadvertently?) admitted to brokering a deal to “transition” power in Ukraine. Be sure to check out the original article in Sputniknews. It raises the possibility that Obama was kept in the dark about the State Dept coup in Ukraine.

Watch the CNN interview here: http://rt.com/op-edge/228379-obama-power-transition-ukraine/

Originally posted on 2012: What's the 'real' truth?:

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150202/1017657515.html

BEIJING, February 2 (Sputnik) – US President Barack Obama’s remarks that the United States “had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine” last year prove that Washington was directly involved in the anti-constitutional coup in the country, Russia’s top diplomat said Monday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Obama’s remarks are “proof that from the very beginning, the United States was involved in the anti-government coup that president Obama neutrally described as a ‘power transition.'”

The February 22, 2014 coup, that took place right after then-President Viktor Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered national reconciliation deal with the opposition, brought a pro-Western government with a strong nationalist element to power.

The coup-installed government’s initiatives against the country’s Russian-speaking citizens forced Crimea to seek reunification with Russia and triggered a profound political confrontation that turned into a bloody civil conflict in the east of Ukraine.

“Obama’s rhetoric… demonstrates Washington’s intention to continue every kind of support to the Kiev government, which apparently intends to end the conflict through violence,” Lavrov continued.

“All…

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The Mystery of Aaron Swartz’s Alleged Suicide

 

The Internet’s Own Boy: The History of Aaron Swartz

Brian Knappenberger (2014)

Film Review

The Internet’s Own Boy is about computer prodigy and ardent free Internet activist Aaron Swartz. Swartz allegedly hanged himself in 2013 two weeks before going to trial on federal charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). This documentary tries to portray that Swartz’s suicide was triggered by his terror of what the federal government was about to do to him. I don’t buy it.

Computer Prodigy, Entrepreneur and Internet Activist

Despite his untimely death at age 26, Swartz already had a string of inventions and accomplishments to his name. At twelve, he invented Infobase, an early on-line precursor to Wikipedia. At thirteen, he was part of the online group that developed the RSS (Rich Site Summary) protocol, a web feed format to syndicated frequently updated information, such as blog entries and headlines. At fifteen he worked with Larry Lessig to create the Creative Commons platform for writers, photographers, researchers and artists who wish to freely share their work for non-commercial purposes. Shortly after dropping out of Stanford at eighteen, he created the immensely popular social media site Reddit.

Swartz is perhaps best known as the lead organizer of the successful campaign to block SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act). Congressional enactment of SOPA would have forced web servers to take down a website, without warning or due process, based on a mere accusation of copyright infringement of any user at the site. Swartz and other net neutrality activities saw SOPA as a scheme by large for-profit Internet companies to wipe out the small free content sites that competed with them.

Turning his Back on Corporate America

Swartz made the decision not to use his programming skills for profit, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, while working for Conde Nast magazine, which bought Reddit from him for $1 million. Swartz was a passionate believer in free access to the to the Internet and accumulated scientific and cultural knowledge.

He was greatly inspired by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, who Swartz had met as a child. Berners-Lee could easily have used the Internet to become fabulously wealthy. Instead he gave it away for free, believing everyone was entitled to Internet access regardless of their ability to pay.

Swartz’s First Brush with the FBI

A substantial portion of the film is devoted to the downloading activities that led the Justice Department to charge Swartz with thirteen felonies under the CFAA.

Hi first brush with the FBI occurred in 2008 when he helped Carl Malamud start the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) project. PACER is the illegal government racket that charges users ten cents a page to download federal court records. Reaping the federal government more than $10 million a year, PACER denies access to public legal information to people without the means to pay for it. Together Malamud and Swartz developed a program to simultaneously download large numbers of PACER files from the seventeen public libraries that made PACER documents available free of charge. They would eventually download 20% of the PACER dataset (20 million pages), which they made available free of charge at their website.

The FBI would ultimately close their investigation, concluding that Swartz had done nothing illegal.

The Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto

Swartz subsequently started the Progressive Change Campaign (which kick started Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for Senate) and Demand Progress, an Internet group dedicated to fighting various forms of Internet censorship. Swartz particularly objected to rich corporations locking up the work (which they obtain for free) of researchers whose salaries are paid, directly or indirectly, by the taxpayer. He felt that scientific and cultural knowledge is part of the Commons and that human knowledge can only be advanced by sharing it.

In the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto, Swartz refers to this as the private theft of public information and calls for civil disobedience to stop it.

His download of JSTOR files at MIT was exactly this type of civil disobedience. As a Harvard fellow he had free access to JSTOR via the MIT website. As he had done with PACER, he set up a program in an MIT janitor’s closet to download thousands of JSTOR documents to a portable hard drives. After catching him on a surveillance camera, the Cambridge police busted him and turned the case over to the Secret Service (they have jurisdiction over computer fraud under the Patriot Act) and the US attorney’s office.

The Department of Justice ultimately charged him with thirteen felonies under CFAA. Although potentially he was looking at thirty-five years in jail and a $1 million fine, a federal prosecutor stated after his death that they planned to ask for a six month jail sentence. Swartz’s own attorney believed he would be acquitted, based on his high profile activism and his clear intent to establish free public access to the JSTOR articles he was downloading. It was impossible to establish that he planned to defraud JSTOR or re-sell the document.

Suicide? Or Murder?

The Internet’s Own Boy tries to convince us that Swartz was so distraught by the Obama administration’s viciousness that he was impelled to take his own life. Yet none of this jives with the Aaron Swartz we see on the screen. A year after his initial arrest, Aaron leads and – against all odds – wins a grassroots campaign to defeat SOPA. Buoyant after his SOPA victory, he asks his girlfriend to marry him and decides to hang himself. Yeah right.

Recent history is filled with the names of activists, journalists, whistleblowers – and now investment bankers – who embarrass the rich and powerful and conveniently up and kill themselves. In my view, Moti Nissani offers a far more plausible explanation of Aaron Swartz’s demise in Who Killed Aaron Swartz