Anonymous Declaration of Information Op #OpNYT Against New York Times

1. Anonymous Declaration of #OpNYT
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4. In mid-August, Wikileaks released a trove of e-mails culled from the 5.6 million seized from the criminal private intelligence firm Stratfor, which aside from its public geopolitical analysis work was soon revealed to have been engaged in covert surveillance operations against activists including those located in Bhopal and engaged in advocacy for those sickened by the Union Carbide disaster. Having engaged in regular correspondence with the executives of another firm called Trapwire which oversees deployment of an eponymous surveillance and "data-mining" capability used in an unknown number of cities and regions around the world - correspondence conducted in large part in reference to the corrupt promotional bargain the two firms had struck - Stratfor's e-mails included a good deal of confirmable information as well as assertions regarding the nature of the product itself and the way it might be used.
5.  
6. While real researchers poured through the release and compared the info therein with primary sources like those stemming from the 70,000 HBGary e-mails, The New York Times put on the story some yahoo who declared fears to be "wildly exaggerated" in part because two unnamed, titleless sources at the Department of Homeland Security told them they tried it and didn't like it. No indication is given as to whether or not this was proven to the reporter, or if he saw any evidence of it at all. At any rate, this reporter did not see fit to mention what was elsewhere being shouted by Anonymous, Telecomix, Wikileaks, ProjectPM, and independent researchers: that Cubic is in control of this capability, and that this was where the main problem lay.
7.  
8. Cubic Corporation has successfully hidden its ties to other secret subsidiaries such as Ntrepid, which tax documents from 2010 show to have been "wholly owned" by Cubic even in addition to having a board virtually identical to Cubic's other, acknowledged and respected subsidiary, Abraxas. That Ntrepid won the 2010 persona management from CENTCOM/USAF - another matter that we have screamed to the rooftops about since OpMetalGear and through echelon2.org - is simply one of several matters that absolutely should be of concern to every population in which Cubic controls aspects of civilian, public space security. This should be doubly the case in light of the Team Themis scandal, involving Palantir, HBGary, Berico, the
9. Jusice Department (which for some reason failed to investigate when deferred to by the netfascist Lamar Smith of SOPA infamy), Bank of America, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Incidentally, the NYT was offered the first look at the e-mails which produced that and other scandals, but declined, and the e-mail evidence of this and other incompetence will be provided to all through other press channels within the next 48 hours, or else via the usual Anonymous venues.
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11. The facts on Trapwire have since been confirmed by a series of other outlets ranging from The Daily Caller to Pravda to The New American to NBC.com to Cryptome, and by six Australian outlets that were promptly forced to delete the assertion via Cubic's powerful lawyers - but these facts have yet to be acknowledged by the NYT nor by those other outlets that still think highly of the Grey Lady despite her being a filthy, poorly-composed whore - Thomas Friedman's syphilitic dominatrix.
12.  
13. Death to this horrid paper. And dox upon Mark Mazzetti, who was caught sending an unpublished column to a CIA spokesman with the note, "This didn't come from me," - an incident that has since been inexplicably described by The Time's own spokesperson as a favor Mazzetti did for the author of the column even after the managing editor said it was some sort of secret he couldn't tell Politico for reasons of, presumably, national security.
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15. For the present, we will simply extend the bounds of sanity to the extent possible by spreading these and other failures of the New York Times by attaching the info to those deeds to come, and by encouraging all Anons to assist in this brief engagement, done in conjunction with #OpTrapwire and #OpBigBrother. Incidentally, the apparent changing of a New York Times website administrator password earlier today was, although amusing if true, not in accordance with generally-accepted Anonymous tradition of non-aggression via hacking or DOS towards publications not run (officially) by the state. Gawker has been only exception, lol Kayla.
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18. Jeremy Hammond and others who have been charged with stealing secrets from the gods are not the responsibility of the New York Times, the media, or the public. They are our heroes. As such, it is our duty to do whatever possible - within the ethics agreed upon by the individual actors who may choose to conduct this and other operations and generally exemplified by prior Anonymous-attributed activities - to force attention to those portions of the information of great and demonstrable relevance to the Grand Imperial Republic of the United States, its pseudo-vassals, and those populations within reach of its situational awareness and covert operational capabilities. We will do this despite, and because of, the failures we continue to see from a media that has evolved under pressure of a degenerate market demographic, the American
19. people, but which could have easily chosen to compete for the honest and the virtuous and supported itself while encouraging the civic virtue that will either revive soon, or be transformed into guerilla online civil war of a sort even more unexpected than what we have brought you these years past.
20.  
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22. Don't wait. Retaliate.
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24. We do not forget.
25.  
26. Anonymous
27.  
28. irc.anonops.pro / webchat.anonops.pro #ProjectPM

Cubic's other Trapwire problem - persona management and "fake online people"

I'm tired of writing about this shit over and over again, so here's what I just typed out at the Anonops IRC server main channel about Cubic's other weird and well-hidden subsidiary, Ntrepid, and the bizarre shit it does for CENTCOM and god knows who else. Anyone familiar with how this was used (and planned for use that would have been border-line illegal, not that any of them suffer any consequences even for what they're caught doing). As noted below, there's now zero excuse for this being ignored any further by anyone with a connection to online activism. Absolutely fucking none. If you're an Anon, for instance, and haven't yet gotten around to learning about the indefensible (in both senses) and usually (lol) covert attacks that are directed at us both in demonstrable recorded fact and clearly with more frequency and sophistication than we'll ever be sure of (when the attack works correctly), then do so.


 Likewise, if you're in the press and might have occasion to cover our strange new "sector" or those of the intelligence contractors that took in 30 percent of the huge and partly clandestine U.S. intelligence budget in 2005, and has grown since, you'll also need to know this. If you're not covering these issues or even keeping tabs on them, consider doing so. There's a reason some of us talk almost exclusively about this issue after having been involved in others. See my previous two posts on this issue as well, plus this phone call we did on Radio Anonops the other day in which a Cubic executive lies to us about Trapwire and Cubic's demonstrable ownership of Ntrepid, on which we've long had the tax documents as you'll see on Cubic's Echelon2.org page as linked and summarized below.



  *****





[02:06] <BarrettBrown> Also, if anyone here doesn't yet know why Cubic is perfect enemy on all counts, please see: http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Cubic_Corporation
[02:06] <+Egg> Title: Cubic Corporation - Project PM (at wiki.echelon2.org)
[02:06] * watcunt_2 (dafuq@AN-ioq.sdd.vkv4oj.IP) has joined #anonops
[02:06] <watcunt_2> timed out :3
[02:07] * KTG5150 (cak@AN-c25.76p.urh16e.IP) has joined #anonops
[02:07] * watcunt_2 eyes out The-Pizza-Man
[02:08] * watcunt (knee@grow.eds) Quit ( Ping timeout: 121 seconds )
[02:10] * watcunt_2 (dafuq@AN-ioq.sdd.vkv4oj.IP) has left #anonops (Leaving)
[02:14] * y20tr4 (androirc@AN-d14.nsr.766bad.IP) has joined #anonops
[02:14] * peeves (Mibbit@AN-agf.4j5.fstuqt.IP) has joined #anonops
[02:14] * y20tr4 (androirc@AN-d14.nsr.766bad.IP) Quit ( Quit: AndroIRC - Android IRC Client ( http://www.androirc.com ) )
[02:15] * Juzzy2 (Juzzy@AN-6ij.8c6.0e7cr0.IP) has joined #anonops
[02:15] <BarrettBrown> And also see one of the little-known capabilities they're top of the game in, by virtue of winning 2010 CENTCOM bid
[02:16] <BarrettBrown> http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Persona_Management
[02:16] <+Egg> Title: Persona Management - Project PM (at wiki.echelon2.org)
[02:16] * Juzzy2 is now known as Juzzy
[02:17] * unbrandedtech1 (webirc@AN-obm.ulb.g73e48.IP) has joined #anonops
[02:17] <BarrettBrown> These are the "fake virtual armies" now in use by US and CENTCOM (unspecified "multinational forces" as spokesman noted after revelation)
[02:17] <BarrettBrown> If you don't know about it, you need to. This is not just a capability that's been deployed against activists including Anonymous and planned against Wikileaks and conventional groups in U.S...
[02:18] * anserpent (goaway@AN-6d0.rmn.16ilik.IP) Quit ( Ping timeout: 121 seconds )
[02:18] <unbrandedtech1> are we not considered a virtual army?
[02:18] <BarrettBrown> it's very much symptomatic of one direction that is new, which is being followed by at least a dozen notable contracting firms
[02:18] <BarrettBrown> I mean fake people
[02:18] <BarrettBrown> they were described in press with that term last year, when a couple outlets paid attention
[02:19] <BarrettBrown> it's what Topiary and I worked on for a month, straight through, March 2011
[02:19] <BarrettBrown> everyone who's taken the time to see what we've found on it solid, including patents and contracts and commentary stolen from those involved like Aaron Barr, knows it's key
[02:19] <BarrettBrown> as will be information operations in general
[02:20] <Secret> "Romney Has Zero Percent Support From African Americans In New NBC/WSJ Poll"
[02:20] <BarrettBrown> people who are involved in conventional brick-and-mortar activist groups have at least some excuse not to know about this one specific methodology, which is getting refined and improved upon
[02:20] <Secret> ^ ROFL
[02:20] <BarrettBrown> No one here, or in online activism in general, has any excuse not to know about it.
[02:21] <+News> 1 new tweet(s): AnonOps_Tx Nearly 100 Followers #Popular !!!, 2 minutes ago via web. (238898553488019456)
[02:21] <BarrettBrown> Please take a moment to look through the short summary we have as well as perhaps the military-connected patent via IBM's own IP law firm

A Short Revelation on Trapwire, Cubic, and Public Surveillance, Kept Simple for People Who Can't Read Sentences That Are Hard

UPDATE Well, we may have actually won an op, although whether we do so is dependent on how many media are willing to implicitly note mistakes. Ntrepid has now been shown to be connected to Trapwire via Ntrepid, as proven at around 3:00 EST by one of our wonderful activists: "This paste http://pastebin.com/kRNMPj9N from @BarrettBrownLOL says M. Lee registered #TrapWire. She's BOD Secretary for #Ntrepid" A few minutes later we've already got one journo with major outlet who's writing on this calling up Cubic and Trapwire in the morning, so looks like we have a chance to get this done thoroughly and otherwise have a clean hit akin to HBGary (and less like Endgame, which dragged out and got ignored by most outlets after Business Week did the final work on it). [Unnecessary but occasionally amusing six-paragraph intro I wrote when I was drunk has been moved to bottom. Read it if you have nothing better to do, loser] TRAPWIRE, CUBIC, THE ARTICLE FORCED DOWN IN AUSTRALIA, OTHER MATTERS *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** There's a story kind of struggling for air, on a self-asserted CCTV "data-mining" capability called Trapwire - erroneous/incredibly incomplete coverage in NYT, better in coverage by NBC and Daily Caller and couple others I was quoted in last night, few very informative pieces in less-exposed outlets. My group Project PM as well as Wikileaks (which is being covered ATM only in context of Assange troubles, which are indeed key) and Telecomix have been working on it for a week now, mostly last 48 hours, based on the original materials, which stem from the 5.2 million Stratfor e-mails taken by Anon and now being distributed in groups by topic by volunteers at Wikileaks who have access to the entire set. *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** [Portion removed for privacy of another activist.] Meanwhile, a syndicated article that appeared on the 13th in at least six major Australian outlets including Sydney Herald was entirely pulled from all of them next day, and the much-delayed explanation (which apparently appeared in Herald print today, but not anywhere at all online, other than a vague and somewhat odd Tweet by one of the two authors who's also an editor, that Cubic Corporation - which acquired Abraxas, parent in turn of spin-off Abraxas Applications - made some sort of complaint to the effect that it itself is not really "connected" to Trapwire since, apparently, it was developed, marketed, and then put into motion via the spin-off two years before Cubic felt inclined to purchase Abraxas. *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** That Cubic managed to hide any association with another, less official "spin-off" of Abraxas, Ntrepid - with which Abraxas shares key board members and draws upon capabilities developed/maintained by Anonymizer, which Abraxas bought shortly before its own purchase by Cubic, and which seems to have been created entirely to win (which it did) a bid for persona management software (fake online people) put out by USAF in 2010 and later confirmed by CENTCOM spokesman to be in operation at McDill and Kabul, under use of "multinational forces" and under Earnest Voice. When this first came out of the HBGary e-mails that my other "associates" seized from them in early 2011 (after they made threatening remarks to FT about allegedly having identified our "lieutenants" and our non-existent "co-founder and leader" and planning to talk to FBI, which was itself very bizarre), we did a lot of "media outreach" on the issue, and then when two very good colleagues of mine from The Guardian did a report on it, they never discovered that Ntrepid had any connection to Cubic at all, which wasn't mentioned in the piece. Six months later one of my guys at PM finally found a 2010 Cubic tax filing that showed Ntrepid, like Abraxas, is "wholly owned" by Cubic. *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** So now that's at least out there - at least to those who happen to read our niche wiki on intelligence contracting affairs. A few reporters and other folks with megaphones or access, but most not too regularly. *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Despite the "question" of whether Cubic has anything to do with the direction of Trapwire as it has with at least other, even less "official" spin-offs of Abraxas (as proven by merger records and a couple other documents pulled up just in last few days), and insomuch as that one of those even notes Cubic's expected "synergies" from Abraxas merger - and of course this question is allegedly the reason why an article was disappeared and not edited or corrected or even initially acknowledged and even still not acknowledged in any way that the majority who read the now-gone story online can see it for themselves, NYT does not mention Cubic at all in its piece yesterday, which claims fears of it are "wildly exaggerated" based on what reporter was told by DHS officials who are unnamed and not quoted. Here: *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/trapwire-antiterrorist-software-leaks-set-off-web-furor.html *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** In two years of following this issue closely and sometimes being directly involved, I have never seen anything like this. At the least, I hope this will give you some insight into how ill-equipped the U.S. media in particular has been to cover this trillion-dollar topic in almost any meaningful way, and want to thank you again for what Businessweek has done and for allowing someone with my views to take part in your very timely panel last month. Thanks, and hope all is well. Here is info we've compiled, plus samples of insightful coverage of Trapwire and our work on it, much from last 24 hours: *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Trapwire http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Cubic_Corporation http://barrettbrown.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-facts-on-cubic-and-trapwire-abraxas.html (a partly silly piece I wrote last night that nonetheless includes much of the new documentation, tax records, etc) http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/15/pr-effort-launched-to-cover-tracks-about-trapwire-domestic-surveillance-system/ *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Vaguely corrupt marketing partnership between the ex-State Department types and self-described "intel analysts" at Stratfor and Trapwire itself, which is supposed not to have any similar or more complex dealings with its ultimate owner unlike other sub-subsidies such as Ntrepid: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/trapwire-strafor-biz/ DRUNK INTRO TO ABOVE Yesterday or something close to it, I posted a very long and, er, multi-faceted article explaining not only Trapwire, its coverage, its connections, and why Adrian Chen is a really shitty "reporter" who gets things consistently wrong because he is under zero pressure from John Cook, but also other stuff I forget. 5 percent of the people who commented on Twitter or e-mail or what have you said something about early sentences being long and no paragraphs making it hard to read. I will never add paragraphs now just for spite because I hate people like that. If god knows how many other people, including dozens of journalists who either linked to it or tweeted it or interviewed me after it, as well as plenty who probably don't know much about the issue, can understand it and even write articles based in part on what it says here, and if dozens of those "basement-dwelling kids" at Anon can understand it, you can fucking understand it. If not, don't ever read my shit, and kill yourself because you commented on some fucking guy's paragraph structure and tendency to write seven-part sentences when he's been (1) out drinking a bit earlier because it's his fucking birthday and now he's writing about some bs called Trapwire instead of hanging with gf and friend who is now over, and (2) drank a pot of coffee and smoked a bunch of pot cause he enjoys that and doesn't care if the news he writes for free is written all wacky-like for 20 fucking percent of it. Incidentally, every single fucking person who commented on Daily Kos as of just now has done so solely to complain about lack of paragraphs aside from the many divisions that are actually there. The cute thing is that I predicted it (although after the 1st comment) an hour before. Were it not for the fact that some people would justly benefit from a summary, or perhaps don't want to read 2000 words covering entire epic in detail, I would never cater to the demands of those people. Those people do not deserve to live in democracies and should be exiled to a 50-mile section of the Sahara, surrounded by light Janjaweed patrols who occasionally venture inward for... "access control." Like a portion of yesterday's, this comes from e-mail I wrote, this time today, to a journalist I know and to the editor of a major publication that has paid attention to these issues before and actually done digging on them. Hope it's of use to those who realize that this issue's low media profile is a low point in national security reporting across U.S., Australia, and elsewhere. In addition to paragraphs, I have added three lines of asterixs [sp?] to separate the various clumps of sentences so they'll never ever touch. Fuck you. UPDATE 8/17 10:45 PM Many Bothans died to bring us these sometimes amusing #OpTrapWire propaganda pics. Not interested in posting them? Guess what? You're worthless! ^___^

"Who Am I? Why I Am I Here?"

I wrote some very nice things about myself in this bio for a panel on security I did last month for Bloomberg/Businessweek. As you'll note, I was indeed raided by the FBI on March 6th, the same day Topiary and others got new charges and others were first arrested - and when Sabu turned out to be exactly like Sabu was destined to turn out. My raid was only police action that day that wasn't bragged about to Fox News in a kind of wacky exclusive that broke it those of us who didn't learn it that day in county or transfer or whatever. Here's my search warrant with addresses blanked, which may be particularly illuminating to those who have followed the infosec squabbles. Obviously I can't talk a whole lot about this case yet, but I'll be able to do so to some extent probably within a month, and I very much look forward to that. I have already noted that at least one FBI informant who routinely worked with a special agent who himself authorized money for her supplies also began work for HBGary, the central firm in the terrible matter, as a "contractor" or some such, and much of the dialog between both included clearly false things that even the FBI should now have determined to be false. There's even worse stuff I'll get to soon. The reason I am actually being investigated in connection with "Fraud" despite having received $50 in donations for Project PM in three years (from rather incredible retired man who helped administrate everyone else), and despite having unfortunately not been involved with any real money at all other than a portion of a nice book advance that is quite clearly a book advance and not a TERRORIST ADVANCE, still eludes me.

This is the only thing of true value that I've written in over a decade of telling girls that I'm a freelance writer. As with a few other data sets made up of stolen e-mails, much of the info used here was obtained only because people took serious risks to obtain it; a couple of them were friends of mine to an extent or for a time, and more than a few of them could lose their young adulthood. The kid who wrote a script that helped Tunisians use their Facebook without being phished by national "net police" in first two weeks of revolution - before anyone had invented the term "Arab Spring" - this guy who may have potentially saved a few people from the torture and confinement that legendary Anon Slim Amanou endured when he went missing from IRC for a week or so. Within two months Amanou became Minister of Youth and Sport, but would resign not long afterwards in protest of continued censorship policies by the then-provisional government (since replaced by democratically-elected though imperfect coalition - a success story that does not receive its due sense of admiration from many quarters). Amanou has continued to serve as a remarkable activist and self-noted "soft-power alchemist," the best term I've ever heard for what people like him do. As for the guy who  created the anti-phishing script, one that was used and distributed by the dozens of Arabs on the IRCs and boards at any given point, he turned out to be a fucking 16-year-old kid from London. Tflow was among the first major fellows to be arrested, at least publicly. 

Then, more recently, at least several dozen people at the least worked on a sort of crowd-sourced operation (an unfortunately necessary buzzword, "crowd-sourced") in IRC channels associated with Anonymous andTelecomix and revealed at least three or four tax and merger filings, quotes from those and from related officials, and a range of other details pertinent to a story which at this point has yet to receive much "real" press despite being quite obviously news for several reasons. Please read it, and thanks. 

The Facts on Cubic - and Trapwire, Abraxas, Ntrepid, and other Legal Fictions

This is a long e-mail I just sent to a friend in the media with whom I'd had brief exchange on all this earlier in the afternoon. I'd also like all of this in one place that is not a string of my or other people's Twitter Tweet Goojygoo Microyell shit, and it's late and I just spent half my birthday thinking about a bunch of companies that do computer shit, which I'd manage to avoid until I got heavily involved in this issue early last year, so I'm just going to drop this here instead of writing a different one. It's not like it's going to be taken seriously by most anyone other than the actual experts on security that had already voiced concerns on the Trapwire issue - many of whom already know most or all of it anyway. As usual, I will protest the fact that very little actual write-ups will appear on this in major outlets no matter how many fucking documents we pull up and how many pertinent quotes we find despite not being paid for it, and that one of the few things that actually appeared on it yesterday was by Adrian Chen, who does not regularly write about technology (or even presumably pay attention to the specific facts and documentation that have previously been put out by my group Project PM on the same fucking companies we're talking about right here, despite the fact that Chen has written at least three or four articles that are either entirely or about me and which are often at least partly false even when I walk him through shit) (full disclosure: I really dislike Chen, his other questionable "reporting" on things like a "OWS murder link" that even initially was so clearly bullshit that actual Gawker commenters noted it, and which was further debunked the next day by NYT; go Google it yourself). That some large number of media industry folks will have read his piece - which calls the idea of Trapwire likely using such things as facial recognition "outlandish" despite Abraxas head and 30-year CIA veteran Richard "Hollis" Helms (no apparent relation to Nixon era director) having written, way back in 2005, that Trapwire would "collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition;" which is to say that, though actually claimed by its creators (to execs and departments with industry professionals on hand to evaluate products, rather than rubes who know little about the specific tech) to have been designed to use something EVEN BETTER than facial recognition seven fucking years ago, it is thus "outlandish" to suspect that the current version, which like similar security capabilities I've had to learn about over more than a year is presumably updated regularly by this whole damn Abraxas spin off, "Abraxas Applications" (and inevitably, it's run by yet another goddamn CIA veteran, which like most of this will be big no big deal to everyone who's somehow managed to read nothing about the CIA, such as probable majority of U.S. "citizens"). So, a hot capability that's being used widely by some of the key security customers across the globe and which involves several different technologies has perhaps not seen reason to take advantage of measurable (admittedly not huge, to public knowledge) advances in facial recognition as accessed by top intelligence/defense complex in the world, despite seven years. Even if we pretend that such an idea is still nonetheless "outlandish" - let's say that the vast majority of writing we've done on anything involving actual security policy is on Barrett Brown, and that we've even managed to make false claims about him, least defamatory of which is that he's cynically writing a book "on his adventures" rather than about Gregg Housh and HIS experiences, (which are highly interesting if you've read about him) which is what it was always about - which is to say, let's pretend that we think on the level of Adrian Chen, The Guy Whom The Universe Has Knighted To Inform A Thousand Other Mediocre Media People on Issues He Only Cares About When It Means He Can Say Moderately Clever Things About How Silly Activists Are. Play this pretend game with me. Okay? Great. Now, let's say that. IT USES NOT JUST SOMETHING THAT'S SAID TO BE BETTER FACIAL RECOGNITION, BUT ALSO OTHER UNKNOWN COMPONENTS, INCLUDING SOME THAT APPARENTLY NEED TO BE DESCRIBED IN GENERAL BECAUSE COMMON NAMES DO NOT YET EXIST FOR THEM, AS PER THE HEAD OF THE FIRM ABRAXAS THAT SUPPOSEDLY DOESN'T HAVE A WHOLE LOT TO DO WITH THE TECH IT GAVE TO ITS SPIN-OFF OR HOW IT'S USED, ACCORDING TO A STATEMENT BY CUBIC, WHICH ITSELF IS DOCUMENTED TO BE DIRECTLY INVOLVED WITH ABRAXAS, WHICH IS ALLEGEDLY NOT IN TURN INVOLVED IN DECISIONS CONCERNING ITS OWN SPIN-OFF (in one of the few documentations of a relationship between infosec contractors - HBGary and HBGary Federal - the principles of each were in constant collaboration, e-mail for both was on one server (lol), and many of the events they're most known for were handled PR wise by the HBGary execs calling the shots on the three or so people that its creation employed.) So, now we're pretending that thing, that all that is the case. In this Pretend Play Game Universe, guess fucking what? It's still a complex system, run by the sort of people who betrayed us on ATT/NSA wiretapping and other things plus god knows what other things that the secret-keeping people have managed to keep secret. Very few people have attacked the CIA on the grounds that it is not sufficiently intent on keeping secrets and that it is far too meek in the methods by which it does this, except perhaps certain uncles who are actually addicted to crack, and don't just smoke it twice a year when black-out drunk but actually every day. Anyone who wants to note that we don't know for sure that what we term "facial recognition" is used in addition to similar and allegedly better techs which themselves are used in combination by a system that is recording a great deal of activity by large portions of several Western populations is right to do so. We don't know for sure. But when people who clearly didn't read even the bare majority of the little we have on the subject are taken seriously by many of the people who will decide if it's worth looking into more, just maybe, then we have a sick republic in which an actual fucking drug addict like myself has to compile tell you these things, many of which were discovered by people who nonetheless do not officially rate the credibility inherent to the title of "journalist" - a term which itself should be used much less in this degenerate age of a degenerate republic.

Also, uh, here's the thing I actually wanted to tell you, about the syndicated piece that went down from at least seven or eight Australian outlets without any explanation or acknowledgement. Forgive lack of run-on sentences and self-aggrandizement/settling of personal scores, was written in haste and for one person:

Backchannel explanation from one of the outlets that ran the scrubbed
piece, provided so far to Aussie activist who's been involved heavily,
is that Cubic contends central fact of the story - which was written
by two journos, one of who is tech editor - that Cubic is related to
Trapwire, which as we know is run directly by spin-off of subsidiary
Abraxas, is substantially incorrect, and that this prompted a
syndicated story that had in one incarnation been linked to heavily,
including by Wikileaks itself. Tweet an hour ago from one writer, the
editor, implied he hadn't himself realized that no explanation had yet
been put up as to why it was taken down, which to me sounds insane. In
last hour Telecomix folks and I have found a couple of things,
including two more state filings from Cubic on Abraxas relationship -
tax filings notes "synergies" between Cubic and Abraxas as well as
regular cross-over uses of software with another subsidiary. None of
this clearly proves that Cubic is making any decisions with regards
to, say, how the contracts of Trapwire itself are distributed, for
instance. We would have to have e-mails or other documents of any such
collaboration, officially or unofficially, to know that. What we do
know, and which is perhaps relevant to this question, is that the
already-known-to-be-scummy intel firm with its own extensive gov links
was itself involved in how Trapwire's day-to-day controllers, as Wired
noted today from other e-mails stemming from the batch. So, yeah,
between that and a few other factors, plus whatever else comes up in
the next hour, we're all very convinced that there's a lot more to
this that was hidden for a fairly good pragmatic reason, and at the
least that the story being entirely scrubbed, as opposed to even
corrected a bit (which may or may not be itself reasonable - I had an
op-ed for Guardian changed and slapped with editor's note about a
"correction" HBGary's lawyers made about alleged operational
difference between HBGary and HBGary Federal, which colluded on many
matters including only ones I discussed, without them even asking me
or checking to see if it was true - which it wasn't, as I and Ars
Technica and several more MSM outlets had already noted using their
own docs/e-mails. Also in in just last ten minutes from Telecomix and
other folks: "Abraxas Dauntless, Ntrepid and TrapWire Inc. have three
of four board members as an interlocking directorate" (Dauntless is
yet another subsidiary recently acquired, with documented
collaboration between Cubic and itself). There's even more and people
are looking for now, but that should do it. Links below.


*Edit, 16th 3:01

So why would Cubic attempt, and immediately achieve, its goal of getting a story pulled from six papers, without explanation, a story about what exactly its subsidiary is doing when it's presumably doing something good? And why, although as shown below they do work with at least three of their purchased or created firms (with none yet found on any subsidiary with which they do not work), and have hidden (and thus had reason to hide) their connections to their other "spin-off" subsidiaries-of-subsidiaries - and perhaps with some of whichever others they've actually managed to hide? Their dozens of known and often quite large "spin-offs" (a term which can still entail any degree of cooperation and certainly has with HBGary's and a couple of others among the the few from which e-mail correspondence was made public via hack in 2011) across the world. And since Stratfor was working in secret with Abraxas Apps (and that they changed the name so quickly is not necessarily proof that something about their existing name might become another of those don't-be-linked-at-all-to-the-above-company things they've pursued with Ntrepid and, again, however many firms under cover. Why, why, why would a very powerful institution with a very extraordinary revenue stream and super-connected officials whose job is to keep the contracts favorable and of course keep public from hearing them in association with a firm they, quite frankly, are more likely than not to be involved with on both a strategic level as well as a more coordinated level whenever it would make sense to do so. There's no particular reason not for that coordination to happen between a company and another company that bought that company because it does something similar to what they do in a way that makes sense to buy it and then try to make sure that it makes lots more money for the company that is a company, rather than a hobby or a phase teens go through, and which quite reasonably wants to maximize profit?

Well, probably it wouldn't want to be associated by name with a subsidiary it owns that clearly tracks people in some manner that provides not just information, but the ability to learn who in particular needs to have more information pulled up about them via other means, perhaps even things like Trapwire's iWatch program, or from the "See Saying, Say Something" program that it actually oversees. That's one of many things that didn't just seem noteworthy to the New York Times when it explained away concerns about the program as "wildly exaggerated" based in part on what they were told in a private conversation they had with some people at the DHS whose names or titles or evidence for what they claimed are coquettishly left to the imagination in the high New York Times reporting style that was always most polished in the work of Judith Miller (aside from whoever else hasn't gotten caught using it, of course).

The other thing we didn't hear from the media on Trapwire, and obviously on the six deletions that weren't originally caught, is that Cubic wants to be able to get more contracts doing public-space security of the sort that isn't focused on landmarks, but on everyone - transportation. 

Perhaps they don't want connections made at all about itself and one of its firms, and to such an extent that they asked for and got an article deleted without initial explanation (and with a shitty vague semi-leaked one afterwards, and now a supposedly entirely true explanation you can buy for a buck at newstands in Australia) that doesn't explain why they didn't do what papers like themselves almost always do when such things happen, which is to add a correction note at top or bottom and perhaps fix whatever actually makes it incorrect. That the premise is wrong - that nothing that Cubic does is coordinated with anything that its subsidiary does, even though firms tend to coordinate with others for "synergy," as Cubic said it would get from Abraxas in its very own tax filings - is not only not proven by Cubic at all, but also likely to be true based on what people like me who spend all day thinking about Cubic have found or gathered up about this actual story that the story-people out there at the NYT don't need to find because the NYT offers prestige, which is even better than relevant information about globe-spanning issues with an already demonstrable and potentially much larger than thus proven impact on the the privacy and state-citizen power relationship of tens of millions of people and perhaps more. 

That the article was not simply changed to say something like "Cubic claims it doesn't coordinate with this subsidiary as it does with a couple of the secret ones that popped up just because some wacky kids stole all HBGary's e-mails," or at least the lest informative version thereof that is fit for newspaper writing, is because of one thing. Cubic wasn't asking if they could please correct the article because they are disputing with no proof that it is entirely wrong. They WANTED that thing down.

5:58 EST 8/16

And why did the co-author of the piece, a tech editor at Sydney Morning Herald, send out a single Tweet yesterday in response to questions about what happened or where's the correction, saying he'd thought the correction was already out. But it never went online around then. It came out in the print edition of the Sydney Morning Herald the next day, and that's it. Was he told an explanation would be put up online, as is common and appropriate when an entire widely-read story relevant to an issue that is being (ideally) discussed among the public and raised by at least one of the nation's parliament members (whose standard motion to ask government about Trapwire dealings, and which was shot down, prompting protests from him (if not from any press that I am aware of yet, which don't seem to have thought this interesting even in the rare case that they've even mentioned Trapwire already)? If he was told this, who decided against such an appropriate move as admitting their "mistake" so that most of people who read it could see it without having to call an Australian, which no one likes to do? This is among the most extraordinary things, in totality, that I have seen in ten years of writing and reading things and in two years of involvement in an already bizarre sector/issue that has left me raided by the FBI, my friends (and not-so-good-friends) arrested or given awesome new jobs as rats, and me getting a drunken late-night phone call from HBGary CEO Greg Hoglund that is hilarious, in which he taunts me about how we'll never figure out the exact function of Romas/COIN (and which the now FBI has, since I obviously recorded it on one of the four laptops they took from me along with notes, etc.) It deserves further investigation by somebody who's actually getting paid for it and who has an actual regular outlet. A journalist, for instance. That would be nice.

Here are the links that went to an article about Cubic and its subsidiaries and how they plan to be a part of your transportation experience. Sorry they don't lead to anything, even explanations, but the firm just really didn't want a lot of irritating focus on this minor matter:



http://m.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/revealed-trapwire-spy-cams-ticket-to-au stralia-20120813-2448z.html
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/revealed-trapwire-spy-cams-ticket-to-australia-20120813-2448z.html
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/surveillance-system-linked-to-transport-defence-contractor-20120813-244yj.html
http://m.watoday.com.au/technology/technology-news/revealed-trapwire-spy-cams-ticket-to-australia-20120813-2448z.html
http://m.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/revealed-trapwire-spy-cams-ticket-to-australia-20120813-2448z.html
http://www.katherinetimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/revealed-trapwire-spy-cams-ticket-to-australia/2648709.aspx
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nsw/surveillance-system-linked-to-transport-defence-contractor-20120813-244yj.html
http://m.canberratimes.com.au/nsw/surveillance-system-linked-to-transport-defence-contractor-20120813-244yj.html


And here are the links you need now.


"anticipated synergies include the ability to expand services
offerings" #Cubic filing on #Abraxas
http://www.faqs.org/sec 







filings/110203/CUBIC-CORP-DE-_






10-Q/#ixzz23bG2qIx2
… #Trapwire


HBGary easily forced my editors to add "correction":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/







commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/






jun/22/hacking-anonymous
… ... that was false:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-







policy/news/2011/04/hbgary-






issues-denials-snipes-at-the-





blog-o-sphere-in-open-letter.




ars… #Trapwire

@TelecomixBSRE just pointed out this 2010 Cubic/Abraxas merger
agreement, looking now
http://agreements.







realdealdocs.com/Agreement-






and-Plan-of-Merger/AGREEMENT-





AND-PLAN-OF-MERGER-2856738/
… (nothing much there other than financial/legal shit, unless missed
something)

The folks who can watch you and see where else you've been also help
CENTCOM make fake online people.
http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/







Persona_Management … #Trapwire

Last year, Cubic hid subsidiary Ntrepid so well that 2 Guardian
reporters who looked couldn't find it. (both are actually exceptional
reporters, just overlooked tax docs later found by one of PM
volunteers who's very good researcher)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/







technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-






operation-social-networks

Tweet by writer/editor who co-wrote syndicated story:

@MylesPeterson @barrettbrownlol @not_me @asher_wolf Thought it went
out today sorry. Should be tmrw then. Held to confirm some facts.
Expand

My reply

5h Barrett Brown ‏@BarrettBrownLOL
@ashermoses Obviously your instinct to retract is noble, but want to
ensure you know that Cubic obscured truth last year. (referring to
Ntrepid thing above)

Abraxas, other Cubic subsidiary Ntrepid made with Abraxas staff and
tech that won CENTCOM bid for persona management: details, known docs
on persona management and that contract:
http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/







Persona_Management

Our page on Cubic/Abraxas/Ntrepid, not yet updated for Trapwire
revelations and not nearly as mean as it will get when I have the
time: http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/







Cubic_Corporation

Please, please ask me if you have any questions at all, and I'll
either answer it or ask the person who most likely can. Thank you.

Bradley Manning Support Network Under Army Investigation, Plus Bonus Bad News

The Bradley Manning Support Network is under investigation by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, as revealed by a copy of a Freedom of Information Act request response. In this case, the request for records pertaining to the activist umbrella group was denied, but the reason for the denial - that "an active investigation is in progress with an undetermined completion date" - is obviously news in and of itself, which is presumably why none of the infotainment outlets posing as news organizations have reported on the development thus far.

As of 1:30 PM CST, the FOIA response indicating that a network of activists who advocate on behalf of a celebrated accused whistleblower are being pursued by a branch of the U.S. military has not been mentioned by a single news organization with a web presence. Searching Google News brings up nothing; searching Google itself brings up two blogs with what we may presume to be very little reach (building up an audience has less to do with quality than it does with packaging, which is why Thomas Friedman is so popular). Quite possibly there will be mentions of all this by tomorrow in at least a few more places - but having spent years working in the media, analyzing the media, and sometimes being covered by the media, it wouldn't surprise me if coverage were relegated to a handful of specialist sites and perhaps Wired (which itself does some of the best and most crucial reporting on such issues as the NSA Utah Data Center only to have its revelations ignored by general outlets in favor of Secret Service prostitution scandals).

Complaints of this sort are often brushed off by journalists with the more "respectable" outlets with the response that everyone has their pet issue that they believe deserves special attention. In this case, such an excuse wouldn't hold water, nor does today being Sunday serve to explain away the complete absence of coverage thus far. Back in early 2010, when the Wikileaks Twitter account put forth a series of messages to the effect that one of its volunteers had been stopped and questioned and that others were being aggressively pursued by agents of the State Department, there was zero coverage of the incident at all. And the claims of state interference weren't exactly dubious; just a few days prior, Wikileaks had released Pentagon documents that proved the U.S. military was already considering how best to disrupt the organization. Back then, Wikileaks just wasn't on the radar of the U.S. media on the whole. Only later in the year would editors collectively agree that Wikileaks was indeed maybe some sort of big deal - soon after which it collectively decided that it was easier and more fun to ask probing questions about whether or not Julian Assange thinks highly of himself than it was to look through the actual documents that were providing to the world. And of course it became not only clear, but abundantly and repeatedly clear, that a number of covert operations were in the works against Wikileaks and individuals close to it. At any rate, they would eventually agree that this strange new transparency group was shaping up to be a major story, but only long after it had become obvious. Its notability having been eventually established even by the American media reckoning, there's no viable excuse on "Sorry, We Don't Agree That's Notable" grounds for that incident to have been entirely ignored. It's just hard to look back at that day and make the case that it didn't represent a massive failure on the part of the media to see a story coming, even when plenty of other observers saw it quite clearly. 

There's probably more at play here than simply groupthink. In both the Wikileaks/State Department incident and the incident I'm bitching about this time, the story was only apparent to the extent that one kept an eye on certain Twitter feeds, particular reddit sections, and other relatively newfangled venues of the sort that didn't exist ten years ago and which still have attached to them certain vaguely disreputable, quasi-comical connotations in the minds of countless producers and editors. Meanwhile, more and more stories of the sort that clearly merit coverage can be expected to emanate from these allegedly unconventional nooks and crannies, the info itself having been placed on Scribd or pastebin or some other such thing instead of delivered in a press release or spoken at a podium by some well-paid liar. At some point, those whose profession calls upon them to be aware of what's happening are going to have to learn to contend with how much of those happenings are now happening on online thingamajigs with silly names. 

To be fair, some professionals of that sort have indeed learned how much data can be gleaned from well-executed examinations of social networking platforms. Unfortunately, most of them work in the surveillance and intelligence sectors of government agencies and for private contractors, rather than newsrooms, and are engaged in keeping tabs on such parties as the Bradley Manning Support Network. 

Project PM Moving to Voxanon

Later today, Project PM's IRC channel moves to the Voxanon server. Signing on to irc.project-pm.org with an IRC client will automatically redirect you to our new home, which is irc.voxanon.net #projectpm; Voxanon's website, as opposed to its IRC server, is at www.voxanon.net. Note that irc.project-pm.org will remain functional and simply redirect to irc.voxanon.net but, as of 11 AM CST, it may take a couple of hours in such a way that it works for everybody; you can also always connect directly to irc.voxanon.net. We're also going to be actively recruiting participants to assist in our work, which generally involves bringing greater attention to the dangers of the "cyber-industrial complex" - the intertwining of civil, military, and corporate power that threatens the health of democratic institutions.

A great deal of what we do simply involves finding and spreading little-known or poorly-understood information, much of which we compile at our wiki, echelon2.org. If you haven't done so, consider taking a look at that research, which derives from unique sources (read: e-mails stolen from contracting firms that got on the wrong side of Anonymous) while also drawing upon both mainstream and independent reporting on related topics. Our contributors have spent a great deal of time on this subject in large part because it's difficult to look at the material in question and not come to the conclusion that populations across the world are being put at risk by the march towards greater surveillance, better propaganda, and further control of information. And with most major media outlets being more interested in covering U.S. Secret Service sex scandals than they are massive new NSA projects or Western firms that help dictators monitor and oppress dissenters, there's a considerable need for more individuals to act on whatever level they can so that others can be educated on the problem and motivated to address it themselves.

Even if you can't participate with research or writing, simply reading and spreading the information available on our wiki is an easy way to contribute to this project; activists in particular need to know about the evolving ways in which they are now being targeted by companies and governments alike, while the citizenry at large needs to have at least a general idea of what is now known about high-tech violations of their collective and individual privacy. Few issues are less-reported while more fundamental to the health of democratic institutions than this one, and every successful effort made to bring it into the public consciousness helps to incubate further solutions. 

Not All Propaganda is Equal

On May 18th, there began a brief controversy over an attempt by two U.S. Congressmen - Rep. Mac Thornberry and Rep. Adam Smith - to insert an amendment into an upcoming defense authorization bill that would have the effect of lifting two different bans on the targeting of American citizens via means defined as propaganda. That this amendment received some relatively high degree of attention was a fine thing; that it did not survive its journey through the Senate is a finer thing still. But over the course of the several days during which the amendment's existence was scrutinized and commented upon by the thousands whose online comments form a sort of directory of public opinion - and which of course help to fuel that opinion, simply by being read - there could be found a certain widespread take on all of this that happens to be not only wrong, but counterproductive: that such an amendment is no big deal because the American people are already subject to propaganda on a daily basis.

One sees this expressed in various ways, often half-sarcastic, and quite often referring to some deficit of the news media, or the dishonesty of public officials, or the very existence of Fox News. Now, certainly the circumstances by which information is tampered with and unfairly presented and even turned on its head by an array of parties is very damaging, and does indeed contribute a great deal to the deficit of public understanding. And perhaps the people who make such comments in reference to stories such as this one believe themselves to be providing some degree of insight that is helpful and necessary to others. What they are actually doing, however, is bringing damage to a great opportunity that was available by virtue of that amendment coming to attention - that is, the opportunity to likewise bring attention to the sophisticated new ways in which propaganda is being honed and deployed by both states and private actors.

That the propaganda methodology I'm about to discuss is not already more widely known and understood is due to several unfortunate dynamics. Only one of these dynamics - the fact that the parties involved in using them tend not to want to bring attention to their use - is the result of any intent. The rest are simply consequences of collective failures on the part of both news media and social media. 

For instance, notice that the post by Michael Hastings linked to above, in which he notes the existence of the amendment and provides some background, makes the following reference:

"another program being developed by the Pentagon would design software to create "sock puppets" on social media outlets"

Now, in a more perfect world, such a reference as this would indicate to everyone who chooses to comment on this story - which received a great deal of its play and attention via social networking - that propaganda of the sort that is up for discussion has advanced well beyond the level of lies and obfuscation or anything else with which even an educated and thoughtful person might be familiar. And so the comments that appear not only on the post here, but on the post as it virtually incarnates in a thousand other online nooks, would be less concerned with expressing some form of cynicism about how this isn't news, and more concerned with helping others to understand what is actually at stake, and what sort of propaganda methods now exist.

In the less perfect world that we seem to inhabit, though, the people who can be seen commenting on the Buzzfeed post - a post which has been viewed over 200,000 times - do not seem to know what sort of propaganda methodology could have been legally unleashed upon the citizenry by the State Department had this amendment survived. This is actually understandable, because almost no one knows exactly what level of sophistication has been reached in terms of high-end, technology-driven methods by which to provide false impressions to large numbers of people. Nonetheless, anyone who chooses to do so may get a sense of how sophisticated such things things are actually getting by learning about what is now public information - and what is now public information cannot lead any reasonable person to any other conclusion than that there is more that is not at all known to us. After all, much of what is known to us came to us haphazardly, through an unusual series of events that led to the well-connected intelligence contracting firm HBGary Federal having its e-mails stolen and distributed and then examined by various parties, including several of the more competent media outlets. And although the e-mails to and from other firms and government agencies provide a glimpse of an opaque complex, they can hardly be expected to have revealed every propaganda capability that has been developed and deployed in the background.

But they did allow for those paying attention to learn about the existence of persona management, the capability that Hastings described in brief in the above quote. They did show us that the US Air Force put out a bid on the software in question in 2010, and thereafter led to a few journalists confirming that the capability was being used by CENTCOM in foreign theaters. They also showed us that at least a handful of firms have been developing a variant on this capability, and that at least three of them were considering to deploy it in such a way as to infiltrate American activist groups and set one up in such a way as to make it appear to have acted dishonestly, even with fraud in mind - as laid out in the following idea by then-CEO of HBGary Federal Aaron Barr:

Create a false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information, and monitor to see if U.S. Chamber Watch acquires it. Afterward, present explicit evidence that such transactions never occurred. Also, create a fake insider persona and generate communications with CtW. Afterward, release the actual documents at a specified time and explain the activity as a CtW contrived operation. Both instances will prove that Chamber Watch cannot be trusted with information and/or tell the truth.

Such an offensive measure as this would not have required the more complex software that is known to be used by CENTCOM and which is known to have been created at the very least by a unit of the sprawling contracting firm Cubic Corporation. But this simple instance should serve as an example of what is possible even without the more advanced forms of persona management. It should also lead to questions as to how much more sophisticated we can expect such things to get, knowing as we do that there is a market for such things, and a use for them, and nothing in place that can be expected to stop this practice from going much father and being deployed by more and more entities until anyone who turns out to be inconvenient to some corporation or government will face the possibility of being discredited or framed. As the technology improves and as the procedures by which to do this are refined, this will become not only a larger problem, but a virtually unsolvable one.

The concern I have with some of the reaction to the amendment is wrapped up in a concern I have with some of the reactions I saw to the several news articles that appeared about persona management after it was discovered. There are usually a great number of comments to the effect that "sock puppets" are nothing new - something that is literally true but irrelevant to a situation in which the practice is being refined and militarized and adopted by more and more institutions, such that we are now dealing with something of far more weight than what the term evokes.

And as serious a problem as this persona management capability could end up posing, there is a far more serious problem represented in the highly complex capabilities that are also now available to powerful entities - not least of which is that few people understand how complex such capabilities can get, thereby helping to ensure that such things will continue to become more complex even as the public imagination remains limited in terms of what sorts of things are now possible. The best example of which I'm aware is Romas/COIN, another project that was not supposed to have come to light but which can be pieced together to some extent via a close examination of dozens of the HBGary e-mails and additional research. Among the few bits of coverage this received when I put out the report linked above in 2011 and announced its existence in The Guardian was this segment on Russia Today in which Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer - best known in relation to Able Danger and now a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies - is invited to provide his comments. His take is summarized by the very first thing he says:

Well, I think the public is naive to the actual level of technology that's available and what's being done.

Which, of course, is entirely true, and will remain true until such time as more people take responsibility for the flawed online discourse, just as they demand that the media take responsibility for the flawed traditional discourse. Those who wish to have a hand in correcting the situation might read through some of the many articles that have been written by some of the better media commentators within the traditional media, and then might even go so far as to link to them or blog about them or otherwise distribute them to others. Obviously, no one has to do any of this. It will either get done or not depending on how many people decide that they are so strongly opposed to the dangers represented by government propaganda and surveillance that they will go so far as to actually help oppose it by making the problem known and understood by others.

The Purpose of Project PM

In 2009, I began recruiting individuals with a variety of backgrounds for an experimental online group, the initial purpose being to conceive and put into play new dynamics by which to improve information flow on the internet, as well as to develop new methods of practical online collaboration. A number of proposals were discussed among the participants whom I'd managed to bring in via announcements on The Huffington Post, Skeptical Inquirer, and other outlets for which I was writing at the time. Some work was done on a sort of "collaborative network" that could theoretically grow from the inside out without incurring a decrease in the average capabilities/seriousness of its participant base. Meanwhile, an operation by which to improve the state of science journalism in the U.S. by coupling volunteer scientists with working journalists was launched (with only moderate success, beyond a few collaborations we managed to facilitate here and there), and another was planned involving "crowd-sourced Africa development," as one might term it. All in all, Project PM was more experiment than success for the first year of its existence, but it did manage to attract several dozen individuals with an unusual array of talent and certain shared ideas and values.

In early 2011, when I began working out of the Anonops server in support of OpTunisia and then other matters, Project PM (the chief venue of which was simply an IRC channel on the Freenode server) became an extension of those efforts. Eventually it fell to the wayside as I became more heavily involved with Anonymous itself. A few months later, as a number of us continued to investigate the large mass of information that had stemmed from the HBGary hack, we turned Project PM into our shared venue/banner and re-purposed it into an informal association that would do two things: (1) disseminate information about the intelligence contracting industry and what is now being increasingly termed the "cyber-industrial complex," including specific firms/outfits known to be involved in one or more of certain activities we oppose, and (2) provide whatever support possible to other parties that wish to pursue these issues. The first objective is carried out in a number of ways, but chiefly through our wiki, Echelon2, which serves as a repository of info on the subjects we deal with, or by providing tips to journalists and other activists on those subjects. We now work chiefly out of an IRC server, irc.project-pm.org, in one main channel called #projectpm.

Now, lemme break it down for y'all:

Q. Is Project PM a part of Anonymous?

A. Nope. Many of the participants are Anons, but many aren't.

Q. How many people are in Project PM?

A. There is no membership roster, or even real membership. Instead, people contribute to the project as they see fit, or simply come hang out with us to discuss topics of interest or drop tips or whatever. Our IRC channel usually contains about 40 people at any given time.

Q. Why is Project PM worth participating in?

A. There are a number of issues that were brought to light after the HBGary e-mails were made public, and some of them received wide attention at the time. But the nature of media and public attention is such that a story tends to be deemed "over" after a certain point. In this case, the story was effectively over in a few weeks despite the fact that there were clearly more things of importance to be found in those 70,000 e-mails. For example, see Romas/COIN.

Q. How could I actually assist?

A. This depends on your background and skill set, as well as what you already may know about issues involving technology, government contracting, surveillance, data mining, online propaganda, and the like. We really like our participants to spend some time reading through the information on our wiki so that they'll know what kind of things we're trying to bring to the wider attention of the press. Assisting the project can be as simple as helping to spread links to either our own wiki entries or articles written by others on these same subjects. The most valuable contributors are those who can research these issues and add to the wiki on their own, or who are able to get journalists or bloggers interested in covering aspects of the problem. Some people will have information or insight into specific issues by virtue of their professional background, in which case we're always happy to have them talk to us in the IRC. All in all, our goal is to help bring attention to the dangers that arise from certain dynamics we've already seen in the intelligence contracting industry, and so anything that can help bring attention to these things is helpful.

Q. If I want to look through the HBGary e-mails myself, how do I do so?

A. As of this writing (late May 2012), the 70,000 e-mails don't seem to be available online in any form, although they were once searchable via a site set up by Anonymous participants. You can still download them and then search through them by keyword on your own computer; the majority of them (those of former HBGary Federal personnel Aaron Barr and Ted Vera) are available via torrent here. In fact, helping to "seed" them after downloading is a good, simple way to help make them accessible until such time as they're once again available in a more convenient form.

Q. What's the purpose of this blog in terms of Project PM?

A. I'm going to be writing some materials here on the subjects we've been studying so that I'll be better able to explain why they merit more attention from the press, activists, and the public.

Q. Will you be my steady girl?

A. If you're gentle.

Q. I'm some sort of journalist or blogger and I want to cover something involving the intelligence contracting industry, persona management, data mining, surveillance, or one of the other issues you're clearly obsessed with. Will you provide me with some form of assistance?

A. Yes. You can e-mail staff@project-pm.org to reach a couple of the people who are particularly active, or barriticus@gmail.com to reach just me. You can also download an IRC client and come to irc.project-pm.org if that floats your boat.