Tag Archives: internet

Bitcoin, Terence McKenna and the Future of the Internet, by Michael Krieger

Posted on November 29, 2017 | Leave a comment

Michael Krieger thinks it’s early days on the internet, cryptocurrencies, and a host of other innovations we don’t know about yet, because they haven’t been invented. He’s bullish on the future. From Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

We have millions of people who are warehoused in almost a larval state in their apartments, watching tv, paying for their medical plans, and glued to this mindless opera of cultural decay that’s recited day after day in front of them. I mean, it’s horrible to imagine — and this is a creation to some degree of the world corporate state, that probably has to be addressed. 

– Terence McKenna, The Internet is the Cure for TV (1994)

I know the title of this post seems strange in light of several factors. First, it’s been nearly twenty years since the dot-com bubble burst and it’s estimated that 3-4 billion people globally, or roughly 50% of the world’s population, already surf the web. Second, it’s become increasingly trendy in 2017 to highlight all the bad things about the internet, with social media typically singled out for the most intense and visceral criticism. Although I acknowledge some very real downsides of social media such as unhealthy obsession and addiction, most of the outrage we’ve seen this year has been focused on “fake news” and “Russia meddling.” In other words, most of the hysteria’s been political in nature, and would barely be registering anywhere near its current decibel level had Hillary Clinton won the election.

All of a sudden, there’s this insistence that social media is especially dangerous because it fosters the creation of echo chambers rife with tribal confirmation bias. Spaces where people with the same views simply talk to one another, and whoever’s willing to be the loudest and most aggressive at signaling to their tribe becomes the most popular. I don’t deny that this phenomenon exists, but like with anything else, you have to accept the bad with the good, and in the long-run the good far outweighs the bad. The main reason so many are having a panic attack right now is because the internet and social media allowed the public to talk to one another directly without being force-fed corporate media narratives and they decided to reject the chosen one, Hillary Clinton.

As such, the “very smart people” and “experts” have concluded the problem is with the voter, as opposed to the terrible candidates on offer or the corrupt system itself. This is the real reason for the current obsession with “fake news” and dangerous social media echo chambers. The elites are simply frustrated that their methods of propaganda no longer work as more and more people talk to each other online.

To continue reading: Bitcoin, Terence McKenna and the Future of the Internet

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Old Think, by the Zman

Posted on September 14, 2017 | 3 comments

The mainstream media’s news audience is drawing Social Security, and the generations coming up get their news from the Internet. This won’t end well for the MSM. From the Zman at theburningplatform.com:

The other day, Andrew Torba was scheduled to appear on the Tucker Carlson show so I figured out how to find it off the underground TV system. I no longer have a TV subscription, so I have to rely on the dark web for this stuff. Cord cutters can say what they like about services like Kodi, but it is a hassle compared to regular cable. So much so, in fact, that I rarely watch television. Instead I download movies and TV shows and binge watch when the spirit moves me. I watched Deadwood last month, for example.

Anyway, I found a stream and tuned in to the show. I did not know when Torba’s segment was scheduled so I had to sit through the whole thing. Watching Tucker interview some old guy, who looked vaguely familiar, I felt like I had gone back in time. I have not watched these shows in a long time. I get my news on-line. I skip the Blue Team – Red Team hooting that makes up political banter in the mainstream press. In fact, I barely notice most of what passes for current events discussion. I just don’t care that much.

The Torba piece was short and I got the sense that Tucker Carlson spends little time on-line. The things Torba said about Twitter and FaceBorg zapping bad-think on a daily basis were obviously news to Tucker. He was genuinely surprised when Torba explained the realities of who controls the internet and the power they have over speech. The reason for this is no one in the mass media understands any of this stuff. They live in the media bubble and the sorts of things we experience on-line are alien to them.

To continue reading: Old Think

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Dear Great Britain – Blame Your Intelligence Agencies and Government, Not the Internet, by Michael Krieger

Posted on June 5, 2017 | 2 comments

Theresa May has an answer for those who criticize her government’s response to terrorism as ineffectual: another ineffectual policy and further abridgement of Britain’s civil liberties. From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

The dishonest and dangerous response of Theresa May’s UK government to the horrific terrorist attacks of the past month is unfortunately all too common when it comes to those in power. Rather than look inward at the glaring shadiness and corruption inherent throughout UK government polices, its “leaders” are looking to use these barbaric acts as a excuse to push through an authoritarian and illiberal expansion of state power. Specifically, Theresa May’s government is despicably using the attacks to push for regulation and censorship of the internet.

As reported by the Independent:

New international agreements should be introduced to regulate the internet in the light of the London Bridge terror attack, Theresa May has said.

The Prime Minister said introducing new rules for cyberspace would “deprive the extremists of their safe spaces online” and that technology firms were not currently doing enough.

“We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed – yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide,” Ms May said.

The Conservative manifesto pledges regulation of the internet, including forcing internet providers to participate in counter-extremism drives and making it more difficult to access pornography.

Silly me, I thought this was about terrorism.

The Act, championed by Ms May, requires internet service providers to maintain a list of visited websites for all internet users for a year and gives intelligence agencies more powers to intercept online communications. Police can access the stored browsing history without any warrant or court order.

Ms May’s speech is thought to be the first time she has publicly called for international cooperation in bringing forward more red tape to cyberspace, however.

The intervention comes after the introduction of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 – dubbed the “Snooper’s Charter” – which expands the powers of spying agencies and the Government over the internet.

To continue reading: Dear Great Britain – Blame Your Intelligence Agencies and Government, Not the Internet

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UK Government Moves Aggressively to Censor and Control the Internet, by Michael Krieger

Posted on May 20, 2017 | Leave a comment

The Internet is the biggest enemy to governments today. The British government recognizes the threat. From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

I’ve got family in town, so today’s post will be brief.

I’ll just leave you with the following dystopian excerpts from today’s UK Independent article titled, Theresa May to Create New Internet that Would Be Controlled and Regulated by Government:

Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online.

Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes to the way the internet works.

“Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet,” it states. “We disagree.”

Thanks for clearing that up.

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.

The plans will allow Britain to become “the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet”, the manifesto claims.

It comes just soon after the Investigatory Powers Act came into law. That legislation allowed the government to force internet companies to keep records on their customers’ browsing histories, as well as giving ministers the power to break apps like WhatsApp so that messages can be read.

The government now appears to be launching a similarly radical change in the way that social networks and internet companies work. While much of the internet is currently controlled by private businesses like Google and Facebook, Theresa May intends to allow government to decide what is and isn’t published, the manifesto suggests.

The manifesto even suggests that the government might stop search engines like Google from directing people to pornographic websites. “We will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm,” the Conservatives write.

“Other sources of harm.” Can’t wait to see the ever-expanding government definition of that.

To continue reading: UK Government Moves Aggressively to Censor and Control the Internet

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Russia Asks For The Impossible With Its New Surveillance Laws, by Eva Galperin and Danny O’Brien

Posted on July 20, 2016 | Leave a comment

The Internet may be the biggest threat to the world’s authoritarian regimes, which is just about all of them. Russia, like most everyone else, including the US, is trying to control it. From Eva Galperin and Danny O’Brien at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, eft.org:

It’s been a rough month for Internet freedom in Russia. After it breezed through the Duma, President Putin signed the “Yarovaya package” into law—a set of radical “anti-terrorism” provisions drafted by ultra-conservative United Russia politician Irina Yarovaya, together with a set of instructions on how to implement the new rules. Russia’s new surveillance laws include some of Bad Internet Legislation’s greatest hits, such as mandatory data retention and government backdoors for encrypted communications—policies that EFF has opposed in every country where they’ve been proposed.

As if that wasn’t scary enough, under the revisions to the criminal code, Russians can now be prosecuted for “failing to report a crime.” Citizens now risk a year in jail for simply not telling the police about suspicions they might have about future terrorist acts.

But some of the greatest confusion has come from Internet service providers and other telecommunication companies. These organizations now face impossible demands from the Russian state. Now they can be ordered to retain every byte of data that they transmit, including video, telephone calls, text messages, web traffic, and email for six months—a daunting and expensive task that requires the kind of storage capacity that’s usually associated with NSA data centers in Utah. Government access to this data no longer requires a warrant. Carriers must keep all metadata for three years; ISPs one year. Finally, any online service (including social networks, email, or messaging services) that uses encrypted data is now required to permit the Federal Security Service (FSB) to access and read their services’ encrypted communications, including providing any encryption keys.

Opposition to the Yarovaya package has come from many quarters. Technical experts have been united in opposing the law. Russia’s government Internet ombudsman opposed the bill. Putin’s own human rights head, Mikhail Fedotov, called upon the Senators of Russia’s Federal Council to reject the bill. ISPs have pointed out that compliance would cost them trillions of rubles.

But now the law is here, and in force. Putin has asked for a list of services that must hand over their keys. ISPs have begun to consider how to store an impossibly large amount of data. Service providers are required to consider how to either break unbreakable encryption or include backdoors for the Russian authorities.

It is clear that foreign services will not be spared. Last week, the VPN provider, Private Internet Access (PIA), announced that they believed their Russian servers had been seized by the Russian authorities. PIA says they do not keep logs, so they could not comply with the demand, but they have now discontinued their Russian gateways and “will no longer be doing business in the region.”

Russia’s ISPs, messaging services, and social media platforms have no such choice: because they cannot reasonably comply with all the demands of the Yarovaya package, they become de facto criminals whatever their actions. And that, in turn, gives the Russian state the leverage to extract from them any other concession it desires. The impossibility of full compliance is not a bug—it’s an essential feature.

To continue reading: Russia Asks For The Impossible With Its New Surveillance Laws

 

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Top U.S. Official Admits – Government Will Use “Internet of Things” to Spy on the Public, by Michael Krieger

Posted on February 10, 2016 | Leave a comment

From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

You can’t say you weren’t warned. The writing on the wall that “smart devices” would prove to be manna from heaven for spy agencies and hackers around the word has been obvious for a very long time.

A year ago, I published two articles on this topic. The first highlighted the revelation that Samsung’s Smart TV can and will listen to your conversations, and will share the details with a third party. The second had to do with the release of a high-tech Barbie that will listen to your child, record its words, send them over the internet for processing. If you missed these posts the first time around, I suggest you get up to speed:

A Very Slippery Slope – Yes, Your Samsung Smart TV Can Listen to Your Private Conversations

Big Barbie is Watching You – Meet the WiFi Connected Barbie Doll that Talks to Your Children and Records Them

Moving along to today’s article, we learn that the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, admitted that the government intends to use the “Internet of Things” for spying on the public. As Trevor Timm of the Guardian notes:

If you want evidence that US intelligence agencies aren’t losing surveillance abilities because of the rising use of encryption by tech companies, look no further than the testimony on Tuesday by the director of national intelligence, James Clapper.

As the Guardian reported, Clapper made clear that the internet of things – the many devices like thermostats, cameras and other appliances that are increasingly connected to the internet – are providing ample opportunity for intelligence agencies to spy on targets, and possibly the masses. And it’s a danger that many consumers who buy these products may be wholly unaware of.

“In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper told a Senate panel as part of his annual “assessment of threats” against the US.

Of course, James Clapper is the guy who lied to Congress and faced zero repercussions. As is always the case when it comes to government criminality.

To continue reading: Top U.S. Official Admits – Government Will Use “Internet of Things” to Spy on the Public

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The US Government Has an Internet Killswitch — and It’s None of Your Business, by Derrick Brose

Posted on January 15, 2016 | 3 comments

From Derrick Brose at theantimedia.org:

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a petition concerning the Department of Homeland Security’s secretive internet and cellphone killswitch program.

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that sought to force the Department of Homeland Security to release details of a secret “killswitch” protocol to shut down cellphone and internet service during emergencies.

EPIC has been fighting since 2011 to release the details of the program, which is known as Standard Operating Procedure 303. EPIC writes, “On March 9, 2006, the National Communications System (‘NCS’) approved SOP 303, however it was never released to the public. This secret document codifies a ‘shutdown and restoration process for use by commercial and private wireless networks during national crisis.’”

EPIC continues, “In a 2006-2007 Report, the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (‘NSTAC’) indicated that SOP 303 would be implemented under the coordination of the National Coordinating Center (‘NCC’) of the NSTAC, while the decision to shut down service would be made by state Homeland Security Advisors or individuals at DHS. The report indicates that NCC will determine if a shutdown is necessary based on a ‘series of questions.’”

Despite EPIC’s defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court, the four-year court battle yielded a heavily redacted copy of Standard Operating Procedure 303.

The fight for transparency regarding SOP 303 began shortly after a Bay Area Rapid Transit (“BART”) officer in San Francisco shot and killed a homeless man named Charles Hill on July 3, 2011. The shooting sparked massive protests against BART throughout July and August 2011. During one of these protests, BART officials cut off cell phone service inside four transit stations for three hours. This kept anyone on the station platform from sending or receiving phone calls, messages, or other data.

In July 2012, EPIC submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the DHS seeking the full text of Standard Operating Procedure 303; the full text of the predetermined “series of questions” that determines if a shutdown is necessary; and any executing protocols related to the implementation of Standard Operating Procedure 303, distributed to DHS, other federal agencies, or private companies.

To continue reading: The US Government Has an Internet Killswitch

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Our Future Has Been Commandeered, by Paul Rosenberg

Posted on December 22, 2015 | Leave a comment

From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:

We should be living in the time of humanity’s greatest flower. But we’re not. Instead, we’re stuck in a condition of permanent war, rising xenophobia, endless fear, perpetual distraction, and suffocating conformity. Worse, we’re living inside of a surveillance state that is morphing into something truly, truly evil.

I’m here to tell you that nearly all of this is artificial. We have more than enough technology to be living among the stars, to fill every hungry mouth on the planet, and to meet nearly every human need.

We already know how to do all those things… and this fact is demonstrably true.

And yet we sit immersed in fear, confusion, privation, and even hate. And why? Mainly because the elites of our civilization have demanded that we sacrifice our wills to theirs, and because most of us have silently complied.

We have space-age knowledge, yet we remain firmly under the domination of bronze-age rulership. And since these rulers would be wiped away by the spread of space-age technologies, they have carefully contained them.

“Thou Mayest Not Go There”

As I write this, we are at the end of the year 2015. Back in 1968 – almost two generations ago – men traveled to the moon. The next year, they landed there. This was well before microwaves, cell phones, and the Internet. It was even before personal calculators. But right there, space travel was stopped in its tracks. In fact, it was first pulled back and then stopped. No human has left Earth’s gravity since 1972.

Have we more technology than we did in 1968 – 47 years ago – or have we less?

Obviously we have far more and far better, but space technology has been commandeered and space has been locked shut. Our future has simply been cut off. Does any reasonable person believe that it would be harder to go to space now than it was before Kevlar and fiber optics and computers that didn’t fill an entire room?

And let’s be honest about this: That future was eliminated by the lords of our world because it would ruin their game. Letting the cows out of the barn would severely undercut their interests.

Many of you should be reading my posts as you sail among the stars, or at least among planets, moons, and asteroid belts. We have the technology… and we’ve have had it since the late 1960s. That’s not even debatable.

To continue reading: Our Future Has Been Commandeered

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He Said That? 9/20/15

Posted on September 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

From Holman Jenkins, columnist at The Wall Street Journal, “Obama’s Cable Monopoly Boom, ” September 19-20, 2015:

No industry, except maybe health insurers, has benefitted so much from Obama policy as cable companies. Their stocks have been pretty much straight up since the president introduced has net-neut [net neutrality] regulation policy in November.

Overwhelmingly, the signal from the markets is that cable’s dominance of fast broadband is less under threat today that it was the day before the Federal Communications supinely aligned itself with the Obama diktat.

The latest proof is Moroccan-born French entrepreneur Patrick Drahi’s $17.7 billion deal to take over Cablevision, America’s fourth-biggest cable operator, at a towering valuation…

…Where will he find revenue to make his play pay?

Answer: by cannibalizing the increasingly vulnerable revenues the big wireless operators generate from providing cell service….

A more pressing likelihood today, though, is that cable operators, with their entrenched position in local broadband and burgeoning Wi-Fi networks, will be the ones to reduce the cellular operators to vassalage. Mr. Drahi has already hinted that, after the bloodletting he expects in wireless, he looks forward to picking up a U.S. wireless operator cheap….

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Regulation always favors incumbents because incumbents are best positioned to use politics to entrench their incumbency. But it will be a surprise to those net-neut advocates who made cable their whipping boys, and who now discover regulation is actually strengthening rather than weakening cable’s hold on the broadband business. One who has already figured this out is our new French cable guy, Mr. Drahi.

This was as predictable as it was stupid, see “The Net Neutered,” SLL, 2/17/15.

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The “Internet of Things” Gets Hacked To Smithereens, by Wolf Richter

Posted on August 1, 2015 | 1 comment

There may be one or two bumps in the road to the universally wired “Internet of Things.” From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

Nothing is secure, not even drug infusion pumps in hospitals.

You see, the Internet of Things is the rapidly arriving era when all things are connected to each other and everything else via the Internet, from your Nest thermostat that measures and transmits everything that’s going on inside your house to your refrigerator that’s connected to Safeway and automatically transmits the shopping list, to be delivered by a driverless Internet-connected car with an Internet-connected robot that can let itself into your house and drop off the Internet-connected groceries while you’re at work.

Convenient? Convenient for hackers.

OK, someone hacking into your fridge and fiddling with the temperature setting to freeze your milk is one thing…. But we already had the first hacking and remote takeover of a car.

Researchers hacked into a Chrysler Cherokee via its Internet-connected radio system and issued commands to its engine, steering, and brakes until it ran into the ditch. Thankfully this exploit wasn’t published until after Chrysler was able to work out a fix. It then recalled 1.4 million vehicles. The “recall” was done just like the hackers had done it: via the Internet. So if Chrysler can modify the software via the Internet, hackers can too.

That was a week ago. Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned that Chrysler’s supplier sold these hackable radio systems to “a lot of other manufacturers.” NHTSA head Mark Rosekind told reporters: “A lot of our work now is trying to find out how broad the vulnerability could be.”

Maybe better not drive your Internet-connected car for a while.

And yesterday, researchers demonstrated (video) how hackers could exploit a security flaw in a mobile app for GM’s OnStar vehicle communications system.

To top off the week, the Food and Drug Administration warned today that hospitals and other healthcare facilities should stop using Hospira’s Symbiq Infusion System, a computerized pump that continuously delivers medication into the bloodstream because it’s vulnerable to hacking.

The FDA explained that the system communicates with a Hospital Information System (HIS) via a wired or wireless connection. The HIS is connected to the Internet. And thus, this pump is just one more thing on the Internet of Things.

To continue reading: The “Internet of Things” Gets Hacked To Smithereens

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