Is Project Vigilant A Hoax?
from the looking-questionable dept
We just wrote about the new publicity campaign from a group called Project Vigilant, linking to three separate articles discussing how it was a private organization monitoring internet traffic and providing it to the US government. The whole thing seemed dubious on a legal basis, and now plenty of people are questioning whether or not the whole thing is real or some sort of hoax or publicity stunt. Julian Sanchez points out that the "parent company" behind the Project, one "BBHC Global" looks painfully amateurish (and right now appears down). Then, a bunch of security experts are skeptical of the whole concept, noting that if it's been around for 14 years, how come no one's heard of it, and it hasn't participated in any serious security efforts. Others point out that it's almost certainly a publicity stunt of some kind, pointing out that the website was registered just last year. The suggestion there is it's an attempt to jumpstart a new security company. I'm guessing it's more of a hoax to try to show how gullible some people are.
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Filed Under: hoax, monitoring, project vigilant, security
Companies: project vigilant
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to try to show how gullible some people are
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Hoax.
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Re:
i found it suspicious that the website for a group that monitors internet traffic is HTTPS (presumably to prevent monitoring/sniffing) and that you have to sign up for an account to read anything other than their PR stuff.
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Just a thought.
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Is he really prepared to lie in court to promote this fake organisation? If yes, what's in it for him? Who is the mastermind behind this hoax? Is the US government involved in any way?
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Well, Glenn Greenwald sounds serious:
"In case you doubt the seriousness of this group, consider the list of its officials, which includes Mark Rasch, who headed the DOJ's Internet Crime Unit for 9 years; Kevin Manson, a retired Homeland Security official; George Johnson, who "develop[ed] secure tools for the exchange of sensitive information between federal agencies" for the Pentagon; Ira Winkler, a former NSA official; and Suzanne Gorman, former security chief of the New York Stock Exchange. These are people with extensive, sophisticated expertise in compiling highly invasive data about individuals' Internet activities, and more so -- given their background -- how to package it in a way that can be used by federal agencies."
I wish that *you'd* come to some conclusions, Mike. Just over two hours between contradictory posts.
Anyhoo, I'm inclined to the Greenwald take. The wackiness put out isn't a severe problem, because real spooks are *all* wacky, many dangerously so. The "volunteer" bit still intrigues me for unique, but there are many wannabes, presumably even in spying.
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Re: Well, Glenn Greenwald sounds serious:
I linked to the Greenwald piece, but I find the other reports much more convincing. It could be that those folks are involved in the hoax, but I don't see any evidence that this organization has really been around for 14 years or that it's done anything like what it claims to do.
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But the "other reports" are speculative chatter.
Hope you'll keep on this. There are many *good* questions left, such as: How exactly do "volunteers" get ISPs to turn over data? I'd think at the least there'd be a charge for it, and who pays that?
Until evidence comes out, my conclusion is that this *is* a bunch of *nuts*, but ones with actual ties to "three-letter agencies". They made a mistake of not grasping -- probably not able to -- how they'd come across to *normal* people, and got more exposure than wished.
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Then he published his paper on social engineering and how vulnerable the system is.
I bet some where a bit shocked.
Sorry I don't remember the name of the guy.
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The NSA Already Has That Job. Thank You For Applying.
http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/ATT_tech_outs_NSA_spy_room.shtml
http://en.wikipe dia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy
http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2009/07/n sas-internet-surveillance-program.html
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Greenwald now says, "Uh... Probably just a bunch of nuts."
The interesting part is what if anything will emerge. Does this just fade away with no follow up on WHY? Are you enough peeved at being taken in to pursue it?
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It was designed to make Lamo look better
The security community includes a boatload of military groupies. People who think Lamo did the right thing and hate the way a lot of the hacking community have written him off as a selfrighteous d-bag.
Screwing with the press is a sport at Defcon. Look for the youtube video of a Dateline reporter being chased out of the con a couple of years back.
I think PV is some cop groupies who wanted to give Lamo cover. I don't think they expected it to fall apart as fast as it did, and I don't think they expected their comically overblown org chart to land on Cryptome.
The original reports were in terrible outlets, followed by a Forbes reporter being told "yeah, we know him" by a bunch of anonymous folks at Defcon. They might have been wearing red shirts, hence his saying they were 'organizers.'
Greenwald picked up the tale and ran with it, because he had a different point to make. I'm sorry he didn't look harder at the sourcing, since he relied so heavily on very few articles.
His point would be better illustrated by the once Federally funded Matrix project in Florida - the core of that project was a private company interfacing databases for law enforcement in ways that law enforcement can't legally do without a warrant. Even though the Federal funding is gone, the principals are around and the project seems to be a subsidiary of Lexis-Nexis now. Other states are setting up their own private-public fascia or buying access to the existing multistate databases.
However, the project has blown a lot of ink around itself after it was exposed and lost its Federal funding; you'd need real reporting to dig in and see where it is now. Greenwald doesn't have time to do extended reporting very often, and the Forbes blogger is tasked with a blog, not an investigative slot, so he's largely out - but he, too, has now admitted to Very Large Credibility Issues in his original report.
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not even any real ties to 3-letter agencies, so far as I can see
Seems to me the "why" is that Uber is a wannabe with some issues, who wants to show how important he is by dropping names and creating a delusional structure of a massive operation that he leads.
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