European Law Enforcement Officials Upset Facebook Is Warning Users Their Devices May Have Been Hacked
from the screw-the-little-people,-we've-got-bad-guys-to-hack dept
Oh boy. Facebook has just added fuel to the anti-encryption fire. And by doing nothing more than something it should be doing: notifying users that their device may have been compromised by malware.
The Wall Street Journal article covering this standard notification is full of quotes from government officials who aren't happy a suspected terrorist was informed his phone had possibly been infected by targeted malware. [Non-paywalled version here.]
A team of European law-enforcement officials was hot on the trail of a potential terror plot in October, fearing an attack during Christmas season, when their keyhole into a suspect’s phone went dark.
WhatsApp, Facebook Inc. ’s popular messaging tool, had just notified about 1,400 users—among them the suspected terrorist—that their phones had been hacked by an “advanced cyber actor.” An elite surveillance team was using spyware from NSO Group, an Israeli company, to track the suspect, according to a law-enforcement official overseeing the investigation.
Facebook is no fan of NSO Group. In fact, very few people are fans of NSO Group, other than their customers, which have included UN-blacklisted countries and a number of governments that rank pretty high on the Most Human Rights Violated charts. Facebook sued NSO back in November, making very questionable allegations about CFAA violations. Facebook's servers were never targeted by NSO's malware. Only end users were, which makes it pretty difficult for Facebook to claim it has been personally (so to speak) injured by NSO's actions.
Back to the matter at hand, Facebook didn't just warn suspected terrorists about detected malware.
WhatsApp’s Oct. 29 message to users warned journalists, activists and government officials that their phones had been compromised, Facebook said. But it also had the unintended consequence of potentially jeopardizing multiple national-security investigations in Western Europe about which Facebook hadn’t been alerted—and about which government agencies can’t formally complain, given their secret nature.
Would these government officials rather have not been warned about threats? Were any of these government officials receiving warnings the same ones now complaining the warning allowed a terrorism suspect to vanish? Maybe so. The one quoted in the article seems very short-sighted.
On the day WhatsApp sent its alert, the official overseeing the terror investigation in Western Europe said, he was stuck in traffic on his way to work when a call came in from Israel. “Have you seen the news? We’ve got a problem,” he said he was told. WhatsApp was notifying suspects whom his team was tracking that their phones had been hacked. “No, that can’t be right. Why would they do that?” the official said he asked his contact, thinking it a joke.
"Why would they do that" indeed. Maybe to protect their users from cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers. It's not about allowing suspected criminals to dodge law enforcement, even though it will undoubtedly have that effect. It's about keeping users and their communications protected -- users that include journalists, activists, and government officials.
This response indicates the investigators pursuing the suspected terrorist would rather hundreds of innocent people be harmed than someone suspected of terrorism go free. But it really doesn't matter what unnamed officials think about Facebook's "you may have been compromised" notifications or the harm these might do to ongoing investigations. Facebook's voluntary warnings will soon be mandatory in Europe. By the end of 2020, all service providers and telcos will be obligated to warn customers of security threats.
That fact -- and the apparent willingness to allow innocent people to be victimized by targeted attacks -- makes the article's closing statement all the more ridiculous.
Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s counterterrorism coordinator, says encryption shouldn’t allow criminals to be “less accountable online than in real life.”
I have no idea what that means. I know what the official thinks it's supposed to mean -- that "online" is bad because sometimes criminals get away -- but even that interpretation doesn't make sense. Criminals discover their phones have been tapped and stop using those lines. Criminals talk to each other in person to avoid creating records of conversations. Criminals get tips from other criminals they're under surveillance. This stuff just happens. Investigations don't always run smoothly.
A standard warning about possibly-compromised devices and services is just good business -- something that protects everyone who uses the service, not just the people governments think are OK to protect. These warnings are essential and they benefit everyone, not just the people governments want to lock up.
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Filed Under: disclosure, europe, hacking, law enforcement, malware, terrorists
Companies: facebook, nso group, whatsapp
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unfortunately, I see this as a ramp up against the internet
It seems a lot of countries and places are trying to build up sentiment of "internet = bad", on a global scale.
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Re: unfortunately, I see this as a ramp up against the internet
Well, it does let people talk about the government outside of the political system, i.e. in an uncontrolled fashion.
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Re: Re: unfortunately, I see this as a ramp up against the inter
Stuffing the cat back in the bag can led to multiple scratches, lacerations and maybe cat scratch fever .... Ted Nugent warned us about that, why did he not say anything to his friends in the gop?
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Well, if you work with scum.
You get tarred with the mess when they get caught.
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Of course, such malware can be defeated by resetting your phone. Spyware and malware on there will be GONE.
Nothing can survive a factory reset
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Re:
You have far too much trust in a reset. Multiple new hacking tools take over the chips themselves, preventing a reset from doing anything more than making you feel better. If you happen to be one of the largest nation-states, you have purchased backdoors built into the chips and micro-batteries themselves.
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Re: Re:
Resets pr disk wipes are also good to do ehen.you first.buy a device because you dont know what is on it.
Whenever I have bought a new PC, I have always did a secure wipe of the hard disk, in case the people who put it together did anything nefarious with it
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Re:
The only response I can give is a hearty 'lol'
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Re:
Hey ... interested in buying a bridge?
How about an elevator pass?
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Re:
I can tell you for certain that this isn't true. For example, on an Android device, if you attack the system partition and add your malware there (preferably with the assistance of the OEM by way of a poisoned update to make sure that the checksums check out) then it'll still be there after a hard reset. This is how Android custom ROM's work, you replace everything with something new and that way, even if you hard reset the device, you're just resetting back to the initial setup of your custom ROM and not to the original OEM software. You wouldn't even need OEM assistance if the Android device is rooted since all the authority necessary to alter system files would exist on the device itself.
I don't know enough about iOS to comment on it specifically (I've jailbroken a single iOS device for a friend years ago and that process, if you get physical access to the phone, would allow a similar attack) but, if you can get Apple to help you, I believe that it would be trivial to do something similar with a poisoned iOS update.
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Left hand/right hand
EU: You MUST notify people when their devices are compromised!
ALSO EU: Wait, no, not like that.
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Re: Left hand/right hand
Its a lot of This Dilbert.
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What's the gubmint supposed to do...
"Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:
Hi, there. Secret EU intelligence agent here, how's things going? Hey, listen, we're tracking a possible terrorist, named blah blah.
It would be suuuuper cool if you didn't warn him that we put malware on his phone so we could track him.
Thanks, bro"
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Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
TV: "Law enforcement agencies say Facebook warned some WhatsApp users that their phones had been hacked, and a terrorist suspect's phone 'went dark' "
Man watching TV, to friend assembling bomb: "Hey, bro, looks like you dismantled your phone just in time, they were on to you..."
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Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
I came here to say this ^. It's a really simple solution to the "problem" that would have prevented anyone's feels getting hurt. If they had notified Facebook that they were targeting some individual and Facebook warned that person anyway then they might have an argument. But until then, innocent until proven guilty.
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Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
What's next ... corporations will have to get government approval of any and all changes to their corporate internet presence, their corporate software practices and corporate customer support/service?
And what after that?
But you're ok with it.
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Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
Way to go full-on hyperbolic strawman.
Law enforcement notifying a service that it is actively investigating someone and will/has meddled with the person's device in order to prevent that service from notifying the person their device has been meddled with seems completely unreasonable to you? Perhaps you also feel Facebook shouldn't have notified anyone their devices had been compromised. That seems the better solution to you?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
"hyperbolic strawman"
Are all predictions hyperbolic? What about questions relating to a hypothetical situation, are those hyperbolic? Has there been any proposed legislation that would regulate what is allowed online? Is it really a strawman?
"... seems completely unreasonable to you?"
To quote many a capitalist ... Who is going to pay for that?
Also, would that constitute a confession to a felony on the part of law enforcement?
"That seems the better solution to you?"
I thought the better solution was self evident, oh well.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
If they have the appropriate warrants there's nothing illegal about law enforcement deploying devices/software during an investigation. And what is there to pay for about a phone call and someone adding a name to a list?
It's a really simple solution that would have prevented the problem for law enforcement, would have prevented tipping off a suspected terrorist that they were being spied on and would have avoided this whole shitshow. I fail to see how that is an inappropriate solution.
What any of this has to do with your corporations-need-permission strawman is left totally unexplained. As a "prediction" that's pretty sad.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
"If they have the appropriate warrants"
"what is there to pay for about a phone call and someone adding a name to a list?"
Do you think the government will allow business to decide who and what gets censored?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
What the actual fuck have you been smoking?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to d
I like how complex issues are made to look simple so that the general public can have an opinion on the matter.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
"If they have the appropriate warrants there's nothing illegal about law enforcement deploying devices/software during an investigation."
If they had warrants against the 1399 people who weren't suspects then there is a fcsking HUGE PROBLEM with the jurisprudens observed in said law enforcement. To the point where it's comparable to hauling people in completely at random for strip searches in order to find drug dealers.
It wasn't illegal for southern police officers to haul black people off to jail for sitting in the wrong seat on the bus either, but that doesn't mean that it was good practice.
Bad laws need to be changed, not defended.
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Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
But until then, innocent until proven guilty.
Interesting how you are innocent until proven guilty... right up until the government starts investigating you, at which point you are apparently no longer innocent enough to matter.
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Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
That's a gray area, sure. But if there were no gray area between innocent and guilty there would be zero room for investigation of any kind. Investigation, by it's very nature, is invasive and violates privacy. Permission is required, back by reasonable suspicion, in order to violate that privacy of an otherwise innocent person in order to determine whether they're actually guilty.
Once the evidence is gathered it is then up to government to use that to prove you are, in fact, guilty. Until that conviction is delivered you are still "innocent" but a suspect that may be detained. That's pretty much how law enforcement works.
Strange thing to take issue with unless you favor chaos and lawlessness.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
There is a rather large difference between "a small portion of the government will treat you as less than innocent during an investigation" and "everyone should be legally required to treat you as less than innocent during an investigation."
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
Yes, that is what the gov is supposed to do.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
"That's a gray area, sure. But if there were no gray area between innocent and guilty there would be zero room for investigation of any kind. Investigation, by it's very nature, is invasive and violates privacy. Permission is required, back by reasonable suspicion in order to violate that privacy of an otherwise innocent person..."
Emphasis mine. So in other words, per your own arguments, it was wrong for law enforcement to install malware on 1400 phones more or less at random?
If an officer has reasonable suspicion and goes to obtain a warrant the first thing he will be asked is "For whom, and at what address?". The officer then saying "Uh, anyone whose name begins with an "F" and lives in Massachussetts, judge" simply will not be good enough.
I'm noting that by your own argument the OP describes law enforcement done horribly wrong, and by that we can concur that Facebook was being very responsible in preventing an associated client from propagating the malware.
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Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
Accept that when they use the tools of malicious threats they will occasionally be treated as malicious threats.
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Re: What's the gubmint supposed to do...
Does this mean they could go after Zuck for aiding a terrorist?
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How is Facebook supposed to know which of NSO Groups clients are 'good' (and shouldn't be interfered with), and which are 'bad' (and the company is obliged to warn users about)?
Why does a legitimate EU intelligence agency even need to rely on the services and tools of such an unquestionably evil company? They couldn't just buy something legit from the Brits or the NSA? Have some standards to at least match the holier-than-thou attitudes of your MEPs.
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Re:
LEOs do this thing all the time even among themselves. (See TV version: "You compromised our x year / x month investigation!") It's so secret we are going to leave it to chance that somehow our op won't get trashed by Really Super Obvious Outside Forces (doing the right thing, even doing their job), when a notice in a few choice places could forgo the problem almost entirely. Because where the hell is the fun in that.
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It's gibberish. Online is real life these days. I met my wife online; that's about as real as it gets!
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Re:
It's actually worse than gibberish, it's dishonest gibberish, as what they effectively want is more 'accountability' online than off.
While you can always speak in person or close the curtains to keep your words/actions private offline they are pushing the idea that there should be no private communication possible online, that all communications should be accessible should they desire to listen in.
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Re: Re:
"While you can always speak in person or close the curtains to keep your words/actions private offline "
That is not always a given either.
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Re: Re: Re:
Yes, they don't have to break a sweat to bug a computer. They don't even have to get out of their $1200.00 office chair. They have to fight traffic and be much more sneaky to bug an office or home!
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By all means keep complaining, the hole won't dig itself
'We're trying to protect people!'
'You objected when Facebook tried to protect their users by informing them their accounts might be compromised, just because your target was in the group.'
If you use the tools of hackers or other malicious people, you don't get to expect to be taken seriously when you complain that you are then treated as a hacker/malicious person.
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Putting citizens at risk results in larger agency budgets to combat that risk. Do you really believe any law enforcement or intelligence agency is going to give up their primary fund raising capabilities?
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Killing targeted malware doesn't mean a suspect gets away. It means you get out from behind your fucking desk and act like the theoretical real cops people have dreamed of for ages. There are some out there you can learn from, if you stop your programs of easy-way-out, treating the public like enemy combatants, abuse, and corruption. (Maybe watch this super-dangerous individual. Get a directional microphone. Bloody hell.)
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Manpower Shortage?
From Deep In The Article:
“WhatsApp killed the operation,” the official said. The terror suspect is still under traditional surveillance. But human resources are spread thin, the official said, especially around the winter holidays, which in Europe extend into early January and are a time when terrorists have staged attacks on the continent. “He’s not the only suspect we have to follow.”
The bad guys know everyone is on holiday so what do you think will happen?
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Re: Manpower Shortage?
The Tet Offensive?
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Re: Manpower Shortage?
"The terror suspect is still under traditional surveillance. But human resources are spread thin, the official said, especially around the winter holidays..."
So let me get this straight. The bloated, overfunded bureaucratic monster which is the EU can retain, full-time, 40,000+ administrator doing nothing but coming up with thick bibles of trade regulations (like the 26,000-word regulations around import/export of duck eggs) but they don't have enough budget to employ a few dozen professional investigators over the holidays?
And then blame a social platform for being responsible enough to keep active malware from user phones?
WHEN did "being a cop" become a job exclusively for the dishonest and inept?
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I stopped reading here, where we see Martin Bubers “Ich, Du, ” weaponized:
TD covered the racist gang stalking of (Jewish )Jeffrey Kantor, based upon these same programs, here:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131210/07555625519/lawsuit-claims-accidental-google-search-led- to-years-government-investigation-harrassment.shtml
Cyberstalking and harassing a person mercillesly for lashon hara is a crime in all 50 states. So why do you /we not discuss #ADLification and #Israelification of the narratives of culture?
These tribal-religious narratives negate open discourse by design.
Allowing Jewish /Israeli/fanatical zionist control of narrative only ensures that tribal -religious bias will control our countries politics and national narrative.
Not just weaponized, but actually cyberstalking a person mercillesly for lashon hara .
But not just cyberstalking a person mercillesly for lashon hara , but now, that person being aware of rights, and having a class action worthy consensus that Israeli cyberstalkers can be prosecuted, because they have breached laws of both ethics, and civil conduct.
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Re:
R/O/G/SGolem
I stopped reading here...
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Re:
Òó
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Re:
Golem: Wut does dem wordz mean? I cant read 😭
The Guy in Black: Shut yer trap! You say and do wut I tell you, got it?
Golem: POOF
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Re:
Once again, that doesn’t actually have to do with this article. For one thing, no one was stalked or harassed for the notification, and there is no evidence to infer any racism/religion-based bias involved in any aspect of this story.
And again, the ADL and Israel have nothing to do with anything here. To answer this question…
…I am unaware of how that is a crime, or even what the hell that even means.
I also have no idea what lashon hara means, and it doesn’t sound like the name for a legal principle or concept in the West, so I’m not sure how it relates to US laws. And there is no such thing as a “class action worthy consensus”.
Really, I have no idea what you’re talking about or how it’s relevant here.
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Re: Re:
Why don't you TD students try to understand what he or she is talking about rather than immediately flag comment like your heads are just going to explode? lol
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Re: Re: Re:
There were only two parts I didn’t fully understand. The rest I understood perfectly, and it had nothing to do with the article or the thread and was nonsensical. Additionally, this is a known troll, which makes me lean in favor of flagging, but that was just a tiny factor.
Finally, we aren’t students. This isn’t a school. That mention makes me suspect that you’re just ROGS under a different alias and IP address (which is common for them).
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Wow, I'm ROGS? Under a diff alias and IP address? No, just making a point about how absolutely pussified flaggers are and how quickly TDers just gang up on certain commentors like a clic in junior high school.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
ROGS has frequently used different IP addresses and aliases, so that is far from conclusive. He’s even admitted that he has. That said, I’m only vaguely suspicious at this point. I’m not quite accusing you yet.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"...just making a point about how absolutely pussified flaggers are and how quickly TDers just gang up on certain commentors like a clic in junior high school."
Someone drops a comment in a thread trying to derail it into one of his usual vast sprawling conspiracy theories and when criticized you spring up instantly in his defense.
You need to find an audience which isn't quite so used to having a copyright cultist spamming the threads under half a dozen nicks before you can escape being considered a sock puppet given the circumstances.
It's really very easy. Either use a verified nick to post your commentary and have people adjudge your offer given your actual comment history...
...or don't use a nick and let people use your standalone argument to determine the worth of your post.
In the latter case any two-line entirely subjective put-down with implied ad hom means you are either the original troll or another. In either case you become irrelevant to the thread.
And of course we who like to frequent these forums gang up on anyone who is clearly trolling. That doesn't make us pissy. It merely makes you worthless.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You are one of the pissiest commenters at techdirt. You take three paragraphs to make what could be a one or two line comment. You think your use of the english language is a weapon or a gift, but clearly have too much time on your hand to waste ours. Absolutely, you are one of those in techdirt's clic who think you are so well educated you can't possibly accept some off the cuff comment go without foaming at the mouth and coughing up blood.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"You take three paragraphs to make what could be a one or two line comment."
This from someone who in the same post where he made that complaint took five densely packed lines of unadulterated ad homs to say what amounts to "I have no arguments other than ad homs".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Fresh out of junior high, I give you scary devil monastery!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Fresh out of junior high, I give you scary devil monastery!"
...says the troll who brings nothing to the table except an antisemitic conspiracy theory based on white supremacy ideology. And who ends up without any other argument than trying to marginalize the ones heckling his "pearls" of wisdom.
This isn't Stormfront, bub. This is the place where you just prove, again and again, that the only thing you're here for is to repetitively imply that the jews are behind every evil in past and modern times.
I guess that message is why you don't have the stones or ability to make and retain even a throwaway account to post from.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You are an antisemite and for all I know, you are also a jew coming out of a scary devil monestary! That's ironic? You are actually talking to the wrong troll!
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Thanks, AC
AC: SDM is himself a verified derailer, and white supremacist, and Jewish supremacy apologist, aka a useful idiot rewarded by Masnick himself.
Not being pro -semitic does not equate with being anti-semitic. Even my Palestinian friends know that, SDM /dumbass.
Or, an illustration for the dimwits:
Not Pro-semitic ≠ Anti-Semitic
AC, Scary Devil Monastery/Claus D. is a liar, and an AIPAC /ADL shill. He is also affilliated with web -stalking ptivate detectives.
Anything short of allegiance to his version of white supremacy kicks in his anti -semitic conspiracy theory. Its ritual defamation 101, straight out of the Kabbbalah.
Hilarious levels of paranoia, as TDs in-house trolls try to say thay I am every anonymous comment.
Really Odd Gamer Shit - pubescent level reasoning.
I ALWAYS post with identifiable language and monikers, and study the in-house troll format here.
As for stones, SDM, you coward, it is well known that using a regular account on TD gets you cyberstalked here, and possibly turned over to their DoD affilliated speech police and their IP stalking harassers.
This all started when I affirmed the story of a guy who was gang stalked by a security contractor, in a white christian dominated area of the USA(Jeffrey Kantor, a Jewish guy, BTW ):
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131210/07555625519/lawsuit-claims-accidental-google-search-led- to-years-government-investigation-harrassment.shtml
Lastly, Stormfront and its allegedly anti -semitic host is rumored to be Jewish himself, like Brother Nathaneal, or Smoloko.
No such thing as bad PR I guess
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Re: Thanks, AC
[citation needed]
When has Masnick ever rewarded derailers, white supremacists, or “Jewish[-]supremacy apologist[s]” at all, and when has he rewarded SDM (or anyone else, for that matter) for anything other than posting comments that were voted insightful and/or funny by the community or for posting large numbers of comments in a single year?
I don’t think that was ever in dispute here… It’s also worth noting that being against and/or calling out antisemitism doesn’t equate either pro-semitism, either, nor does not being antisemitic equate with being pro-semitic. I’m really not sure what your point is here.
Again, [citation needed]. Also, you clearly don’t understand what “white supremacy” means.
“Ritual defamation” is not a thing, nor has SDM ever engaged in defamation, nor does what you’re accusing SDM of doing (without evidence, BTW) constitute defamation of any sort under US law.
I don’t recall anyone having ever claimed that. In particular, SDM wasn’t accusing that AC of being you.
Well, not always with the “identifiable[…]monikers” (though I’ve never observed you not using some sort of moniker whenever you post rather than the default name of “Anonymous Coward”; well, except this particular instance, which kinda undermines your claim here since, in this particular comment in which you make the claim you always use custom monikers, you aren’t using a custom moniker), and the bit where you say you “study the in-house troll format here” doesn’t actually support your case, but with the “identifiable language”… Well, I’ll get into that later. But, again, I don’t recall that being disputed.
I should note that you use a wide variety of monikers, and while at least a plurality include some variation of “ROGS”, that is frequently not the case. Additionally, you frequently change IP addresses (which can be observed by comparing the different colors and patterns of the square next to your moniker). Together, this makes identifying which comments are yours with absolute certainty a lot more complicated that it really should be, especially across threads. In fact, in many case, the only identifiable feature is the language used, but again, I’ll get into that later.
WTF?! I mean, [citation needed] for sure, but seriously, what in the world are you even talking about? Where did you even get that idea from? Lots of people who use regular accounts on TD don’t get cyberstalked, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that anyone gets turned over to “DoD[-]affiliated speech police” or “IP[-]stalking harassers”. Seriously, why the hell do you think that? When has that ever happened? It is most definitely not well-known, that’s for sure.
Also, even if that’s all true, how would that make using a regular account cowardly and not an act of guts, courage, or confidence? If anything, it sounds like you’re just proving SDM’s point: it “takes stones” to use a regular account to post, and the AC doesn’t have them. Now, if you’re trying to argue that it’s perfectly reasonable for one not to use a regular account, that’s fine (although your arguments in support of that leave something to be desired), but that still doesn’t exactly refute SDM’s point, either. The default moniker for posts from those not logged into an account is “Anonymous Coward” for a reason, you know, even if it’s at least partially tongue-in-cheek.
Now, I actually address this thread in another comment, but I’ll address it here too. There are some other things I want to focus on regarding that here, anyways,
First of all, there is no evidence of anyone trolling, stalking, arguing with, flagging, criticizing, derailing, or misdirecting you (or anyone else discussing organized gang-stalking as a real thing, really) anywhere in that thread, nor was SDM involved with or mentioned in that thread at all. There were also no accusations (false, unjustified, or otherwise) that any two users (AC, monikered, or signed-in) were not two people posting separately from each other. Basically, none of the things you speak of in the rest of this comment could plausibly be alleged to have occurred—let alone started—in that thread at all, nor does that thread contain any evidence supporting any of the other claims in this comment. As such, this is a complete non sequitur that has nothing to do with the rest of that comment or the comment it’s responding to.
Second, there is the strange fact that a large number of comments are oddly recent for something posted in the comment section of an article published in 2013. Some were as recent as October of 2019, nearly six years later. And essentially all of the late-coming posts are awfully similar in a number of ways and weren’t posted by someone who was signed into an account here. That’s pretty suspicious.
In fact, let’s get into that strange similarity a bit more. Earlier in this comment, you claimed that you “always post with identifiable language” and that you “always post with […] monikers”. Well, here’s the thing: nearly every one of these posts is posted under a different moniker and IP address (something that you still have a tendency to do, so don’t go arguing that you always use an “identifiable […] moniker” when you post, because you don’t); despite this, they all discuss essentially the same topic (either being an alleged victim of organized gang-stalking or someone trying to spread awareness about organized gang-stalking) using the same language and, for any two posts that fall in the same category (of the two I mentioned earlier), the same basic structure, too.
Now, only one of them uses a name with some variant of “ROGS” included (your most common pattern), but you have used monikers that are not particularly indicative of you in particular in the past (and are doing so right now), so when combined with your tendency to use multiple monikers in a single thread and change your IP address relatively often, the only way I would be able to determine which one(s) was/were posted by you specifically would be to distinguish which ones use your “identifiable language”. However, as mentioned, there isn’t much difference among them in that regard. As such, a ton of those comments appear to have been posted by you under different monikers and IP addresses. The oddly late timestamps for these comments only adds to the suspicion. As a result, it kinda looks like you were spamming the thread with false claims and anecdotes or something like that. It’s either that or the language you use isn’t quite as identifiable as you claim it is.
Really, I don’t know why you chose to link that article in this comment; it sort of encourages people to form a more negative opinion of you if anything, and it really had nothing to do with anything else you said.
[Sigh…] Once again, [citation needed].
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Re: Re: Thanks, AC
Same reason why blue kept bringing up that one thread from 2011.
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Re: Re: Re: Thanks, AC
BTW: ppl here are constantly referring to blue.
Who is that, and what reason did he /it refer to a comment from 2011?
And really, SDM, you are a liar. I have never taken a side here, or anywhere about copyright.
But I will now: I pirate everything and anything. I have NEVER bought any hollywood media, ever.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Thanks, AC
First of all, no one said anything about copyright just now, and that AC is almost certainly not SDM. No one, including that AC and SDM, has ever accused you of taking any side here or anywhere else regarding copyright, either. Not quite sure where you got that from, but let’s set that aside for now.
Now, I’m pretty sure that blue, aka out_of_the_blue, possibly aka Hamilton, among other aliases, has already been explained to you, but whatever. The short answer is that he is a known troll who generally takes the copyright maximalists’ side on everything. (I think he’s addressed other topics as well, though it’s always in opposition to the author of the article and fairly extreme.) He also tends to accuse so-called “zombie accounts” (accounts that remain dormant (in that they aren’t used to post any comments) for extended periods of time and then get used to post one or more new comments on a recent article) of being sockpuppets for the people running the site, saying the fact that they were suddenly used after such a long period of disuse is evidence of something suspicious. Additionally, he loves to tone-troll. He used to use an account under the name “out_of_the_blue”, but for the past several years he’s posted without logging in.
Regarding the thread from 2011, while no one’s sure what he expects to achieve by continually bringing it up, but essentially, he got all offended by something Tim Geigner posted in reply to one of his many nonsensical posts. Tim had decided to post random quotes from Obama’s book in reply to each of blue’s posts, basically trolling the troll, and one of those quotes was apparently so offensive to blue that he still hasn’t gotten over it and will randomly bring it up with a link to the comment that offended him so. He hasn’t done it for a while, but I definitely recall him doing so sometime in 2019, so it’s probably only a matter of time.
Now, I don’t think anyone is accusing you of having any actual association with blue or that you’d take his side on anything, really, but this AC probably was just making the point that the reason you included that link to that 2013 article in that comment as well probably won’t make any more sense to us than why blue keeps bringing up that thread from 2011.
Hope that answers your questions!
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Re: Re: Thanks, AC
TL;DR
I dont recall that comment beig directed at bhull 242.
Does anyone else recall that comment being directed at boathull?
What kind of sperg does stuff like that? Oh, yeah: Pentagon -like chatbots, and fae (but well establushed ) derailing web personas, straight out of HB Garys playbook.
Does te bhullbot always reply to comments that are not directed at it with equal furiousness, and book length posts?
You, and those other militant DoD /Brookings Institute /ADL spergs and your insistence on using one name so that real speakers can more easily be targeted here; and your claim that TDs “community* flags posts instead of HB Gary styed AI persona management sysops is laughable.
You have no proof that TD even has a community other than MIT script kiddies, Brookings /NGO/ADL gatekeepers, and bots.
Citation, or GTFO bhullbot
The web so fake, lol.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/how-much-of-the-internet-is-fake.html
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Re: Re: Re: Thanks, AC
Since you apparently don’t like long posts (despite the fact that your posts aren’t exactly short), I’ll keep this brief:
There is no rule—unspoken or otherwise—that says I can only respond in threads that I am mentioned in. FTR, I responded to this one due to it containing a link to a 2013 thread that was also linked to in a comment that did mention me multiple times. Regardless, people can respond in whatever threads they like. It’s not like you only ever post comments in threads that involve you, either, so you’re being a bit of a hypocrite here. Maybe you’re the AI chatbot.
I don’t actually care about using one name. Just that it undermines your argument when you, specifically, don’t do so. Seriously, that’s the sort of thing that makes one think they’re dealing with a troll or a chatbot.
You have the burden of proof regarding chatbots completely backwards. You have to provide evidence that someone is a chatbot, not proof that they aren’t.
I sympathize with any genuine victims of gang-stalkers and cyberstalking—organized or otherwise—if you are indicative of the sort of people who advocate on their behalf.
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DoD Quality Gaslighting,Inc.
BHhullbot, please provide evidence that you are in fact, a real person, rather than a DoD/JTRIG /CIA FBI -ROU -DITU/ tax payer bleeding private contractor sock puppet.
But you definitely are a cyber -harasser, and a total timesucker-you do that well.
You are always whining “educate me for free ” in the thin disguise of claiming to ask for evidence of arguments that I am not making; and that, as you demand that I guve up personal data to TDs server (IP addresses, personal details, timestamps etc. )
But ritual defamation is, in fact a real thing in practice online, every day, by the usual suspects. Again, you are just too stupid and uninformed about the arguments you are (not at all genuinely ) making :
http://www.lairdwilcox.com/news/defame.html
And, I asked for evidence that you are not an ADL useful idiot, or DoD type persona or bot months ago, so:
Proof or GTFO
I have watched you crybully, sperg and derail posts here since you joined around two years ago, and your (scant) online presence is (scarce), and what does exist is lots of typical “legend” building gibberish (like your pathetic 13 lines of code at Gitub, lol ) and vague comments that go nowhere, other than your (shit) writing at some story telling manga site.
The thirteens are, like, a thing
And so, your arrival here also coincides almost directly with the time sucking ADL admitting that they are deploying military derived technology at civilians online, aka redirection via Moonshot CVE and other kewl web-toys, used non-consensually to target people who have been rually defamed.
Apparently, they/you think that combatting bad stereotypes and anti-shemitis involves becoming mind controlling Svengalis, secretly performing non -consensual brain surgery on internet searchers from behind the internet curtain.
Gee, I myself disagree with perpetuating stereotypes, especially about secret cabals and kabbalists who control the world in secret
So, nothing you say is valid to me, because you yourself have not proven that you are NOT merely a timesucking fake persona yourself.
Evidence, schmevidense.
Using rationality as cover is definitely a most disingenuous form of communication online, but it is an effective disguise for cyber-mobs who endlessly spew, #citation!
You are part of that.
Using one name online is also a pathetically quaint tradition --a relic of the pre-NSA-FVEY-Israel pipeline of spying on citizens and it means nothing in midern online interaction.
SDM up there and his PI pals depend upon gullibillity like yours to do what they do. They, and you, are what the internet echo chamber is. Its what you are, a mere echo of rational discourse.
And terrorist manufacturers ranging from NGOs, intel agencies, and DoD /JTRIG who target and cyberstalk citizens speech online depend on and depend from things like you to do what it is that they do.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern- Us-All
Weaponized Aspergers, and crybullying from within psychiatric meta-narrative is also a thing too.
Lastly, yeah, that thread from 2013: I especially like that other contractor who got gang stalked concurring with MY OPINION, not yours. But here we are SEVEN YEARS later.
Nothing quite like online time sucking fascist vampires, and all their kewl tewls to hide their tracks.
ROGS Analysis is a proven analytical framework, based in falsifiable results, and the scientific method, tested over time, with which to test for evidence of gang stalking aka CVE/NGO based cyber -harassment and bullying, bhullbot.
Thanks for playing!
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Re: DoD Quality Gaslighting,Inc.
Since you seem to love this sort of thing, I’ll use it against you. It’s pretty appropriate in this instance, anyway.
tl;dr
Evidence, or GTFO
Do you have any evidence that anyone in thread was a real person? Do you have any evidence that you are a real person? Do you have any evidence that anyone was stalked or harassed solely because of their activity on that particular thread?
As for me being an AI chatbot, you seem to have been finding some decent evidence of my being a real person already.
Finally, this “ROGS analysis” does more to alienate potential allies than to do anything productive or persuasive.
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Re: Re: DoD Quality Gaslighting,Inc.
Dear Useful Idiot:
First, please admonish your private investigator affilliated pal SDM up there for attempting to associate me with nazis and white supremacists.
You seem to be hesitant to call out anyone but me for such blatantly hystrionic false statements, and in so doing, discredit yourself and the purported community here that you have on multiple occasions claimed to speak for.
You also lend linguistic evidence to my theory that you are just a timesucker.
Then:
Pleade look up the term useful idiot as it pertains to the ADL and its underworld associates, so we can even speak a similar language, and you can guage your place in a discussion forum that is heavilly trolled by DoD /ADL/NGO neocons who masquerade as SJWs and tone trolls.
Then:
No. Only myself, the individual being attacked by a faux collective
Yes. I just finished a delicious bowl of home made beef burgundy stew. Then I took two fabulous shits, while reading your comment. A coincidence, of course.
Yes. Screenshots, deleted comments, and the fact that TDs mod actually IP blocked me, and is currently running code to stop me from opening comments hidden by TDs laughably monitored, speech policed, and bot infested “community” forum.
Thats evidence enough, none of which you are privvy too.
No. As the spies, spergs (a curious phenomenon of your generation)and ADL-NGO so-called rationalists and secular humanists frequently say absence of evidence is only evidence of absence
I have ZERO evidence that you are real anymore than CIA/JTRIG /FBI /ADL /Israeli Squad 8200 manipulated personas are real
In these cases, we call the fake persona a legend and we stick by it until we get shot by a firing squad in a banana republic if necessary; or until the SOVIETS! or other evil empires pay us more money to do evil shit than our own country pays us to do the same evil shit.
And these days, considering that the USA has suspended its constitution, evil is as evil does; no harm no foul when in fact and reality, my own countrymen are all spies against their own neighbors.
Lastly, in re: allies, well they know who they are. I dont need more than Ive got already, and certainly I dont want timesuckers to train for free.
That one article of Mikes about Jeffrey Kantor, and my use of it with other victims, has helped more people than I can even estimate, because validation of how private contractors, NGOs, and surveillance role players deliberately wage these hate campaigns aka psychiatric reprisals aka gang stalking on individuals is gaining in cultural currency, without you or other timesuckers and ritual defamers lifting a finger on your keyboard.
No offense, but stick your version of allies up your ass, and spend time with booby pictures at Deviant Art, where so many intel trolls troll.
In fact, approximately 30% of the last group of fake targeted individuals I met offline had these three things in common:
they were rats, snitches, and informants working off a criminal charge
they had Deviant Art profiles that looked EXACTLY like yours
Your types ALWAYS turn out to be infiltrators, collaborators, and back stabbers. Or, in this case, a 30％ chance magnified because of your two faced approach, and willingness to concur with, and collaborate with race baiting /flaming /derailing ACs, and now, race baiting SDM (who you never taken to task ).
Patterns of meaning, lol.
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Re: Re: Re: DoD Quality Gaslighting,Inc.
SDM opined that your claims sound like antisemitic, white-supremacists conspiracy theories. He didn’t say anything about Nazis, specifically. At any rate, stating unflattering opinions about the things you say isn’t the same as claiming someone is a chatbot or working with the ADL or silencing people, and as far as this discussion is concerned, it seems to me like you started name-calling first.
I’ve called out blue, bobmail, Hamilton (who is probably also either blue or bobmail), tp, zof, and a number of ACs—among others—for making “blatantly h[i]strionic false statements” on numerous occasions, and I’ve also called out several individuals that I normally agree with when I see a problem with what they say. That you haven’t personally observed that isn’t really my problem, and you can verify it for yourself by viewing my TD profile.
In this case, SDM’s comment doesn’t really make any blatantly false claims without evidence, as far as I can tell. It’s mostly an opinion about your claims, not really something that could be proven or disproven. Now, whether or not I agree with his opinion (and if so, to what extent) is another question entirely. Suffice to say that I’m taking no position on whether you or your claims are actually antisemitic and/or white-supremacist beyond noting that drawing that conclusion is, at the very least, not completely unreasonable or unjustifiable, given how much you talk about these zionists conspiring to silence criticism and such. As I take no position on the matter, I feel no need to argue with or support SDM on that particular matter.
Are we reading the same thread? I’m talking about the 2013 thread you linked. In that thread, I didn’t see anyone attacking anyone who I would believe to be you. On the contrary, there were a lot of strangely similar comments that seemed to be supporting your claims, and almost all of them came long after everyone else had stopped posting. So, if you believe you were the only real person on that thread, does that mean all those people claiming to be victims of online gang-stalking were either fake or a sockpuppet for you?
Well, I just had some steak I had leftover from dinner last night, so I guess that’s sufficient evidence that I’m a real person, too.
Look, my point was for you to provide the same sort of evidence that you’re asking of me, if not just realize how dumb this line of inquiry is.
Is that so? Would you mind showing the rest of us this evidence of yours? Because you’re making some pretty wild claims without offering any verifiable evidence that supports them. I don’t think that TD even has something that could “IP block[]” you, especially considering the fact that, as far as I can tell, you’ve constantly changed IP addresses from the start, so it seems pretty darn ineffective.
As for being unable to view hidden comments, that’s simply false. The only thing that would prevent you from doing so is if you were using some sort of script-blocker or something. TD has been accused of this before, and it’s never panned out.
The problem is that if I’m not privvy to any of the evidence supporting your claims, I have no reason to believe you or take you seriously. In fact, the fact that you claim to have evidence and choose to deliberately withhold it suggests to me that you don’t actually have evidence and are just making it up. I’m not saying that’s the case, but you’re not exactly doing yourself any favors here.
Uh, no. First of all, is the ADL secular or Zionist? Pick one.
Second, autism has been around for centuries. It just wasn’t until recently that we became able to properly diagnose and treat autism, but it’s not necessarily more prevalent this generation than any other; just more apparent because we no longer shove people who don’t fit in into mental institutions and the internet makes it easier for introverts (which many autistic people are) to interact with large numbers of people.
Third, I’m an agnostic Christian/deist, not a secular humanist (though I have nothing against secular humanists or secular humanism in general), and if you have a problem with rationalists, then that says a lot more about you than it does about them. (But seriously, why do you thing that secular humanists and rationalists are conspiring with zionists and the ADL against you?)
Finally, you’ve misstated the fallacy. It’s “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. Pretty much the opposite of what you’re claiming. Now, it’s true that Hitchen’s Razor says to disregard without evidence that which is asserted without evidence, but Hitchen’s Razor doesn’t say that lacking evidence is proof that the assertion is necessarily false; merely that it’s not worth further discussion without some evidence. You’re also misapplying them here; the claim being asserted (without evidence) is that pretty much everyone here besides you is an AI chatbot; the default assumption is that we’re all human. It’s your job to give evidence to refute that assumption if you want to be taken seriously here.
You sort of do, as I point out later, but I agree that “CIA/JTRIG /FBI /ADL /Israeli Squad 8200 manipulated personas“ aren’t real… though you haven’t exactly shown that they exist at all, anyways (outside of possibly a few select instances, if that), and—again—the assumption is that someone is a real person rather than a chatbot or whatever.
While there are a number of efforts to undermine many aspects of the Constitution, it hasn’t actually been suspended. Nor do I see evidence of spying countrymen like you claim.
That’s great and all, except I fail to see why you’d do so here, and I’ve yet to see evidence of any growing awareness at all.
Then I really don’t understand your goal here. If you aren’t trying to educate anyone, you aren’t trying to persuade anyone, and you’re not trying to find allies, then quite frankly, this isn’t the place for you to have this discussion. If you’re trying to validate others’ experiences or something, this isn’t an echo chamber or safe space for you or alleged victims of gang-stalking to find solace. Sorry if that seems harsh, but this isn’t really the place for you.
If you have no intention of spreading awareness or sympathy or action from outsiders, then please leave. You’re wasting everyone’s time by posting your stuff here if that’s your goal. Try somewhere else, perhaps. Make a Facebook page or a Twitter account or a subreddit or your own web page or something; make your own place to give these people the place they need.
I don’t come here to get validation from other autistic people. As far as I can tell, I’m the only one here, anyways. Nor do I post here to give other autistic people any sort of validation. If I want to do that, I’ll do so somewhere else where it makes sense to do so.
And if you think I’m just a timesucker, there’s an easy way to handle that: just ignore me. Quite frankly, if you don’t think that any good will come from further interactions from me, well, no one is forcing you to respond to my comments. If I’m wasting your time, it’s only because you let me.
Well, since I have never had to go to court or jail at all and have never been arrested or anything, and you have no evidence that would disprove that, I definitely don’t fit in that camp.
That’s interesting. So they all have favorited thousands of works and had their only creative contribution being a translation for someone else’s work? That’s incredible, in that I literally don’t find that claim to be at all credible.
And while we’re at it, do they also have a fanfiction.net account? Do they also play Angry Birds? Do they also have a GitHub account with a few codes made public? Do they also answer a bunch of questions on Quora, using an account linked to a Facebook account that provides a photo of them for the profile that everyone can see?
All of these were connections you observed, by the way.
Well, let’s see. I don’t believe I’ve taken any public stance on UFOs or aliens, exactly; nor have I really had any interaction with the “true believers”. For what it’s worth, I neither believe nor disbelieve in aliens (I think it’s statistically fairly likely that there is some sort of life on at least one other planet somewhere in the vast universe, though I don’t believe there’s any good evidence proving that that’s the case), and I believe the vast majority—if not all—of the UFO claims are severely lacking in evidence and credibility. I’m pretty sure that I have been rather dismissive publicly of flat-earthers, though—again—I don’t believe I’ve had any actual interaction with any of them, online or offline.
As for SJWs, well, I’ve generally supported the more sensible ideas and approaches of those who try to combat prejudice, discrimination, and ignorance against those who aren’t white, straight, neurotypical, Christian cis-males, but I also try to combat the more extreme advocates, including Alex Mauer among others.
As for “the Asian FBI”, I was unaware that the entire continent of Asia had a single FBI agency to share among the various countries. That’s rather interesting. At any rate, I have had no interaction (at least as far as I’m aware) with any members of any Asian governments—former or current—at all. I only know a little Japanese that I picked up from anime and manga (though I can’t read kanji or kana, really) and a few select words of Chinese (though, again, I don’t know any of the Chinese characters outside of numerals); I don’t know any words in any of the other Asian languages, and I’ve never left the North American continent. I’ve certainly never been an informant for or affiliate of “the Asian FBI”.
So, really, this bullet point doesn’t fit me either. Seems like of the three things you mentioned, at most one of them could be said to describe me, and given all the evidence you found that you’re outright ignoring, I’d have to say that you have soundly failed to support your case.
Since you completely and utterly failed to describe “my type” in a way that would actually include me as an example, I haven’t actually concurred with those ACs (saying you shouldn’t tell them to kill themselves is not a concurrence), I’m not seeing any race baiting by SDM (unless you tread Jews as a race, but it still seems like a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw even if I’m more hesitant about claiming the same), and I did take SDM to task when he suggested that someone else who commented should die, this statement doesn’t actually describe me at all, and you haven’t actually proven that calling me an AI chatbot or informant or whatever makes rational sense. (I’ve also criticized several commenters for drawing broad conclusions not yet in evidence, though I don’t always do so. That you don’t agree with my judgements and discretion is fine but ultimately irrelevant. In this case, while I don’t exactly agree with SDM on this specific issue, at least not entirely, I don’t see anything that deserves to be called out, either. You may disagree, and that’s fine, but I am not required to call people out just because you think there’s a problem with what they say if I don’t feel the same.) Really, the only thing you got right about me is that I have a DeviantArt account and that I have autism… things that are true of many other real people. I’m honestly perplexed where you got the stuff about criminal informants and aliens and such as having any relation to anything I’ve said or done, online or offline.
See, this is why you should be more careful about drawing conclusions based upon patterns you find. You’re more apt to draw conclusions that are completely false. Also, the “two-faced” descriptor seems to be a better fit for you considering the fact that you’ve gone back and forth about whether to treat SDM and I civilly or not; I’ve been fairly consistent, really.
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HAHA. agnostic, christian deist
WOW, that is one hot mess of SPERG if I ever saw it.
Yup, bhull242 is in fact a timesucking forim derailing christian. I was right about THAT too.
I will save myself some time, and live longer if I dont engage with that
Hot mess of SPERG, so, TL;DR
But SDM up in this thread does in fact attempt to call me a copyright smething or other.
Try harder.
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Re: HAHA. agnostic, christian deist
Actually, you’ve called me a secular humanist, not a Christian. Though, really, given how many Americans are Christians, guessing that I am a Christian is not terribly impressive.
You also clearly still don’t understand the words you use, like “derailing”, “secular”, “sperg”, “engage”, etc.
Maybe you should learn to take your own advice.
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Re: Re: Re:
Actually, I just checked, and it turns out I didn’t even flag it in the first place. It was already hidden. Whoops! My point still stands, though. I would be justified in flagging that comment even if I didn’t actually do so.
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Re: Re:
"I also have no idea what lashon hara means, and it doesn’t sound like the name for a legal principle or concept in the West, so I’m not sure how it relates to US laws. And there is no such thing as a “class action worthy consensus”."
OP's point is that these people are being targeted for mere speech, and truthful speech even, which is not traditionally considered a crime or even evidence of a crime in the west. And therefore stalking/harassing them (by "law enforcement", not by the notification) because of that truthful speech is ALSO a criminal action. If the investigatory actions are kept secret, the targets can't really fight back. But if suddenly a bunch of people are alerted to this kind of unlawful, covert surveillance, they would perhaps have a case for some kind of class action lawsuit.
I don't know if it's true, but the assertions being made seemed quite clear to me. Try harder next time.
(I'm assuming the "ADLification"/"Israelification" of culture stuff is about how people are frequently called anti-semetic merely for criticizing the foreign policy of a distant nation's government, and may be an allegation about the intelligence services targeting such people solely due to their speech. I'd like some evidence, but based on my own experience it seems vaguely plausible in a way -- not as some giant conspiracy, but as a natural continuation of general societal trends in terms of whom it is considered acceptable to criticize.)
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Re: Re: Re:
Thank you! At least someone is willing to try to explain it. I still don’t understand how the different points are interrelated, and it’d be nice if ROGS could explain it rather than having us guess, but I’ll take what I can get.
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Re: Re: Re: you are 100% correct
Lashon hara is the Hasidic prohibition against speech, and the AIPAC /pro -Israel /ADL, (and their useful idiots and flying monkeys like the posters above ) specializes in derailing and misdirecting online conversation with that term.
All of those arguing against me are TDs favorite clicque of in -house derailers and trolls, esp. bhull, who is a total sperg.
That said, it started here, when I was affirming the,case of a Jewish guy who had been gang stalked by a defense contractor:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131210/07555625519/lawsuit-claims-accidental-google-search-led- to-years-government-investigation-harrassment.shtml
The ADL actually trains police chiefs in these tactics of targeting.
And for the record, Palestinians,are semitic people, but you never hear the AIPAC /ADLetc. or their useful idiots complaining about how they get treated, do you?
bhull, SDM, et al are establishment gatekeepers, much rewarded and adored by Masnick himself for their bad behavior here.
And, Masnick routinely speaks boilerplate ADL quips and quotes too.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: you are 100% correct
Amazing how you can call SDM and I reasonable one moment and establishment gatekeepers the next. Really makes you seem trustworthy and totally rational and reasonable. The lack of any concrete, verifiable evidence for any of your claims—especially regarding Masnick’s supposed tendency to “routinely speak[] boilerplate ADL quips and quotes” (whatever those are) and the idea that SDM and I are “much rewarded and adored by Masnick himself for [our] bad behavior here” (whatever that’s supposed to refer to)—makes your claims seem even more credible and not at all like someone who thinks that they can claim whatever they want without providing any evidence or examples and still be taken seriously here. And your use of lingo/jargon that most English-speaking laypeople of the sort to read TechDirt (largely people involved with computers or software) wouldn’t really be all that familiar with really makes your points clear, simple, and easy to understand for your audience. /s
Seriously though, I completely support Palestinians in their desire for independence and freedom from Israeli dominance and separation. I also believe that Israel’s policies regarding Palestinians leaves much to be desired, to say the least, and that the ADL goes overboard with calling people and positions antisemitic if they say anything the least bit critical of Israel, Judaism, and/or the ADL itself. That some gang-stalking (organized or not) exists on the internet is also something I don’t dispute at all, nor do I dispute that many LEOs and police departments are corrupt and/or go too far all too often. In fact, I’m pretty sure that no one here, including Masnick and SDM, would disagree with you or me on any of those specific points. Also, I should note that I actually have made specific criticisms of many of Israel’s policies regarding Palestine, Palestinians, and the Gaza Strip on several occasions (though maybe not on this website, specifically, since the articles here rarely—if ever—relate to such topics, so bringing that stuff up would only serve to derail threads).
(Though for the record, while you’re not exactly wrong to state that Palestinians are Semitic people, that’s not really relevant to discussions of what is or isn’t antisemitism, a term which, despite what is implied by the etymology, doesn’t refer to opposition, hatred, bigotry, prejudice, and/or discrimination directed towards any Semitic people or members of just any subset of Semites; “antisemitism” solely refers to opposition, hatred, bigotry, prejudice, and/or discrimination against Jews, specifically—whether as a race, religion, or both—and possibly towards Israeli citizens as a whole, but not necessarily the latter and definitely not including criticism of Israel as a country, its government, or its policies, nor does it include criticism or hatred to only a select subset of Jews/Israeli citizens separate from their religion, ethnicity, and citizenship. It’s weird, I know, and slightly misleading, but the term has been used this way for so long and that it’s unlikely to change any time soon, especially without an obvious replacement already available. Besides, it’s not like “islamophobia” necessarily refers to literal fear of Muslims or Islam (certainly not just pathological fear) despite the use of the suffix “-phobia”, and the same goes for “homophobia” and “transphobia” with regards to homosexuals (and possibly bisexuals) and transgender people (and possibly gender-fluid and/or transvestites), respectively.)
That said, there are reasonable disagreements on some details, like which cases are instances of gang-stalking, the level of organization of gang-stalking overall, the extent of the organization of said gang-stalking, who organizes gang-stalking, the motives and psychology/sociology that leads to gang-stalking, why the bad cops act the way they do, the exact extent of the ADL’s problems, who are the “useful idiots”, and what can or should be done to address and/or raise awareness of the issue. Your methods are liable to do more harm than good to your cause. I truly believe there are some genuine issues here that are worthy of discussion, but you are doing far more to cause people to close their minds to any merit your claims may have than to get people to actually consider them or learn something. It’s generally ill-advised to insult the people you’re trying to convince, potential allies, or neutral parties, and people aren’t really going to be interested in having or paying attention to a discussion about the ADL or Palestinians in the comment section of an article that doesn’t really have much—if anything—to do with either of those things. That you have admitted several times on this site to using trollish tactics on this very site on multiple occasions; can’t seem to make up your mind regarding who to try to be reasonable and/or civil with and who to attack, insult, and dismiss out-of-hand (seriously, I’ve lost track of the number of times you’ve switched between attacking me and being relatively cordial with me); and aren’t exactly great at providing decent evidence or examples in support of your claims just makes you seem even less credible or worthy of attention, further damaging your ability to gain any traction with your claims from readers on this site.
Also, I’m still confused about why you’re still attacking my autism (which is what I believe is what you intended when you called me a “sperg”—a term I had never heard of before despite being quite open about my autism). You previously called it an experiment or demonstration of sorts, but if that’s the case, then hasn’t it already served its purpose to the extent that it can do so? Why keep doing it now? What’s even the point? It seems even weirder to me considering how you’ve previously expressed skepticism of psychology/psychiatry and the validity of such diagnoses. Actually, all things considered, it’s kinda funny that you accuse people like myself of being derailers and/or trolls despite the fact that you have derailed discussions on many occasions (like pretty much any time you bring up Israel, Palestine, the ADL, child porn, or gang-stalking in a discussion that doesn’t actually have much—if anything—to do with that) and have admitted on several occasions to engaging in trollish behavior for trollish motives quite frequently here, so calling you a derailer and troll would be at least as reasonable and accurate as you calling any of us either of those terms.
All that said, I truly do appreciate you seeming to take my advice and actually specify where and when exactly this started by finally posting a link to where you claim this got started rather than just saying that it’s been going on for years. As I suspected, it dates back to well before I even heard of TechDirt. I haven’t read it quite yet because I wanted to address the other parts of your comment first, but I will immediately after submitting this comment, and I may (or may not) post some additional comment(s) regarding my understanding of that thread once I’ve finished reading it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: you are 100% correct
Ooooooookay… I just finished reading the thread in question. One thing of note is that an unusually large portion of the comments were posted long after the article was; some were as recent as October of 2019. On top of that, the vast majority of the comments from 2014 onwards and essentially all of the ones that were posted more than a year after the article either claim to be victims of stalking, harassment, online stalking, online harassment, gang-stalking, and/or organized gang-stalking (generally abbreviated there as OGS) or assert that gang-stalking and/or OGS is fairly common or something along those lines. That alone is pretty suspicious.
It should also be noted that there are a number of comments on there that read so similarly (all of which were essentially about organized gang-stalking and use the same sort of syntax, structure, vocabulary (including jargon and abbreviations), style, etc.) that I suspect the use of sockpuppets and IP address manipulation for at least a significant portion of them, but I admit that I have no firm evidence, nor do I have any definitive answer as to which ones are genuine and which ones are sockpuppets. (That said, ROGS here has been known to use multiple IP addresses and multiple user names quite often on this site (which he has actually admitted to several times), and he also has shown he’s not above impersonation, so I don’t believe my suspicions are unwarranted or that far off, especially considering how they were all posted years after the article was published, many long after everyone else stopped posting comments.)
There was also this “John G” fellow who posted a few things, only for someone to accuse him being, from what I can understand, a troll or false-flag operative trying to discredit the victims and advocates for victims of organized gang-stalking; however, I couldn’t find anything in what John G said that was any more absurd than many claims made by ROGS or pretty much any of the alleged victims/victim-advocates in that thread. Honestly, that whole thing is rather strange from any perspective.
Now, there are a couple of oddities regarding ROGS here referring to that thread as the start. First, with one exception, I can only definitively link one of the posts to ROGS specifically (as the name is a variation of that), but it’s one of the later posts, and I don’t really believe for a second that that was the only thing he posted there. Also, as mentioned, any posts that could have been from ROGS—and every post regarding organized gang-stalking as a real and frequent phenomenon—were posted years after the article itself was published and mostly well after anyone who might have disagreed with or disputed those claims—including every user logged in with an account—had stopped posting new comments in the thread. The fact that new comments were being added as recent as October 2019 is particularly odd for an article dated in 2013. Finally, although ROGS here claims that “it” started in that particular thread, it’s not entirely clear what “it” is that supposedly started, and it’s even harder to verify given, again, how late many of the posts are and that it’s not entirely. 100% certain which posts came from ROGS and which came from someone else. It certainly wasn’t any attempts argue with him about it or flag him or anything like that. In fact, I think in the entire thread, only one to three comments were actually hidden (none of which I think were likely posted by ROGS), and most—if not all—of the ones that I think could potentially have been posted by ROGS have no responses that dispute any of the claims made in those posts. So, regarding claims of censorship or discrimination against him or his cause, it’s certainly not evident from that thread, nor could it plausibly have started there. Nor is there anything involving the term “lashon hara” or anything related to that concept, nor is there any sign of misdirecting or derailing—even by ROGS bizarre definitions of the terms—by anyone writing in the thread. There also isn’t anyone who posted in that thread—and who is not talking about OGS as widespread or at least existent and serious—doing anything that could be considered trolling by any reasonable stretch (with a possible exception of John G if the accusation against him is accurate, but I reserve judgement on that). (Also, to be clear—though it’s pretty obvious to anyone who reads the thread—as of the time I post this, I have posted exactly 0 comments on that thread, and—prior to today—I neither read nor flagged any of the comments posted there at all. In fact, I had not even heard of or visited this site at all when the article was posted. As such, my involvement with anything involving ROGS or this site certainly didn’t start there, either. Also, SDM wasn’t posting anything in that thread, either.)
I suppose the only plausible thing he could be referring to is that that was the first time a) he posted something online about online gang-stalking, b) he posted something on TechDirt, c) he posted something about online gang-stalking on TechDirt, d) TechDirt and/or its readers dismissed the plausible of a particular instance of organized gang-stalking or the likelihood that it existed at all, e) someone posted a comment about online gang-stalking on TechDirt, or f) TechDirt posted anything relating to potential or actual online gang-stalking, but I really don’t know for certain.
ROGS, do you recall how you kept saying that people had been insulting you, flagging you, arguing with you, and/or dismissing or criticizing you for years, particularly the claim about Wendy calling you an incel or Nazi or something? See, I was hoping that that thread would be the one you’ve been talking about for a while, where you claim all that stuff started/happened. Really, that thread you just linked didn’t really prove much, nor does it explain why you consider yourself to be the victim of targeted attacks here. Would you mind linking the thread where Wendy supposedly called you an incel without provocation or justification? Or the one where you first became attacked or whatever?
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Re: Re: Re: Horst Hoyer
In the time of Hitler, some Jews actively worked with him to kill other Jews.
These are known as zionists, and zionazis, most commonly referred to today as the ADL and their underworld associates and affilliated NGOs. Of note is that the ADL was started as a criminal and PR organization by actual mafia bosses.
It is these who cheered when others were gassed and murdered en masse, because they were literally invested in it (refer to the Transfer Agreement of that era ) .
It is also they who invented the ritual defamation, and the term anti-semitism too.
And, they are very active here at TD too, monitoring speech, and targeting speakers EXACTLY as I say.
And, when you peer deeply into the TD commenter pool, you find of these that are quite active here, are often associated with MIT/Brookings Institute/DoD, and all of these black programs that I discuss, like Moonshot CVE, and Palantir.
These technologies and their developers are all the spiritual heirs of those collaborators.
Here is an MSM blurb that documents this:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/06/24/adl-fighting-kkk-jihadism-by-redirecting-online-sear ches/1437331001/
And, notice how the lists of people targeted by these military-underworld organizations, and smeared by them as terrorists keeps growing.
First, it was Saddam Hussein, who plotted 911 (lol ) and now, its the guy in family court who challenges the judge, who graduated from Yeshiva University (Andy Ostrowski of Pennsylvania ).
Most mass shooters also can be traced to rabid zionists and zionazis harassing them online and off as well, as we saw with the Pensacola shooter being leveraged by Rita Katz and SITE Intelligence , who hate Muslims; and also Sayed Farook, the San Bernardino shooter killing his workplace harasser, Nicholas Thallasinos; and possibly the recent Molson Coors shooter, who targeted both a Ukrainian Jew, and a guy who was US Navy secret clearance personell.
In the latter case, the shooter was a black guy who had endured a.noise being put on his licker, and an Ace of spades slipped into his licker too. The Ace is known as the death card in PsyOps circles, and so, the poor guy was enduring death threats,at work.
Coincidentally, of course! The Ace of Spades was also the calling card of the famous Meyer Lansky mafia “Murder Incorporated”, which was the ADL founders signature.
These patterns are easily traced, using ROGS Analysis, which is a replicable, scientifically falsifiable theorem with which to study these cases.
There is no grand conspiracy, just nameable shitbags and organizations who are above the law, and their minions of flying monkeys and useful idiots who help them by cancelling speech that implicates them.
And, here too at TDs comments forum.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Horst Hoyer
Funny how you claim there’s no grand conspiracy in the same comment that essentially describes what many would consider a grand conspiracy. Well, whatever.
I don’t recall ever reading anything about Jews helping Hitler with the Holocaust, and I’m pretty sure the term “antisemitism” has been around for quite some time, likely predating WWII, but whatever. Whether or not that’s true has no effect on any other claims anyone else has made, so I suppose it doesn’t make that big of a difference here. Still, I’d like to see a citation for those claims.
As for “Zionist”, that term actually refers to members of a movement that started among Jews that advocated for them to return to the Middle East (specifically the original location of Israel) and make a Jewish-centric country there again. A large part of the idea was to escape from all the persecution they were experiencing in Europe (and later the Americas) since the Jewish Diaspora, especially since the Middle Ages. The term has likely evolved since then, but the core idea of having a country for Jews in the Holy Land (as they call it) still remains in the various iterations. It’s plausible that the term has also been co-opted by Jewish extremists as well, like you describe.
Now, you still haven’t provided any evidence of any of this “ADLification” or infiltration by the ADL, government agencies, etc., for the purpose of silencing anyone, and there are plenty of terrorists who were certainly not targeted by “zionists” as they never even mention Judaism. (One or two examples don’t really make a great sample set from which we can draw any conclusions.) That said, I must admit that I’m curious about the claim that this “ROGS analysis” of yours is “scientifically falsifiable” and “replicable”. Based on how you’ve responded to SDM and me at various times, it seems rather unreliable at actually detecting these patterns. After all, you’ve gone back and forth on whether we are chatbots, useful idiots, or rational people. Still, I’d like to see the documentation for this “replicable” “theorem” of yours so that others could, in fact, replicate it for testing purposes.
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The watcher has watchers that have watchers
Six and a half minute scifi video explains total surveillance.
https://youtu.be/h_ra8ahZlQg
funny
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No one is wondering why a communication app is running a malware sweep?
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Re:
An app? No. But networking companies sometimes care about suspicious and malicious traffic on their networks. Apparently they may even inform users.
The Whatsapp app didn't and can't do a "malware sweep", so no, i am guessing moat people aren't wondering "why it did".
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Re: Re:
Thank you for awakening my curiosity in this. I had assumed that users of WhatsApp used their cell phone providers' networks to communicate with facebook servers. I wouldn't call facebook a networking company like, say, Verizon or Akamai. Am I mistaken? So, whatever program facebook used to detect malware, it was either on the phones or on their servers. And, isn't WhatsApp encrypted? If so, how is facebook even able to inspect anything on their servers? I'm confused!
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Re: Re: Re:
It may have been the terrorist suspect that warned whatsapp who then warned fb who then warned Zuck who pulled the plug before thinking it through..
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Perhaps they left hand should have a conversation with the right hand.
They are screaming 'privacy privacy privacy' threatening billions in fines for the slightest slipup, meanwhile the other hand is hacking devices of untold numbers of people destroying their privacy.
Well you can tell who is a terrorist b/c their avatars all have black hats on them so this should be easy. (They are this stupid)
Something scary they are trying to ignore, journalists, activists, government officials were also being spied on. Perhaps there needs to be a legal framework to look at who is being spied upon and why. We've seen thousands of examples of 'the good guys' abusing these tools to go after people who made them mad & then complain when their targets are warned.
Gee if you had a court order (that pesky oversight they dislike so much) you could have kept them from notifying your legit targets. The downside being is many of these investigations are based more on the religion or ethnicity than any actual criminal intent. We have to keep it secret or they bad guys will win!!!
Perhaps its time to ask why behaving like the 'bad guys' based on nothing more than hunches is acceptable. These tools can/will/are being abused against innocent people as well as bad guys, how can this be acceptable in "free" countries where they hold up all of these rights they have, and sue others for not living up to the law, but their own people can do whatever without oversight or control?
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Wait...so 1400 phones were infected with malware by an "advanced cyber actor" to investigate one suspected terrorist? Why did they infect the other 1399 people?
This just screams the malware was randomly installed on whatever device they could infect, and managed to stumble across a possible terror plot afterwards.
Cue the Inspector Clouseau music.
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Re:
"Cue the Inspector Clouseau music."
Clouseau needed to be in the actual vicinity of the people he inadvertently harmed through his hamfisted shenanigans. He's got nothing on the inept spongiform manning the EU's excuse for law enforcement.
In a sane world there would be 1399 court cases against the police coming from the non-suspects who got casually trawled into this monumental phishing expedition.
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Re:
Isn't Malware illegal?
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Re: Re:
Generally, as far as I know, yes it is, with some caveats. For example, infecting your own machine with malware without distributing it I believe is legal.
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Re: Re: Re:
But, is it not a fact that you only own the hardware, not the software? So infecting the OS would violate EULA?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"But, is it not a fact that you only own the hardware, not the software? So infecting the OS would violate EULA?"
I think a case can be made for fair use. But that depends on jurisdiction.
There's a reason Linux gets security-checked by thousands of independents but windows rarely gets the once-over by anyone but microsoft (and the NSA trying to come up with new exploits).
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Love our country.
As many dont get the idea of Laws, dont Stretch over there..
Which generally means that, If they cant do it here, we get another group over there(where it is legal, Not illegal to do to another nation)
Corps do it.
Our gov. does it also.
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Of course not! Everyone who's convicted of a crime in real life ought to have their Minecraft avatar locked in a dungeon for the same period of time.
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Tim, you missed linking to your previous article on the Facebook / NSO Group battle.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191031/18013043302/facebooks-sues-israeli-malware-market er-with-lawsuit-that-aims-to-make-easily-abused-law-even-more-abusable.shtml
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Europe’s finest
“elite surveillance team”
BWAHAHAHAHA
It’s nice to see Those laid off AT&T tech support Employees found work.
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Re: Europe’s finest
AT&T has tech support?
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"Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s counterterrorism coordinator, says encryption shouldn’t allow criminals to be “less accountable online than in real life.”"
Holy shit, is the EU now seriously saying every conversation we ever have can be recorded so as to be accessible by cops if they ever want to look into us?
Or is this idiotic bluster?
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Re:
Every conservation IF you are a terrorist or collateral damage is being recorded.
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Re: Re:
Or are suspected of being a terrorist even without evidence.
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Re: Re: Re:
The mounds of data and documents on shelves under Iron Mountain must be mind blowing!?!
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Not the EU proper
There's nothing unusual in the apparent contradiction here: privacy is pushed by the EU parliament and (when it succeeds) the EU institutions including the European Commission.
Governments (of the member states) and their police do not like privacy, for obvious reasons, therefore all efforts towards privacy are resisted by all the governmental and intergovernmental structures. This "counter-terrorism coordinator" is just one of many intergovernmental creations, as can be seen by the fact that it's under the European Council and was created just by proclamation of the European Council, not by some legal act of the Council of the EU, probably to avoid having to respect the EU treaties.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/fight-against-terrorism/counter-terrorism-coor dinator/
Simple isn't it?
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