NSA Whistleblower Snowden Launches Mobile App For Paranoid People

Famed NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden has just launched Haven, an app for people to transform any Android smartphone into a high-tech security system for detecting intrusions.

Snowden, while currently on the run from the CIA, hiding somewhere in Moscow until 2020, has found enough time to launch his new mobile security app last Friday for the sufficiently paranoid person (e.g. activists, dissidents, journalists, & etc).

"When the lead developer explained the project to his young children, they found another use for it: "We’re going to catch Santa!" " https://t.co/Beangjk90g

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) December 23, 2017

Haven is designed to be installed on any Android smartphone, particularly inexpensive and older devices. It operates like a home surveillance system, leveraging on-device sensors to provide surveillance of physical areas. Sensors within the Android phone monitor motion, sound, vibration and light, watching for unwanted guests to notify a user. Combining Haven with an array of sensors in any smartphone, coupled with the most secure communications technologies like Signal and Tor, the app is providing Snowden and other activists around the world with a mobile security system.

The app was developed by Freedom of the Press Foundation, Guardian Project, and Snowden. According to the Guardian Project, the app’s prototype funding was provided by FoPF, and donations to support continuing work can be contributed through their site: https://freedom.press/donate-support-haven-open-source-project/.

According to the Guardian Project, this is how the app works,

Haven only saves images and sound when triggered by motion or volume, and stores everything locally on the device. You can position the device’s camera to capture visible motion, or set your phone somewhere discreet to just listen for noises. Get secure notifications of intrusion events instantly and access the logs remotely or anytime later.

On-device sensors monitor for disturbance, and then logs the data:

• Accelerometer: phone’s motion and vibration


• Camera: motion in the phone’s visible surroundings from front or back camera


• Microphone: noises in the environment


• Light: change in light from ambient light sensor


• Power: detect device being unplugged or power loss

Further, the group explains why Haven is well suited for Android devices and does make the claim, a version for the iPhone is on the horizon.

While we hope to support a version of Haven that runs directly on iOS devices in the future, iPhone users can still benefit from Haven today. You can purchase an inexpensive Android phone for less than $100, and use that as your “Haven Device”, that you leave behind, while you keep your iPhone with you. If you run Signal on your iPhone, you can configure Haven on Android to send encrypted notifications, with photos and audio, directly to you. If you enable the “Tor Onion Service” feature in Haven (requires installing “Orbot” app as well), you can remotely access all Haven log data from your iPhone, using the Onion Browser app. So, no, iPhone users we didn’t forget about you, and hope you’ll pick up an Android burner today for a few bucks!

If one of the sensors was triggered, a notification would be sent to one of the following platforms:

• SMS: a message is sent to the number specified when monitoring started


• Signal: if configured, can send end-to-end encryption notifications via Signal

 

My partner has been testing Haven for a few months with a spare phone. Every time you open the closet, it sends a picture by Signal. In addition to impressive intrusion detection capabilities, you can also use it to send helpful reminders! ? https://t.co/FHi1bjFsLP pic.twitter.com/IS58HzDVha

— lex.txt (@lex_is) December 22, 2017

As for Snowden, he remains in an asylum somewhere in Moscow until 2020 when his residence permit expires.

With the launch of Haven, it seems as Snowden is attempting to change the calculus of risk for when US authorities come hunting for him once more.

If all else fails, Snowden might have just invented a baby monitor for the broke millennial. 

Clinton, Assange, And The War On Truth

Authored by John Pilger via Counterpunch.org,

On 16 October, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired an interview with Hillary Clinton: one of many to promote her score-settling book about why she was not elected President of the United States.

Wading through the Clinton book, What Happened, is an unpleasant experience, like a stomach upset. Smears and tears. Threats and enemies. “They” (voters) were brainwashed and herded against her by the odious Donald Trump in cahoots with sinister Slavs sent from the great darkness known as Russia, assisted by an Australian “nihilist”, Julian Assange.

In The New York Times, there was a striking photograph of a female reporter consoling Clinton, having just interviewed her. The lost leader was, above all, “absolutely a feminist”. The thousands of women’s lives this “feminist” destroyed while in government - Libya, Syria, Honduras - were of no interest.

In New York magazine, Rebecca Traister wrote that Clinton was finally “expressing some righteous anger”. It was even hard for her to smile: “so hard that the muscles in her face ache”. Surely, she concluded, “if we allowed women’s resentments the same bearing we allow men’s grudges, America would be forced to reckon with the fact that all these angry women might just have a point”.

Drivel such as this, trivialising women’s struggles, marks the media hagiographies of Hillary Clinton. Her political extremism and warmongering are of no consequence. Her problem, wrote Traister, was a “damaging infatuation with the email story”. The truth, in other words.

The leaked emails of Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, revealed a direct connection between Clinton and the foundation and funding of organised jihadism in the Middle East and Islamic State (IS). The ultimate source of most Islamic terrorism, Saudi Arabia, was central to her career.

One email, in 2014, sent by Clinton to Podesta soon after she stepped down as US Secretary of State, discloses that Islamic State is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Clinton accepted huge donations from both governments for the Clinton Foundation.

As Secretary of State, she approved the world’s biggest ever arms sale to her benefactors in Saudi Arabia, worth more than $80 billion. Thanks to her, US arms sales to the world – for use in stricken countries like Yemen – doubled.

This was revealed by WikiLeaks and published by The New York Times. No one doubts the emails are authentic. The subsequent campaign to smear WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, as “agents of Russia”, has grown into a spectacular fantasy known as “Russiagate”. The “plot” is said to have been signed off by Vladimir Putin himself.  There is not a shred of evidence.

The ABC Australia interview with Clinton is an outstanding example of smear and censorship by omission. I would say it is a model.

“No one,” the interviewer, Sarah Ferguson, says to Clinton, “could fail to be moved by the pain on your face at that moment [of the inauguration of Trump] … Do you remember how visceral it was for you?”

Having established Clinton’s visceral suffering, Ferguson asks about “Russia’s role”.

CLINTON: I think Russia affected the perceptions and views of millions of voters, we now know. I think that their intention coming from the very top with Putin was to hurt me and to help Trump.

 

FERGUSON: How much of that was a personal vendetta by Vladimir Putin against you?

 

CLINTON: … I mean he wants to destabilise democracy. He wants to undermine America, he wants to go after the Atlantic Alliance and we consider Australia kind of a … an extension of that …

The opposite is true. It is Western armies that are massing on Russia’s border for the first time since the Russian Revolution 100 years ago.

FERGUSON: How much damage did [Julian Assange] do personally to you?

 

CLINTON: Well, I had a lot of history with him because I was Secretary of State when ah WikiLeaks published a lot of very sensitive ah information from our State Department and our Defence Department.

What Clinton fails to say – and her interviewer fails to remind her — is that in 2010, WikiLeaks revealed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had ordered a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the United Nations leadership, including the Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent Security Council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

A classified directive, signed by Clinton, was issued to US diplomats in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks.

This was known as Cablegate. It was lawless spying.

CLINTON:  He [Assange] is very clearly a tool of Russian intelligence. And ah, he has done their bidding.

Clinton offered no evidence to back up this serious accusation, nor did Ferguson challenge her.

CLINTON: You don’t see damaging negative information coming out about the Kremlin on WikiLeaks. You didn’t see any of that published.

This was false. WikiLeaks has published a massive number of documents on Russia – more than 800,000, most of them critical, many of them used in books and as evidence in court cases.

CLINTON:  So I think Assange has become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator.

 

FERGUSON:  Lots of people, including in Australia, think that Assange is a martyr for free speech and freedom of information. How would you describe him? Well, you’ve just described him as a nihilist

 

CLINTON:  Yeah, well, and a tool. I mean he’s a tool of Russian intelligence. And if he’s such a, you know, martyr of free speech, why doesn’t WikiLeaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia?

Again, Ferguson said nothing to challenge this or correct her.

CLINTON: There was a concerted operation between WikiLeaks and Russia and most likely people in the United States to weaponise that information, to make up stories … to help Trump.

 

FERGUSON: Now, along with some of those outlandish stories, there was information that was revealed about the Clinton Foundation that at least in some of the voters’ minds seemed to associate you ….

 

CLINTON: Yeah, but it was false!

 

FERGUSON: … with the peddling of information …

 

CLINTON: It was false! It was totally false!  …..

 

FERGUSON: Do you understand how difficult it was for some voters to understand the amounts of money that the [Clinton] Foundation is raising, the confusion with the consultancy that was also raising money, getting gifts and travel and so on for Bill Clinton that even Chelsea had some issues with? …

 

CLINTON: Well you know, I’m sorry, Sarah, I mean I, I know the facts ….

The ABC interviewer lauded Clinton as “the icon of your generation”. She asked her nothing about the enormous sums she creamed off from Wall Street, such as the $675,000 she received for speaking at Goldman Sachs, one of the banks at the centre of the 2008 crash. Clinton’s greed deeply upset the kind of voters she abused as “deplorables”.

Clearly looking for a cheap headline in the Australian press, Ferguson asked her if Trump was “a clear and present danger to Australia” and got her predictable response.

This high-profile journalist made no mention of Clinton’s own “clear and present danger” to the people of Iran whom she once threatened to “obliterate totally”, and the 40,000 Libyans who died in the attack on Libya in 2011 that Clinton orchestrated. Flushed with excitement, the Secretary of State rejoiced at the gruesome murder of the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi.

“Libya was Hillary Clinton’s war”, Julian Assange said in a filmed interview with me last year. “Barack Obama initially opposed it. Who was the person championing it?  Hillary Clinton.  That’s documented throughout her emails … there’s more than 1700 emails out of the 33,000 Hillary Clinton emails that we’ve published, just about Libya. It’s not that Libya has cheap oil. She perceived the removal of Gaddafi and the overthrow of the Libyan state — something that she would use in her run-up to the general election for President.

 

“So in late 2011 there is an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock  that was produced for Hillary Clinton, and it’s the chronological description of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths within Libya; jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee and migrant crisis.

 

“Not only did you have people fleeing Libya, people fleeing Syria, the destabilisation of other African countries as a result of arms flows, but the Libyan state itself was no longer able to control the movement of people through it.”

This – not Clinton’s “visceral” pain in losing to Trump nor the rest of the self-serving scuttlebutt in her ABC interview  - was the story. Clinton shared responsibility for massively de-stabilising the Middle East, which led to the death, suffering and flight of thousands of women, men and children.

Ferguson raised not a word of it.  Clinton repeatedly defamed Assange, who was neither defended nor offered a right of reply on his own country’s state broadcaster.

In a tweet from London, Assange cited the ABC’s own Code of Practice, which states: “Where allegations are made about a person or organisation, make reasonable efforts in the circumstances to provide a fair opportunity to respond.”

Following the ABC broadcast, Ferguson’s  executive producer, Sally Neighbour, re-tweeted the following: “Assange is Putin’s bitch. We all know it!”

The slander, since deleted, was even used as a link to the ABC interview captioned ‘Assange is Putins (sic) b****. We all know it!’

In the years I have known Julian Assange, I have watched a vituperative personal campaign try to stop him and WikiLeaks. It has been a frontal assault on whistleblowing, on free speech and free journalism, all of which are now under sustained attack from governments and corporate internet controllers.

The first serious attacks on Assange came from the Guardian which, like a spurned lover, turned on its besieged former source, having hugely profited from WikiLeaks’ disclosures. With not a penny going to Assange or WikiLeaks, a Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie deal. Assange was portrayed as “callous” and a “damaged personality”.

It was as if a rampant jealousy could not accept that his remarkable achievements stood in marked contrast to that of his detractors in the “mainstream” media. It is like watching the guardians of the status quo, regardless of age, struggling to silence real dissent and prevent the emergence of the new and hopeful.

Today, Assange remains a political refugee from the war-making dark state of which Donald Trump is a caricature and Hillary Clinton the embodiment. His resilience and courage are astonishing. Unlike him, his tormentors are cowards.

UK Embraces Pre-Crime - Brits Face 15 Years In Prison For Watching "Terrorist Material"

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The UK’s home secretary, Amber Rudd, is the latest bureaucrat to highlight the increased global trend of governments going completely insane.

Her latest plan is to threaten the British population with up to 15 years in prison for the crime of watching “terrorist material.” Yes, you read that right.

The Guardian reports:

People who repeatedly view terrorist content online could face up to 15 years behind bars in a move designed to tighten the laws tackling radicalisation the home secretary, Amber Rudd, is to announce on Tuesday.

 

A new maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment will also apply to terrorists who publish information about members of the armed forces, police and intelligence services for the purposes of preparing acts of terrorism.

The tightening of the law around viewing terrorist material is part of a review of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy following the increasing frequency of terrorist attacks in Britain this year.

“I want to make sure those who view despicable terrorist content online, including jihadi websites, far-right propaganda and bomb-making instructions, face the full force of the law,” said Rudd. “There is currently a gap in the law around material [that] is viewed or streamed from the internet without being permanently downloaded.

According to the Home Office the updated offence will ensure that only those found to repeatedly view online terrorist material will be guilty of the offence, to safeguard those who click on a link by mistake or who could argue that they did so out of curiosity rather than with criminal intent. A defence of “reasonable excuse” would still be available to academics, journalists or others who may have a legitimate reason to view such material.

The UK is clearly embracing pre-crime here, since it’s clear someone watching terrorist propaganda in the privacy of their own home does not harm anyone else.

Thus, this is a victimless crime, and as I’ve maintained on many occasions, I do not believe such a thing exists. If there’s no victim, there’s no crime.

What the UK is arguing here is that watching “terrorist material” increases the likelihood of someone committing a violent terrorist attack in the future. So you’re actually being punished for what you might potentially do in the future.

This is pre-crime and it’s totally insane. 

Beyond that, we can pretty much guarantee that the definition of “terrorist material” will expand over time to whatever politicians don’t want the rabble exposed to.

But it gets worse still. Here’s what Rudd had to say about her government’s demented crusade against technology itself.

Rudd also caused some consternation at the fringe meeting by criticising the tech industry for their “patronising” attitude that “sneered” at politicians who did not always get it right.

She claimed it was not necessary for her to understand how end-to-end encryption worked to know that it was helping criminals.

It’d be funny if it weren’t so incredibly sad.

*  *  *

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Tom Lee: "Bitcoin Will Be The Best Performing Asset Through Year End"

Fundstrat Global Advisors analyst and former permabull Tom Lee is a fan of bitcoin.

The strategist, who recently turned cautious on stocks, explained his bullish view on the digital currency during an appearance Wednesday on CNBC’s “Fast Money,” claiming that a single coin could someday be worth as much as $50,000.

Starting with the fundamentals, Lee said that Bitcoin’s decentralized nature makes it a “good store of value.”

This is why bitcoin could be the new gold: Tom Lee from CNBC.

“We did a study and published it in early July…[bitcoin] has a lot of characteristics that are similar to gold and will ultimately make it attractive as an alternative currency. It’s a good store of value. The encryption and the distributed ledger not only act as a means of protection, but it actually has an industrial use that could be replacing a traditional payment platform.”

Then there’s the scarcity argument. Approximately every four years, the number of coins awarded to the miners who process transactions on the bitcoin network decreases by half, making bitcoin an inherently deflationary asset.

“The supply of bitcoin is starting to slow. Within the next 2-3 years the number of coins discovered or mined or rewarded will be slower than the amount of gold discovered, so bitcoin will be a rarer unit than gold.”

“There’s $7.5 trillion worth of gold out there, so gold dwarfs the currency in circulation, and if bitcoin captures just five percent of that alternative currency, it could fetch as much as $25,000 to $50,000 a share.”  

Even with bitcoin trading near all-time highs, Lee says it"s still “an under owned asset” with “potential for huge institutional sponsorship coming.” Lee added that he expects it not only to outperform stocks, but to become the best-performing asset of 2017.

“Yes, because there’re catalysts. Institutions have to directly buy the coin today through a broker but both the CBOE and CFTC have opened options and futures trading, so I think it’s going to grow in holdings.”

In July, the CFTC announced that it would allow a firm called LedgerX to create the first swap execution facility for bitcoin derivatives, opening the door to centrally cleared options and swaps. Bitcoin is already up more than 300% year-to-date, recently trading around $3,300, or nearly three times the price of an ounce of gold. As long as the digital currency avoids a calamitous crash, it’s on track to beat even the best-performing stock markets (the S&P 500 is up about 12%, by comparison), just like it did last year.

Finally, Lee is not alone in his bullishness. While Dana Lyons is not actively trading the cryptocurrency, the chart of Bitcoin intrigue him. One glance at the chart — which I never really intended to do — had me at least considering taking a deeper look at the price structure. What immediately caught my eye was a potential buy setup in the near-term. In fact, ironically, I doubt there are many charts among those “literally thousands of securities” that offer a better potential setup at the present time.

Before I get into the partial change of heart, let me reiterate one thing regarding Bitcoin. We have ZERO edge regarding our understanding of the phenomenon and its future potential. As such, we have no intention of trading it within our client accounts in the foreseeable future. Finally, given the (relatively) tenuous structure and regulation surrounding cryptocurrencies in general, any trade in the space must be considered pure speculation and nothing more.

Alright, with that said…here are the reasons we really like the potential of the chart at the moment.

1) Reliable conformity to charting analysis

When considering any price plot, especially one as immature and enigmatic as bitcoin, it is imperative to first study the chart history to determine whether prices actually appear to adhere to traditional technical analysis or charting techniques. If that is not the case, then it is utterly pointless to attempt to chart the issue as the lack of traditional guideposts will have you driving blindly.

In this case, though BTC is still relatively young, its price movement (especially in the most recent few cycles) does seem to conform to much of the charting analysis that we like to employ, e.g., Fibonacci especially. Check out the “long-term” chart:

We left the y-axis elongated as it is in order to show potentially relevant levels above Bitcoin’s highs to date. But before we get ahead of ourselves, take a look at how closely BTC has conformed to key Fibonacci lines, including:

1. The 161.8% Fibonacci Extension (in red) of the 2013-2015 decline lies near the 1860 level. This was in the vicinity of both the initial interim high this spring following a breakout above the 2013 and early 2017 highs, as well as the low set in the recent mid-July pullback.


2. The 261.8% Fibonacci Extension (red) of the 2013-2015 decline lies near the 2892 level, or right near the all-time highs set in June.


3. The 61.8% Fibonacci Retracement (blue) of the 2015-2017 rally lies near the 1250 level, i.e., the level of the breakout above the 2013 and early 2017 highs.


4. The 38.2% Fibonacci Retracement (blue) of the 2015-2017 rally lies near the 1928 level, in the vicinity of low set the recent mid-July pullback.


5. The 61.8% Fibonacci Retracement (green) of the rally from the 2013-2017 breakout level to the June highs lies near the 1900 level, in the vicinity of low set the recent mid-July pullback.

I think that is enough evidence to confidently proceed with an earnest analysis of the Bitcoin chart.

2) Substantially optimistic prospects for higher prices (if looking to buy)

This box gets checked as well as the chart-based outlook for BTC in the near, and longer-term, appears bright. The main point is that the recent June-July consolidation looks to us like a continuation pattern, i.e., prices should eventually resolve higher in continuation of the rally initiated by April’s breakout above the 2013-2017 highs.

Following the most recent selloff in July, BTC importantly rallied back up to near the June highs. This suggests that the post-June decline was perhaps a counter-trend ABC down wave that has been completed via the recent bounce to higher interim highs. Thus, based upon that analysis, new highs should be in the cards for BTC.

3) An identifiable and nearby trigger (e.g., price point)

This last requirement is satisfied as well as, in our opinion, the pullback over the past few days has put BTC into position here it can commence a new up-leg at any moment. Any of the purple Fibonacci Retracement levels would suffice in containing the recent decline and in serving as a springboard to a new rally. Thus, anywhere between the 38.2% Retracement ~2498 and the 61.8% Retracement ~2222 should be a solid entry point on the long side in Bitcoin. A decisive close below 2222 would undermine our bullish analysis and suggest stopping out one’s position.

If our scenario is valid, how high can Bitcoin go? While we don’t like to apply targets to our trading, using Fibonacci Extensions of this recent June-July consolidation may be reasonable to set expectations for a post-breakout move. BTC’s conformity to the 2013-2015 Extensions provide cover for our use of these new Extensions. Here are some possibilities based on said Extensions:

• 127.2% Fibonacci Extension of June-July decline = ~3340 (+33% from current levels)


• 161.8% Fibonacci Extension of June-July decline = ~3772 (+50% from current levels) *Best Bet?*


• 423.6% Fibonacci Extension of June-July decline = ~4592 (+84% from current levels)


• 261.8% Fibonacci Extension of June-July decline = ~5012 (+100% from current levels)

Obviously, there are a lot of big IF’s that we are dealing with here for the above gains to materialize. However, based upon our read of the BTC chart, as we would apply to all other charts, the possibility of hitting at least the 1st 2 “target” levels is good enough from a risk/reward standpoint to warrant an entry here.

Again, we are not telling anyone to buy Bitcoin. It is doubtless more risky and unstable than most securities that we cover every day. That said, if one is so inclined to partake in the speculation, our read of BTC’s current chart setup is about as favorable as it gets.

**August 7, 2017 UPDATED CHARTS:

See Bitcoin’s strong reaction (a/o 8/7/2017) off of the levels we highlighted in our July 27 post.

Short-Term:

Long-Term:

Read more here

How a Dog Named Brutus Was Used to Steal $36,000

Via The Daily Bell

For the egregious crime of being in the right lane at the wrong time, a driver was pulled over in Lowndes County, Georgia. Thanks to the heroic efforts of one Georgia State Police dog, and his faithful officer, a major threat to the people of Georgia is off the streets.

The responding police dog, Brutus, made a major bust. The vehicle was transporting $36,000 of cash; an imminent danger to Georgians across the state.

The cash may have eluded officers if not for the quick thinking of Brutus. He sat down next to the car to let officers know the money was being stored in a speaker inside the vehicle. The officer was quick to confiscate the cash, take a picture of it for social media, and let the driver go. 

Wait, the police let the driver get away? Yes, they did. The driver was not charged an actual crime, and no one was arrested during the “major bust” that took place. The driver’s only crime was carrying cash.

Under Georgia’s criminal code officers can take property from any citizen they suspect may be part of a criminal enterprise. In this case, the only hunch officers had of criminal activity was Brutus the dog taking a seat.

The police took more than half of the state’s median yearly income from someone because a dog sat next to their car. If you think this is a horrific injustice, you should feel relieved to know the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with you. 

Civil asset forfeiture is the formal name for this form of state sanctioned theft. It has become a hot topic in the last few years for Americans concerned about their fundamental rights. The practice is troublingly common among law enforcement agencies at all levels of government.

Its history of abuse has resulted in BILLIONS of dollars taken from Americans who were never charged with a crime. While marginalized groups are the most likely victims, anyone can be targeted. From entrepreneurs and small business owners to Christian music groups, law enforcement agencies only see dollar signs. 

A growing number of states have implemented forfeiture reforms aimed at holding police agencies accountable. They aim to protect citizen’s right to due process supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. Unfortunately for this driver, and the rest of the country, state laws may soon be futile. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced a federal policy to ignore state statutes prohibiting civil asset forfeiture.

To be clear, the Attorney General is the top official appointed to keep the rule of law alive in America. Instead, he is encouraging law enforcement agencies to seize property from law-abiding citizens. We’re supposed to be assumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Sessions’ reversal of justice reform raises serious civil rights concerns.

The government can take your money simply because a dog gets tired of standing. But you may find it a relief that some elected officials are making it a priority to end this archaic and evil practice once and for all. States may lead the way, but Jeff Sessions’ actions make it clear that there needs to be real reform at the federal level.

In reality, impactful reforms are nowhere near the horizon. If you are concerned with protecting your assets from government seizures you are best taking matters into your own hands. Of course, the state doesn’t make that easy.

Officials have gone out of their way to ensure any legal protections you thought you had go out the window when stopped by police on the road. As the example in Georgia shows, the victim looked to store his money in a speaker system to keep it out of plain sight. But Brutus made short work of that tactic. 

Others have gone further by making alterations to the interior of their vehicles. But in a case that went to the Supreme Court, the state gave itself the right to physically tear your car apart in search of anything valuable (Carroll v. United States U.S. 132, 1925). The state also deemed it appropriate for officers to search any containers, including locked safes, inside a stopped vehicle (California v. Acevedo 500 U.S. 565, 1991).

To recap, imagine you are traveling in a vehicle and are pulled over, for even the most minor traffic violation, like looking nervous. Suppose the responding officer can establish probable cause, like having his dog sit. They can then destroy anything inside your car, including the seats. They can take anything they find without charging you with a crime.

What can you do in the face of this draconian action by the state? Digitize your assets.

As the law currently stands going digital is the best way to get around forfeiture. Using decentralized online currencies, you can side step efforts to police for profit.

Luckily officials have not yet devised a way to completely gut the Fifth Amendment. Federal courts have ruled that law enforcement cannot coerce you into revealing passwords to your electronic devices. To keep your wealth safe from state led highway robbery, keep your money online with hefty encryption.

The law allows, and incentivizes, law enforcement agencies to use asset forfeiture. Citizens can live with the fear of their money being taken on a whim. Or, individuals can stand up, en masse, to challenge this egregious and open aggression against innocent citizens.

Until then, the best bet to keep the greedy hands of government out of your pockets is to seek refuge in blockchain technology. If you need to move lots of cash, digitize your wealth.

"Over 200,000 Infected": Europol Fears Computers Simply Won't Start Monday After "Unrivalled" Global Cyberattack

There was a silver lining in what has been dubbed the "world"s biggest ransomware attack" - it struck on Friday mid-afternoon (in Europe), just as businesses were winding down for the weekend, and as a result the full impact of the forced system shutdowns would not be fully felt over the weekend when businesses and infrastructure are generally operating at a subdued pace. However, with the weekend coming to a close, the full extent of the inflicted damage may become apparent in just a few hours.

That was the warning by Europol Executive Director Rob Wainwright who on ITV’s “Peston on Sunday” broadcast, said that additional disruptions are likely as people return to work Monday and turn on their desktop systems, and as a result the "unrivaled" global cyberattack is poised to continue claiming victims.

The moment @Peston pushed the Director of @Europol @rwainwright67 over whether the Government ignored their advice on cyber crime #Peston pic.twitter.com/8WluSuMYkZ

— Peston on Sunday (@pestononsunday) May 14, 2017

Speaking to ITV’s, Wainwright added the attack was indiscriminate across the private and public sectors.

“At the moment we are in the face of an escalating threat, the numbers are going up, I am worried about how the numbers will continue to grow when people go to work and turn their machines on Monday morning."

“The latest count is over 200,000 victims in at least 150 countries. Many of those will be businesses including large corporations.”

“We’ve seen the rise of ransomware becoming the principal threat, I think, but this is something we haven’t seen before -- the global reach is unprecedented,” Wainwright also said. He also said that organisations across the globe, including investigators from the National Crime Agency (NCA), are now working non-stop to hunt down those responsible for the ransomware.

As we reported on Saturday, the initial attack was halted when a security researcher disabled a key mechanism used by the worm to spread, but experts said the hackers were likely to mount a second attack because so many users of personal computers with Microsoft operating systems couldn’t or didn’t download a security patch released in March that Microsoft had labeled “critical.” Microsoft said in a blog post Saturday that it was taking the “highly unusual“ step of providing the patch for older versions of Windows it was otherwise no longer supporting, including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

As the WSJ confirms, the attacks could worsen on Monday morning because of how the virus works.

The virus contains two parts. One is the ransomware, which locks the computer files and displays a message saying that the files will be locked and eventually destroyed unless the user sends payment over the internet to the hacker.

The other part is known as the "spreader." Once the virus makes its way onto one computer--perhaps when a user opens an infected email attachment--the spreader transmits itself to other computers on the network.

The British researcher, who wishes to be identified only as MalwareTech, found a kill switch in the spreader. The spreader was designed to contact a web address to see whether it should further spread itself, but hackers hadn"t bought that web address. So MalwareTech did, and effectively stopped the virus"s spread. It meant that one computer in a network could be infected, but the worm wouldn"t spread to the rest of the network.

Cybersecurity experts expect the latest versions of the worm to have no kill switch for the spreader. So when workers return to the office Monday morning and turn on their computers, they might open an infected email attachment or connect an already-infected laptop to their organization"s non-security-patched network and spread the worm.

There was some good news: having tipped their hand on Friday, and allowing hacking countermeasures to be implemented, about 97% of U.K. facilities and doctors disabled by the attack were back to normal operation, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Saturday after a government meeting. As reported on Friday, at the height of the attack Friday and early Saturday, 48 organizations in the NHS were affected, and hospitals in London, North West England and Central England urged people with non-emergency conditions to stay away as technicians tried to stop the spread of the malicious software.

“There will be lessons to learn from what appears to be the biggest criminal cyber-attack in history,” Rudd said cited by Bloomberg in response to a letter from Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow secretary of state for health.

Meanwhile, according to Tom Robinson, chief operating officer and co-founder of Elliptic Enterprises Ltd., a ransomware consultant that works with banks and companies, victims have already paid about $30,000 in ransom so far, with the total expected to rise substantially next week, said . Robinson, in an interview by email, said he calculated the total based on payments tracked to Bitcoin addresses specified in the ransom demands. The number, which is likely a conservative estimate, will only embolden the hackers to become even more aggressive in their next attack.

Ransomware is a particularly stubborn problem because victims are often tricked into allowing the malicious software to run on their computers, and the encryption happens too fast for security software to catch it. Some security expects calculate that ransomware may bring in as much as $1 billion a year in revenue for the attackers.

According to Bloomberg, last year an acute-care hospital in Hollywood paid $17,000 in bitcoin to an extortionist who hijacked its computer systems and forced doctors and staff to revert to pen and paper for record-keeping.

On one hand, it is probable that the weekend gave many companies the opportunity to prepare for the next ransomware attack: "While any sized company could be vulnerable, many large organizations with robust security departments would have prioritized the update that Microsoft released in March and wouldn’t be vulnerable to Friday’s attack."

Even so, it does not explain why some of the world"s biggest corporations were so strikingly unprepared for Friday"s events. 

A spokesman for Spain’s Telefonica SA said the hack affected some employees at its headquarters, but the phone company is attacked frequently and the impact of Friday’s incident wasn’t major. FedEx said it was “experiencing interference,” the Associated Press reported.

Renault halted production at some factories to stop the virus from spreading, a spokesman said Saturday, while Nissan’s U.K. car plant in Sunderland, in northeast England, was affected without causing any major impact on business, an official said.

In Germany, Deutsche Bahn faced “technical disruptions” on electronic displays at train stations, but travel was unaffected, the company said in a statement on its website. Newspaper reports showed images of a ransomware message on display screens blocking train information.

Russia’s Interior Ministry, with oversight of the police forces, said about “1,000 computers were infected,” which it described as less than 1 percent of the total, according to its website.

Indonesia’s government reported two hospitals in Jakarta were affected.

Meanwhile, the latest anti-Russia narrative is growing.

"There is a high probability that Russian-language cybercriminals were behind the attack" said Aleks Gostev, chief cybersecurity expert for Kaspersky Labs. “Ransomware is traditionally their topic,” he said. “The geography of attacks that hit post-Soviet Union most also suggests that.” In retrospect, what more convenient confluence of events could there be than having a handy justification for Q2 GDP missing again - just blame it on the computer virus - and accusing Russia of being responsible for the latest global slowdown.

How To Protect Your Online Privacy Now That Congress Sold You Out

Authored by Eric Limer via Popular Mechanics

All your private online data—the websites you visit, the content of your chats and emails, your health info, and your location—just became suddenly less secure. Not because of hackers, but because Congress just blocked crucial privacy regulations. This will allow your internet service provider to collect all your data and sell that info to the highest bidder without asking you first. Welcome to a brave new world.

A pair of resolutions, which passed through the Senate and House with exclusively Republican votes, roll back rules proposed by the Democratic leadership of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration which, though passed in October, had not yet gone into effect.

The rules—which will be completely dead following the expected signature of President Trump—would have required ISPs to get explicit opt-in approval from customers before selling the following "sensitive data":

 

This doesn"t just mean that sharing that information without your explicit permission will be fine and dandy. Since the rules were rolled back through the Congressional Review Act, the FCC is also barred from creating any "substantially similar" rules down the line.

In theory, the information collected will be stored under some sort of ID separate from your actual name. But that"s a cold comfort considering the level of detail in this sort of information would make your identity a dead giveaway, and ISPs can hardly be trusted to keep your identifying information suitably safe from prying eyes. After all, they"ll be building dossiers any hacker would love to steal.

What to do? There are a few things you can do to try and keep your data safe, and while they aren"t necessarily easy or free, they"re worth it if you value your privacy.

Opt out with your ISP

Your ISP may not need your permission to sell your data, but you can still go to them and tell them not to do it. The catch, of course, is this requires you to be proactive, and there"s no real guarantee that this will protect you completely. Still, do it. Get on the phone or visit the website of your ISP and opt out of every ad-related thing—and into every privacy-related thing—you can find. The process can be a little arduous—often requiring the use of your ISP-given email address that you probably never use—and it may not take effect immediately either. All the better reason to do it now.

Time Warner/Spectrum customers can find their privacy dashboard here. Comcast customers can opt out of some targeted programs using these instructions. Verizon customers can find opt out options here. Remember, your phone company is technically an ISP too, so look up your options on that front as well.

Opting out is an important first step, but it is not enough to actually preserve your privacy. Your ISP is not necessarily giving you the opportunity to opt out of all its ad-targeting programs. As the policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute, Eric Null, told Gizmodo, it is "highly unlikely" the new FCC will go after ISPs that aren"t offering robust opportunities to opt-out.

Some smaller ISPs, which survive on small and satisfied customer bases as opposed to a large and captive audience, are more incentivized to protect your privacy with gusto. In fact, a whole host of small ISPs wrote a letter to Congress opposing this move. If you"re lucky enough to have the option of switching to one, now might be a good time.

Keep your data out of your ISP"s hands in the first place

Your ISP is uniquely suited to snoop on your information. Anything you put online has to pass through its hands. Email you send through Gmail, chats through Facebook Messenger—they all travel through your ISP before they reach the service that actually sends them on. But while it is impossible to cut your ISP out of this exchange entirely, you can hide the data as you are sending it.

Apps with end-to-end encryption can encrypt your private information on the phone or computer you"re using, ensuring that it is coded and protected through the entire delivery process. So while your ISP can see the data go by, they can"t make sense of it.

Secure chat apps like Signal will be crucial to keep your chats private not only from the government and hackers, but from your ISP. Just make sure these services have security measures that are open-source and trusted by experts who can help keep them honest. You can also encrypt data manually, using a standard like PGP, before you send it off into the web, but it can be an arduous process, because you have to ensure that the recipient has the means to decode that info and read it.

The most seamless solution is to pay for a Virtual Private Network—a VPN—which allows you to encrypt all the data that passes through your ISP. This means that while your ISP is still doing the work of hauling your data around, it can"t understand any of it. The downside to this is that VPNs (at least any VPNs you can trust) are not free. Most good ones will require a yearly subscription. Furthermore, you aren"t hiding your personal data from everyone, you are just entrusting it to the VPN instead of your ISP, so do your research and choose a VPN you trust not to sell you out. Fortunately, since VPNs exist exclusively to keep your data private, they are pretty incentivized to keep you happy.

The only one you can really trust to protect you is you.

The short and uncomfortable truth is this: Until more robust privacy protections are put in place, the burden of protecting your online data falls on you. Keep it in mind, do your research, and remember that your monopolized ISP has every reason in the world to sell you out and wring your data for every dime that it is worth. The only one you can really trust to protect you is you.

Relax, Global Citizen; The CIA Is Benign & Benevolent

Authored by Pepe Escobar via Asia Times,

The massive WikiLeaks Vault 7 release is an extremely important public service. It’s hard to find anyone not concerned by a secret CIA hacking program targeting virtually the whole planet – using malware capable of bypassing encryption protection on any device from iOS to Android, and from Windows to Samsung TVs.

In a series of tweets, Edward Snowden confirmed the CIA program and said code names in the documents are real; that they could only be known by a “cleared insider;” the FBI and CIA knew all about the digital loopholes, but kept them open to spy; and that the leaks provided the “first public evidence” that the US government secretly paid to keep US software unsafe.

If that’s not serious enough, WikiLeaks alleges that “the CIA has lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal;” several hundred million lines of code — more than what is used to run Facebook.

Someone among the former US government hackers and contractors ended up leaking portions of the CIA archive (Snowden II?). WikiLeaks also stressed how the CIA had created, in effect, its “own NSA” – maximum unaccountability included.

Even though millions already knew – without the technical details – that they were being spied upon by their iPhone or their 4K Samsung, the Vault 7 revelations are far more relevant – and practical – to the average citizen than the 24/7 hysteria fingering President Trump as a Putin puppet. Intel sources are volunteering the – still unexplored – Vault 7 treasure trove is more crucial than what Snowden himself revealed.

And still, vast corporate media sectors embedded with the neocon/neoliberal galaxy are spinning that Vault 7 benefits Trump by changing the subject from alleged Russian hacking interference in the US elections and possible Obama administration-ordered hacks of Team Trump’s communications.

So, if anyone hasn’t got the message, the song remains the same.

• WikiLeaks + Snowden + Russia + Trump = the bad guys.


• CIA deploying its own NSA around the world = the good guys.

After all, CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu duly issued a non-denial denial.

Loony mainstream factions are even advancing that “the Russians” leaked the CIA info to WikiLeaks, thus fueling more suspicion that Russia will interfere in upcoming French and German elections.

May I have an Orwellian iPhone, please?

As we’re mired deep in an Orwellian total screen environment, already conceptualized by Baudrillard in the go-go 1980s, nothing so trivial as the technical proof we’re all being spied upon could alter the (im)balance. The US is already ravaged by a vicious sociopolitical war – and no “threat” to established narratives allows for nuance.

The implication is that, as it stands, there won’t be a US-Russia reset anytime soon – despite hosting invitations from Iceland, Finland or Slovenia; the neocon/neoliberal galaxy nestled in powerful deep state factions will do their best to deny it.

It hardly matters that Trump absolutely does not want war: his entire domestic US economy remix could not possibly allow it. The Pentagon now is essentially an extended special ops unit: it cannot possibly fight a land war (Iran? North Korea? Ukraine?)

Russia, on the other hand, would be ready for war if needs be. The S-500 missile defense system is being deployed: some analysts (not the Ministry of Defense) are sure it’s already protecting the whole Russian landmass. China, by 2021, will have more than 1,000 very mobile warheads, or hidden in those submarines lounging in Hainan. By that time, both Iran and Pakistan will be deep into a strategic defense network with Russia-China, via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, shielded with their own S-400 and S-500 systems.

Putin is not playing chess. He’s playing Go — and if we look at the board, reality is indeed painful.

Moscow is all but deciding the practical future of Syria, in Astana. Russia virtually wrote the Minsk II agreements, routinely broken by Kiev. Crimea as part of Russia is a fait accompli. Novorossiya for all practical purposes is already a totally autonomous region, with the economy working in rubles. Erdogan owes his imminent regime change in reverse – a presidential sultanate? – to Putin, as Russia warned him about the military coup hours in advance, according to several Russian media sources. Moscow protected Iran’s energy industry during the hardcore OPEC negotiations. Putin all but designed the Russia-China strategic partnership.

Beijing has managed to convince Moscow that One Belt, One Road and the Eurasia Economic Union should be connected, merged and tackled as a win-win Eurasia integration process. If Russia eventually loses economic preeminence across the Central Asian “stans,” it maintains its paramount military/security status.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov never ceases to stress that “our relations with China are at their best level ever in our two countries’ history.”

Add to it a geo-economic gambit; hints of key factions of European business elites getting ready to hitch themselves to China’s growing – slowly but surely – monetary/financial clout, linked to Beijing’s imperative of preventing a collapse of global supply chains. Xi Jinping’s “inclusive globalization,” announced in Davos, sounds more and more like a reality in the making.

In contrast to reality, where China-Russia expand their strategies without exceptionalist illusions, 24/7 neocon/neoliberal hysteria offers a constant barrage of childish, pathetic eruptions. As the self-delusion school of foreign policy refuses to admit Moscow will not sell out China and Iran for a deal with Washington, the last refuge of the scoundrels is cognitive dissonance; fear of Russia incited to cold war 2.0 heights.

So, relax, global citizen; the CIA is benign and benevolent, even when they’re watching you. You have nothing to fear but fear itself – and its name is Russia.

Q&A: How Can I Stop My TV Spying On Me?

Following today"s publication, by WikiLeaks, of documents exposing the CIA"s secret hacking program - describing tools that can turn a world of increasingly networked, camera- and microphone-equipped devices into eavesdroppers, AP"s Frank Bajak answers the public"s biggest questions. Bajak warns consumers, there"s "not much you can do if you don"t want to sacrifice the benefits of the device," but offers a silver-lining of sorts for the average joe, the "tools that appear to be targeted at specific people"s (devices).. and many intrusion tools are for delivery via "removable device"."

Smart televisions and automobiles now have on-board computers and microphones, joining the ubiquitous smartphones, laptops and tablets that have had microphones and cameras as standard equipment for a decade. That the CIA has created tools to turn them into listening posts surprises no one in the security community.

Q: HOW WORRIED SHOULD CONSUMERS BE?

A: The intrusion tools highlighted by the leak do not appear to be instruments of mass surveillance. So, it"s not as if everyone"s TV or high-tech vehicle is at risk.

"It"s unsurprising, and also somewhat reassuring, that these are tools that appear to be targeted at specific people"s (devices) by compromising the software on them — as opposed to tools that decrypt the encrypted traffic over the internet," said Matt Blaze, a University of Pennsylvania computer scientist.

The exploits appear to emphasize targeted attacks, such as collecting keystrokes or silently activating a Samsung TV"s microphone while the set is turned off. In fact, many of the intrusion tools described in the documents are for delivery via "removable device."

Q: WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT A COMPROMISED INTERNET-CONNECTED DEVICE FROM COMMUNICATING WITH SPIES?

A: Not much if you don"t want to sacrifice the benefits of the device.

"Anything that is voice-activated or that has voice- and internet-connected functionality is susceptible to these types of attacks," said Robert M. Lee, a former U.S. cyberwar operations officer and CEO of the cybersecurity company Dragos.

That includes smart TVs and voice-controlled information devices like the Amazon Echo, which can read news, play music, close the garage door and turn up the thermostat. An Amazon Echo was enlisted as a potential witness in an Arkansas murder case.

To ensure a connected device can"t spy on you, unplug it from the grid and the internet and remove the batteries, if that"s possible. Or perhaps don"t buy it, especially if you don"t especially require the networked features and the manufacturer hasn"t proven careful on security.

Security experts have found flaws in devices — like WiFi-enabled dolls — with embedded microphones and cameras.

Q: I USE WHATSAPP AND SIGNAL FOR VOICE AND TEXT COMMUNICATION BECAUSE OF THEIR STRONG ENCRYPTION. CAN THE EXPLOITS DESCRIBED IN THE WIKILEAKS DOCUMENTS BREAK THEM?

A: No. But exploits designed to infiltrate the operating system on your Android smartphone, iPhone, iPad or Windows-based computer can read your messages or listen in on conversations on the compromised device itself, though communications are encrypted in transit.

"The bad news is that platform exploits are very powerful," Blaze tweeted. "The good news is that they have to target you in order to read your messages."

He and other experts say reliably defending against a state-level adversary is all but impossible. And the CIA was planting microphones long before we became networked.

Q: I"M NOT A HIGH-VALUE TARGET. BUT I STILL WANT TO PROTECT MYSELF. HOW?

A: It may sound boring, but it"s vital: Keep all your operating systems patched and up-to-date, and don"t click links or open email attachments unless you are sure they are safe.

There will always be exploits of which antivirus companies are not aware until it"s too late. These are known as zero-day exploits because no patches are available and victims have zero time to prepare. The CIA, National Security Agency and plenty of other intelligence agencies purchase and develop them.

But they don"t come cheap. And most of us are hardly worth it.

Source: AP

Britain Passes The "Snooper Charter" Ending All Privacy

Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

Britain has passed what everyone calls the “snooper’s charter” otherwise known as the Investigatory Powers Bill.

This new legislation establishes the legal framework authorizing the government to hack into devices, networks and services in bulk and to create vast databases of personal information on all UK citizens. This is a preliminary step for a movement to impose worldwide taxation on Brits.

This is really to hunt money, not terrorism.

The “snooper’s charter” requires internet, phone and communication app companies to store records for 12 months and allow authorities to access them whenever they demand. That data will include anything you look at or search on the internet as well as all your telephone calls and text messages. Meanwhile, security agencies will be able to force companies to decrypt data avoiding the Apple confrontation in the USA. They are also imposing limitations on the use of end-to-end encryption.

They want EVERYTHING you do. This has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with terrorism.

This is the hunt for taxes coming to a head in 2017.

Here"s a reminder, via Wired.com"s Matt Burgess, of what the legislation includes:

Hacking power

For the first time, security services will be able to hack into computers, networks, mobile devices, servers and more under the proposed plans. The practice is known as equipment interference and is set out in part 5, chapter 2, of the IP Bill.

This could include downloading data from a mobile phone that is stolen or left unattended, or software that tracks every keyboard letter pressed being installed on a laptop.

"More complex equipment interference operations may involve exploiting existing vulnerabilities in software in order to gain control of devices or networks to remotely extract material or monitor the user of the device," a draft code of conduct says.

The power will be available to police forces and intelligence services. Warrants must be issued for the hacking to take place.

Bulk hacking

For those not living in the UK, but who have come to the attention of the security agencies, the potential to be hacked increases. Bulk equipment interference (chapter 3 of the IP Bill) allows for large scale hacks in "large operations".

Data can be gathered from "a large number of devices in the specified location". A draft code of practice says a foreign region (although it does not give a size) where terrorism is suspected could be targeted, for instance. As a result, it is likely the data of innocent people would be gathered.

Security and intelligence agencies must apply for a warrant from the Secretary of State and these groups are the only people who can complete bulk hacks.

Commissioners

To help oversee the new powers, the Home Office is introducing new roles to approve warrants and handle issues that arise from the new powers. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC) and judicial commissioners (part 8, chapter 1 of the IP Bill) will be appointed by Theresa May, or whoever the serving prime minister is at the time.

The IPC will be a senior judge and be supported by other high court judges. "The IPC will audit compliance and undertake investigations," the government says.

"The Commissioner will report publicly and make recommendations on what he finds in the course of his work," guidance on the original bill says (page 6). "He will also publish guidance when it is required on the proper use of investigatory powers."

Web records

Under the IP Bill, security services and police forces will be able to access communications data when it is needed to help their investigations. This means internet history data (Internet Connection Records, in official speak) will have to be stored for 12 months.

Communications service providers, which include everything from internet companies and messenger services to postal services, will have to store meta data about the communications made through their services.

The who, what, when, and where will have to be stored. This will mean your internet service provider stores that you visited WIRED.co.uk to read this article, on this day, at this time and where from (i.e. a mobile device). This will be done for every website visited for a year.

Web records and communications data is detailed under chapter 3, part 3 of the law and warrants are required for the data to be accessed. A draft code of practice details more information on communications data.

Bulk data sets

As well as communications data being stored, intelligence agencies will also be able to obtain and use "bulk personal datasets". These mass data sets mostly include a "majority of individuals" that aren"t suspected in any wrongdoing but have been swept-up in the data collection.

These (detailed under part 7 of the IP Bill and in a code of practice), as well as warrants for their creation and retention must be obtained.

"Typically these datasets are very large, and of a size which means they cannot be processed manually," the draft code of practice describes the data sets as. These types of databases can be created from a variety of sources.

Finally, we leave it to Edward Snowden to summarize just how insane this bill is...

The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes farther than many autocracies. https://t.co/yvmv8CoHrj

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 17, 2016