cryptogon.com
   HOME
9/5/2003



Adrian Lamo Wanted by the FBI for Allegedly 0wNinG nytimes.com :.

Adrian Lamo has been a hero of mine ever since I first heard of his exploits in mid 2001. The guy didn't seem real....a homeless kid with an old laptop (missing a couple of keys, according to legend) repeatedly walks right into some of the highest profile networks....using only a web browser? Man, I used to laugh my ass off reading about Lamo's activities and techniques. His persistent, systematic and intuitive nature really impressed me. When I was stuck with figuring out some problem on a server in the middle of the night, I would think about Lamo's way of doing things, and eventually I'd find the solution. I also respected him because he unselfishly helped the companies fix their problems. Did he ever ask for payment? In one case, I think he said that the PHBs gave him a fifty cent bottle of water while he worked on patching holes in a multi-million dollar network.

What do you think the chances are of actually meeting Adrian Lamo? Well, I think I saw him once.

I used to frequent a 24hour donut/coffee place in Costa Mesa, CA. I went in there once at around 3am and saw a guy in his early 20s, sitting at a table, using an old laptop. His backpack was sitting on the floor next to him. I didn't think anything of it, at first. After buying a coffee (or was it a doughnut), I turned to walk out. I got a better look at him, you know, a little more than the customary glance, and he looked back at me. I started to grin, just a little bit, like, "You're Adrian Lamo, aren't you?" and he grinned back, just a little.

Nahhhhh, it can't be, I said to myself and walked out the door.

It was only after I was in my car and driving away that I remembered that there was a Kinkos about 100 yards away from that doughnut place. In case you don't know, Adrian Lamo often uses Kinkos networks to get online.

So, was it him? I'm not sure. Maybe. Maybe not.

UPDATE: I don't know why, but I never thought to look for pictures of Lamo to verify if it was him. Until now. After looking at several pictures of him online, I'm about 85% sure that it was Adrian Lamo sitting in that doughnut shop that night. I wish I would have said hello.

I just registered freeadrianlamo.org to provide a central location for updates on his case and to raise money for his legal defense, if that becomes necessary. If the Lamo family and their legal team would like control of freeadrianlamo.org, I would be happy to give it to them.

From the article:

FBI agents armed with a federal arrest warrant out of New York were searching for Adrian Lamo Thursday, according to the hacker and his mother.

In a telephone interview, Lamo said he was in California, but does not plan to turn himself in until after conferring with the attorney. The hacker was quick-witted and seemingly in good humor, with only a trace of nervousness in his voice. He quipped about the proper etiquette of being arrested by the FBI, and suggested jokingly that SecurityFocus should purchase the publication rights to a favorite photo. He said he was in the company of a camera crew producing a television documentary on hackers.

"I have always said that actions have consequences, and this is something that I was always aware might happen," said Lamo. "I don't intend to deny anything that I have done, but I do intend to defend myself vigorously."

The 22-year-old Lamo has become famous for publicly exposing gaping security holes at large corporations, then voluntarily helping the companies fix the vulnerabilities he exploited -- sometimes visiting their offices or signing non-disclosure agreements in the process.

Until now, his cooperation and transparency have kept him from being prosecuted. Lamo's hacked Excite@Home, Yahoo, Blogger, and other companies, usually using nothing more than an ordinary Web browser. Some companies have even professed gratitude for his efforts: In December, 2001, Lamo was praised by communications giant WorldCom after he discovered, then helped close, security holes in their intranet that threatened to expose the private networks of Bank of America, CitiCorp, JP Morgan, and others.

Lamo believes the arrest warrant is for his most high-profile hack. Early last year he penetrated the New York Times, after a two-minute scan turned up seven misconfigured proxy servers acting as doorways between the public Internet and the Times private intranet, making the latter accessible to anyone capable of properly configuring their Web browser.

Once inside, Lamo exploited weaknesses in the Times password policies to broaden his access, eventually browsing such disparate information as the names and Social Security numbers of the paper's employees, logs of home delivery customers' stop and start orders, instructions and computer dial-ups for stringers to file stories, lists of contacts used by the Metro and Business desks, and the "WireWatch" keywords particular reporters had selected for monitoring wire services.

He also accessed a database of 3,000 contributors to the Times op-ed page, containing such information as the social security numbers for former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler, Democratic operative James Carville, ex-NSA chief Bobby Inman, Nannygate veteran Zoe Baird, former secretary of state James Baker, Internet policy thinker Larry Lessig, and thespian activist Robert Redford. Entries with home telephone numbers include Lawrence Walsh, William F. Buckley Jr., Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Rush Limbaugh, Vint Cerf, Warren Beatty and former president Jimmy Carter.

In February, 2002, Lamo told the Times of their vulnerability through a SecurityFocus reporter. But this time, no one was grateful, and by May federal prosecutors in New York had begun an investigation.

"I think this is unsporting of the New York Times," Lamo said Thursday.


9/4/2003



The New World Order Elite Has Big Plans for Arnold :.

This is a detailed summary of the Schwarzenegger nonsense from Alex Jones. My hat is off to Alex for being able to compose himself long enough to lay all of this out in one essay. I couldn't do the same. I can't stare into concentrated evil like this and emerge on the other end with anything worth reading. I just start swearing and mumbling to myself:

Most Americans think of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a charismatic bodybuilder who became a famous Hollywood actor and then married into the Kennedy clan. Just beneath the surface of Arnold's fa�ade lies an intricate web of evil including Nazi war criminals, occult rituals, a Rothschild rendezvous, a friendship with once head of the UN and known Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, Warren Buffett (the oracle of Omaha) and many others.





Israeli Sleeper Agents Mobilizing for 9-11 :.

In an unprecedented move, Israel has secretly mobilized its estimated 15,000 sleeper agents �known as sayanim�across America. For the past month, in the utmost secrecy, they have been briefed by former Mossad operations director, Raphael (Rafi) Eitan, on how to update the defense systems of synagogues, Jewish religious schools, Jewish banks, and other Jewish-owned institutions.





Electronic Voting: Your Worst Nightmares Are True :.

I don't normally pay any attention to the electronic voting issue. It's such an obvious fraud, what more can one say about it? But this is a pretty good one:

"On Democracy Now Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting fame, disclosed (near the end of the transcript) that in the compromised 1.8Gigs off Diebold's FTP site they uncovered "an actual election file containing actual votes on election day from San Luis Obispo County, California". Problem is, the date stamp was 3:31pm - during voting hours! The Diebold system uses a wireless network card. Worse: "So that means if they can pull the information in, they can also send information back into those machines."





Ex-Goldman Sachs Economist Indicted :.

A consultant illegally tipped Goldman Sachs & Co. that the government would end sales of its benchmark bonds, leading to millions of dollars in tainted profits for the Wall Street firm, officials charged Thursday.

The consultant, Peter Davis, frantically worked his cell phone to get the information to a Goldman senior economist minutes ahead of its public release on Oct. 31, 2001, according to an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court.

The news that the Treasury Department would end sales of its key 30-year bonds triggered the largest single-day rally in U.S. bonds since October 1987, when the market for stocks crashed and investors fled to bonds.

On that morning in 2001, a call by Davis to Goldman economist John Youngdahl gave the firm an eight-minute edge on the rest of the market � enough time to turn a $3.8 million profit, the indictment said.

"Goldman traders began trading like there was no tomorrow," U.S. Attorney James Comey told reporters. "And in the case of the 30-year treasury bond, there was no tomorrow."


This is peanuts. What GS does on an average trading day makes this look like a boyscout exercise.





Phoenix Developing DRM-Equipped BIOS :.

They say the purpose of this is stop piracy. Actually, the purpose of a Digital Rights Management enabled BIOS is to eliminate anonymity and enable point and click surveillance of every individual computer user's activities. The article states:

The Orbid DRM software will be built into the cME, which provides an enhanced BIOS that allows greater interaction with the operating system. While the cME isn't directly a part of Microsoft's Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), known previously as Palladium, Eades said the technology is "complementary".

Bullshit. Microsoft's DRM plans REQUIRE DRM mechanisms at the hardware level. It won't work without hardware integration. And I'll tell you something else that won't work: Try installing a non DRM operating system on that shiny new system! HAHAHA! The End.

Anyway, talking about stopping DRM is about as productive as pissing into the wind or betting against the sun rising in the morning.





Ordo ab Chao: U.S. Offers to Report to U.N. on Iraq :.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday started a major diplomatic effort to internationalize peacekeeping of Iraq, circulating a resolution that would have the U.S. military reporting to the United Nations.





None of This Shit Means Anything

I can barely bring myself to post. I'm burned out. Here, read about a no-talent tramp kissing a gap-toothed whore. That's news. And take this great wisdom to heart:

"Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that."

--- Britney Spears

Oh my God. Total annihilation would be an improvement on this horror show. But that's too much to hope for. We're not that lucky.


9/2/2003



Kelly Murder, Sloppy Work :.

Take it with a grain of salt. Take it any way you can:

...a contact of mine, a former MI6 spook, was speaking about the circumstances of Kelly's death. He said he's been taught how to "make anything look like anything" and said that there must have been some kind of struggle at the scene of Kelly's death. He said it was sloppy work that Kelly's body was found with enough pills for an overdose but hadn't ingested them, he said that should have been removed from the scene under normal procedure. He added "You can slit someone's wrists and make it look like suicide easily but it's a lot harder to make someone swallow tablets." He also said the heart monitor pads found on Kelly's chest were "simply there to make sure he was dead." He also said those should have been removed and suspects the agents involved were disturbed by someone in the process of the killing.





Email Becoming Unusable Because of Spam, Internet Publishers Switching to RSS :.

This article hits very close home. I am now responsible for establishing web sites and list publishing capabilities for an organization that will grow to a minimum of 10,000 clients, and possibly as many as 300,000. I am seriously considering RSS syndication instead of email lists because of ISP blacklisting, virus and worm problems. Sadly, email is becoming unusable for many people. This is extremely ironic because email is probably the most incredible use of information technology ever devised.

I really like RSS. You'd never know it because there is no good RSS feed of Cryptogon, but I've been thinking about upgrading to Blogger Pro which automatically generates RSS. A couple of readers have asked for this feature, and I'd really like to provide it. There's a thing called BlogMatrix that scrapes Cryptogon on occasion, but what use is an old RSS feed?

Is anyone out there delivering content via RSS? Are people going for it, compared to email? Do normals have any trouble using the aggregators? Which readers do you recommend? (I use feedreader, myself.) My feeds will reside on .htaccess controlled Apache directories. In early testing, this seems to work grand. What problems, if any, are posed by doing this? Which feed readers are best for accessing private RSS feeds? How to you generate your RSS files? Is Blogger Pro a good way to do it? Does CSS work in RSS!? As usual, more questions than answers, but thanks for any info.

Interesting article:

With scam artists, spammers and virus writers all using the e-mail inbox as the main target, it has become a daily nightmare for legitimate online publishers and marketers to cope with mail filters, blacklists and irate subscribers.

Enter RSS , the XML syndication format that allows publishers to shuttle content to news aggregators, avoiding the e-mail chaos altogether.

"E-mail is dead, period," declares Chris Pirillo, the Internet entrepreneur who distributes about 400,000 e-mail newsletters weekly. "I don't care what kind of legislation goes through, people aren't signing up for newsletters anymore. People are assuming that every e-mail publisher is a spammer."

Pirillo's Lockergnome has begun actively directing subscribers away from e-mail subscriptions, touting RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) instead as a foolproof way to avoid the spam bottleneck.


8/31/2003



The Memory Holes in Google :.

We need an open source search system. DMOZ is a start, but that's more of an edited index. No human operated system can ever approach a Google-scale search capability. The folks at the Nutch project have the right idea, but it's just an idea at the moment.

As far as I'm concerned, all corporate controlled search engines are potential memory holes*. If someone can force Google to censor searches for file trading software, what do you think Uncle Sam is capable of compelling Google to censor? Keep in mind, Google refused paid advertising from me because they felt that Cryptogon promoted hate speech.

"If you search Google for Kazaa Lite, you'll find the results a bit lacking. Ironically enough, Sharman Networks, using the DMCA, filed a legal complaint to block Kazaa Lite sites. " Google links the DMCA request at the end of the results which contain the URLs in question, but the URLs aren't really the point. It's scary that the DMCA makes URLs a copyright violation. How long before libraries can't index books? Or own them?

* If you don't know what a memory hole is, read 1984 by George Orwell.




Google


cryptogon.com
www

:. Reading

Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell Readers will come to see that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest" - fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross This is a relatively short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward; the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.

The Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing
Helen and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating, timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.

Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd In Silent Theft, David Bollier argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs, software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often, however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps give away our assets. Amazingly, the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed because we have lost our ability to see the commons.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide by John Seymour The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten When Corporations Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It documents the devastating human and environmental consequences of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their own narrow ends.

The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener This expansion of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables, with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock, the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other topics.