Al Franken: ‘They're coming after the Internet’

[Calz]

AUSTIN, Texas — Sen. Al Franken claimed Monday that big corporations are "hoping to destroy" the Internet and issued a call to arms to several hundred tech-savvy South by Southwest attendees to preserve net neutrality.

"I came here to warn you, the party may be over," Franken said. "They're coming after the Internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51266.html#ixzz1Gj5MjMcV

[modwiz]

I always felt that what Atticus said about the elite needing the internet rang true. I am just agreeing with what he said and not positing him as an authority or last word on this. My gut tells me this is true.

So, maybe Sen. Franken is looking to position himself as an internet protector to help him with contributions.

I may be cynical but, he is a politician. In America.

Nuff said?

[Icecold]

This will spark a gigantic hacker war...if it gets under way.

[Calz]

I always felt that what Atticus said about the elite needing the internet rang true. I am just agreeing with what he said and not positing him as an authority or last word on this. My gut tells me this is true.

So, maybe Sen. Franken is looking to position himself as an internet protector to help him with contributions.

I may be cynical but, he is a politician. In America.

Nuff said?

Elite (corporations) need the internet but this isn't about taking it down altogether.

This is about changing the way it functions and thus placing "controls" on our best avenue for freedom of speech and exchanging information.

[Merkaba360]

why take it down when you can tax it and make it hierarchical like everything else.

And now that everyone is almost broke , only the top 10% will be able to afford anything of value. lol
Conspiracy information = Tier 81 = just $799 per month

I hope that is the last straw. IF they can pull this off and make us feel safer because of it, we are in real trouble. I don't know that I'll be online anymore.

In times of turmoil, I think bringing email down to snail mail speed might be most realistic.

lol

[InCiDeR]

This is about changing the way it functions and thus placing "controls" on our best avenue for freedom of speech and exchanging information.

...and exactly what makes you believe they are not in control now? ;)

[Icecold]

ECHELON

is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUSCANNZUKUS). It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.

ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence.[citation needed]

The system has been reported in a number of public sources. Its capabilities' and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001, and by author James Bamford in his books on the National Security Agency of the United States.
In its report, the European Parliament states that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system. The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links.
Bamford describes the system as the software controlling the collection and distribution of civilian telecommunications traffic conveyed using communication satellites, with the collection being undertaken by ground stations located in the footprint of the downlink leg.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/UKUSA_Map.svg/800px-UKUSA_Map.svg.png

Hardware

According to its website the USA's National Security Agency is "a high technology organization... on the frontiers of communications and data processing". In 1999 the Australian Senate Joint Standing Committee on Treaties was told by Professor Desmond Ball that the Pine Gap facility was used as a ground station for a satellite-based interception network. The satellites are said to be large radio dishes between 20 and 100 meters in diameter in geostationary orbits.[ The original purpose of the network was to monitor the telemetry from 1970s Soviet weapons, air defense radar, communications satellites and ground based microwave communications.

. "On the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system), (2001/2098(INI))

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN


http://news.cnet.com/NSA-eavesdropping-How-it-might-work/2100-1028_3-6035910.html

Interception Capabilities 2000
http://www.cyber-rights.org/interception/stoa/ic2kreport.htm#Report


http://www.cyber-rights.org/interception/stoa/ic2kreport.htm#_Toc448565537



Intercepting the Internet

53. The dramatic growth in the size and significance of the Internet and of related forms of digital communications has been argued by some to pose a challenge for Comint agencies. This does not appear correct. During the 1980s, NSA and its UKUSA partners operated a larger international communications network than the then Internet but based on the same technology.(33) According to its British partner "all GCHQ systems are linked together on the largest LAN [Local Area Network] in Europe, which is connected to other sites around the world via one of the largest WANs [Wide Area Networks] in the world ... its main networking protocol is Internet Protocol (IP).(34) This global network, developed as project EMBROIDERY, includes PATHWAY, the NSA's main computer communications network. It provides fast, secure global communications for ECHELON and other systems.
54. Since the early 1990s, fast and sophisticated Comint systems have been developed to collect, filter and analyse the forms of fast digital communications used by the Internet. Because most of the world's Internet capacity lies within the United States or connects to the United States, many communications in "cyberspace" will pass through intermediate sites within the United States. Communications from Europe to and from Asia, Oceania, Africa or South America normally travel via the United States.

55. Routes taken by Internet "packets" depend on the origin and destination of the data, the systems through which they enter and leaves the Internet, and a myriad of other factors including time of day. Thus, routers within the western United States are at their most idle at the time when central European traffic is reaching peak usage. It is thus possible (and reasonable) for messages travelling a short distance in a busy European network to travel instead, for example, via Internet exchanges in California. It follows that a large proportion of international communications on the Internet will by the nature of the system pass through the United States and thus be readily accessible to NSA.

56.Standard Internet messages are composed of packets called "datagrams" . Datagrams include numbers representing both their origin and their destination, called "IP addresses". The addresses are unique to each computer connected to the Internet. They are inherently easy to identify as to country and site of origin and destination. Handling, sorting and routing millions of such packets each second is fundamental to the operation of major Internet centres. The same process facilitates extraction of traffic for Comint purposes.

57. Internet traffic can be accessed either from international communications links entering the United States, or when it reaches major Internet exchanges. Both methods have advantages. Access to communications systems is likely to be remain clandestine - whereas access to Internet exchanges might be more detectable but provides easier access to more data and simpler sorting methods. Although the quantities of data involved are immense, NSA is normally legally restricted to looking only at communications that start or finish in a foreign country. Unless special warrants are issued, all other data should normally be thrown away by machine before it can be examined or recorded.

58. Much other Internet traffic (whether foreign to the US or not) is of trivial intelligence interest or can be handled in other ways. For example, messages sent to "Usenet" discussion groups amounts to about 15 Gigabytes (GB) of data per day; the rough equivalent of 10,000 books. All this data is broadcast to anyone wanting (or willing) to have it. Like other Internet users, intelligence agencies have open source access to this data and store and analyse it. In the UK, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency maintains a 1 Terabyte database containing the previous 90 days of Usenet messages.(35) A similar service, called "Deja News", is available to users of the World Wide Web (WWW). Messages for Usenet are readily distinguishable. It is pointless to collect them clandestinely.

59. Similar considerations affect the World Wide Web, most of which is openly accessible. Web sites are examined continuously by "search engines" which generate catalogues of their contents. "Alta Vista" and "Hotbot" are prominent public sites of this kind. NSA similarly employs computer "bots" (robots) to collect data of interest. For example, a New York web site known as JYA.COM (http://www.jya.com/crypto.htm) offers extensive public information on Sigint, Comint and cryptography. The site is frequently updated. Records of access to the site show that every morning it is visited by a "bot" from NSA's National Computer Security Centre, which looks for new files and makes copies of any that it finds.(36)

60. It follows that foreign Internet traffic of communications intelligence interest - consisting of e-mail, file transfers, "virtual private networks" operated over the internet, and some other messages - will form at best a few per cent of the traffic on most US Internet exchanges or backbone links. According to a former employee, NSA had by 1995 installed "sniffer" software to collect such traffic at nine major Internet exchange points (IXPs).(37) The first two such sites identified, FIX East and FIX West, are operated by US government agencies. They are closely linked to nearby commercial locations, MAE East and MAE West (see table). Three other sites listed were Network Access Points originally developed by the US National Science Foundation to provide the US Internet with its initial "backbone".

61. The same article alleged that a leading US Internet and telecommunications company had contracted with NSA to develop software to capture Internet data of interest, and that deals had been struck with the leading manufacturers Microsoft, Lotus, and Netscape to alter their products for foreign use. The latter allegation has proven correct (see technical annexe). Providing such features would make little sense unless NSA had also arranged general access to Internet traffic. Although NSA will not confirm or deny such allegations, a 1997 court case in Britain involving alleged "computer hacking" produced evidence of NSA surveillance of the Internet. Witnesses from the US Air Force component of NSA acknowledged using packet sniffers and specialised programmes to track attempts to enter US military computers. The case collapsed after the witnesses refused to provide evidence about the systems they had used.(39)

[InCiDeR]

Rootkit

A rootkit is software that enables continued privileged access to a computer while actively hiding its presence from administrators by subverting standard operating system functionality or other applications. The term rootkit is a concatenation of "root" (the traditional name of the privileged account on Unix operating systems) and the word "kit" (which refers to the software components that implement the tool). The term "rootkit" has negative connotations through its association with malware.[1]

Typically, an attacker installs a rootkit on a computer after first obtaining root-level access, either by exploiting a known vulnerability or by obtaining a password (either by cracking the encryption, or through social engineering). Once a rootkit is installed, it allows an attacker to mask the ongoing intrusion and maintain privileged access to the computer by circumventing normal authentication and authorization mechanisms. Although rootkits can serve a variety of ends, they have gained notoriety primarily as malware, hiding applications that appropriate computing resources or steal passwords without the knowledge of administrators and users of affected systems. Rootkits can target firmware, a hypervisor, the kernel, or—most commonly—user-mode applications.

Rootkit detection is difficult because a rootkit may be able to subvert the software that is intended to find it. Detection methods include using an alternate, trusted operating system; behavioral-based methods; signature scanning; difference scanning; and memory dump analysis. Removal can be complicated or practically impossible, especially in cases where the rootkit resides in the kernel; reinstallation of the operating system may be the only alternative.

Read more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit)


Among the first rootkits that were discovered, by accident, was in the Windows OS itself... wonder who put it there?!

[Icecold]

Sophos Anti-Rootkit

http://www.sophos.com/products/free-tools/sophos-anti-rootkit.html


LMAO,

I just found a rootkit on my box.

Edited by rootkit. lol

[InCiDeR]

Sophos Anti-Rootkit

http://www.sophos.com/products/free-tools/sophos-anti-rootkit.html


LMAO,

I just found a rootkit on my box.

Edited by rootkit. lol

:jester: :first:

LOL, you see people. They are everywhere!

[str8thinker]

It seems that Franken's time's come.

[Ammit]

This sounds more like Skynet from the Terminator film....

[Calz]

This is about changing the way it functions and thus placing "controls" on our best avenue for freedom of speech and exchanging information.

...and exactly what makes you believe they are not in control now? ;)

Guess you got me on that one :thumb:

Certainly net traffic has been monitored and stored for ... who knows ... almost as long as the internet has been here.

More to the point is having the net as an expression of free speech. China blocks many web sites (allegedly ... I don't live there). During a recent "test" here in the usa the gov knocked out 84,000 sites.

Yet for most of the world we have had mostly free access to post most anything.

If we didn't do you suspect (for example) David Icke could have videos going worldwide professing the queen to be a lizzie??? :scared:


Compare the PTB/W control over all other forms of mass communication vs that of the internet.

We do *NOT* want to lose that!!! :ballchain:

[InCiDeR]

If we didn't do you suspect (for example) David Icke could have videos going worldwide professing the queen to be a lizzie??? :scared:

Sometimes I see this quote as proof that we are not anywhere near the truth, next day I spend convincing myself I am wrong... LOL

Catz, thank you for this thread. I think this is very important matters to discuss. / InCiDeR

[Calz]

So, maybe Sen. Franken is looking to position himself as an internet protector to help him with contributions.

I may be cynical but, he is a politician. In America.

Nuff said?

With 90+ % of american politicians I would agree (wholeheartedly).

Franken is a bit different.

Since you are not from here I will elaborate.

Most of his (public) career was actually as a *COMEDIAN* mostly on Saturday Night Live.

Okay ... granted ... what better preparation for a politician that a COMIC??? :sarcastic:

Anyway ... not many but a few get to congress/senate without being a paid-off/boughten/comprimised stooge for the PTB/W.

I cannot offer "proof" regarding this guy except that he is not a career path politician.

He ran on a platform as being totally pissed off at what was going on.

Perhaps he is an honest guy ... or perhaps not. I dunno.

Just offering more info to those worldwide.

[Carmody]

Al Franken spent a notable amount of his comedic time ridiculing politics and politicians. As well, look up what his election process looked like, regarding actually obtaining the political seat he has. (extreme difficulties and dirty fighting)

IMO, Al deserves some support by the people. With regard to his 'potential' to be the real deal, to be an actual human elected who gives a damn (importantly: understands what he is up against), one who had to fight to get to where he is....I'd say that of all of the people in Washington DC right now, he's near the top of the list of people with 'impeccable credentials'.

[modwiz]

So, maybe Sen. Franken is looking to position himself as an internet protector to help him with contributions.

I may be cynical but, he is a politician. In America.

Nuff said?

With 90+ % of american politicians I would agree (wholeheartedly).

Franken is a bit different.

Since you are not from here I will elaborate.

Most of his (public) career was actually as a *COMEDIAN* mostly on Saturday Night Live.

Okay ... granted ... what better preparation for a politician that a COMIC??? :sarcastic:

Anyway ... not many but a few get to congress/senate without being a paid-off/boughten/comprimised stooge for the PTB/W.

I cannot offer "proof" regarding this guy except that he is not a career path politician.

He ran on a platform as being totally pissed off at what was going on.

Perhaps he is an honest guy ... or perhaps not. I dunno.

Just offering more info to those worldwide.

Thank Calz. As a New Yorker, home of Saturday Night Live, I have followed Al's career for a long time. I admire his humor and intellect greatly. I also am aware if the long battle he had with Norm Coleman. I believe Al Franken is a good man who is now involved in one of the largest organized crime syndicates in the world.

I will surmise he did not know what he was getting into. The depths of depravity in DC cannot be seen from the outside and there are even different circles of Hell once you join the club. One thing is for sure, you have to be Pro Israel or you are nobody in DC. I will not assume Al is a sympathizer simply because he is a member of the Tribe. Wizzy don't play that.

What does this have to do with the subject? It's connect the dots with what you know about politics in this country time.

I believe that Al Franken will, like Alan Grayson, try to do the best he can while swimming in the cesspool of DC.
Longevity will require wits and savvy and making use of meme winds to help raise the enormous sums of money that are needed to even stay viable as a candidate.
That he will make use of the public concern for a free internet is to be expected.

I agree with Carmody also,"I'd say that of all of the people in Washington DC right now, he's near the top of the list of people with 'impeccable credentials'.
That would make him a diamond in a dung heap. It took me awhile to see the absolute craven character of our political class.

I can thank Obama for taking my virginity in this matter.

I can be a bit of a stormcrow. Not a very pleasing role.

[Calz]

Thanks Modwiz.

I completely concur with your entire post but to keep the Mods happy will just snip:

Modwiz wrote:


I believe that Al Franken will, like Alan Grayson, try to do the best he can while swimming in the cesspool of DC.

That one sentence pretty much sums up what happens when people with *good* intent and a higher sense of morality make it to office.

I agree with Pete Petersen when he wondered why *anyone* would want to be president now.

*** late addition ***

I was going by your "flag" in my assumption you were not "from here" :)

btw - personal opinion only ... you should go back to your hooded avatar ... it was EXCELLENT :first:

[JoshERTW]

So, maybe Sen. Franken is looking to position himself as an internet protector to help him with contributions.

I may be cynical but, he is a politician. In America.

Nuff said?

With 90+ % of american politicians I would agree (wholeheartedly).

Franken is a bit different.

Since you are not from here I will elaborate.

Most of his (public) career was actually as a *COMEDIAN* mostly on Saturday Night Live.

Okay ... granted ... what better preparation for a politician that a COMIC??? :sarcastic:

Anyway ... not many but a few get to congress/senate without being a paid-off/boughten/comprimised stooge for the PTB/W.

I cannot offer "proof" regarding this guy except that he is not a career path politician.

He ran on a platform as being totally pissed off at what was going on.

Perhaps he is an honest guy ... or perhaps not. I dunno.

Just offering more info to those worldwide.

I believe the race he ran to get elected was super close too, and went to a "re-casting" of votes or something - this is just from memory, don't remember the details - but it seemed to me at the time that the PTB were trying to derail his plans to get into office, and that he rallied public support to get in partially because of the obvious campaign against him. Correct me if I'm wrong please

[Calz]

I believe the race he ran to get elected was super close too, and went to a "re-casting" of votes or something - this is just from memory, don't remember the details - but it seemed to me at the time that the PTB were trying to derail his plans to get into office, and that he rallied public support to get in partially because of the obvious campaign against him. Correct me if I'm wrong please

Your memory serves you well ...

[Calz]

It would appear the legal battle regarding "net neutrality" is not over (and this is *good* news):


House votes to overturn 'net neutrality' rules


WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US House of Representatives voted on Friday to overturn "net neutrality" rules aimed at ensuring an open Internet, setting the stage for a clash with the Senate and President Barack Obama.

The House voted 240-179 in favor of a Republican-backed resolution that seeks to block the rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).


http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/house-votes-to-overturn-net-neutrality.html