'Project Vigilant' Recruits At Defcon To Track You

angry tapir writes "A secretive volunteer group that tries to track terrorists and criminals on the Internet went to the Defcon hacker conference in hopes of recruiting information security experts, but it will first have to overcome some skepticism. That's because most information security professionals have never heard of the group, called Project Vigilant."

Comments

Why not just call their company "NSAFront"?

[elrous0]

It would be no less obvious.

Pot, meet kettle

[esocid]

According to Uber, Project Vigilant also played a role in Iran's Green Uprising last year, operating five Internet proxy servers that helped dissidents circumvent government spying and move information out of Iran and into the hands of dissident groups.

So when does the US get some of this help to circumvent government^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H protective spying and allow the free transmission of information. Oh, wait. I see now.

On Sunday, Uber said he was the first person to call the federal government about the sensitive cache of documents allegedly leaked by U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst Bradley Manning, and which was ultimately published on Wikileaks. Manning leaked the documents to Adrian Lamo, who does "adversary characterization" for the group, Uber said.

Re:Manning/wikileaks connection

[AHuxley]

"akin to being evil" really depends on the decade? the Church report, Iran contra, Operation Ajax, Room 641A, Sibel Edmond, COINTELPRO ...
Do you really want unaccountable, hidden, profit driven - mercs, private corporations, individuals and cyber vigilante types doing what the FBI should?

Re:Manning/wikileaks connection

[betterunixthanunix]

Was it specifically bad to turn in Manning? No, things are no black and white. From where I sit, though, Wikileaks is doing a good thing by exposing government lies -- we cannot trust the government to be honest about classified documents, which is why we need Wikileaks. If these guys are fighting against Wikileaks, that means they are pitted against those of us who want a more open government.

What worries me is that these guys are not required to abide by the constitution; they voluntarily collect information, and then turn it over to the government, which allows the government to obtain evidence that it would not otherwise be able to collect. These "fourth party" arrangements have been discussed in the past, and just because they are not hot news items anymore does not mean they are less worrysome.