Slashdot Mirror
Leaked Emails Allegedly Tell of Global "Trapwire" Spy Network
judgecorp writes "The British government and police are customers of a controversial surveillance network called TrapWire, according to emails published by Wikileaks. The messages suggest that Scotland Yard and Number Ten Downing Street are customers of Abraxas Corporation, whose TrapWire network combines CCTV, license plate capture systems and databases. The TrapWire network has caused concern amongst online activists and Abraxas' site is currently not available, possibly due to attacks by Anonymous." There seems to be no end to the Trapwire conspiracy stories today, there's even one going around that various large companies such as Salesforce and Google were offered the chance to be part of the spy club.
Well, well. Isn't it so nice that after 'Total Information Awareness' was canned for being slightly too creepy even for congress, it has resurfaced as a free-swimming and not-at-all-sinister corporation heavily larded with CIA alumni. I assume that this is the American analog of our pal Putin's pithy "There is no such thing as a former KGB man"
If you'd like to see the extent of surveillance in US, watch this video released by anon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKaG9pfEFSQ
Scary to say the least. 1984 is already here.
I think this may be something that really does qualify as a legitimate answer to the age olde question, "What could possibly go wrong?"
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
To what degree cameras are coordinated isn't a conspiracy, it's an eventuality.
"Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then..." -- P.K.Dick
Because they have nothing to hide.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
We stayed up and watched this, initially to see Benedict Cumberbatch: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/lastenemy/synopsis.html
All we need now is an unexplained outbreak of an unknown disease in some conflict-ridden part of the world. (Maybe the recent Ebola outbreak in Uganda? http://allafrica.com/stories/201208120306.html )
TFA indicates that this is part of a sales pitch. It's pretty weak evidence surely...
If 1984 were here, you'd be an unperson by now just for saying what you just said. People really need to read the book... surveillance was only one tiny facet of what makes the party horrible. It is the facet that enables the other, even worse parts, but it is not the be all and end all.
I think in a post-9/11 world there will be new readings of what 1984 was actually about. I mean what is it REALLY about? It's about a disgruntled government employee who becomes a terrorist because he's having trouble getting laid. Can you dispute this is what happens? The proles in 1984 are perfectly happy but some rogue government clerk decides he wants to overthrow the government. Winston reminds me a little too much of Timothy McVeigh. Unfortunately geeks don't usually study literary theory so of course they'll think this is preposterous.
Vote Romney... yeah that's a good one.
Unfortunately this shit is endemic to the system now. Unless somebody is elected on an explicit platform of reigning it in, I don't see any president from either party taking the risk of offending the security establishment. There is too much money in it, they can cause too many problems overtly and covertly, and if anything at all goes wrong everyone will be quick to blame the president who "let down our guard".
This would have been a serious scandal in the 1960s or 70s, but no generation since then has given a rat's ass.
American politics is hopelessly polarized between the two poles of democrat and republican, each pole ensuring the survival of the other. You need to change the system by voting for any credible third party.
Voting for any part of the democrat/republican alliance will not reduce the power of the democrat/republican alliance.
The bad part is that 1984, like a lot of fiction, could pale next to current (or near future) reality. Would be like saying "Murphy was an optimist"
Romney Ryan 2012, TAKE BACK AMERICA!
Romney Ryan 2012, Ensure the continuous oscillation between Democrat and Republican to the exclusion of all else.
If the answer is ever Republican or Democrat you oversimplified the question.
You Americans should have voted yesterday, if you know what I mean.
I'll just leave this here: http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
Hmm, lets see... a reading where Winston is the bad guy huh? Does the government still unleash angry, starving rats to eat through his face because he had the temerity to have sex with someone and talking about political change? (do note: Winston never actually does anything to hurt anyone)
Sorry, not buying the "Winston was the real bad guy interpretation".
If it does not happen literally by the book it does not mean it did not happen at all. Yes, you can still talk. Usually, unless someone is really interested in you being silent (try filming police, tell me how you liked it).
How long even that will last? Who knows.
Hope and Change ... in England?
How do I fix this rediculos mess with Romney?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Maybe it is. But I think that it reflects much more negatively on the public than wikileaks if so. I know cryptome is no honey-pot. What should alarm us more than honey-pots is our collective ineffectualness in processing the information from such sources. It's almost like all the data in the world, exquisitely tailored to our liking, would have no effect either. It seems to me like world-leaders are treating the world along with humanity as a game, and like intoxicated children we play.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
To flog my favorite international relations hobbyhorse yet again: yes, yes we can. And if you don't like it, you can fund a big enough military to tip the balance of power back toward equality.
Call it the uranium rule: he who has the nuclear aircraft carriers makes the rules.
0 1 - just my two bits
Part of what makes slashdot slashdot is that 90% of the posters utterly lack any sense of perspective.
Theres a story about how Facebook is selling your data to russian mafia? Clearly, that is just as bad as what Hitler did in WW2. Obama enacts a healthcare plan youre not a fan of? Communist china, and Obama is Mao. Romney takes a stance on abortion that you dont like? Clearly, this man is as repressive as Stalin.
It should come as no suprise that in any particular thread about surveilance, at least one person insists that things are as bad as they are in 1984-- even if they happen to have not read that particular book.
Well at least the graphics are good.
Well, he was.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
As wikileaks.org sustains a continuos DDoS attack of 10GB/sec some work around suggestions have been offered:
Tor Wikileaks onion - use Tor.
http://isax7s5yooqgelbr.onion/
Paste Links
http://privatepaste.com/942ba3fa3d/asdasdwqe
http://privatepaste.com/f9dd332518/weqwewqesada
207 emails below
http://dazzlepod.com/gifiles/search/?q=TrapWire
http://dazzlepod.com/gifiles/search/?q=TrapWire
MORE....
http://www.robtex.com/dns/trapwire.net.html#records
Regularly updated GIFiles
http://dazzlepod.com/gifiles/
Wikileaks node
http://wlcentral.org/node/2761
GIFiles
http://wl.wikileaks-press.org/gifiles/index.html
thanks to Diver Dan from RI and the AnonymousSpoon and m_cetera
The hard part is that the 'alliance' has so much power, they manipulate any third party out of credibility so that no change can occur.
Malcolm Reynolds for President!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Not only do people need to read 1984, but they also need to read Brave New World so they can start making more accurate literature comparisons.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
The thing is the problem isn't obvious to at least 50% of US voters, if it was it would not exist.
The only way to get any third party seriously considered is to let people know they do have a choice. If enough people believe they have that choice then sure enough the choice is real.
Vanishing Point?
The question is not when he's gonna stop but who is gonna stop him.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
also..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(novel)
really, it's a trap.
There was a Canadian show I watched one episode of called "Continuum", the "good" guy (well, girl) is a "Protector" in the "CPA" (I forget if it's "civilian" or "corporate" protection). In other words, she's a secret police officer. No uniform, license to kill. The "government" is the Corporate Congress. After bringing about additional market collapses they bought out the world governments and dissolved them. The CPA doesn't arrest people directly, they implant "trackers" which work not by actually being a GPS tracker, but by inducing more and more pain until the "perp" turns themselves in at the CPA station for sentencing and removal of the excruciator (hungry rats are sooooooooo 20th century). (The pilot has her smashing somebody's face in for vandalism then implanting the excruciator). Her suit/implants record everything she sees and hears and transmits it to HQ for filing. So, bringing it back to the second post in this thread, one of her buddies calls the government Big Brother, and she says the exact same thing "It can't be because otherwise you'd be dead". All while her implants are filming and recording, and transmitting back to HQ for processing and filing.
Anyway, the whole show is so heavily "1984 but the government is the good guy" I couldn't believe it. But they make sure the "bad guys" (pro-democracy rebels) are equally unsympathetic by having them kill as many innocent people as possible 24/7 for no reason. (PS the bad guys are a government trained death squad used to put down protests, but for some reason maybe explained in episodes I didn't watch, they rebelled.)
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
That's because you aren't the product of 'new education' where we teach kindergarteners that sharing is evil and that when strangers in uniform grab your crotch, it's 'good touch' no matter how scared and icky it makes you feel.
Continue watching. The show got alot more interesting and nuanced after the first two episodes. Its getting harder and harder to tell who the "bad guys" are. (the show isnt the best scifi ever (they solve alot of problems with duce ex machina), but its interesting and being marketed heavily in canada which starts a good discussion over how far we would let the corporations run amok)
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
My nephew once suggested, "Ask yourself how important this problem is, viewed from 40,000 light years out."
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
> Theres a story about how Facebook is selling your data to russian mafia? You don't have any data on Facebook, it all belongs to Facebook !
AccountKiller
Yah, apparently those two blond Swedish honeys were very nice...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
... wiretrap have little to do with catching terrorist but to spy on american attitudes and to do more against the american people.
With such information is is possible with a controlled media to then manipulate the people via the media. i.e. endless war drum banging for the invasion of Iraq.
Traffic cameras and their control centers are very capable of the likes of jamming up major city intersection (i.e. in Atlanta to bring all traffic can be brought to a standstill with nothing more than properly executed traffic signal timing. I know this from having experienced such delays with what amounted to nothing more than controlled traffic signals. This is the sort of thing terrorist or others to take over control of the people. The US government keeps changing important checks and balances that were created to prevent such tyrannical abuse..
Maybe its time to put the checks and balances back in place, instead of removing them.
Its not what such systems are claimed to be being created and used for but what they can actually be used for.
well the government is keeping power by maintaining constant war with rotating enemies. the war may or may not be real, in which case it's bombing it's own population...so there's that
You need to change the system by voting for any credible third party.
Here, allow me to point out what 3rd parties can get you. In Europe, they've allowed the rise of far-left national socialists who believe that that the second great purge of the 20th century needs to happen. In Greece the collapse of the centreist parties, has allowed this to happen as well. And the same in Italy and a few others.
Well, 3rd parties have their place. But saying voting for a credible 3rd party? The world doesn't always work that way. Sometimes, they're worse than a two party system.
Om, nomnomnom...
The original point was that the person calling current society "1984" had never read the book. They just were using it as a generic term for "big government that I don't like."
Big Brother in 1984 isn't a surveillance state, it is a mind-control state. Surveillance is just part their means to that end. People who spoke out against the government, or even just questioned too much or acted wrong just disappeared. Not just from society, but from history, records were altered so that all trace of them was gone, they had never existed.
Hence if someone says "1984 is already here." What they are really saying is "I've never read the book." In the society of 1984 you couldn't make a statement against the government without being removed and reprogrammed or killed.
None of that is saying this is a good thing, just that it is not the society from 1984.
In one of the recent articles on sci-fi books there was an interesting discussion on how 1984 was nowhere near as prescient as Brave New World.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I would respect the entertainment industry more if its writers didn't try to solve all plot problems with a Mussolini android.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Sometimes, they're worse than a two party system.
Are you on drugs? Or just thick?
Oh, my! Business and government are colluding to invade our privacy and control our behavior? I'm shocked! Shocked, I say!
Come on, people, do the messy details of who is collecting what and selling it to whom really matter any more?
The general population has amply demonstrated its complacency in matters of collective privacy loss and stellar-scale coercion. Its not a question of enough people knowing, its a matter of not enough people caring or daring to put up any meaningful resistance. The flies can conquer the fly paper if they are so inclined, but they're quite happy with just buzzing around their dung-piles and breeding more flies.
An occasional gang of berserk teenaged vandals inspired by a few indignant bloggers does not democracy, much less a revolution, make.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Nice website, it tells you it's a conspiracy nut site immediately with its header image before you even scroll down to see the article.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If you'd like to see the extent of surveillance in US, watch this video released by anon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKaG9pfEFSQ
Scary to say the least. 1984 is already here.
Isn't this convenient, the video has been deleted from YouTube. That is doubleplusungood.
is anyone surprised at this news? feels like i saw this coming? wikileaks still down.. check out this video on frequency about trapwire : http://www.frequency.com/video/trapwire-cops-feds-watching-you-at-all/56895287/-/5-13685 @onfrequency
Well, in this case they're both apt: Both regimes relied on extensive surveillance.
It makes perfect sense, really. If you're going to oppress people, you need to know what they're up to so you make sure you oppress the people who might be opposing you. Otherwise, a popular movement might get started that opposes you, and then you might be overthrown.
I am officially gone from
Can anyone mirror the video? It's already gone.
I's not that he was an optimist, it's that his observation was expounded on later. What he said was "if there's a wrong way to do something, someone will do it that way." Pretty much self-evident, I'd say.
Free Martian Whores!
"According to a very good source responsible for domestic surveillance operations, an extremely serious al Qaeda terror plot has been uncovered targeting a financial institution, an entertainment centre and a government office building in Los Angeles. The same terrorist-surveillance team conducted pre-operational surveillance of all three sites. The group is currently under watch," he wrote.
Well then, now (a) I am supposed to believe an anonymous source -- which I won't -- so the "proof" of its effectiveness fails and (b) if the source is actually telling the truth - they just announced that they are watching an active Al Qaeda cell in L.A. So ... now they can go underground and try to lose the tail. If only there were other articles describing the details of the system . . . oh wait.
Well, 3rd parties have their place. But saying voting for a credible 3rd party? The world doesn't always work that way. Sometimes, they're worse than a two party system.
And sometimes they are better. I'm not saying vote for any 3rd party, I'm saying vote for a 3rd party you believe in.
I'm sorry that you really believe this red herring bullshit fallacy. The collapse of Greece was not due to a 3rd party, it was due to an established corrupt party where Greek voters had little to no choice, very much like what we see in the US.
If you don't see that you are playing in to propaganda with your statement, you are a fool and a tool. Established powers want you to believe there is no choice, or what you get is all there is. This is not how we were founded nor how we were intended to function. Wake up!
Of course, the most succinct and likely accurate statement on the entire subject of Wikileaks is moderated "off-topic". Way to go, mods.
Andrew Ryan 2012, TAKE BACK RAPTURE!
"Should a man not be entitled to shoot flaming electric bees out of his face at the looters and the moochers? NO, says the Department of Mutant Sealife. NO, says the Humane Society. NO, says the American Psychological Association. But I rejected those answers. I chose the impossible. I chose SURPRISE GIANT DRILL ATTACK!"
"Ahem. Also I have a serious economic policy focusing on deregulation of private industry, an integrated energy/health/childcare system based on creepy orphan girls with syringes and FIRE GRENADE SPAM!"
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
far-left national socialists
I think you have your hands confused. National Socialism, and the European neo-fascists that look back fondly to it, was a far-right movement.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I dont much like it, but youre out of your mind if you want to compare the two scenarios as you post from your comfortable, heated, internet connected house with a belly full of food.
> If you'd like to see the extent of surveillance in US, watch this video released by anon:
Account closed, what was the video name ?
AccountKiller
Maybe it is. But I think that it reflects much more negatively on the public than wikileaks if so. I know cryptome is no honey-pot. What should alarm us more than honey-pots is our collective ineffectualness in processing the information from such sources. It's almost like all the data in the world, exquisitely tailored to our liking, would have no effect either. It seems to me like world-leaders are treating the world along with humanity as a game, and like intoxicated children we play.
I used to think the same thing but I don't think so anymore. Julian Assange is someone they probably attempted to recruit and it looks like he decided to flee instead. Any time the police want to talk to you prior to charging you it's because they want to offer you a offer you can't refuse.
Might I pay you due respect by offering you my appreciation and support for your bravery in brandishing sensibility in this den of vicious wolves? You rock!
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
I would respect the entertainment industry more if its writers didn't try to solve all plot problems with a Mussolini android.
No, you wouldn't
Behind the cabal of appearance, there exists a conspiracy between matter and number, and number and light!
This is not news. This is Wikileaks publishing uncorroborated "evidence" that matches their expectations about "Big Brother".
Some things to remember:
Wikileaks has been more or less forgotten by the general public, so it's not surprising that they would take every opportunity to spout sensationalized conspiracy theories to regain the spotlight. After all, what would they be today without Mr. Manning's foolish self-sacrifice? A wanna be World News Daily.
Perhaps it is not feasible (or even desirable) for the /. editorial staff to vet everything that gets posted, but I for one am not interested in hearing every conspiracy theory floating on the web - regardless of the sympathy some may have for the source.
"We shall SPY on to the end, we shall SPY in France,
we shall SPY on the seas and oceans,
we shall SPY with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall SPY our whatever the cost may be,
we shall SPY the beaches,
we shall SPY on the landing grounds,
we shall SPY in the fields and in the streets,
we shall SPY in the hills;"
-- paraphrasing, the GREAT Winston Churchill
Nothing to see here -- move along now...
bleh, mis-moderated, posting