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Privacy Advocate Jacob Appelbaum Reports Break-In Of Berlin Apartment
Jacob Appelbaum isn't shy about his role as a pro-privacy (and anti-secrecy) activist and hacker. A long-time contributor to the Tor project, and security researcher more generally, Appelbaum stood in for the strategically absent Julian Assange at HOPE in 2010, and more recently delivered Edward Snowden's acceptance speech when Snowden was awarded the Government Accountability Project's Whistleblower Prize. Now, he reports, his Berlin apartment appears to have been burglarized, and his computers tampered with. As reported by Deutsche Welle, "Appelbaum told [newspaper the Berliner Zeitung] that somebody had broken into his apartment and used his computer in his absence. 'When I flew away for an appointment, I installed four alarm systems in my apartment,' Appelbaum told the paper after discussing other situations which he said made him feel uneasy. 'When I returned, three of them had been turned off. The fourth, however, had registered that somebody was in my flat - although I'm the only one with a key. And some of my effects, whose positions I carefully note, were indeed askew. My computers had been turned on and off.'" It's not the first time by any means that Appelbaum's technical and political pursuits have drawn attention of the unpleasant variety.
It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.
So someone managed to turn off three alarm systems, but didn't think to make sure that the contents of the apartment were all left in the same position that they found them?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As we improve our ability to keep private things private the government's orginizations will find it easier to snoop by gaining physical access first. There's no doubt we're on the slippery slope. I have to wonder, which orginization broke into his apartment? Or maybe it was a combined effort and they are sharing in the information gained, if any.
There's no way he can trust using the electronic devices that were in the apartment now. In fact, he should probably move to a new place, or go all Gene Hackman on it.
Seriously, if you don't want the American secret police to dig around through your shit, kidnap, torture, and possibly kill you (while making your body disappear), don't piss off anyone in the American government.
I'm not being sarcastic.
It's surprising that there are still some people in the USA who are surprised that your spooks are generally perceived, all over the world, to be criminals.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Common tactic of the German Stasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung
Come on, he installed four alarm system and didn't bother with a single surveillance camera? I am not saying that there wasn't somebody in his apartment, but it's hard not to think this might have just been a case of a malfunctioning alarm system and a whole bunch of paranoia on top. If the government is after you, at least make sure you get some pretty pictures of them, cams are cheap these days.
Plug in UEFI bootable USB stick.
Turn off
Turn on
Keylogger and remote backdoor installed.
So those machines are toast. He needs new ones.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
This computer holds the latest and greatest they have in espionage software and possibly hardware. I'd say get it thoroughly examined so we know what to look for on other machines.Make good forensic copies of anything that is able to hold data in the device and only work on copies of copies so you'll always be able to start from scratch if you mess up or want to prove your findings.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
None of your hardware can be trusted any longer, your apartment is bugged, and man do I feel for you having to clean it up.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Competent spies can do it without you noticing. Perhaps "they" are getting sloppy? Maybe "they" subcontracted it out to a 3rd party private security agency? Maybe it was deliberately sloppy and intended to send a message to Appelbaum? Or maybe it was aliens? We can speculate about this all week if we want to ;)
By the sound of it, he's doing a lot of things right. Read his bio. I'm very glad and thankful there are still brave men left.
and replaced all my furniture with exact duplicates.
Sure, there are probably some surveillance things tossed in mainly "to be found", but the fact is that a break-in like this - where 3/4 of the systems weren't even turned back on is either a) laughably amateur, or b)(more likely) a deliberate message TELLING him he's under surveillance.
If he's practicing even moderately good security measures, he's likely beyond all but governments' ability to crack. And if they're after him, there are few things that he could do to PREVENT such surveillance.
-Styopa
He doesn't need help with a messed up head...who wants to bet this is some stunt? What proof we have besides the word of a wacko?
Seriously, people, why is this modded down into oblivion?
Is it not at least plausible, and worth discussing?
No proof, no details, no explanations on how he "knows" these things? No Pictures? Four alarms, carefully positioned objects, and not one camera?
Sure he might not want to give away his trade-craft, but then why give away his knowledge that it happened?
We all want to blame the three letter agencies these days, but we should at least entertain the thought that this might be cheap self aggrandizement.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Your web browser will download anything from anywhere the pages you visit tell them to. Even if you browse only encrypted sites the site itself can be trivially exploited via XSS, SQL injection, or the zero-day exploits purchasable on the black market. Now, some of the pages you've been browsing can contain hidden <iframe> tags or if JS is enabled XMLHTTP Requests to download child porn. You'll never see the images, but there it is: an ISP record that your computer regularly made requests to child porn sites and downloaded kiddie porn. The spy agencies can simply put CP on your systems remotely, and give them "probable cause" to search. A physical copy would be quite a nice touch.
This isn't a hypothetical warning. I clean up servers linking to CP about 3 times a year. The government doesn't even have to do anything but make possession of certain strings of 1's and 0's illegal. Then the angsty teen skiddies with a copy of Metasploit inject the illegal pictures to ordinary sites in protest that sexting pics of themselves is illegal. Now, your Internet history clears after a period of time, so if it's not in there right now, it could have been and probably still resides on your drive's free sectors. You should be using whole drive encryption for this reason alone -- Although that doesn't rid the ISP record of your apparent obsession with disgusting perverse illegal imagery.
A police state has two prime tools:
0. Ensure it's impossible to obey every law.
1. Selective enforcement of the law.
Trying to hoodwink us with your fairy tales again, Cold Fjord ?
Quoting from a major German paper is deceptive?
Just a few days ago NSA admitted that they have NO IDEA HOW EXTENSIVE IS THE SNOWDEN'S SECRET FILE COLLECTION ) and the one who has the BIGGEST PANIC ATTACK is NSA, not Russia, not China, and of course, not the Germans.
My post had nothing to do with panic, but rather the lack of evidence about who actually entered Applebaum's apartment.
The fact that the Berlin apartment of one Jacob Appelbaum was invaded, with 3 of his 4 alarms cut off, and his computers tempered with, signifies the SHEER PANIC ATTACKS NSA is suffering right now !
Interesting. What is the source of your claimed knowledge that it was NSA, and not some other country or intelligence service? Are you making it up, or is there a clue in this line in your post:
And btw, Cold Fjord, you are NOT the only one who has worked in clandestine projects.
That seems to be quite an admission on your part. Who are you working for? Is that why you are trying so hard to discredit the NSA and the US?
Had the Ruskies so hard up for the files, Edward Snowden is IN THEIR HAND RIGHT NOW and KGB sure knows a lot of ways to GET RESULT OUT OF PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO TELL THEM ANYTHING.
Even the KGB/FSB can't get something that doesn't exist. If Snowden didn't bring the files with him, as people keep claiming, then there is nothing for them to get, is there? Are you claiming that is a lie, and that he really has the files with him?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell