do as I say, not as I do

by fiddler

(not an April Fool’s post, despite the date)

Richard A. Clarke, former counter-terrorism czar for both the Clinton and Bush administrations, had some strong words about the US Chamber of Commerce’s aborted plans for discrediting its critics, which included spying on families, using malware to steal information, faking documents to embarrass its liberal opponents, and creating and using ‘sock puppet’ personas to infiltrate their targets.*

Clarke said of the US Chamber’s plans to hack, impersonate, spy upon and steal from its perceived opponents:

“I think it’s a violation of 10USC. I think it’s a felony, and I think they should go to jail. You call them a large trade association, I call them a large political action group that took foreign money in the last election. But be that as it may, if you in the United States, if any American citizen anywhere in the world, because this is an extraterritorial law, so don’t think you can go to Bermuda and do it, if any American citizen anywhere in the world engages in unauthorized penetration, or identity theft, accessing a number through identity theft purposes, that’s a felony and if the Chamber of Commerce wants to try that, that’s fine with me because the FBI will be on their doorstep in a matter of hours.”

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Newton’s Third Law #4, the continuing story, with update

by fiddler

(Previous Newton’s Third Law posts are here, here and here.)

Benjamin Spock de Vries says he is not Commander X, one of the ‘leaders’ of Anonymous whom Aaron Barr of HBGary supposedly found online. Apparently, Barr wrote several memos in which he connected Commander X’s identity to de Vries, all of which are included among the memos leaked by Anonymous. This mistaken identification led to an oddly amusing exchange, when Barr contacted him during the attack on HBGary by Anonymous:

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what do you do when the grand jury wants your tweets? (Updated)

by fiddler

What do an Icelandic parliamentarian, a US computer researcher and a Dutch businessman have in common? They’re challenging the US government’s right to get Twitter to disclose their private information under sealed court order.

A hearing on this took place Tuesday in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, but no decision was reached; the judge is to issue a written opinion later.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation and the ACLU are representing Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of the Parliament of Iceland. Dutch entrepreneur and hacker Rop Gonggrijp, and U.S. computer programmer Jacob Appelbaum are represented by private law firms as well as local counsel in Virginia.

From the Washington Post article written before the hearing, which did not name the defendants:

The dispute cuts to the core of the question of whether WikiLeaks allies are part of a criminal conspiracy or a political discussion. It also challenges the Obama administration’s argument that it can demand to see computer data and read months’ worth of private messages, even if they have nothing to do with WikiLeaks.

The international implications haven’t been ignored:

Iceland’s foreign ministry last month summoned the US ambassador in Reykjavik to express “serious concern” about the bid to obtain personal information about Jonsdottir, the Icelandic MP.

Jonsdottir, an early WikiLeaks supporter who distanced herself from the site a few months ago, is an active promoter of freedom of information and a member of the Icelandic parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

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Newton’s Third Law #1, 2nd UPDATE , 5:30 p.m. EST

by fiddler

Last Saturday, an article in the Financial Times featured Aaron Barr of cybersecurity firm HB Gary Federal, boasting that he had discovered the identities of key members of the hacking collective that calls itself Anonymous.

Any cybersecurity firm worth its salt should realize that this action would result in a reaction, and should create protocols and take precautions to avoid them.

Hmm. Apparently not.

In short order, Anonymous hacked them, printed “Fail” across Barr’s photo, wrote him a scathing letter to accompany it, and released a compilation of 40,000+ of the company’s files and memos to the public. Some of these concerned a presentation prepared for Bank of America last December on how the bank could protect itself against Wikileaks.

One of HB Gary Federal’s bright ideas? Target Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald, who is also a New York Times best-selling author and attorney. Why? On the grounds that because Greenwald wants to make sure Bradley Manning isn’t being mistreated and Manning is accused of leaking files to Anonymous, Greenwald therefore must be part of Anonymous.

Wrong.

 

 

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RedState Wonkery on Open Networks

by publius I wasn't expecting the good folks at RedState to endorse open networks.  But RedState's Neil Stevens threw me for a loop with this one:  [Open network regulations are bad because] [w]ealth will be redistributed, as cash-rich, massive market valued Internet firms will bully and get a free ride on capital-intensive, smaller market valued … Read more

Congressional Democrats Attempt to Sell the Internet

by publius As I've noted before, it's nothing short of a miracle that the FCC has come out so strongly for open networks.  On its face, it seems to defy the ways of Washington — and public choice theory in particular.  The FCC's action wasn't the result of lobbying by monied interest groups.  It was … Read more

Libertarians and Open Networks

by publius Mark Thompson had a thoughtful response to my longer post on the Comcast case and the brief.  It's worth reading the whole thing, but I had a few thoughts and comments. First, I think libertarians like Mark should be siding with the FCC—in this case, siding with the government agency best maximizes liberty. … Read more

Comcast v. FCC: A Brief Overview, and Why You Should Care

by John Blevins and Marvin Ammori (I'm using my real name because this piece is both co-authored and will be x-posted at Balkinization.  I'll update with link when it gets posted.  publius). Yesterday, a group of law professors and public interest organizations (listed below) filed briefs in Comcast v. FCC in the DC Circuit court—a … Read more

Suderman’s Misguided Attacks On The FCC

by publius I apologize for being a broken record this week, but this week's FCC decision is an incredibly important one.  And it's important to stand up for it now, in the immediate aftermath, while opinions are being formed.  So that said, there is a great deal wrong with this Peter Suderman critique of the … Read more

Risky Business

by publius Julian Sanchez wrote a thoughtful critique of the FCC's decision yesterday.  There's a lot there, but his main theme is simply that we should be skeptical of adopting rules like these because of the potential unknown consequences (on investment, network construction, etc.).  A few thoughts… First, it's a small point, but I don't … Read more