For some time I have been thinking about apps and what they do for us and to us. Apps may be great, but they are also a huge problem. To back me up, comes a story called “Selling You on Facebook” in The Wall Street Journal, yes, the Wall Street Journal, the one newspaper that I am sure is an object of loathing to anyone who regularly peruses this site for a left wing and progressive take on the world.

Non-political, the article’s premise is simple, one that I have been writing about recently. It says, “Many popular Facebook apps are obtaining sensitive information about users — and users’ friends – so don’t be surprised if details about your religious, political and even sexual preferences start popping up in unexpected places.” What the authors write is not a plot against freedom or social networks. They speak the truth. More importantly, the premise of the article extends to other apps as well and that is where the trouble begins.

We have a new player in the world of previously hidden information. The app. Apps are about giving – information of every kind, directions, instructions, name your poison. With all that and more, apps are fast becoming the single most important means of data collecting that people who do not believe in privacy, nor allow themselves to think that privacy is important, engage in at almost light speed. These amiable creatures called apps are taking over our lives.

In the recent not too distant past, advertisers used human focus groups to judge and help define new products and services. There were no algorithms to get in the way of the human equation. Mostly, these real people did a pretty good job. Hollywood movies and TV shows still use focus groups often to the dismay of the producers who believe their instincts work better in the art of storytelling.

If we do not know we should, that cookies on the Web provide anyone who gains access to them information about every move one makes as he or she surfs the Internet, often innocently and sometimes for other reasons.  As I write, apps are taking over for cookies by further devouring our online lives. Apps in a very short time have replaced cookies as the most important sales tool merchants of every type depend on.

At the rate we are going, apps will take over for both cookies and focus groups, dominating every choice we make. Our lives with all the different cyber platforms – meaning every mobile device including smart phones and tablets and every social network imaginable — control who we are and what we do and how we do everything beneath each clever, smooth, come-on interface. This will surely continue into the future. Face it, our online lives, however we perceive them, because of apps are now more than ever open for prying eyes to use the information they collect to sell us what we might not want and control us in ways that we never anticipated.

Yes, I know, apps have become very important in our lives and in how we live. They help when you are lost. They guide you to a good restaurant. They locate the nearest hospital. They find the closest gas station. They keep track of where your neighbors are, if you are so inclined to know where they are at all times. They can improve one’s life. They really do everything and more for a person in a complicated world that is more difficult to navigate every day. But addiction rules. As all addicts know, kicking a habit is nearly impossible.

I am willing to bet someone is working on an app as I write to cover the most unusual aspects of our lives. There are apps for everything and just about everything has an app. Pacman, once thought dead, is flourishing. This means that soon there will be an app for even more than we have apps for now. It does not mean apps are benign. If we succumb to these new apps, what little privacy we have will be lost forever. Privacy used to be, well, private. I care about privacy but many other people seem to revel in public exposure.

There are now probably more than a million apps available for the choosing. The making of an app has become a major tech industry. And if an app catches on, riches follow. One common theme impossible to ignore when exploring the effect of social media on how people live is the belief that social networks are about sharing. Sometimes people on social networks give away too much. That is because much of what is on all social networks is sophomoric. It is dorm room cool, which means that it is silly and self–gratifying. It depends on how needy one is.

You may wonder if anyone cares what you post, and because you may think no one does care, what you place for all to see has little interest beyond the words or photos on your page. This is all the better for the collectors of your data who mostly believe what they receive is too little. The maw they must fill is infinite. The craving for more data increases by the millisecond. It is voracious. Ignoring the need for privacy is now beyond help. It is a dead concept.

Using an app relieves a person from making direct eye-to-eye contact with another person. Technology today replaces the social experience of dealing with your fellow man and woman as if they were live and not microdots on a small screen. Using apps for everything obviates the need for real people in one’s life. Sorry, but Angry Birds are not real.

However, as long as I have free will, I am safe from this new invasion of my prime space. My hermit-like desire may be my last refuge, my final bastion of freedom. I have no apps.

Editor’s Note: Ron Steinman is executive editor and a columnist for online magazines, The Digital Journalist and The Digital Filmmaker. An award-winning producer for NBC News and NBC’s Today Show, he served as bureau chief in Saigon during the Vietnam War, and later as bureau chief in Hong Kong and London. At ABC News Productions, he produced documentaries for A&E, TLC, The History Channel, and Discovery. He is currently an independent documentary producer, director and writer through his company, Douglas/Steinman Productions. He is the author of seven books, including “Inside Television’s First War: A Saigon Journal,” that details how NBC News covered the war in Vietnam.

One year ago, the voice of Marc parent suddenly went silent on the internet.  His online presence was extremely influential.  Marc was one of those hyperactive activists whose broadcasting was busy, intense, and focused on real change and reform to try to make the world a better place.  There was no better content aggregator and very few bigger influencers in the social media world.  Illness suddenly struck, and Marc Parent passed away on March 28th, 2011 at the age of 59.

I never met Marc personally.  I don’t even know what he looks like, and could not find a picture of him after an exhaustive search online.  That doesn’t matter.  Connecting with someone online is just as profound and powerful of an experience as knowing them in person.

Twitter

Marc was probably most famous online for his Twitter account at @mparent77772.  Over 82,000 people followed him there and he was important enough to be listed 2653 times.  His presence was huge.  He logged 119,219 tweets, most of which were links to a variety of subjects revolving around freedom, reform, politics, human rights, and world news.

His location was listed as “In front of my screen” reflecting the massive amounts of time he dedicated to online activism.  His profile read, “Blogger – Interwebber on politics, finance, news, media, society, government, the internets – CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER“.  Marc’s final online communication came on March 17th with this tweet: “Colin Powell demands answers over false Iraq intel http://bit.ly/fB5YwZ”

YouTube

Marc had a very popular YouTube channel under the name CrimesandCorruption.  Opened on the Winter Solstice of 2008, it had 392 subscribers, over 500 subscriptions, and had almost 200,000 channel views.  Marc never uploaded a video, and only listed to as favorites: “Philip Zimbado: A Study of Evil” about the the horrors of Abu Ghraib anda MoxNews recording of how Dick Cheney is a war criminal.

Digg

Digg was also a focal point for Marc’s efforts.  Although he was a member since the end of April 2007, I didn’t notice a massive uptake of activism there until later in 2008.  667 people followed him there, and he dugg up over 12,000 while submitting (sharing) a massive tome of 6288 articles.

Blip

Marc loved being a DJ on Blip.fm.  He played an eclectic mix of music that was heavy on the atmospheric electronica with sounds from BlueTech and Tosca.

Google Reader

You can get a feel for what inspired Marc’s activism on his reader list.

Blogging

The first reference to a blog by Marc that I could find was on blogspot starting in 2006.  That soon sprouted into a second blogspot blog and then a third one.  Others can also be found on his profile page.  This appears to have moved to LiveJournal in 2008 with another blogging venture at PrePosterous.

Facebook

Marc’s posted on his Facebook wall on February 9th, stating, “back again for who knows how long. i answer all personal facebook (only email) messages. comments msssages i answer only in a public way. i like news tips and such. so please feel free to write. miss you guys, terribly. best, marc“.

Two days later, Marc shared the tragic news that his life was coming to an end: “been sicker than a hound dog for several weeks. not convinced yet as a few tests, doctor interviews remain, but te latest medical guess by a doc who who gave me decent service for a few years is I have 2-3 months left to annoy critics online. looks like I’m headed to a better place sooner than expected. I’m at peace with that. thing is I have a lot of loose ends to tie up, and need to preserve enough wherewithal to accomplish them and still have some fun.”

The responses from his many online friends are heart felt.  His last posting was on February 17th, and then it was silent.

Online Funeral Announcement: PARENT, Marc Joseph Claude March 16, 1952 – March 28, 2011 On March 28, 2011, Marc Parent of Edmonton peacefully passed away at the age of 59 years. He is survived by his children, Ryan, Jason and Megan; mother Colette Parent-Savaria (Leo-Paul); two sisters, Suzanne (Len) Buchniak and Lorraine (James) Hook as well as one brother, Pierre, and nephews and nieces. Marc was predeceased by his father, Albert and his nephew John. A Funeral Mass will be held at 10:30 a.m., April 2, 2011 at St. Joachim, 9928 – 110 Street, Edmonton, AB.

You can view the obituary guestbook here, which contains voices from around the world.

In case you did not know it, SOPA in everyday English is Stop Online Piracy Act. Its main supporters are in Hollywood, TV, big music, and other major entertainment. Its opponents are the largest Web companies and the legions of naïve people who believe the passage of such an act would impede their right to freedom on the Internet.

For the moment, SOPA is in the official wastebasket where Washington bills go to die when so much of the public rises up to shout it down. Now our esteemed lawmakers believe SOPA, though necessary, needs clarity and better direction. It is hard to argue with the failure of the original bill. It is not worth the effort to try to pass that bill and to have big entertainment, big Internet and everyone else against it for different reasons important to each.

Do not be deceived by the millions who signed online petitions to scrap SOPA. The so-called little guy, Mr. and Mrs. grassroots, is simply a pawn in the hands of the big Internet boys who control the WEB. Do not be deceived by the black banner atop Google in protest of the bill. Just because you signed an online petition, keep in mind that the battle is still between the bigs: Hollywood and TV versus the Internet giants. It is not so much that one is against the other as much as it is how does each side best get what it wants, absolute freedom on the Internet versus controlled use for big entertainment and how it presents online what it believes it owns.

I am against piracy of intellectual property, even if the property is weak or poorly conceived. You may ask, who is not. I am against the theft of who I am when cookies ingest everything about me when I spend time on the Web. Everyone else should also feel this way, but people do not. Thus, companies such as Amazon and others are hypocrites because all they are doing is protecting their own turf. I am against hypocrisy but who is not, you say. Many who are on both sides of the argument are hypocrites because they try to hide the reality of Web commerce under the guise of freedom.

I do not believe what anyone on either side of the debate says. Both sides are using the average person, however good or bad his or her creation is, to advance its concept of freedom and ownership. They are working hard to hide one’s history on the Web and how it affects sales of products and sales of ideas.

We should all be for creativity. Many people I know agree that creativity is a gift and one of life’s joys. The Internet is the greatest platform for creativity ever. It opens enormous possibilities for anyone to post what he or she believes is their contribution to humankind. I am not arrogant when I say that most of what is on YouTube, other file sharing sites and found in millions of blogs is not very good. It is usually drivel and laughable in that we laugh at the effort, not at its humor or sense of fun. Most of what is in cyberspace is not worth my time. Attack me if you want. Please. But realize first, that just as not everyone can be a professional athlete, not everyone is capable of creating something that has lasting value. Just because you can post anything you want on the Internet for which you usually receive no pay, the act of posting does not give the work value.

We live in a society where sharing is free, especially in the world of social media. On social network sites free is the operating value system. It is the new normal, what people expect because the Internet is there for all to use as they wish, they think. Only one’s time is at stake. It strikes me that for the current generation, sharing and ignoring personal ownership is often more important than personal achievement. Many pundits believe that owning the copyright to a personally created work is a sin. If they could, they would eliminate copyright. They want to limit its length based on the idea that everyone should benefit from a copyrighted work even if they do not compensate its owner. Everyone, that is except the person who created the work.

Creating anything – art of any kind, a widget, an app, you name it — is hard work. If I create something on my own using my own time and money, or, better yet, with someone else’s money why should I not profit from or share in the profits from my enterprise without fear that someone will steal what I created. I do not subscribe to the idea that better creation will result based on earlier work. Why do the users and distributors of everything on the Web believe they should have a free ride of the back of my creative endeavor? Using another person’s work is fraudulent.

I come from a culture, or a time not too distant from the one we are living in, that believes you should own all or most of what you make with your mind or your hands. That is not the norm today. A certain amount of pleasurable, yet evil anarchy exists on the Web. There is a shoot first and ask questions later attitude toward what people own. If someone sees something they like, they post it for all to see, to possibly enjoy it without regard to its copyright. Then, if there is a complaint, they apologize, they take down the video, the photo, the written work, and everyone seems satisfied except the person or group who created the entity in the first place. The damage done, the violator gets an insignificant punishment or none at all, and goes out for another latte. Such is life.

Let me be clear. I am against piracy of intellectual property, even if and when – most of the time, by the way – it has almost no value to most people. Whether it is well conceived or poorly done, I have to admit it has value to its creator. I am against the unbridled, underhanded use of my personal information and creativity without my permission by either big entertainment or big Internet.

The voice of the creative community must make itself heard. Despite being unorganized, the creative community cannot allow those who use the Internet for gain of any kind to dominate ownership. Whatever replaces SOPA must be worth the journey or else anyone who thinks the Internet is free, however anyone uses it, had better think again.

Also SOPA’s justification is to block mainly foreign websites providing illegal content, the vaguely defined provisions of the bill would allow the removal of  content including political and other speech from the Internet, which are, in principle, protected by the US constitution as freedom of speech. SOPA would allow the Attorney General to create a blacklist to censor sites even if no court has found any infringement of copyright or any other law.

“If we let that happen, that would mean they would be barring access to content that is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. And who knows how far the censorship would go after that. We can’t let that stand. This is a matter of protecting everyone’s constitutional right to freedom of speech. The bill as it stands now infringes on our constitutional rights,” said ACLU’s Executive Director Anthony Romero. The ACLU is adamantly opposed to the SOPA bill, and on November 16, 2011 the organization submitted a detailed statement to Congress.

If you don’t want to be left in the dark, and live in a neo-fascist Orwellian society which curtails civil liberties, free speech and the freedom of the press take ACTION NOW to stop SOPA or it might be too late.

A cross-section of America has gathered in New York City to demand an end to the deference given to corporations and greed over people and needs.

“We are here to kill war.” Bukowsi
Photographs from the first 5 days of Occupy Wall Street.

Photos by Joanne Stocker

I watched a young man dragged across the pavement for merely asserting himself, physically passive, in his right to protect his (and all of our) personal belongings.

Tuesday morning at around 7:30 a.m., Eastern Standard time, New York City Police officers instigated an assaultive confrontation with peaceful protestors in Zuccotti Park, camping a few blocks away from the Broadway intersection with Wall Street.

After a night of threatening rain forecasts, in which protestors participating in ‘Occupy Wall Street‘ industriously secured the entire encampment’s belongings by tarping nap sacks, sleeping bags, a portable generator, and untold laptops, live-streaming camera equipment, and almost definitely iron-on Anarchy “A” jacket patches, the first drizzling patter pelted the vinyl.

Not until this moment, long after their work was behind them and they had begun the business of herding ideological jello into a staggering but determined army of chanters, did the transient missionaries in what is now dubbed Liberty Square need to worry about their belongings, indeed their personal, conditional security.

I witnessed the following:

We can consider ourselves in a state of open hostilities with New York City authorities.

Come to Manhattan!

Editor’s Note:  Kenneth Lipp is a researcher in both primate and human genetics, and writes regularly on issues of public health and international health care policy. He has published research on telomere attrition and cellular aging in various peer-reviewed publications, and is an avid advocate of human rights.

follow Joanne and Kenneth on twitter

Feature image from Techpil.com

By Ron Steinman

Recently, Spain, a member of the European Union that has strict privacy laws, told Google to stop cataloging information about 90 of its citizens who filed complaints against the search engine giant. These 90 people are suing Google for what they call an invasion of privacy. Why is this important? It is only 90 people, you say. These people say, and Spain agrees, that individuals have “the right to be forgotten on the Web.” Google is facing suits in Switzerland, the Czech republic and Germany. These countries are also upset with Google for its Street View feature where its cameras roam cities and photograph every street the camera sees. According to recent polls in Europe, most people want their privacy protected. In the United States, Web sites are springing up that will enable users, for a fee, to wipe out as best they can personal information individuals want kept secret. For Europeans that is not enough. Factions on all sides of the fight at home and abroad are taking up strong positions to combat or to protect what each believes is its right to privacy or freedom of information. There are no easy answers until someone, a person or beyond that, an institution gets hurt. Google as usual is not going away without a fight.

In response, Google says collecting much of its information is out of its hands. That is hard to believe. It comes down to this: Google thinks, and here I quote The New York Times, “ that search engines are not responsible for the information they corral from the Web.” Pause. Please read that again to get the full effect of that quote. Google is saying that similar to a vacuum cleaner, its algorithms pick up everything in their path indiscriminately and let the chips fall where they may. It is one thing to create algorithms. It is another to refuse to take reasonability for your creation. We mostly must now watch with amusement as Google dissembles its way out of taking responsibility for what it collects willy-nilly when its search engines surf the Web. Is Google dishonest? I do not know. But I think that Google is hostage to its own science, and the giant it is revels in it.

Google has been skirmishing for years with The European Union because that august body believes that Google engages in some practices that are invasions of privacy. Keep in mind that countries in Europe have a take and a history different from ours in the States about what privacy means to the individual. Europeans are far more protective of their right to privacy than we are. Individual countries in Europe have longer histories of repression than they do of democracy. As these histories recede, I can understand why they do not want outsiders invading their public and private lives.

This, then, is about Google and responsibility. It is also about A.I, artificial intelligence. More about that in a moment. I do not know if Google really wants to take over and ultimately rule the world, or at least the Internet, but what I am about to relate has to do with algorithms and how sometimes they have a mind of their own – at least according to the folks in Mountainview. We are no longer in the land of the unthinkable. We try to have reason play a role in how we live, but, it, too, is more often than not, an illusion. Take this as a warning.

I am sure we are familiar with the saying, “The Dog Ate My Homework,” the age-old excuse people use to blame outside forces for a personal failure. It is not my job, boys will be boys, and one excuse is as good as another are variations on the theme of refusing to take responsibility for one’s actions. This time, out of the mouth of the monolith known as Google, I can add a new saying to the growing lexicon of excuses — the algorithm did it. Using this excuse will now absolve all of us from future errors and failures. We can now blame a man-made tool for doing the unexpected.

A.I. or artificial intelligence is one of the great playthings of science fiction. Writers take the idea of making a manufactured robot into a “being” that has a self-aware mind. More than self-awareness, fantasists imbue these man-made creatures with the ability to make decisions selectively. Usually these are humanoid figures cybernetically enhanced to think and act on their own. If true in real life, we would end up with a new slave class or be enslaved ourselves. The dangers are blatant. But give credit where credit is due. It takes a vivid imagination to create scenarios, usually in the future, whether near or far, where we as humans craft beings who can duplicate how we think, how we laugh and cry, basically how our emotions function without the prodding of complicated software. Imaginative or speculative fiction has become a serious part of our consciousness. Everywhere I turn these days there is another creative attempt to make A.I. a reality but it is always just a dream. Isaac Asimov’s robot novels. Robert Heinlein’s speculations. William Gibson’s near future fantasies, to name just a few of many in the wide-ranging genre. There are a host of other writers, producers, directors, filmmakers too numerous to list. Everyone has a favorite. Novels. Short stories. TV. Movies. Video games. Star Wars. Droids, everywhere droids. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Star Trek. Alien. Avatar. Battlestar Galactica. Transformers. The Matrix. I Robot. Dr. Who. Dune. And my favorite group think creation from Star Trek, The Borg, a trope that is a mainstay of Star Trek:The Next Generation and Star Trek:Voyager.

More importantly, smart scientists in major labs are spending a lot of money and time in an effort to replicate how the human mind works. When I say replicate, I really mean how the mind functions and grows ultimately on its own. Humanoids need not apply. Despite what Google says about its independent algorithm and how it injudiciously collects information, I do not believe A.I is possible, no matter how many highly intelligent minds are at work trying to make it happen. Even a hard-nosed skeptic like myself does not believe that such a surprise will shock us awake in the real world.

The real world demands that we have rules governing our right to wipe out what we want about us on the Web. By the fall, we may discover that Europe is leading the way. This does not mean similar ideas will follow here in America, but I will be waiting anyway, even if impatiently. 

 Editor’s Note: Ron Steinman is executive editor and a columnist for The Digital Journalist and The Digital Filmmaker. An award-winning producer for NBC News and NBC’s Today Show, he served as bureau chief in Saigon during the Vietnam war, and later as bureau chief in Hong Kong and London. At ABC News Productions, he produced documentaries for A&E, TLC, the History Channel and Discovery. He is currently an independent documentary producer, director and writer through his company Douglas/Steinman Productions. He is the author of eight books, including “Inside Television First War: A Saigon Journal”, that details how NBC News covered the war in Vietnam.

The most likely case is that overt criticism is being characterized as conspiracy, as part of the sickening trend wherein dissent is being labeled “terrorism.”

I have been unable to access the DHS report, but according to the Computing World article one would gain the impression of a single corporate organization, which in fact is being misrepresented and  constitutes at least three separate and unaffiliated entities. “OccupyWallStreet” “USDayofRage” and Anonymous are all autonomous bodies, sharing neither explicit creed nor operational structure.

I asked OccupyWallStreet for any comment they cared to give; it is important now that representation of all of these movements avoid the misapprehension being encouraged by their adversary agencies. Their response: 

“OCCUPYWALLSTREET will be an absolutely nonviolent event, safe for all people of all ages. Our goal is initiate a peaceful rejuvenation of democracy in America. If we are dispersed from Wall Street, we will simply return to nonviolently re-occupy the space. This is an opportunity for all Americans, on the right and the left, to speak out against the financial capture of our democracy.”

I was also fortunate enough to speak with Alexa O’Brien, a journalist and social/political activist who is one of many helping to organize the USDayofRage (USDOR). I asked her if she could explain USDOR’s association with Anonymous.

“None,” says Alexa, “USDOR is an organization started by no one, to help neutralize the sophist quasi-poetic masturbation of our rotten republic’s political discourse. The corruption of election processes, especially campaign finance regulation, has usurped the primacy of the democratic process.” Alexa emphasized the key role which finance plays in obviating effective popular representation several times, outlining USDOR’s philosophy as “One Citizen, One Dollar, One Vote.”  Regarding Anonymous and their reciprocal support, she says: “I would almost prefer no comment. We have no organizational ties with Anonymous-we support informed autonomous action by individual citizens.”

I want to join Alexa in encouraging everyone to “disengage from the political peer-pressure.” The US Day of Rage is about the manifestation of the crucible cracked and the long-building pressure spilling human onto the street – Wall Street. Plans to occupy are based on an assertion of the right to non-violent protest and the obligation to engage in civil disobedience, when the laws represent the interests of the powerful and effect the suffering and enslavement of people to a lie.

OccupyWallStreet’s Tactical Committee meets tomorrow to continue to ossify plans for September 17th. Their goal is enabling people to exercise their right to protest safely without fear of reprisal, and they have received the support and assistance of The People’s Law Collective  toward that end.

I encourage you to follow the USDOR, OccupyWallStreet,  and Alexa’s twitter accounts for updated information.

Editor’s Note: Kenneth Lipp is a researcher in both primate and human genetics, and writes regularly on issues of public health and international health care policy. He has published research on telomere attrition and cellular aging in various peer-reviewed publications, and is an avid advocate of human rights.

By Ron Steinman

Privacy should be a basic right. These days, with the pervasiveness of the Internet, it is fast becoming a luxury. That means the sense of who we are and how we perceive who we are is under constant threat by those who deem privacy to be outdated.

I believe that many people value their freedom more than they do their life. Life without freedom is usually no life at all. That is what the Arab Spring has been about, as well as all people-fueled revolutions. With freedom there should come the right to privacy. Recall that the Stasi in East Germany before the Berlin Wall fell, and that the KGB in the Soviet Union before perestroika, curtailed privacy throughout the Eastern bloc. Freedom did not exist. To be private meant that a person had thoughts that went beyond the all-controlling state. The state always came before the rights of the individual. Today, among others, the rulers of China, North Korea, Vietnam, and many countries in the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the old Soviet Union still curtail freedom of thought, and thus limit the concept of privacy. Privacy is dangerous. Be it Fascism, communism, or the iron fist of age-old repression, privacy is not a right. Increasingly, in the age of the Internet, privacy is fast becoming a rare commodity even among those of us who live in the United States and other so-called free nations of the world. If one thinks clearly about privacy in America, you will come away with the realization that it is fast becoming obsolete.
There are more than a few issues about privacy and the Internet that are hard to ignore. Many are generational. Of course, this disregard of privacy really stems from the pervasive hold that social media has over many people. We are dealing with Millennials, those who are 20-33; Gen Xers, those from 34-46; and Boomers, from 47-66 years old. These, the main users of the Internet, seem the least caring about their privacy, or anyone else’s. They are also the most exposed to outside forces bent on corruption. Anyone older than 66 does not seem to matter to anyone engaged in mass media.
Ignorance rules much of their thinking about privacy. And because of that, we ignore the peril brought on by the invasion of our privacy. We are lazy and too trusting. Put all three together and we risk losing the depth of what we are to nameless, faceless algorithms. It starts in the world of commerce where people are working very hard to gather in everything they can about us for the sake of profit. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just money. That is not in itself bad or evil. Think back a few years in time. First, there were newspapers. Then came radio and the mass medium of movies. Then came television, considered by many the ultimate sales tool ever created. That is, until the rise of the Internet, of the World Wide Web 2.0, and all it brings in the way of invading our lives.

Do not be naïve. The Internet, despite its many virtues, and many rooms, exists mainly for profit. Buy and sell. Sell and buy. Keep in mind that on the Web, someone, usually an emotionless algorithm, tracks and records every move you make whether through a cookie on your computer or a sale a clerk rings up at the supermarket. All your records are then embedded permanently someplace, today, probably on a hopefully dense and impenetrable cloud. Hopefully the cloud will not spring a leak. Most captured information is for use any time by anyone who can pay the attendant access fee. The Washington Post recently reported that there are firms that “now have access to more than a billion records detailing consumers’ personal finances.” That is a billion and growing. Personal should be private. Another point in the story is that there is little “the consumer can do . . . about it.”

Once someone collects all that private information, that party or agency that stores it can then disseminate the material however it wants. Power resides in the possession of information. Information translates into money and influence.
Importantly, hardly anyone knows we, that is the public, have almost no way of obtaining, for our own use and perusal, any of the information gathered clandestinely by these self-anointed collection companies. Think of it for a moment. You no longer own or possess who you are. In fact, those who collect all your statistics, and any other personal facts about you, most certainly know as much about you as you do. Maybe more. You have lost the ownership you once had over your birthright, and maybe even your image. Thus, the question before us is direct. Who owns all the information others compile about who we are, what we do, and how we do it? It seems reasonable to assume that because the information is about us – you and me—we should own it. We should decide how to use it, if at all, and how others might use it, if at all. But that is not the case. In this time of rampant social media, attitudes toward privacy are far less important to many people. Generational? Yes. But when the invasion of an individual’s privacy changes a life forever, which it can do, each person only has him or herself to blame.

Senator John Kerry and Senator John McCain are sponsoring the Commercial Privacy Bill to protect consumers who use the Internet from unwanted, and unwarranted, intrusion into their lives. Even if the bill becomes law, no intrusion will ever disappear. No matter who erects a gate to protect an individual, that person will never have enough strength to keep his/her personal life free of unwanted intrusions by unknown forces. Everywhere we turn, someone is devising a new way to scrape and drill into any trail you may have left inadvertently, or because of sloppiness, when trying to protect your right to privacy, assuming it is on your mind. Privacy has been sacred in the past. Then, the means to achieve the goal of learning everything about someone or an organization took old-fashioned digging with a human being slogging through papers and information scattered in many directions. Investigators did not have all the means at hand to achieve their goals. Now algorithms do the dirty work.

Today, privacy investigators are using something else to ferret out information about you that in some cases you probably never knew existed. Called “history sniffing,” the idea it implies is abhorrent, and, as such, needs no further explanation. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Nothing is sacred when it is your life that lies exposed for the world to see, or, in many cases, for a silent few who want to control and dominate every facet of how you live.

Editor’s Note: Ron Steinman is executive editor and a columnist for The Digital Journalist and The Digital Filmmaker. An award-winning producer for NBC News and NBC’s Today Show, he served as bureau chief in Saigon during the Vietnam War, and later as bureau chief in Hong Kong and London. At ABC News Productions, he produced documentaries for A&E, TLC, The History Channel, and Discovery. He is currently an independent documentary producer, director and writer through his company, Douglas/Steinman Productions. He is the author of eight books, including “Inside Television’s First War: A Saigon Journal,” that details how NBC News covered the war in Vietnam.

This is a News Junkie Post exclusive.

In the continuing backlash against the Murdoch Empire, a Firefox add-on has just been released that warns a user when they arrive at a website owned by NewsCorp or any subsidiaries, such as Fox News or the NY Post.

Murdoch Alert was just created on Mozilla today, and the designer gave News Junkie Post an exclusive first look at it. The initial release version is 0.2 and comes with greasemonkey script for people who want to tweak it.  From the Mozilla Add-on page:

MurdochAlert show a warning bar on Murdoch Family-controlled websites. This alerts users to the potential computer security risks of accessing Murdoch-controlled sites. Handy also for identifying the news sources controlled by the Murdoch Family.

This Firefox add-on is the kinder, gentler version of an extension for the Chrome browser released on Wednesday, July 20th called Murdoch Block.  With this installed, if a user happens upon any website owned by the vast international NewsCorp company, a warning screen will appear asking the user if they are sure they want to visit this site.  Less than 2 days old, there are 400 downloads of Murdoch Block.

Options are available on both Murdoch Alert and Murdoch Block to ignore the warning and enter anyways.  A complete list of the sites owned by the NewsCorp machine was compiled by Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA: *EDIT: the list was actually compiled by the Reddit user eobanb with some help from others here.  PoliticusUSA used it with permission when reporting about the Chrome extension.

foxnews.com
foxnewsinsider.com
fox.com
foxconnect.com
newscorp.com
foxinternational.com
foxbusiness.com
dowjones.com
fins.com
marketwatch.com
smartmoney.com
wsj.com
wsjclassroomedition.com
thedaily.com
4kids.tv
myspace.com
hulu.com
realestate.com
allthingsd.com
bigcharts.com
foxsports.com
foxsports.com.au
bigtennetwork.com
espnstar.com
fxnetworks.com
nationalgeographic.com
natgeotv.com
golfchannel.com
speedtv.com
tvguide.com
foxsportsradio.com
weeklystandard.com
nypost.com
newsinternational.co.uk
thetimes.co.uk
thesun.co.uk
newsoftheworld.co.uk
thesundaytimes.co.uk
theaustralian.com.au
news.com.au
truelocal.com.au
heraldsun.com
adelaidenow.com.au
dailytelegraph.com.au
couriermail.com.au
weeklytimesnow.com.au
perthnow.com.au
mxnet.com.au
alphamagazine.com.au
newsspace.com.au
careerone.com.au
carsguide.com.au
sky.com
skysports.com
sky.de
sky.it
skytv.co.nz
thestreet.com
webmd.com
foxmovies.com
foxstudios.com
foxsearchlight.com
blueskystudios.com
foxinternationalchannels.com
canalfox.com
mundofox.com
biensimple.com
foxlife.tv
foxlife.com.br
vedomosti.ru
harpercollins.com
harpercollins.co.uk
harpercollinschildrens.com
harperteen.com
harpercollinscatalogs.com
avonromance.com
thegarden.com
msg.com
staplescenter.com
smartsource.com
myfoxny.com
my9tv.com
myfoxla.com
myfoxchicago.com
my50chicago.com
myfoxphilly.com
myfoxdfw.com
kdfi27.com
myfoxboston.com
myfoxatlanta.com
myfoxdc.com
my20dc.com
myfoxhouston.com
my20houston.com
myfoxdetroit.com
myfoxphoenix.com
my45.com
myfoxtampabay.com
myfox9.com
my29tv.com
myfoxorlando.com
my65orlando.com
my24wutb.com
myfoxaustin.com
myfoxmemphis.com
wogx.com

]]> http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/07/21/new-firefox-add-on-warns-you-about-the-dangers-of-the-murdoch-propaganda-machine/feed/ 39 http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/10/19/the-digg-patriots-investigation-how-we-exposed-digggate/ http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/10/19/the-digg-patriots-investigation-how-we-exposed-digggate/#comments Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:45:10 +0000 Guest Columnist http://newsjunkiepost.com/?p=26104 By Sam Pennington

In early August, the story of an organized underground extremist right-wing censorship brigade calling themselves “Digg Patriots” (DP) was released and made international news. Since the initial article, members of the Digg Patriots group have tried to both vilify us for having their “private correspondence” in our possession, and at the same time, claim that the excerpts published were taken out of context, and if people saw the threads of conversations in full, it would “prove their innocence”.

Apparently they had assumed, (and possibly hoped), that we had nothing more than the previously published excerpts, and claimed that we withheld publishing the posts in full, because it would prove they were innocent. At the same time, they threatened us – telling us we better not publish more, and claiming that they were private emails (which they aren’t).

They have stated that Digg Patriots were not a “Bury Brigade”, and that the purpose of their private and secretive group was simply for social chit-chat among “like-minded individuals”, and that any allegations of them making “Bury calls” were exaggerated, if not entirely untrue. We eventually concluded that the only way to resolve this is to let readers decide for themselves, which would mean publishing virtually all of the relevant posts in full that were retrieved from the Yahoo Groups forum they used as the primary method for their communications.

First – let us explain some background on these communications, and how we gained access to them.

Digg Patriots Yahoo Group Forum Posts are not “private emails” nor “stolen”

Let us clarify that these communications were forwarded from email notifications of posts to the Yahoo Group – they are not private emails in any way. Everything posted by any of the members of the Digg Patriots to the DiggPatriots Yahoo Groups forum was knowingly distributed to all of it’s members, the majority of which were admitted as “not really being known” by the other members. There are no legal barriers to these posts being shared whatsoever – nonetheless, we have taken over 2 months to carefully consider where to draw moral boundaries in releasing further information in any large amount, including redacting email addresses, and personal and non-relevant private information.

The communications were voluntarily forwarded to us by one or more individuals (who will not be disclosed for obvious reasons), who were members of the DiggPatriots Yahoo Group. They had been having strong personal reservations about some of the things that were discussed there for some time, and about the behavior of some of the other members – including some attacks launched on other users of the Digg service, which they felt went beyond what they deemed acceptable. However, they chose to remain silent at that point.

One of these people then came across some extremely disturbing findings about the “Digg Patriots” member calling himself CaptCarrot on Digg, who goes by the name of R.J. Carter. (A name he also uses to publish his own articles and stories as well).

It was found that “R.J. Carter” was also a member of a severely depraved cyber harassment/cyber-terrorist ring calling itself The Yahweh Clan. This is an organized group that takes cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and brutal harassment to a whole new perverse and criminal level. At this discovery, the individual shared information about the Digg Patriots group to someone already looking into the Yahweh Clan situation, and was eventually disseminated to a couple of the Digg users who were favorite targets of the “Digg Patriots”. Further information and intelligence on R.J. Carter and his connections to the Yahweh Clan was requested and received from a group on the YouTube service called YTV, who were involved in an active investigation of both.

YTV – YouTube Vigilantes/Volunteers, (http://www.youtube.com/YTVigilantes and http://www.youtube.com/YTVhome), is a volunteer group founded by teachers, a social worker, a med student, and those with former police training and investigative experience, which was formed to deal with the unchecked and rampant harassment occurring on the YouTube service and elsewhere. YTV has published numerous videos, and supplied documentation of the activities of The Yahweh Clan over the past few years, and has been working with numerous organizations, FBI, and law enforcement to get legal action taken against this group and its members. YTV was not directly involved in the Digg Patriots investigation, which itself was launched by the initial investigative team.

Information on R.J. Carter’s connection to The Yahweh Clan, and details of their gut wrenching and sickening harassment targeting numerous innocent individuals including children, was published in a previous article here. Threats and attempts to intimidate us and any website hosting this information were soon received from “R.J. Carter”, demanding its removal –apparently believing that if he paid a legal office to pen a letter, it would be effective as a scare tactic. This publication, in response, published a followup article here about this.

A video was produced to further show R.J. Carter’s full and active connection to The Yahweh Clan and his personal participation in harassment, which is now posted here.

“…as Digg has now been made aware of this submission, any action other than the immediate removal of the article from Digg will be seen as affirmation of its content.”

– R.J. Carter in an apparent attempt to intimidate Digg into removing the article about him [source]

Does this mean Digg affirms the content of the article about him? According to R.J. Carter, it does.

NoTruePatriot.org – Full Evidence Database Released

After coverage by worldwide news and media, there have been ongoing requests from them and others to show further proof of the activities of Digg Patriots, even demands were made to do so by the DP themselves. It has been probably the top request we have gotten from all parties involved. In response to this, full evidence gathered in the Digg Patriots investigation has now been released to the public. Over 11 months of activity, over 13,000 posts, all now publicly available at the dedicated site www.NoTruePatriot.org.

Also read the full story here.

“Digg’s Lack of Action Means We Are Innocent!”

This is the most imbecilic “defense” of them all. As far as Digg staff goes, the last public response from the CEO of Digg was that they were looking into the matter. Nowhere did anyone at Digg exonerate any of the Digg Patriots, or any activities they were part of in attempts to game the system – far from it. There are a lot of complex reasons why a mass of people aren’t suspended from the service, including the availability of full evidence (which is now available), anmd the resources and time to actually do an investigation. The Bury button was removed, Digg probably felt no more response was needed, or has not had the time to complete their investigation into the issue. The day Digg says that Digg Patriots “did nothing wrong”, they are free to quote it and point it out. Until then, claims that Digg somehow has exonerated them because they “aren’t suspended”, are unbelievably foolish.

Digg staff aside, this is not only about Digg rules. This is about what was done to the public at large, on Digg and various other services. Contrary to what Digg Patriots like to claim, the public interest is immense – as shown by the overwhelming response and over 12,000 Diggs, making it one of the Top Stories of all time, adding to that the massive attention from worldwide media. We think that is solid evidence that the people do care. To not respond to interest this intense would be senseless. This is done due to overwhelming response, not to gain attention for one or two Digg users who authored the original story. It also goes beyond conservative vs. liberal.

Attempts at Intimidation

You would think for a group who is trying to claim their own innocence, and cast guilt on those who exposed their actions, they certainly would not follow in the footsteps of R.J. Carter (CaptCarrot), and attempt to hurl threats at various websites, demanding the removal of things that they don’t like said about them, (as R.J. Carter tried to do to here). Sadly, this didn’t seem to dissuade them from actually trying this with another social networking site, Mixx. (www.mixx.com), where the latest exposure article was also submitted. How gullible must one think these sites and publications are for one to try to slyly intimidate them with statements like “you better take that content down or else you might get caught up in legal action! Just a friendly warning! [insert wink]”. One has to wonder if they requested additional copies of “R.J. Carter’s” much recycled cease and desist letter thinking it would help it along. It is truly mind numbing to see these people continue to engage in censorship games, to try to censor information – which shows how they were engaging in organized censorship games. Nonetheless, Mixx would have none of it:

“This submission was reported using the threat of a lawsuit to have it removed. Apparently there must be some truth to this after all. Since the article only talks about the incident,which in fact happened and the names of the guilty parties have been removed, there should be no reason that this article should be pulled as it is news that can directly affect all of us and our social media experience.

It is valid news [...] it serves as a warning as to what some folks may be doing. If there weren’t some truth to it, there wouldn’t be an effort to have it censored.

It seems to me that if this submission gets removed, it lends even more credence to the very censorship and limitation of information these “patriots” are allegedly trying to impose.”

– JeffK (Mixx.com) [source]

Allegations of “Hacking”

In the most current attempt to turn any blame they can grasp at on the people who exposed them, members of Digg Patriots are now claiming that a crime was committed because emails were “stolen” and published to defame them. However, if the information to “defame” them came from their private correspondence, would that not imply that it was true, and therefore not defamatory? (Defamation requires that information published must be false to be defamatory).

In order for an accusation of “hacking” to even be relevant, there would have to be at least one private email that was obtained and exposed without permission, and then malicious damage done to a person because of it. There is neither. Not one private or personal email at all was obtained by anyone, nor posted.

What was obtained and published are posts to a Yahoo Groups forum. The database is comprised of posts forwarded to us via email notifications of the posts from a member of the group. We cross checked validity with posts sent from another member of the group, who also supplied screen captures used in the articles.

While we are flattered that Digg Patriots credit us as having “super-secret hacking skills”, or employing a team of CSI-trained private investigators to compromise their systems, all of the information was given to us voluntarily by other members of the group. Not one example of anything malicious was done (unless they deem exposing their cheating operation as malicious), to even merit the insulting claim that anyone in our investigation team did anything that was damaging with malice. We took months of pained review of the tens of thousands of posts to redact anything that was not relevant, or personally identifiable. Something we didn’t have to do – but we did.

One element that possibly played a part in feeding the “hacking” allegation is remnants of data that were overlooked in the redaction process, including a few articles present in screen captures that were included by one overly paranoid source (and not entirely trusting of us at the time), in attempts to mask their own identity by replacing identifying elements in their browser with that of another member, specifically one who angered them to the point of deciding to obtain and forward the captures of the Yahoo Group and posts. When this was found, it was simply cropped out entirely and all other identifying information was removed.

No Crimes Were Committed on Our End – Can that be said about Digg Patriots?

No crime was committed in obtaining or publishing these posts.

That cannot be said with certainty about members of Digg Patriots, especially one in particular – R.J. Carter, who has been a member of the cyber-terrorist group called The Yahweh Clan; a group whose actions cover about every area of human depravity, and have been deemed criminals by law enforcement.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2008 Corporal Patrick McCRORY of the

Maryland State Police, Cyber Crimes Unit telephonically contacted this office and provided the following information: Corporal McCRORY advised that on February 28, 2008 he furnished copies of this office’s report, and all information furnished by [name redacted] at the meeting held at the State Police Cyber Crimes Office on Wednesday, February 28, 2008 to the Federal Cyber Crimes Task Force.

The information provided to the Task Force was forwarded through Detective Sergeant Kail, the liaison with the Federal Task Force.

Corporal McCRORY also advised that on Wednesday, March 12, 2008

he formally presented this matter to the State’s

Attorney’s Office […] Corporal McCRORY advised that on today’s date, March 26,2008 he

received a letter from the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office

declining prosecution in this matter. Corporal McCRORY stated that the

letter cited “limited resources” and lack of clear jurisdiction as reasons for

the declination [...]

On instant, this Investigator contacted the FBI Baltimore Division

Headquarters, Woodlawn, Maryland, (Tel: 410/266-8080) and spoke to one

of the complaint agents on duty. […]

This Investigator explained to the Baltimore Complaint Agent that this

investigator is a retired FBI Agent from the Baltimore Division. It was

explained that this office is doing investigative work for an attorney’s office

in Rockville, Maryland in regard to possible cyber crimes that involve

threats [by “The Yahweh Clan”]

The facts of this complaint, i.e. threats against [victim(s)] via the internet, and the “Yahweh Clan”, were furnished to the FBI.

The FBI Complaint Agent opined the following: The complaint will be channeled to the appropriate

substantive desk, probably one of the “Homeland Security Squads”, and from there, it will be sent to the Federal Cyber Crimes Task Force who already has it. The Federal Task Force will review the complaint for jurisdiction matters […]

On Wednesday, April 23, 2008, Sergeant Robert Smolek telephonically advised that the

[citing that, although] there is no question in his mind that [victim(s) names] are being threatened by [“The Yahweh Clan”], the expense of running these individuals down in a nation-wide or even a worldwide search is beyond the resources of the State Police.

Despite what he tells other fellow DP members, this is the group that R.J. Carter has been an active member of. He does not “hunt pedophiles”, only helps work to convince others that innocent people are pedophiles [motives and framing tactics for this are spotlighted early in the video here].

Along with this, we can add forgery, perjury and identity theft into the mix, all Federal crimes. Numerous forged and DMCA forms were filed in attempts to – no surprise – force removal of content of people they were targeting, on the YouTube service, or anything that exposed their actions. This was also apparently done to a video exposing claims made by R.J. Carter as untrue, at his request, by a fellow Yahweh Clan member. [Spotlighted in the video here, which he also tried to get removed].

Others, including the group YTV, have been working with law enforcement, FBI, as well as numerous other legal entities and organizations to deal with this specific group and the internet-wide issue of extreme harassment and criminal actions that take cyberbullying to a whole new level.