Hi Barrett,

Thanks for the reply.

That sounds pretty complicated, but I think it's highly compelling. Bin Laden-mania is almost over, so this could be good to break up the monotony. How long do you think it'll take to write something up?

Regards,
Hashem

________________________________________
From: Barrett Brown [barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 2:17 AM
To: Hashem Said
Cc: Naz Khan
Subject: Re: Anonymous, OpMetalGear, and Gamma International

Hashem-

I understand about Iran. With regards to doing another piece on Anonymous, I wrote a press release regarding Sony that's been making the rounds and am doing an op-ed for The Guardian on the subject, but I have something more important for al-Jazeera if you're interested. For the last two months we have been conducting a crowd-sourced investigation called Operation Metal Gear which has been covered a bit in the press and which I announced on Russia Today early on. We're working with activists and several investigative journalists to prompt coverage and inquiry into the use of "persona management," something that was brought to attention from the e-mails we acquired from HBGary. It turned out that the US Air Force had been requesting software by which a single person could control ten fake online people complete with backgrounds, likes and dislikes, with the software helping to keep everything straight and not only translating into a particular dialect, but also keeping tabs on conversations and adding that info to its dataset. I made a number of calls to contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton, which had been talking to HBGary about these matters and which brought Aaron Barr in for a meeting to discuss them; I got VP William Wansley to lie to me on the phone about it (I recorded it from a single-party consent state so it's legal and I can link to the recording from an article if you like), claiming he "never" met with Barr even though the meeting is discussed at length in the e-mails we have. I finally got in touch with a former employee of Booz Allen who confirmed that they're involved in persona management and that it was a dangerous development. Meanwhile, after I went on Russia Today and Forbes and other publications began reporting that we had launched the investigation, we were approached by Barry Friedman, whose father William Friedman helped to invent cryptology during World War II (there's a wikipedia page about his father with more info) and who has been involved in software, intelligence, and psyops for decades. He put us on the right track, and we did a great deal of research into the subject which we're still compiling and also began to provide leads to several journalists that we respect so that they could uncover more details of which firms are involved in developing such things and where and how they're being used. CENTCOM now admits to using persona management for propaganda purposes in the Middle East but claim it's not used against Americans. Even if that's true, the software is being developed by perhaps a dozen federal contractors who are allowed to turn around and use it in service to their corporate clients, as we saw with Palantir and HBGary and all that, so it's very likely that these automated sockpuppets are already being used against civilians across the world. We compile our information at this wiki, which is in turn used by journalists who wish to conduct additional investigations: http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page. Last night, I did a podcast with Ian Murphy, who's running for Congress in New York and who's also an editor and to whom I'm serving as an advisor, in which we discussed the problem and what's been discovered: http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5939. The main page of that wiki includes links to some of the articles that have appeared in publications based on our tip-offs.

So, I'd very much like to write a piece explaining the implications of all of this and going into some of what we've told by our informants. We have reason to believe that persona management is being used in conjunction with things like Echelon, Carnivore, and other signals intelligence apparatus to perform surveillance and propaganda feats that are essentially destroying privacy as well as the integrity of online discourse. Meanwhile, we know for a fact that they're being used in the Middle East to achieve U.S. propaganda objectives at the expense of the truth, and we fear that as this capability is developed further, it will basically make it impossible for anyone to know where certain opinions are coming from while also assisting various powerful entities in controlling public opinion. This is essentially the most frightening thing I have come across in more than ten years as a journalist and five as an online activist in a position to see certain dynamics that most people are unaware of, and I'm going to be working for years if necessary to identify those responsible and prompt reasonable governments to find ways to combat this.

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Hashem Said <saidh@aljazeera.net<mailto:saidh@aljazeera.net>> wrote:
Dear Barrett,

Thanks for getting back in touch with us. I looked at your DailyKos post, and while it's definitely interesting, we obviously can't give people...err...tips on how to combat one's own government. After all, we're a news network, not an NGO.

Now, I can't make any editorial decisions regarding content, but I think posting *anything* not Iran-friendly right now would do us no good, considering one of our journalists who is Iranian, Dorothy Parvaz, is currently being detained in Syria. I don't know if Iran is offering anything other than lipservice, but it's better not to make an enemy out of them at this point until Dorothy is released.

I'm being a bit paranoid in that respect, and Naz is more "in the know" than I am, so if he thinks differently, we can obviously take a look at reworking some stuff into an op ed / feature (I assume you'd probably want to write something fresh rather than rework that post).

Have you caught wind of other things in the works for Anon? What about how Anon briefly took down the Sony PSN? I heard that there might have been some division on whether that was a proper Anon activity or not.

Taking that and going further, what about cyber-vigilantism against non-governmental cybercriminals, like those who hacked the PSN and stole millions of user details? I know Anon has some problems with Sony, but I don't think Anon would condone such behavior.

Anyways, get back to me and let me know your thoughts.

Best Regards,
Hashem

________________________________________
From: Naz Khan [nyk284@gmail.com<mailto:nyk284@gmail.com>]
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 9:48 PM
To: Barrett Brown
Cc: Hashem Said
Subject: Re: Anonymous, OpMetalGear, and Gamma International

Dear Barrett,

I'm very keen on this. Hash is going to take it on from here, looking forward to see how this evolves into an Op-ed!

keep safe,

Naz



On May 2, 2011, at 6:44 PM, Barrett Brown wrote:

Hi, Naz-

Let me know if you'd like a piece on OpIran, which was re-launched yesterday, or one on the future of Anonymous and the necessity of transmitting what we've learned and developed regarding online activism to the public at large. Here's a post I just did on OpIran, including info on how anyone can easily assist:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/02/972425/-Help-Anonymous-help-Iran,-now

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:11 PM, Naz Khan <nyk284@gmail.com<mailto:nyk284@gmail.com><mailto:nyk284@gmail.com<mailto:nyk284@gmail.com>>> wrote:
Sounds interesting. I'll mail you in the morning ! Bed time!

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 27, 2011, at 4:07 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com<mailto:barriticus@gmail.com><mailto:barriticus@gmail.com<mailto:barriticus@gmail.com>>> wrote:

Naz-

Barrett Brown here. Thanks again for running my essay earlier this year on our North Africa operations. Wanted to check in with you regarding a couple of things.

First, would you be interested in an article on Operation Metal Gear, an investigation we're leading into the use of persona management (fake online people) as used in conjunction with advanced surveillance and data collection? We're working with several journalists on this while also conducting a crowd-sourced investigation by which Anonymous and other parties work together in a loose network by which to gather and compile information on the companies and government agencies involved. Here's our website:

<http://opmetalgear.zxq.net/OMG/Home.html>http://opmetalgear.zxq.net/OMG/Home.html

<http://opmetalgear.zxq.net/OMG/Home.html>And here's a good explanation from about a month ago by Steve Ragan, one of the journalists we work with:

<http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201111/6939/Anonymous-Government-contractor-has-weaponized-social-media?page=1>http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201111/6939/Anonymous-Government-contractor-has-weaponized-social-media?page=1

And here's the wiki at which we're compiling information on those involved: <http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page> http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page

<http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201111/6939/Anonymous-Government-contractor-has-weaponized-social-media?page=1>Also, I wanted to make sure that al-Jazeera is aware that a U.K. firm called Gamma International, a component of the Gamma Group, has been discovered to have offered IT intrusion software to Mubarak's Interior Ministry which would have presumably been used to break into the e-mail accounts of dissidents. Here's the piece:

<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/25/british-firm-offered-spy-software-to-egypt/?page=2>http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/25/british-firm-offered-spy-software-to-egypt/?page=2

<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/25/british-firm-offered-spy-software-to-egypt/?page=2>Anonymous and my own group Project PM intends to retaliate against this firm in order to send a message that this sort of thing will receive an appropriate response in the future.

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302<tel:512-560-2302><tel:512-560-2302<tel:512-560-2302>>



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302<tel:512-560-2302>


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--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302<tel:512-560-2302>

Notice: This email is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above and may contain information that is confidential and privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of our firm shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it.