Subject: RE: transcript |
From: Hagar Cohen <Cohen.Hagar@abc.net.au> |
Date: 9/12/11, 02:07 |
To: 'Barrett Brown' <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Perfect. Talk soon
From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 12 September 2011 4:07 PM
To: Hagar Cohen
Subject: Re: transcript
Thanks. I'll be available at
that phone number at 6:00 CST as discussed.
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 12:08 AM, Hagar Cohen <Cohen.Hagar@abc.net.au> wrote:
Here we go.... 5 parts (thanks again!)
1. To me I
think it’s one of the biggest dangers we’re facing in the 21st
century. The information being so fundamental to everything else, this practice
of basically making it impossible to determine where information is actually
coming from, and the contacts we’ve seen of what governments and companies are
willing to do with information and operations... you can extrapolate from
that... look what’s already been done, and now look what they’re working on and
what they’re capable of, it can drive you sick.
2. Fundamentally
what we’re trying to do is minimise the effects of these capabilities,
particularly of persona management on the public, and that entails first of all
bring out info making the public aware that they exist.
3. We’re
going through their emails afterwards, and there are 70,000 of them all
together that we have, you can see the mentality that you find in this
industry. You never see them turning down any project or questioning whether or
not there will be any side effects or repercussions for anything they’re
developing and putting into practice. They’re not thinking about how things
like persona management provided to corporations might be corrosive to use by
those institutions. That doesn’t even come up in a conversation.
4. These
three companies have set about to provide mainly the same capabilities that they
were providing to government, to a private corporation. And the exact proposal
that was created for the bank of America involved attacks on Wikileaks’s
infrastructure, it involved cyber attacks and information warfare. It was going
to be extraordinarily damaging to the info flow in the US and elsewhere. You
know the ability of private citizens to ensure that the information they’re
getting is accurate, and to the extent that parties, such as the Bank of
America or Government, had this capabilities, and are going to use them. They
have a tremendous advantage, a really dishonest and dangerous advantage over
not just their competitors but private citizens.
5. The real
problem here is that first of all these things can’t be detected without
knowing that they exist. The majority of people are unaware of this issue, even
though we have documentation and couple of news orgs have reported it. You have
capabilities that are increasing in stature without the public at the same time
following what’s possible. That’s a serious problem, in so much as if you go
around saying look there’s persona management with all these fake personas, the
average person thinks that sounds whacky.
From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 12 September 2011 1:14 PM
To: Hagar Cohen
Subject: Re: media enquiry - operation metal gear
No
problem, I can do that tomorrow afternoon (my time) if need be, at any time
after 3:00 pm Central Standard Time, U.S. The number is 214-520-9186. I might want to add a
few more quick statements to the interview if there's any chance of them being
used at this point; otherwise, we'll just redo my previous statements as
planned.
On
Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Hagar Cohen <Cohen.Hagar@abc.net.au>
wrote:
Hi Barrett,
I hope you’re well.
Just a quick reminder, we spoke about a
month ago about online astroturfing for a program I’m producing for Australian
radio (ABC Radio National).
I have a slight problem with that
recorded interview we did on skype... the sound engineer just told me that the
sound quality is quite distorted, and not good enough for broadcast. I think it’s
because the skype line we used that day was really poor. Anyway, the only way I
can think of, to solve this issue, is if you agree to record an interview
again, this time on a regular landline rather than skype. It won’t take long,
because I transcribed the parts of your interview that I want to use in my
program – and I can send the transcript for you to read when we record. The
transcript is of course your words, I didn’t change it in any way. It should
take only about 10 minutes.
I really apologise for having to do
this. It’s really important that your comments are a part of the story, and
that Australian listeners are aware of the level of online deception you guys
have uncovered... and if listeners get distracted by the line quality, it will
take away from the strength of your comments.
The program will go to air this Sunday,
so it’ll be great if you have time to record it again sometime till Thursday.
Any time is fine.
What do you think?
All best, Hagar
From: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 2 August 2011 4:41 AM
To: Hagar Cohen
Subject: Re: media enquiry - operation metal gear
Hi,
Hagar-
We can talk over skype if you like; I'm at barrett.brown33. Or I can answer any
questions via e-mail.
On
Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 9:51 PM, Hagar Cohen <Cohen.Hagar@abc.net.au>
wrote:
Hello
Barrett,
I
hope this email finds you well.
I'm
a journalist with the investigative radio program in Australia called
Background Briefing (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/ )
I'm
doing a story about astroturfing on social media, and am very interested to
have a chat to you about operation metal gear and the HGBary emails... what's
the best way to get in touch?
Best,
Hagar
Hagar Cohen, Journalist |
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