Re: From an American correspondent
Subject: Re: From an American correspondent
From: Karl Rahder <krahder@nwlink.com>
Date: 12/18/11, 19:55
To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

Re: From an American correspondent Many thanks for your note! When Parmy Olson wrote that fascinating piece on her Forbes.com blog, I was intrigued and did some initial digging. But it was evident that it would take a lot of work to make sense of the story, and even that wasn’t guaranteed, so I eventually gave up.

As far as Azerbaijan goes, they could probably hire someone reasonably skilled to write up a program for them that would take what facebook already was giving them (names and other info on dissidents) and link it all up in non-obvious ways. I’m sure that Booz Allen could do that easily, but so could some cash-strapped but talented guy named Ruslan or Ali living in a ratty apartment in downtown Baku.

Using social networking tools for political resistance is probably foolish for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that you’re already giving away 80% of your game plan to the local KGB without them lifting a finger.


Thanks again -

Karl Rahder





Karl-

At that point, we were indeed looking into potential collaboration between the U.S. military and Booz and the Baku police on arrests of protest leaders, arrests that appear to have been carried out after identification using Facebook, but shortly afterwards we were confronted with additional issues that demanded our attention. We never found any proof of any of it; rather, we eventually found reason to determine that a number of other parties could have been responsible for assisting the government in identifying those protest leaders, as the techniques by which to do so turn out to be more widespread than we knew at the time. Persona management software and other capabilities are indeed employed by Booz in some way, as was confirmed by an informant who was willing to speak only in broad terms on the matter, but it's also developed and used by many other firms. Let me know if you have any other questions.

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 1:57 PM, Karl Rahder <krahder@nwlink.com> wrote:
Hi. I write about the South Caucasus for ISN (located in Zurich) and the Foreign Policy Association in the US. And I read Parmy Olson’s intriguing piece on possible collusion between Booz Allen Hamilton and the Azerbaijani government. The allegation, apparently emanating from Anonymous, was that Booz Allen was providing Azerbaijan with software designed to track dissidents and their activities on the internet.


Specifically, Parmy wrote:

Members of the international hacking group Anonymous claim to have documents and e-mails that put Virginia-based consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton at the center of accusations of developing software used against dissidents in countries including Azerbaijan...

Anonymous adviser Barrett Brown claimed on the group’s Radio Payback show earlier today that the software had led to pro-democracy dissidents in Azerbaijan, where Booz Allen has offices, getting arrested. The software creates “armies of fake people” through social media sites like Facebook, he said, which results in identifying dissidents with anonymous profiles, a method also known as astroturfing.

The information came to light through thousands of e-mails belonging to software security firm HBGary’s former CEO, Aaron Barr, who’s accounts were hacked by supporters of Anonymous after he claimed to have identified members of the group by (ironically) using fake profiles on social media.

Another member of the group known as Topiary says the information, which it promises to release within the next few hours, does not amount to “solid proof” but comes from informants who have worked closely with companies involved and can confirm that Booz Allen created the software, having allegedly won a contract with the U.S. Air Force. The hacker was also unsure if Booz Allen sold the software to the government of Azerbaijan or was using it on its behalf, but believes it may also have been used in Iraq.


Can you help me pin this down? Have you or Topiary released email or other evidence that actually does show that Booz Allen provided the means by which the Azerbaijani government could track dissidents and their associates on facebook and elsewhere on the web?  (Try as I might, I haven’t been able to listen to your comments on Radio Payback.)

You can read my blog at the address below, and my editors at ISN can also vouch for me, as can a number of Azeri dissidents.  

Many thanks,



Karl Rahder


Senior International Correspondent - Caucasus
ISN Security Watch/ISN Insights
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/

Caucasus Blog,  Foreign Policy Association
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/category/caucasus/

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