Please stop ducking my questions...
What journalists are involved in Project PM. It's completely unethical for journalists to be in such a group without informing their editors and readers.
Is Michael Hastings currently in Project PM?
Is Michael Roston - the homepage editor of the New York Times - and the former editor at True/Slant for both Barrett Brown and Michael Hastings currently in Project PM?
What New York Times journalists have been in Project PM?
Are there any current government officials or people who work in government in Project PM?
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
In 2009, I began recruiting individuals with a variety of backgrounds
for an experimental online group, the initial purpose being to conceive
and put into play new dynamics by which to improve information flow on
the internet, as well as to develop new methods of practical online
collaboration. A number of proposals were discussed among the
participants whom I'd managed to bring in via announcements on The
Huffington Post, Skeptical Inquirer, and other outlets for which I was
writing at the time. Some work was done on a sort of "collaborative
network" that could theoretically grow from the inside out without
incurring a decrease in the average capabilities/seriousness of its
participant base. Meanwhile, an operation by which to improve the state
of science journalism in the U.S. by coupling volunteer scientists with
working journalists was launched (with only moderate success, beyond a
few collaborations we managed to facilitate here and there), and another
was planned involving "crowd-sourced Africa development," as one might
term it. All in all, Project PM was more experiment than success for the
first year of its existence, but it did manage to attract several dozen
individuals with an unusual array of talent and certain shared ideas
and values.
In early 2011, when I began working out of the Anonops server in support
of OpTunisia and then other matters, Project PM (the chief venue of
which was simply an IRC channel on the Freenode server) became an
extension of those efforts. Eventually it fell to the wayside as I
became more heavily involved with Anonymous itself. A few months later,
as a number of us continued to investigate the large mass of information
that had stemmed from the HBGary hack, we turned Project PM into our
shared venue/banner and re-purposed it into an informal association that
would do two things: (1) disseminate information about the intelligence
contracting industry and what is now being increasingly termed the
"cyber-industrial complex," including specific firms/outfits known to be
involved in one or more of certain activities we oppose, and (2)
provide whatever support possible to other parties that wish to pursue
these issues. The first objective is carried out in a number of ways,
but chiefly through our wiki,
Echelon2,
which serves as a repository of info on the subjects we deal with, or
by providing tips to journalists and other activists on those subjects.
We now work chiefly out of an IRC server,
irc.project-pm.org, in one
main channel called #projectpm.
Now, lemme break it down for y'all:
Q. Is Project PM a part of Anonymous?
A. Nope. Many of the participants are Anons, but many aren't.
Q. How many people are in Project PM?
A. There is no membership roster, or even real membership. Instead,
people contribute to the project as they see fit, or simply come hang
out with us to discuss topics of interest or drop tips or whatever. Our
IRC channel usually contains about 40 people at any given time.
Q. Why is Project PM worth participating in?
A. There are a number of issues that were brought to light after the
HBGary e-mails were made public, and some of them received wide
attention at the time. But the nature of media and public attention is
such that a story tends to be deemed "over" after a certain point. In
this case, the story was effectively over in a few weeks despite the
fact that there were clearly more things of importance to be found in
those 70,000 e-mails. For example, see
Romas/COIN.
Q. How could I actually assist?
A. This depends on your background and skill set, as well as what you
already may know about issues involving technology, government
contracting, surveillance, data mining, online propaganda, and the like.
We really like our participants to spend some time reading through the
information on our wiki so that they'll know what kind of things we're
trying to bring to the wider attention of the press. Assisting the
project can be as simple as helping to spread links to either our own
wiki entries or articles written by others on these same subjects. The
most valuable contributors are those who can research these issues and
add to the wiki on their own, or who are able to get journalists or
bloggers interested in covering aspects of the problem. Some people will
have information or insight into specific issues by virtue of their
professional background, in which case we're always happy to have them
talk to us in the IRC. All in all, our goal is to help bring attention
to the dangers that arise from certain dynamics we've already seen in
the intelligence contracting industry, and so anything that can help
bring attention to these things is helpful.
Q. If I want to look through the HBGary e-mails myself, how do I do so?
A. As of this writing (late May 2012), the 70,000 e-mails don't seem to
be available online in any form, although they were once searchable via a
site set up by Anonymous participants. You can still download them and
then search through them by keyword on your own computer; the majority
of them (those of former HBGary Federal personnel Aaron Barr and Ted
Vera) are
available via torrent here.
In fact, helping to "seed" them after downloading is a good, simple way
to help make them accessible until such time as they're once again
available in a more convenient form.
Q. What's the purpose of this blog in terms of Project PM?
A. I'm going to be writing some materials here on the subjects we've
been studying so that I'll be better able to explain why they merit more
attention from the press, activists, and the public.
Q. Will you be my steady girl?
A. If you're gentle.
Q. I'm some sort of journalist or blogger and I want to cover something
involving the intelligence contracting industry, persona management,
data mining, surveillance, or one of the other issues you're clearly
obsessed with. Will you provide me with some form of assistance?
A. Yes. You can e-mail
staff@project-pm.org to reach a couple of the
people who are particularly active, or
barriticus@gmail.com to reach
just me. You can also download an IRC client and come to
irc.project-pm.org if that floats your boat.