How are any of my questions crazy?
Do you get off on smearing me?
What journalists belong to Project PM?
Why are people who believe in free information and allegedly concerned
about propaganda so intent on being secretive about the journalists that
"belong" to them?
Is there anyone at Project PM that can give me a serious response?
Or are you all nasty trolls who get off on smearing and spreading hoaxes?
________________________________
From: Joe Public <morpeth@project-pm.org>
To: Ron Brynaert <ronbrynaert@yahoo.com>
Cc: "staff@project-pm.org" <staff@project-pm.org>; "barriticus@gmail.com"
<barriticus@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 2, 2012 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: What journalists are in Project PM
1) you're crazy
2) fuck off
Sincerely
Morpeth
Project PM
On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 8:15 PM, Ron Brynaert <ronbrynaert@yahoo.com>
wrote:
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?
http://barrettbrown.blogspot.com/2012/05/purpose-of-project-pm.html
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The Purpose of Project PM
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.