Re: Thanks for the link
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 7/25/12, 18:53
To: Glenn Greenwald <ggreenwald@salon.com>

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/cyber-attacks-on-activists-traced-to-finfisher-spyware-of-gamma.html

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:35 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Glenn-

This Wired piece covers a new DARPA prototype by which
auto-disinformation taking the form of believable leaks are deployed
en masse to make it more difficult for actual leaks to be located. I'm
concerned that this is unlikely to receive the attention it merits, so
wanted to pass it on to you in case you're interested.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/fog-computing/all/

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 7:42 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Glad to hear it. If you have any questions about any of these things, which
I've been looking into with some journalists and other assorted contacts via
my little group Project PM since last year, don't hesitate to ask. You can
also see the wiki we've set up to disseminate some of what's been learned:
https://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page

Please look into persona management in particular. It's something that needs
to be brought to general attention at some point, and I'm going to have a
difficult time haranguing people about the issue from prison.

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 6:48 AM, Glenn Greenwald <ggreenwald@salon.com>
wrote:


Hey Barrett - I saw that story - I definitely intend to write something
about it this week - reading your Guardian piece now.


On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:


Not sure if you get these e-mails, but there's been another instance in
which a journalist (and an editor) at USA Today were hit by an online
disinfo campaign by what are almost certainly intelligence contractors (in
this case, the journalist had called the contractors with questions,
"provoking" the response). The problem isn't getting any better. If you
haven't read it about, I did an op-ed for the Guardian here that also notes
how Palantir re-hired Matthew Steckman (and thus didn't really mean that
apology they gave to you).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/20/cyber-misinformation-campaign-against-usa-today

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:


Glenn-

I've just released an analysis I've written regarding a classified
surveillance/data mining program called Romas/COIN, the contract for which
Aaron Barr was competing in conjunction with several other contracting firms
and even Google and Apple. My announcement is up at The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/22/hacking-anonymous.
NYT has been looking into it for last 24 hours and I've sent them some
additional materials, including phone conversations I had with two of the
execs involved in the recompete.

And here is the report itself:

For at least two years, the U.S. has been conducting a secretive and
immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining
against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the
habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once. And
with an upgrade scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the
federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen
companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr - the same
disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was
discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political
activists at the behest of corporate clients. The new revelation provides
for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context.
Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry
that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the
American public – and which in some cases are used against that very same
public. Their products are developed on demand for an intelligence community
that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has been repeatedly
shown to have misused its existing powers in ways that violate U.S. law as
well as American ideals. And with expanded intelligence capabilities by
which to monitor Arab populations in ways that would have previously been
impossible, those same intelligence agencies now have improved means by
which to provide information on dissidents to those regional dictators
viewed by the U.S. as strategic allies.


The nature and extent of the operation, which was known as Romas/COIN
and which is scheduled for replacement sometime this year by a similar
program known as Odyssey, may be determined in part by a close reading of
hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen in February from the
contracting firm HBGary Federal and its parent company HBGary. Other details
may be gleaned by an examination of the various other firms and individuals
that are discussed as being potential partners.


Of course, there are many in the U.S. that would prefer that such
details not be revealed at all; such people tend to cite the amorphous and
much-abused concept of “national security” as sufficient reason for the
citizenry to stand idly by as an ever-expanding coalition of government
agencies and semi-private corporations gain greater influence over U.S.
foreign policy. That the last decade of foreign policy as practiced by such
individuals has been an absolute disaster even by the admission of many of
those who put it into place will not phase those who nonetheless believe
that the citizenry should be prevented from knowing what is being done in
its name and with its tax dollars.


To the extent that the actions of a government are divorced from the
informed consent of those who pay for such actions, such a government is
illegitimate. To the extent that power is concentrated in the hands of small
groups of men who wield such power behind the scenes, there is no assurance
that such power will be used in a manner that is compatible with the actual
interests of that citizenry, or populations elsewhere. The known history of
the U.S. intelligence community is comprised in large part of murder,
assassinations, disinformation, the topping of democratic governments, the
abuse of the rights of U.S. citizens, and a great number of other things
that cannot even be defended on “national security” grounds insomuch as that
many such actions have quite correctly turned entire populations against the
U.S. government. This is not only my opinion, but also the opinion of
countless individuals who once served in the intelligence community and have
since come to criticize it and even unveil many of its secrets in an effort
to alert the citizenry to what has been unleashed against the world in the
name of “security.”


Likewise, I will here provide as much information as I can on Romas/COIN
and its upcoming replacement.


***


Although the relatively well-known military contractor Northrop Grumman
had long held the contract for Romas/COIN, such contracts are subject to
regular recompetes by which other companies, or several working in tandem,
can apply to take over. In early February, HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr
wrote the following e-mail to Al Pisani, an executive at the much larger
federal contractor TASC, a company which until recently had been owned by
Northrop and which was now looking to compete with it for lucrative
contracts:


"I met with [Mantech CEO] Bob Frisbie the other day to catch up. He is
looking to expand a capability in IO related to the COIN re-compete but more
for DoD. He told me he has a few acquisitions in the works that will
increase his capability in this area. So just a thought that it might be
worth a phone call to see if there is any synergy and strength between TASC
and ManTech in this area. I think forming a team and response to compete
against SAIC will be tough but doable." IO in this context stands for
“information operations,” while COIN itself, as noted in an NDA attached to
one of the e-mails, stands for “counter intelligence.” SAIC is a larger
intelligence contractor that was expected to pursue the recompete as well.


Pisani agreed to the idea, and in conjunction with Barr and fellow TASC
exec John Lovegrove, the growing party spent much of the next year working
to create a partnership of firms capable of providing the “client” - a U.S.
agency that is never specified in the hundreds of e-mails that follow – with
capabilities that would outmatch those being provided by Northrop, SAIC, or
other competitors.


Several e-mails in particular provide a great deal of material by which
to determine the scope and intent of Romas/COIN. One that Barr wrote to his
own e-mail account, likely for the purpose of adding to other documents
later, is entitled “Notes on COIN.” It begins with a list of entries for
various facets of the program, all of which are blank and were presumably
filled out later: “ISP, Operations, Language/Culture, Media Development,
Marketing and Advertising, Security, MOE.” Afterwards, another list consists
of the following: “Capabilities, Mobile Development, Challenges, MOE,
Infrastructure, Security.” Finally, a list of the following websites is
composed, many of which represent various small companies that provide niche
marketing services pursuant to mobile phones.


More helpful is a later e-mail from Lovegrove to Barr and some of his
colleagues at TASC in which he announces the following:


Our team consists of:


- TASC (PMO, creative services)

- HB Gary (Strategy, planning, PMO)

- Akamai (infrastructure)

- Archimedes Global (Specialized linguistics, strategy, planning)

- Acclaim Technical Services (specialized linguistics)

- Mission Essential Personnel (linguistic services)

- Cipher (strategy, planning operations)

- PointAbout (rapid mobile application development, list of strategic

partners)

- Google (strategy, mobile application and platform development - long

list of strategic partners)

- Apple (mobile and desktop platform, application assistance -long list

of strategic partners)


We are trying to schedule an interview with ATT plus some other small
app developers.


From these and dozens of other clues and references, the following may
be determined about the nature of Romas/COIN:


Mobile phone software and applications constitute a major component of
the program.

There's discussion of bringing in a “gaming developer,” apparently at
the behest of Barr, who mentions that the team could make good use of “a
social gaming company maybe like zynga, gameloft, etc.” Lovegrove elsewhere
notes: “I know a couple of small gaming companies at MIT that might fit the
bill.”

Apple and Google were active team partners, and AT&T may have been as
well. The latter is known to have provided the NSA free reign over customer
communications (and was in turn protected by a bill granting them
retroactive immunity from lawsuits). Google itself is the only company to
have received a “Hostile to Privacy” rating from Privacy International.
Apple is currently being investigated by Congress after the iPhone was
revealed to compile user location data in a way that differs from other
mobile phones; the company has claimed this to have been a “bug.”

The program makes use of several providers of “linguistic services.” At
one point, the team discusses hiring a military-trained Arabic linguist.
Elsewhere, Barr writes: “I feel confident I can get you a ringer for Farsi
if they are still interested in Farsi (we need to find that out). These
linguists are not only going to be developing new content but also meeting
with folks, so they have to have native or near native proficiency and have
to have the cultural relevance as well.”

Alterion and SocialEyez are listed as “businesses to contact.” The
former specializes in “social media monitoring tools.” The latter uses
“sophisticated natural language processing methodology” in order to “process
tens of millions of multi-lingual conversations daily” while also employing
“researchers and media analysts on the ground;” its website also notes that
“Millions of people around the globe are now networked as never before -
exchanging information and ideas, forming opinions, and speaking their minds
about everything from politics to products.”

At one point, TASC exec Chris Clair asks Aaron and others, “Can we name
COIN Saif? Saif is the sword an Arab executioner uses when they decapitate
criminals. I can think of a few cool brands for this.”

A diagram attached to one of Barr's e-mails to the group
(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/pmo.png/) depicts Magpii as
interacting in some unspecified manner with “Foreign Mobile” and “Foreign
Web.” Magpii is a project of Barr's own creation which stands for “Magnify
Personal Identifying Information,” involves social networking, and is
designed for the purpose of storing personal information on users. Although
details are difficult to determine from references in Barr's e-mails, he
discusses the project almost exclusively with members of military
intelligence to which he was pitching the idea.

There are sporadic references such things as “semantic analysis,”
“Latent Semantic Indexing,” “specialized linguistics,” and OPS, a
programming language designed for solving problems using expert systems.

Barr asks the team's partner at Apple, Andy Kemp (whose signature lists
him as being from the company's Homeland Defense/National Programs
division), to provide him “a contact at Pixar/Disney.”


Altogether, then, a successful bid for the relevant contract was seen to
require the combined capabilities of perhaps a dozen firms – capabilities
whereby millions of conversations can be monitored and automatically
analyzed, whereby a wide range of personal data can be obtained and stored
in secret, and whereby some unknown degree of information can be released to
a given population through a variety of means and without any hint that the
actual source is U.S. military intelligence. All this is merely in addition
to whichever additional capabilities are not evident from the limited
description available, with the program as a whole presumably being operated
in conjunction with other surveillance and propaganda assets controlled by
the U.S. and its partners.


Whatever the exact nature and scope of COIN, the firms that had been
assembled for the purpose by Barr and TASC never got a chance to bid on the
program's recompete. In late September, Lovegrove noted to Barr and others
that he'd spoken to the “CO [contracting officer] for COIN.” “The current
procurement approach is cancelled [sic], she cited changed requirements,” he
reported. “They will be coming out with some documents in a month or two,
most likely an updated RFI [request for information]. There will be a
procurement following soon after. We are on the list to receive all
information." On January 18th of next year, Lovegrove provided an update: “I
just spoke to the group chief on the contracts side (Doug K). COIN has been
replaced by a procurement called Odyssey. He says that it is in the
formative stages and that something should be released this year. The
contracting officer is Kim R. He believes that Jason is the COTR
[contracting officer's technical representative].” Another clue is provided
in the ensuing discussion when a TASC executive asks, “Does Odyssey combine
the Technology and Content pieces of the work?”


The unexpected change-up didn't seem to phase the corporate partnership,
which was still a top contender to compete for the upcoming Odyssey
procurement. Later e-mails indicate a meeting between key members of the
group and the contracting officer for Odyssey at a location noted as “HQ,”
apparently for a briefing on requirements for the new program, on February
3rd of 2011. But two days after that meeting, the servers of HBGary and
HBGary Federal were hacked by a small team of Anonymous operatives in
retaliation for Barr's boasts to Financial Times that he had identified the
movement's “leadership;” 70,000 e-mails were thereafter released onto the
internet. Barr resigned a few weeks later.


Along with clues as to the nature of COIN and its scheduled replacement,
a close study of the HBGary e-mails also provide reasons to be concerned
with the fact that such things are being developed and deployed in the way
that they are. In addition to being the driving force behind the COIN
recompete, Barr was also at the center of a series of conspiracies by which
his own company and two others hired out their collective capabilities for
use by corporations that sought to destroy their political enemies by
clandestine and dishonest means, some of which appear to be illegal. None of
the companies involved have been investigated; a proposed Congressional
inquiry was denied by the committee chair, noting that it was the Justice
Department's decision as to whether to investigate, even though it was the
Justice Department itself that made the initial introductions. Those in the
intelligence contracting industry who believe themselves above the law are
entirely correct.


That such firms will continue to target the public with advanced
information warfare capabilities on behalf of major corporations is by
itself an extraordinary danger to mankind as a whole, particularly insomuch
as that such capabilities are becoming more effective while remaining
largely unknown outside of the intelligence industry. But a far greater
danger is posed by the practice of arming small and unaccountable groups of
state and military personnel with a set of tools by which to achieve better
and better “situational awareness” on entire populations while also being
able to manipulate the information flow in such a way as to deceive those
same populations. The idea that such power can be wielded without being
misused is contradicted by even a brief review of history.


History also demonstrates that the state will claim such powers as a
necessity in fighting some considerable threat; the U.S. has defended its
recent expansion of powers by claiming they will only be deployed to fight
terrorism and will never be used against American civilians. This is cold
comfort for those in the Arab world who are aware of the long history of
U.S. material support for regimes they find convenient, including those of
Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and the House of Saud. Nor should Americans
be comforted by such promises from a government that has no way of ensuring
that they will be kept; it was just a few months ago that a U.S. general in
Afghanistan ordered a military intelligence unit to use pysops on visiting
senators in an effort to secure increased funding for the war, an illegal
act; only a few days prior, CENTCOM spokesmen were confidently telling the
public that such other psychological capabilities as persona management
would never be used on Americans as that would be illegal. The fact is that
such laws have been routinely broken by the military and intelligence
community, who are now been joined in this practice by segments of the
federal contracting industry.


It is inevitable, then, that such capabilities as form the backbone of
Romas/COIN and its replacement Odyssey will be deployed against a growing
segment of the world's population. The powerful institutions that wield them
will grow all the more powerful as they are provided better and better
methods by which to monitor, deceive, and manipulate. The informed
electorate upon which liberty depends will be increasingly misinformed. No
tactical advantage conferred by the use of these programs can outweigh the
damage that will be done to mankind in the process of creating them.


Barrett Brown

Project PM






On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 9:45 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:


Glenn-

Just wanted to see if you are still willing to provide a written
message to be read at the rally for Bradley Manning at NYC City Hall on
April 7th. Please let me know when you get a moment.

Additionally, we're now working with Max Tucker of Amnesty
International and Nicky Hager, the New Zealand journalist whose 1996 book
Secret Power revealed the existence of Echelon and other advanced signals
intelligence apparatus, on determining the nature and extent of the
methodology employed by Palantir and related firms. We suspect that Booz
Allen Hamilton, which has offices in Baku and which is known to have
developed its own version of that methodology, may be working with the
government of Azerbaijan to find and clamp down on dissenters using
Facebook. More broadly, we've confirmed that such software is already in
wide use by a number of governments and private firms, and that much of this
activity has centered around In-Q-Tel. Let me know if you'd like more
information, as we have far more than we can process already.


On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 3:28 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:


Hunton and Williams were down.
http://hbgary.anonleaks.ch/aaron_hbgary_com/10082.html We have more. See my
twitter feed. Still finding others.


On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 6:58 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:


Also, thejester just dropped by. Was kicked by a chan op but then the
rest of us objected. Mum's the word; a couple of us have plans. I'm also in
communication with someone who knows him from way back. If you have any
input on this, you should probably provide it now.


On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:


Meant to give you this too. Now NBC has it! zomglol


On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Barrett Brown
<barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:


Isikoff was ill-informed but nice, apparently we're doing some sort
of thing.


On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 1:56 PM, <ggreenwald@salon.com> wrote:


Sure - go ahead

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com>
To: ggreenwald@salon.com
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 5:20:08 PM (GMT-0300)
Auto-Detected
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link

Also, going send you a recording. Can your e-mail accept large
files?


On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:18 PM, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com > wrote:


Yes, I've been handling that sort of thing and actually spoke to
another Newsweek reporter couple weeks back about Tunisia, although that was
on background. Send him along. Pretty sure I made fun of him a while back.





On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:13 PM, < ggreenwald@salon.com > wrote:


Barrett - Mike Isikoff at Newsweek really wants to write about the
HBGary/H&W story, and wants to speak with someone from Anonymous to do that.
I think he would write a good sympathetic story. Can you talk to him or
arrange for that?


Glenn Greenwald

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" < barriticus@gmail.com >



To: ggreenwald@salon.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 8:04:24 PM (GMT-0300)
Auto-Detected
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link


http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121321487750509.html


Also, I've tried to call but your phone always does this weird
thing, so just call me when you're ready for a long fucking story.


On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com > wrote:


Yeah, I've got a reporter over now doing a profile but can talk in
two hours or so.





On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 4:18 PM, < ggreenwald@salon.com > wrote:


Hi Barrett - Are you around now? I can give you a call any time
tonight.


Glenn

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" < barriticus@gmail.com >
To: ggreenwald@salon.com



Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 10:43:41 PM (GMT-0300)
Auto-Detected
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link

Tried to call. Give me a ring back whenever. Going to dinner with
the ol' GF at 8:00 Central for about half hour but otherwise available.


Saw that Steckman was suspended. They're going to have to do
better than that; we've got more.


On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 12:34 PM, barri2009 < barriticus@gmail.com

wrote:



Yep, will do.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T


-----Original Message-----
From: ggreenwald@salon.com



Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:17:50
To: Barrett Brown< barriticus@gmail.com >
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link

Barrett - Can you call me this afternoon? 202-580-8192

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" < barriticus@gmail.com >
To: ggreenwald@salon.com
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 8:21:33 PM (GMT-0300)
Auto-Detected
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link

Glenn, I know you're busy right now, but I need to talk to you
about TheJester when you have a moment.


On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com > wrote:


Plan changed. Got new info, no longer need him. Going to make
example of him and prevent him from working for any company where he could
do further harm to republic but offer him a great deal of assistance and
expertise if he chooses to start a company that provides communications
options to North Africans or some such useful thing. Also going to read off
the summary brief that's just been finished listing the entirety of his
involvement with the conspiracy, all nice and neat with e-mails, tell him
which reporters I'll be sending it to, and tell the lawyer that we advise
the firm to likewise change its focus in light of what else is going to
happen, PR wise, to this company which has spent so much energy positioning
itself as a moral force. Below, briefing materials and a small portion of
the notes that were prepared by an Anon team over the course of a couple of
hours. Some of the briefing section at bottom applies to previous,
now-scrapped plan. Obviously, feel free to make use of any of this. Links
will be working again soon enough.




Overview


The following emails clearly establish Matthew Steckman's
involvement in the creation of the leaked presentation/proposal entitled,
"The Wikileaks Threat," including content allegedly considered unethical by
the Internet security firm, Palantir, and possibly illegal under U.S. law.
According to emails sent and received by Steckman, Matthew Steckman:


• Was the first to correspond with Bank of America's legal
representation, Hunton & Williams regarding Wikileaks, a publisher allegedly
holding leaked documents from Bank of America;



• Was aware that Hunton & Williams had been recommended to Bank of
America by the U.S. Department of Justice;



• Solicited the involvement of the security firms Berico and
HBGary, in addition to his own firm, Palantir;



• Outlined the format of the presentation to be made to Hunton &
Williams by Palantir, Berico and HBGary, including the number of slides and
the possible content of slides;



• Received and approved suggestions for the proposal from
representatives from HBGary, Berico and Palantir, including HBGary CEO Aaron
Barr;



• Specifically approved suggestions for the proposal, made by
Aaron Barr, regarding strategic "attacks" on journalist Glenn Greenwald and
others in the media for the purpose of undermining Wikileaks' support in the
media;



• Specifically approved suggestions for the proposal, made by
Aaron Barr, regarding the exploitation of weaknesses in Wikileaks'
infrastructure, including its network of staff, volunteers and leakers; its
submission servers; its finances; its founder, Julian Assange; etc;



• Incorporated the above-described suggestions for the proposal,
made by Aaron Barr, into the finished proposal;



• Personally created, formatted, revised, edited, approved and
distributed the presentation document in question.



Listed emails also detail correspondance between employees of the
firms HBGary and Palantir (including Aaron Barr and Matthew Steckman) among
others, concerning the internet movement called Anonymous, its alleged
connections to Wikileaks, and Aaron's Barr's research on Anonymous,
including its alleged connections to Wikileaks.






List of emails TO Matthew Steckman RE: Wikileaks


• John Woods (Hunton for BoA) requests slides for a presentation
to a "large US bank" re: Wikileaks:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15036



• Eli Bingham (Palantir) requests for sec reps from Palantir,
Berico and HBGary to join a conference call regarding the "large US bank"
opportunity discussed above:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15039



• Aaron Barr informs Matthew Steckman that he cannot open a file
attachment from Steckman's previous email (linked):



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15059



• Aaron Barr discusses sending analysis information to Matthew
Steckman, regarding BoA/Wikileaks. Barr mentions "mapping" [speculation: the
analysis maps seen in the presentation made to Hunton for BoA]:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15061



• Aaron Barr, to Matthew Stuckman, explicitly lays out potential
"attack" strategies against Wikileaks' "weak points," citing Wikileaks'
volunteers, staff, financials, submission servers, Julian Assange, the
perceived security of leakers, etc. [speculation: this appears to be the
origination of most of the points made in the palantir/berico/hbgary
presentation to BoA legal defense]:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15069



• Aaron Barr introduces Matthew Steckman to the idea of attacking
Glenn Greenwald specifically, and makes a case for strategically undermining
Wikileaks' support in the "liberal" media. Barr explicitly uses the word
"attack" in relation to organizations/individuals supporting Wikileaks:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15070



• Aaron Barr informs Matthew Steckman that he cannot open a file
attachment sent by Steckman. Attachment appears to be a draft of the
presentation to be made to Hunton for BoA:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15075



• Aaron Barr agrees with Matthew Steckman that they should find
out "later" on whose end is the technical issue keeping Barr from accessing
Steckman's BoA/Wikileaks proposal file attachments:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15079





List of emails FROM Matthew Steckman RE: Wikileaks


• Matthew Steckman invites Aaron Barr (and reps from Palantir and
Berico) to join a conference call about an opportunity from a "large US
bank" re: Wikileaks (mentioned in previous email):



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15038



• Matthew Steckman summarizes, for Palantir, Berico and HBGary sec
reps, a phonecall from Hunton and Williams; outlines BoA/Wikileaks
opportunity as "internal investigation;" mentions BoA seeking injunction
against wikileaks; mentions US Department of Justice's recommendation of
Hunton & Williams, specifically Richard Wyatt, whom steckman refers to as
"the emperor," to BoA's general counsel; mentions roles of Palantir, Berico
and HBGary; mentions potential prosecution of Wikileaks:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15041



• Matthew Steckman outline s possible presentation slides for
proposal to Hunton for BoA, and organizes logistics of upcoming conference
call:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15044



• Matthew Steckman sends "a cleaned up version" of a document for
sec reps to "work from" [original attachment is not included at listed link,
document is an early draft of the BoA proposal.] Steckman informs sec reps
from HBGary, Palantir and Berico that he is only collecting information for
the time being, regarding the BoA/WIkileaks proposal:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15050



• Matthew Steckman sends Berico and HBGary reps another "cleaned
up version to work from":



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15051



• Matthew Steckman informs John Woods (Hunton for BoA) that the
three firms (Palantir, Berico, HBGary) will have coordinated an early
proposal by "tonight" [Dec 02, 2010]:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15052



• Matthew Steckman and John Woods (Hunton for BoA) organize
logistics of morning conference call:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15055



• Matthew Steckman sends "working draft" of BoA/Wikileaks proposal
to sec reps from Berico, Palantir and HBGary:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15057



• Matthew Steckman sends conference call details [date, time,
phone number] to John Woods (Hunton for BoA) and Berico, Palantir and HBGary
sec reps:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15058



• Matthew Steckman sends proposal notes ["document"] for upcoming
conference call/presentation to John Woods (Hunton for BoA) and Berico,
Palantir and HBGary sec reps:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15067



• Matthew Steckman informs Aaron Barr that he approves of Barr's
earlier suggestions regarding Wikileaks' strengths/weaknesses and that he
plans to "spotlight" an attack on Glenn Greenwald in the upcoming
presentation, also per Barr's earlier suggestion [see earlier emails TO
Steckman]:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15071



• Matthew Steckman informs Aaron Barr that Barr's suggestions have
been added to the updated proposal and thanks Barr for his suggestions
[detailed in emails/synopses above]:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15073



• Matthew Steckman sends Aaron Barr a "Pfd" [sic] and suggests
that they need to work out Barr's technical difficulties opening steckman's
email attachments "afterwards":



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =15076





List of emails TO/FROM Aaron Barr RE: Anonymous Research and/or
Anonymous Connections to Wikileaks


• Aaron Barr contacts John Woods (Hunton for BoA) about Barr's
research on Anonymous. Barr claims to have information about Anonymous that
possibly no one else has regarding "organization operations and
communications infrastructure as well as key players by name." Barr mentions
possible application of this information to another "opportunity" previously
discussed with Woods, but does not elaborate:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =16499



• Aaron Barr and Matthew Steckman discuss sharing Barr's research
on Anonymous:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =16379



• Aaron Barr and Matthew Stechman discuss meeting and sharing
Barr's research on Anonymous:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =16419



• Aaron Barr contacts Dawn Meyerriecks (Office of the Director of
National Intelligence) and informs her of his research on Anonymous. Barr
claims to have put together "a significant data set" and offers to discuss
his "results, methodologies, and significance of social media for analysis
and exposure":



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =16574



• Aaron Barr corresponds with John Woods (Hunton) and claims that
he has mapped out 80-90% of Anonymous' leadership. Barr claims to be meeting
with "govies" [speculation: government officials] "next week" [dated
01/31/2011.] Follow-up to email in which Barr alleges ties between Anonymous
and Wikileaks.



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =16834



• Aaron Barr discusses with Bill Wansley (Booz, Allen, Hamilton)
the possibility of researching ties between Anonymous and Wikileaks; Barr
claims there are "many" such ties:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =16633





List of emails TO/FROM Other HBGary Employees RE: Wikileaks and/or
Anonymous


• Bob Slapnik (HBGary) recounts to HBGary's sales department a
recent conversation at a "customer site" about potential markets created by
the Wikileaks release (i.e. China's resultant access to classified US
security intelligence and the US's subsequent need for new sec.) Slapnik
stresses the importance of targeted language when proposing such products:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =31460



• David Willson informs Ted Vera (HBGary) that the Bank of
America/Wikileaks news has been broken by FOX:



• http://search.hbgary.anonleaks.ru/index.php?id =43197





"The Wikileaks Threat" ( Original Document ) Discussed in Listed
Emails


• WikiLeaks Response v5: http://www.mediafire.com/?d08n3fiw6c02bju



• WikiLeaks Response v6: http://www.mediafire.com/?ki4tjk8iaunn5f6



• Differences between drafts/versions :



• Organizational breakdown expanded



• White space changed



• Minor wording changes



• The rest seems to be identical
•





Background Brief


Based on what I’ve seen of their corporate positioning, Palantir
seem to be invested in the idea that they are one of the good guys. They
claim to offer technology which better distinguishes and discriminates
amongst information acquired via mass-surveillance, and to permit the
‘tagging’ of this information so that it is accessible only to those with
the appropriate clearance and jurisdiction.

“ dedicated to working for the common good and doing what’s right”


“That deeply felt commitment has been clear since the company’s
inception and is evident in the company’s roster of advisors, leaders,
engineers, and technology experts.”

White Paper: ‘Privacy and Civil Liberties are in Palantir’s DNA’
http://www.palantir.com/privacy-and-civil-liberties

“Dam it feels good to be a gangsta...”

Matthew Steckman

(worthwhile background: positioned as trying to make a bad system
better
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId =106479613&ft
=1&f =1014 )

They’re also pretty high profile, with a market capitalisation of
over $1 billion (mostly courtesy of PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel) - ie,
they’re a little more serious than the HBGary fools.



http://blogs.forbes.com/oliverchiang/2010/11/12/names-you-need-to-know-in-2011-palantir-technologies/


All of which makes it likely that they’re going to be looking to
isolate Steckman, emphasising the disparity between their corporate values
and his conduct. Obviously, having THEIR emails would make it easier to
determine just how much upper management knew about his work without having
to actually ask them only to receive the standard incredulous insistence of
virtue. Either way, probing this is likely to give some insight into the
scale of the threat as they presently perceive it.


On that threat, I think the safest thing to say at the moment is
that nobody is quite sure where all of this is going to end up. Equally safe
is that whatever we might be able to reduce the ‘Anonymous’ position to, it
will likely be directly contrary to Palantir and their ilk – they want this
to be a momentary blip, we want it to be the chink that proves the undoing
of this sick machine we’ve all ended up serving and despising. The following
is intended to outline some of the bigger picture factors in the form of
some choice extracts from authoritative sources. This will hopefully yield
insights into particular pressure points, fissures and weaknesses to be
exploited.





Privatization and the Federal Government: An Introduction
December 28, 2006 Kevin R. Kosar Congressional Reporting Service
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33777.pdf

Furthermore, the movement of an activity from the governmental
sector to the private sector, or vice versa, has significant ramifications.
Most obviously, the behavior of the entity carrying out the task will differ
because each sector has different incentives and constraints. One public
administration scholar has suggested that the incentives amount to this: a
government entity may do only what the law permits and prescribes; a private
entity may do whatever the law does not forbid.

Government agencies, unlike private firms, usually operate under
complex accountability hierarchies that include multiple and even
conflicting goals. Federal agencies, for example, are subject to the corpus
of federal management laws. These laws serve as means for keeping executive
branch agencies accountable to Congress, the President, and the public. They
also embody principles of democratic justice, such as the allowance for
public participation and government transparency.


Thus, in shifting an activity from the governmental to the private
sector, the nature of government oversight is transformed. As the components
of government provision of goods and services are privatized, the
jurisdiction of federal management laws, Congress, the President, and the
courts is reduced.



Privatization’s Pretensions
Jon D. Michaels
[77:717 2010] The University of Chicago Law Review

http://lawreview.uchicago.edu/issues/backissues/v77/77_2/77-2-PrivatizationsPretensions-Michaels.pdf

Workarounds provide outsourcing agencies with the means of
accomplishing distinct policy goals that—but for the pretext of technocratic
privatization—would either be legally unattainable or much more difficult to
realize .

Consider the following scenario:
Exploiting Legal-Status Differentials . The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) would like to establish a data mining operation to gather
intelligence on potential terrorist threats. Bristling under stringent
federal privacy laws imposed on government officials—laws that inhibit DHS’s
ability to collect and analyze personal information without court
authorization—policymakers turn to private contractors . Contractors, like
most other private individuals, are largely beyond the scope of these
federal laws. For the most part, these laws were enacted well before
contractors were hired with great regularity to assist with law enforcement
and counterterrorism initiatives. Now, in an era where outsourcing is the
norm, DHS may use the statutes’ narrowness to its advantage and award
government contracts to the unencumbered private data brokers. The
contractors can then acquire the information more liberally on their own and
submit raw data or synthesized intelligence to the government. DHS thus gets
the benefit of more sweeping, intrusive searches than would otherwise be
permitted of government officials, short of their first obtaining warrants
or securing legislative change.




Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection
of human rights and
fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Thirteenth session
A/HRC/13/37 28 December 2009

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/13session/A-HRC-13-37.pdf

[20]States that previously lacked constitutional or statutory
safeguards have been able to radically transform their surveillance powers
with few restrictions. In countries that have constitutional and legal
safeguards , Governments have endangered the protection of the right to
privacy by not extending these safeguards to their cooperation with third
countries and private actors, or by placing surveillance systems beyond the
jurisdiction of their constitutions.

[41]The Special Rapporteur notes that since September 2001 there
has been a trend towards outsourcing the collection of intelligence to
private contractors... [raising concerns about] lack of proper training, the
introduction of a profit motive into situations which are prone to human
rights violations, and the often questionable prospect that such contractors
will be subject to judicial and parliamentary accountability mechanisms




Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection
of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin
Scheinin
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Tenth session
A/HRC/10/3 4 February 2009

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/terrorism/rapporteur/docs/A.HRC.10.3.pdf

B. Recommendations
For legislative assemblies
65. The Special Rapporteur recommends that any interference with
the right to privacy, family, home or correspondence by an intelligence
agency should be authorized by provisions of law that are particularly
precise, proportionate to the security threat, and offer effective
guarantees against abuse. States should ensure that competent authorities
apply less intrusive investigation methods than special investigation
techniques if such methods enable a terrorist offence to be detected,
prevented or prosecuted with adequate effectiveness. Decision-making
authority should be layered so that the greater the invasion of privacy, the
higher the level of necessary authorization. Furthermore, in order to
safeguard against the arbitrary use of special investigative techniques and
violations of human rights, the use of special investigative techniques by
the intelligence agencies must be subject to appropriate supervision and
review.
66. There should be a domestic legal basis for the storage and use
of data by intelligence and security services, which is foreseeable as to
its effects and subject to scrutiny in the public interest. The law should
also provide for effective controls on how long information may be retained,
the use to which it may be put, and who may have access to it, and ensure
compliance with international data protection principles in the handling of
information. There should be audit processes, which include external
independent personnel, to ensure that such rules are adhered to.

67. The Special Rapporteur also recommends the adoption of
legislation that clarifies the rights, responsibilities, and liability of
private companies in submitting data to government agencies.

For the executive power
71. The executive should have effective powers of control,
provided for in law, over the intelligence agencies and have adequate
information about their actions in order to be able to effectively exercise
control over them. The minister responsible for the intelligence and
security services should therefore have the right to approve matters of
political sensitivity (such as cooperation with agencies from other
countries) or undertakings that affect fundamental rights (such as the
approval of special investigative powers, whether or not additional external
approval is required from a judge).


On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com > wrote:


Also, we're about finished with our more organized delivery
system. http://anonleaks.ru/





On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 8:20 AM, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com > wrote:


Yeah, it's interesting stuff. When you have a moment, I'd suggest
you read my Huffington Post piece from a year ago, "Anonymous, Australia,
and the Nation State." We've been prepping for something of this nature for
a while. The last few paragraphs of my book manuscript I sent you a while
back also contains clues, lol. You might also talk to Barry Eisler at some
point. And here's a link to the talk with Aaron. Bloomberg has it and it
gets passed around other Anons but isn't quite public yet:



http://www.mediafire.com/file/7vb98xu7cobcif2/AaronBarrBarrettBrownLULZ.wma


Give me a ring in a bit if you can. It's going to take a long time
to bring you up to speed but suffice to say we've been prepping for
something of this nature for a while now.





On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 8:14 AM, < ggreenwald@salon.com > wrote:


Barrett - Wow. I'm interested in all of this.

Glenn

----- Mensagem original -----
De: "Barrett Brown" < barriticus@gmail.com >
Para: ggreenwald@salon.com
Enviadas: Sábado, 12 de Fevereiro de 2011 11:31:35 (GMT-0300)
Auto-Detected
Assunto: Re: Thanks for the link




Glenn-


I'm having a conference call with the lead counsel of Palantir and
employee Matthew Steckman, who was most involved on their end with the
conspiracy against you and Wikileaks, at 1:00 EST. Had e-mailed Steckman
last night with a short note explaining my role in Anon and telling him that
it is in his best interest to get in touch with me immediately, and counsel
called me an hour afterwards at which point I explained in general terms
Anon's current policy on the parties involved. Basically, I will be offering
terms to Steckman, who will be required to provide information on the
various "secret" partners we've discovered, such as Endgame, or at least to
provide assistance in our effort to finish off HBGary, in exchange for us
calling off our plan to do to him some of what we did to Aaron Barr. In the
meantime, let me know if you would like the recording of my phone
conversation with Aaron last Sunday after the attacks, which was conducted
immediately after HBGary president Penny Hougland called to negotiate (they
did not do very well). We also have new information gleaned from the data we
have yet to release as well as other things that might be of interest to
you. I know this all sounds bizarre, but then again, it shouldn't at this
point.


On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 3:46 AM, < ggreenwald@salon.com > wrote:


Hi Barrett - This sounds like a great event. I don't think I'm
going to be in NYC on that date - if I were, I'd love to participate - but
if not, I'd be happy to submit something to be read. Thanks for asking --

Glenn


----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" < barriticus@gmail.com >
To: ggreenwald@salon.com



Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 11:30:57 PM (GMT-0300)
Auto-Detected
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link

Glenn-


One more thing, if I can take another moment of your time. As per
the press release below, I'll be speaking at a rally/press conference in NYC
at City Hall on April 7th along with the executive director of the National
Lawyer's Guild and various figures from the pro-Wikileaks movement. We would
be honored if you would be willing to speak or even just write a message to
be read to attendees. Let me know.



Press Release
For Immediate Distribution
January 13th, 2011



An unprecedented coalition of information activists and
organizations have come together in an effort to advance the ongoing
campaign against the informational tyranny that has been on view as of late
in the context of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning. All three
of these parties have been subjected to state oppression, without due regard
for the alleged "rule of law;" all three have been maligned in dishonest and
often bizarre ways; all three have earned such treatment by way of having
together ensured that all of humanity may, for the first time in history,
together learn how it is that their wealth, loyalty, and lives are being
used by those who plead national security while having provided no such
thing to their own citizens and even seizing it from those living elsewhere.




In response to these latest outrages against competence and
decency, our coalition - comprised of veterans and anti-war groups, a
faction of the Anonymous movement, the distributed think-tank Project PM,
and a loose network of journalists, media professionals, scientists, former
intelligence and government officials, and related organizations - announces
a stepped-up campaign of information and direct action that begins tomorrow
and which will culminate in a rally and press conference on the steps of New
York City Hall on April 7th at 3:00 pm. This event, the Rally for
Information Freedom, will be supplemented by a campaign on the part of
Anonymous, Project PM, and related entities to bring attention to the dozens
of significant stories that have been largely ignored due to the unfortunate
dynamics by which too many media have come to operate. The New York
conference - conceived by longtime resident activist, Navy veteran, and
acclaimed photographer John Penley - will feature about a dozen speakers
including Penley, author and Project PM founder Barrett Brown, key Anonymous
activist and Chanology co-instigator Gregg Housh, and National Lawyer’s
Guild executive director Heidi Boghosian. Messages from other figures in the
pro-transparency movement will also be presented in lieu of their ability to
attend.




Never in human history has mankind endured a period in which so
much of the terminology employed at its end would have been unrecognizable
at its beginning. The last twenty years have changed the landscape in which
man operates, expanding the potential for human collaboration in such a way
as to eliminate the barriers that rendered the nation-state a viable
institution. As those barriers fall, so too does the primacy of the world's
governments, which in turn have increasingly found themselves unable to
maintain the secrecy through which they have run a great portion human
affairs with results that may be politely characterized as mixed. The
various states have responded to these developments with a collective
message to the effect that such secrecy is necessary if they are to continue
operating without the informed consent of their respective populations,
though this has generally been expressed in slightly different words.
Meanwhile, several such governments have, through their specific conduct in
the wake of the last year, provided a timely reminder as to why it is that
many of those who truly value liberty and morality have lost faith in those
same governments.




This event is part of an effort to counter the dishonesty and
injustice of the states which have reacted to such emergent phenomena with
censorship and persecution while also forging greater coordination among the
various parties that have been fighting on behalf of the cause of
informational liberty. To this end, a series of meetings both formal and
otherwise will be held throughout the first week of April; further
information will be relayed in a second press release in late March.
Confirmed Speakers

John Penley is a Vietnam era Navy vet who was put in solitary
confinement in 1984 by the U.S. government for a past protest at the
Savannah River Nuclear Weapons Plant. A 59-year-old veteran of New York City
housing, anti-war and civil rights activism, Penley is also a longtime
photojournalist whose work has been pubilshed by most NYC major media
outlets; his photo archive is housed at New York University’s Tamiment
Library.

Barrett Brown is a writer and author as well as the founder of
Project PM. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Huffington Post, The
Guardian, The Onion, New York Press, Skeptical Inquirer, American Atheist,
and other outlets. He has been active in the Anonymous movement for several
years and serves as an advocate for efficient, ethical alternatives to
traditional methods of governance.

Gregg Housh is an Internet activist involved with the online
non-group Anonymous. His work has included coordinating global
demonstrations against human rights abuses in the Church of Scientology and
assisting Iranian members of the Green Movement in reaching the global
media. Having built a strong sense of trust among several disparate
subgroups of Anonymous, Housh now acts as a media interpreter for major
online initiatives such as Operation Payback.

Heidi Boghosian is the executive director of the National Lawyers
Guild, a progressive bar association established in 1937. She is co-host of
the weekly civil liberties radio program Law and Disorder on WBAI, New York
and over 30 national affiliate stations. She has published several articles
and reports on policing, protest, and the First Amendment.

Sebastian Gillen is a 21-year-old graduate of Tufts University.
When he was eight years old, he was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma, a
rare form of pediatric cancer, and given two weeks to live. More than ten
years later, he is still cancer-free and an active advocate for childhood
cancer research. He has spoken at rallies on Capitol Hill and Greg Norman's
Shark Shootout, among other places. He thinks science is totally awesome and
runs a blog at Weareinthefuture.com and administrates Project PM’s Science
Journalism Program.

Faith Laugier is a musician, artist, activist, and New York native
who’s worked with many of the city’s human rights organizations, cultural
non-profits, and homeless centers in an effort to advance the inherent right
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 6:34 AM, < ggreenwald@salon.com > wrote:


Thanks Barrett - I well know the vicious mendacity of Charles
Johnson, but yeah - even though I tried, there is still lots of commentary
around to the effect of "Internet spat between Glenn Greenwald and Wired!
Who can figure out what it means???"


http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/29/the_curious_case_of_glenn_greenwald_vs_wired_magazine


----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" < barriticus@gmail.com >

To: ggreenwald@salon.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 7:53:34 PM (GMT-0300)
Auto-Detected
Subject: Re: Thanks for the link




" That's how these disputes often work by design: the party whose
conduct is in question (here, Wired ) attacks the critic in order to create
the impression that it's all just some sort of screeching personality feud
devoid of substance. That, in turn, causes some bystanders to cheer for
whichever side they already like and boo the side they already dislike, as
though it's some sort of entertaining wrestling match, while everyone else
dismisses it all as some sort of trivial Internet catfight not worth sorting
out. "


This is exactly the case, as I know from recent experience when
Charles Johnson and his people began accusing me of criminal activity and
being funded by the Russian mafia because I work with Anonymous figure Gregg
Housh and have been raising money for and advocating Wikileaks since the
beginning of the year. When I objected, Johnson banned me and began making
additional false accusations (while his commenters openly discussed
reporting me to the FBI), to which I responded in a short video in an
attempt to protect myself and my organization from continued libel. Although
a number of people did take my side and actually joined my group, others
ridiculed me for caring about "the internet."


Good work on pointing out the dishonesty on the part of Wired
while also maintaining the focus on the issue in question. It's a
near-impossible juggling act that I can't imagine anyone else handling with
the agility you have displayed.


On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 9:23 PM, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com > wrote:


Glenn-


Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.


The book should be released in the next few months; I was hearing
August but I doubt that's possible now. I'll keep you updated.


The project I mentioned involves two networks: the blogger network
described below, and another network that will operate in a similar fashion
but which will include participants of differing skill sets and backgrounds
while serving as a sort of distributed think-tank, but potentially more
useful than the average think-tank, which you'd probably agree is not set up
in such a way as to take anything close to maximum advantages of its human
resources. Our overall intent has been to design a series of related
schematics by which to improve upon communication and corroboration while
also building up a new sort of entity that would operate under these
schematics.


For our blogger network, we've recruited Michael Hastings as well
as Juan Cole, Allison Kilkenny, the fellows at Instaputz, E.D. Kain, Charles
Johnson, and a number of others, including those specializing in
non-political topics such as science. For our other network, we have former
Washington Post editorial board member Gina Acosta (who is now a critic of
that institution), novelist and former CIA Directorate of Operations
operative Barry Eisler (ditto), Case Western University Professor Mano
Singham, and dozens of others, all of whom we are working to integrate into
a single entity that will eventually be capable of growing perpetually and
adding new capabilities while also maintaining operational coherence.


For now, I've pasted a basic description of how the blogger
network will operate below; let me know if you'd like to see further
materials or have any specific questions at this point.


***



Information flow is fundamental to the success of every manner of
human collaboration. Nonetheless, the processes by which information is
gathered, handled, transferred, and acted upon receive far less attention
than is warranted. The purpose of Project PM is to change this dynamic by
developing new techniques with which to more efficiently conduct
information.

Because the great preponderance of information crucial to the
success of a representative government is transferred through the media,
Project PM focuses primarily on media reform. Our first and foremost effort
has been to establish a distributed media cartel made up of bloggers as well
as journalists who work at least in part through online media. Rather than
simply assembling this group of exceptional media professionals into an
online outlet similar to those currently in existence, we are instead
organizing our participants into a network which itself operates under a
unique schematic designed to take best advantage of the internet as a medium
while simultaneously avoiding the drawbacks common to even the best online
communities.

In order to seed the network, we have recruited around two dozen
bloggers and journalists whom we have identified as particularly competent
and intellectually honest. Each of these individuals is encouraged to bring
other bloggers into the network based on their own judgment; these new
participants are then connected to the blogger who has brought them in and
may likewise bring others into the network,and so on . As such, the network
grows perpetually while maintaining a high average quality in terms of its
participants, as is explained further below.

Upon the launch of our network, each of the initial bloggers will
be connected to each other via a widget which is embedded on their
respective blogs, as well as connected to those whom they’ve recruited. When
a particular individual composes a piece of work that he considers to be of
particular merit, the individual pushes a single button which causes the
article in question to be sent to all of the bloggers to whom he is
connected. Each of those bloggers in turn then decides whether or not they
agree that the article is worthy of greater attention; if so, they push the
button and thereby send it along to every blogger to whom they themselves
are connected. Thus it is that information deemed worthy of attention by
some great number of erudite and honest individuals from a variety of
backgrounds will tend to perpetuate through the system and gain a larger
audience than they might otherwise receive.

As the network expands by way of the process described above, it
is inevitable that there will be failures of judgement on the part of
participants when choosing additional bloggers to bring into the network.
Let us say that Blogger X, who is rather competent, brings in Blogger Y, who
is only moderately so, and who in turn brings in Blogger Z, who is a giant
douchebag. Blogger Z begins composing and pushing forward posts to the
effect that Barack Obama was born in Tehran or that ethanol subsidies are
awesome or some such thing – but these posts only initially go to Blogger Y
and whatever horrid bloggers Blogger Z has brought in himself, assuming he
has brough in any. Blogger Y may or may not be inclined to push forward
these nonsense posts, but Blogger X will almost certainly delete them
immediately and is quite likely to disolve his connection to Blogger Y for
displaying such poor judgement. Thus it is that the system is defended from
deterioration by the high competence of the initial round of bloggers and
consequently comparable competence of those brought in gradually afterwards,
coupled with the nature of the schematic itself. No supervision is necessary
for the network to expand while maintaining a high level of quality.

A few other characteristics bear noting. Any participant may
connect to any other participant who agrees to the connection, no matter
“where” each participant resides in the network, and thus the network is
likely to evolve from the shape of a pyramid to that of a web, which is
advantageous in terms of ensuring that good information does not become
overly “regionalized.” All participants are equal regardless of the order in
which they joined. Participants are free to bring on as many other bloggers
as they would like, although they will find that it is to their own
advantage to be selective in this regard.

The system is capped off with another widget distinct from that
used by the bloggers – the reader widget, a downloadable application which
displays those posts which have been pushed forward a certain number of
times (as set by the individual reader). The end result should be the best
system of news and information filtration that has ever existed.








On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 11:20 AM, < ggreenwald@salon.com > wrote:


Hi Barrett - Nice to hear from you. Michael emailed me a few weeks
ago and we exchanged some thoughts about all of this.

Thanks for sending the transcript, which I will definitely take a
look at. I actually thought about doing a book somewhat related awhile ago
-- it was going to be America's 10 Worst Pundits, or something like that --
and then get sidetracked on a couple other book projects, so this sounds
great. When will it be released? If you want to do something surrounding it
like a podcast interview or something, let me know.

And I'd love to hear about the journalism project you're working
on. I've actually been working on one myself with Dan Froomkin, Jay Rosen
and a couple others about standards for newspapers to release all original
source material online, so I'm interesting in hearing what you're doing.

Glenn Greenwald




----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" < barriticus@gmail.com >
To: GGreenwald@salon.com
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 8:40:16 PM (GMT-0300) Auto-Detected
Subject: Thanks for the link

Mr. Greenwald-


I'm gratified that you appreciated my Vanity Fair piece on Michael
Hastings and felt inclined to link to it a few weeks back, most particularly
since you happen to be the blogger whom I most often cite as indicative of
how the blogosphere allows superior commentators who would otherwise be
unlikely to reach a large audience to, uh, reach a large audience. In fact,
I mention you twice in my upcoming book on the failed American punditry,
along with Juan Cole, who has since joined up with the project that Hastings
and I are spearheading in an effort to change the overriding media dynamic
by way of a new methodology we have developed for the purpose. Incidentally,
Hastings is also very grateful for the support shown by you, Sullivan, and
others who have made the obvious case that "access" alone is useless to the
body politic, and that the media at large is largely responsible for the
events of the past decade.


In case you're interested, I have attached the latest draft of the
manuscript, which includes chapters on Thomas Friedman, Charles Krauthammer,
Richard Cohen, Martin Peretz, William Bennett, and Robert Stacy McCain,
while also attempting to make the larger case that in a society marked by
accelerating change, the U.S. cannot afford to continue on its present path
in terms of information flow. And if you'd like to learn more about our
project and its potential viability, feel free to e-mail or call at your
convenience.


At any rate, thanks for the work you've been doing over the past
several years.

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--



Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
940-735-9748







--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
940-735-9748




--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302





-- 
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302