Ryan-

Absolutely agree with your points, and certainly people such as myself
who initially repeated that it definitely used "facial recognition"
were wrong to do so without making sure, and I can imagine there was
even worse misunderstandings of much of it than just the ones I saw on
Twitter, etc. Especially agree on other, more questionable things not
getting the same level of horror from many quarters; so much is
dependent on chance, whim, presentation, mundane whatnot. Will check
out your piece now, and appreciate the feedback. Also someone was nice
enough to add this entry to our wiki, which seems to quote linked docs
directly; likely you'll have seen most or all of it but maybe it'll be
useful if the issue does take off or get revisited. Thanks again.

http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Trapwire

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Ryan Gallagher
<ryan.gallagher@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hey Barrett,

I've seen you've been blitzing the TrapWire issue on Twitter and I do
understand why people have latched on to it.

My criticism of the thing wasn't so much about the level of concern -- more
the misinformation. It got to the point where I was seeing people with tens
of thousands of followers tweeting things that really just were not
accurate, fabricated out of nowhere, and I felt I had to deal with that. You
know the sort of work I do, and you know that there is a great deal about
the surveillance-security industrial complex that I find deeply problematic
and worrying. But I am very strong on the importance of accuracy, and so
felt it was crucial to inject a bit of sobriety into what I seen as a
genuine kind of snowballing hysteria (particularly on Saturday/Sunday).

The interesting thing for me is that I've reported on kinds of surveillance
technology that I view as far more controversial than TrapWire, but there
has not been the same outpouring of anger. I'd say that what's going on at
the FBI's Domestic Communications Assistance Center, and at the 72 Fusion
Centers across the States, is far more notable, for instance.

Perhaps it's that "TrapWire" just sounds so sinister, I'm not sure. I think
what's happening is that people have used (and are using) TrapWire to
project all their fears and anxieties about surveillance and vent it all
out. I think it is perhaps being used as a sort of symbol regardless of what
the TrapWire technology in itself is actually capable of. TrapWire is
interesting and worthy of attention, don't get me wrong, but there are far
bigger fish in the pond.

I must say, I do think that the Australian media you reference in your blog
post certainly made an error in scrubbing the articles from the web. The
more sensible thing to do would have been to have edited the piece, or to
have made a clarification or correction. They should have at the very least
left up a page explaining why it was taken down... foolish, unprofessional,
and not transparent to just scrub the thing.

Anyway, good to share these thoughts with you.

Best,

Ryan

P.S. This article from yesterday might be interesting to you:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/08/how_governments_and_telecom_companies_work_together_on_surveillance_laws_.html

________________________________

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:43:44 -0500

Subject: Re:
From: barriticus@gmail.com
To: ryan.gallagher@hotmail.com

Howdy, Ryan-

Hope all is well. Read your Trapwire piece and thought it was valid
criticism of at least some of the takes/levels of concern over the
whole thing.

I and several friends have been unusually energetic in looking
through info on Trapwire, Abraxas, Cubic, and other Cubic subsidiaries
and their relationships, the last three of which we have a limited but
telling body of research on, going back to when we first dug into them
on persona management involvement in march 2011. Besides that, I've
collected several other docs, including tax and merger filings, that
illustrate the extent of Cubic's involvement with their other
subsidiaries (admittedly going on a small sample, only have info on
three of dozens of the damn things - one of the most interesting of
which they created out of Abraxas itself, incidentally, just 2-3 years
back, to win CENTCOM/USAF persona management contract. Anyway, you're
one of about three people I go to these days on things I think are
most important, so would like you to read this partly silly thing I
wrote last night, in part because it draws on several new or just
obscure facts that I think color this incident, especially in light of
the initially unexplained (and now poorly explained) disappearance of
an article syndicated in at least six or seven Australian outlets
including Sydney Herald a day after it appeared, apparently due to
some nature of legal threat or objection from the very powerful and
well-connected consortium that, among other things, has deep ties to
Australia's defense sector and increasingly civilian security (which
figures into why Cubic was so inclined to act, I suspect).

Thanks and cheers.

http://barrettbrown.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-facts-on-cubic-and-trapwire-abraxas.html

On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 2:24 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
wrote:

Great to hear, let me know when the piece is cleared. All's well here,
working on a couple of interesting projects that may help move things
forward with the general info campaign on cyber and also did this
Bloomberg/Businessweek panel on the subject:


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-02/how-the-experts-would-fix-cyber-security

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 7:51 PM, Ryan Gallagher
<ryan.gallagher@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Barrett,

Just wanted to let you know the long-delayed Raytheon thing is in
motion. I
re-wrote the piece for a UK publication. No idea what we are looking at
timescale wise, as I've still got to deal with editors and lawyers,
etc. But
anyway, I just thought I should send an update and let you know I've
not
forgotten about this and it's high on my agenda. Will send more news
when I
have it, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later.

Hope all's well at your end.

Best,

Ryan

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

-- 
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302