He's unusual combo of brilliant and motivated to do the right thing,
his grandfather was similar. Will send all that stuff in next two
weeks, and thanks again for taking the time to discuss this today.

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Ryan Gallagher
<ryan.gallagher@hotmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for joining in with the AMA! Tried to answer your Qs.

I'll look out for the "activist schematic/network" thing -- sounds very
interesting, definitely keep me updated. I have a lot of time for David
House, met him here in London. A good guy.

Ryan
________________________________

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:08:59 -0500

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

Absolutely true regarding Burton as evidenced by other claims (and
about several other folks there that I've noticed). Frankly I don't
like being so agreeable with a journalist all the time. Also very
great that you're doing a Reddit AMA, I did a sort of volunteer
advisory thing for the Dem House candidate in Virginia who ran against
popular Republican Randy Forbes, my guy was first self-noted atheist
to actually run for Congress seat (as opposed to announcing it
afterwards, as another did years back) and I was still actively
"director of communications" for a secularist PAC he'd asked for help.
Had him do an AMA, was very well received (partly because I wrote a
couple of the answers for him, knowing the culture due to having spent
too much time reading it previously). I'll absolutely watch it. Will
be interesting to see what new round of Trapwire/Stratfor commentary
hold for us. Also, in a few weeks I'll be ready to show some people
documentation of a sort of "activist schematic/network" that I'm
developing with the activist David House and potentially with a suit I
met after the Bloomberg security panel; you might find it interesting,
as I think it's going to be just a modest version of more of the same
to come over ten years.


On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Ryan Gallagher
<ryan.gallagher@hotmail.com> wrote:

The Project PM entry looks good at first glance, focuses on the known
knowns
and no speculation. I think part of the problem also, for the record, is
that some people have been treating the Stratfor emails as if they are
straight up gospel. Burton claims Scotland Yard used/uses TrapWire, but
when
I asked them they said they had no knowledge of it ever having been used
by
them. In my experience, they only issue a comment like that when they're
sure. Usually I get a "we will not confirm or deny" when I ask Scotland
Yard
a tech question. I think the Stratfor emails are good for tips and
pointers,
but for accurate info not so much.

In unrelated but sort of related news, I'm scheduled to do a Reddit AMA
as
part of my Slate surveillance work today at 1pm ET. Would be great if
you,
as a man who knows the subject well, could come and join in with some
questions!

Ryan

________________________________

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:39:02 -0500

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

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

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

-- 
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302