Saturday, 8 February 2014

AN EX- PENSIVE QUILL

‘

Dirty Tricks’: UK Spies Use Sex, Cyber Attacks to Discredit Targets – Snowden Leaks

By RTFebruary 06, 2014 "Information Clearing House - "RT" - Intelligence agents working for the United Kingdom have employed “dirty tricks” including sexual “honey traps” to ensnare rival agents, hackers, suspected terrorists, arms dealers, and other criminals, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

Documents leaked by the US National Security Agency whistleblower and published by NBC news Friday detail strategies used by the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG), a spy unit whose existence has been classified, to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” adversaries. The slides, which were used in 2010 and 2012, showed that the JTRIG completed their mission by “discrediting” them via misinformation and hacking their communications.

The leak details two primary methods of attack, cyber operations and propaganda efforts. The propaganda missions include mass messaging and the manipulation of stories on social media platforms like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube.

The cyber-attacks primarily include distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, made famous by hackers who overtake millions of computers and direct all of their internet traffic to one site, overwhelming that URL and effectively shutting it down for an amount of time.

Eric King, an attorney who currently teaches IT law at the London School of Economics, told NBC it is “remarkable” that the GCHQ has become so adept at launching DDoS attacks without “clear lawful authority,” and even as the British government has criticized similar strategies used by other governments.

“GCHQ has no clear authority to send a virus or conduct cyber-attacks,” he said. “Hacking is one of the most invasive methods of surveillance.”

The slides also point out that the British were “slightly ahead” of US spies regarding offensive operations and that the GCHQ had absorbed many of the responsibilities formerly under the domain of the MI5 and MI6 spy agencies.

Yet the clandestine activities outlined in the Snowden documents also exit the digital world and enter one reminiscent of a John le Carre novel. The 2012 presentation describes the “honey trap” method of discrediting a target with the timeless art of seduction. The individual is lured “to go somewhere on the internet, or a physical location” where they are then “met by a friendly face.”

No specific instances where the “honey trap” was successfully employed is mentioned, but a so-called “Royal Concierge” program took advantage of hotel reservation systems to track the physical location of foreign diplomats and issue “daily alerts to analysts working on governmental hard targets.” Royal Concierge then attempts to manipulate the reservation so the diplomat in question stays at a hotel friendly to the GCHQ’s SIGINT (signal-intelligence) program. Others are tracked so they can be monitored in-person.

The slides encourage agents to monitor targets through “close access technical operations” and ask them to consider “Can we influence hotel choice? Can we cancel their visits?”

Also mentioned in the 2010 presentation is a technique known as “credential harvesting” that seeks to manipulate journalists into giving tainted information to an intelligence target. Whether or not the journalist would be aware of their role is unclear but the slides do indicate a reporter could be used to gain access to a target, perhaps through an interview, and then have their conversation monitored by the GCHQ.

Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told NBC the very notion of “credential harvesting” should be a “wake up call” to media personnel.

“All journalists generally are then vulnerable to the charge that they work at the behest of an intelligence agency,” he said.

WELCOME TO THE BBC YEAR OF THE WHORES

BBC Calls the ‘Year of the Whores.

“Welcome to the year of the whores. People

around the globe celebrate,” BBC subtitles.

“Happy New year of the #whores from the

#BBC. Bullé!”

BBC’s subtitles often malfunction, with the

Archbishop of Canterbury being referred to

as the “Arch bitch of Canterbury”, while

during the Queen Mother’s funeral

they called for “a moment’s violence”

Friday, 7 February 2014

VAN MORRISON - Thanks For The Information

Soundboard recording from a concert at the Europa Hotel, Belfast, March 2013.
Thanks For The Information written by Van Morrison, taken from currently deleted album -
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986).

BORN TO SING: NO PLAN B
new studio album preview HERE:http://youtu.be/x7Rm7eT6hqw

Gig details, merchandise & more http://vanmorrison.com

http://facebook.com/vanmorrisonofficial
http://twitter.com/vanmorrison
http://youtube.com/vanmorrisonofficial
http://pinterest.com/vanmorrison

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Music

JACK IN DUNN'S CORNER

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 07, 2014 AM NO COMMENTS

Last week’s in-depth report in the Chronicle for Higher Education by Beth McMurtrie has finally nailed Boston College for its wholly irresponsible approach to the Belfast Project. Its criminal negligence, while concealed during the life of the project, has been exposed as present from the embryonic stages of the exercise.

Since the onset of the subpoenas, Boston College, rather than fully commit to the battle on behalf of its research, sought to shaft both its researchers and research participants, through lies, 'obvious and dangerous lies'.

Eagerly expressing the dishonest ethos of the College, BC spokesperson Jack Dunn hasplayed a crooked hand from early on in the case, at all times trying to smear and marginalise the researchers in a corporate decision to protect the institution. That sleekit approach only works when you don’t get caught. Dunn lacked the requisite skill to evade the snare and has at last confirmed what critics of the college have charged all along: that BC was more interested in gutting the researchers rather than waging the political fight.

In Dunn’s own words:

Had our efforts gone to Congress in identifying supporters, to work with the State Department and the Department of Justice, we could have been more effective.

But our efforts were involved in legal matters and distancing ourselves from the reckless rhetoric of Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre.

Dunn, stung by the bad press the College took in The Chronicle, spoke to Brooke Gladstone of NPR’s On The Media. Never slow to leap before looking, Dunn confirmed he had been born with a silver foot in his mouth and engaged in what may ironically be described as reckless rhetoric of his own.

To some, like me, who have long charged that Dunn was a vicious smear artist, his contribution was music to our ears. I have always considered it important that anytime Dunn digs a hole for both himself and the College he should be given an ample supply of shovels. Having his inanities, inconsistencies, and mendacities on public record has helped damn the College’s self serving and increasingly false narrative.

During his interview, Dunn moved to smear me as a person who had a long criminal record. That I was an IRA political prisoner with the same record typology as Bobby Sands, Frank Hughes and the eight other hunger strikers who died in 1981 resisting the criminal label, seemed not to figure with Dunn. With no sense of irony whatsoever and a seemingly straight face, he had no problem citing another former IRA member (and therefore a criminal in Dunn’s eyes), Danny Morrison. Any passing consideration for Boston College's own court assertions that the College adequately represented myself and Moloney went out the window in Dunn's embrace of a blunt cudgel he could clumsily wield against me for his own nefarious end; if anything clearly demonstrates how unfairly and inadequately BC represented us, it is this unholy alliance between Bangers and Mush.

Dunn, in the same interview, also sought to cast aspersions on the quality of my research. With characteristic dishonesty, he falsely claimed that BC Professor Kevin O’Neill had in a 2002 memo accused my work of being very weak, and that O’Neill was stunned by the leading questions that I had asked, implying that the questions I had formulated were somehow a rhetorical strategy to ensnare Gerry Adams.

If indeed Kevin O’Neill had made such charges, Boston College stands indicted for allowing me to continue in the role as researcher for a further five years, and for publicly singing the praises of the research I had conducted a full eight years after O’Neill’s memo - which I had never been shown until this week. This is to say nothing of the implications for the affidavits sworn and filed on behalf of the Trustees of Boston College that describe the purpose of O'Neill's review as "confirming for us what we believed to be the value of this unique collection".

At no point did Kevin O’Neill in his 2002 memo state that my research was weak. What he did say was that ‘what is already collected forms the foundation of a significant historical archive.’

This impression, formed not long into the project, from a brief review of a couple of interview transcripts, was confirmed by Judge William Young. His assessment upon reading the complete Republican archive was,

“This was a bona fide academic exercise of considerable intellectual merit.

[These materials] are of interest – valid academic interests. They’re of interest to the historian, sociologist, the student of religion, the student of youth movements, academics who are interested in insurgency and counterinsurgency, in terrorism and counterterrorism. They’re of interest to those who study the history of religions.”

Bearing in mind Judge Young is not someone regarded as friendly or sympathetic to my position.

The leading questions referred to by Dunn - supposedly meant to cause problem for Gerry Adams - are as follows:

Q: In my view it was very very naïve ...

Q: Is it true to say, as many writers and academics claim, that was one of the significant turning points ….[Falls Curfew]

Q: I think that what you are trying to do is argue…

Q: Even in the most functional terms, was it a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

Q: They seemed to be …incestuous….

Q: Most volunteers that stayed the course seemed to have that as an objective, I know I did...

Whatever view people might take of the type of questions, it is very clear that there is nothing in them that would lend weight to the malign interpretation attributed to them by Dunn.

If anything, I feel that I stand vindicated by the 2002 memo of Kevin O'Neill - and that the falsehoods of Jack Dunn lie vanquished in his corner.

Posted in: Boston College Subpoena,Jack Dunn

WAR ON WALES

CONTINUITY IRA DRONES TO TARGET LONDON?

A "hacked" RQ-170 drone in Iran (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty)

A "hacked" RQ-170 drone close to Bobby Sands street in Iran,

Bobby Sands Street, in Tehran. Iran, was originally called Winston Churchill Street. The locale has a politically influenced history. A former Iranian student, Pedram Moallemian, wrote an article which is posted in the Bobby Sands Trust website. Moallemian recounts back to 1981 when he and his friends, active in the turbulent politics of Iran, moved to rename Winston Churchill Street to Bobby Sands Street.

“Shortly after the revolution of 1979, Iranians were busy changing names,” writes Moallemian. “Names of thousands of streets, buildings and even cities that had been named after the Shah, his family or others close to the former regime needed to be changed and replaced by new idols and symbols of the revolution.”

Moallemian and his friends created their idea in March 1981 when they heard the news that Bobby Sands had died as a result of his hunger strike while in a British Occupied Ireland prison. I met several Iranians at Bobby's funeral in Belfast myself. Bobby Sands quickly became a name for all teens to connect with rebellion and wanted to pay homage to him and his fight for Irish freedom.

One of the friends apartment overlooked the British Embassy in Tehran which was on Winston Churchill Street.The Iranian teens knew to pay homage to Bobby Sands that this would be the perfect place to do it. They hoisted a flag bearing the letters ‘I.R.A,’ but it was too heavy for the flag to fly so they decided to rename Winston Churchill Street as Bobby Sands Street.

“The plan wasn’t as exciting and adventurous, but we were desperate at this point. We all agreed and had soon bought large white construction paper and navy magic markers to make signs. I was the most graphically gifted of the bunch, so I’d draw the shape of the actual signs, copying the real ones made by the city and the rest of the gang would colour and cut them. We made about twenty of them and got out when it got dark to cover the old signs.”

“Next evening we returned to see if any of them were left and to our surprise there were a few new ones made by others too and, thanks to the glue we had used, even the ones very close to the embassy compound had remained in place. However, the occasional missing corner was proof someone had tried to remove them. Soon the entire street had new signs and the city officially changed the name also.The larger victory, however, was when we discovered the embassy had been forced to change their mailing address and all their printed material to reflect a side door address in order to avoid using Bobby’s name anywhere.”

After Winston Churchill Street was renamed Bobby Sands Street, the British Embassy put a door on the opposite side of the building so its mailing address wouldn’t read Bobby Sands. All of which leads to the question will Iran give its drone technology to the Continuity IRA to attack central London and its stock exchange again? Below is an article in today's BBC with regard to the matter,

"Military and civilian drones have a crucial weakness that means they can be hacked, Katia Moskvitch discovers, so what might a stolen drone be used for?

If you were watching Iranian state TV in early December 2011, you would have seen an unusual flying object paraded in front of viewers. Windowless, squat, with a pointed nose, its two wings made it the shape of a manta ray. The trophy on show was an RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone, a key weapon in the intelligence gathering arsenal of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Standing in a hangar on a military airfield, the drone was seemingly undamaged. Indeed, Iranian officials insisted that it had not been shot down; rather, they claimed an unusual coup: to have hacked the drone while it was flying near Iran’s border over Afghanistan and forced it to land.

Outside Iran, many snorted in disbelief at hearing such claims. Todd Humphreys, assistant professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas in Austin, US, was one of the sceptics. Soon, though, he would prove himself wrong.

So, how easy is it to hack a drone? Along with the military, could police and private citizens also lose control of their aircraft? And if so, what might a hacker do with a stolen drone?

One way to hack a drone involves messing with the system it uses to navigate. US military drones use encrypted frequencies of the Global Positioning System (GPS), and this was the RQ-170’s Achilles heel, said the Iranians. They first jammed its communications links, which disconnected it from ground controllers and made it switch to autopilot; it also interrupted the secure data flow from the GPS satellites. The drone was forced to search for unencrypted GPS frequencies normally used by commercial aircraft. At this point, the Iranians said, they used a technique called “spoofing” – sending the plane wrong GPS coordinates, tricking it into believing that it was near its home base in Afghanistan. And so it landed on Iranian territory, directly into the welcoming arms of its kidnappers.

The US rejected the hacking scenario, insisting that its flying robot simply had malfunctioned. Military drones usually have a back-up system to guide them home automatically if contact with operators is lost. But that clearly didn’t work.

Military reconnaissance drones carry camera footage that the IRA want.

The more Humphreys thought about the incident, the more he felt that such an attack might work, at least in theory. Together with students at his university’sRadionavigation Lab, which he directs, he invited the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to watch how his team could spoof a civilian drone mid-air.

Using equipment costing less than $2,000, Humphreys mimicked the unencrypted signals sent to the GPS receiver on board a small university-owned drone. With DHS officials watching, he managed to fool the drone in a matter of minutes to follow his commands. “I first dismissed the Iranians’ claims as extremely unlikely, but have since revised my estimate to ‘remotely plausible’,” he says.

Confused drone

Jamming GPS satellite signals “so the drone's sense of its own location begins to drift away from the truth” is quite doable for both military and commercial drones, he says, because these signals are so weak. “The US military is scrambling right now to reduce their drones' susceptibility to GPS jamming, but it's going to take some time before they've got a satisfactory fix.”

There are other vulnerabilities, too. Intercepting data links from the drone, such as knowing precisely what the plane is looking at, is also easy to do if the feeds are not encrypted. In 2008, Iraqi militants intercepted unencrypted video feeds from unmanned US spy planes. And in 2012, drones at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada were reportedly infected with malware after an operator apparently had used a drone’s computer to play “Mafia Wars” – and in the process installed a virus on the PC.

A military drone hacked by criminals is obviously a dangerous scenario. But what if hackers were to gain control of civilian flying robots? Drones are already being exploited for search and rescue organisations, police authorities for surveillance, or for crop or wildlife monitoring, for example, and they may soon be joined by postal services and online retailers.

An IRA engineer can make Parrot AR drones target each other or the Stock Exchange in London again.

Independent IT security analyst Samy Kamkar showed that taking control of a civilian drone was possible in December 2013. He equipped a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 with a tiny Raspberry Pi computer, a battery and two wireless transmitters. The microcomputer ran a simple piece of software, which directed the drone to search for the wi-fi signals used to control nearby Parrot drones. Once his drone had found a victim, the program used the wireless transmitters to sever the target drone’s link to its owner and took control. According to Kamkar, a handheld computer on the ground can do the trick too.

Humphreys calls Kamkar’s work “a clever hack” and predicts that “it won't be the last one against commercial drones; hackers will find flaws and exploit them.”

David Mascarenas, who works for the National Security Education Center at Los Alamos National Labs, agrees. As drones are nothing but flying computers, he says they “have the potential to exhibit never before seen security flaws that couple both cyber and physical security concerns.”

Yet what would be the motivation for a hacker to take control of a civilian drone?

“The reason to hack a drone would be like any other reason people hack,” says Peter Singer, director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings Institution, a think-tank based in Washington DC. “It might be to cause an act of terror, an act of mischief, to carry out some kind of crime, or the “white hat” type, to show that it can be done in order to warn others of the vulnerabilities.”

Delivery drones carry cargo that the IRA may hack to deposit elsewhere.

Delivery drones could be hacked to steal their cargo, the expensive machine itself, or even to encourage black market activities. “If a drone can deliver a book, it can also be used to deliver "IRA Bombs” or sneak guns into Maghaberry concentration camp, says Mascarenas. Indeed a drone has already been used for smuggling cigarettes into a prison yard .

Another example might be military espionage. A drone that normally operates within an army base could be redirected and tagged with a tiny broadcasting camera, allowing an IRA technician to spy on sensitive military information.

Then there may simply be people who don’t want drones spying on them. One town in Colorado has already proposed drone “hunting licences” that would allow people to shoot down drones.The anti-surveillance sentiment behind it is real as one continuity IRA volunteer in South Armagh put it. “If I saw an unfamiliar Brit drone snooping around my back yard, you can bet I'd jam its GPS receiver to shoo it away or bring it down like we did with British Army helicopters before,” he says. “GPS jammers can be purchased for less than 40 Euro online and they're quite effective.”

Such methods will likely prove to be the start of an arms race between IRA technicians and the British Occupation Forces in Ireland who wish to stop them. “The bottom line is that a drone is a flying computer. And computers can be hacked,” say the Continuity IRA

'Top Secret' Drone BBC Link

GET RELIGION OUT OF IRISH POLITICS

Just a day after his election, new Presbyterian Church Moderator sparks row by telling gay people to stop having sex

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**The next moderator of the Presbyterian Church, 63-year-old Rev Michael Barry.**

BY REBECCA BLACK – 06 FEBRUARY 2014

The new leader of the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland has angered the gay community just a day after his election by saying they should stay celibate.

Rev Dr Michael Barry (63) takes charge of the Presbyterian Church in June following his election as Moderator earlier on Tuesday.

But his belief that homosexual men and women should not have sex has sparked outrage in the gay community.

"We welcome all people into the Church, but we would have a problem with those who are involved in a gay relationship because we believe the Bible teaches that is against the word of God," he said.

"We would encourage people who are gay to live a celibate life."

Rev Barry described advertised gay conversion courses as a "very difficult situation".

"Personally, I am not convinced that that is possible," he said.

"I think the whole origin of where gayness comes from is still up for debate and I would be a bit concerned at being dogmatic one way or the other.

"Certainly we'd want to help people who are having difficulties with their sexuality to live in such a way that is honouring to God."

Director of the Rainbow Project John O'Doherty said he was disappointed by Rev Barry's views.

"Once again we have senior religious figure in Northern Ireland refusing to accept the difference between sex and sexual orientation," he said. "While it may be easier for those people who oppose same-sex attracted people to view us simply as sexual beings, The Rainbow Project recognises the importance of the physical, emotional and sexual attractions that exist in relationships.

"We believe that understanding our sexuality and promoting openness in our relationships leads to better sex lives, better health and wellbeing and better relationships".

One of Northern Ireland's few openly gay political representatives said Rev Barry is entitled to his views.

"It is important to recognise other differing views," said Alliance councillor Andrew Muir.

"LGBT people should be included in NI society as equal, valued citizens." Dr Barry succeeds Dr Rob Craig on June 2.

PROFILE

New Presbyterian Moderator Rev Dr Michael Barry (63) is originally from Carrickfergus and worked as a maths teacher before deciding aged 28 to follow his heart and become a minister. He has served the congregation at Sandys Street Presbyterian Church in Newry for the last 29 years.

He is married to Esther and they have two grown-up daughters. The Manchester United fan lists as his hobbies singing in an eight-man choir, playing golf and watching sport on TV.

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nallyterrace88p· 11 hours ago

When I started to openly question religion for the first time, someone made this point to me : Are you questioning it because you are really beginning to believe that there is not a God, or is it because religious people themselves have alienated you through their own stubborn and total faith in things which make no sense?

The truth is that it was the latter. Christians will go to great lengths to tell us how much God loves us, and how he has shown that love to us. Yet the scripture which they base that faith on is built on intolerance, wrath and vengeance. This God who loves us all adds the caveat that we must in turn love him, believe in him and honour him. Why would any eternally existing force of such immense power and intelligence demand something which is so selfish? What is great about demanding that others praise you?

Why does this God who loves us so much have so much anger towards two men who love each other when all sensible people can see that it is harmless? Why does God make us so ashamed of our sexuality, to the point where people are embarrassed and ashamed to open up about the thing which forms the basis of so much of our behaviour? The fact that God created us, and therefore bestowed hormones on us, makes it all seem like a bit of a sick practical joke by this God of love.

And some Christians will either rush to tell me that I must simply accept scripture despite its manifest lunacy, and others will tell me how wrong I have got it ... that when God says we should kill gay people he actually did not mean it . .

Saturday, 8 February 2014

Friday, 7 February 2014

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Just a day after his election, new Presbyterian Church Moderator sparks row by telling gay people to stop having sex

The new leader of the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland has angered the gay community just a day after his election by saying they should stay celibate.

Comments (137)