Partial anatomy of a hack by GCHQ – It’s pwned

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[5/2/15 I may have been mistaken about the running inside virtualization and that is probably normal livecd messages. There is still something amiss with the different ps axu(s) – it does at least make me very suspicious since I can’t think of any reason why that would happen other than nasty. I’m also surprised that this system is so difficult to boot into OpenBSD. You can’t be too paranoid, or can you?]

I’ve got an AMD64 thin client as a gateway / router that also runs a tor relay. It usually runs dnsmasq but has been running the more conventional dhcpd and named recently. It uses a small camera-style flash card as a hard drive running current and patched OpenBSD. My internal network connects to this through a switch. I run firewalls on all machines – pf on this of course and usually arno-iptables-firewall on debian boxes. This box currently has an uptime of over 59 days.

Image of GCHQ donught building. Doesn't look like a doughnut. Look. Oh c'mon, can't you see - open your eye.

Just recently I’ve had a hard drive fail on my desktop debian machine. I was very surprised at this since it’s very low mileage and being debian linux it hardly ever gets powered down. It appeared to have many and increasing terrible errors that also seemed to jump about whenever I tried e2fscking them. I can’t help but suspect that GCHQ contributed to the apparent demise of this drive.

My new replacement drive arrived yesterday and I had decided to install an OpenBSD xfce desktop. None of the OpenBSD install cds were recognised. What’s going on here?

At the OpenBSD box:

# ps axu | grep bin
root         1  0.0  0.0   744   148 ??  Is    23Nov14    0:01.16 /sbin/init
_syslogd 12341  0.0  0.1   756   876 ??  I     23Nov14    0:08.61 /usr/sbin/sys
_iscsid  10832  0.0  0.1   624   548 ??  Is    23Nov14    0:00.00 /usr/sbin/isc
root     17049  0.0  0.1  1068  1100 ??  Is    23Nov14    0:00.04 /usr/sbin/ssh
_sndio    1059  0.0  0.0   712   344 ??  I<s   23Nov14    0:00.00 /usr/bin/sndi
root     25566  0.0  0.1   904  1092 ??  Ss    23Nov14    0:09.31 /usr/sbin/cro
< (xterm widened) >
# ps axu | grep bin
root         1  0.0  0.0   744   148 ??  Is    23Nov14    0:01.16 /sbin/init
_syslogd 12341  0.0  0.1   756   876 ??  S     23Nov14    0:08.61/usr/sbin/syslogd
_iscsid  10832  0.0  0.1   624   548 ??  Is    23Nov14    0:00.00 /usr/sbin/iscsid
root     17049  0.0  0.1  1068  1100 ??  Is    23Nov14    0:00.04 /usr/sbin/sshd
_sndio    1059  0.0  0.0   712   344 ??  I<s   23Nov14    0:00.00 /usr/bin/sndiod
root     25566  0.0  0.1   904  1092 ??  Ss    23Nov14    0:09.31 /usr/sbin/cron
_tor     18528  0.0  2.8 21700 25344 ??  S<    23Nov14  1927:49.62 /usr/local/bin/tor

That can’t be right – that tor only appears in the second and subsequent ps axu(s). Having huge difficulty i.e. it is impossible, to install OpenBSD to my desktop machine. They’re pwned.

OpenBSD doesn’t install under a Linux  virualization ‘wrapper’. Linux runs under Linux virtualization, OpenBSD won’t – at least not under this virtualization.

“NET: Registered protocol family 17

mpls_gso: MPLS GSO support” it reads – it’s embedded Linux.

It appears to be a very small wrapper in IPv6 coming from the OpenBSD router / gateway. My laptop starts complaining that BIOS has been changed – not seen that message before. The tor router relay is stopped pretty sharpish.

GCHQ? Well my connection to my ISP is to their ‘audit’ machine. I guess that means GCHQ. My close friend’s car was hours late back from it’s first service – shouldn’t the first service only be oil and filter, a half hour job? After that it was clear that cops could hear everything said in that car and were often waiting for us to arrive. A friend who I was once close to had the ‘Water Board’ round to check his taps. He remarked that she was well-presented. I’ve noticed that local ‘Scientific Investigation’ policewomen are well-presented. Oh, and we had a deep cover spy at our anti-casualisation group meetings. He was also at a pre-G8 2005 meeting. I think that he was Met, very interested in me and an apparent dirty, hairy anarchist cop.

I was using a password 29 characters long. My guess is that they used my mobile to map my keyboard – different characters sound different and there are differences in the time I take to reach them. Or they could have watched (spied) through the window.

I don’t know if they wanted me to find this or not.  I met someone from GCHQ in the Bunch of Grapes one Friday afternoon many years ago. It’s their job, it’s what they do.

I watched this a few hours earlier. You may get lost after the first 10 minutes or so. 30 to 37 minutes or so is good for politicians.

Can’t copy embed code. Bloody GCHQ. Bruce Schneier at MIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXtS6UcdOMs

I’m listening to this at the moment

but while I’m listening to this I want to explain a far greater danger than terrorism that I face almost daily because you see, I am a cyclist.

Yesterday I was almost mown down by a motorist that was on the wrong side of the road and almost mowed me down. He had not seen me because he was texting.

Motorists on mobile phones are lethal to cyclists – a far greater danger than any supposed attacks by ‘terrorists’. I can attest that there is a far greater danger to people – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists – than terrorism. We need a sense of proportion, to be measured and to asses issues. As a cyclist, I am telling you it is far more dangerous than any fake manufactured, terrorism nonsense. I accept that there are a very few terrorists – usually insane. How can they be anything other than insane? But, they are caught up in the terrorist narrative. Cycling and being a pedestrian is far more dangerous.

Where is the international campaign against motorists using mobile phones? Surely NASA, GCHQ can catch these ‘t*******ts’? Don’t they cause terror to ordinary people and kill indiscriminitely? Actually, yes they do. And far more than this terrorism BS.

There are very few terrorist. Yes they should be pursued. There is fake, manufactured terrorism which is still terrorism pursued by nation-states and criminal cabals. There are also a few poor sods caught up in the terrorism narrative but let’s get it in perspective.

Indiscriminite drones. Stop it.

Ok, er, cycling is nothing compared to rockets from a drone. It’s much the same that it’s totally undeserved but I reckon a drone is far more lethal

– he’s talking about speed limits now

struck by lightening

I suggest that you watch the Greenwald vid. still long to go – talking about inscenity now

Talking about terrorism defined as what Muslims do. We had this in Uk recently with the car driven into council offices up North which then exploded. Strangely enough that wasn’t a car bomb and was reported on the news as most definitely not terrorism …

Intermission: I take advantage of this intermission to point out out that I do magick: that I have converted water into wine with the assistance of fruit, sugar and yeast. I made Melomel for the first time this year and I think that it may have been the first medicine (Meddygon Myddfai). Untreated, unadulterated honey and currant fruits worked really well. It was like a universal medicine – anything that was wrong with you it cured. I believe that it is possible to keep bees without exploiting them.

OK, intermission over.

<snip>

22/1/15 2.40am At least they know that I’m not into CP. I wish that they would go for the ones that are (and more). Actually, I want them to go for the people that abuse children. My understanding of GCHQ’s purpose is that it’s outside their remit. I think that GCHQ is military and concerned with defence. Can we change that so that they catch paedos?

better now ;)

Continue ReadingPartial anatomy of a hack by GCHQ – It’s pwned

The simple way to install Tor for online anonymity

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Image of Tor onion networkingThe bad news is that the National Security Agency (the US authority that spies on internet users) targets anyone searching for privacy tools.

NSA classifies Linux Journal readers, Tor and Tails Linux users as “extremists”

“Months of investigation by the German public television broadcasters NDR and WDR (ARD), drawing on exclusive access to top secret NSA source code, interviews with former NSA employees, and the review of secret documents of the German government reveal that not only is the server in Nuremberg under observation by the NSA, but so is virtually anyone who has taken an interest in several well-known privacy software systems,” said the ARD report.

The program marks and tracks the IP addresses of those who search for ‘tails’ or ‘Amnesiac Incognito Live System’ along with ‘linux’, ‘ USB ‘,’ CD ‘, ‘secure desktop’, ‘ IRC ‘, ‘truecrypt’ or ‘ tor ‘. It also refers to the Tails Linux distribution as “a comsec mechanism advocated by extremists on extremist forums”.

The good news is that it’s never been easier to install tor anonymity software. Just head over to Torproject, grab the tor browser bundle and follow the instructions.

 

edit: I support the Tor project by running a Tor relay.

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UK politics news

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A selection of recent UK and international news articles

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UK politics news

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A small selection of recent UK politics news articles

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UK politics news

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A small selection of news articles about UK and international politics …

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UK politics

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A few recent UK (& other) politics articles

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Politics news allsorts featuring Tory paedos news

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Image of CGHE documentThere is a story developing – which has had surprisingly little attention – that five Tory MPs including one ex-minister are being investigated for paedophile crimes against boys. The source of the story is exaro news while slightly different reports appear in the daily record and ibtimes. The former cabinet minister is described as a household name. What does that mean?

Home Secretary Theresa May has blocked the appearance of the MI5 boss Andrew Parker at the home affairs select committee. Parker was to appear to justify his claim that the Guardian has risked national security by publishing the whistleblower Edward Snowden. Parker’s claims continue to be unsupported by any evidence.

 

[17/12/13 I think I know who and hardly a household name unless made in … is what is meant by a household name …]

 

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Politics news allsorts

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Commentary and analysis of recent UK politics events

Image of GCHQ donught building

Edward Snowden voted Guardian person of the year 2013 for his whistleblowing on worldwide surveillance activities.

Online gamers are targeted by NSA and GCHQ

Online gaming is big business, attracting tens of millions of users worldwide who inhabit their digital worlds as make-believe characters, living and competing with the avatars of other players. What the intelligence agencies feared, however, was that among these clans of elves and goblins, terrorists were lurking.

The NSA document, written in 2008 and titled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, stressed the risk of leaving games communities under-monitored, describing them as a “target-rich communications network” where intelligence targets could “hide in plain sight”.

Games, the analyst wrote, “are an opportunity!”. According to the briefing notes, so many different US intelligence agents were conducting operations inside games that a “deconfliction” group was required to ensure they weren’t spying on, or interfering with, each other.

But the documents contain no indication that the surveillance ever foiled any terrorist plots, nor is there any clear evidence that terror groups were using the virtual communities to communicate as the intelligence agencies predicted.

Image of Iain Duncan SmithIain Duncan Smith blames everyone else at the work and pensions select committee

After months of trying, MPs on the work and pensions select committee finally had a chance to question Iain Duncan Smith on the DWP’s abuse of statistics and the chaos surrounding Universal Credit today. On the former, Duncan Smith bullishly pointed out that the department had published “over 500” statistical releases and had received just two critical letters from the UK Statistics Authority. He again declared that he “believed” thousands of people had moved into work as a result of the introduction of the benefit cap, despite the UKSA warning that this was “unsupported by the official statistics”.

But when he was questioned on the false statement by Conservative chairman Grant Shapps that “nearly a million people” (878,300) on incapacity benefit dropped their claims, rather than face a new medical assessment for the employment and support allowance (which resulted in another reprimand from the Statistics Authority to Duncan Smith and Shapps), he took a strikingly different line. Rather than defending the claim, he replied that it was “nothing to do with the department” and blamed CCHQ for the inaccurate “conflation of data”. Speaking from what appeared to most to be a glass house, he added: “I’ve tried to get my colleagues at Central Office to check first before they put anything out about the areas that the DWP covers because it’s complex”. One was left with the image of Duncan Smith pleading with Shapps and other Tory apparatchiks not to twist statistics for the purposes of political propaganda but his own record meant he received little sympathy from the committee.

After being challenged on the DWP’s demonisation of benefit claimants through its references to “a something for nothing culture”, Duncan Smith similarly sought to shift the blame, noting that it was “a minister” from the last government (Liam Byrne) who first referred to “shirkers” and “workers”, to which the only appropriate reply is ‘two wrongs don’t make a right”.

… (continues much the same)

Related: Universal credit failed IT system write-off increased by £6m

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Image of GCHQ donught buildingHuge tech firms have formed the Reform Government Surveillance group to demand changes to excessive surveillance by world governments. The group has published an open letter to President Obama and Congress:

Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,

We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change.

For our part, we are focused on keeping users’ data secure — deploying the latest encryption technology to prevent unauthorized surveillance on our networks and by pushing back on government requests to ensure that they are legal and reasonable in scope.

We urge the US to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight. To see the full set of principles we support, visit ReformGovernmentSurveillance.com

Sincerely,

AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo

Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee is dismissive of the call:

“So I start off by recognising that, in the modern world, the terrorists use all the technology available to them.

“It would be foolish for the intelligence agencies in free societies not to start by using that technology.

Isn’t there a contradiction there?

Amnesty International is to start legal action against the UK government through the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. While it’s quite clear that Amnesty is not involved in terrorism, that will be used as the justification since it is the normal BS justification.

 

MPs to honour Mandela today.

Iain Duncan Smith again

I watched the 4th episode of The Revolution Will be Televised last night. First broadcast on 1st December, it’s very good.

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Commentary and analysis on recent UK politics news.

The Conservative-Liberal-‘Democrat’-Conservative coalition intends to persecute benefits claimants and (poor) young people.

Jobless young people without basic skills told to learn or lose benefits

The principles of “earn or learn” have been hotly debated within the coalition, after David Cameron used his conference speech in October to float the idea of taking away housing benefit and jobseeker’s allowance from under-25s who were not in work or training.

The Liberal Democrats have not agreed to all those ideas but appear to have relented on some elements of “earn or learn”, as Osborne announced that 18 to 21-year-olds without basic skills would only get their benefit if they undergo 16 hours of training a week.

On top of this, all 18 to 21-year-olds who are unemployed for more than six months will have to undertake compulsory work experience, a traineeship or a full-time community work placement.

The measures appear to be an extension of the government’s controversial “workfare” schemes – or mandatory work activity – where jobseekers are forced to go on a month of work experience in order to qualify for their benefits.

Autumn statement: how are families and individuals affected?

Missing from the autumn statement were figures on welfare benefits, tax credits and child benefit. Under the Welfare Benefits Uprating Act passed earlier this year, rises in most benefits no longer go up by the rate of inflation but are capped at an increase of 1% until 2016. So Jobseekers Allowance, currently £71.70 for the over 25s who have a record of paying National Insurance, should on that basis rise to £72.42 – an increase of 72p, or enough to buy a tin of Heinz baked beans at Tesco and still have 4p left over.

In the 2010 budget, Osborne said child benefit rates would be frozen for three years, taking effect from April 2011. Since then, the rate has been £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for the second or more. Nothing was mentioned about child benefit in the autumn statement, but assuming the provisions of the Uprating bill are applied to child benefit from April next year, expect another 20p for the first child and 15p for the second.

The basic state pension, currently £110.15 a week, will rise by 2.7% – the rate of inflation – to £113.10. George Osborne also confirmed that the state pension age will rise to 68 nearly 15 years earlier than originally planned, starting for people retiring in the mid-2030s, rather than 2046. It will then rise again to 60 by the late 2040s, and 70 in the decades after that, saving £500bn from pension expenditure over the next 50 years. “We have to guarantee that the basic state pension is affordable in the future, even as people live longer and our society grows older. The only way to do that is to ensure the pension age keeps track with life expectancy,” said Osborne.


COMMUNISTS ON OSBORNE STATEMENT: “Good news for the rich, City and big business”

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Robert Griffiths responded as follows to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement today (December 5)

‘The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement is good news for the super-rich, City speculators and the corporate fat cats. It hands yet more lavish subsidies to big business on top of the tax cuts on high incomes and monopoly profits. There will be extra state finance for exports to China together with tax relief for City speculation in Exchange Traded Funds and for shale gas fracking, business rates and employers’ National Insurance contributions.

But there will be no windfall taxes on energy and retail monopoly profits and no moves to end tax haven status in British overseas territories. Instead, the extra state pension of £2.95 a week from April will be swallowed up in rising household fuel costs while almost one-third of men and more than one quarter of women today will not live long enough to draw their pensions in the mid-2030s at the age of 68′.

Imran Awan discusses terrorism suggesting that the ConDem coalition government is intending measures that “…  will simply further stigmatise Muslim communities.” Awan raises many issues:

  • ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘war on terror’ are poorly defined
  • ‘Terrorists’ and freedom fighters are not clearly distinguished
  • States sanction the use of the ‘terrorist’ label to stigmatise individuals and small groups e.g. the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
  • Many protest issues are labelled as being of a ‘terrorist’ nature e.g. animal rights activism, anti-capitalism and anti-abortion campaigning
  • States’ use of drones and torture can be regarded as terrorism
  • “[T]he media have vilified and demonised Islam, making it comparable to terrorism”
  • The terrorism label is far less likely to be applied to right-wing terrorism

Image of Guantanamo Bay prisoners

‘Terrorism’ is a wonderfully useful tool for governments engaged in oppression: the huge scale of the surveillance by NSA and partners is justified through the so-called threat of terrorism despite the fact that the fact that the so-called threat cannot justify such oppressive measures. Terrorism permitted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Terrorism is so important to these oppressive regimes that they have to ensure it’s continuing existence through drone strikes, renditions, the use of torture in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and by [later edit: the]demonizing of Islam and Muslims.

If terrorism didn’t exist these governments would have to invent it. Actually, they did invent it: Glenn Grenwald reports on research by Remi Brulin that it was invented “… by Israel in the 1960s and early 1970s as a means of universalizing its conflicts (this isn’t our fight against our enemies over land; it’s the Entire World’s Fight against The Terrorists!). The term was then picked up by the neocons in the Reagan administration to justify their covert wars in Central America (in a test run for what they did after 9/11, they continuously exclaimed: we’re fighting against The Terrorists in Central America, even as they themselves armed and funded classic Terror groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua). From the start, the central challenge was how to define the term so as to include the violence used by the enemies of the U.S. and Israel, while excluding the violence the U.S., Israel and their allies used, both historically and presently. That still has not been figured out, which is why there is no fixed, accepted definition of the term, and certainly no consistent application.”

Terrorism is bullshit ideology invented, used, nurtured and maintained by USUK and it’s allies to rule the world.

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