My first real indication that something was definitely going on, happened late one night in 1998. I was working late on a project and was using the Internet to do research when I noticed my modem (a whopping 56k speed) started sending data. I had nothing open, so I checked a few things and found that nothing was running.
I had been doing some network security, so I had monitoring tools at my disposal. I opened up my network monitor, and found that I had a strange amount of traffic being sent to an IP address. The strange part was, when I tried to find out the location or owner of the IP, I could trace it back to somewhere in the state of Virginia but couldn’t get any more information.
The next day I called a friend who works in high-end network security. He was strangely brief, but said not to worry about it and just forget I saw anything. I thought it was odd, but knowing who his employeer was, I decided to take his advice. A few weeks later, he showed up at my work and wanted to go for coffee.
I had honestly forgotten about the strange activity until we were almost done, so I questioned him again about it.
He replied “Do some digging for the N-S-A-K-E-Y… they do that kind of stuff… ” it was kind of cryptic but I went home and started digging. After a few days, I had no success and I moved on to different things. It wasn’t until 2 years later when I stumbled upon what he was talking about.
The “_NSAKEY” was a big boo-boo by Microsoft. A programmer in the security team had used the term “NSAKEY” to tag the program that was responsible for encrypting the data that was being sent to the NSA. This “1024-bit” encryption key would make it impossible to “crack” the information.
Of course, Microsoft would go on to deny that the key was responsible for anything nefarious.
Never trusting Bill Gates or his beady little eyes, I wasn’t surprised. That made me wonder, is this Echelon thing more than I had originally thought? Since that moment of discovery, I have been watching the tech world with a magnifying glass.
As time went on, more and more information would leak out about these covert monitoring systems. First it was Carnivore which was just the tip of the Iceburg. Later Echelon would become public, saying they could monitor any communication:
The ability to intercept communications depends on the medium used, be it radio, satellite, microwave, cellular or fiber-optic. During World War II and through the 1950s, high frequency (“short wave”) radio was widely used for military and diplomatic communication, and could be intercepted at great distances. The rise of geostationary communications satellites in the 1960s presented new possibilities for intercepting international communications. The report to the European Parliament of 2001 states: “If UKUSA states operate listening stations in the relevant regions of the earth, in principle they can intercept all telephone, fax and data traffic transmitted via such satellites.”
Ok, so I have laid the ground work for what I am about to write.
During my time in college, a film was released known as “Hackers“. In the film, Zero Cool and Acid Burn (aka “Crash-n-Burn”) take on an evil genius who figured out a way to hack his way to riches. His big idea?
You guessed it, A New World Order where countries don’t exist and corporations rule the planet.
Now imagine my surprise when I turned on the news and heard of this faceless collective known as “Anonymous“.
Their original exploit was born at the Internet’s “red light district” known as 4Chan to attack the Church of Scientology, and how ever noble of a target, I feared that this may be the harbinger of a great Internet war.
Anonymous upped their attacks after the Wiki-leaks scandal and the “attack” on Julian Assange who’s life strangely mirrors the lead character in the movie “Hackers”.
During this time, their tag line became etched in the collective conciousness. “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”.
We are legion sounds really familar… hmmm…
And he had asked him, “What is your name?” He said to him, “Our name is Legion, for we are many.” – Mark 5:9
Ok, so let me get this straight… There is an anonymous group of hackers, who have modelled themselves after the film Hackers, that are using a slogan from the Bible that is spoken by a demon?
Excuse me while I lose my composuer for a moment… WHAT. THE. F**K?
Sorry about that.
So we have this Anonymous group that wants to fight the New World Order, but there becomes a problem, they aren’t fighting the “powers that be”, they are fighting corporations.
The way I see it, all groups in this system are basically playing Poker. Years ago, the Roman Catholic Church and the Monarchy controlled our lives, now its corporations who work for the bankers, monarchy and church. And as we, the people, begin to lose our respect and admiration for this power structure, its time to replace it with a new system. One that seems fair on the surface, but will continue to prop up the slave control systems.
To me, this is what Anonymous is. I would even venture that certain major players are backing their exploits. The most dangerous part of Anonymous is just that… they are anonymous.
Who could they be? I don’t know. What I do know is that any arrest you seen in the media was the scape-goating of a stupid kid. They where just useful idiots that Anonymous manipulated into thinking they were “fighting back”.
Remember what I said about Echelon? How is it these hackers escape capture, though the system monitors everything? And why is it, they never go after the real injustices of this world? Why just go after big corporations with simple hacks that anyone could do? If they we’re really “L33T” so to speak, why not do something more impressive?
Because this is not about freedom or truth, it is about manipulation and public gumption of not knowing or understanding the technology and what is really at play here. All we are ever told about Anonymous is that they are “average” computer geeks who are fighting back at the system. Some have even speculated that they are employee’s inside some of the biggest tech firms.
We may never know who is really behind Anonymous, but I have one clue for you.
This public battle with Kim Dotcom of Mega-Upload has gotten Anonymous up in arms. But Mr. Dotcom has made millions from piracy and does nothing publicly to serve Anonymous’ goals. Perhaps we should think about this as this great Internet War heats up.
source: jungleapocalypse.com
