Wednesday 28 July 2010

Julian Assange: The Curious Origins of Political Hacktivism (Counterpunch November 25 / 26, 2006)

The Anti-Nuclear WANK Worm

Real hacktivism is at least as old as October 1989 when the US Deptartment of Energy and NASA machines world wide were penetrated by the anti-nuclear WANK worm. The worm was the second ever to be unleashed, but its provenance was a curious contrast to its forebear. For you see, worm #1 had been traced to the son of National Security Agency chief cryptographer Robert Morris.

That WANK had a bold political intent was immediate. WANK penetrated machines had their login screens altered to:

W O R M S A G A I N S T N U C L E A R K I L L E R S

_______________________________________________________________
\__ ____________ _____ ________ ____ ____ __
_____/
\ \ \ /\ / / / /\ \ | \ \ | | | | / / /
\ \ \ / \ / / / /__\ \ | |\ \ | | | |/ / /
\ \ \/ /\ \/ / / ______ \ | | \ \| | | |\ \ /
\_\ /__\ /____/ /______\ \____| |__\ | |____| |_\ \_/
\___________________________________________________/
\ /
\ Your System Has Been Officically WANKed /
\_____________________________________________/

You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war.

In our book Underground, Suelette Dreyfus and I trace the source of the worm to Melbourne, Australia. At the time there was considerable cold war fueled anti-nuclear sentiment in the country. Australia had (and still has) a number of US spy, early warning and nuclear submarine communications bases, most of which were first and second strike soviet targets. Australia would not otherwise be a nuclear target, a fact charismatic Soviet foreign minister and Gorbachev confidant Edvard Shevardnadze frequently drew to the attention of the Australian people before finding himself a loved and reviled President of Georgia.

Additionally in 1984, New Zealand, a country with which Australians feel a special affinity, had under Labour prime minister David Lange, made NZ a nuclear free territory, precluding the admission of nuclear armed or powered warships into NZ ports. The US in response rescinded its defence treaty obligations to NZ, cut intelligence ties (or at least pretended to, see Nicky Hager's excellent book "Secret Power'' for futher details) and instigated a number of trade sanctions against the country.

But New Zealand's nuclear woes were not to end there. At 11:59 pm on the night of July 10 1985 the Greenpeace flag-ship "Rainbow Warrior'', docked in Auckland harbour preparing to sail in three days time to Mururoa Atoll to demonstrate against French nuclear tests, was bombed by amphibious DGSE (French Secret Service) agents, killing Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira. Within days, two DGSE agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur were arrested, following an investigation by Australian journalist Chris Masters, plead guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced by the NZ high court to 10 years. The other DGSE agents escaped via a French Nuclear sub off the NZ coast. The French, a significant NZ trade partner, immediately instigated trade sanctions against the country. In June 1986, a political deal was struck; France would lift sanctions, pay a few million in blood money, and the two agents would be transferred to Hao Atoll, a French military base in the pacific, where they would supposably serve out the remainder of their sentences. However, by May 1988 both had been smuggled back to France.

Examination of the worm source code show specific instructions to avoid infecting machines New Zealand.

Policy always has unpredicted consequences, but it should be remembered that some are blessings!

@'Counterpunch'

So who is Julian Assange again?

Underground

See Mendax

Russian Greens Fight Putin's Plan for Floating Nuclear Power Plants

They would be floating Chernobyls.

Russia has embarked on a scheme to building floating nuclear power plants to be moored off its coasts—especially off northern and eastern Russia—and sold to nations around the world.

“Absolutely safe,” Sergei Kiriyenko, director general of Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation, told Reuters as the barge that is to serve as the base for the first floating plant was launched recently in St. Petersburg.

However, David Lochbaum, senior safety engineer at the Union of Concerned

Scientists, describes an accident at a floating nuclear power plant as “worse” than at a land-based plant. “In a meltdown, a China syndrome accident, the molten mass of what had been the core would burrow into the ground and some of the radioactive material held there. But with a floating nuclear plant, all the molten mass would drop into the water and there would be a steam explosion and the release of a tremendous amount of energy and radioactive material. It would be like a bomb going off,” said Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at Washington-based UCS.

“With a floating nuclear plant you have a mechanism to significantly increase the amount of radioactive material going into the environment,” said Lochbaum, who worked 18 years as an engineer in the nuclear industry and also for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A large plume of radioactive poisons would be formed and “many more people would be put in harm’s way.” Further, there would be radioactive pollution of the sea, he noted...

Continue reading

Karl Grossman @'Counterpunch'

HA! (Thanx Luke!)

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Upcoming John Martyn tribute album - tentative details announced

Beck, Snow Patrol and Devendra Banhart are among the acts who are will appear on an upcoming tribute album for the late John Marytn.

The Cure's Robert Smith, who was confirmed for the compilation earlier this year, and other names on the tracklisting include Lisa Hannigan, Blackships' (featuring The Verve's Nick McCabe and Simon Jones), Vetiver and David Gray.

The release date for the as-yet untitled LP is still to be announced and as Twenty Four Bit reports, other acts could well be included on the album.

The tentative tracklisting for the John Marytn tribute album is as follows:

'Stormbringer' (Beck)
'May You Never' (Snow Patrol)
'Small Hours' (Robert Smith)
'Rope Soul'd or Sapphire' (Blackships)
'Go Down Easy' (Beth Orton)
'Let The Good Things Come' (David Gray)
'Couldn't Love You More' (Lisa Hannigan)
'I Don't Want to Know' (The Swell Season)
'One World' (Paolo Nutini)
'Sweet Little Mystery' (Devendra Banhart)
'Go Easy' (Vetiver)
'Head & Heart' (Vashti Bunyan)
'Solid Air' (Skye Edwards)
'Over The Hill' (Ted Barnes Featuring Gavin Clark)
'Glorious Fool' (The Blind Boys Of Alabama)
'Anna' (Brendan Campbell)
'Dancing' (Sonia Dada)
'Certain Surprise' (Sabrina Dinan)
'Oh My God' (John Wayne)
'Clutches' (Foley)
'Angeline' (Nicholas Barron)
'You Can Discover' (Cheryl Wilson)

@'Uncut'

John Martyn - Anna
For a bit of the history behind this - one of John Martyn's more obscure tracks go here.

PS: I could be wrong but I think there was also another version of this released as a 7" by John Steven's 'Away'...needless to say if anyone has more info or indeed a copy could they get in touch. Thanx!

(And for very obvious reasons this is dedicated to the Spaceboy's mum!)

Ben Keith RIP

Ben Keith was the long-time steel-guitar player for Neil Young dating back to the ‘Harvest’ days. He was also a member of the Pegi Young band.

In recent years, Ben was producing a second volume of ‘Last Man Standing’ for Jerry Lee Lewis.

His credits over the years include work with Ringo Starr, Linda Ronstadt, Todd Rundgren, Warren Zevon and J.J. Cale.

Ben Keith was the producer of the first Jewel album ‘Pieces of You’. The record featured Neil Young band members Spooner Oldham and Tim Drummond. The album sold over 5 million in the USA.

Ben started out in Nashville in the late fifties and played on Patsy Cline’s ‘I Fall To Pieces’.

Neil Young first discovered Ben when they both appeared on The Johnny Cash Show. Neil recruited Ben right there and the two first worked on the now classic ‘Harvest’ album.

@'Undercover'

Madlib - Generation Match - Electronic Dimension

Julian Assange - Why the world needs Wikileaks

“Fair Use” Wins!

The US Copyright Office comes to its senses:

“It’s no longer illegal under the DMCA to jailbreak your iPhone or bypass a DVD’s CSS in order to obtain fair use footage for educational purposes or criticism. These are the new rules that were handed down moments ago by the U.S. Copyright Office. This is really big. Like, really big.”

@'CrunchGear'

Monday 26 July 2010

Adrian Sherwood - Besti Mix 27

Wow, no... seriously... wow. We’re literally bowled over by our latest Besti-mix, a bottom-heavy exclusive dub soundclash from a true bassbin-bothering legend, reggae producer and sound system operator par excellence, Adrian Sherwood. Best known, and loved, for his staggering production, releases and ear-crushing live shows with his On-U Sound Record label and traveling sound system, as well as his hugely influential productions for Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and other brilliant, charismatic Jamaican toasters including Prince Far I, Mikey Dread and Bim Sherman.

Over the years, Adrian has also been called upon to bring his production skills to bear on releases and remixes for the likes of Primal Scream, Depeche Mode and The Happy Mondays, which is where yours truly first saw him, scrambling brain cells and stiffening necks as the support act for the famed Manc baggies first London gig. Adrian, we salute you, and your superb On-U Besti mash up...

Download

@'Besitblog'

Is the Internet Filter Australia's Berlin Wall

The history of the last twenty years of the Twentieth Century were, for me, marked by a millennial fervor that swept through society like a great wave of hope. Watching the Berlin Wall topple, seeing the defiance of Tiananmen Square and even the spontaneous outpouring of goodwill that happened during the Sydney Olympics are moments which shine brightly for me. Each of these were individual but also collective statements that spoke about our desire to connect with one another, to experience and make history with our own hands, and to own the consequences of our actions.

Living in the relatively benign political landscape of Australia has meant that such movements largely pass us by. Wholesale political and ideological change can occur here each four years – at the voter’s discretion. Depending on the mood of the public, we can swing from the reformist centre left position taken by the Keating Government to the deeply conservative position adopted by the Howard Government – and not a drop of blood is spilt, not a single car is burnt in anger, and life resumes under the umbrella of what is essentially a radically transformed ideological agenda.

The reason that such large scale political and ideological change can take place, I believe, is in large part to the robust and open democracy which Australia’s political leaders have built over the last hundred years. Fundamental to this has been the freedom of political thought and expression – backed up by rigorous, independent (and in many instances, judicious) review of government decisions.

The internet filter proposed by Senator Stephen Conroy threatens all this. Thus far, the government have focused their arguments around the highly emotive issue of child pornography. There is no question that access to this sort of material should be prohibited. However, only 32% of the sites listed on the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s “blacklist” are related to child pornography. This means that a whopping 68% of sites on the list are there for other reasons – political, ideological, etc – and at the whim of the government in power at the time.

Moreover, the blacklist is NOT available for public scrutiny or independent review. A copy of the blacklist was released on the Wikileaks website earlier in 2009 (a site which is, itself, blacklisted).

In this radio interview with Latika Bourke, former High Court Justice, Michael Kirby suggests that the internet filter may well be the “thin edge of the wedge” when it comes to controlling what the Australian population reads, what it has access to and therefore, how it can behave online.

The internet is, on the whole, a marvellous advance of not only information but also of freedom and of ideas, and of ideas of liberty … we’ve got to just be careful … because if one government, our government, begins to intervene in this, there’ll be other governments that just want to get into it to control the freedom of ideas … ideas which will break down the Berlin Walls of the future. (6:19)

Former supporter and co-author of the original report recommending internet filtering, Michael Flood, has now switched camps. In an interview with Rachel Maher, he suggests that, as a society, we should be having more complex and robust discussions about censorship, access to non-classified material and and the social and educational benefits that accrue through such access:

His discussion of pornography is complex and enlightening and leads us through to the kinds of debate the Federal Government and civil society should be aiming to have: debates that could look simultaneously and intelligently at both harm reduction and access for adults to sexual material online.

But as pointed out by this article in the Sydney Morning Herald, content which is legal for viewing and consumption will also be filtered. This includes information which, while sometimes mildly confrontational, has social and cultural value, including websites which provide:

Harm minimisation information for recreational drug users
Space for the discussion of gay and lesbian sexuality
Analysis of the geopolitical causes of terrorism

More detail and reading on the internet filter

There are plenty of websites offering perspectives and ideas, history and analysis on this controversial subject.

Libertus.net's perspective on the censorship debate
Google's policy response to the filter announcement
Stephen Collins suggests that we are moving towards a “Nanny State” mentality
Craig Wilson wonders can the blogosphere topple a government (or at least a policy)
David Olsen recommends changing the language around the #nocleanfeed debate
Will Briggs calls the results of the government’s pilot program into question
Tim Plaisted asks precisely how a filter will protect children, especially in light of incidents like this
Ben Barren walks us through an interesting scenario
Senator Kate Lundy shares her thoughts

What can you do about the internet filter’s impact on our democracy?

Bernard Keane suggests that any letter writing campaign must be far more strategic than many sites suggest. It is not just a matter of bombarding the local member of parliament or Minister Conroy’s office. It’s about carefully crafting our efforts to raise our concerns with a number of departments. The idea is to generate a significant amount of work across multiple offices of the government.

Please read Bernard’s recommendations carefully, but remember to:

Carefully craft your letters – don’t use form petitions
Draw in multiple departments and policy areas such as the internet filter + Telstra + national broadband
Write this letter specifically to your local member of parliament – even if they are a member of the Opposition
Write another version of the letter, with a different focus (eg bring in a discussion of Australia Post or issues relating to Education) to Stephen Conroy
Write additional letters to individual Federal Ministers asking how the filter will impact their portfolios and the businesses and individuals they represent – Kim Carr for IT, Jenny Macklin for families, Tony Burke for impact on farming communities etc

Above all, be polite. No matter how passionate and frustrated you may be, remain focused on communicating your frustration not simply expressing it.

Gavin Heaton @'Wikileaks'