Chipping away of Freedoms

The recent brain fart from president Trump has yet again distracted the public as to the real motivations of such snips of feigned disdain about respect for the country. And the belief that a employer can force employees not to voice their beliefs. Kneeling as a form of protest becomes an important freedom under attack.

While this seems like yet another simplistic Alt-Right solution, it falls within the GOP goals of legalizing corporations to require contributions to candidates by their employees. This has been floating around congress for years. With the Citizens United decision the push has been on to allow control of contributions, and in effect the political opinions of the corporate employees in violation of their democratic rights to voice their own political beliefs.

IF you can force employees to stand for that national anthem, then you can control their political contributions, and later whom they vote for.

Writing Science Fiction

A couple of years ago while observing the relentless anti-Science diatribe coming from the conservatives. I came up with a Idea for a Science Fiction story, and it went something like this;

Many different Scientist had been ‘blackballed’ by the government in power, and removed from their jobs. Unable to work, they had taken any jobs they could get, pumping gas, fast food, and delivery people. Low pay, no respect, and no Science. While many had offers to work abroad in their fields, they were blocked from leaving the U.S. by being placed on no-fly and no-travel restrictions. The government did not want the brain drain, but they didn’t want the scientist from becoming active again, and casting doubts upon the U.S.

So here we are, science suppressed, and scientist restricted. So a group of Irish (where I currently reside) conspired with the Irish government (covertly) to create passports and travel documents for the scientist being held. Then an Irish person who could pass in appearance to a scientist, would enter the U.S. as a visitor, and assume the identity of the individual, and work their jobs, fill their roles and report to their parole boards. In the mean time, the scientists would use the created Irish identities to flee the U.S. and then sometime later the substitutes themselves would exit. The scientists would then be free, and able to resume their Scientific Research.

The story would then detail this activity for several different scientists…etc, etc, etc

Now, in the present, this is no longer a Science Fiction story, and not even really a Fiction of any sort. It is a sad telling of the near reality.

UPDATE: It’s already beginning – Make our Planet Great!

Election 2016: Fascism in America

In the current climate the urge to paint Donal Trump as the New Hitler is often the theme, however the ‘The Donald’ is more showman and trickster than absolute dictator. And as showman he will say and do anything that it takes to win. However winning is nothing, the show must go on and the next ‘Thing’ must be won. And should Mr. Trump become Mr. President you will see such a unification of Republican and Democratic Congressional resistance against anything dangerous, that Mr. President should pursue, than has ever been seen before, ever. The world is safe.

The same can not be said of Hilary Clinton. While she is often alluded to as being better than Donald, and forgetting any and all dirt that might be heaved around at the moment. Her belief that the Presidency is hers by Rights, that she believes that the presidency is owed her, and does not have to be earned by a popular vote, is the most condemning sociopathic belief imaginable. This is the root of Fascism, of entitlement of the elite (or self deluded elite), that assumes authority where it is not granted. But should Ms. Clinton become Ms. President the world could slip under such a dark shroud that any and all, real or perceived, enemies and threats to Hilary would fear for their lives. As to threaten Her Reign would be a personal and bloody thing. And the world would tremble.

And while I do favor Bernie Sanders in the next election, anyone (not GOP) plucked off the street could be substituted here, as a last effort to prevent the next disaster.

Whoops: Guess who won? But worst than that, the GOP retained both the House and Senate.

Apple vs FBI: The unspoken Truth on Encryption

While one can admire Apple for ‘defending’ it’s customers privacy, while also benefiting with the positive advertising. It is probably a moot, and hollow victory as the NSA and the CIA have already broken Apple security.

Not that it shouldn’t be of high importance, the resources required to do the cracking of any particular extraction of an encrypted message sent with a iPhone would most likely exceed the budget of a small country. Which is exactly the point of encryption, making it hard, and expensive to decrypt. Imagine the joviality at the NSA/CIA after the hours of decryption, that the ‘Important’ message turns out to be a high priority, top secret Cookie Recipe from you mothers cookbook.

And thereby is the unspoken truth of encryption the first one is this: you must either decrypt everything, to find what is being said, because if you can only choose strategic messages, choosing the right ones are tantamount.

During WWII monitoring enemy communication was aided by observing the frequency of communication traffic, when frequency increased, something important was being communicated. Modern military communications is continuous and unbroken, transmitting meaningless message traffic, and therefore not highlighting any particular message in the traffic stream that would be required to be decrypted. This would now be a requirement to decrypt everything, in the military traffic stream.

The second Truth is this; The assumption that you can decrypt all the messages is the hight of arrogance and ignorance. Anyone, yes anyone can create an encryption that will be impossible for a machine of any sort to decrypt, and many of these can be hidden to the point that even a human expert directly observing the message can not decipher.

Imagine hiding messages in the continuous email stream called Spam, which now constitutes more that 80% of all email traffic?

Thoughts like this keep the NSA/CIA/FBI up nights, and no matter what Bull Shit they might tell you about the need to have back doors and encryption keys it will NEVER catch all the potential secret messages that terrorists might choose to pass to each other.

Because the simplest of truths: It isn’t possible.

RTE Political Debates 2016

The only thing that I hear from the ‘Debates’ were that Parties were running against Parties. There was no debate about anyone being held responsible for decisions, no one responsible for any outcomes. It’s the Party’s choice. The Party that Failed, the Party that succeeded, the party that brought you X or Y.

We the people are voting on, and for PEOPLE, not parties. We know that Kenny never fulfilled any campaign promises, but it’s not his fault, he was doing what his party wanted. Sinn Fein has killed people in the past, therefore the people who now represent Sinn Fein are all murderers, because Sinn Fein, the party, murdered.

There are criminals who have been CONVICTED dozens of times, that do not get painted as a criminal when next they come to trial, why does ANY party get painted with past party issues, by past party members, when it was the members who committed them.

This lame attempt by our politicians to redirect blame to an anonymous ‘Party’ is another attempt to shed personal responsibility for the outcomes of bad decisions and choices. Like cheap used auto dealer, I have to talk to my party…er manager about that deal.

I hold Kenny & Noonan responsible for Water Charges, and paying off the bond holders, not Fine Gael, and Labor.

But if you want to play party politics, fine, Kenny, Noonan you have lost my vote for ANY Fine Gael politician, Labor too, as you had no guts to stand up for your ‘Party’ position, you also will fail to get a vote.

Water Charges

For those who haven’t got it yet, the Water charges are just another ‘Stealth’ Tax. It was NEVER intended to fund water services. It was an excuse to tax the people of Ireland, suggested to them by the Troikia to pay for the Bank Bailout.

If you think that 0.005€ per liter is magiclly derived from average water usage, to arrive at ~280€ per month you would have been shocked if it had been 1.00€ per liter to arrive at that same monthly figure had the usage data been lower.

Garth Brooks, victim of bad Business (Ireland)

The entire Garth Brooks debacle is an example of Irish ‘Wink and a Handshake‘ culture. I have absolutly no doubt that the concert series was ALWAYS for 5 shows, but that the promoter thought they could make more money by promoting only the first three, then adding on the additional two shows, with the full support and agreement of the GAA and Dublin City Council.

The promoter KNEW he could not get 5 nights, but thought that they could ‘work around‘ the issues in back room deals the the GAA and Councils. The issue is that they were NOT required to get a license BEFORE promoting the concerts.

This is the same issue that the building boom had, that collapsed the Irish Economy, get the planning permission AFTER you completed the building. Bass Ackwards!

My Proxie server has been found.

I’ve had a proxie server running in my domain for some few years, it was an experiment. But now it has been ‘discovered’ and is now under heavy use. And while it’s interesting, and I don’t mind, I’ve found that the two heavy users country’s involved Iran and the U.S.

Proxie Traffic by Country
Proxie Traffic by Country

UPDATE:

I’ve been ask to take down the proxie…

Hosting Ireland

Dear Branedy

We have noticed you are using a Proxy service on your account at http://tanagra.branedy.net. This is against our acceptable usage policy especially being publicly accessible. We have therefore disabled access via .htaccess

Please let us know if you have any questions regarding this.

Hosting Ireland Team

Hosting Ireland,
info@hostingireland.ie
Phone: 1890 987 000
International: +353 51 84 34 64
Fax: +353 51 84 34 66

Hiding in plain sight

In this age of ‘Big Data’ the masters are the ones who hide in plain sight. If you generate billions of media bits that must be parsed by the powers that be, the devil really is in the details.

During a stint in a fraud unit I learned that the trick wasn’t to read all the monitored data, but to build patterns of ‘normal’ for everyone monitored. If the patterned changed then something had changed, and an investigator was assigned.

Another article I keep remembering is an interview with with a ‘Ninja Assissan’ who was quoted as;

” I never sleep in the same bed two nights in a row (he had 5 bedrooms), and he never ate the same thing for breakfast (though he always ate what he wanted)

Hence the pattern he would generate would always be random, and therefore a consistent repeated event would be considered abnormal and a ‘red flag’ that something wasn’t normal.

So to hide, and maintain privacy would be to either overwhelm the bit watchers, or develop such a random lifestyle as to make normal pattern matching methods useless.

anyone want to be a Ninja Assissan?

UPDATE: Pattern Reconition

UPDATE 2: Global consumer data broker plans to reveal your data

If you Can’t dazzle them with data, baffle them with Bull Shit!!!

UPDATE 3: Just so you know: US government is hoovering data from Apple, Microsoft and Google servers

Skype security, and privacy

Communications and privacy will always be a concern, any protocol a computer can generate can be broken, the question is how long, and how important.

If your ego about your importance in the world is justified by others, then expect them to be listening. You can only slow them down.

For the rest of us, who are meaningless, no one will take the time to break through tissue paper to listen in on us. And we are safe enough.

If you seek real security, don’t use a computer to encrypt your message, find a better way.

The Banking Crisis is Our Fault!

I heard all the arguments, and if I were in a position to actually have made the decisions, or been allowed to tender an opinion on the actions taken. I know I would have made different choices. But in the end;

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BANKING CRISIS!


We the people of Ireland are personally responsible for the crisis, for WE voted on the corrupt and idiotic government, the bad bureaucracy and bribed banked owned politicians who put us into this position. AS IN PERIOD!

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE!


There is no getting around it, so stop talking about a banking crisis, it’s a crisis of a democratic majority more concerned with trifling personalities, and historical artifacts that have no basis in fact. A Nonsensical political system that reenforces the rich, and dumps the poor and middle classes.

Browser Stats – Internet Exploder

I have been observing a vast increase in traffic, traffic without apparent purpose, over the last several weeks.

And I didn’t give it much thought. However I now know that its MSNBot a Bing Robot that is deeply scanning all my postings. But it’s not very thorough.

And then the evidence, it’s telling my site that it is using Internet Explorer as the browser. It not telling me it’s a search engine or a spider, it pretending to BE a browser to the statistics recorder on my site as a Internet Explorer browser. Internet Explorer has been declining in the statistics over the past few years, and it now seems that Microsoft is attempting to drive that number up on websites around the country to indicate an increase in Popularity for Internet Explorer.

Has anyone else see this in their site statistics?

Kindle as the fire of Fahrenheit 451

In the science fiction book Fahrenheit 451 I often wondered what the catalyst was. In the current age, that has become apparent, control, with government leaders demanding ‘controls’ over the Internet, and most other communications media the books presented in the Novel are information. However, there is another aspect of books which in this age of electronic books (eBook) presents itself as a missing element in control.

While experimenting with the Kindle on Android I found that the Android Pad I was using, while reading a Kindle book was in constant communication with Amazon Books. Almost every page turn was being recorded and sent to Amazon, even the location of where I was reading them was a requirement during the reading of the eBook.

I discovered that if you turn off location features in your pad, or Android Phone, the kindle software will prevent you from reading a downloaded book. If you can not communicate with Amazon via WiFI or other wireless channel, you can’t open your books, even if they were previously downloaded.

Sometime back Amazon became embroiled in a controversy over publishing rights to a book, and directly removed it from peoples ebook readers, without the consent of the user.

Amazon/Kindle does not allow the loaning of books to others, even if they have been paid for. The owner just doesn’t have that right anymore.

All of these elements add up to the same thing, printed books are ‘out of control’ they can be read by anyone, loaned to anyone, and their content is not subject to change once printed. These are things that Amazon eBooks can do. Change content, disappear, track readers, prevent distribution and dissemination of content.

Not to get too scary, but fundamentally the loss of printed books marks a point where knowledge has peaked, and the end of freedom of thought. No longer will information be available freely. The internet will be throttled, bottled, canned and banned to suit the requirements of the controlling society. Books will be available, eBooks, with controlled revisable content, restricted to cleared and sanctioned readers from known locations. And every word will be monitored as it is read.