Free Barrett Brown
Back on the outside for the first time in 4 years, Barrett enjoys an Egg McMuffin. #FreeBB
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
WikiLeaks. (29 Nov 2016) Twitter.
WikiLeaks
Bank of America/Palintir/HBGary combined WikiLeaks attack plan. You can find more here: https://wikileaks.org/hbgary-emails/?bb …
Administrator. “The HBGary Emails” (29 Nov 2016) Wikileaks.
Today, Tuesday 29 November
2016, WikiLeaks publishes in searchable
format more than 60 thousand emails from private intelligence firm HBGary.
The publication today marks the early release of US political prisoner Barrett
Brown, who was detained in 2012 and sentenced to 63 months
in prison in connection with his journalism on Stratfor and HBGary. Coinciding with Mr
Brown’s release from prison WikiLeaks is publishing a searchable index of the
HBGary emails. WikiLeaks published
the Stratfor emails in 2012.
The HBGary emails are from four
email accounts of key people from HBGary and HBGary Federal. HBGary was founded
in 2003 by Greg Hoglund to provide cyber security-related services to corporate
clients. A separate entity, HBGary Federal, was managed by Aaron Barr to do
similar work for government agencies and so had staff with security clearances
and worked with companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton (one of the contractors
Edward Snowden worked for).
In February 2011 Aaron Barr did
an interview with the UK’s Finanical Times that stated he had been
investigating the internet activist group Anonymous and claimed to have
uncovered the real identities of some of what he described as the leaders of
the organisation. In retaliation Anonymous penetrated Barr’s organisation and
took emails from the accounts of four key people from HBGary and HBGary
Federal: Aaron Barr and Greg Hoglund, but also Ted Vera (then Chief Operating
Officer at HBGary Federal) and Phil Wallisch, a former Principal Technical
Consultant.
These emails and revelations
from them started to be published on the internet, predominantly through the
work of Barrett Brown and a crowd-sourced investigative journalism project he
ran: Project PM. As a
result, later that month Barr was forced to step down, HBGary Federal closed
and HBGary, Inc. was sold to ManTech International. This would have been little
consolation to Mr Brown, who a month later on 6 March 2012 had both his and his
mother’s houses raided by the FBI, seeking “Records relating to HBGary,
Infragard, Endgame Systems, Anonymous, LulzSec, IRC chats, Twitter,
wiki.echelon2.org, and pastebin.com.” Agents seized his laptops.
Barrett Brown’s work through
Project PM was one of the first collaborative investigations into the US
corporate surveillance industry. Looking into coporate firms that work
hand-in-hand with the government to surveil on citizens, Mr Brown was one of the
first to shed light on this unaccountable industry.
The HBGary revelations that
came out through the work of Barret Brown and others showed that HBGary and
related companies were involved in plans to spread disinformation and to attack
watchdog organisations, including WikiLeaks and US Chamber Watch. For example,
the emails revealed a plan to form a group called Team
Themis with a number of companies from the industry to “ruin” WikiLeaks by
submitting false documents in the hope they would be published, as well as
discrediting WikiLeaks staff and supporters (including the journalist Glenn
Greenwald). HBGary was also bidding to fulfil a tender from the US Air Force to
assist it in manipulating social media to spread propaganda about the Air
Force.
The emails also reveal that
HBGary tried to discredit the watchdog group US Chamber Watch, a critic of the
US Chamber of Commerce, again through disinformation. The plan was to make a “fake
insider persona” within US Chamber Watch to lead them to publicise false
information in an attempt to “prove that US Chamber Watch cannot be trusted
with information and/or tell the truth.”
Barrett Brown was indicted on
felony counts due to his journalistic work on the HBGary emails and other
related corporations. He has been in prison ever since, often being put into
solitary confinement and having his communications restricted. The HBGary
emails largely disappeared from the internet. Today the HBGary emails are safe for all to search in
honour of Mr Brown’s work and in celebration of his release.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Deal, Jodi. “Local student soaking up Korean life and culture” (10 Dec 2013) Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Mack
Sarah Mack of Mechanicsville
has been studying in Seoul, South Korea, as an exchange student.
It’s been a whale of a year for
Sarah Mack.
The 16-year-old native of
Bowling Green moved to Mechanicsville in February, just two weeks before
boarding a plane to head to Seoul, South Korea, to spend a year as an exchange
student. Her parents are Greg and Chrissie Mack.
Sarah’s big move and journey
came after her scrambling to complete high school in Caroline County a year and
a half early. It was either finish early or graduate a year late, due to
logistical differences in her Korean and American schools, so Sarah opted to
pile on the classes and receive her diploma at just 15 years old.
The idea for her year abroad
grew out of interaction with some Korean interns at her Taekwondo studio, Sarah
said. What started with a few Korean phrases to help her interact with the
interns grew into a deepening fascination with their language and their
culture.
“I learn loving languages,”
Sarah said. “That’s my biggest passion.”
When her Spanish teacher
suggested an exchange trip, Sarah, who had studied Spanish for three years,
started eyeing Korea, despite the fact that she didn’t have much experience
with the language. No Korean classes were offered at her high school, so Sarah
opted to study Chinese before her trip since about 60 percent of the Korean
language is derived from Chinese.
Upon arrival, Sarah still spoke
broken Korean, but said she used other aspects of Korean life to help her
vocabulary grow by researching Korean history and culture in English, then
reading about the same concepts in Korean.
“Learning a new language can
change how you think about things, especially when that language is completely
unrelated to your mother tongue,” Sarah said.
“People talk about the language
barrier,” Sarah said. “But it becomes more like a bridge than a barrier after
awhile. Those eureka moments just make your day. It can be really hard, but
it’s so worth it.”
Sarah said she hopes to use her
love of languages, fascination with other cultures and experience living
overseas to pursue a career in international relations. She also hopes to
return to Korea one day to work with LINK, or Liberty In North Korea, to help
suffering people from the northern portion of the war-divided country escape to
and settle in South Korea or China.
“Their policy is to not get
involved with politics but with individual people and try to help them form
lives,” Sarah said. “North Koreans put their pants on one leg at a time just
like we do. They’re not any different from you and me.”
When she returns to
Mechanicsville this month, Sarah plans to spend her time until the fall college
semester working to save money for school. She’s applying for early decision
acceptance to several schools.
In the meantime, she’s learning
all she can, following the rigorous school routine that is standard in Korea.
Students typically leave for school as early as 7:30 a.m., and, after their
normal school day, head to private specialty academies called hagwons until
anywhere from 7:30 to 10 p.m. She attends a martial arts academy, where she’s
attained the rank of first degree black belt.
“If you’re in high school,
school is your whole life, even on Saturdays,” Sarah said.
In her down time, Sarah enjoys
living with the family of a friend from school. They take her along on
vacations and include her in holiday celebrations. On one recent trip to a
cabin in the mountains, she got to spend time with their extended family,
enjoying food, horseback riding and celebratory traditions.
“They were so warm and
welcoming to me. I started feeling like I was really belonging with this
family. It hit me that I’m in Korea and I’m a part of this – they didn’t speak
to me like a foreigner observing this cultural experience,” Sarah said. “The
best moments I’ve had here are the moments I really felt like I belonged.”
After all, she said, that’s the
whole point of the experience: integrating into the culture.
Sarah also has tried to use her
experiences to teach others. Along with answering curious Korean friends’
questions about the United States, she has started a video blog to document her
experience living abroad for viewers from around the world.
Her YouTube channel, which can
be found at www.youtube.com/user/sarahsseoulsearch/videos,
has more than 2,000 subscribers.
Her videos, some of which have
more than 10,000 views, cover everything from school life and how to prepare to
be an exchange student to tours of her host family’s apartment and a Korean
McDonald’s.
The experience hasn’t been all
sunshine and roses, but Sarah said she sees the bad times as an opportunity to
grow.
“There have been a lot of very
difficult times, but I’m so glad I came,” Sarah said. “I’ve learned how to deal
with it when things aren’t going my way. I can’t just go to my mom and tell her
what happened. I have had to learn how to deal with not only the problems in
front of me but my own emotions as well.”