VIDEO: The Inside Story of NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Captured in Film #Citizenfour by Laura Poitras

CITIZENFOUR wins Oscar for Best Documentary



The following is a statement from Edward Snowden provided to the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents him:

Citizenfour: Enjoy Full Movie

Full Movie for download

Barrett Brown: Sentenced 63 Months For Posting Public Hack Link To Chat Room

In a message released almost 2 days ago at the time of this writing, Quinn Norton, former partner of Aaron Swartz, has made an announcement saying that she will go first in stepping away from security journalism. It is in relation to the incarceration of journalist Barrett Brown for posting a link; on the matters of journalism, and the “murky” waters that security reporters and journalists face.

It seems the case and sentencing (relating to the private intelligence firm, Stratfor, which hacker, Jeremy Hammond would later receive ten years for that leak.) of Barrett Brown, who also had connections to Anonymous until 2011, has resonated throughout the hacker/security journalist community. Quinn Norton is stepping back from the journalism that helped establish her career – out of fear of incarceration herself, until legislation reflects that she is not a criminal.

Originally, Barrett Brown had been charged with posting an archived but publicly available credit card link of Hammonds’, relating to the private intelligence Stratfor hack, in a chat room. The felony charge was dropped, but according to Norton who was witness at the court proceedings, was picked up again as a “sentencing enhancement by the prosecution.” This is considered relevant conduct by the legal system, irrespective of case, according to Norton.

It is an interesting case to watch unfold. But unfortunately for Brown, he’ll be watching it from his prison cell as he serves his 63 month sentence handed down by a federal judge in Dallas this week. He was also ordered to pay $890000 in restitution and fines.

Admitting, Norton concedes that the actions of Barrett Brown were wrong on two counts. He crossed the line as a journalist posting the link, and he did cross the line when he threatened another man when he made a post on YouTube. But this isn’t the heart of the matter, according to Norton, who suggests that the government was utterly wrong in laying charges for copying and pasting a publicly available link in the capacity as a journalist, to a chat room.

As a response to the sentencing, Barrett did rebuke the sentencing as setting a “dangerous precedent.” But he remained upbeat, stating sarcastically “The US government decided today that because I did such a good job investigating the cyber-industrial complex, they’re now going to send me to investigate the prison-industrial complex.”

At one point, Barrett, who has written for the likes of The Guardian, Huffington Post and Vanity Fair, was facing over a 100 year sentence, but several chargeswere dropped by prosecutors. He was also responsible for founding Project PM, a think-tank dedicated to investigating companies involved in abuses in the area of surveillance; according to Rolling Stone a “a $56 billion industry that consumes 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget.”

In a response to these convictions, Norton and others have stepped back from hacker related security journalism. Norton is one. Ladar Levison, who ran the Lavabit email service used by Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, was also in court for Brown’s verdict. Levison closed down his service rather than hand over to the FBI encrypted keys to Lavabit.

“It’s the type of verdict which leads honorable men to take up the quill and pen strong statements. I fear that for some people words will not be sufficient,” Levison told the Guardian.

Gabriella Coleman: Inside Anonymous ”The Many Faces of Anonymous”

Gabriella (Biella) Coleman came to st. Francis College November 13, 2014 for the Third Annual Francis J. Greene Honors Lecture to talk about her new book, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous.

Coleman holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she researches, writes, and teaches on computer hackers and digital activism. She is also the author of, Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking published with Princeton University Press.

Video: Support Privacy with The Tor Project!

Inside 'Anonymous': Hacker turned FBI cooperator, Hector 'Sabu' Monsegur, speaks out

Sabu Files, click here.

Peter Sunde: The Pirate Bay down, forever?

Via Peter Sunde aka brokep:

The Pirate Bay down, forever?

December 9th, 2014

"News just reached me that The Pirate Bay has been raided, again. That happened over 8 years ago last time. That time, a lot of people went out to protest and rally in the streets. Today few seem to care. And I’m one of them.

Why, you might ask? Well. For multiple reasons. But most of all, I’ve not been a fan of what TPB has become.

TPB has become an institution that people just expected to be there. Noone willing to take the technology further. The site was ugly, full of bugs, old code and old design. It never changed except for one thing – the ads. More and more ads was filling the site, and somehow when it felt unimaginable to make these ads more distasteful they somehow ended up even worse.

The original deal with TPB was to close it down on it’s tenth birthday. Instead, on that birthday, there was a party in it’s “honour” in Stockholm. It was sponsored by some sexist company that sent young girls, dressed in almost no clothes, to hand out freebies to potential customers. There was a ticket price to get in, automatically excluding people with no money. The party had a set line-up with artists, scenes and so on, instead of just asking the people coming to bring the content. Everything went against the ideals that I worked for during my time as part of TPB.

The past years there was no soul left in TPB. The original team handed it over to, well, less soul-ish people to say the least. From the outside I felt that noone had any interest in helping the community if it didn’t eventually pay out in cash. The attention for new artists (the promo bay) felt more like something TPB had to do in order to keep it’s street cred. The street cred I personally tried to destroy when being part of TPB, multiple times, in order to make sure that people stopped idolizing TPB the way they did. Mostly it didn’t work though.

As a big fan of the KLF I once learned that it’s great to burn great things up. At least then you can quit while you’re on top. I think I left TPB just a little bit after that top, and not when it’s as shitty as it was when it was closed today. It feels good that it might have closed down forever, just a real shame the way it did that. A planned retirement would have given the community time and a way to kick off something new, something better, something faster, something more reliable and with no chance of corrupting itself. Something that had a soul and could retain it.

But from the immense void that will now fill up the fiber cables all over the world, I’m pretty sure the next thing will pan out. And hopefully it has no ads for porn or viagra. There’s already other services for that."

Documentary: Million Mask March - London

These are the voices of three Anonymous activists prior to the Million Mask March in London, November 5th 2014.
Shot and edited by Kyri Evangelou Additional footage by Ben Grubb
Interviews conducted by Kyri Evangelou
Canon 5DMK3 Olympus 50mm 1.4

5Nov: Anonymous to RT - ‘Internet has power to bring down regimes’

 Crowds of people wearing masks to hide their faces are set to peacefully march in hundreds of cities all over the world. Dubbed the 'Million Mask March', the action's being organised by the hacktivist Anonymous group. The event's held annualy on November the 5th in protest against austerity, mass surveillance and attacks on privacy.

More info here.

Exclusive: The #Anonymous Paypal 14 Speak Out Post-Sentencing

Yesterday the famous Paypal 14 hacktivists were sentenced: all their felony charges were dropped, leaving them with misdemeanors and a bill for restitution. The Cryptosphere correspondent Douglas Lucas was the only journalist actually present at the sentencing. Since the conditions of their probation have now changed, this article marks the first media opportunity for a full half of the PayPal 14 to speak out without fear of ending up with a felony charge in return.

Click here for reading the article