Gardai Investigate Student Involvement in Shannon Protests?

by psi phi Thu Dec 05, 2002 13:24

and it might be worth considering that suggesting illegal acts can be grounds for a criminal investigation or charges.
and it might be worth considering that uniformed Gardai carrying printouts of indymedia is surely a sign of the technological progress the Gardai are making.
[Mr O´as if though is still awaiting a reply for his last letter to the Blue Block, he may write a stern warning on the student´s behalf though.]

=the scallywags trying to frighten the intellectual cream of Eire´s future.

by Alan Thu Dec 05, 2002 13:36

One of the campaigners for full public access to the Old Head of Kinsale was in court in the Co. Cork town this morning. Cases are pending against at least two others. All expected to be adjourned to New Year.

Their 'crime'? Cutting Mr. O'Connor's unsightly and illegal fence, although the accused didn't actually do it but are being scapegoated for being well known lefties in Cork.

by Andrew Thu Dec 05, 2002 13:51

We know from comments made by cops in Shannon to us before they they keenly follow this newswire so you can be pretty sure that they are aware of all the information posted here. In the last few days they have alsol obviously been stepping up the intimidation. There was a prominent branch car with three secret police in it parked outside the Dublin GG Shannon meeting last night - just so those going in knew they were being watched.

As one of the cops said to me at the last but one Shannon demo 'I never said it was a free country'.

by wormholebrothers Thu Dec 05, 2002 13:55

How law enforcement is keeping tabs on the new peace movement.

By A.C. Thompson
PERHAPS THE STORY of Malaysia Airlines Flight 91 is a harbinger of things to come for the nascent peace movement.

The Sept. 8 flight was poised to take off from Newark, N.J., for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and a final destination of Kabul, Afghanistan, when agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation strode aboard. The G-men escorted seven passengers off the plane and into a room where they were interrogated for six hours. Flight 91 took off without the group.

Their offense? Signing up for a two-week "Reality Tour" of bomb-pocked Afghanistan, a junket organized by San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange.

"They wanted to know about Global Exchange," says one of the detainees, Glenda Marsh, a Sacramento peace activist and state-employed biologist. "They asked me if I'd heard the people I was traveling with make anti-American statements."

Now Marsh is preparing to file a Freedom of Information Act request to see if the FBI is compiling a dossier on her.

Hints of a new wave of COINTELPRO-style government surveillance first surfaced in fall 1999 as protesters gearing up for the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle complained about infiltration by undercover cops and federal agents. After Sept. 11, 2001, the feds embarked on an unprecedented and brazen campaign of domestic spying. Leading the charge, Attorney General John Ashcroft signaled his intent to spy on law-abiding religious congregations and political groups and pushed through the USA PATRIOT Act, which vastly expanded the government's phone-tapping and e-mail-monitoring powers and broke down barriers between the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI. Now there's mounting evidence that government agents – returning to the ways of J. Edgar Hoover – are monitoring political dissidents.

According to Steve Filandrinos, the Global Exchange staffer who organized the tour, the FBI agents wanted to know why the group, which included five Afghan Americans, was headed overseas and who was sending them there. The tours, Filandrinos explains, "are a way to give Americans a chance to connect with Afghans involved in the reconstruction process, to make sure Americans know what's going on there, and to bear witness to the [U.S.-led] bombing."

While the waylaid tourists eventually made it to Kabul, their fun with the federal government wasn't over. Flying into Los Angeles International Airport Sept. 20, one member of the group was grabbed by U.S. Customs Service agents outside the airport, and another was called at home by the FBI for more questioning eight days later.

The Global Exchange incident echoes the widely reported hassles of Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordon, founders of War Times, a San Francisco publication critical of President George W. Bush's passion for dropping ordnance on foreign countries. On Aug. 7, Adams and Gordon were attempting to fly from San Francisco to Boston when they were detained by police and informed that their names were on a list of people under scrutiny by the FBI. "We can only assume that the government is laboring under the misapprehension that we're terrorists," Adams says.

Neither woman has ever been charged with any serious crime, though both have been arrested for civil disobedience.

After calls to police headquarters and two searches by airport security, Adams and Gordon were escorted onto the plane.

There are several ways all of this government scrutiny could play out. If the new peace movement develops the muscle to paralyze major cities – à la antiglobalizers – it may find the feds doing more than discreetly keeping tabs and occasionally pulling suspected troublemakers off airplanes. There's the real possibility that FBI agents will covertly slip into the movement with the aim of crippling it from within (a favored tactic in the 1960s against the Black Panthers and the New Left) or enticing more-militant activists to participate in felonious behavior (as the bureau did more recently with Earth First! and the militia and white separatist movements).

"Surveillance and intelligence gathering are back," asserts Dennis Cunningham, an attorney who has sued the FBI repeatedly, most recently on behalf of Earth First!ers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. "What's to stop them from engaging in disruptive activity designed to neutralize a movement?"

Another possibility is that prosecutors could start collecting information on movement leaders with an eye toward using the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute. Designed to take down mafiosi and loaded with stiff penalties, RICO targets key members of groups that engage in a pattern of criminal activity, and the case could be made that protesters who repeatedly disrupt business as usual fit that bill. In fact, that case has already been made: the RICO statute was employed by the National Organization for Women in a 1998 civil suit against abortion clinic blockaders in Chicago. The save-the-fetuses side lost and was ordered to pay $255,000 in damages.

Ashcroft's baby, the PATRIOT Act, includes some language similar to that of RICO, and could be put to use as well.

Cunningham speculates that "we'll see them use the PATRIOT Act first. They want to put it to the test, see what they can do with it."

by iosaf - metro green line Drassanes stop, first left, thenright. Thu Dec 05, 2002 14:05 codols 23 x plaza George Orwell Barcelona 08002 0034679708674

this is my last warning!
leave off hassling those students and activists!
or I´ll come back in a hyper speed stealth amphibian bio fuel bus of loved up hippy anarcho trippy freakie fifth international evolving revolutionary barcelonans!
I´ll land on the beach and come for ye!
with a copy of the Garda code in my hand, and your files from Templemore, and all your little shredded files from the Phoenix park and Harcourt street and Dublin Castle put back together by the kindergarten of Barcelona okupes (saturday 2-4pm).

we´ll spill the dirt on ye!
up to no good at the golf course and Harrington street, beating up homeless people, lying to courts, perjury, intimidation, bullying, petty shite that ye love.

"Democracy" is a contract between parties.
It needs for its survival and proper working protest.
These young protesters aren´t enjoying 20,000€ a year pension linked state supplied job, but you never know who is on their side, and what sinister shadowey cabal of interests will come hunting your balls in the future.
do I make my point?
Do not forget that please.

now young protesters, use your head don´t go leaving "Che´ed up" "trotskiest" "smash the systems" provocation stuff on an open newswire.
This whole thing will take a very long time.
many years.
don´t go losing the plot.
Eventually we all get used to seeing each other and even occasionally nod to each other on the street, why only last weekend, Mr O´asif got a big smile from one of the local blue block after the 8th protest group entered the government square in Barcelona "¿are you going to get yourself a tent and live here?" said he.
"No" said I. "I´ve got to spend an inordianate length of time on the internet slagging off the guards in the land of ERRON".
"oh said he they´re a fearsome lot, ¿do they still have the hellicopters?"
"No" said I " sure they only got the lend of them for the week, that was back in 1979 you know."
"aye it was" said he [more a "Sí Sí"] "I remember it well, great man the pope, ¿do they still do the cocaine snuffling in Harrington Street?, I was over a wedding earlier this year, wow, man [more properly translated as "hombre-vaya-puta madre"] "the Irish coca is very very good".

BE WARNED!

by Eoin Dubsky - Refueling Peace Thu Dec 05, 2002 14:15

The High Court has shown that the military shenanigans at Shannon Airport are at a glance at least precarious in law -- otherwise I would not have been granted leave to apply for a judicial review. They may very well be unlawful, and I honestly believe that they are criminal.

For a copy of the bye-laws at Shannon Airport see:
http://193.120.124.98/ZZSI425Y1994.html

by Phil Thu Dec 05, 2002 14:34

Does any techy know if it is possible for the Gardai to trace what computers messages have been posted from? Can they get IP addresses from the site?

by Ray Thu Dec 05, 2002 14:43

Barring the use of serious hardware capable of tracking all messages sent across the internet, the only way for the gardai to get ip addresses would be to examine the server. You can't get IP addresses by just reading the site.

by Doubting Thomas Thu Dec 05, 2002 14:51

You shouldnt be surpised that the State will take steps to protect ordiary people from your stupidity.

by Andrew Thu Dec 05, 2002 14:59

This would be the ordinary people that oppose the war in Iraq according to opinion polls and who oppose refuelling war planes at Shannon then? The same ordinary people who we now know are paying for the war planes who use Shannon despite the fact that they don't want them there. And the state is protecting these ordinary people by assuring that what they oppose can continue free of interferance from pesky protesters. Thanks for clearing up the confusion on this!

by iosaf Thu Dec 05, 2002 15:28

as one of the fifth international of loved up crusty hippy anarcho trippy freakie evolving revolutionaries I feel qualified to comment on these allegations of "playing at being revolutionaries".

We are playing at being revolutionaries.
Play is very very important.
by careful use of the Play ethic which we developed at the end of the 20th century to counter the Work ethic, we have given you all a big dose of subvertising fun, satire and smiles.

We did so after long and prolonged study of previous anti-capitalist methodology and revolutionary techniques.

Our multi-billion penny study (equivalent in today´s terms to multi-billion centimos) showed us that today´s passive majority aren´t interested in bloodbaths, tyranny or lies. Nor do today´s people want to see crusty-hippy-anarko-freakie-tribal types put up against the wall and shot. Nor do they seriously want to see the same fate afforded to megaphone weilding bolshoviks like Finghin or his interanational socialist brethren.

Which is why we developed the Play Ethic.

The Play Ethic is much better at revolutionary change.
Revolution happens in the head, around the frontal lobe area, spreading slowly throught the organism to the Heart.
Evolving revolution means that problems and misery are seen in a wider context and given relevancy by careful use of satire and giggles.

We feel what´s wrong and try to get others to feel too, coz we use our minds and think how best to carry the wishes of humanity to this century succeed in living together in a nicer way, still enjoying the odd cup of tea and arguments with our best loved political opponenents, secure in the knowledge that children aren´t dying every few minutes from lack of medicines, starvation or multi-national-corporation funded and planned war efforts.

Being an evolving revolutionary is very difficult.

But it´s worth it.
Heart and Mind.

by A bit of a Techie Thu Dec 05, 2002 15:41

If the Garda has access to the Indymedia server and 'logging' is swithched on which
it most likely is, then they can get the IP addresses of anyone posting and by the
way those reading too, down to the actual page and the date and time.

Alternatively with the resources of GCHQ in the UK, it is very very likely that they have access
to telecommunications traffic on the trunk network in Ireland. The National Security Agency
(NAS) of the US also more than likely have this and they work and share data together (with the UK)
in the system known as Echelon.

By monitoring this traffic, they could easily get the IP address. It is also quite likely that
they already have in place (particulary the NAS) equipment to eavesdrop on all the Internet
and email traffic from all the colleges and universities in Ireland. Likewise GCHQ would
be doing the same in the UK. If you know anything about the history of the intellegence agencies
and or their technologies and resources, it is simply unthinkable that they are NOT doing this.

So to bring this back to the question posed.... There is in my opinion a very reasonable chance
that operatives from the US working with the authorities here are supplying the said information.
It is likely the 'ordinary' cop does not have access to this 'raw' (but already cleansed and processed
information) and the bloke going into the college mentioned at the top of the report was simply
told by someone higher up, that that college was the source of a particular posting by a particular
individual. The point in doing it this way, would be two-fold. One would be to disguise the fact
that they are being supplied with this information and two because if challenged at the moment in
court, it would be illegal. Hence they will presumably then try to get the logging records from the
computers in the college by simply requesting them.

The recent law changes that were requested by McDowell (Attorney General) would make this type of
data collection legal as far as I know, even though of course it would be an affront to our freedom.

The sharing of data between the US and the Irish govt, can be done at very little cost to either party,
because the resources and facilities of NAS/GCHQ would have most of this data available in user friendly
format and it would simply only take them to setup an agreement whereby someone in charge of co-ordinating
things in Ireland, receives one or two emails a day with the attached info.

It is obvious from news of what is happening, that the authorities here are taking the route of
represssion to deal with the AntiWar movement. The alternative, asking the refuelling to stop is
just not possible for them, because of the implicit threat that all those US multinationals supplying
thousands of jobs etc, could be pulled out. Just a mere suggestion of this, would make the government
and all the other 'mainstream' parties quake in their boots.

by Phil Thu Dec 05, 2002 15:50

A friend also asked me to ask if you could ever get in trouble for looking up Russian Pony shagging Pony shagging Goat porn? Not that I give a toss, obviously

by Alan Thu Dec 05, 2002 16:57

Uniformed or plain clothes. Doesn't matter to me...

by A Bit of a Techie Thu Dec 05, 2002 16:58

Most of the emails you post from your PC, whether using hotmail or a mailing system on your
network, can be found by simply looking on your hard-disk.

In fact it can sometimes be as simple as looking in your /temp directory on the C: drive and
using a simple editor to look at the .tmp files, particulary the ones that are only a few
kilobytes in size, since most emails are that size.

In the case of the above, if the college authorities give the Garda access to the PCs, they
should easily be able to find (with a bit of work) the PC from which posts that they deem of
interest to themselves.

Likewise most of the pages you access when browsing can be found in the 'cache' for Netscape
and Internet Explorer.

In addition, if on a network PC, such as college or work, the 'administrator' can usually
log into your PC remotely (from another office/desk) and examine anything on your PC
without you knowing about it. Tools are available from the Internet to monitor just such
activity. Like all stuff from the Internet, beware because some contain Trojan horses.

Therefore if people are concerned about their civil liberties, they should empty the cache
(option available in IE and netscape -clear history and carefully look in your temp directory
and delete appropriate files. However deleting stuff from the /temp directory can occasionly
mess up your windows. The best bet is to delete files more than one day old, rather than
ones for today, unless it is obviously just text or something from the last time you
emailed or used for example MS-word today)

Finally the determined 'eavesdropper/spy/etc' can still access those files, even after going through
the Windows 'Recycle' bin, because during file-deletion, only the link to the file is removed
on the disk. The acutal data is not modified, but removal of the links automatically makes it
available for overwriting later. But considering the size of hard-disks today, this could be
a lot lot later. Therefore ideally for full security you need various tools (see the Net) that
actually write zeros all over your old files.

And lastly, in the case where your hard-disk is physically removed, those with the right equipment
can still read your hard-disks, even if some of the electronics are damaged and I have heard
but I don't know how true it is, that data that has been zeroed, retains a sort of memory of the
most recent writes. This is like the way a cell-phone battery remembers it's last discharge, for
those familiar with the effect. Basically what happens is that the depth of the flip in the magnestism
is lowered, so that it takes less power to flick it back. The depth for indivdual binary bits can
then be measured with the right type of modified hard disk equipment and I would guess through a
statisticals analysis of surrounding bits, you can determine how often that bit was written to for
lets say the last 2 to 5 write cycles. There are also redundant bytes on board the hard-disk, which
are there for error correction and are simple checksums and these might be of help, but I don't know.
Thus in a pattern of bits, with varying reduced depths, you can then work out that the shallowest
probably had the bit set to 1, for say the last 5 writes, while the deepest, may have been zero and
so you recover the data, especially if you run a kind of simulation, where for various byte streams
you try different combinations, and then work out which is the closet match to the set of affected
bytes (and bits). Very similar to code-breaking actually.

by Anonymous NCI student Thu Dec 05, 2002 18:50

The article he had in his hand was the one linked on the front page with the scanned poster of a plane, burnt iraqi corpse and gardai at a fence. Hope thats of some help.

If suggesting something illegal is grounds for prosecution, then surely some of the blue agents provoceurs who post on this site would be in for some trouble.

And BTW jaysus, there's no need to cut and paste of the web and post them as replies! Post them as new articles, noone's going to read them anyway.

by Abraham Abulafia Thu Dec 05, 2002 18:56

These layabouts are merely a tiresome nuisance who will be swept away as Liberal Democracy asserts itself once more in this country. Yes, Liberal Democracy, it dares to speak its name and is not afraid to defend itself against those who would bring all which we hold precious , crashing down about our feet.

As far as I can ascertain, it is only ever a tiny minority of students who attend these meeting which decide on their totalitarian policies. These ragamuffins are unrepresentative of the student body as a whole.

The youth of Ireland stand by the Great American Republic as Liberty raises her torch to burn the enemies of Democracy and looses the Eagle of Justice to ravage the enemies of Civilisation.

by Anonymous NCI student Thu Dec 05, 2002 18:59

While if it was possible (however unlikely) that Gardaí are keeping tabs on IP addresses, keep in mind that if you are using a dial-up, your IP changes everytime. They'd have to get the server's logs, find your IP, go to your ISP, check their logs then get your phone number. And if you enter 141 before the number it turns off caller ID, making their job harder by then travelling all the way to eircom and get their records. Its not impossible, but our police force is idiotic and incompetent. If they can't get their own staff to give evidence in an investigation (RTS), they won't know what IP even stands for.

The arrests a few months ago of Irish men d/l child pornography wasn't a concerted effort of the gardaís behalf oflogging IPs, or even from an active Gardaí investigation, they had credit card numbers and details sent to them from the FBI handed tothem. I believe the Gardaí's technical ability stretches to entering URLs, typing emails and little else.

by Risible Thu Dec 05, 2002 19:24

The information posted above about how easy it is to examine hard-drives even if you've erased all the data with random bit-patterns is completely true. The magnetic heads that read/write data to the disk never line up EXACTLY with where they were before so there are "shadow" images to the side of where the heads wrote the original data and overwrote it with a new bit. A sophisticated version of a disk-drive can scan the platter and see what all of the magnetic areas (not just the discrete quantized areas that should have data in them) are and then this can be analyzed to try and reconstruct data from them.

You have one truly secure option to deal with this if there's data you want destroyed: take the platters out of the drive and pound them into tiny pieces, or melt them.

Alternatively you can try a less-secure method, but much handier: use a loopback-encrypted filesystem. This is available by using one of the Free and free operating systems such as GNU/Linux or FreeBSD.

Additionally these have the ability to log intrusions, implement very secure firewalls, have masses of professional free software and have no hidden code that the NSA can insist that Microsoft or Apple build secretly into them: the code is open, available and examinable.

Anyone interested in security should avoid Microsoft and Apple products.

by ipsiphi Thu Dec 05, 2002 20:03

is that how echelon was brought down then?
echelon a word of dubious etymology.
you anonymous students and blue block agent provacatuers.
We have fridge freezers with reel to reel megnetic tape whirring away lining the walls the noise is deafening Mr Babage´s machine has spawned generation upon generation of technology.
Awesome.
There was life before the internet.
There´ll be life after the internet.

by Phuq Hedd Thu Dec 05, 2002 20:22

Bear in mind the following:
1. It is in the interests of those that support the breaching of our neutrality to create an atmosphere of danger and intimidation. Most of this will be bull.

2. If you log onto a computer on a university network and post a message on indymedia.ie it would be very hard to match up the two events even if logs were obtainable of both indymedia.ie AND the machine you posted from.

3. There's nothing wrong with posting an appeal to defend our democracy and neutrality. You have to go pretty far and pretty explicit in order to make what you say the subject of any legal investigation, and no-one has done that that I've seen on the newswire.

4. If the NCI story is true, then it's laughable. Anyone reminded of the Monty Python skit where the plod is trying to plant drugs on a suspect?:
PLOD: Ho! ho! wot's THIS then?
ERIC IDLE: That?! That's a packet of sandwiches.
PLOD: ?!?! Blimey! Whatever did I give the missus then?

by Phuq Hedd Thu Dec 05, 2002 22:58

To be born in mind during paranoid discussions! (Which is not to say that one should not practice safe security while engaging in net intercourse).

by Abraham Abulafia Fri Dec 06, 2002 12:33

Extraordinarily funny. Not me. Or my opinion. But well funny...

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery though.

Re earlier posts regarding tracking ones ip address...

I'd be fairly certain the Indymedia does not retain the IP addresses of those who post. The location of the server itself would also play a part in tracking users - is it hosted domestically, where the position with regard to maintaining information still has not been defined, even with the recent changes to the retention of data provisions contained in EU law. Is the site hosted in the US, in Europe, Japan etc. Each jurisdiction will have different laws and practices with regard to data retention, and logging of information.

Your ISP - be it a network in work, or a commercial ISP, will retain your traffic data - essentially sites accessed, date stamped, and a cache of the pages. In Ireland, there is no current legal necessity, either under Irish law, or under the auspices of European law, to retain traffic data information. From sys admins I have spoken to, data retention is practised at the discretion of the ISP, but is not formalised, or categorised. Bluntly, if traffic data is retained, it is unlikely, in its raw state, to be of much use to anyone wishing to track you. The volume, and disorganisation, tends to bar this.

A further aid might be to check if you have a static ip address - an address assigned to you by your isp which is stable over time - and thus directly linked to you, or if they use dynamic ip adresses, which are generated each time you log on. Dynamic ip addresses may not discourage a concerted effort on the part of an authority to track you, but make it much more difficult for you to be tracked on a casual basis.

If you are surfing from a work network, the legal provisions are such that any traffic passing over their network, or through their servers is essentially the property of your workplace. Your workplace can retain, and inspect, any data they wish to, with or without giving you notice. Your company may have their internet usage policy available to you for inspection. Again, the enforcement of this varies from workplace to workplace. Should you be concerned, talk to a techie there, and establish the common work practice. I'd hazard though, that most techies are far too busy to do nothing but the most cursory checks, concerned wioth security issues - eg dangerous downloads, or overtly illegal material.

With regard to securing the data on your own desktop, there are a variety of encryption programs which will allow you to encrypt your transmissions via email, and protect your own data. Some of these offer the ability to overwrite deleted files, and the space they occupied on your hard drive, up to 200 times, making it much more difficult to ascertain the data. But if you are in a situation wherein your desktop has been seized for inspection, it is generally only a matter of time before its contents are disclosed. And you will be in so much trouble already that bit will hardly matter.

Hope this helps.

by omar. Fri Dec 06, 2002 13:38

really you´re a svengali.

OK it´s christmas hols for the youngsters.
and lots of people think there are less guards on the beat coz they´re inside a fortified bunker in the Phoenix park monitoring protesters.

Well it probably just isn´t true.

There really are very bad people in the world.
They really do have mega computers and fluffly cats and plot to take over the world. And not all of them get federal salaries in Washington, Moscow or Beijing.
So if you´re sure you´re "on the list"
you´re probably very far down.

q. how can I be sure?
a. if you don´t have your own cunningly disguised floating laser guided missile launching petrol tanker, or don´t have a fluffy cat and go everywhere in helicopters then you´re not at the top of the list.

q. if some of my friends regularly hold clandestine lunar launches am I close to the top of the list?
a. You may have grounds for worry there yes.

q. If I´ve been downloading evry gigabyte of agit-prop from all over the transnational global network and using the college photocopier without telling anyone to reproduce it am I on the list?
a. oh well, that´s a tough one.
if it would be every giga byte, incluisive of hotspot stuff like minority asian languages and you have a sattelite dish pointed at islamic extremist TV on your roof then I´m afriad you´re probably on the list.

q. If the guards look at me with scowls of fury am I on the list?
a. most definitely. That´s the way they let you know.
But it is a very long list.

by iosaf adds Fri Dec 06, 2002 13:40

it looks good on the permanent record.

by nunca mais= - mai mes= Fri Dec 06, 2002 13:51 never again=

these are the english translations htm files.
on the Prestige.

http://www.adosnet.com/leliadoura/prestige.asp

and "NEVER AGAIN" [nunca mais] in English.
http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/ies-leliadoura/nunca_mais.htm#English

what we are asking you to sing in English:

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/ies-leliadoura/informacion.html#English

legal declaration protection of your data if you sign. scroll down for english.

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/ies-leliadoura/lopd.htm

so u see, people try and scare each other about the internet sometimes to stop them using what still is the most free media of communication and activism we have, which is why we campaign to keep it that way as well.
There are over 1 billion servers attached to the internet. Over 2 billion people have regular access to a computer. Put yourself in perspective if you´re worried and maybe stay away from computers. Now go visit the book, read the files think about lending support.

by Aidan - IMC Fri Dec 06, 2002 16:11

It's nigh on impossible for IMC Ireland to log IPs, it'd be inordantily difficult for anyone else to do the same.

A techie tried to explain exactly how this work but I started to lose consciousness.

So happy anonymous posting

by A Bit of a Techie Fri Dec 06, 2002 17:54

An agency like GCHQ or NSA DOES have the means to track all communications into
and out of the site where the Irish IMC (or any other site) is hosted and CAN get
the IP address if they so wish. For one, the well known software, 'Carnivore' springs
to mind. Check out the Internet for information on this software, as it already exists,
and has already been used. Carnivore is only one of the many tools in their box.

Having said this, this doesn't automatically mean that GCHQ or NSA actually do eavesdrop.
As to the Irish State, I very much doubt the Garda have the resources and as someone
said, they don't at the moment have the legal permission either.

The second point is that even if some agency like GCHQ or NSA do monitor and hoover up
this data, it still doesn't mean they share it with anyone else. Both of these agencies
collect a vast amount of data, probably much of which is not used.

The point is that these agencies collect lots of information from everywhere, so that if
something does crop up that they want to look into, they can then trawl through their
data and this can be for stuff totally unrelated to anything to do with Indymedia or
AntiWar activities.

We tend to think that indivduals or organisations are selected and then the data
collected, but in a gigantic global system like Echelon, it has over the years
transformed more into the situation where you collect (lots of) data, and then
search through it for data relating to particular indivduals and organisations. In
other words the order of things has been reversed (thought not the case for small
focused investigations)

People sometimes make suggestions like 'Bush' (or whoever) else could not be bothered
monitoring or tracking your phone and email usage. He doesn't. This implies a certain but
incorrect notion on how the system works. Practically all of the data collection is
automatic and the early level analysis too. (key word matching, triggers, translations)
Bush, Blair, Ahern wouldn't have a clue. There are staff to do the donkey work and compile
the reports and carry out policies. (For example the NSA HQ in Wash. DC, has a staff of
over 50,000 people)

The issue of paranoia has been raised and that is a fair point. I would agree we
should definitely not get paranoid, threatened or allow ourselves to be intimated by
such stuff, but it would be woefully silly and naive of us not to make ourselves
aware of the resources that can be drawn upon by the system should it be challenged
in any serious way. By knowing the bounds of what is possible and not, and you can then
make your own informed judgements as to what effort the system will bother devoting attention
to various political events.

And Yes the Internet may well be the greatest thing since sliced bread and is a fanatistic
activist resource along with the printing press and photocopier.

by Risible Fri Dec 06, 2002 18:31

Be cautious but not paranoid. It's easy to raise the bar of information security so high that it's near impossible for the spooks of whatever country to obtain data on you. This can be done easily with very little effort. The thing is to understand that they ARE collecting data. If any of you recall the orgy of liberal-capitalist horror that greated the revelations of Stasi spying when the wall came down then you may remember pictures of the central telephone tapping system the state was running. This was with the crudest old equipment that was used to taperecord conversations, but to make it easier for themselves they had permanent tapping lines. The cables coming into a building that contained the recording equipment and the operators were a meter or so high. There were hundreds of thousands of permanent taps.

With the internet it's much easier. All traffic goes over open lines, through many switches and routers owned by private companies and governments. If one is interested in a particular likely place for "troublemakers" such as indymedia.ie, then one puts in a firewall logging rule which captures every packet originating from and destined for indymedia.ie

Trying to resolve this to a particular student in a particular university at a particular time is going to be difficult but not impossible (how long does your university retain logs?). A dial-up customer from home has a similar likelihood of leaving an access time at his/her ISP.

It's relatively easy for a law-enforcement agency to request the records and match up the IP's (every packet on the net has the source IP encoded in it and as we speculated already the packets are just being logged), the issue about dynamic/static IPs raised earlier doesn't really make a difference at this stage.

If you post on the net from a place where people can know that you physically logged in then you are traceable. Of course, if you gain access to another computer and have the ability to mess with its logs then you're in clover, but this is an illegal activity and you're more likely to be caught doing this). Easiest thing if you're worried about being traced is to use fake ID in a net cafe.

by psiphi Fri Dec 06, 2002 19:33

potatoes cut in two make good printing blocks.
stencils are great too.
putting a black plastic bag over your shoulders and pretending to be a black atlantic sticky wave with your friends works wonders too. not enough wonders but some wonders, now if you don´t have the bill payer´s permission over the hols don´t spend all day trolling for the revolution.