IBM, Microsoft, Google, Verizon

Cryptome Case Reveals How Easy it is to Shut Down Websites

February 25, 2010

Infowars - Earlier this week, Microsoft had the whistle-blower website Cryptome erased from the Web (see story below).

All the sprawling transnational corporation had to do was file a DMCA notice alleging copyright infringement on Cryptome’s proprietor John Young and Network Solutions did the rest — it locked up Cryptome’s domain name, thus disappearing the site from the Web.

Cryptome had posted a Microsoft surveillance compliance document that the transnational corporation gives to law enforcement agents seeking information on Microsoft users.
John Young’s website was removed from the internet without court order or due process.
No court ruling was required. Microsoft merely instructed Cryptome’s ISP to pull the plug.

No court ruling was required. Microsoft merely instructed Cryptome’s ISP to pull the plug.

In 2009, when the Senate was debating a cybersecurity bill and senator Jay Rockefeller lamented the existence of the internet, many people argued that the government would be hard-pressed to shut down the internet, even if Obama had the authority to flip the switch during a national crisis, as the proposed bill suggested. The government, however, would not darken the entire internet, as some suggested, but would rather remove certain sites deemed to be threats to national security according to our rulers.

Domain names are kept in databases maintained by various Network Information Centers (NIC) as part of the Domain Name System. Some name registries are government departments while others are co-operatives of internet service providers (for instance, Network Solutions). The system is currently dominate in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.

In 2004, a United Nations summit was held in New York on globalizing the system. Then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan argued that the system “must be made accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world’s people;” in other words, the globalists who established and run the United Nations behind the scenes. In 2005, the European Union argued in favor of wresting control of the internet away from the United States.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has launched a major propaganda effort with accompanying legislation to push the idea that the internet is under attack by nefarious forces. Earlier this week, on the heels of a so-called cyber security bill overwhelmingly passed in the House, Rockefeller held a hearing where witnesses offered dire warnings about the alleged vulnerabilities of U.S. digital networks, which are largely owned and operated by firms in the private sector.

“We’ve got to give the president the right to intervene,” Rockefeller said. “That’s controversial. That’ll always be controversial.”

Censorship and squelching the First Amendment, of course, will always be controversial.

In April of 2009, Rockefeller and co-sponsor Olympia Snowe introduced legislation (the Cybersecurity Act of 2009) containing language that would allow Obama to shut down the internet in the event of a cyber attack on critical infrastructure.

Earlier this month, Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) hosted Cyber ShockWave, a simulated cyber attack on the United States.

“Cyber ShockWave highlighted the immediate, real dangers of cyber-terrorism by bringing together a bipartisan group of former senior administration and national security officials playing the roles of Cabinet members,” a BPC press release explained on February 17.

Last week, CNN ran a two-hour production, We Were Warned: Cyber Shockwave, based upon exclusive television access to the BPC cyber “war game” scenario. Politicos participating in this slick propaganda campaign suggested nationalizing private sector corporations and federalizing the National Guard in response to a cyber attack.

The televised scenario pinned the blame for a cyber attack crippling U.S. infrastructure on terrorists operating out of Sudan. However, as Homeland Security has made abundantly clear, the government is not worried about shadowy and hypothetical terrorists in eastern Africa. It considers its own citizens to be terrorists, a point underscored by a DHS report on “rightwing extremism” leaked to the alternative media last year.

In the event of another staged terrorist attack on the United States, Obama will not shut down the entire internet. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major Operation Mockingbird players will not go dark during such an event — they will be required to peddle the official fairy tale in the same way they did on and after September 11, 2001 — that fate will be reserved for the alternative media, in particular Infowars and Prison Planet.

The Cryptome/Microsoft case reveals how effortless this process will be. All the government needs to do is remove the domain names of selected websites from the domain registry database and Jay Rockefeller will get his wish that we’d be better off if the internet — or rather certain sites on the internet — never existed.

Microsoft Takes Down Whistleblower Site, Read the Secret Doc at Wired

February 24, 2010

Wired - Microsoft has managed to do what a roomful of secretive, three-letter government agencies have wanted to do for years: get the whistleblowing, government-document sharing site Cryptome shut down.

Microsoft dropped a DMCA notice alleging copyright infringement on Cryptome’s proprietor John Young on Tuesday after he posted a Microsoft surveillance compliance document that the company gives to law enforcement agents seeking information on Microsoft users. Young filed a counterclaim on Wednesday — arguing he had a fair use to publishing the document, a full day before the Thursday deadline set by his hosting provider, Network Solutions.

Regardless, Cryptome was shut down by Network Solutions and its domain name locked on Wednesday — shuttering a site that thumbed its nose at the government since 1996 — posting thousands of documents that the feds would prefer never saw the light of day.

Microsoft did not return a call for comment by press time.

The 22-page document (.pdf) contains no trade secrets, but will tell Microsoft users things they didn’t know. (You can read it directly on your own computer from the above link, or read it inline on Wired.)

For instance, Xbox Live records every IP address you ever use to login and stores them for perpetuity. While that’s going to be creepy for some, there’s an upside if your house gets robbed, according to the document:

“If your investigation involves a stolen Xbox console, if the console serial number or Xbox LIVE user gamertag is provided and the console has been connected to the Internet, IP connection records may be available.”

The Microsoft® Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook (.pdf) also goes so far as to provide sample language for subpoenas and diagrams on how to understand server logs.

Other things you might not know and which Microsoft (sometimes oddly) doesn’t want you to know?

Microsoft retains only the last 10 login records for Windows Live ID. As for your instant messages, it tells police that it keeps no record of what anyone says over Microsoft Messenger — though it will turn over who is on your buddy list.

And if you like to use Microsoft’s social networking products — like its old-school Group mailing list or its Facebook-like Spaces product, be aware that it’s very social when it comes to law enforcement or court subpoenas.

As Microsoft tells potential subpoenaees:

“When you are looking for information on a specific incident like a photo posting or message posting, please request all group content and logs. We cannot retrieve single incident data.”

The same holds for Spaces — if you are interested in a single picture, just request the entire thing. Call it Subpoena 2.0.

The compliance handbook is just the latest in a series of leaks of similar documents from other companies.

Yahoo, like Microsoft, reacted as if its secret sauce had somehow been spilled by letting curious users know the hows and whys of how the companies deal with lawful surveillance requests. Google, for all its crusading for internet freedom, refuses to say how often law enforcement comes searching for user data.

The one company who has had a stand-up policy for years is the Cox Communications’ ISP, which has had this information and their price list public for years.

But hypocrisy is the name of the game for giant internet companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google that want us to entrust large portions of our lives to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Buzz, Xbox, Hotmail, Messenger, Google Groups. When it comes to the most basic information about how, why and how often our data is subpoenaed and collected without our knowledge, these online innovators resort to lawyers, abusive legal process and double-talk.