The Propaganda War Against Us: The First Shot Is Fired

I will say one thing.

I use to think just like this when George W Bush was in office. I was sold that he was responsible for everything bad that was happening, and it was some of his fault for having such a myopic viewpoint of the world, getting us into two wars and committing war crimes and just about destroying the entire United States economy.

Now, for the past 6 years, I see everyone pointing out the bad about Obama as I use to look at GW Bush and It gave me a new perspective.

It seems most of the time most of everything is blamed on the president. There are more people involved in letting things like this happen. it take Senators, Congressman, Lobbyist and of of course the TransNational Governments of the world that is mostly run by a corportocracy, a multinational corporations that influences economies.

I think we all know the President is a puppet head in the grand scheme of things and can not be blamed for what the NSA does, what the NSA tells him because who's watching the watch dog?

The pentagon will always think of doom and gloom scenarios because that is their job. They don't want their jobs to go away or be down sized because they will have nothing to do and they can always create a boogie man.

So when I see threads like this now-a-day, I just laugh because I know the game that is being played all the way up to the next election.

50% of people who leave public service in congress or the senate become lobbyist and they'll make a lot more $$$. 20 years ago it was just 12%.

But to be fair, there are some things that raise an eye brow of mine when I see our rights being taken away. And it officially legal now for the government to lie to us using the main stream media. At this point it's out of our control because both left and right citizens will not stand together to change it.

reply to post by littled16


Right, and posting generic replies in agreement, that have no actual basis in reality, or don't factually relate to the information posted in this thread are adding what?

You are not qouting the parts that back up your comment, because there aren't any........

Everything I see them doing goes one direction, toward that singularity.

The N.S.A. wants you to believe they've never heard of the white pages, and I know I got a laugh when M$ bought Skype.

It's been creepy as hell for some time now, I'm thinking of a new avater.



Seriously though, if you want to have a private conversation with a spook, just do it in the form of poetry.

Nobody ever looks at that... except them.

Originally posted by PleiadanString
reply to post by littled16

 

Right, and posting generic replies in agreement, that have no actual basis in reality, or don't factually relate to the information posted in this thread are adding what?

You are not qouting the parts that back up your comment, because there aren't any........

Anyone else see the irony here?

reply to post by DeadSeraph


Spit it out.

What's the irony here?

reply to post by PleiadanString


The Thread is being derailed with your demands. Demands that have been met already. You have your "proof" but seem to be stuck on the OP, and your "personal" grievances. This is the last time I belittle myself with a response.

Suggestion?

Take a break. Breathe..........

reply to post by sonnny1


I'm sorry for asking people what they mean exactly and asking them to back up their statements. The rest of my comments are responses to people attacking me, like you.

If anyone should take a breather and think about the merit of their comments it's you guys.

Originally posted by PleiadanString
reply to post by DeadSeraph

 

Spit it out.

What's the irony here?

That you are derailing a thread while accusing people of offering nothing constructive to it? The OP couldn't have been more clear. You on the other hand, are shifting goal posts with every reply. What is it exactly that you take contention with in the original post?

The OP is crystal clear in outlining a number of recent developments combined with long standing issues that all indicate internet freedom is under threat (and thus people should consider the broader implications). Your response seems to be "so what?"

Is there something specifically that you find wrong with the OP's opinions? It's pretty obvious that legalizing domestic propaganda while simultaneously using open ended language to define "terrorists" is a very troubling turn of events, or do you disagree with that premise entirely?

Propaganda has a long history as we all know...remember this?
This type of propaganda used to be seen as patriotic.



Now this:



It feels as though the stereotype mentality is what they are using to try and divide us......
ALL OF US

reply to post by Hefficide


Some people believe the conspiracy is not existent and others believe everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes the conspirator strangely encourage conspiracy. Through propaganda wars, the media conglomerates create enemies, once it was Russia and communism which dominated the post world war 2 era but now the fall of communism the new enemy is the so-called Muslim fanatic.

reply to post by DeadSeraph

That you are derailing a thread while accusing people of offering nothing constructive to it? The OP couldn't have been more clear. You on the other hand, are shifting goal posts with every reply. What is it exactly that you take contention with in the original post?

Ehm, I asked her to back up a specific statement. She refused and said that I was adding nothing to which I responded that a random statement that is not supported by anything is certainly not adding a thing.

Then you come in and say it is ironic that I accuse her of adding nothing. Dude she was accusing me. It's easy to meddle and take comments out of context.

I have to go now but will be back later to respond to the rest of your post.

reply to post by littled16


Whatever, I posted my problem with the OP and that was that. You then made a statement that is not backed up by anything in the articles or thread.

If you don't want to back up your statement be my guest but that is not how it works, or is supposed to work here.

You are only deflecting here.

Also, you didn't share an opinion, you made a factual statement.

Attention~~~~

Please debate the topic....and quit the bickering!

Go After the Ball, Not the Player!

We expect civility and decorum within all topics.

reply to post by PleiadanString


No. You said this:

I read the article. I don't know how you drew that conclusion. What special scrutiny? We all know that the internet is being monitored so how is this information new? And I don''t see how this article suggests anything with relation to people who use online forums in general, in any way we were not aware of yet.

The OP said this:

The above are a couple of very minor snippets from a rather long article. I strongly recommend reading it. While it is al-Qaida-centric in tone, I would advice the reader to understand that all references to that specific group could be removed and any other group substituted... The articles title might clue you in on one potential substitution... People who use online forums. Given that everyone reading these words engages, on some level, with conspiracy / alt-news sites - we would all be prime targets for this sort of scrutiny.

So either your reading comprehension skills are lacking, or you are intentionally derailing a thread. The OP didn't say that the article linked indicated all internet forums are under a special form of scrutiny. He/She suggested that if you read the article, references to a specific group could be substituted for any other. AGAIN: The OP is suggesting that legalisation of domestic propaganda coupled with vague language and definitions can potentially put forums like ATS and the people who use it at risk.

You then said this:

How do you get to this conclusion? Just because a few articles are talking about encryption used by extremists? I see no evidence for this. I also don't see how this would present a threat to sites like ATS. I think your conclusions are based on some very loose connections.

A few sites are talking about encryption used by extremists? What about Lavabit, which you later conceded to? So if Lavabit was shut down, how is it you can claim you see no evidence for what the OP is discussing?

As for how this could present a threat to a site like ATS, see the first group of quotes.

Then you continued with this:

What tools? Encryption software and IP hiders? Do you use them to protect yourself from the government? Again, what is your evidence that these mechanisms have come under severe scrutiny?

Again. Lavabit. Edward Snowden. The Patriot Act. The NDAA. What is your evidence that these mechanisms are NOT under scrutiny?

It would appear that you are being disingenuous with your real intentions here. That or you simply failed to comprehend the context of a very well written thread.

reply to post by DeadSeraph

Again. Lavabit. Edward Snowden. The Patriot Act. The NDAA. What is your evidence that these mechanisms are NOT under scrutiny?

The only one of those examples that was mentioned in the OP was the NDAA thing which doesn't even directly relate to those claims, and the alleged NDAA issue isn't even completely accurate.

You actually proved my point here.

So if Lavabit was shut down, how is it you can claim you see no evidence for what the OP is discussing?

And you are talking about reading comprehension? I didn't say I saw no evidence for it, I said the OP didn't present it.

Since you are presenting evidence the OP didn't, you must agree.....

So what is this first shot the OP is talking about if you are talking about the Patriot Act which is a decade old?

So either your reading comprehension skills are lacking, or you are intentionally derailing a thread. The OP didn't say that the article linked indicated all internet forums are under a special form of scrutiny. He/She suggested that if you read the article, references to a specific group could be substituted for any other. AGAIN: The OP is suggesting that legalisation of domestic propaganda coupled with vague language and definitions can potentially put forums like ATS and the people who use it at risk.

He SUGGESTED it COULD. And this provess what? Like I said pure speculation.

Again, nothing in those articles referenced random websites and or its users. Nothing.

Nothing that would warrant a title like "Propaganda war against us, first shot fired".

Nottin!

Originally posted by TheInfamousOne

I think we all know the President is a puppet head in the grand scheme of things and can not be blamed for what the NSA does, what the NSA tells him because who's watching the watch dog?

Maybe the President could sign off on one of those executive orders he's so fond of to curb the criminal elements within the NSA. That won't happen because he knows what the result would be. Still, if he had any courage (and didn't love the spys) at least he would try.

The OP along with the now legalized propaganda seems to be just a portion of the full court press by fascists within our government to take total control of us. Add the Facebook and Twitter arrests and detentions. How long does anyone really believe it will be until one of us posts something on ATS that gets us disappeared.

reply to post by Hefficide


Thanks for the post, starred and flagged.

Firstly, governments are people too. They may even act with our best interest in mind. But 2000 or more years of history have proven they can't be trusted with everything - just because they are people too, and have personal interests too. Also, governments can be overthrown and the enemy then might have convenient access to all the data they need to suppress us. Bad.

Hence, we should take proper measures to protect us against (potential) enemies. There are two things we could do right now: start encoding as much Internet traffic as possible and install daemons / services that sent out random encrypted messages over the Internet to random recipients/servers automatically.

I'll explain why.

Firstly: be aware and rest assured that in general encryption is still a very secure way to protect your electronic messages and will remain so for quite a while. You should not worry too much about your enemies being able to decipher your encoded messages: its very, very hard for them to do so.

How do I know this? Well, because scientists constantly try to break their own algorithms, try to find flaws in them, try to break code - and are by and large unsuccesful. Even if they manage to decode something on occasion, they seldom find flaws in the algorithms. It is mostly a question of the encoders having used too small key-lengths. If they, our intellectual elite, the ones that invent these algorithms, are not able to break encrypted messages, than our enemies can't either. There are no hidden uberscientists in society, even the so called 'secret agents' are simply people recruited from Universities - at best.

Please note that people that have access to your encrypted messages might be lucky and be able to decode a very limited number of messages still. It depends on the number of tries they can make per second and stupid luck. Say you would be extremely unlucky and the key you need is the last one you tried: if you'd use an AES-128 key and you could test a trillion keys per second it would take you 785 million times the age of the visible universe to find the key ...

On the other hand, you might get lucky on first try and having found the key you could probably decode quite a bit of the traffic of that one individual. So, in fact, if your individual message is really safe when you encrypt it can't be said. But the BULK of the messages, the overwhelming 99.9999999 percent of it will be safe long enough, given that there are sufficient encoded messages that require attention.

To illustrate this: say that only one person in the whole wide world would use encryption. If people with an interest tried to decode his messages, they might get lucky on first try. Assume they do: they would then be able to decode all traffic encoded with that specific key (hence it is good practice to change keys frequently). Now let's assume there are TWO people that use encryption. The odds against the hacker of finding both keys any time soon are overwhelming. And they would need TWICE the computing power if they wanted to break both encryption keys more or less simultaneously.

Now, that's quite difficult to do. But maybe they'd invent new technology that allows them to work quicker. Say they would have access to a computer that can try all possibilities of an 128-bit AES in six months. Moving to a key-length of 256 bits would give the system a level of security equivalent to the original system again. So, if these two people would change their keys regularly and increase their key lengths to 256 bits, they would probably be safe for a long time. But there is the very small chance that the hacker hits the jackpot very fast for both.

Now imagine that everybody would use strong encryption, change their keys frequently, use random keys and use long key-lengths.. in that case the Bell curve applies and it would be totally impossible for our enemies to decode the Internet traffic.

And hence, maybe we should simply all start to use encrypted mail, encrypted websites etc. right now. It would make the odds of any party cracking our keys quite improbable. Or install that daemon on our systems (a service as the Windows folks would say) that sends out random encrypted messages at random times to random recipients / servers. This would make it totally impossible for our (legal or other) hackers to track who is talking to whom and what they are saying.

Oh, BTW: cracking keys can only be done if you have a way to check that the message is actually a message. So, make sure that even your 'decoded' messages are eoncoded with another layer of encryption.

The right to keep a secret is essential for a free society. We should defend that right.

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by PleiadanString

 

For a long time this community was marginalized because the propaganda tended to paint us as nutters. A largely unfair label on its own, but one that left us only marginalized. Now the rhetoric is becoming more hostile and alienating.

I stand by my OP as rational and valid.

It only takes propaganda to turn us from nutters to terrorists. Gone are the days legislation was required. RIP America, I hardly knew yee. 💀

Originally posted by PleiadanString
reply to post by MDDoxs

 

No, I am not trolling you and I apologize if you feel that I am.

You were suggesting that I am a troll.

If I'm correct the rules do not allow this.

edit on 15-8-2013 by PleiadanString because: (no reason given)

edit on Thu Aug 15 2013 by DontTreadOnMe because: Go After the Ball, Not the Player!

Meh, weak and desperate governments do desperate things. Besides you being a troll would be relevant to a thread dedicated to propaganda in online forums. Woułdnt it?

No accusing you of being a troll just entertaining the irony of this.

Please go on....

🙈🙉🙊