RIYADH — The Daesh Organization (so-called IS) owns different sites within the Darkweb aiming to protect its members and financers against being hacked or caught, said Abdulrahman Al-Shehri, who formed the Tweetso Technical Team, Al-Madina daily reported.
“There are several files online that explain how to make a donation to Daesh and to transfer money through the Darkweb, which is another world that not many know or aware of. A large amount of secret information pertinent to Daesh is being exchanged through this platform,” he explained.
The Darkweb is also the perfect platform through which weapon dealers and terrorists exchange information that will slip under the radar of official authorities and will never be caught.
This platform is not accessed through Google Chrome, Firefox and other search engines where the history of searches can be tracked down.
Accessing the Darkweb is done through special search engines or browsers such as Tor, which allows the users the browse anything securely and anonymously without traffic monitoring.
“The Darkweb is a safe haven for murderers, child molesters and all suspicious and criminal activities. It is a vast world that uses a de facto currency called Bitcoin, which keeps the identity of perpetrators of illegal action anonymous. Bitcoin can hide the identity of sellers and buyers and not let banks and monitoring authorities know about them,” he said.
Because of difficulty in monitoring traffic on the Darkweb, many terrorist organizations continue to prefer it to Surface Web platforms.
The Darkweb helps such organization recruit young men and women and even talk with them inside private online chat rooms.
Daesh has developed its capabilities on the Darkweb and launched an application called “Alrawi” to promote the news and videos of the organization.
The Darkweb has several advantages, the most important of which is it offers a safe and secure platform for people who live under despotic regimes such as Syria and allows them to talk and communicate with one another.
Published by OFF! Magazine, a zine produced by students at SUNY Binghamton and edited by Tim La Pietra.
Once upon a time, the captain and the mates of a ship grew so vain of their seamanship, so full of hubris and so impressed with themselves, that they went mad. They turned the ship north and sailed until they met with icebergs and dangerous floes, and they kept sailing north into more and more perilous waters, solely in order to give themselves opportunities to perform ever-more-brilliant feats of seamanship.
As the ship reached higher and higher latitudes, the passengers and crew became increasingly uncomfortable. They began quarreling among themselves and complaining of the conditions under which they lived.
“Shiver me timbers,” said an able seaman, “if this ain’t the worst voyage I’ve ever been on. The deck is slick with ice; when I’m on lookout the wind cuts through me jacket like a knife; every time I reef the foresail I blamed-near freeze me fingers; and all I get for it is a miserable five shillings a month!”
“You think you have it bad!” said a lady passenger. “I can’t sleep at night for the cold. Ladies on this ship don’t get as many blankets as the men. It isn’t fair!”
A Mexican sailor chimed in: “¡Chingado! I’m only getting half the wages of the Anglo seamen. We need plenty of food to keep us warm in this climate, and I’m not getting my share; the Anglos get more. And the worst of it is that the mates always give me orders in English instead of Spanish.”
“I have more reason to complain than anybody,” said an American Indian sailor. “If the palefaces hadn’t robbed me of my ancestral lands, I wouldn’t even be on this ship, here among the icebergs and arctic winds. I would just be paddling a canoe on a nice, placid lake. I deserve compensation. At the very least, the captain should let me run a crap game so that I can make some money.”
The bosun spoke up: “Yesterday the first mate called me a ‘fruit’ just because I suck cocks. I have a right to suck cocks without being called names for it!”
It’s not only humans who are mistreated on this ship,” interjected an animal-lover among the passengers, her voice quivering with indignation. “Why, last week I saw the second mate kick the ship’s dog twice!”
One of the passengers was a college professor. Wringing his hands he exclaimed,
“All this is just awful! It’s immoral! It’s racism, sexism, speciesism, homophobia, and exploitation of the working class! It’s discrimination! We must have social justice: Equal wages for the Mexican sailor, higher wages for all sailors, compensation for the Indian, equal blankets for the ladies, a guaranteed right to suck cocks, and no more kicking the dog!”
“Yes, yes!” shouted the passengers. “Aye-aye!” shouted the crew. “It’s discrimination! We have to demand our rights!”
The cabin boy cleared his throat.
“Ahem. You all have good reasons to complain. But it seems to me that what we really have to do is get this ship turned around and headed back south, because if we keep going north we’re sure to be wrecked sooner or later, and then your wages, your blankets, and your right to suck cocks won’t do you any good, because we’ll all drown.”
But no one paid any attention to him, because he was only the cabin boy.
The captain and the mates, from their station on the poop deck, had been watching and listening. Now they smiled and winked at one another, and at a gesture from the captain the third mate came down from the poop deck, sauntered over to where the passengers and crew were gathered, and shouldered his way in amongst them. He put a very serious expression on his face and spoke thusly:
“We officers have to admit that some really inexcusable things have been happening on this ship. We hadn’t realized how bad the situation was until we heard your complaints. We are men of good will and want to do right by you. But – well – the captain is rather conservative and set in his ways, and may have to be prodded a bit before he’ll make any substantial changes. My personal opinion is that if you protest vigorously – but always peacefully and without violating any of the ship’s rules – you would shake the captain out of his inertia and force him to address the problems of which you so justly complain.”
Having said this, the third mate headed back toward the poop deck. As he went, the passengers and crew called after him, “Moderate! Reformer! Goody-liberal! Captain’s stooge!” But they nevertheless did as he said. They gathered in a body before the poop deck, shouted insults at the officers, and demanded their rights: “I want higher wages and better working conditions,” cried the able seaman. “Equal blankets for women,” cried the lady passenger. “I want to receive my orders in Spanish,” cried the Mexican sailor. “I want the right to run a crap game,” cried the Indian sailor. “I don’t want to be called a fruit,” cried the bosun. “No more kicking the dog,” cried the animal lover. “Revolution now,” cried the professor.
The captain and the mates huddled together and conferred for several minutes, winking, nodding and smiling at one another all the while. Then the captain stepped to the front of the poop deck and, with a great show of benevolence, announced that the able seaman’s wages would be raised to six shillings a month; the Mexican sailor’s wages would be raised to two-thirds the wages of an Anglo seaman, and the order to reef the foresail would be given in Spanish; lady passengers would receive one more blanket; the Indian sailor would be allowed to run a crap game on Saturday nights; the bosun wouldn’t be called a fruit as long as he kept his cocksucking strictly private; and the dog wouldn’t be kicked unless he did something really naughty, such as stealing food from the galley.
The passengers and crew celebrated these concessions as a great victory, but the next morning, they were again feeling dissatisfied.
“Six shillings a month is a pittance, and I still freeze me fingers when I reef the foresail,” grumbled the able seaman. “I’m still not getting the same wages as the Anglos, or enough food for this climate,” said the Mexican sailor. “We women still don’t have enough blankets to keep us warm,” said the lady passenger. The other crewmen and passengers voiced similar complaints, and the professor egged them on.
When they were done, the cabin boy spoke up – louder this time so that the others could not easily ignore him:
“It’s really terrible that the dog gets kicked for stealing a bit of bread from the galley, and that women don’t have equal blankets, and that the able seaman gets his fingers frozen; and I don’t see why the bosun shouldn’t suck cocks if he wants to. But look how thick the icebergs are now, and how the wind blows harder and harder! We’ve got to turn this ship back toward the south, because if we keep going north we’ll be wrecked and drowned.”
“Oh yes,” said the bosun, “It’s just so awful that we keep heading north. But why should I have to keep cocksucking in the closet? Why should I be called a fruit? Ain’t I as good as everyone else?”
“Sailing north is terrible,” said the lady passenger. “But don’t you see? That’s exactly why women need more blankets to keep them warm. I demand equal blankets for women now!”
“It’s quite true,” said the professor, “that sailing to the north imposes great hardships on all of us. But changing course toward the south would be unrealistic. You can’t turn back the clock. We must find a mature way of dealing with the situation.”
“Look,” said the cabin boy, “If we let those four madmen up on the poop deck have their way, we’ll all be drowned. If we ever get the ship out of danger, then we can worry about working conditions, blankets for women, and the right to suck cocks. But first we’ve got to get this vessel turned around. If a few of us get together, make a plan, and show some courage, we can save ourselves. It wouldn’t take many of us – six or eight would do. We could charge the poop, chuck those lunatics overboard, and turn the ship to the south.”
The professor elevated his nose and said sternly, “I don’t believe in violence. It’s immoral.”
“It’s unethical ever to use violence,” said the bosun.
“I’m terrified of violence,” said the lady passenger.
The captain and the mates had been watching and listening all the while. At a signal from the captain, the third mate stepped down to the main deck. He went about among the passengers and crew, telling them that there were still many problems on the ship.
“We have made much progress,” he said, “But much remains to be done. Working conditions for the able seaman are still hard, the Mexican still isn’t getting the same wages as the Anglos, the women still don’t have quite as many blankets as the men, the Indian’s Saturday-night crap game is a paltry compensation for his lost lands, it’s unfair to the bosun that he has to keep his cocksucking in the closet, and the dog still gets kicked at times.
“I think the captain needs to be prodded again. It would help if you all would put on another protest – as long as it remains nonviolent.”
As the third mate walked back toward the stern, the passengers and the crew shouted insults after him, but they nevertheless did what he said and gathered in front of the poop deck for another protest. They ranted and raved and brandished their fists, and they even threw a rotten egg at the captain (which he skillfully dodged).
After hearing their complaints, the captain and the mates huddled for a conference, during which they winked and grinned broadly at one another. Then the captain stepped to the front of the poop deck and announced that the able seaman would be given gloves to keep his fingers warm, the Mexican sailor would receive wages equal to three-fourths the wages of an Anglo seaman, the women would receive yet another blanket, the Indian sailor could run a crap game on Saturday and Sunday nights, the bosun would be allowed to suck cocks publicly after dark, and no one could kick the dog without special permission from the captain.
The passengers and crew were ecstatic over this great revolutionary victory, but by the next morning they were again feeling dissatisfied and began grumbling about the same old hardships.
The cabin boy this time was getting angry.
“You damn fools!” he shouted. “Don’t you see what the captain and the mates are doing? They’re keeping you occupied with your trivial grievances about blankets and wages and the dog being kicked so that you won’t think about what is really wrong with this ship –– that it’s getting farther and farther to the north and we’re all going to be drowned. If just a few of you would come to your senses, get together, and charge the poop deck, we could turn this ship around and save ourselves. But all you do is whine about petty little issues like working conditions and crap games and the right to suck cocks.”
The passengers and the crew were incensed.
“Petty!!” cried the Mexican, “Do you think it’s reasonable that I get only three-fourths the wages of an Anglo sailor? Is that petty?
“How can you call my grievance trivial? shouted the bosun. “Don’t you know how humiliating it is to be called a fruit?”
“Kicking the dog is not a ‘petty little issue!’” screamed the animal-lover. “It’s heartless, cruel, and brutal!”
“Alright then,” answered the cabin boy. “These issues are not petty and trivial. Kicking the dog is cruel and brutal and it is humiliating to be called a fruit. But in comparison to our real problem – in comparison to the fact that the ship is still heading north – your grievances are petty and trivial, because if we don’t get this ship turned around soon, we’re all going to drown.
“Fascist!” said the professor.
“Counterrevolutionary!” said the lady passenger. And all of the passengers and crew chimed in one after another, calling the cabin boy a fascist and a counterrevolutionary. They pushed him away and went back to grumbling about wages, and about blankets for women, and about the right to suck cocks, and about how the dog was treated. The ship kept sailing north, and after a while it was crushed between two icebergs and everyone drowned.
It has become common practice for attackers to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to link tools together so that they can be run in parallel when conducting an attack.
Attackers use AI and ML to take the results from one tool and then allow the other tools to “learn” about the finding and use it against other systems. As an example, if a one tool finds a password, that tool can feed the information to another tool or bot that may conduct the exploitation of one or many systems using the discovered password.
AI and ML allows for an attacker to program a toolset or bot to act like a “real” attacker. As an example, the tool or bot may launch a phishing attack against an organization and then take the results of the phishing tool and conduct other types of attacks just as a human would.
Attackers are building toolsets and bots that use AI and ML techniques to evade detection and blocking the methods already in place within most organizations. Many of these tools (typically open source) can be easily obtained from the Internet. This gives anyone the ability to run the tools against target organizations.
In an article in Wired President Obama expressed his concerns about AI-enabled bots attacking nuclear weapon silos and causing a launch. This intimates that the threat of AI and ML enhanced attacks are a major concern even at the highest level of government.
Advice and Recommendations
Use defense in depth mechanisms to defend against automated/AI-based attacks. As an example, consider using more than one anti-virus product to protect your systems, one on desktops, one on servers, and one at the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA). This improves your chances of detecting the attack.
Utilize Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) to evaluate log data from systems and protection mechanisms. As an example, capture data from firewalls, Intrusion Detection/Prevention (IDS/IPS), and from workstations and servers. Look for anomalous behavior such as systems trying to connect to other systems that normally would not have anything to do with each other.
Ensure that all systems require users to use strong passwords comprised of alpha, numeric, and special characters. Put polices in place that require the users of these systems, including administrators, to change their passwords at least every 90 days.
Train your employees on a regular basis on what to do when they notice anomalous events on their computers (mouse pointer moving with no user interaction, etc.).
Shut down unnecessary services on all systems. As an example, if you have a file server running a web server but that web server is never used, shut it down to reduce the attack surface of the host. Tools and bots using AI/ML will hunt for systems with exploitable services first so that they can be used as pivot points to attack other systems on the network.
Stay abreast of new threats to ensure that the protection mechanisms you have in place still provide the level of security that you are expecting.
Conduct ongoing vulnerability scanning and penetration testing to discover weaknesses in your computing infrastructure that may be exploited by a bot or other tool that seeks out and exploits vulnerabilities.
The phenomenon of so-called snuff movies (films that allegedly document real acts of murder, specifically designed to entertain and sexually arouse the spectator) represents a fascinating socio-cultural paradox. At once unproven, yet accepted by many, as emblematic of the very worst extremes of pornography and horror, moral detractors have argued that the mere idea of snuff constitutes the logical (and terminal) extension of generic forms that are dependent primarily upon the excitement, stimulation and, ultimately, corruption of the senses. Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media brings together scholars from film and media studies to assess the longevity of one of screen medias most enduring cultural myths. Thorough, provocative, and well argued, the contributions to this volume address areas ranging from exploitation movies, the video industry, trends in contemporary horror cinema, pornography and Web 2.0.
You’re all set — your bags were packed long ago, there’s a dozen solid gold coins stashed inside your belt and a pistol strapped round your waist.
There’s no need to say goodbye to the wife and children as they’re already waiting for you 6,000 miles away in New Zealand, having slipped off quietly at the first whiff of global catastrophe.
Now, they’re making themselves comfortable in that fortress home you’ve spent years preparing. They’ve got store-loads of food and enough guns and ammunition to start World War III – which might, anyway, have begun by the time you arrive.
New Zealand – thousands of miles away from North Korea, ISIS and all the social tensions in Europe and the United States – is seen as the ideal ‘safe’ place for billionaires
The high-powered motorbike you’ve never used is waiting outside to whisk you to the private airport where your plane sits waiting.
A helicopter-ride at the other end, pull up the drawbridge — yes, you have one — and you’re ready to wait, for years if necessary, for civilisation to return.
Never mind the warnings about stocking up on vegetables after awful weather has ravaged the Mediterranean farming belt. Some of America’s richest people are spending billions quietly preparing for a global Apocalypse.
The world of Doomsday survivalists or ‘Preppers’ — those preparing themselves for total social collapse — is usually associated with wild-eyed eco-beardies hiding in the woods.
Nuclear war is just one of the fears driving the billionaire ‘refugees’
But the existence of a very different group of Preppers was laid bare by a political row in New Zealand this week.
Attracted by a remote First World country that has the potential to be self-sufficient and is on no one’s list of nuclear targets, the super-rich kings of Silicon Valley and Wall Street are buying up vast tracts of its land — in anticipation of the day when they may need to live there.
The controversy has revealed the extraordinary precautions being taken by the mega- rich to ensure that WTSHTF — a crude survivalist acronym for ‘when the **** hits the fan’ — they and their loved ones will be safe and comfortable.
What the catastrophe will precisely be remains unclear, but possibilities include a devastating asteroid impact, giant earthquake, nuclear war, civil war, pandemic, zombie invasion and the Second Coming.
Tellingly, the geeks of Silicon Valley appear to be most worried that it will be a struggle between rich and poor in a world economy turned upside down by new technology — with them as the main targets.
The row in New Zealand involves scores of mega-rich Americans but has specifically centred on Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of the internet payment system PayPal and an early investor in Facebook.
Thiel, a libertarian supporter of Donald Trump, paid $10million for a 477-acre lakeside estate in the country’s beautiful but isolated Southern Alps, which provided much of the staggering landscape in the Lord Of the Rings and Hobbit films.
Amid a public outcry over the invasion of U.S. internet and finance billionaires, the New Zealand government has released papers detailing the ‘exceptional circumstances’ under which the American tycoon was quietly given a New Zealand passport.
Peter Thiel (pictured, centre) is a big supporter of Donald Trump but he has an insurance plan if it all goes pear-shaped, having bought a 477-acre estate in New Zealand
Peter Thiel (pictured, centre) is a big supporter of Donald Trump but he has an insurance plan if it all goes pear-shaped, having bought a 477-acre estate in New Zealand
It is difficult to understand how this complied with the rules, including one that insists foreigners must live there for three years beforehand.
Mr Thiel has gushed about his ‘great pride’ in his new citizenship and how he has ‘found no other country that aligns more with my view of the future’.
Perhaps what he really meant was exposed, after one of his Silicon Valley chums, the venture capitalist Sam Altman, revealed that, at the first sign of global disaster, he and Thiel would fly to New Zealand.
Other uber-rich Americans who have recently bought homes there include the billionaire hedge-fund pioneer Julian Robertson and the Hollywood film director James Cameron.
Local estate agents say their U.S. clients rarely intend to live in New Zealand, but cite reasons for their purchases such as the toxic presidential election and the spate of mass shootings in America.
In the first ten months of last year, foreigners — mainly Australians and Americans — bought nearly 1,400 square miles of land there, more than four times what they bought in the same period the previous year.
When they’re not buying up land abroad (Chile is also popular as it has low taxes, a good climate and good air links), rich survivalists like to swap tips on private Facebook groups or at regular dinners.
Popular subjects range from buying internet currencies such as Bitcoin, as protection against a central banking meltdown, to which foreign countries are most likely to hand them a passport and so the chance to relocate there in a crisis.
Some have planned for every eventuality. Steve Huffman, the 33-year-old co-founder of the internet discussion forum Reddit, which is valued at $600 million, is one of several Silicon Valley barons who has had laser surgery to correct poor eyesight.
If society collapses, he reasons perversely, getting hold of new spectacles might be a challenge. Ammunition could run out, too.
Steve Huffman (left), co-founder of Reddit, has had laser surgery because he does not want to rely on post-apocalyptic opticians, while Oracle founder Larry Ellison (right) is readying an escape hatch in Hawaii
Steve Huffman (left), co-founder of Reddit, has had laser surgery because he does not want to rely on post-apocalyptic opticians, while Oracle founder Larry Ellison (right) is readying an escape hatch in Hawaii
Marvin Liao, a former senior executive at web giant Yahoo, has taken classes in archery and has amassed a small arsenal of other non-firearm weapons to protect his wife and daughter.
Survivalists have their own set of acronyms, including WROL (Without Rule Of Law) and LIA (Little Ice Age). (Some of them worry that the latter has just started).
They also have secret buzzphrases. ‘Saying you’re “buying a house in New Zealand” is kind of a wink, wink — say no more,’ Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist told the New Yorker magazine.
‘Once you’ve done the Masonic handshake, they’ll be, like: “Oh, you know, I have a broker who sells old ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] silos, and they’re nuclear-hardened, and they kind of look like they would be interesting to live in.” ’
These brothers in paranoia don’t necessarily agree on how to survive the approaching cataclysm. Antonio Garcia Martinez, a former Facebook product manager, bought five wooded acres on an island off America’s north Pacific coast.
For this refuge, he brought in solar panels, power generators and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
He chose the spot because it’s far from cities — but not completely remote, as ‘one guy alone’ couldn’t hope to stand up to a ‘roving mob’. One would need to set up a ‘local militia’ with others, he says. And when you have your hundred or so acres of land, what do you put there?
Post-apocalypse design for the money-no-object brigade tends to involve creating a home with a huge bomb-proof basement. The home must be self-contained, not only ‘off the grid’ (with its own power and water supplies), but with tanks for raising tilapia — a hardy, fast-growing fish — to eat, and facilities in which to grow vegetables hydroponically without soil.
Naturally, property developers are eagerly capitalising on such concerns. The Survival Condo Project, a former underground nuclear missile silo in Kansas, has been converted into a 15- storey luxury apartment complex with a pool, gym, classroom and a miniature hospital.
It also has ground-level security cameras, electric fences, an on-site armoury, a sniper post and even a prison cell in which to put unwanted visitors. Instead of windows, giant LED screens show live pictures of the prairie above.
Its creators, who’ve sold all 14 of the $3m homes and are developing a string of new sites, say it can sustain 70 people indefinitely. That is, as long as they can put up with living in what a visitor compared to a well-furnished submarine — silent and rather oppressive.
Project boss Larry Hall says he gets more phone inquiries every time North Korea tests a bomb.
His team promise to send a Pit-Bull VX armoured truck to collect a resident from within a 400-mile radius of the silo.
Others prefer to put their own plans in place. Reddit founder Huffman says he realised a motorbike would be a necessity after watching the disaster film Deep Impact, in which people try to flee a tsunami caused by a comet-strike, clogging the streets so cars are brought to a standstill.
All this panic among the super-rich begs an obvious question: what do they know that the rest of us don’t?
Certainly, preparing for the Apocalypse has been a multi-billion dollar business for many years.
Polls have shown around 22 per cent of Americans believe the world will ‘end’ in their lifetime. Many right-wingers were convinced that Barack Obama would start a civil war by trying to seize citizens’ guns.
Now, there’s the unpredictable Donald Trump to disturb their dreams. More than 13,000 Americans registered to buy a home in New Zealand — 17 times the usual rate — in the week after he was elected president.
There are TV shows about so-called preppers, a survivalist radio network and disaster readiness conventions. There are estate agents dedicated to the task, scouting out easily defendable properties, and even ‘Doomsday dating’ sites such as Survivalist Singles (motto: ‘You don’t have to face the future alone’).
But why are the country’s most privileged people, protected by immense wealth, quite so in fear?
For it is believed that at least 50 per cent of Silicon Valley billionaires have taken out so-called ‘apocalypse insurance’ by finding a refuge at home or abroad. Reluctant to admit the truth, they often describe it as a holiday home, so it’s difficult to know whether or not Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg bought a 750-acre estate in Hawaii ‘just in case’.
Similarly, his fellow tech billionaire Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, who has not only bought 98 per cent of Hawaii’s sixth largest island, Lanai, but — handily — its own airline.
Of course there is the possibility that these fretting tech wizards’ prescience is justified. For many have made their fortunes out of predicting mankind’s dependence on digital gadgets and so we should respect their Doomsday hunches. Survivalists say the first signs of crisis often appear on internet chat forums, as they reportedly did before the 2008 financial crash.
Yishan Wong, another Silicon Valley multi-millionaire who has had eye surgery in readiness for a world without opticians, argues that techie types see risk in a clear-headed way. An apocalypse may be a remote possibility but, if you have money to burn, it’s ‘logical’ to take out insurance, he says.
A less flattering theory is that they’re simply bored nerds who long for adventure and fantasise about a future in which they’ll be a woman-magnet cross between apocalyptic hero Mad Max and environmentally friendly chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
Romanian riot police detain a man after clashes erupted during a protest in Bucharest this week. But many fears the world is going to Hell in a handcart
Thousands protest against Romanian government’s emergency decree
A New York architect told me he was hired by a senior partner at the bank Goldman Sachs to build a post-Apocalypse house far outside the city. His client wanted it to be a rallying point for local people, gathering — of course — to fall into line under his leadership.
Certainly, Reddit founder Mr Huffman claims he’s ‘a pretty good leader’ who ‘will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave’ if civilisation falls to pieces.
For these great Silicon Valley egalitarians fear that if society collapses, vengeful mobs will look for the super-rich. And, in particular, for the tech wizards whose robots and artificial intelligence systems are taking humans’ jobs.
A critic might ask why, if they’re so alarmed by a battle between rich and poor, they don’t stop wasting their billions on stockpiling armouries and islands and spend it helping the less fortunate?
But then what sort of red-blooded tech king wants to sign a cheque to charity when they could splash out on helicopters, Ducati motorbikes and an assault rifle for every family member?
It’s easy to laugh at the obscenely rich finding grotesque new ways to waste their money. But it’s undeniably disconcerting when it’s the lords of our digital age.
After all, everyone in Silicon Valley claims they want to save the world, not run away from it.
The 2002 edition of Zen at Warwas followed by Zen War Stories, which further explores the intimate relationship between Japanese institutional Buddhism and militarism during World War II.
A hacker is selling hundreds of thousands of accounts that were allegedly used by police and federal agents on a hacked law enforcement forum. The database being sold in the dark web contains over 715,000 user accounts. The breached site, PoliceOne, is a news site and community reportedly used by verified police officers and investigators to discuss specialist topics.
Using this account information, “criminals may be able to access ‘private messages and posts,’ the hacker who goes by the handle Berkut” told Motherboard.
PoliceOne.com is the #1 resource for up-to-the-minute law enforcement information online. More than 500,000 police professionals nationwide are registered PoliceOne members and trust us to provide them with the most timely, accurate and useful information available anywhere.
Berkut’s listing in the dark web marketplace claims that the forum was hacked in 2015 when this police data was stolen. “Emails from NSA, DHS, FBI and other law enforcement agencies as well as other US government agencies” is included in this database which is currently going for $400. The data includes usernames, email addresses, dates of birth, other forum data, and passwords stored in MD5, an encryption algorithm that is now considered relatively easier to crack.
PoliceOne has confirmed the breach and is currently investigating the claim of stolen data. The site released the following statement:
We have confirmed the credibility of a purported breach of the PoliceOne forums in which hackers were potentially able to obtain usernames, emails and hashed passwords for a portion of our members. While we have not yet verified the claim, we are taking immediate steps to secure user accounts and our forums, which are currently offline while we investigate and gather more information.
While we store only limited user data and no payment information, we take any breach of data extremely seriously and are working aggressively to resolve the matter. We will be notifying potentially-affected users as a matter of priority and requiring them to change their passwords.
Days before her parents’ grisly deaths, Ashlee Martinson purportedly posted a poem about torturing and killing people in the woods, “where the agonizing screams cannot be heard.”
“Walking into a small cabin,” the teen wrote on her “Nightmare” blog on March 2, 2015, according the Daily Mail. “Marveling at the sweet horrors of blood that I thirst for. I then take the next victim who is unconscious. I tightly bind them to a low table.”
Martinson described herself online as a “horror fanatic” and went by the pseudonym “Vampchick,” according to People.
“I clean the dry blood off my tools from a previous session,” she wrote in the chilling March 2015 post, called “Unworthy.”
“The last body has been disposed of just hours before, yet I have not been satisfied with the pain, agony and blood.
“I bend down as they start to wake.
“‘Welcome to hell.’ I whisper in her ear. ‘Never again will you see the light of day.’”
Five days later, Martinson’s parents were found dead at their home in the tiny town of Piehl, in northern Wisconsin.
Investigators immediately turned their attention to Martinson, who had fled to Indiana with her boyfriend.
She was arrested and charged after police said she shot and killed her stepfather and then fatally stabbed her mother more than 30 times.
Now 18, Martinson pleaded guilty last week to second-degree homicide.
On March 7, 2015, one day after her 17th birthday, Martinson got into an argument with her parents, she later told police.
Her younger sister told authorities that Martinson’s mother and stepfather had discovered that the teen had a 22-year-old boyfriend and sent him a message on Facebook telling him to stay away from their daughter, according to court documents.
“As her parents,” her parents wrote, “we can press charges.”
They took away Martinson’s keys and cellphone, according to the documents, and forbid her from seeing him again.
The three fought. Martinson left home on foot and her stepfather brought her back.
Then, she went to her room.
Martinson told police that she grabbed “one of the many loaded shotguns in the house” and prepared to commit suicide, according to the documents.
But when her stepfather started “loudly banging” on her bedroom door, she said she considered killing him instead.
Two gunshots rang out.
Martinson shot 37-year-old Thomas Ayers first in the neck, then took aim at his head, authorities said.
She told police the second shot was “to ensure that he was dead and could not hurt her,” according to court records.
She said she turned to her mother for comfort, but her mother ran to Ayers, yelling at her daughter for what she had done.
Martinson told police that her mother, 40-year-old Jennifer Ayers, grabbed a knife and came toward her, according to court records. The teen wrestled the weapon from her mother, then stabbed her “with considerable force” over and over and over.
“She was basically a good kid, a very decent girl, until this happened,” her friend, Jon Rasmussen, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last year.
Accounts from Martinson and professionals who interviewed her after the incident portray a teenage girl who, after years of alleged abuse, suffered severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Her online presence, it seems, revealed the darker side.
Ashlee Martinson. (Oneida County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
Martinson had put pictures on Pinterest that she said came from “the dark, haunted woods of Wisconsin,” according to People.
The blog entries painted more macabre scenes.
In January 2015, she posted a poem called “Murder Maddness,” which was republished by the Daily Mail; in it, she wrote that she could hear nothing “but their screaming souls.”
“Unlike the monster I am/That no one can see,” it said. “And what I have become/What I have done to some.
“Someone like me/That no one can see/A psychopath in the dark.”
Authorities confirmed last year that the “Nightmare” blog that had been linked to Martinson was indeed associated with her; but they did not know whether the content posted under the pseudonym “Vampchick” was her original work.
The blog has since been taken offline.
Martinson told police that she was subjected to years of mental, verbal, physical and sexual attacks from her mother’s boyfriends — one of whom, she claimed, burned her with a cigarette and once raped her when she was 9, according to the court documents.
“People didn’t know about the abuse she went through,” Rasmussen, her friend and neighbor, recently told People. “This is a tragedy for everybody involved.”
Martinson said her stepfather was no exception.
Over the years, Thomas Ayers had been accused of assault, kidnapping, child enticement and party to the crime of sexual assault of a child under 15, according to court documents, which noted that he “had numerous prior arrests and convictions.”
Two of Martinson’s sisters told authorities that Ayers would hit them “very hard” with “a thick belt and his hand” — on several occasions until “their buttocks nearly blistered,” according to the documents.
They said he had choked them and had punched one of the girls in the face, giving her a black eye.
One of the girls said Ayers told them he threw their puppy around and “shot and killed him, and fed him to a bear.”
He also abused Martinson’s mother, they said.
The teen told police that her stepfather once climbed on top of her mother, pinned her down, put a gun to head and pretended to sexually assault her, saying “just like your father,” according to court documents.
Court-appointed doctors said Martinson was neglected by her mother, who did not provide “a safe environment for her,” according to the documents.
“We all knew she was having a hard time,” another friend, Jacob Dietzler, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. But news of the killings, he said, “came as a complete shell shock. It was bad.”
On Martinson’s 17th birthday, she texted her 22-year-old boyfriend, Ryan Sisco, to say that she had woken up as her mother was being beaten by her stepfather.
“I can’t take this s— anymore,” she wrote, according to the documents. “He’s gonna kill her if she doesn’t leave soon and I don’t want to be around.”
Martinson wrote in a text that she wanted to kill him.
“Just take one of his guns,” she wrote, “and blow his f—— brains out.”
The day after the double-homicide, Martinson’s three younger sisters were still inside the home with their slain parents.
One of the sisters later told authorities that Martinson had taken two showers to wash away the blood before telling the girls — then ages 9, 8 and 2 — that they were going to play a game, according to court documents.
She said Martinson gave them snacks and juice and then locked them in a bedroom, tying a cord around the door.
They managed to escape and call 911.
When police arrived, Martinson and her boyfriend, Sisco, had already fled.
After a nationwide manhunt, they were arrested outside Lebanon, Ind., according to news reports.
Martinson was charged with homicide and false imprisonment, for locking up her sisters, though the false imprisonment charge was dropped.
Sisco has not been charged in connection to the slayings.
Martinson first pleaded not guilty to first-degree homicide by reason of mental disease or defect, but recently took a plea deal for a lesser, second-degree charge.
The stepfather’s brother, Don Ayers, said he did not agree with the deal.
“The day before the murders, she wrote on Facebook that she wanted to kill them,” he recently told People. “To me, that’s premeditated. They should have left the charges at first-degree murder.”
Ayers said it’s not fair how his brother and sister-in-law have been portrayed.
“Thomas and Jennifer are being judged right now by what she is saying about them, but they aren’t here to defend themselves because she killed them,” he told People. “I think she stretched the truth to save her own neck.”
Martinson’s attorney, Amy Ferguson, declined to comment.
Martinson will be sentenced June 17 and faces a maximum of 120 years in prison.
Last week, we brought you the trailer (below) for Flying Lotus’s directorial debut, Kuso, which I noted was pretty much the most batshit thing I’ve seen in my life! To recap:
Kuso goes deep and vividly into the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that hits L.A. But that’s just where the fever dream movie from Steve Ellison and Brainfeeder Films starts. The lift-off is the real ride. Along with the Funkadelic leader [George Clinton], Kuso also stars comedian Hannibal Buress plus Iesha Coston, Zack Fox, The Buttress, and Tim Heidecker.
Apparently, Kuso isn’t just batshit. According to Variety, crowds abandoned the film in droves not long after it launched its midnight screening at Sundance this morning, it may just be the most disgusting movie ever made. The industry trade gives a description of some the film’s most shocking moments, but be warned: If you decide to read, you will be bombarded with seriously grotesque imagery.
“I’ll start with the footage of an erect penis being stabbed. As with most footage of an erect penis being violently gored by a long steel rod, it’s certainly unexpected. A large chunk of the audience left my screening early, when a boil-covered woman choked a man with a strap until he covered half her face with semen that looked like a muted version of Nickelodeon slime. But the walk-outs continued in a consistent stream up to the final scene. Some gross-out films are one-note, but ‘Kuso’ finds new ways to test viewers’ fortitude. Some folks stuck around after a woman chewed on concrete until her teeth disintegrated, but still peaced out when an alien creature force-yanked a fetus from another woman’s womb (accompanied by a ‘Mortal Kombat’ sound clip: ‘Get over here!’), then smoked the tiny corpse.”
Please excuse me as I try to wash these mental pictures out of my head!
Of course, this kind of terrible review could actually be seen as a good thing for Horror Freaks, who appreciate filmmakers who push envelopes to dangerous extremes. It will clearly be a mainstream flop, but I’m willing to bet Kuso will go on to amass some kind of cult following. Heck, I’ll certainly give it a view (in spite of my better judgment, perhaps!).
How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power
Blame it on the smartphone, the technology that is bringing internetlike tracking and surveillance into brick-and-mortar stores.
In this revealing account, Turow (Communication/Univ. of Pennsylvania; The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth, 2012, etc.) describes how the same online personalization made possible on your computer by cookies has reared its head in the aisles and checkouts of supermarkets and department stores, where 90 percent of all retail purchases still occur. “Tying into the always-on smartphone carried by about 70 percent of Americans,” writes the author, “merchants, brand manufacturers, and their agents are exploiting cellular signals, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, sound waves, light waves, and more to track customers and send them product messages before, during, and after their store visits.” This is the beginning of a “great transformation” in retailing: by 2028, half of all Americans are expected to have body implants that can communicate with retailers as they walk around stores, which will allow merchants to gather increasingly specific data on shoppers and redefine seller-customer relationships. In return for capturing data—generally without shoppers’ awareness—merchants offer loyalty programs, discount coupons, and other benefits. In effect, they are training consumers to “give up personal data willingly,” accept discriminations made between high- and low-value shoppers (with some getting better prices than others), and relinquish “the historical ideal of egalitarian treatment in the American marketplace.” Turow writes in a matter-of-fact manner that barely disguises his outrage at the invasiveness of the under-the-radar surveillance at Target, Wal-Mart, and elsewhere, which, he says, demands regulation and consumer education. While sometimes repetitious, his book offers invaluable insights about in-store data-gathering, including frank observations from unnamed industry sources. Most retailers, he writes, hope future generations will simply accept surveillance and tracking as part of the American shopping experience.
The phenomenon of so-called snuff movies (films that allegedly document real acts of murder, specifically designed to entertain and sexually arouse the spectator) represents a fascinating socio-cultural paradox. At once unproven, yet accepted by many, as emblematic of the very worst extremes of pornography and horror, moral detractors have argued that the mere idea of snuff constitutes the logical (and terminal) extension of generic forms that are dependent primarily upon the excitement, stimulation and, ultimately, corruption of the senses. Snuff: Real Death and Screen Media brings together scholars from film and media studies to assess the longevity of one of screen medias most enduring cultural myths. Thorough, provocative, and well argued, the contributions to this volume address areas ranging from exploitation movies, the video industry, trends in contemporary horror cinema, pornography and Web 2.0.
How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power