Tag: Cyberterrorism

LulzSec, FBI, CIA, AntiSec, Sabu, AnonOps… Government Social Media Experiment Gone Horribly Wrong

Joseph K. Black

Social Media Experiment Gone Horribly Wrong

Mon Feb 28 04:46:25 CST 2011

Update: On October 31, 2011, Joseph K. Black was arrested by Nebraska police officers after a 35 minute car chase spanning four counties, during what was described as one of his psychotic episodes. For more details and the police reports, read all about it. In addition, a full criminal history on Black is available.

Given the inane amount of joseph black babble to come from Joseph K. Black via Facebook and Twitter in late January of 2011, we’ll spare everyone a lot of the gory details and just post a few short examples of why Black will not only never obtain his dream job of National Cybersecurity Advisor, but will likely end up working the counter at a Runza near you some time in the near future, provided he doesn’t end up in prison.

Simply put, Black has designs on being appointed “National Cybersecurity Advisor” by the Obama administration. While that in itself may be an admirable goal, Black seems to think that self-promotion, being top 10 on search results and outlandish claims through social media outlets will help his cause more than, say, actual experience and contributions to the security industry (“cyber” or otherwise). Moving into February, his big thing became some fictional “megacommunity” (“Google it!” he says) with imaginary ties to every government agency, big service provider and anything else that he fancies.

With his inability to use Twitter and Facebook correctly, posting everything three or four times, he betrays the notion that he is an expert at anything. Because really, Twitter is hard to figure out. According to Black, he is the Ben Roethlisberger of Cybersecurity, the Governor of Cyberspace, the King of Cyberspace, the John Wayne of Cyberspace, the Michael Jordan of Cybersecurity, the Smokey the Bear of Cybersecurity, the Captain of the Cool Kids and a Cybersecurity ROCKSTAR! We could cite dozens of examples of his general idiocy here, but a short few should paint a clear picture of the level of e-tard we’re dealing with:

   
   

The @Gregory_D_Evans Twitter account summed it all up very nicely in one tweet:

It should be noted that before Black “went full retard” as mentioned above, Lyger did try to personally and privately contact Black twice via email to open a dialogue. Neither email was answered:

Whether he’s just overzealous, delusional, a net-kook, or a simple troll, we’re done with him. Desperate and irrelevant, Black has had his 15 minutes of notoriety (not “fame”, as he probably thinks) and like all good trolls, his time too has passed. He isn’t relevant enough to include on Errata: Charlatan, so he ended up here, on Postal: Asshats.

*PLONK* .. we’ll leave you with this mess:

   
   
   

   
   
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BART mobile shutdown provokes Anonymous hackers

Hackers have targeted the website of a San Francisco transport company that turned off mobile masts to prevent protests outside its stations.

Public anger towards the Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) had been fermenting since July when transit police shot dead a man who was carrying a knife.

BART disconnected its transmitters in a bid to quell planned demonstrations.

Hacker group Anonymous retaliated by attacking myBART.org, and releasing users’ personal information.

The hackers posted details of over 2,000 myBART users online.

A man uses his iPhone at Civic Centre Station, San FranciscoMobile users on the BART network were completely cut off while protests were allegedly being organised

In a typically-worded statement, the hacking group said: “We are Anonymous, we are your citizens, we are the people, we do not tolerate oppression from any government agency.

“BART has proved multiple times that they have no problem exploiting and abusing the people.”

BART’s main website, BART.gov, was left unaffected.

However, myBART.org – which carries offers and extra services for passengers – was defaced and, as of Monday, remained offline.

‘Disruptive activities’

An action group has called for the disbanding of the BART police force following the July 3 shooting of a homeless man Charles Hill and also the 2009 killing of another man, Oscar Grant.

Johannes MehserleJohannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter over the death of Oscar Grant

Protesters have already been successful in rendering some stations on the network unusable by staging mass sit-ins.

BART took the decision, on 11 August, to shut off mobile phone reception at some of its sites.

In a statement, the transport company said: “BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform.”

It said protesters had stated that they: “would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police”.

BART added: “Disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators.”

UK troubles

The move was widely criticised as being heavy-handed, with some San Francisco residents suggesting that blocking phone use was a violation of free speech.

BART’s decision has parallels with recent troubles in England where days of riots were sparked when 29-year-old Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London.

Prime Minister David Cameron suggested in Parliament that access to social networks could be blocked in times of civil unrest.

Prime Minister, David Cameron

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David Cameron outlines ideas for social media measures during rioting

His comments came after it emerged some of the looting and violence was co-ordinated by people using services such as Blackberry messenger.

His statement was widely condemned by rights campaigners who said that such measures could be an attack on civil liberties.

On Monday, BART warned of further disruption to the service, and did not rule out that similar blocking-measures could be used.

‘Completely unjustified’

However, reaction to Anonymous’ intrusions has been less than supportive.

Laura Eichman, whose phone number was published along with the stolen personal data, said: “I think what they [the hackers] did was illegal and wrong.

“I work in IT myself, and I think that this was not ethical hacking. I think this was completely unjustified.”

Anonymous has argued that anger should be directed at BART’s “unsecure” data protection methods, rather than the group.

via bbc.co.uk

DING!

England riots: What’s the meaning of the words behind the chaos?

England riots: What’s the meaning of the words behind the chaos?

Comments (222)

By Jon Kelly BBC News Magazine

Confrontation between police and rioters in Hackney

England riots

From shot 29-year-old Mark Duggan referring to the police as “feds” to the nuanced use of the word “community”, the language of the riots and the response can tell us something.

It may have been England that was shaken by violence, looting and disorder.

But many of the terms used by its perpetrators came from a very different place altogether – and, due to coverage of the rioting, they have found a wider audience than ever before.

“If you see a fed… SHOOT!” read one message circulated on BlackBerry Messenger, imploring readers to riot.

Another, widely reported in the aftermath of the chaos, urged everyone to “up and roll to Tottenham [expletive] the 5-0”. There were myriad references as well to the “po po”.

Mark Duggan, whose fatal shooting by police sparked the violence, himself sent a text message shortly before his death which read: “The feds are following me.”

Slang for the police

  • Slang terms for the police, often hostile and originated by criminals, go back a long time
  • “Pig” was first used to mean police officer in 1811, the OED says
  • “Peeler” was in use to refer to Irish constables by 1817 and was widely used for Robert Peel’s prototype force in 1829
  • The “fuzz” is first recorded in the US in 1929

All these terms used to express antipathy towards the police share a common feature – all are derived from the inner cities of the US, not of the UK.

To outsiders, it appeared incongruous that these terms were commonly used by youngsters who were straight out of comprehensive, not Compton.

But when politicians and pundits used such terms to argue that the pernicious influence of hip hop and rap was responsible for fuelling the riots, they themselves ended up using vernacular gleaned from their box sets of The Wire.

When Michael Gove, the education secretary, discussed the possible causes of the disorder, he attacked the instant gratification of “gangsta” culture. Reporters transcribed the word as it might appear on the lyric sheet of a Dr Dre CD, instead of “gangster”, as once would have been expected when deployed by an Aberdonian Tory MP who represents a constituency in Surrey.

However, Jennifer Blake, a youth worker who runs the Safe and Sound anti-gang project in Peckham, south London, says such commentators miss the point.

Scene from the first series of The WireThe Wire included terms “po-po” and “5-0”

“When kids talk about the feds, it’s obvious that they’re not talking about the FBI,” she says. “They know that’s not how things work over here. It’s like a code – politicians and the media don’t understand.”

She highlights home-grown phrases like “bully van”, meaning police van, and “shank”, meaning knife, as evidence that UK street culture is not just passively replicating the language of the US inner cities.

Indeed, Jonathon Green, author of the Chambers Slang Dictionary, points out that many of the messages which circulated during the riots included non-US phrases.

These included exhortations to defend one’s “yard” – used in its Jamaican-derived sense, meaning home – or one’s “end”, a home-grown term referring to an area of a city.

Exclusive blend

All, he says, are examples of Multicultural London English (MLE), a dialect identified among young people in the capital which blends the phonetics and vocabulary of such diverse influences as West Indian, south Asian and traditional cockney.

He says the use of “feds” to mean the UK constabulary dates back no further than 1997, and the English deployment of “po po” – which originated in Los Angeles during the 1980s – is even more recent. Such Americanisms, Green says, have to be understood in this context, at least within London where the riots began.

The SopranosThe Sopranos series regularly used the term “feds”

“It’s an ironical use,” he says. “Obviously there’s been an increased Americanisation of our language since the war, but MLE doesn’t just come from one source. It just so happens that rap music has lots of terms for the police.”

Of course, the language of hip hop and rap has been adopted far more widely than just among the inner city black youths who form its target audience.

Professor Gus John of the Institute of Education, University of London, has long worked with young people associated with gangs and has studied changes in language within England’s multi-ethnic communities. He argues that such terminology has the function of setting its users apart from the mainstream.

“It has its own resonance. It’s also exclusive, it becomes an internal language to people who share particular lifestyles. That’s part of its potency.

“The fact that it is internal, the fact it is not commonly used by everybody, helps to define the group.”

Woman cleaning the streets of BatterseaOpponents of the rioters have their own terminology

Certainly, those who know little of hip hop culture, and would themselves reject violence and rioting, might have their own nicknames for the police, such as Old Bill or Peelers.

And among those attempting to speak for the majority appalled by the disorder, one word was regularly repeated.

Tottenham’s MP David Lammy spoke of “a mood of anxiety in the local community”. Sikhs who gathered in west London to guard against looters said they were “here to defend our temple and our community”. Richard Mannington Bowes, who died trying to prevent looting, was quickly hailed as a “hero of the community”.

The “community”, it appeared, was everything and everyone that did not include the rioters.

Indeed, the focus on “gangsta” terminology tells us just as much about the media as it does about the perpetrators of disorder, suggests lexicographer Susie Dent.

“I think journalists have adopted it because it distils the mood and the type of person perceived to be behind the past few days, and also because there’s been a distinct uncertainty, almost nervousness, about what to call the perpetrators,” she says.

“Are they rioters, which implies a political objection, looters, which doesn’t, or vandals, etc? It’s interesting too that a lot of the people cleaning up embraced the Sun’s ‘scum’ so readily, a reflexive response of anger.”

Whether it comes from the criminals themselves or the law-abiding majority, the words used to describe England’s riots tells us much about the society that produced them.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that far more than language divides the two sides.

via bbc.co.uk

Police & MI5 Accessing BlackBerry Messages To Prevent London Riots & Hunt Rioters | BlackBerryRocks.com

Police & MI5 Accessing BlackBerry Messages To Prevent London Riots & Hunt Rioters

August 16th, 2011 @ 1:52 PM | By  : Mauricio

Police & MI5 Accessing BlackBerry Messages To Prevent London Riots & Hunt Rioters

BART mobile shutdown provokes Anonymous hackers

Hackers have targeted the website of a San Francisco transport company that turned off mobile masts to prevent protests outside its stations.

Public anger towards the Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) had been fermenting since July when transit police shot dead a man who was carrying a knife.

BART disconnected its transmitters in a bid to quell planned demonstrations.

Hacker group Anonymous retaliated by attacking myBART.org, and releasing users’ personal information.

The hackers posted details of over 2,000 myBART users online.

A man uses his iPhone at Civic Centre Station, San FranciscoMobile users on the BART network were completely cut off while protests were allegedly being organised

In a typically-worded statement, the hacking group said: “We are Anonymous, we are your citizens, we are the people, we do not tolerate oppression from any government agency.

“BART has proved multiple times that they have no problem exploiting and abusing the people.”

BART’s main website, BART.gov, was left unaffected.

However, myBART.org – which carries offers and extra services for passengers – was defaced and, as of Monday, remained offline.

‘Disruptive activities’

An action group has called for the disbanding of the BART police force following the July 3 shooting of a homeless man Charles Hill and also the 2009 killing of another man, Oscar Grant.

Johannes MehserleJohannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter over the death of Oscar Grant

Protesters have already been successful in rendering some stations on the network unusable by staging mass sit-ins.

BART took the decision, on 11 August, to shut off mobile phone reception at some of its sites.

In a statement, the transport company said: “BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform.”

It said protesters had stated that they: “would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police”.

BART added: “Disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators.”

UK troubles

The move was widely criticised as being heavy-handed, with some San Francisco residents suggesting that blocking phone use was a violation of free speech.

BART’s decision has parallels with recent troubles in England where days of riots were sparked when 29-year-old Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London.

Prime Minister David Cameron suggested in Parliament that access to social networks could be blocked in times of civil unrest.

Prime Minister, David Cameron

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Advertisement

David Cameron outlines ideas for social media measures during rioting

His comments came after it emerged some of the looting and violence was co-ordinated by people using services such as Blackberry messenger.

His statement was widely condemned by rights campaigners who said that such measures could be an attack on civil liberties.

On Monday, BART warned of further disruption to the service, and did not rule out that similar blocking-measures could be used.

‘Completely unjustified’

However, reaction to Anonymous’ intrusions has been less than supportive.

Laura Eichman, whose phone number was published along with the stolen personal data, said: “I think what they [the hackers] did was illegal and wrong.

“I work in IT myself, and I think that this was not ethical hacking. I think this was completely unjustified.”

Anonymous has argued that anger should be directed at BART’s “unsecure” data protection methods, rather than the group.

via bbc.co.uk

DING!

England riots: What’s the meaning of the words behind the chaos?

England riots: What’s the meaning of the words behind the chaos?

Comments (222)

By Jon Kelly BBC News Magazine

Confrontation between police and rioters in Hackney

England riots

From shot 29-year-old Mark Duggan referring to the police as “feds” to the nuanced use of the word “community”, the language of the riots and the response can tell us something.

It may have been England that was shaken by violence, looting and disorder.

But many of the terms used by its perpetrators came from a very different place altogether – and, due to coverage of the rioting, they have found a wider audience than ever before.

“If you see a fed… SHOOT!” read one message circulated on BlackBerry Messenger, imploring readers to riot.

Another, widely reported in the aftermath of the chaos, urged everyone to “up and roll to Tottenham [expletive] the 5-0”. There were myriad references as well to the “po po”.

Mark Duggan, whose fatal shooting by police sparked the violence, himself sent a text message shortly before his death which read: “The feds are following me.”

Slang for the police

  • Slang terms for the police, often hostile and originated by criminals, go back a long time
  • “Pig” was first used to mean police officer in 1811, the OED says
  • “Peeler” was in use to refer to Irish constables by 1817 and was widely used for Robert Peel’s prototype force in 1829
  • The “fuzz” is first recorded in the US in 1929

All these terms used to express antipathy towards the police share a common feature – all are derived from the inner cities of the US, not of the UK.

To outsiders, it appeared incongruous that these terms were commonly used by youngsters who were straight out of comprehensive, not Compton.

But when politicians and pundits used such terms to argue that the pernicious influence of hip hop and rap was responsible for fuelling the riots, they themselves ended up using vernacular gleaned from their box sets of The Wire.

When Michael Gove, the education secretary, discussed the possible causes of the disorder, he attacked the instant gratification of “gangsta” culture. Reporters transcribed the word as it might appear on the lyric sheet of a Dr Dre CD, instead of “gangster”, as once would have been expected when deployed by an Aberdonian Tory MP who represents a constituency in Surrey.

However, Jennifer Blake, a youth worker who runs the Safe and Sound anti-gang project in Peckham, south London, says such commentators miss the point.

Scene from the first series of The WireThe Wire included terms “po-po” and “5-0”

“When kids talk about the feds, it’s obvious that they’re not talking about the FBI,” she says. “They know that’s not how things work over here. It’s like a code – politicians and the media don’t understand.”

She highlights home-grown phrases like “bully van”, meaning police van, and “shank”, meaning knife, as evidence that UK street culture is not just passively replicating the language of the US inner cities.

Indeed, Jonathon Green, author of the Chambers Slang Dictionary, points out that many of the messages which circulated during the riots included non-US phrases.

These included exhortations to defend one’s “yard” – used in its Jamaican-derived sense, meaning home – or one’s “end”, a home-grown term referring to an area of a city.

Exclusive blend

All, he says, are examples of Multicultural London English (MLE), a dialect identified among young people in the capital which blends the phonetics and vocabulary of such diverse influences as West Indian, south Asian and traditional cockney.

He says the use of “feds” to mean the UK constabulary dates back no further than 1997, and the English deployment of “po po” – which originated in Los Angeles during the 1980s – is even more recent. Such Americanisms, Green says, have to be understood in this context, at least within London where the riots began.

The SopranosThe Sopranos series regularly used the term “feds”

“It’s an ironical use,” he says. “Obviously there’s been an increased Americanisation of our language since the war, but MLE doesn’t just come from one source. It just so happens that rap music has lots of terms for the police.”

Of course, the language of hip hop and rap has been adopted far more widely than just among the inner city black youths who form its target audience.

Professor Gus John of the Institute of Education, University of London, has long worked with young people associated with gangs and has studied changes in language within England’s multi-ethnic communities. He argues that such terminology has the function of setting its users apart from the mainstream.

“It has its own resonance. It’s also exclusive, it becomes an internal language to people who share particular lifestyles. That’s part of its potency.

“The fact that it is internal, the fact it is not commonly used by everybody, helps to define the group.”

Woman cleaning the streets of BatterseaOpponents of the rioters have their own terminology

Certainly, those who know little of hip hop culture, and would themselves reject violence and rioting, might have their own nicknames for the police, such as Old Bill or Peelers.

And among those attempting to speak for the majority appalled by the disorder, one word was regularly repeated.

Tottenham’s MP David Lammy spoke of “a mood of anxiety in the local community”. Sikhs who gathered in west London to guard against looters said they were “here to defend our temple and our community”. Richard Mannington Bowes, who died trying to prevent looting, was quickly hailed as a “hero of the community”.

The “community”, it appeared, was everything and everyone that did not include the rioters.

Indeed, the focus on “gangsta” terminology tells us just as much about the media as it does about the perpetrators of disorder, suggests lexicographer Susie Dent.

“I think journalists have adopted it because it distils the mood and the type of person perceived to be behind the past few days, and also because there’s been a distinct uncertainty, almost nervousness, about what to call the perpetrators,” she says.

“Are they rioters, which implies a political objection, looters, which doesn’t, or vandals, etc? It’s interesting too that a lot of the people cleaning up embraced the Sun’s ‘scum’ so readily, a reflexive response of anger.”

Whether it comes from the criminals themselves or the law-abiding majority, the words used to describe England’s riots tells us much about the society that produced them.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that far more than language divides the two sides.

via bbc.co.uk

FALSE FLAG TERROR: SLANDER, LIBEL AND TOTAL BULLSHIT! “Desperately seeking @ElyssaD: The power of Twitter | Moderately Marvelous”

Desperately seeking @ElyssaD: The power of Twitter

Posted on October 5, 2010 by JenciTN| 9 Comments

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only  thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead

98,882 tweets over two years.

Then, silence.

People noticed.

A desperate search unfolded.

We found her.

Thank God for Twitter.

If you think no one cares or pays attention to others on Twitter, you would be very very wrong. People mock Twitter and Facebook often because they don’t “get” that you can, indeed, develop and maintain REAL relationships within a virtual environment with people you have never met in real life.

This is one of those stories.

@ElyssaD, a courageous woman

I first met @ElyssaD in 2009.  She was having a hell of a time with MDHA (Metro Development and Housing Authority in Nashville). She was being kicked out of her apartment due to a massive bureaucracy that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for people at the fringes to get the services and support they desperately need.  Elyssa was facing the prospect of homelessness.  She was hungry.  She needed gas to get to all the places required to get her paperwork submitted.  She needed gas to get her belongings.  She needed help.  Through twitter connections, we were able to meet her basic needs in the short term, until she was able to get into a new apartment.

Elyssa has given voice to how difficult it can be for someone to navigate the system.  Highly educated and well-spoken, the obstacles she faced seemed insurmountable.  It was not surprising that the system could consistently fail someone. Trying to get her Social Security benefits straightened out was a nightmare.  Faxing documents?  If you have no transportation and limited funds, how the hell are you supposed to FAX documents in order to get the help you need?  If your paperwork is in limbo, why should it be so difficult to get organizations like Urban Housing Solutions to cut you some slack and not force people onto the streets due to administrative red tape?  No doubt, case workers and social workers are stretched too thin.  We were witnessing first-hand, someone slipping through the cracks.

Her blog detailed her troubles.  For those of us who have never dealt with these public assistance organizations, it seemed like a helpless and confusing situation.

She never asked for help or money.  She asked to be heard.  She asked for people to pay attention.  She asked that people not marginalize her due to her situation.  She asked that people not question “why;” how someone educated at Columbia, Penn State, and Vanderbilt could end up this way.  Does that matter?  Should it matter?  Is it your business to judge and determine if she were worthy of your sympathy or concern or help?  No.  Our tax dollars go to fund programs that should be held accountable.  Programs that should help people who legitimately need it.  ”Personal responsibility,” you say?  Screw you! How can you take that holy grail of personal responsibility if the system prevents you from doing just that?  When all you want is a “hand up” not a “hand out,” but the hand only slaps you in the face?

We should be thankful that there are those like Elyssa who can articulate the needs and problems with the system.  Are her tweets at times confusing and disjointed?  Yes.  Can she be combative with those who push her?  Yes.  Does that mean that she should be silenced or ignored?  No.

Missing

98,882 tweets.  Her last tweet was on September 28.  We noticed.  5,466 people noticed.  These amazing people noticed:

Searching for ElyssaD

The first tweet searching for Elyssa on Sept. 30

Search for Elyssa 2

The search grew larger

@Rockingjude suggested a hashtag – #Ealert so people could follow the search.  Everyone who had had contact with her in the past attempted to fill in the holes, to figure out how we might find her.  Those of us who had been to her apartment before tried to locate the landlord, to ensure that she wasn’t in the apartment in danger.  Kind souls like @USAAirman went to her apartment twice to knock on the door.  Looking back through old emails that Elyssa had copied me on, I sent email inquiries, asking if anyone knew where she might be.  We contacted her social worker, alerting her.  We called Urban Housing Solutions, telling them that if they didn’t enter the apartment, we would send Metro Police to do so.  @USAAirman went to their offices to demand action.  Friends made phone calls to hospitals and tracked down leads.  These people are pure gold:

@Thefeeg @DavEnergy @USAAirman @pascaluccelli @rockingjude @TheUnderbite @heyJude408 @d-is @spademaccool @ghazamfar @setv

We didn’t all follow each other before yesterday; now we are family.  We do not all live in the same state or country; now we are neighbors.  We may have individually had our doubts about whether anyone would notice our absence from twitter or would notice the absence of another; now we are convinced of its power.

We never gave up.  We called and emailed people until they had no choice but to do something.  This morning, thankfully, our efforts paid off.  We found her.  She is safe.  She is alive.

We hope she will be able to rejoin the twitter community soon.  We hope she knows that she is not alone in this world.  We hope others know that they too are never alone in this world as long as they use the power of social media to connect to others in a real and authentic way; that you must embrace the medium, share yourself, be honest, talk, listen, connect, trust with caution, care, love.

Relationships do matter.  Author and speaker, Margaret J. Wheatley gave a powerful keynote address, Turning to One Another, to the Kansas Health Foundation 2000 Leadership Institute in Spring 2000. The following quotes were pulled from her address.  They are very relevant to what we all should aspire to do, both in real life, and using social media.

“One of the things we need to learn,” she said, “is that very great change starts from very small conversations, held among people who care.” But talking about what really matters – the issues that really concern you – requires courage. “Forget about the politics or the staff person who is driving you crazy,” Dr. Wheatley advised. “What are the things you really have deep, abiding concern for? What is it you really have some passion for? If you go into that question for yourself, you will find the energy to go forward.” The conversation should not be based on complaint, Dr. Wheatley added, but should be based on both passion and a sense of hope.

…

“When the river is rising and it’s 2:00 a.m., that’s not the time to start a relationship.” ~ former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole

…

You must give birth
to your images.

Fear not the
strangeness you feel.

The future must enter
you…

Long before it
happens.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

“Every time your heart leaps out and you want to serve better,” Dr. Wheatley concluded, “that’s the future, speaking through you.”

Thank you to all the guardian angels on Twitter who worked together to help find Elyssa.  You restore our faith and make us proud to call you friends.

 

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USAAirman

9 Responses to Desperately seeking @ElyssaD: The power of Twitter

  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention Desperately seeking @ElyssaD: The power of Twitter | Moderately Marvelous — Topsy.com

  2. Pingback: The Internet: Not just for funny cat videos any more : Post Politics: Political News and Views in Tennessee

  3. AetnaJo | October 5, 2010 at 11:08 pm | Reply
    Reply

    Excellent post!!!!!!!!

  4. poster | October 6, 2010 at 6:30 pm | Reply
    Reply

    I’d rather not specifically say, as it would merely be speculation. I have no doubt that she will tell us all about it eventually. But yes, we are all relieved that she is safe.

  5. Joy__Hart | October 7, 2010 at 10:45 am | Reply
    Reply

    Thank you.

  6. Pingback: Tweets that mention Desperately seeking @ElyssaD: The power of Twitter | Moderately Marvelous — Topsy.com

via moderatelymarvelous.com

Pingback: Tweets that mention Desperately seeking @ElyssaD: The power of Twitter | Moderately Marvelous — Topsy.com

I TRIED TO BE NICE, BUT THE FACT REMAINS THAT THIS STORY IS COMPLETE SPECULATION AND CONTINUES TO BE USED FOR SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION IN A TOWN FILLED WITH PEOPLE WHO REALLY DON’T DESERVE MY HELP. NOT ONE OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE CALLED OR ASKED HOW I AM DOING OTHER THAN TO INSULT ME OR MAKE JOKES. SO, THEY CONTINUE TO ALIENATE THE ONE PERSON WHO MIGHT ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO MAKE IT OUT ALIVE.

IDGAF WHAT THESE PEOPLE THINK, BUT I DO CARE WHAT HAPPENS EACH TIME THEY CIRCULATE THIS BULLSHIT AND I AM DISTRACTED FROM DOING VERY IMPORTANT WORK. THEY DON’T REALIZE THAT WE ARE AT WAR. AND THEIR SPECULATION? I DON’T HAVE A SOCIAL WORKER. THERE IS NO SOCIAL WORKER.

I WAS IN AN UNDERGROUND MILITARY FACILITY

OF COURSE THE CITY SENT BILLS FOR FIRETRUCKS AND AMBULANCE THAT WERE SENT THANKS TO MISS JENCI AND MIKE FEEG.

I AM PREPARED FOR WAR. I HAVE BEEN AN INTENSE TRAINING SINCE OCTOBER, AND I HAVE MORE UNDERCOVER AGENTS AND SURVEILLANCE SURROUNDING ME, THAT I GUARANTEE THAT MY WHEREABOUTS ARE BEING MONITORED AT THIS VERY SECOND. 24/7. I COULDN’T GO “MISSING” EVEN IF I WANTED TO.

THERE ARE COPS AND SURVEILLANCE CAMS SURROUNDING ME, THAT YOU WOULD THINK THEY WOULD PUT ON A BETTER SHOW. I PERSONALLY VIDEO TAPE EVERY SINGLE MOVE THAT I MAKE,. MOTION CONTROLLED #00611

NOW TAKE THIS SHIT DOWN, SO I CAN GO BACK TO DOING MY “UNOFFICIAL” JOB. I PERSONALLY DON;T CARE WHETHER ANY OF THESE IDIOTS LIVE OR DIE, SO IF IT MEANS SAVING MY BROTHERS AND THE PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT, I SAY TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT. CRAZY IS CRAZY DOES. I AM PREPARED TO DIE, BUT I WOULD MUCH RATHER LIVE FIRST.

AFTER THE WAY THIS CITY USED ME AS THE “FACE OF WELFARE” THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS TRY NOT TO PISS ME OFF. BEFORE I START NAMING EVERY DIRTY SECRET I HAVE. AND TRUST ME, YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

THESE PEOPLE DON’T DESERVE ANY HELP. I SAY THEY LET THE MOTHER FUCKERS BURN.

Court: Cyberbullying Threats Are Not Protected Speech

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A California appeals court ruled this week that threatening posts made by readers of a website are not protected free speech, allowing a case charging the posters with hate crimes and defamation to proceed.

The case raises fundamental questions about cyberbullying and the line between online speech and hate crimes.

In her dissenting opinion, Judge Frances Rothschild said the appellate court ruling “alters the legal landscape to the severe detriment of First Amendment rights.”

The case involves a teen identified as “D.C.” in court documents, who launched a website in 2005 when he was 15 to promote his pursuit of an acting and singing career. According to court documents, the student has recorded an album and played a leading role (.pdf) in an unnamed feature film, using the pseudonym “Danny Alexander.”

Fellow students at his private high school, Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, posted derogatory comments on his site, mocking his perceived sexual orientation and making hostile statements that threatened him with bodily harm, such as “Faggot, I’m going to kill you,” and “I want to rip out your fucking heart and feed it to you.”

The site was taken down, and the boy’s father contacted school authorities and the local police, who advised the family to withdraw their son from the school until an investigation could be conducted. The family did so and, after the investigation dragged on for a while, moved to Northern California.

The police ultimately determined that the postings did not meet the criteria for criminal prosecution and were protected speech.

The father then sued six students and their parents accusing them of hate crimes, defamation — for falsely calling his son a homosexual — and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The school’s board of directors and three employees were also sued.

One of the defendant students and his parents filed a motion to strike under the state’s anti-slapp law, saying the posts were jocular in nature, intended as a joke and that the statement the student posted was protected speech. The student had written, among other things, “I’ve wanted to kill you. If I ever see you I’m … going to pound your head in with an ice pick.”

A judge rejected the motion in 2008. That’s when the case went to the appellate court, which upheld the lower court’s decision, saying in part that the case didn’t fall under the anti-slapp-suit law and that the defendants “did not demonstrate that the posted message is free speech.” Judges Robert Mallano and Jeffrey Johnson, writing for the majority, said the messages revealed a harmful intent and were not protected speech.

The student-defendant stated in court documents that he was directed to the “Danny Alexander” site by another student and was “offended and put off by its ‘I am better than you’ attitude and its blatant bragging and self promotion.”

“I had spent time in the past studying Buddhism,” the defendant stated, “and in light of the Buddhist tradition of quiet understatement, the website’s distinctively narcissistic tone was disturbing.”

So he posted a message threatening to kill “Danny Alexander” with an ice pick.

The defendant says he was inspired by the derogatory comments of other posters and wanted to “one-up” them.

“I was in a playful mood and decided to add my own message to the internet graffiti contest that was apparently going on,” he said. “My message is fanciful, hyperbolic, jocular and taunting and was motivated by [the plaintiff’s] pompous, self aggrandizing, and narcissistic website — not his sexual orientation.”

The student says he later sent a letter of apology to the plaintiff and his family regretting his “infantile, immature” conduct. His father also grounded him and canceled his internet account.

In their ruling, the majority judges write that the message the student posted to the site was “unequivocal” and “a serious expression of intent to inflict bodily harm.”

“That these words produce grotesque and exaggerated images does not lessen the gravity of the threat,” they write. “The threat in this case was not merely a few words shouted during a brawl; it was a series of grammatically correct sentences composed at a computer keyboard over a period of at least several minutes.”

An attorney for the defendants said he would appeal the decision to the state’s supreme court.

Photo: Extraketchup/Flickr

via wired.com