The Next Chapter in Anti-Censorship

I concur that attempts to harrass TP employees and supporters inside the US are a possibility which must be taken seriously. We know CIA has tried to infiltrate TP and it is also possible that former US spies might try again, this time working for UAE.

One way of thinking about encryption and Tor is that such tools can make a human rights researcher a hard target for cyberespionage, forcing agents of oppressive governments to fall back upon physical intrusions into our homes/offices. Ironically, one of the best arguments that overall our side is winning cyberdefense victories is that over the past year human rights supporters inside the US and EU are reporting indications that we are now confronting this new and more dangerous stage of the "arms race" between defenders and offenders.

UAE and its close ally Saudi Arabia have created an extensive network inside the USA in particular, not just of (rather effective) lobbyists but of intelligence agents, many of whom are Americans--- including former NSA/TAO "hackers"--- who work for UAE contractors such as DarkMatter. I fear that as US power continues to decline, these governments will feel increasingly free to carry out more drastic physical actions targeting perceived opponents inside the USA.

Somehow we all need to be cautious about both cyberespionage and physical intrusions without becoming too fearful or paranoid to continue doing what we do. See the US State Department's brief guide for defensive driving which was just published at publicintelligence.net for a quite impression of what human rights work inside the USA and EU may soon require.

Roger might not have found time to mention UAE, but fear not, using Tor you can reach The Intercept, where you read quite a bit about what the UAE government's close ties to MSM and their huge contract with DarkMatter, a USA cyberwar-as-a-service (CAAS) company which has been hiring former NSA cyberwarriors to attack dissidents, journalists, and human rights workers--- and their supporters inside the USA and other countries; some of the NSA mercernaries quit Dark Matter after learning that their activities targeting US citizens might be illegal under US law. Read all about it:

theintercept.com
How Former Treasury Officials and the UAE Are Manipulating American Journalists
Glenn Greenwald
25 Sep 2014

> The United Arab Emirates have retained an American consulting firm, Camstoll Group, staffed by several former United States Treasury Department officials.

theintercept.com
Spies for Hire
Jenna McLaughlin
24 Oct 2016

> the idea of a UAE-based company recruiting an army of cyberwarriors from abroad to conduct mass surveillance aimed at the country’s own citizens may sound like something out of a bad Bond movie, but based on several months of interviews and research conducted by The Intercept, it appears DarkMatter has been doing precisely that.

theintercept.com
Gulf Government Gave Secret $20 Million Gift To D.C. Think Tank
Ryan Grim
10 Aug 2017

> The UAE has used its outsized role to bend U.S. policy in a more militant direction toward the country’s foes: Iran, Qatar, the Houthis in Yemen, and a coalition government in Libya that has gotten backing from Qatar. Otaiba has been the foremost booster in Washington of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman since late 2015, playing a key role in shepherding the Saudi monarch around town as bin Salman was maneuvering to seize control the Saudi government.

theintercept.com
Top Samantha Power Aide is Now Lobbying to Undermine Opponents of Yemen War
Alex Emmons
22 Nov 2017

> Starving children with haunting eyes and emaciated bodies. Bombed-out hospitals and homes. A cholera epidemic that is the largest and fastest-spreading in modern history. These scenes have sparked outrage and a flurry of denunciations of the U.S.-backed war in Yemen, which is led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But that’s not to say the war has no defenders in the United States. In fact, a public relations consultant and former U.S. diplomat enlisted by the UAE has worked to discredit U.S.-based groups raising awareness of atrocities in Yemen.

theintercept.com
The Second Drone Age
How Turkey Defied the U.S. and Became a Killer Drone Power
Umar Farooq
14 May 2019

> The U.K., Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, and Turkey have all used armed UAVs to kill targets since 2015.

theintercept.com
UAE Enlisted Businessman to Spy On Trump White House
Alex Emmons, Matthew Cole
10 Jun 2019

theintercept.com
Team of American Hackers and Emirati Spies Discussed Attacking The Intercept
Sam Biddle, Matthew Cole
12 Jun 2019

> Operatives at a controversial cybersecurity firm working for the United Arab Emirates government discussed targeting The Intercept and breaching the computers of its employees, according to two sources, including a member of the hacking team who said they were present at a meeting to plan for such an attack.
> ...
> Initiatives to target journalists were just one of the many ways in which Americans were hacked or surveilled by Project Raven, Cole and the source on the hacking team said. Wired magazine, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch were likely targeted by Project Raven hackers at the behest of Emirati clientele such as the NESA, they told The Intercept, but could not recall details.

I hope everyone will join me in donating to The Intercept as well as Tor Project! (I have no affiliation with either except as a grass-roots donor.)

No worries on sunglasses; you were at DEFCON. What matters is if we can hear your words and see the props and images you talk about. Besides, medical masks are a part of everyday life in Asia. Adults grow facial hair. People wear makeup and style hair. Muslim women cover faces in all kinds of ways. Catholic nuns cover the head and forehead with a white coif. I'm positive there are more everyday examples.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeup/374929/
https://cvdazzle.com/