Whistleblowing to Wikipedia (satire, thought experiment)

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any financial or physical losses due to misuse of the information provided in this article when applied to real life without adequate resources, time and training.

Note to my readers: I wrote this article as a thought experiment after reading about the DNC leak and purported whistle-blower.

Since the leak itself has little to do with the whistle-blower, I will state that the bearers of false news are making a mockery of journalism.

Overall, the DNC leak looks more like the work of an unnamed group who are disenfranchised with the DNC.  I do not know who did it, but the named whistle-blower is not the culprit.

Any MSM outlet who claims otherwise is proliferating agitation propaganda in an effort to divide the people, specifically anyone who believes the fallacy derived by initially reading the reports. 

Lastly, a certain well-known bearer of false news is involved in manufacturing the rumor after the fact.

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My main assumptions regarding this thought experiment are that you are least suspected of leaking confidential information as whistle-blower and have enough resources and time to acquire the tools such as a spare phone and prepaid SIM, laptop or PC.

It helps​ to if you are tech savvy.


Resources needed:

Old smartphone (Android 5 or better or IPhone 5 and above)

Prepaid SIM card, activated.

4GB USB flash drive, or optionally a CD.

Laptop with CD drive that burns CD-ROMs minimally, or able to boot from USB flash drive, preferably running a secure OS (Windows 7 or greater or better yet, a UNIX-like OS such as Linux Mint, Fedora Workstation, PCBSD or TrueOS).

16GB USB flash drive or DVD to burn UNIX-like OS as bootable.

Before even proceeding with whistle-blowing via Wikileaks, find the email address of one of the journalists who covered Wikileaks.

Next prepare your resources, which consist of a smartphone, a laptop, and optionally, practice installing Linux and BSD - both of which are UNIX-like OS - on that computer to gain the skill-set that qualifies as a soft resource.

Other skills include the ability to use Google Search to find the information about the journalists associated with WIkiLeaks, and learn about Tails OS, how to use it and install the ISO.

I recommend Tails OS since you can install it on a USB flash drive or optionally, a CD-ROM i.e. you can burn the ISO as data.  Check the Tails website for details.


Next download, install and use Tails OS until you are thorough familiar with all the tools on it

Next, only one smartphone should be used throughout these leaks.  Prepaid is preferred over a monthly account since the latter gives you a financially visible  footprint.

Finally, when you are ready to leak to WikiLeaks, don't use your real name, and choose Tails OS to secure your communications on your laptop.  The incognito mode on Chrome or the Private Browsing mode in Firefox is inadequate even when your laptop is not using Windows but a Unix-like OS such as freeBSD or Linux.

For calls, texting and video conferencing, use a secure app like WhatsApp for phone calls and texting or Telegram which is more secure to establish first contact via a WikiLeaks-approved journalist.

One week after you've leaked the documents and pictures, and the receipt of the leak is confirmed via email, text, or video as need be, remove, destroy and throw away the SIM card. Then reset the smartphone to remove all evidence. 

Also, secure the laptop by reformatting it using a secure formatting software - which is found in both BSD and Linux flavors mentioned previously.

Then optionally install Windows on the laptop.

Finally, pawn the phone and donate the laptop to a worthy cause such as Salvation Army.

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Reference:

2016 Democratic National Committee email leak:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak

The DNC Leak and the Purported Whistle-Blower:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/family-of-slain-seth-rich-says-reports-he-fed-wikileaks-dnc-info-are-untrue/2017/05/16/9b32ef9c-3a46-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html?utm_term=.d0d3a9e0e73a

Tails OS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tails_(operating_system)

Use mobile phones as securely as possible:
https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/mobile-phones/#use-mobile-phones-as-securely-as-possible

Android Malware Detection Provides False Security (Technology)

Today I'm going to discuss adware. Adware is contained in software to generate revenue for the software company. It pushes advertisements of apps and other products, which consists of marketing propaganda designed to evoke emotions in the targeted audience, who are technology consumers.

On an Android smartphone, advertisment revenue generated by adware is shared between Google and app developers for apps offered on the Play Store and by third party providers. Play Store also offers apps to detect adware, but sometimes its detection is misleading.

As an example of this, the antivirus app AVG gave a false positive for Play Music on my smartphone. When I checked out AVG Threatlabs for this "threat", it stated: "Beware of Adware! No potential malware has been detected for this android app for the last 7 days. However, active adware was detected. ( Last updated: Jul 14, 2016 )".

Gee, thank you, AVG; I know all apps have active adware.

As an AVG subscriber, my use of AVG and AVG Zen (a Device Manager clone) provides the company with monthly and yearly revenue, just so they can tell me adware is active on my devices.

It sems as though I'm paying for a false sense of security. So the easy fix is to cancel my subscriptions to AVG and avoid clicking on ads that seem sketchy.

According to the AVG Threatlabs website, Play Music contains active adware: as part of Google's marketing scheme, it is also being included with other useful software for smartphones (Android and iPhone) and desktop computers.

Yet Android adware is included in almost all apps on Google Play Store. Therefore the AVG Threatlabs message that warns me to "beware of adware" is a scare tactic used by the company to influence users of the AVG products to subscribe to their service.

My, how subtle is the marketing propaganda for AVG is.

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Here are optional instructions on how to turn off access to unknown sources of Android apps and how to opt out of ads targeting you. Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for what you do after reading these instructions.

Only two things need to be done:

1) Turn off access to third party providers Unknown Sources) of Android apps by turning that setting off in System Settings: Security under the heading Device Administration. The Unknown Sources option should be deactivated. If it's not, then I am going to assume you know what you are doing.

Optionally, you may want to control what ads you see.

2) In System Settings: Google: Services: Ads, you may opt out of interest-based ads and click on Ads by Google which will run Chrome, loading Ad Settings.

Note: Opting out won't completely stop ads — the Android Central article about Android Malware Scanners article provides details.

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Android Central: Android Malware Scanners: Should You Use One?

Preparing Nexus 4 for Android 5.10 Upgrade

Synopsis: to prepare your Nexus 4, first wipe cache partition and then upgrade to Android 5.10.

• Wiping Cache Partition
1. If your phone is on, hold the Power button to restart it.
2. Hold the appropriate device-specific buttons until you see the word "Start" in green and a large Android robot on its back.
   On the Nexus⁴: Press and hold the Volume Down, Volume Up, and Power buttons at the same time for several seconds.
3. Press the Volume Down button twice to highlight "Recovery mode," then press Power button. The words "Google" will show on the screen followed by an image of a small Android robot on its back with a red exclamation mark and the words "No command."
4. While holding down the Power button, press the Volume Up button. Some menu options will appear.
5. Use the volume buttons to scroll to "wipe cache partition" and press the Power button to select it. It takes up to 10 minutes to complete the process. Problems can occur if one is impatient and attempts to reboot during this process, so it's best to just let it complete.
6. After the cache is wiped, scroll to "reboot system now" and press the Power button again to restart the device.
• Note: If your phone becomes unresponsive at any point during these steps, you can restart it by holding down the Power button for several seconds.

To make the above instructions more meaningful, on Youtube is this video on how to wipe the cache partition on the Google Nexus 4.

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After clearing the cache, download and install the Android 5.10 OTA update.

Commentary: after wiping the cache partition, I upgraded my Nexus 4 to Android 5.1 without any issue.

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Reference:

Thanks to saadro for the Wiping cache partition instructions in: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=80149#c86

Journal Entry for December 18 2014 (satire)

December 18, 2014 - 1711H:

It is not technology that is my problem. Rather, it is my willingness to think technology is worth spending time which could have been spent attending to more important things.

None of my psychological issues have to do with anything else.

Instead, they have to do with the same problems that I have experienced with my computer in response to the change to the short winter hours. This has led me to spend more time in my bedroom on my computer and with my smartphones.

No one is responsible for any behavior changes which I am now experiencing except for myself.

However, I enjoy writing in my journal because it relieves the psychic pain — intense emotional anguish — that comes from knowing that using my smartphones instead of my computer does not improve my behavior.

Writing about such anguish and the feelings of guilt and regret is stressful since my feelings about spending more time with technology have been barely exposed.

Even so, the main feeling which emerges from this stress is anxiety wit the feeling that I should have completed an errand outside my home rather than stay at home. As a result of this anxiety, I am sometimes find myself unable to think of going out on that errand after spending most of the day on my smartphones.

Currently I do not feel frustrated as much as I was a half hour ago. That my reaction to the anxiety was to take a 100mg dose of gabapentin to reduce its severity is a positive action. This is because gabapentin helps calm me down.

Mainly I do not feel as anxious as I was before I took that pill!

Therefore the anxiety is not much of an issue.

...

There is no great purpose in analyzing in depth the imbalance between self and others which is apparent here. Instead, the solution is to moderate use of my smartphones.

If I were to go in depth about their use then I would be creating more than I am capable of handling due to the fear that I may uncover something I know about myself but lays hidden in the back of my mind.

Of course, it may be apparent that I act selfishly. This day (Thursday) is the first day of the week that I am free to do my own thing.

Most of my time on the smartphones was not as productive as I wished it to be — at this time I want a rooted Nexus 4. Yet I am over having a rooted phone since it is more productive to have Android 5.0 on it.

Of course, I no longer feel guilty for spending time away from my LDS studies. I have worked that out too.

So I am thankful for the benefits that this writing has given me, an outlet for artistic expression.

This journal entry is worthwhile in time spent exploring my current mood (anxiety about being on my smartphones and fear that I may be missing out on life).

Currently I am going to return to my regular Thursday away from my technology for about a half hour or more. Such writing is productive because I have written three journal pages. Such a positive outcome is worth whatever fear that I had at the beginning of this journal entry.

...

On December 20, 2014 I finally completed that errand which consisted mainly of getting my prescription.

New Age Guru Helping the People of the Ghettos and Inner City: a Meditation on Addiction, Meditation and Otaku (satire)

"That's the goal now," he says, "to spread into the ghettos and inner cities."

Deepak Chopra has ventured to Harlem, N.Y., and Reno, Nev., talking to blacks, Latinos and Asians about people being rivers of energy. He tells them their mind is wired into every cell of their body, that nasal breathing techniques can effect brain activity, that ayurvedic herbs can pack as much punch as any drug.

How does Chopra think it's going so far? What do city folk make of his New Age wisdom?

"They say, 'Deep stuff!'"

This is the challenge for rehabilitation centres for addictions: to convince drug addicts and especially alcoholics that the inner energy of meditation is a high higher than any known drug that they got their hands on.

Yet addicts are well known for their ability to detect BS if and only if they have been totally honest with themselves that their addictions are not due to "bad parenting", but their rebellion against the basic social rules that govern our very lives.

While they may do so because of the unwillingness to live by the rules society imposes on us all, addicts pay a price for their so-called freedom, a freedom that is an illusion behind which a licentious lifestyle crumbles into the abyss of darkness that so many addicts face due to abuse of their freedom to choose.

However, meditation will work for anyone who meditates due to their willingness to cut through their own BS, of which the main one concerns their so-called ability to detect BS in people wiser than they are.

In short, they have to also cut through the white lies that society imposes on us all to create working communities, and accept that they are completely different in their use from lies, both blatant and subtle, that actually destroy communities.

For example, if a friend I just met asked me what I did on last Friday, then if I wanted to remain discreet, I could merely say "I went on an errand", and changing the topic, rather than being candid about paying my bills since my Fridays are my paydays.

In contrast, I am usually candid with my roommates and my best friend because they are in my inner circle of friends, and not someone I met off the street.

Although I admitted to how I spend my Fridays in the course of my argument, I will not reveal details because they are personal facts that are private and are known only to me, my employer, my bank and the government through their tax department.

Regarding bills I pay, I will only be candid about debt collectors due to the fact that they consistently tell white lies in order to obtain a lot of money right now (preferably over $100 a month but far less than what I owe Fido and Rogers Mobility) in a short period of time (usually within 48 hours but that could be negotiated).

I am mentioning this because of my addiction to technology - and it is evidenced by the late hour spent writing this article.

By being this candid, I hope to share the word that meditation works. If I didn't put positive effort into meditating on my debt, then I would still be in denial and the debt would not get paid.

Therefore, in my mind, I am a recovering addict with an addiction that no one else takes seriously except myself.

I think in Japan, they call people like that "otaku", though in the West, otaku are great for information content but lousy on emotional affect.

However, there is some overlap between addiction and the collections of knowledge and experience of otaku, even though otaku are likely to chew me out for "labeling" their intense love for technology or even works of art as "addiction."

Overall though, we otaku could be so gung-ho about anime and manga, why not meditation too? For the most gentle of meditation is combined in many therapeutic settings, and is borrowed from Asian sources more so than Western sources.

Though I will say that even me blogging online is therapy. It is also a form of vipassana meditation when I focus on cutting through the initial negativity toward the positive outcome.

If anything that I have written confuses you, then you are not ready to truly free yourself of your addiction and become a true otaku who is essentially free of whatever he obsesses over.

How dos you tell when that happens? When you can go to a convention, a group therapy session, or even a family reunion to help friends and family get to know you well, that is a start.

Another sign that you are otaku is that you vacillate in your writing between first-person (I and me among similar pronouns), second-person (you and the names of people), and third-person (they, them, and often one or it).

Returning to the quote from an anti-cult website, I can certainly support the use of meditation techniques. However, that quote is not a product endorsement of Chopra since it has been taken out of context for me to promote meditation on my terms, which I am free to do.

I am merely selling the idea that otaku are harmless when they become more socialized with fellow otaku. As well, any obsession that leads to social isolation on the long run really is worth the effort of abstaining.

As for addiction, that is only when your lifestyle is negative affected by your obsessions e.g. you spend more time watching anime than socializing with friends, using excuses to avoid brushing up on your social skills.

Anyway, I am not proud to be otaku, nor am I ashamed to be otaku. Otaku is a neutral word in the West, yet is misused by lazy Japanese journalists who turned it into a badge of shame.

Yet even journalists are closet otakus as pararazzi when they obsess about celebrities such as Morning Musume and stalk them.

Finally, the ultimate freedom is to use less technology in the public sphere, and to occasionally use technology. First, one day dedicated to using your smartphones less and your senses more, including using the mind to ask questions about matters other than technology.

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Originally written on May 10, 2005 at 2310H PDT

Reference:


http://www.rickross.com/reference/deepakchopra/deepakchopra20.html

My First Technology Gig (satire)

It is amazing to see how wealthy retirees live in their big houses with two cars, two computers, a laptop, a tablet and a cheap HTC smartphone. (I won't mention the LG 230 flip phone much).

The new SUV is cool with an entertainment centre using bluetooth to hookup to the phone to play music on.

People this old will not have a clue of how to move their pictures off their phone onto their computer, and to put new pictures on their phone again. Nor will they know that they need a data USB cable to copy to and from their smartphone, or even how to get their phone to send music to their entertainment centre in the SUV.

Furthermore, they need to be reassured that knowing their computer password won't let me break into their computer on the Internet - I have to be in the den on their computer to do that. Also Facebook never automatically shares their intimate photos with the world - they have to do that themselves.

That is where I come in, to help them learn how to do it. Though, at their age, without daily practice, a week later they will have forgotten how to do it because they do not practice what I preach to them.

I think I have found my niche market for my technology skills: people over 60. Since it isn't right to charge them $80/hour, I'll take $20 a lesson, which can last from an hour to two hours.

There is no way I'd stay any longer. My reasoning is, it is impolite to stay at anyone's place for more than two hours unless they expressly have invited you for dinner too.

I sure like this new part-time job that I lucked into by helping my client Paul with his smartphone while at an LDS baptism last week.

How to Cut Consumerism (satire)

People are so caught up in buying stuff they don't really need, that "spendaholic" is not a stupid joke but becoming more real.

A good example of this is the typical nerd who is a yuppie with a craving for technology, be it an $600 iPhone5S, an $1800 quadcore laptop with a 16" screen, or a phablet ranging from $300 to $500.

Imagine that that every device is crystal meth or ice or coke or pot.

Then that $600 iPhone5S is poke.

The quadcore laptop is $1800 of coke.

Even the phablet is a lot of crystal meth at $300 and enough coke to kill you at $500.

I am pretty sure $2800 of a mix of ice, coke and pot will keep you up for days into you enter your little psychotic episode brought to by amphetamine and its methylated child meth, cocaine and various THC derivatives.

In short, a technophile is addicted to technology. If he isn't making money using it, then it's just another addiction waiting for the next crisis to comfort him.

If you are a sex addict and can afford the shipping charges, then there's a sex doll for you for $3000 (vibrator optional)!

Fucking nerds, you're all addicts!

Freedom Away from Technology

Although I admit to using technology a lot, both my PC and my smartphone, my time away from them, however brief, is a brief taste of freedom that I savor.

Even so, I still use my smartphone.

After the novelty of reading news on my smartphone wore off, I stopped using the news app, and the rare time I use it, I just scroll through the headlines until I find something interesting to read. Though, I've found that most news read in print I'd read a week earlier on my PC, not on my smartphone.

Mainly I use the smartphone as a phone, followed by taking pictures with the camera, and checking the weather and checking Google Plus for notifications.

Yet every time I am not using my PC or my smartphone, the freedom away from technology is worth every minute.

Away from technology I am free to feel the wind caressing my face, to watch the rain fall, and to hear the birds sing.

Without technology humility inspires me to protect the privacy of a moment's worth of freedom.

Then I return to my PC and smartphone renewed, to apply what I've learned about myself away in the time spent away from them.