There is so much going on in this story. npr.org/2021/04/14/986…
Interesting difference in description about who exactly developed this software. Wikipedia calls them “Chinese dissidents in Silicon Valley” who are “Falun Gong practitioners” but on the Ultrareach website they’re just “a small group of Silicon Valley engineers” 🤔
Being closed source is enough of a red flag but its developers (ie: Falun Gong) have access to user logs and it censors certain websites for ideological reasons (because Falun Gong)
Note: positive comments on the wiki are outdated. Per NPR: “An initial security audit of Ultrasurf commissioned by the State Department, however, reflected significant problems with the software, which was still relying on technologies that were considered cutting edge in 2013.”
Also... is it... Spyware?
There is also valid criticism re: the US government funding such tools and “democracy activists” and here’s exhibit A: the US government was previously funding a tool made by Falun Gong.
October 2020 story from NBC: nbcnews.com/news/us-news/d…

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More from @3r1nG

15 Apr
El Pais investigation reports the Mexican Attorney General's Office (FGR) signed at least 4 contracts worth $5.6M for surveillance equipment Geomatrix, used for real-time cell phone geolocation & geofencing from Israeli firm Rayzone Group. r3d.mx/2021/04/14/fis… via @R3Dmx 1/
FGR also bought a SIGINT system called ECHO from Rayzone. Per their website, ECHO is a "fully stealth method of collection on any internet user" (any device or operating system) and can also do “mass collection of all Internet users in a country.” rayzone.com/echo-global-vi… 2/
Well this is all very bad. Rayzone Group Products: rayzone.com/products/ 3/💀
Read 5 tweets
13 Apr
Oh neat Facebook approved Jim Watkins' QAnon super PAC's Facebook page to run political ads. opensecrets.org/political-acti…
Twitter suspended the super PAC's account but the Facebook page is still up and has been steadily gaining likes even though the page hasn't posted since August 2020 and only made 5 posts total before then.
The QAnon super PAC was apparently a massive fail last year but their Facebook page continues to grow despite zero activity. washingtonmonthly.com/2020/11/18/the…
Read 5 tweets
12 Apr
“The assumption is that if a case does not receive media attention, it poses no societal risk … What is our responsibility when societal risk diverges from PR risk?” - Sophie Zhang theguardian.com/technology/202…
She was pulled into multiple “high-priority” escalations to investigate comments, which did not come from suspected “Russian bots”, but instead were the result of real-life Brexit supporters pretending to be Russian bots in order to troll Labour voters. theguardian.com/technology/202…
Zhang told Rosen that she had been informed that threat intelligence would only prioritize campaigns in “the US/western Europe and foreign adversaries such as Russia/Iran/etc”, a framework Rosen endorsed, saying: “I think that’s the right prioritization.” theguardian.com/technology/202…
Read 10 tweets
12 Apr
“Over one six-week period from June to July 2018, Hernández’s Facebook posts received likes from 59,100 users, more than 78% of which were not real people.“

“Honduras was simply not a priority.“ - Sophie Zhang former Facebook data scientist theguardian.com/technology/202…
My previous thread/reply to @guyro explaining why fake likes are Actually Very Bad and should have been a priority to remove.
I published this in December 2017 and was floored at the response it got from people in Honduras, the blog currently has over 11K views. The same activity was happening across multiple platforms and it was blatant.
link.medium.com/QIn5NzKQofb
Read 4 tweets
12 Apr
“This event should be 110% optical in the sense of no swastikas or anything that puts normies off," said one admin in a private White Lives Matter Telegram group. "This is the chance to engage with normies.” mashable.com/article/white-… by @MattBinder
The latest example of the far right trying to weaponize normie optics
Read 7 tweets
29 Mar
Glenn Greenwald, king of the strawman, defender of "powerless" Proud Boys. When these folks are your top blog referrals, maybe it's time to rethink your life choices.
He really wrote over 3000 words without mentioning who Biggs & Pezzola are. Seems like important context. 🤔 I bet an editor would have pointed out how it's dishonest to omit those details.
I would tag him but he censored my tweets.
Read 5 tweets

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