Yesterday, I moved some clothes around – put some away, took some out to be handy both to visit Virgil and to change into when I get home. Of course the pronblem with that is that it take twice as long to recover as it does to do. But I did manage. And rested a little with knitting. (One yarn company has as its motto “Knit. Relax. Repeat.” Almot too cute.)
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Short Takes –
The 19th – The 19th Explains: Key races to watch in November 2 elections
Quote – The year after a presidential contest is not a big one for elections, but two states and several major cities are holding elections this year for governor, state legislators, mayors and more. The debates are shaped by local issues, like housing, and national issues, like the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Click through for all eight. It mentions the NYC mayor but not the DA, in which Alvin Bragg is running to succeed Cy Vance. He may, of course, be unopposed.
Crools and Liars – Biden Breaks Stalemate As New Hope Emerges For Transformational Agenda
Quote – The details of the bill are still being worked out, but Jayapal has made clear so far that progressives’ priorities are still in the bill, even though they’ve had to scale back some of the proposals. Manchin and Sinema have continued to be the skunks at the garden party, but Biden seems to have pinned them down on both a price tag and their red lines in the sand. Click through for the story. Crooks and Liars is an unlikely place to look to for hope, but I’ll take it where I can get it.
PolitiZoom – Gerrymandering On Steroids W. Virginia Governor says He’ll Accept Three Maryland Counties Who Want To Secede
Quote – This is either a Fox News publicity stunt which has gone too far, or maybe state lines will be redrawn in dramatic ways if this is real and it catches on. As you’ve probably heard, three western Maryland counties want to secede from Maryland and become a part of West Virginia. What’s that you say? Who in their right mind would want to leave the 15th largest economy in the nation and move to the 48th? Beats the hell out of me. Click through for what little else is known. If they can do this without changing the number of House Representatives each state is now assigned, I say go for it.
Glenn Kirschner – Here are the Consequences to Democracy if AG Garland/DOJ Refuse to Prosecute Trump’s Election Crimes
Meidas Touch – Former Ohio Dem Chair takes on MAGA FREAKSHOW Josh Mandel
Now This News – What Obama’s Speeches Sound Like as a Symphony – Cue Racist heads exploding n 3… 2… 1…
Ring of Fire – Black Cop Gets Immediately Fired For Calling Out Police Brutality And Racism. I don’t always agree 100% with Farron. This time I would not alter a syllable.
politicsrus – John Lewis HD
Titus – Tactical Chicken
Beau – Let’s talk about individual interests and unions….
Yesterday, I managed to find the strength to take some trash and recyclables to the polycarts, and move the polycarts closer to the curb. Not all the way to the curb – pickup isn’t till Thursday – but close enough to be esier to get out on Wednesday. While i was doing that, the neighborhood cat stopped by. He doesn’t care much for the gourmet cat treats I got from Chewy. But I guess he figures that he comes by enough times I’ll eventually open something else (and he is right.) I honestly don’t know what he likes. The one flavor he really liked was Iams salmon, but he is over it now. Not that he needs food. I’ve started calling him “Bustopher.”
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Crooks and Liars – Insurrectionists’ Extremism Deepens In ‘Patriot Wing’ Of D.C. Jail
Quote – More than anything, they appear to focus on justifying their martyrdom. “We have been labeled the enemy, yet clearly we see tyranny as the enemy,” Reffitt wrote. “While our lawyers do our bidding and the judges do their duties, we remain resolute, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the National Anthem all in unison, loud and proud most every day. All because we are us, we are you, we are all Americans and in here, we have no labels.” Click through for reality. This was prefictable. I don’t suppose the DC jail has any way to break them up. The Feds maybe coupd, but it’s probably not legal to tranfer them to federal facilities – yet.
The Daily Beast – ‘Delinquent’ Matt Gaetz Blocked from Practicing Law
Quote – The Daily Beast has learned that the Florida Bar has branded Gaetz as “delinquent” twice in the past two years. The organization temporarily cut him off in 2019 and again in 2020, because Gaetz failed to affirm that he is properly handling and protecting any clients’ money in trust accounts. Lawyers must abide by strict rules to ensure they are not stealing or misusing money that belongs to the people they represent. Click through for story. And this is just for failing to pay to renew his law license (or, as the author puts it, “not paying his bar tab”). Look at the next short take for what else is going n.
Democratic Underground – Justice Dept. Adds Two Top Prosecutors to Matt Gaetz Case
Quote – The Justice Department has added two top prosecutors from Washington to the child sex trafficking investigation of Representative Matt Gaetz, according to two people briefed on the matter, a sign of the complex and high-stakes nature of the inquiry into Mr. Gaetz, a Florida Republican who is one of former President Donald J. Trump’s closest congressional allies. The prosecutors — one a public corruption investigator with an expertise in child exploitation crimes, and the other a top leader of the public corruption unit — have been working on the Florida-based investigation for at least three months, the people said. Click through for detils. I like to use original sources, but cannot access the NYT. Do you suppose he deliberately did not pay for his license because he knew it would be a waste? I doubt it. He’s mot that smart.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
We’ve talked a great deal here about technology used by governments to spy on its citizens. This article is a bit of an update on some of the latest technology. “Pegasus” – it sounds so benign, doesn’t it? Images of unicorns and My Little Ponies come to mind. And I won’t even go so far as to say “This is the dark side,” because this technology can definitely be used for good. (Don’t you just wish it were being used right this moment to track Bannon? And a few choice others?) But it wll never be used effectively for good as long as it is being used by people who think they can tell a “bad guy” by looking at someone.
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What is Pegasus? A cybersecurity expert explains how the spyware invades phones and what it does when it gets in
A woman holds a phone in front of the office of NSO Group, which makes a tool that can see and hear everything a phone is used for. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
End-to-end encryption is technology that scrambles messages on your phone and unscrambles them only on the recipients’ phones, which means anyone who intercepts the messages in between can’t read them. Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo are among the companies whose apps and services use end-to-end encryption.
This kind of encryption is good for protecting your privacy, but governments don’t like it because it makes it difficult for them to spy on people, whether tracking criminals and terrorists or, as some governments have been known to do, snooping on dissidents, protesters and journalists. Enter an Israeli technology firm, NSO Group.
The company’s flagship product is Pegasus, spyware that can stealthily enter a smartphone and gain access to everything on it, including its camera and microphone. Pegasus is designed to infiltrate devices running Android, Blackberry, iOS and Symbian operating systems and turn them into surveillance devices. The company says it sells Pegasus only to governments and only for the purposes of tracking criminals and terrorists.
How it works
Earlier version of Pegasus were installed on smartphones through vulnerabilities in commonly used apps or by spear-phishing, which involves tricking a targeted user into clicking a link or opening a document that secretly installs the software. It can also be installed over a wireless transceiver located near a target, or manually if an agent can steal the target’s phone.
Pegasus can infiltrate a smartphone via the widely used messaging app WhatsApp without the phone’s user noticing. Christoph Scholz/Flickr, CC BY-SA
Since 2019, Pegasus users have been able to install the software on smartphones with a missed call on WhatsApp, and can even delete the record of the missed call, making it impossible for the the phone’s owner to know anything is amiss. Another way is by simply sending a message to a user’s phone that produces no notification.
This means the latest version of this spyware does not require the smartphone user to do anything. All that is required for a successful spyware attack and installation is having a particular vulnerable app or operating system installed on the device. This is known as a zero-click exploit.
Once installed, Pegasus can theoretically harvest any data from the device and transmit it back to the attacker. It can steal photos and videos, recordings, location records, communications, web searches, passwords, call logs and social media posts. It also has the capability to activate cameras and microphones for real-time surveillance without the permission or knowledge of the user.
Who has been using Pegasus and why
NSO Group says it builds Pegasus solely for governments to use in counterterrorism and law enforcement work. The company markets it as a targeted spying tool to track criminals and terrorists and not for mass surveillance. The company does not disclose its clients.
The earliest reported use of Pegasus was by the Mexican government in 2011 to track notorious drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The tool was also reportedly used to track people close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
It is unclear who or what types of people are being targeted and why. However, much of the recent reporting about Pegasus centers around a list of 50,000 phone numbers. The list has been attributed to NSO Group, but the list’s origins are unclear. A statement from Amnesty International in Israel stated that the list contains phone numbers that were marked as “of interest” to NSO’s various clients, though it’s not known if any of the phones associated with numbers have actually been tracked.
A media consortium, the Pegasus Project, analyzed the phone numbers on the list and identified over 1,000 people in over 50 countries. The findings included people who appear to fall outside of the NSO Group’s restriction to investigations of criminal and terrorist activity. These include politicians, government workers, journalists, human rights activists, business executives and Arab royal family members.
Other ways your phone can be tracked
Pegasus is breathtaking in its stealth and its seeming ability to take complete control of someone’s phone, but it’s not the only way people can be spied on through their phones. Some of the ways phones can aid surveillance and undermine privacy include location tracking, eavesdropping, malware and collecting data from sensors.
Law enforcement agencies use cell site simulators like this StingRay to intercept calls from phones in the vicinity of the device. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office via AP
Governments and phone companies can track a phone’s location by tracking cell signals from cell tower transceivers and cell transceiver simulators like the StingRay device. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals can also be used to track phones. In some cases, apps and web browsers can determine a phone’s location.
Eavesdropping on communications is harder to accomplish than tracking, but it is possible in situations in which encryption is weak or lacking. Some types of malware can compromise privacy by accessing data.
The good news is, depending on who you are, you’re unlikely to be targeted by a government wielding Pegasus. The bad news is, that fact alone does not guarantee your privacy.
================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, beside the fact that there is no microchip small enough to go through a needle of the size used to deliver the CoViD vaccine, isn’t it ironic – or wouldn’t it be ironic if irony were still alive – that anti-vaxxers carry cell phones with them everywhere they go?
Yesterday, The opera on the radio was “Orlando” by Handel. Baroque and Bel Canto oeras (1730-1830 approx) are famous for mad scenes, but they are usually for women. This one has a male mad scene, sung by a counter tenor. Most interesting. I also put meds together for the next two weeks. Annoying, but necessary.
Mother Jones – Substack Is Profiting Off Anti-Mask and Anti-Vaccine Newsletters
Quote – There’s one less frequently discussed way in which Substack actually might be endangering democracy: It’s become a conduit for public disinformation during a historic pandemic. Indeed, my search of Substack returned dozens of newsletters that suggested that vaccines and masks were ineffective and dangerous, and that “the media” had exaggerated the harms of COVID-19. Many of the newsletters that I found insisted that the government was suppressing evidence in favor of treatments that scientists have shown to be ineffective, like hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. Other Substack newsletters made similar claims about unproven supplements and other fringe remedies. Click through for story. Social media is the modern nin-headed Lernean Hydra. Where is our Hercules?
One particularly horrid example of capitalism out of control is our current “corrections” system. A number of states have entered into contracts with private firms to run prisons, only to discover it is costing more than paying off. Many contracts with prison companies include clauses requiring the states to keep their big houses full to a certain percentage – or the company can exact a large penalty. When crime rates drop, the supply of inmates dries up, so police are forced to arrest people for picayune charges, and judges must impose longer sentences.
The so-called war on drugs has turned us into the Land of the Incarcerated. The United States accounts for only 4% of the world’s population but a quarter of all inmates. Judges have their hands tied with mandatory minimums and three-strikes laws, as well as the above-referenced contractual requirements to keep prisons filled. No nation has ever locked up such a large percentage of its population. According to my research, not the Soviet Union, not Nazi Germany, not even any of the horrendous tyrannies in existence today has such a large ratio of prisoners to population. Granted, there are a few people who need to be kept out of general circulation; however, most prisoners are locked up for minor, non-violent charges, such as petty theft or possessing a teeny amount of marijuana. On top of that, a disproportionate number of minority and economically disadvantaged people are behind bars.
Inmates often serve as cheap labor for manufacturers – perhaps because those companies want to brag their products are “made in the USA” but are too miserly to pay decent wages or benefits. Families are torn apart and children are stigmatized just so some CEO can count his gold coins. The mouthpieces of the prison industry say that the detainees are learning useful skills to prepare them for when they are released, but these menial tasks are not likely to translate into meaningful employment later, especially when a prison record can be an insurmountable barrier to even the most menial work.
As if all that isn’t enough, many prisoners frequently receive food that is inadequately nutritious, even spoiled. The contractors do everything they can to slash costs per meal so the correction company’s shareholders can wallow in greenbacks. Medical care for prisoners is also shoddy. Considering that most prisoners come from the ranks of the poor, and are incarcerated for minor charges, this makes their treatment all the more reprehensible. The shills of the prison system gladly parrot the old saw “It’s prison, dammit, not a country club!” and harp on those inmates who do belong behind bars, oblivious to the sorry reality of this disaster.
Bail bond companies have license to use all manner of dirty tricks to squeeze every dollar they can out of the pockets of defendants. Getting extra bonds from people who are re-arrested while out on bond, taking fees from defendants and then returning them to custody without explanation – all that is legal. And it’s all in the name of filthy lucre. The bondsman gets the gold mine, while the suspect – who could be innocent – gets the shaft.
Finally, many court systems have handed over the collection of fines to private probation companies, who pick on those least able to pay. Instead of having the opportunity to work out a way to pay off a traffic ticket or the like, the poorest are hit with “supervision fees” that increase the burden and make it less and less likely that the penalty will be fully paid. Those who can’t pony up get locked up. One Georgia man’s $200 fine for nicking a case of beer ultimately mushroomed into thousands of dollars in penalties, far beyond his ability to pay. Yes, he shouldn’t have stolen the beer in the first place; but how can it be at all fair or just when a company can keep adding heinously high “fees” to make sure that a penalty is out of someone’s financial reach?
