Indy Media Watch

Golly, I would like to say that I have the know-how to hack into someone’s system, but sadly I do not. I would never disrupt someone else’s personal property either for that matter. Odd that we got sited in that add none the less…
 

David, I wish it were the case that the SF schism and creation of Indybay was rooted in some well-meaning Indymedia volunteers' desire to speak out and distance themselves from Nessie's overt antisemitism. But if you look over the history of that rift, you'll find that the split was more personal and personality driven than anthing. It was never rooted in or framed as being speaking up against Nessies' antisemitic agenda.

There was some talk of getting SF removed from the Indymedia network, but this never was grounded in what would have been rightful observations of racism. Instead, the calls for SF's removal were solely related to domain name decisions and some final decisions in handling what had been the collective's tech resources.

Personally, I don't see LA Indymedia as the worst case in the network. Their editors are negligent in patrolling the newswire, sure. And yes, the result of their blind eye is an antisemitic site. However, that still (in my mind) is less offensive than the Indymedia sites where editors actively promote to feature status with overtly antisemitic material. (DC Indymedia's repeated history of featuring articles with "zionazi" accusations and using nazi imagery comes to mind as a prominent example of this sort of behavior.)

The de facto reality is that there is no accountability to Indymedia principles within the network. A media network that was grounded in the ideals of open publishing and community-based collectives that followed transparent decision making has been replaced by sites with extremely small cliques (3-5 people) controlling the site, making heavily biased censorship decisions in the interest of pushing their own political agenda, who hide any material critical of the site (some Indymedia sites have less open reader critique than mainstream media these days), and who have closed off any transparency and accountability for their decision making.

Moreover, it's not going to change. The only way a collective is going to get disaffiliated from the network is if there are no site editors whatsoever and it's clear that the site has gone feral and been abandoned. (Even then sites can go on for 6+ months before they're tossed.)

And while the mechanisms exist for sites to be removed from the network, the cultural norm in Indymedia now is for collectives to adopt the attitude of "if you don't say anything about what I'm doing, I won't say anything about your site." And so, while there are some sites and collectives that still adhere to the initial principles of Indymedia and are well done, they won't stand up against the abuses of other collectives.

As it happens, much of the founding leadership of Indymedia has quietly exited the project, and what's left seems likes a ghost ship without any real crew. For the time being, it's made for a nice ride for the fringe and hate groups that have latched on, but ultimately it's probably a boat that's going to sink.

The dismal thinking of "we're not going to register as a non-profit, because that's just buying into the state, coercive, capitalist, blah blah blah system" thinking that won out at that the global level means that the entire indymedia domain is under a private individual's name. Ultimately, Indymedia global is successfully going to get sued for libel or rampant and persistent copyright infringement, that person will bail, and no individual is about to pick up that hot potatoe. Moreover, then local collectives not under the shield of nonprofit status will find probably find themselves in similar boats.

The fact is, many of the people who hold the domain name rights (and with that the legal responsibilities) of Indymedia sites have left the network and aren't about to protect what they've abandoned. And in the few cases where fringe individuals have gone ahead and taken up legal accountability, I expect they'll quickly jump ship too. (My experience is that the fringe and hate groups that have taken the reigns of the worst sites are fairly lazy, legally inept, shallow opportunists. It was one thing when Indymedia had ideological support behind it, but now that it's a medium of convenience for hate, it'll be more readily abandoned under pressure.)

And while the likes of EFF have (very kindly) offered a great deal of legal assistance to Indymedia in the past, it seems just a matter of time before the racist baggage that Indymedia is increasingly mounting up will make them an unattractive (for damn good reason) client for any group to defend. The Indymedia of today is very different, very much more decidedly racist and militant, than the Indymedia these legal defense groups initially signed on to assist.

And if the legal downfall scenario doesn't unfold (crap this is long, sorry), it'll be the lack of tech assistance that cripples many collectives. Indymedia used to have a flourishing tech community, locally and at the global lever. There also used to be several active open source projects in the pipeline for providing better software tools (Active, Mir, Dada, and Freeform). Now most have been abandoned or left with only one or two developers. So while techs as a group haven't done a great job of loudly speaking up against the racist crap and increasingly authoritarian behavior of Indymedia editorial cliques, a large number of them have at least had the decency to just stop volunteering support to a project that's gone so terribly awry. As a result, these are sites back-ended by open source projects that have been abandoned or fallen behind in patches, sites that are hosted on poorly-adminstered servers, sites run by groups that many of the former indymedia tech community have said good riddance to. I sure am not advocating trying to crash or corrupt a website, no matter what it's political views; that's both illegal and ethically wrong in me eyes. However I suspect that what happened to SF's site is going to become increasingly common across the network as people get angrier at Indymedia and more and more techs get increasingly disinterested in supporting the mess that many collectives have turned into.
 

Can't you just smell nessie's megalomania?

In case you've been wondering why, at this critical juncture in history, one of the strongest voices against racist aggression in the entire Indymedia network was offline, the short answer is that just as the war broke out, we were carpet bombed. Coincidence? Perhaps.

As any child can figure out, it's an inside job.
 

Nessie is not active at just SF-IMC anymore. Now he's on the attack all over the place. He's even invaded Israel:

https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/5045/index.php

https://israel.indymedia.org/mod/comments/display/5049/index.php#Comment-5049

https://israel.indymedia.org/mod/comments/display/5045/index.php#Comment-5045
 

You wanted a translation of the Hebrew on that page? It's pretty untranslateable - it's obviously taken from a scientific paper on numbers theory (whatever that might be!) including Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry, discovered by Alexander Gorotandik in the 50s.

Does that help? :-)

I can't imagine why that paragraph was chosen out of all the possibilities available to a hacker.
 

Maybe the hacker is a mathematician. It's difficult to imagine a programmer, let alone a hacker, who didn't have at least a passing knowledge of mathematics.
 

End to End Bullshit

There's _zero_ evidence that a web site was hacked leave alone one that was hacked by Israeli terrorists or supporters of Israel's terrorism.

At the same time there's no evidence that "Nessie" is "anti-Semetic," nor a shred of evidence that Los Angeles IndyMedia is "anti-Semetic."

Don't agree? Then post URLs from Nessie. Post URLs from the editors of LAIndyMedia or the contributors.

What you'll find is that -- what? 90%? -- of the postings to LAIndyMedia are about the latest wave of Israeli terrorist atrocities with any remaining postings that describe the terrorist State _maybe_ being posted by people who harbor hatred or bigotry against Jews.

Here's a clue: Israel's crimes against humanity does _not_ mean that people don't have the moral right to point at them and denunce them. Israel's atrocities are a legitimate cause for world-wide denouncement and we're seeing that.

At the same time pointing at people who denounce inhuman crimes against humanity are _not_ "anti-Semetic" -- if anything they're "pro-Semetic" since they're denouncing the wonton and indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Arabs whose only crimes are having brown skin, worshiping the "wrong" gods, and defending themselves against Israeli terrorism.

The comments I've seen posted from others try to pretend that some how IndyMedia is at core "anti-Semetic." The evidence? A small percentage of contributors post comments expressing fundamentalist Christian bigotry against Jews.

This is telling: The Israeli terrorists have justified their latest wave of atrocities against every citizen of Lebanon on the actions of an extremist few.

The 90% to 99% of the IndyMedia contributors don't harbor such ideals which the commentors here want to pretend are rampant in IndyMedia.

What's rampant in IndyMedia is the unvarnished truth about what's going on in the world -- with the occasional conspiracy kook or other unfortunate individual posting something, and anti-Semetics and neo-Nazis et al. _are_ kooks; they're the extreme minority.

So bullshit. I call bullshit down on almost all of you. You're trying to pretend that denouncing war crimes -- committed by Hezbollah, Israel, and the Bush regime -- some how means "anti-Semetism" or maybe "anti-America" sentiments. It's not. It's denouncing crimes against humanity.

Pretending otherwise is one way to defend and support crimes against humanity.

My opinions only and only my opinions.
 

Umm, it might be worth noting that the editors at LAIMC did ultimately get their shit together and shovel the article in question into the bitbucket, along with a couple of others in a similar vein. LA doesn't appear to have a lot of tolerance for hatefreak shit nor, as far as I can tell, have they given in to the demands for ideological conformity Nessie and his sockpuppets regularly make.

IMCs seem to be rather variable in this respect. DC, depending on what editor is "on duty" at any given moment, can take a pretty rigorous stance about keeping hatefreaks of all species, paranoid conspiracy theorists and crackpots off the newswire, which is quite a change from their previous pattern of behavior. OTOH, Boston seems to be deteriorating as far as effective moderation is concerned, though my impression is that this is more due to apathy and indecisiveness rather than to malice.
 

Thanks to Rice, (one of L.A. indymedia's brown streaks that simply refuses to vanish when flushed), for the lecture. Once I got past the mindless robotic slogans, such as Israel being a terrorist state, and "crimes against humanity", (snore) I saw the error of my ways. I now fully embrace bombing schoolbuses and restaurants, etc, and will duly hie my ass hence to dig Arafat up in order to fellate what's left of him.

I will hug a terrorist today!
 

That's just it exactly

> Sorry, but I am QUITE aware
> of the difference between
> antisemitism and criticism
> of Israel. I do not throw the
> accusation of antisemitism
> around lightly, and I certainly
> don't throw it around as a way
> to silence cricitism of Israel.

You're "QUITE aware" and yet you lie about it any way. 90% to 99% of the coverage of the Israeli terrorist State's crimes against humanity are just that -- legitimate denounciation of terrorism. The complaints here on this web site attempt to depict IndyMedia as awash with anti-Semetism which is a lie.

You claim you distinguish between discussing and denouncing Israeli terrorism from anti-Semetism. Curious how this web site's contents state otherwise.

I think what we're seeing is dishonesty from someone who's greatly disgruntled about something he or she things IndyMedia people did to him or her. Accusations of rampant anti-Semetism would appear to be unevidenced vindictiveness instiugated by someone who doesn't care to back up his claims with supporting evidence so long as he or she gets to vent anger at some conceived wrong doing against him or her.

Have you noticed that LAIndyMedia contains participanmts who protest _against_ neo-Nazis and other white supremacists?

Right. Intellectual dishonesty is easilly discerned.
 

I chuckle a bit when folks come here and ask us to show them links to anti-Semitic material at Indymedia websites. Have they looked through our archives? There must be hundreds of instances documented here alone!

Perhaps one of our critics can explain what they require as proof?
 

By the way, did you notice the part where he said "I hate all racists, even if they are Jewish"? What you missed it? Maybe he didn't say it. Maybe he couldn't. Maybe his blatant pro-Semitism wouldn't let him.
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

Gentlemen, comments on this blog are to be nominally on-topic or should be taken elsewhere.

That's enough thanks.
 

So let's get back to the topic. Who had the motive, the means and the opportunity to hack SF-IMC?
 

Who had the motive, the means and the opportunity to hack SF-IMC?

Back up.

I'm not yet convinced it was "hacked" in the first place. I don't include widespread spamming as a hacking attempt which suggests some form of technical subversion of a website. I'm happy to stand corrected, but haven't yet seen logfiles or anything other than a throwaway reference to a "zionist hacking attempt". Sorry, that just doesn't cut it.
 

nessie himself had the motive. Every other breath he's shouting "COINTELPRO" and "Zionist", and even went so far as to say "the Zionist propaganda mill" was likely who posted under his (one of many pseudonyms) years ago when he was caught in a lie. He's now known as the boy who cried wolf way too many times, so I think it's a way for him to try and save face.

http://utah.indymedia.org/news/2005/10/12184_comment.php#15292

Also, he's been documented as saying that no publicity is bad publicity, although he'll now tell you that was Zionist agents that posted in his name. The Mossad is his "back door", a means of escape.

There was an article a while back about the best IMC's, and IndyBay made the list, which enraged him. He's desperate for publicity, and there are now rumors about him charging for access. True, I don't know.

Ultimately, this little escapade is just his way of stirring the pot. Lots of things have been festering for a long time.
 

>I'm happy to stand corrected, but haven't yet seen logfiles or anything other than a throwaway reference to a "zionist hacking attempt".


It wasn't "throwaway." It was repeated many, many times:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2EC5178D

He apparently just couldn't resist the urge to brag. This is common among hackers. Read hacker websites and literature. Bragging is the main thing they do.

And make no mistake about it, this was not spam. Spam is generated by hand, and is repetitive. What hit SF-IMC was a fully automated process. Note the time stamps:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z11D6278D

Each instance was unique. It was not some schmuck in his mommy's basement, hitting the [return] key over and over. This was a well thought out script. It's origins were apparently disguised by TOR. It was was a clever and skillful attack at the server level. It took articles from the database and republished them with new names, apparently drawn from a pool of random names. Each article retained the original summary, making it necessary for the editors to open and examine each post individually to see whether it was real or not. This tactic actually worked for the first five of six times. Then we noticed the speed at which they were coming in, and realized we were up against a script that had been written by someone who had studied our software and was thoroughly familiar with its weaknesses. After that, we hid everything that came in, until we figured out that only shutting of the [publish] function could stop the attack. This was, of course, the whole point of the attack in the first place.



>he's been documented

This is almost certainly "SmashTheLeft" talking. He's pathologically obsessed with me, and spends at least some of pretty much every single day posting slander and forgeries in a transparent attempt to discredit me. His "work" is familiar to anyone who studies Indymedia.

This is his story:

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2003/11/10972_comment.php#18185

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/1698659.php

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N18F232D8

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H216257C8


"Smashy," as we call him, is not the only one who uses forgeries to promote and anti-IMC agenda on Indymedia, far from it. He is just among the most blatant examples. Some forgeries are extremely clever, well thought out and set up long in advance. Others are crude and transparent. Smashy tends toward the crude and transparent end of the spectrum.

For reasons which have nothing to do my real role in the movement, which is minor at most, Smashy and his crew have apparently assumed I'm someone important enough to mount a smear campaign against. For a taste of how extensive it is, Google "nessie indymedia forgeries" and see what comes up. The short version of the story is that unless you see it on SF-IMC, my signature is simply not to be trusted.

The use of forgeries to discredit political opponents has a very, very long history.

See:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1555696_comment.php

As for COINTELPRO, it is extremely difficult for anyone familiar with the history of repression to even imagine that an operation like Indymedia could exist without being attacked. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence that many of the techniques being used against Indymedia, and against the progressive left in general, are precisely and exactly the same techniques that we now know were the mainstay of COINTELPRO. After all, anything's possible. Maybe the coincidence theorists have been right all along.

But remember this. We have only the US government's word that they discontinued the COINTELPRO program. Not only do we have much evidence to the contrary, but this is exactly the kind of thing that the US government is most famous for lying about.

Remember also, that the US government is only one government on a planet with many governments. Indymedia is a global phenomena. It is inconceivable that none of the governments whose job it is to preserve their own existence by suppressing dissent, would take aim at Indymedia.

Remember as well, that now that the techniques of COINTELPRO have become public, they are no longer the sole purview of the nation state(s). Non state organizations, even individuals, can easily make use of them, and do. Even a cursory perusal of Indymedia by anyone familiar with the history of the phenomenon, reveals their presence almost immediately. But what else can we expect. C'est la guerre.