Sunday, June 23, 2019
The Weaponization of Wikipedia
I understand that cases like this matter little except to those who are slandered. However, I would argue that they are important to the extent they represent what’s going on across the increasingly-troubled Wikipedia platform.
Wikipedia has been “weaponized.”
Anonymous political and special interests control pages on behalf of paid clients. Devoted ideologues use their authority on Wikipedia to censor and controversialize ideas with which they disagree. There are attacks, slander, biases, false information and censorship.
In my instance, the Wikipedia editors have violated multiple Wikipedia policies over the years governing matters such as neutrality, slander and attribution.
And there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
The well-meaning Wikipedia editors– and there are many– are simply outwitted and overpowered by the bad guys.
As I have reported and discussed these matters publicly, anonymous Wikipedia agenda editors controlling my biographical page have mounted a campaign to attack me beyond my Wikipedia page.
“To put it bluntly, this is unacceptable behavior,” wrote a Wikipedia agenda editor in discussing my public objections to the false information and slander on my Wikipedia biographical page. “…some action needs to be taken.” (Toa Nidhiki05 01:52, 9 June 2019 (UTC))
Wikipedia editors have long been known to track down, troll and attack those who criticize them.
As I reported in my Full Measure investigation, some Wikipedia editors have even gotten together and tracked down personal details about someone they don’t like, figuring out where they travel, what they do in their spare time, and where they work– even calling their boss on the phone to try to get them in trouble. No kidding.
Not long after the “something must be done” threat against me by the Wikipedia editor, additional false and biased information was edited onto my Wikipedia biographical page, an attack blog was published against me, and Wikipedia interests came after me on Twitter.
The Twitter attackers included a Wikipedia editor @wikigamaliel who calls himself “Gamaliel@ALA” on Twitter.
@Wikigamaliel proceeded to state that he knows “how I feel” and “what I think” about certain topics based on my Twitter followers, whom he called “nutty.” (He received a “like” from @Wikimedia UK regarding his “nutty” comment about my followers. These are Wikipedia’s supposedly neutral arbiters of information.)
When some Twitter users then flagged extensive hate, profanity and bias in @Wikigamaliel’s recent Tweets on many subjects, he deleted some of the Tweets and blocked the users.
But he’s still editing away on my Wikipedia biographical page and, presumably, many others.
The Talk Pages
Wikipedia’s “talk” pages are arcane, to be sure, but they can provide a window into the bias, twisted justifications, and mangled logic used by Wikipedia agenda editors to make sure false and biased information stays on a page… and fair, truthful information is censored.
This is where matters of controversy are supposedly arbitrated and settled. Instead, it’s the place where the agenda editors band together and play games to beat back attempts to...
Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch.
Our latest privacy experiment found Chrome ushered more than 11,000 tracker cookies into our browser — in a single week. Here’s why Firefox is better.
You open your browser to look at the web. Do you know who is looking back at you?
Over a recent week of web surfing, I peered under the hood of Google Chrome and found it brought along a few thousand friends. Shopping, news and even government sites quietly tagged my browser to let ad and data companies ride shotgun while I clicked around the web.
This was made possible by the web’s biggest snoop of all: Google. Seen from the inside, its Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software.
Lately I’ve been investigating the secret life of my data, running experiments to see what technology really is up to under the cover of privacy policies that nobody reads. It turns out, having the world’s biggest advertising company make the most-popular web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop.
It made me decide to ditch Chrome for a new version of nonprofit Mozilla’s Firefox, which has default privacy protections. Switching involved less inconvenience than you might imagine.
My tests of Chrome versus Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions. In a week of web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer, but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality.
Chrome welcomed trackers even at websites you’d think would be private. I watched Aetna and the Federal Student Aid website set cookies for Facebook and Google. They surreptitiously told the data giants every time I pulled up the insurance and loan service’s log-in pages.
And that’s not the half of it.
Look in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser. See a picture or a name in the circle? If so, you’re logged in to the browser, and Google might be tapping into your web activity to...
44 MORE ARRESTED: “HISTORICAL child sex grooming” in unending Muslim child rape/sex trafficking horrors
The BBC reports, “Detectives investigating claims of historical child sex grooming have arrested 44 people.” These latest arrests center around the time the victims were children in the Dewsbury and Batley areas of Kirklees.
Here is what is never addressed; the underlying belief is the same: non-Muslim women exist for the pleasure of Muslim men. It’s in the Quran: Muslims can take “captives of the right hand” and use them for sex (4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30).Four women complained of being abused between 1995 and 2005 when they were aged between 12 and 16.
During the course of an investigation police said they had arrested dozens of people across Bradford, Leeds, Kirklees and other areas of the country.
Those arrested within the past two weeks include 36 men and three women. Five other men were arrested earlier.
West Yorkshire Police, who are dealing with the allegations, said those arrested ranged in age from 39 to 81.
All of the 44 people questioned have been released under investigation.
In a statement police said the allegations of sexual abuse centred around the time the women were children in the Dewsbury and Batley areas of Kirklees.
Det Insp Seth Robinson said: "We hope that these recent arrests reassure our local communities that we are wholly committed to tackling child sexual exploitation in Kirklees, both current and non-recent.
"Child sexual abuse and exploitation is an abhorrent and heinous crime and one which affects some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
"We would urge anyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse, whether recent or historical, to report it to...
Anonymous Group of 3D-Printed Gun Makers Is Spreading Online
A decentralised network of gun-printing advocates is mobilising online, they're anonymously sharing blueprints, advice and building a community. There's no easy way they can be halted
A new network of 3D-printed gun advocates is growing in America – and this time things are different. Unlike previous attempts to popularise 3D-printed guns, this operation is entirely decentralised. There’s no headquarters, no trademarks, and no real leader. The people behind it reckon that this means they can’t be stopped by governments.
“If they [the government] were to come after me, they’d first have to find my identity,” says Ivan the Troll, a member of the group. “I’m one of many, many like-minded individuals who’re doing this sort of work.”
Known only by his online moniker, Ivan the Troll is the de facto spokesman of an underground wave of 3D-printing gunsmiths. Ivan says he knows of at least 100 people who are actively developing 3D-printed gun technology, and he claims there are thousands taking part in the network. This loose-knit community spans across the whole world.
They communicate across several digital platforms, including Signal, Twitter, IRC, and Discord. They critique each other's work, exchange 3D gun CAD files, offer advice, talk theory, and collaborate on future blueprints. These 3D-printed gun enthusiasts – who share similar ideas and political viewpoints on gun control – mostly found each other online via gun control subreddits and forums.
Ivan is just one small part of this network. He says he is from Illinois, and is of “college age”, but otherwise he remains mostly anonymous, to lie low. At the same time though, he’s launched bombastic PR videos demonstrating the new 3D-printed gun parts he’s created in his garage, including a Glock 17 handgun frame.
One of his most recent videos shows the polymer Glock 17 frame in various stages of production in his workshop. The footage is set to fast-paced synthwave music and is run through a trendy VHS filter – the aesthetics are important. Toward the end, Ivan fires several rounds with the fully built handgun, as text flashes up saying “ANYONE CAN MAKE IT”, “LIVE FREE OR DIE”, and “GO AHEAD TRY TO STOP THIS YOU FILTHY STATISTS”. He’s also uploaded the complete CAD reference model designs for a 3D-printed AR-15 assault rifle to his file-sharing space online. It’s clear Ivan is trying to provoke his detractors as much as possible.
In February of this year, Ivan and his group decided to name themselves “Deterrence Dispensed”, which is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the notorious Defence Distributed – a 3D-printing gun company formerly run by Texan crypto-anarchist Cody Wilson.
In September 2018, Wilson, 30, was arrested and chargedwith sexual assault against a minor. He is alleged to have paid $500 to have sex with a 16-year-old girl in his home city of Austin, Texas. Needless to say, this arrest effectively took Wilson out of the 3D-printed gun world entirely. Many of the people who looked up to him were either disgusted or realised that his time was up. He stepped down from Defence Distributed, which was before seen as the driving force behind 3D-printed guns since it launched in 2012. Wilson was released on a $150,000 bail, but has remained silent since.
Defence Distributed has many other ongoing legal battles. Attorney generals from more than 20 US states are currently in the process of suing the company – which has countersued – in a bid to reverse a court win that momentarily allowed Defence Distributed to upload and share 3D-printed gun blueprints online. Their headaches are long, drawn out, and ongoing. (New York State has just passed a law to ban 3D-printed guns).
For Ivan’s group, Deterrence Dispensed, none of this is relevant. They’re uploading these files individually on services such as Spee.ch, a media-hosting site underpinned by the LBRY blockchain, and they aren’t waiting for anyone to give them permission. They’ve made their own 3D-printed gun designs, modified old ones, and are keeping all the Defence Distributed ones available for free too.
“Even if there was no government telling me I couldn’t do this, I think that I would still do it,” Ivan says. “Some people get a kick out of video games, I like spending hours and hours drawing stuff on CAD.”
Ivan isn’t just “drawing stuff on CAD” though. He’s providing free files to help anyone with a half-decent FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printer and some hand tools to make a workable handgun. Once the CAD file is downloaded, it’s opened in a “slicer” program that translates the CAD files into instructions that the 3D printer can understand. Once the 3D-printed gun parts are ready, they can be assembled into a fully workable gun.
The CAD gun designs put out by Deterrence Dispensed are so well-made, according to Ivan, that they’re not just “workable”, but superior. “Our AR15 CAD model is the best in the public domain without a doubt,” says Ivan.
Despite being overtly antagonistic Ivan has had no real run-ins with the authorities so far. His Twitter account was permanently suspended after New Jersey state senator Bob Menendez lobbied for it to be taken down, but as far as the government and law enforcement goes, things have been...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #661
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
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