After a Bad Week, Something Really Good.
The attack on democracy by insurrectionists last week was planned on social media platform Parler, which is was the Facebook for Criminals before Amazon yanked it off its servers for violating community standards. Apparently, Amazon takes a dim view of threatening mass murder and overthrow of governments, and now that Parler is offline, extremists are being forced back into the dark web, the cozy home for racists and child pornographers.
All that is good, but here’s what’s really good…before Parler was taken offline, hackers (who the press calls researchers) scraped personal data on approximately 12 million users, a lot of whom are white supremacists, anti-government types, Trumpists, and armed insurgents. What’s REALLY good? After promising anonymity and more “freedom”, Parler actually was more intrusive than even Facebook. Like Facebook, Parler followed people around, but even required users to upload their DRIVER’S LICENSE to become a “verified person”. Also all videos posted to the site captured actual GPS coordinates for the video. The result? Thousands of the rioters who carried their phones (all of them) incriminated themselves as Parler captured who they were, where they were, and what they did. Apparently the hackers captured up to 70 terabytes (that’s a lot) of data including said driver’s licenses, geolocations, deleted messages, and something like 1.1 million videos that included GPS locations.
The FBI has a LOT of doors to knock on now, and that’s a good thing.
and Sheldon Adelson is dead. https://investor.sands.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2021/Las-Vegas-Sands-Announces-Passing-of-Company-Founder-and-Industry-Changing-Entrepreneur-Sheldon-G.-Adelson/default.aspx
1It would be a shame if the FBI came across evidence of sedition, etc, while looking at all the data “stolen” from Parler. You know, like Wikileaks…
2Who’d a thunk we’d be cheering on hackers? But I am!
3At the top of Rep. John Carter TX’s Twitter feed is a little red ad asking for money to help him Keep Texas Red. Today. Along with a letter to “my fellow Texans” telling us that violence will not be tolerated and we should “let the process work” w/ regard to last week’s insurrection.
He was one of those who voted not to accept the election results. He was one of those who insisted, while the Capitol was being attacked, that everyone who wanted to speak against accepting the Electoral College results had to have their chance. He is still making false claims about the election.
I have tweeted to him, as I’ve emailed in the days before this, that he and his party are responsible and that he broke his oath of office by trying to overturn the election. That he cannot be trusted with any “process” to deal with violent behavior because he enabled it. One of the offices the FBI should be investigating is his.
4Thank goodness. Let the Administration of Justice wing of our government do its job!
5“The FBI has a LOT of doors to knock on now, and that’s a good thing.”
as if any more proof were needed that we’re all living in Bizarro World. J. Edgar would plotz….
6Thanks El Jefe for this latest installment of “who snitched us out.” Stealth 101 never carry your cell phone. Remedial stealth 101 for Dummies, think again about those selfies…
As I once did with Twitter for the sheer sport of battling a witless Kellyanne Conway, considered opening a Parler account. But their platform security was obviously the brainchild of an on-line IT dropout. Or, maybe a tRump U grad.
7The Republicans (and their checkbooks) will be devastated about Sheldon Adelson…us, not so much. And hoorah for the “deep state” in the investigation into the Parler thugs. Yes, that is some good news this morning.
I’ll be so glad when things settle down again…some day?
8The death of Adelson does not mean his money will not continue to go where it used to. He left it all behind.
It is not uncommon for the descendants of the rich to be even more reactionary than the ones who accumulated the money in the first place. Think of Scaife using the millions inherited from Mellon.
(Mellon was no liberal but not a rightwinger as understood today.)
9Parler is owned by Rebecca Mercer, daughter of Robert Metcer, owner of Cambridge Analytica fame.
Billionaire supporters of The Asshat.
Also, she owns LL Bean.
She and her father are two of the creepiest people on earth.
10Just like with Facebook and Twitter and all the rest of that ilk, the owners of these platforms are using them to collect data about the people foolish enough to sign up to use their “free” services, which the owners can then turn around and sell to whoever wants to pay for it. The idiots who signed up on Parler could even send images of the front and back of their drivers license in order to become “verified” users. How braindead do you have to be to send that info to randos on the web? But they did, by the thousands, apparently, and now they’re running to hide their whiny tracks. Although I’m pleased that the “hackers” got the info that they did, probably it’s not admissible as evidence in a trial.
11“Parler is owned by Rebecca Mercer, daughter of Robert Metcer, owner of Cambridge Analytica fame.
Billionaire supporters of The Asshat.
Also, she owns LL Bean. ”
Noooooooo!! Not LL Bean! It’s part of my Yankee membership regs…
12I was also delighted today to hear a number of companies planning to stop financial support to any politician that voted to object on election and others are re-evaluating their donation policy going forward. Let’s see how long their memories really last.
13This is obviously not the same thing, but this situation feels like what the Cuban missile crisis must have felt like. You’ll have to forgive me, even though they have put me in English classes, I am basically an old history teacher at heart. That was thirteen days where no one was quite sure how everything would turn out. Everyone just knew something important would transpire.
Similarly, we know something significant is happening right now. We know a president is either going to resign, be 25thed, or impeached by the end of the week. Whether the Senate chooses to do anything with that is up in the air. We know there will be civil unrest. We don’t know what that will look like. It’s just extremely nerve racking.
14Even if the hacked data isn’t admissible as evidence, it could be probable cause for the issuance of a warrant to get it as evidence.
15Annie @10,
Not aware of any tie between Ms. Mercer and LL Bean. You might be thinking of the controversy that arose a few years ago when board member Linda Bean made a big donation to The Asshat and for a while there was talk of a boycott, but the company made clear that was Linda on her own, and that the Company was not involved in supporting Trump, and it all sorta died down. If Mercer has become the owner of LL Bean I have to think that would have made major waves up here in New England
16Wondering about source for R Mercer owns Ll Bean. I see that Linda Bean is Trump supporter.
17Wondering about source for R Mercer owns Ll Bean. I see that Linda Bean is Trump supporter. (Made search now off to Snopes)
18in another twist….apparently the cell/wifi set up in the capitol tracks/collects data for any phone that pings in the building. so LE can certainly use that data to see who’s phone was in the building at the insurrection time. sooooo much data is about to be incredibly incriminating for the traitors. oopsie.
19I read somewhere that Parler required SSNs from those who wanted to be verified, but I don’t know if that’s true. Driver’s license #s seem more likely.
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