...it seems the FBI and NYPD have had help tracking protesters' moves thanks to a conservative computer security expert who gained access to one of the group's internal mailing lists, and then handed over information on the group's plans to authorities and corporations targeted by protesters.
Since the Occupy Wall Street protest began on September 17, New York security consultant Thomas Ryan has been waging a campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan says he's done contract work for the U.S. Army and he brags on his blog that he leads "a team called Black Cell, a team of the most-highly trained and capable physical, threat and cyber security professionals in the world." But over the past few weeks, he and his computer security buddies have been spending time covertly attending Occupy Wall Street meetings, monitoring organizers' social media accounts, and hanging out with protesters in Lower Manhattan...
At this point in time, there are probably dozens of private security and police moles all over the movement. And since the Europeans seem to be taking heart from the existance of a resistance here, likely the CIA, DIA, and the NSA are all over the movement now too. Unless the Occupation can enlist a real-life V or an Adam Selene, it should avoid the internet like the plague.
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Unfortunately it is the existence of the internet, however corporatized, which enables this movement to exist.
I'm reminded of this: http://xkcd.com/743/
If things get out of hand for the authorities, shutting down Facebook etc. would certainly bring the predicted backlash of ticking people off royally and swelling the movement. But it might also succeed in incapacitating their radically decentralized model.
I hope the Hacktivists can eventually bring us some kind of peer-to-peer shadow-internet that's easy enough for large numbers of non-techies to adopt. Not being a hacker myself, I don't know if that's possible, but I've heard so.
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