Iran Cancels Plans to Hold February Elections Electronically.

Iran Cancels Plans to Hold Feb. Elections Electronically. (TN).

Iran has called off plans to hold the two upcoming elections using electronic voting machines, Spokesman for Iran's Guardian Council (GC) Nejatollah Ebrahimian announced.

Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency on Wednesday, Ebrahimian pointed to a meeting of the GC earlier in the day and said the issue of using electronic ballot boxes in the upcoming elections was raised in the session and the majority of the GC members voiced their opposition to the plan.

One of the main reasons behind the decision not to hold the elections electronically is that the security of the new systems planned to be used for electronic elections was not confirmed by related authorities, he noted.

Back in June 2015, the Iranian cabinet members approved a plan to hold the upcoming parliament and the Assembly of Experts elections, due to be held on February 26, by using electronic ballot boxes. Read the full story here.

NO! - Top EU court says U.S. Safe Harbor Decision is invalid.

NO! - Top EU court says U.S.-EU data transfer deal is invalid. (Reuters).

A system enabling data transfers from the European Union to the United States by thousands of companies is invalid, the highest European Union court said on Tuesday in a landmark ruling that will leave firms scrambling to find alternative measures.

"The Court of Justice declares that the Commission’s U.S. Safe Harbor Decision is invalid," it said in a statement.

The decision could sound the death knell for the Safe Harbor framework set up fifteen years ago to help companies on both sides of the Atlantic conduct everyday business but which has come under heavy fire following 2013 revelations of mass U.S. snooping.

Without Safe Harbor, personal data transfers are forbidden, or only allowed via costlier and more time-consuming means, under EU laws that prohibit data-sharing with countries deemed to have lower privacy standards, of which the United States is one.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) said that U.S. companies are "bound to disregard, without limitation," the privacy safeguards provided in Safe Harbor where they come into conflict with the national security, public interest and law enforcement requirements of the United States.Read the full story here.

Iran’s Khamenei appoints new cyberspace council members, outlines Islamic policies

Iran’s Khamenei appoints new cyberspace council members, outlines Islamic policies. (Taz).

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed new members to the Supreme Council of Cyberspace (SCC) and outlined its major policies.

Khamenei said in a decree, posted on his official website Sept. 5, that the main duty of the SCC is to carry out macro-management, take necessary and timely decisions, and oversee the area of interest.

He said the previous similar councils were void and handed over those councils’ tasks to the new one.
Iranian leader also urged to improve the council’s status for it to be able to take necessary decisions and conduct coordination among other government organizations in areas of interest.

Aside from that, he called for a technological improvement of cyberspace in the country and training personnel for areas related to cyberspace.

He also called for providing ample security for cyberspace in the country, developing the Iranian cyberspace in compliance with Islamic norms, and producing content that is in line with the Islamic culture.

On March 7, 2012, Ayatollah Khamenei decreed to establish the SCC.

Under the decree, the SCC is a body responsible for coordinating and implementing cyberspace policy in Iran.

The SCC enjoys significant authority and its decisions are legally-binding.

It has the power to unilaterally dictate policies relating to the Internet, and its actions cannot be obstructed by the Iranian parliament.


The SCC is also able to compel the Commission to Determine the Instances of Criminal Content (CDICC) to pursue particular policies on the Internet censorship, with the body having no choice but to comply with the SCC decisions.

Turkey cuts off Internet service to BFF Iran.

Turkey cuts off Internet service to BFF Iran. (Taz).

Turkey cut off Iran’s internet service by 50 Gigabytes (GB) due to some internal problems, the Iranian Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Mahmoud Khosravi said.

He made the remarks while commenting on recent problems in Iran’s Internet.

The incident took place last Friday night, which affected the Internet service in Iran, the Iranian official said, Fars news agency reported Sept. 6.

He further said that the lost traffic was restored after a few hours.

Turkey is only one of the routs which provide Iran with Internet service, so the lost 50 GB of Internet traffic did not impose great impact on Iran’s network, Khosravi added.

It was similar to the recent gas pipeline explosion in Turkey, Khosravi said, without unveiling further details.

Earlier in October 2012, a pipeline supplying Iranian natural gas to Turkey was damaged by an explosion, halting gas flow, and surprisingly disrupting Internet connectivity to northern Iran and Iraq.


Internet communication lines are often installed along the existing physical routes, such as highways, power lines, rail lines or oil and gas pipelines. It was supposed that Turkish Internet and mobile provider was using communication lines along this pipeline to provide northern Iran and Iraq with Internet. Hmmm.......Testing ...1,2,3...

'SKYNET?' - SpaceX Files with Government to Provide Internet Service from Space.

'SKYNET?' - SpaceX Files with Government to Provide Internet Surveillance Service from Space. (Wapo).

Elon Musk’s space company has asked the federal government for permission to begin testing on an ambitious project to beam Internet service from space, a significant step forward for an initiative that could create another major competitor to Comcast, AT&T and other telecom companies.

Elon Reeve Musk is a South African-born Canadian American entrepreneur, engineer, inventor and investor. He is the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors and chairman of SolarCity. He is the founder of SpaceX and a cofounder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, and Zip2.He has also envisioned a conceptual high-speed transportation system known as the Hyperloop

The plan calls for launching a constellation of 4,000 small and cheap satellites that will beam high-speed Internet signals to all parts of the globe, including its most remote regions. Musk has said the effort “would be like rebuilding the Internet in space.”

If successful, the attempt could transform the L.A.-based SpaceX from a pure rocket company into a massive high-speed Internet provider that would take on major companies in the developed world but also make first-time customers out of the billions of people who are currently not online.


The idea of saturing Earth with Internet signals from space has long been the dream of prominent business tycoons, including Bill Gates in the 1990s.

But many of these ventures have run into obstacles that Musk is working to avoid. Musk has his own rocket, and he has said his swarm of satellites will be more efficient and inexpensive than relying on a handful of big devices that are difficult to replace. Hmmm......Why are all these alarm bells going of in my head? Read the full story here.

Information Giants Apple and Google Just Attended a Confidential Spy Summit in secluded English Mansion.

Information Giants Apple and Google Just Attended a Confidential Spy Summit in secluded English Mansion. (FirstLook).

At an 18th-century mansion in England’s countryside last week, current and former spy chiefs from seven countries faced off with representatives from tech giants Apple and Google to discuss government surveillance in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks.

The three-day conference, which took place behind closed doors and under strict rules about confidentiality, was aimed at debating the line between privacy and security.


Among an extraordinary list of attendees were a host of current or former heads from spy agencies such as the CIA and British electronic surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Other current or former top spooks from Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Sweden were also in attendance. 

Google, Apple, and telecommunications company Vodafone sent some of their senior policy and legal staff to the discussions. And a handful of academics and journalists were also present. Read the full story here.

Iran launches children’s SIM card with controlled access to 'Halal' mobile Internet.

Iran launches children’s SIM card with controlled access to 'Halal' mobile Internet. (Taz).

Iran has unveiled a special SIM card that allows parents to control the mobile Internet usage of their children. The children’s SIM card was unveiled April 30 in Iran’s central city of Qom during a ceremony attended by parliament speaker, Ali Larijani.

The SIM card allows parents to control how their children use the Internet and even monitor their contact list in the cell phone, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.

Iranian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology earlier adopted a decision according to which all Iranian mobile operators should issue special SIM cards for children and teenagers with restricted access to 3G and 4G networks.

Under the ministry’s decision, sale of SIM cards to children and teenagers under 18 will be prohibited in Iran.

The latest statistics of Iran’s Internet Penetration Management Portal put the number of Internet users in Iran at 40 million, indicating that the Internet penetration rate of the country stood at 53.29 percent in June 2014. About 11.07 million of the users in Iran have used GPRS connection to access the Internet over the same period.

It should be noted that several of world's most popular networks, such as Twitter and Facebook are banned in Iran, while users are still able to access them via proxies. A proxy allows bypassing 'gates' meant to block certain sites.


A survey by Iranian Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports indicates that 69.3 percent of the country's young generation use proxy servers to by-pass the filters and access banned Internet websites.

Internet giant Google has recently been transferring its servers to Russia, new 'strategy' move?

Internet giant Google has recently been transferring its servers to Russia, new 'strategy' move? (RBTH).

Internet giant Google has recently been transferring its servers to Russia. Experts believe the company is planning to develop new services and attempt to seize a substantial part of the market from Russian search engine Yandex, its main competitor in the country.

Google became one of the first foreign companies working in Russia to transfer the personal data of Russia citizens onto the country's territory.

This is required by a new law that will take effect in September 2015. Recently, eBay’s chief officer in Russia, Vladimir Dolgov, announced that his company is ready to do the same.

According to the RBC financial portal, Google began making arrangements to relocate its equipment to Russia more than a year ago and already has dozens of stands in several datacenters in the country.

Financial portal RBC obtained a transcript of a meeting dedicated to the new law held at the Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media.

General Director of StoreData Anton Platonov said during the meeting that it was revealed that Google already has dozens of stands in Russia-based datacenters.

It appears that Google does not fully trust local datacenters. One participant in the meeting added that Google keeps its information on its company’s property, referred to as a "classified semi-state enterprise."

In the participant’s words, Google does "not let anyone near its stands." Only the company's employees that come from abroad have access to the data.

Another participant in the meeting confirmed that Google happens to be a client of several commercial datacenters in Russia, including TrustInfo. In the participant’s words, Google already rents a room from TrustInfo and is currently discussing the rental of another. Read the full story here.

Video - Facebook claims ‘a bug’ made it track nonusers, Anyone interested in a bridge for sale?

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating privacy by amassing users facial recognition data.

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating privacy by amassing users facial recognition data. (TW).

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating the privacy of its users by collecting their facial data and storing it.

Facebook is being accused of violating the privacy of its users by collecting their facial data, according to a class-action lawsuit filed last week. Facebook has been allegedly collecting facial recognition data from millions of FB users and creating “the largest privately held stash of biometric face-recognition data in the world,” according to Courthouse News Service.

The class action lawsuit filed by Carlo Licata and associates alleges that this facial recognition program violates the privacy of its users. The plaintiffs have cited an Illinois law called the Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Acts, which requires companies to get written content from a user if it is collecting biometric data. Further, according to the Illinois law, such company must state the purpose and length of its data collection program.

The plaintiffs claims that Facebook’s biometric program shows “brazen disregard for its users’ privacy writes.” They have also argued that even by changing user settings, the FB users can't escape the facial recognition collection program, reports the Chicago Tribune. Hmmmm......Reason xxxx why i don't go to facebook......Read the full story here.

"We are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model" Greenwald.

"We are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model" Greenwald. (sltrib).

The 48-year-old, who worked to publish the documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden, spoke for about 40 minutes and took questions for 20 minutes more about privacy and Snowden.

Greenwald said the most shocking thing he's found in the tens of thousands of NSA documents published so far has been the NSA's motto: Collect it all.

"It's not, like, 'Collect a lot of it,' or even, like, 'Collect all the terrorist communications,' " Greenwald said. "It's like saying the goal of the NSA is to eliminate all private communications."

He contended this impedes Americans' freedom: If people are being monitored, they aren't as creative and don't think as freely.

Also, the decisions to collect the data and store it was done with no public discussion. Greenwald said that in free societies, government officials have an expectation of transparency and citizens have an expectation of privacy.

Tyrannical societies have an opposite system. "I would submit, and I don't think that it's in dispute, that we are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model," Greenwald said.

Greenwald also discussed the NSA's Utah Data Center, located in Bluffdale. He pointed to NSA documents from 2009 and 2010 saying the agency had a problem storing all the data it was collecting. The Utah Data Center helps solve that problem, Greenwald said.

In a meeting with reporters before his speech, Greenwald said the data center has an "ominous role in the surveillance state."

"The better [the government's] capacity for storage, and the more space they have to do it the longer they can keep the data," Greenwald said. Read the full story here.

"Yes We Scan" Why Does Apple Include Government Certificate Authorities on the Mac?

"Yes We Scan" Why Does Apple Include Government Certificate Authorities on the Mac? HT: Cryptogon ; Zit Seng’s Blog:

I’ve been sitting on this information for some time, waiting to get more research done before I publish a post. But since word has come out about how Lenovo preloads what amounts to very bad spyware on their PCs, I thought I should also just go right ahead to spill the beans on the Mac.

Yes, that’s right. Superfish is bad. The problem with the Mac is only slightly related in that it also involves SSL certificates. It’s also bad, in a different way. I haven’t found out how the situation got to be like this, but I’ll just tell you what is happening.

The Certificate Authorities are usually trustworthy. Usually. Except, when you look into the list Certificate Authorities trusted by the Mac. There are the usual big name Certificate Authorities like Verisign, GeoTrust, Symantec and Thawte. But how about these ones:

Subject: C=US, O=U.S. Government, OU=FPKI, CN=Federal Common Policy CA
Subject: C=US, O=U.S. Government, OU=DoD, OU=PKI, CN=DoD Root CA 2
Subject: C=JP, O=Japanese Government, OU=ApplicationCA
Subject: C=CN, O=China Internet Network Information Center, CN=China Internet Network Information Center EV Certificates Root
…To be clear, the U.S. government has several more Certification Authority certificates installed in the Mac.

But governments are the good people right? Erm, I don’t know. There are people who don’t trust their own government. For example, U.S. citizens may be concerned about their NSA (or FBI) spying activities. They are afraid about the NSA being able to break encryption codes.

Well, it turns out that NSA’s job is a lot easier. There are no codes to break.

 They just intercept your communication, carry out a man-in-the-middle attack, and what else do they need? You think your HTTPS connection is securely encrypted, but wait, couldn’t the U.S. government generate a brand new fake certificate, give it to the NSA, and then serve that to you? Your web browser won’t raise any alarm bells. The SSL certificate is valid, and it is signed by a Certificate Authority that is trusted by your computer.


So, just to get this straight. Not only does the U.S. government have the privilege of intercepting any of your HTTPS connections and present valid, trusted, SSL certificates to you, the Japanese government and the Chinese government have the same privileges. Read the full story here.

Windows 10 Lets You Say Goodbye to Passwords 'and privacy' Forever.

Windows 10 Lets You Say Goodbye to Passwords 'and privacy' Forever.(Fars).

Microsoft is adding support for the Fast Identity Online (Fido) standard to Windows 10 to enable password-free sign-on for a number of applications.

PC users' reliance on weak passwords that are easily cracked (and yet somehow still easy to forget, leaving the IT department with the tedious and time-consuming chore of managing them) coupled with regular password leaks by consumer apps mean moving to fingerprint or other biometric authentication methods could make signing in easier for users and make systems more secure as well, ZDnet reported.

Dustin Ingalls, Windows security and identity program manager at Microsoft, said the company has contributed "design inputs" to the Fido's upcoming 2.0 technical specs.

"Transitioning away from passwords and to a stronger form of identity is one of the great challenges that we face in online computing," said Ingalls.

The Fido standards aim to create a "universal framework" for secure but password-free authentication. Fido supports biometrics such as face, voice, iris, and fingerprint or dongles, and members of the group include Samsung, Visa, PayPal, RSA, MasterCard, Google, Lenovo, ARM, and Bank of America as well as Microsoft.

Ingalls said the Fido implementation in the Windows 10 Technical Preview reflects Microsoft's contribution to the Fido 2.0 specification technical working group, and showcases integration with Windows 10 sign-in, Azure Active Directory, and access to software-as-a-services packages like Office 365 Exchange Online, Salesforce, Citrix, Box, and Concur.

"With Windows 10, for the very first time Windows devices and Microsoft-owned and partner SaaS services supported by Azure Active Directory authentication can be accessed end-to-end using an enterprise-grade two-factor authentication solution - all without a password," he said.

Windows 10 will also include Active Directory integration and Microsoft Account integration for consumer Microsoft services such as Outlook.com and OneDrive, Ingalls added. Hmmm......The possibilities are endless.....Time to stock up on Windows 7-8 hardware and software.

@ColorMeRed just imagine the potential this has : 'User John Doe' ID xxxx will be blocked from the internet starting now

— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) February 18, 2015

@ColorMeRed Look who's teaming up , starts to look like a Sci-Fi movie: internet access refused , bank access refused

— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) February 18, 2015

Video - Search engines only give you results for FIVE percent of the internet, all the rest is 'Darkweb'

Video - Search engines only give you results for FIVE percent of the internet, all the rest is 'Darkweb' (CBS).

Memex, a powerful new search tool that goes beyond the realm of Google, Yahoo, and Bing, is launched by DARPA

This week on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl and producer Shachar Bar-On got an early look at Memex, a powerful new search engine developed by DARPA, the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The inventor of Memex, Chris White, sat down with Stahl and Bar-On and explained how Memex works--and how it could revolutionize law enforcement investigations. (See Chris White's demonstration in the video player above.)

"The internet is much, much bigger than people think," White said. "By some estimates Google, Microsoft Bing, and Yahoo only give us access to around 5% of the content on the Web." That leaves a lot of room for bad actors to operate freely in the shadows.Read the full story here.


 

NSA Admits 'illegally' spying on Americans… on Christmas Eve When Nobody is Looking.

NSA Admits 'illegally' spying on Americans… on Christmas Eve When Nobody is Looking. (SP).

Late Wednesday afternoon - yes, on Christmas Eve - the NSA dumped twelve years worth of documents detailing illegal surveillance and wiretapping.

The National Security Agency (NSA) cited a “classification review” in releasing quarterly reports to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board from 2001 to 2013. However, the release was in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The NSA may spy on foreign communications under U.S. law but are heavily restricted when targets communicate with U.S. citizens or when one end of the correspondence or phone calls originate or end in the U.S.

However, the documents in the NSA’s Christmas Eve dump suggest that those restrictions were ignored fairly often.

The reports include “descriptions of specific incidents which may have been unlawful or contrary to applicable policies,” the NSA said, on its website.

Extensive redactions make it difficult to identify just how many violations of protocol the NSA committed but it is clear they were numerous. The remaining vague language also makes it difficult to determine how serious the transgressions were.

In some of the incidents, it appears that the NSA analysts were well aware of the fact that their actions were illegal — or at least they should have been. Read the full story here.

U.S. Congress Quietly Authorizes 'total' phone and internet Surveillance Of All Americans.

U.S. Congress Quietly Authorizes 'total' Surveillance Of All Americans. HT: InfidelBloggers.

From this source:

Congress this week quietly passed a bill that may give unprecedented legal authority to the government's warrantless surveillance powers, despite a last-minute effort by Rep. Justin Amash to kill the bill.

The provision in question is "one of the most egregious sections of law I've encountered during my time as a representative," Amash wrote on his Facebook page.

The tea-party libertarian, who teamed up with Rep. John Conyers in an almost-successful bid to defund the National Security Agency in the wake of the Snowden revelations, warned that the provision "grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American."

The measure already passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Tuesday, and it is now on its way to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it.

The objections from Amash and others arose from language in the bill's Section 309, which includes a phrase to allow for "the acquisition, retention, and dissemination" of U.S. phone and Internet data. 

That passage will give unprecedented statutory authority to allow for the surveillance of private communications that currently exists only under a decades-old presidential decree, known as Executive Order 12333.

"If this hadn't been snuck in, I doubt it would have passed," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who voted against the bill. "A lot of members were not even aware that this new provision had been inserted last-minute. Had we been given an additional day, we may have stopped it."

Lofgren said she believed the Senate Intelligence Committee was the source of the language. The panel did not respond to requests for comment.

Lofgren also said the language was "the exact opposite of what the House passed this summer."

She was referring to an amendment she championed that would have required the NSA to obtain a warrant before reading Americans' private messages that were collected through a program intended to target foreigners. "Congress is authorizing something very questionable constitutionally," Lofgren added. Hmmm....Every Year the worst laws and regulations are passed around the Christmas period. Read the full story here.

Iran's 'Mullah control' smart filtering system to give access to websites based on user's identity.

Iran's 'Mullah control' smart filtering system to give access to websites based on user's identity. (Taz).

Iran's upcoming smart filtering system for websites provides access to users based on their condition and identity.

The Managing Director of Iran's Telecommunication Infrastructure Company Mahmoud Khosravi said that the system is pretty much like parental control, Iran's Fars News Agency reported on Dec. 8.

"The content will be blocked in the access layer, instead of international gateway," he explained.

"The access layer will be defined based on ISPs, operators, or provinces. We haven’t decided on that yet," Khosravi said.

Iran’s Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said on Nov. 24 that the ministry plans to launch a smart filtering system for websites.

"The system will determine which parts of a website are criminal. So just those parts will be blocked and the rest will be accessible," he said, Iran 's IRNA News Agency reported.

"The project is expected to come on stream in 10 months," Vaezi said, praising the efforts of domestic experts.

Vaezi said on Nov. 15 that the ministry is in talks with foreign hosts to manage the mobile social network applications inside the country.

“We don’t intend to filter the applications,” he said, Iran ’s Khorasan News Daily reported.

“The ministry’s goal is not to limit Iranians’ access to Internet,” Vaezi said, adding that the ministry wants to refine the Internet and create a safe atmosphere for the users.


Vaezi has repeatedly supported the free use of social networks despite the conservatives' pressures. Hmmmm....A bit Like 'Parental Control' now 'Mullah control'

Iranian telecommunications minister says all web surfers to be 'identified'

Iranian telecommunications minister says all web surfers to be 'identified'. (AM).

Iran's telecommunications minister has said his technicians are developing a system to identify any Internet user in the country at the moment of log-on, the ISNA news agency reported Saturday.

"Because of our efforts, in future when people want to use the Internet they will be identified, and there will be no web surfer whose identity we do not know," Mahmoud Vaezi said, without elaborating on how this would technically be done.

Last month, he said the Islamic republic would have "smart filtering" within six months to weed out Internet content the authorities deem offensive or criminal.

"The first phase of smart online filtering will be ready within a month, a second phase within three months and a third within six months", ISNA reported him as saying on November 14.

Iran formed a special Internet police unit in early 2011 to combat "cyber crimes", particularly on social networking sites which are popular among the opposition and dissidents.

Internet censorship is a bone of contention between conservative

hardliners and government members including President Hassan Rouhani who use social networks.

The authorities regularly block access to networks including, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter since public protests against the 2009 re-election of Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Official figures show that more than 30 million people out of Iran's total population of 75 million use the Internet.

A recent study found that 69 percent of young users use illegal software to bypass official restrictions. Hmmmmm.....Rumor has it Erdo is next in line to use the software. Read the full story here.

Symantec discovers Top-tier espionage tool 'REGIN' enables stealthy surveillance.

Symantec discovers Top-tier espionage tool 'REGIN' enables stealthy surveillance. (Symantic).

An advanced spying tool, Regin displays a degree of technical competence rarely seen and has been used in spying operations against governments, infrastructure operators, businesses, researchers, and private individuals.

An advanced piece of malware, known as Regin, has been used in systematic spying campaigns against a range of international targets since at least 2008. A back door-type Trojan, Regin is a complex piece of malware whose structure displays a degree of technical competence rarely seen.

Customizable with an extensive range of capabilities depending on the target, it provides its controllers with a powerful framework for mass surveillance and has been used in spying operations against government organizations, infrastructure operators, businesses, researchers, and private individuals.

It is likely that its development took months, if not years, to complete and its authors have gone to great lengths to cover its tracks. Its capabilities and the level of resources behind Regin indicate that it is one of the main cyberespionage tools used by a nation state.

As outlined in a new technical whitepaper from Symantec, Backdoor.Regin is a multi-staged threat and each stage is hidden and encrypted, with the exception of the first stage.

Executing the first stage starts a domino chain of decryption and loading of each subsequent stage for a total of five stages. Each individual stage provides little information on the complete package. Only by acquiring all five stages is it possible to analyze and understand the threat. Read the full story here.

China Hires hundred of thousands of Internet Trolls To Make The Communist Party Look Good

China Hires hundred of thousands of Internet Trolls To Make The Communist Party Look Good. HT: Business Insider.

The Chinese government doesn’t just censor its internet. It actually pays people to leave fake comments that make the country – and its communist regime – look good.

After reading “Blocked on Weibo” by Chinese researcher Jason Q. Ng, we recently learned China’s version of Twitter, Sina Weibo, banned the phrase “50 cents.” It references China’s “50 Cent Party,” a group of ordinary citizens hired by the government to post internet comments spinning that day’s news in China’s favor.

These hired guns supposedly earn 50 cents (or .5 Yuan) for every post. While the Chinese government has only implicitly acknowledged their existence, the brigade likely functions at various levels, with some commenters even employed by websites or internet providers themselves.


An estimated 250,000 to 300,000 belong to the “party,” researchers from Harvard University wrote in the American Political Science Review in May 2013. “The size and sophistication of the Chinese government’s program to selectively censor the expressed views of the Chinese people is unprecedented in recorded world history,” the authors wrote. Read the full story here.