How to Identify an Agent Provocateur

By Occupy Taketothestreets Asheville in Occupy Asheville INFO Group

As governments around the world, including our own, face more and more popular resistance, we’re witnessing a revival of the use of agent provocateurs. An agent provocateur is the well-used tactic of using undercover military or police to join a dissenting group or protest in order to provoke others in the group to carry out illegal actions and violence. The goal is to discredit the group from the inside. Sometimes the group gets discredited with those outside. Other times the group is enticed into internal divisions and collapses.

-Drawing from several sources, experienced observers have suggested some tips for identifying such agents. They’re not foolproof, but they’re a start.

-Agents will often lack background connections or references. No one in your circles or related groups will know them.

-Agents try to keep discussions and action unproductive and still. They’ll spend plenty of time debating issues, with little action. They focus on ideas over people.

-They tend to create messes in groups and between group members. They leave chaos in their wake.

-They tend to gravitate toward people in the group who are dissatisfied. Once relationships with those folks grow, the dissatisfaction spreads.

-Some agents have been former prisoners who do this work as part of a deal. These folks tend to jump from organization to organization in a relatively short time.

-Agents don’t have known sources of income. They might have a job that doesn’t match their spending or claim their money comes from prior savings.

-They tend to provide gifts for key figures at first. This helps them build trust with the group.

-When confronted, they will get defensive and start making their own accusations.

-They act like zealots, but they don’t have the fruit of it. They have passion but don’t truly care.

-Of course, good but immature people can do all these things. Discernment involves sound judgment calls. Protection from agent provocateurs increases as your group matures. If your group has rich relationships and trust, you won’t as easily fall prey to cheap provocateurs.

For more info on Agents Provocateurs Please see our other links on ALGG that discuss Anarchists and their tactics such as vandalism and attempts to hijack the marches etc.

#Occupy Update: iPhone and Android Apps for Activists

Here is a short but very effective list of Apps for phones that can really save you alot of toruble when attending Rallies, Conventions, and many other Security related events in your life. Esspecially ones that involve the Law...

Audioboo: This application allows you to record sound and then publish it to your Audioboo account directly from your iPhone. The application is supported by Audioboo.com where you need register for a free account. It has its own categorized community of others’ boos you can listen to, follow and favourite. In addition the site provides you with embed codes for audio players for each boo so you can embed them anywhere the code is supported.

The application comes in handy when you want to conduct a vox pop or perhaps record what is being said at a rally or in a meeting with politicians. However, it is limited by the fact that you cannot edit the audio before it is uploaded, so it is important to know what you want to ask or say before you begin. An additional limitation is that there is no way of saving the audio file to upload Audioboo application and site registration is free.


Documents 2: This application lets you use your iPhone as a storage device so you can carry documents with you. In addition to having a storage device you can download documents from your Google Documents account, through a WiFi connection or an FTP account. It’s handy when you can send emails with the necessary documents when you’re not at your desk or in front of your laptop. Not having the right documents at hand could cause a delay in distributing key information through email or even through blogs and social media.

The application however is limited by the iPhone’s capabilities. You can download a free version but it comes with advertisements, which are not overly annoying.


Flickr (or Photobucket): Sharing your photos through Facebook and Twitter is great but it probably isn’t reaching your entire network; or even the widest possible audience. Using applications like the one from Flickr to upload photos to your account can help increase the visibility of your photo(s). The application gives you the option of adding a title, description, tags and assign pictures to albums; as well as the picture size. There is the option to upload multiple pictures. The interface is simple to use however, it can be confusing as to how you upload a picture the first time you try.

The application is free but requires a Flickr account, which is also free. If you’re using Yahoo!7 mail or have an account then you’re ready to go.

Photobucket is another photo sharing and networking site. It’s application is sophisticated and easy to use, with options to add a title, description, tags and assign pictures to albums. Like the Flickr application, you need to have a Photobucket account to use the application. It’s free to download and to register a Photobucket account.


Qik Video: lets you record video using the iPhone's camera. It's also possible tostream the video live to the Internet.

There are a range of video modes to select from before shooting your video. For example youshoot video in sepia, black and white or with frost, among others. The application alsoincludes zoom and light-balance functionalities. It's an easy-to-understand and easy-to-useapplication.You can connect the application with your Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter accounts to helptell all your followers about the video.

This application is great for activists while they're out attending a rally or demonstration. Itcan also be a great tool to interview different people involved with the campaign to add toyour blog or share with friends on Facebook and Twitter; including in real time, as it'shappening.


PhotoShop Express: This application is a god-send. Having looked at a large range of photo-editing applications, this is by far the best one. There will be those that argue thatInstagram is the better application, I find the fact that membership to a site not be necessary to be a major advantage.

PhotoShop Express is from those wonderful folk at PhotoShop. The application is a very simple, cut-down version of the PhotoShop. It gives you a limited range of functionality butit does deliver is powerful and effective.

The application also allows you share your edited pictures with your online social networks.There are no limitations on the number of pictures you can edit and it is free to download.


Bambuser: is a popular app already used by many Middle Eastern activists.

The sheer power of Bambuser came to light when Egyptian activist Tarek Shalaby was arrested during a protest outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo. In the harrowing recording, which streamed live at the time of his arrest, you can clearly hear Egyptian security forces attacking protesters.

In addition to live streaming video, you can automatically connect the service to your social networks, sending a notification to Facebook, Twitter and 10 other sites, that you’re video is live.

Bambuser is available as a free download and is compatible with over 260 phone models, including all iPhone models, Nokia phones and a wide variety of Android phones.


AndroidLost: Activists in the Middle East face a serious risk of being arrested by governmental security forces. Their smartphones, while an essential weapon in protests, can easily become a weapon used against them when detained. One way in which activists can protect themselves, and their contacts’ identities, is by wiping their phones and restoring them to factory settings.

AndroidLost is available as a free download from the Android Market. After you’ve installed and activated the app on your phone, you can log into the web interface where you can remotely control your phone.

You can share your log-in information with a trusted friend, or under Security you can add their phone number so they can SMS commands to your phone, which will come in handy if WiFi or data has been disabled. You can also enter a passcode to lock your phone, and most importantly if you have sensitive data on your phone, you can wipe the SD card or reset the phone to factory settings.

United States Army and Marine troops join #OCCUPY Everywhere

The Occupy Wall Street movement may have thought it broke new ground when the NYC Transit Union joined their movement, but that ground just tipped the Richter Scale with news that United States Army and Marine troops are reportedly on their way to various protest locations to support the movement and to protect the protesters.

“I’m heading up there tonight in my dress blues. So far, 15 of my fellow marine buddies are meeting me there, also in Uniform. I want to send the following message to Wall St and Congress:I didn’t fight for Wall St. I fought for America. Now it’s Congress’ turn.


My true hope, though, is that we Veterans can act as first line of defense between the police and the protester. If they want to get to some protesters so they can mace them, they will have to get through the Fucking Marine Corps first. Let’s see a cop mace a bunch of decorated war vets.I apologize now for typos and errors.


Typing this on iPhone whilst heading to NYC. We can organize once we’re there. That’s what we do best.If you see someone in uniform, gather together.


A formation will be held tonight at 10PM.


We all took an oath to uphold, protect and defend the constitution of this country. That’s what we will be doing.

SOURCE HERE

iPhone is watching you!

Creepy...

If you’ve got an iPhone, pretty much everything you have done on your handset has been temporarily stored as a screenshot that hackers or forensics experts could eventually recover, according to a renowned iPhone hacker who exposed the security flaw in a webcast Thursday.


While demonstrating how to break the iPhone’s passcode lock in a webcast, iPhone hacker and data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski explained that the popular handset snaps a screenshot of your most recent action — regardless of whether it’s sending a text message, e-mailing or browsing a web page — in order to cache it. This is purely for aesthetic purposes: When an iPhone user taps the Home button, the window of the application you have open shrinks and disappears. In order to create that shrinking effect, the iPhone snaps a screenshot, Zdziarski said.


The phone presumably deletes the image after you close the application. But anyone who understands data is aware that in most cases, deletion does not permanently remove files from a storage device. Therefore, forensics experts have used this security flaw to gather evidence against criminals convicted of rape, murder or drug deals, Zdziarski said.


"There’s no way to prevent it," Zdziarski said during the webcast.
"I’m kind of divided on it. I hope Apple fixes it because it’s a significant privacy leak, but at the same time it’s been useful for investigating criminals."

CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY

HTTPS Everywhere from the EFF

Secure your Intenet!

HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It encrypts your communications with a number of major websites.


Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use. For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site.


The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by rewriting all requests to these sites to HTTPS. Firefox users can get it by clicking here:

http://www.eff.org/https-everywhere