Unveiling Stratfor 4: On A Lighter Note

Since I’m still working my way through the reams of emails on Anonymous and letting the information work it’s way through my thought processes, I decided to take a break and show you the humorous side of Stratfor. Sorry, Stratfor guys, I lied when I said I was done having some fun at your expense. :-D

Yep, folks. Stratfor's not all dark and shadowy. Now, I’m not out to embarrass anyone without cause so I’ve removed the names of the analysts who made the comments below and have not included the email references in my release.

In addition, I'm giving Stratfor 1 Brownie point towards their Humor badge. ;-D So, Brownie points are back to 1.

The humor, albeit a little on the dark side, ranges from analyst reactions to things like SHAC’s harassment of Goldman Sachs [CT] list to numerous conspiracy theories which they receive and dutifully place on their [Analytical and Intelligence Comments] list …

(Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I’m against animal cruelty of any kind but frankly SHAC is nuts so I wouldn’t defend them either).

In response to this report:

Goldman Sachs claims it is being harassed by a group of British protesters who accuse one of its executives of "torturing puppies". In papers filed at a Washington court, the U.S. banking giant is seeking to block Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (known as SHAC) and another animal rights group from demonstrating on its property or contacting its staff. It claims that SHAC has targeted the bank over its business links to Huntingdon Life Sciences, the animal testing laboratory in Cambridgeshire, which protesters accuse of "mistreating and killing dogs".

Source
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8212691/Goldman-Sachs-seeks-injunction-against-anti-Huntingdon-protesters.html

Analyst: “LOL. They're screwed. SHAC is crazy. They will go after the GS execs at their homes.... “

Analyst: “I like their tactics and could easily be an operative. I would leave a python in the exec's toilet bowl, put a rattler in the bed, place a mongoose in the backseat of their Lexus, make anonymous calls to the IRS and place their names on every NAMBLA and hard core porn mailing list w/a typo so their neighbors receive the packages. “

Analyst: “Another good one to pull off is to call a funeral home and tell them your elderly uncle just passed away (the exec) at home. Give them the execs house address. The funeral home will show up at the door to be greeted by the Exec in his Gucci bathrobe and slippers. "Hello, I'm so sorry for your loss, but I'm here to pick up the deceased (the exec.)"

 To the media reports that go on the [Social] list (hilarious):

[Social]

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpps/news/dpgoh-carly-houston-makes-911-call-from-jail-fc-20100324_6724504
Woman Makes 911 Call from Jail
Updated: Wednesday, 24 Mar 2010, 9:13 AM CDT
Published : Wednesday, 24 Mar 2010, 8:43 AM CDT
(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Here's what not to do with your one jailhouse
call: Dial 911 and report you are trapped a** inside the jail.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/ap_on_fe_st/odd911_abuse;_ylt=AtN60xQ3Qi7e5MMt0gGAVHwDW7oF
Man calls 911 to save him from police
Mon Jul 16, 6:08 PM ET
LARGO, Fla. - A 38-year-old man was arrested after he called 911 and told
a dispatcher he was surrounded by police officers and needed help,
authorities said.

 And to all you conspiracy theorists out there, I did look up 9/11 to see what they had to say about it and I did it just for you ;-D If there was a 9/11 conspiracy or even a hint of one, these are the guys who presumably would have known about it.

Here is the only email I could find on 9/11 (other than the ones sent to them from people outside of Stratfor offering up numerous theories).

Date 2001-09-19 23:59:38
From friedman@infraworks.com
To cartwright@infraworks.com, Social@infraworks.com,Others
MessageId: <2804E3BAEF0EF349B6750F32EF7A93FC37784B@main.infraworks.com>
InReplyTo: 003b01cb0b8a$428b7820$c7a26860$@gibbons@stratfor.com
Text

Mr. O'connor's IQ--11.

Value of Mr. O'connor's time--worthless.

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cartwright
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 4:57 PM
To: Social
Subject: FW: #11

-----Original Message-----
From: dennis O'Connor [mailto:daocop@dashlink.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 5:01 PM
To: John Cartwright
Subject: #11

The #11

Have you seen this??

Not sure how it may or may not play a role in ANYTHING, but sure is odd.

You decide:

The date of the attack: 9/11 and 9+1+1=11
September 11th is the 254th day of the year:2+5+4=11
After September 11th there is 111 days left to the end of the year.
119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran: 1+1+9=11
Twin Towers- standing side by side look like the number 11.
First plane to hit the towers was Flight 11.
State of New York- The 11th State added to the Union.
New York City- 11 Letters
Afghanistan - 11 Letters
The Pentagon- 11 Letters
Ramzi Yousef- 11 Letters (convicted of plotting the WTC bombing in 1993
Flight 11- 92 on board 9+2=11
Flight 77- 65 on board- 6+5=11

You decide!

The Unveiling Stratfor series of articles is being produced as the result of an investigative partnership organised by WikiLeaks, and is based on data obtained and released by WikiLeaks

Unveiling Stratfor 3: Anonymous Defined?

Okay, now that I’ve had my bit of fun at Stratfor’s expense in my previous post …

I’m going through all of the emails related to Anonymous as thoroughly as possible. A bit challenging since the term comes up in thousands of emails, many of which are just using it as a descriptive word and not talking about the Anonymous collective.

Stratfor apparently became interested in Anonymous with the launch of Operation PayBack. An Anon Op in support of Wikileaks.

The very first email I located was dated December 9, 2010 (DocID: 35760):

“2010-12-09 06:29:38

Thanks. I'm getting a kick out of Anon activities related to this whole thing. “

That comment was in response to the following email sent by an external party to the above Stratfor employee:

“Dec 7, 2010, at 11:50 AM

sup man

here's some extra info along these same lines:

http://www.neontommy.com/news/2010/12/war-internet-anonymous-defends-wikileaks-after-cablegate”

I’m sure Anonymous will be pleased to note that Stratfor analysts initially found their antics lulzy. ;-D

The above email exchange is also interesting for another reason. The party that sent the information to Stratfor used a Fark.com email address. Fark is a “news aggregator” site for geeks.

However, I should point out that one really can’t come to any conclusions about that relationship without more information. Companies like Stratfor tend to work very hard on establishing a particular image and building relationships. As a result their sources often aren’t fully aware of who they’re dealing with and what the real agenda is. On the other hand, sometimes the sources are quite aware and paid very well to do what they do.

Either way, the significance of this is simply that it's just more evidence that the intelligence agencies and the private corporations associated with them, (aka the Military Industrial Complex) are using social media as an Intelligence source and have been for at least the last few years.

Both the HBGary leak and this current Stratfor leak confirm this as a fact.

Yet despite this fact, there still appears to be a lot of confusion amongst the analysts where non-traditional organizations like Anonymous are concerned. Of course, the purpose of analyzing groups like Anonymous is so that they can attempt to predict future behavior. If they don’t understand the organization, they can’t intervene, infiltrate, or develop accurate predictions about future behavior easily. 

I put this limitation in understanding down to the simple fact that these agencies and corporations live in a “Cold War” world and have a “Cold War” psychology.

They have yet to clue in that the “Cold War” was over in the 1980s and that world has progressed in ways that appear to be quite incomprehensible to them precisely because of their own psychology and it’s associated limitations.

I would apply the very same comments and critique to the traditional political organizations (left, liberal and right).

It is this inability to comprehend that will result in their eventual downfall and has resulted in their complete exposure.

I would ask the Citizenry to consider this:

Is this the world you want for your future and the future of your children?

A world where corporations like Stratfor can invade your privacy in ways previously unheard of through social media, sometimes with the active collusion of the social media, as well as attempt to manipulate public opinion in favor of the corporations and agencies that hire them?

From the first email I published on the “Threat Assessment” in my previous post:

“What about defining Anonymous in terms of the individual? Instead of

saying Anonymous attacking cartels, Individuals acting under the

Anonymous name.... Yes”

What about defining Anonymous truthfully?

Brownie points = 0.

The Unveiling Stratfor series of articles is being produced as the result of an investigative partnership organised by WikiLeaks, and is based on data obtained and released by WikiLeaks

Unveiling Stratfor 2: Anonymous. A threat assessment?

Forgive me for saying this, Stratfor guys … but does a threat assessment usually consist of a bunch of people talking out of their asses with no real clue about the topic they’re assessing?

You guys appear to be quite intelligent, and can be pretty amusing, but this particular email, dated 24/10/2011 20:54 (DocID: 156506),  just made me laugh (at you, not with you). 

“I agree. I haven't seen any defining attributes of Anonymous as a group.

They may not even know the identities of each other. There are several

facebook / twitter Anonymous pages, which seem to be run by different

individuals.”

“But we don't know what information Anonymous' adherents have access to,

and doubt they have such information that provides any sort of

existential threat to the cartels as a whole or their networks.

This is a problem with the threat assessment.”

The problem with the threat assessment, apparently, and according to the analysts, is the fact that Stratfor has no clue who or what Anonymous is, how to define Anonymous, or even what Anonymous capabilities are.

So, they realize that they don’t have what they need to do a threat assessment and then proceed to do a threat assessment? Okay, well they get one brownie point towards their honesty badge. I’ll give them that.

“Yes, it's not exactly a 'threat assessment'. just say we don't know. And we can say

we doubt they have it because they haven't shown much capabilities to

get at insider/confidential/classified information, rather mostly DDOS

attacks. However, there are people that have demonstrated such

capabilities, and its possible they also joined an 'anonymous'

campaign--like whoever got the recent personal data out of the Sony

PSN.”

Speculative and baseless at the time it was written, but no doubt later proven to be true given that Stratfor themselves later got hacked. Lol.

I just have to wonder why the focus of this “threat assessment” is Anonymous? Isn’t bringing down organized crime considered to be a good thing by Stratfor?

This series of articles is being produced as the result of an investigative partnership organised by WikiLeaks, and is based on data obtained and released by WikiLeaks.

Unveiling Stratfor 1: WikiLeaks

I’m amazed, excited and looking forward to the writing opportunity that I’ve recently been entrusted with.

It seems that WikiLeaks has expanded their base into Bloggerland and is allowing me and presumably other bloggers access to the GI (Global Intelligence) File archives consisting of the Stratfor data obtained by Wikileaks, and, for the purpose of researching them and writing articles based on the information in them.

Of course, my first search was “Anonymous” and “Lulzsec”…

What a fascinating look into the minds of the analysts and the company, apparently known as the “Shadow CIA”.

So far, they don’t appear to be too evil but I suspect I’ve just scratched the surface in the last few hours.

More to come over the next week ….


The Unveiling Stratfor series of articles is being produced as the result of an investigative partnership organised by WikiLeaks, based on data obtained and released by WikiLeaks.