Interference with Personal Internet Communications: Asking Help / Opinions From FR Web Tech Guru's

I'm experiencing a number of unusual communications issues that have been interfering with my ability to access and use web functions, including blocking my access to Free Republic, and disrupting my search functionality.

I'm not talking about the recent issues with changes in the home port location of the FR webpage. I'm technically literate, so its not a problem with the cache being stuffed or anything obvious like that.

Just got off the phone with Jim Rob so have cleared the potential issues there... but PLEASE NOTE: unfortunately, I called before seeing this:

It appears it is a knowing and deliberate interference being imposed with origins at the ISP level... filtering my access based on content.

Similar issues exist elsewhere... as searching Youtube using the "best" Google search functions inside Youtube won't show you what you're looking for, but searching Youtube using an external search engine with the exact same keywords DOES show what you're seeking ? Obviously it is not a function that is random.

I'm asking for others with technical knowledge of the web privacy issues and wrongful intrusion to add evidence of any other such instances, or seek discussion of how best to capture evidence of this wrongful behavior to enable legal action. Opinions from lawyers with internet related experience would be useful.

My first attempts at accessing FR today yield: "Hmm. We’re having trouble finding that site."...

An aside: When I look at "Isitdownrightnow.com" it says FR is down... yet here I am posting on FR ? Anyone else see that... or do you see something different ?

Began my effort today, before looking for FR, using simple search, straight forward, using Startpage.com as a search engine. Search looked at the single entry word "Smartmatic". Not TOR, no VPN, not a company, no unique firewall or browser configurations... have IP Tables set to filter our DNS addys in a list of known hostile locations... so could be a local ISP with spoofing issue.

Same type of statistical effort applied in proving election fraud might expose this issue incontrovertibly ?

My first search effort today returned generic garbage... so refined that search once and repeated... got this in reply:

We apologize for the inconvenience: to prevent possible abuse of the Startpage.com service, your Internet connection has been prevented from accessing it at this time.

This happens when a large number of search requests are received from one's Internet connection in a short amount of time -- for example, if you are using "screen-scraping" software, or if you are sharing a connection with many people, perhaps through a proxy service.

Otherwise, if you have received this message in error, please help us in investigation by providing following information:

- Are you using TOR or other anonymous proxies? - Do you have special browser configuration or extensions? - Are you using VPN? - Are you using a company network?

We will seek to refine and correct this whenever possible. Thank you for your patience.

Startpage works using Google as a backend but (in theory) scrapes identifiable information, keeps no logs, etc.

Having tested the issue on my end, it does appear this "error" occurs ONLY when I'm searching terms clearly relevant to the ongoing election fraud or particular interest in politics, non MSM sources and opinion.

It is also obvious that search results being returned are "cooked" to make them "generic" at best... including preventing search access to known resources that exist.

Did SolarWinds Make the Right Move in Hiring Former CISA Director Christopher Krebs?

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3925598/posts

If you consider this hire in relation to the history on this thread, in which Freepers (because targeted) exposed the bigger hack underlying the Solar Winds partial exposure... and see it mostly in relation to the “social hacking” element in particular...

Q: Why would anyone hire a guy who was exposed as being the most clueless... in an attempt to restore “integrity” lost due to that exact cluelessness ?

A: Because it suggests the only failure they recognize having occurred... was in getting caught.

Yes, events post “Solar Winds” suggest more over time that the hack was “Deep State” in origin... not “foreign” and not “domestic”... but “globalist” in origin... that including both foreign and domestic components... including a domestic Advanced Persistent Threat that “lost an asset” in the Solar Winds hack being exposed.

I’ve seen no credible effort being made to address any of the larger issues that were behind enabling the Solar Winds hack... which was only “an instance” of the exploitation of LARGER proven vulnerabilities.

The silence is the definitive answer...

Thought it worth an update here, with another pat on the back for the crowd here who helped to crowd source awareness of the vulnerability, and generate exposure of the hack, that enabled (among others) the Solar Winds exploit.

One of the core vulnerabilities we identified in this thread is now being addressed, in some small part, at least: The assumption that anyone with status as an approved system software provider should be “trusted” is being revised... their former grant of access to all the files in your system, by default, is being altered to enable “trusted provider” access to their own files, only, and not others.

Here’s how they’re addressing that in Ubuntu version 21:

...”for new installations of Ubuntu 21.04, or for users created on a machine that has been upgraded to Ubuntu 21.04, home directories will be private by default.

“For a lot of systems that have only one primary user, this change may not appear to have a huge impact. However, whilst these machines may have only one human user, they likely have other user accounts already on them which are created by various system services. This change now means that in the future if an attacker were to exploit some previously unknown vulnerability in a given system service that is running as a separate user, they would then not be able to access the data of any other user (both human or system service) on the system. This provides a more secure out-of-the-box experience for users and system administrators.”

https://ubuntu.com/blog/private-home-directories-for-ubuntu-21-04

I assume others are making similar changes to restrict how much system level access is granted based on “trust by default” of every and all of the peripheral players. The knock on and network effects of making that change should dramatically alter the intrinsic risk profile and security of everyone and everything... for a while, at least.

Will be interesting to note changes in the environment that result... as the pace of development in new exploits slows in response... and a lot of undiscovered exploits are shutdown because of the change... as the change is implemented. Legacy systems won’t be effected... so the primary impact should become apparent in an enhanced stability apparent in newer OS installations and upgrades.

Legacy systems should be able to be upgraded too, with some fairly simple inputs... at least in the linux/unix related communities... but herding the cats to enable it without it breaking things in legacy-land might be harder.

Anyway... thanks again for helping to make the digital world a safer place.

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