Posted on 08/04/2013 1:52:33 AM PDT by MikeSteelBe
This a warning to all of our members, readers, supporters, and to the general liberty movement.
Please be extremely careful with email, and do not open any attachments from anyone who you don’t know, or from any suspicious email, such as tormail. And even if it seems to be from someone you know, take the time to read the email address carefully, to see if it is from a Tormail account, or other anonymous email service. It could be someone impersonating someone you know, to trick you into opening files with child-porn on them.
No one here at Oath Keepers uses tormail or any other anonymous email service, so if you see an email purporting to be from Oath Keepers, or from anyone in leadership at Oath Keepers, from such an email service, do not open it.
There have been a string of anonymous attacks on liberty activists, all attempting to trick people into opening email attachments containing child-porn. We know of at least four such attempts within the past few weeks.
The first was when someone emailed Luke Rudkowski, Founder of We Are Change and tried to trick him into opening attached jpeg files containing child porn. Luke was able to use the “view” function of his email to see that the images were child porn and he did not open them.
Then, someone using a tormail account tried to do the same thing to Dan Johnson, Founder of People Against the NDAA (PANDA). Whoever emailed Dan Johnson pretended to be me, Stewart Rhodes, but using a Tormail account. Fortunately, Dan knew that I don’t use Tormail, and therefore he did not open the attachments. Instead, he had a computer security expert examine the files, and that expert determined that they contained child porn. You can read more about that attack, and watch a video we made about it, here.
Well, a few days later it happened again, to two other liberty activists we know. They have chosen, for the time being, to not go public about it, in the hopes that the FBI will have a better chance of catching the perp. All of us have reported these incidents to the FBI, through attorney Sue Basko.
Sue has written a very well done description of what happened, what we did to report it, and some important advice on how you can keep from being victimized by whoever is doing this. Here is an excerpt of that tutorial. Please take her advice to heart, and be very careful online.
Stewart Rhodes
Obama’s boys and girls, again.
Pardon, but more information is needed here on either the threat or how to avoid it. Since the prior is unlikely, I hope this helps some out there scratching their heads about what to do
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/safe-reading-pane/
It’s my understanding that Eudora also has a “Preview” function, fyi.
Also fyi, most of these type of attacks involve “exploits” which are code that runs and installs upon opening the email or clicking on a link in the email. There is no mention of that in this posting, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the case.
Cases like these serve to remind to use basic procedures to protect yourself.
Its web-based email that I have had for- almost as long as I have been online
“Somebody set up us the porn!”
correct ... not simply dirty pictures.
I agree. And BTW, whoever is doing that “The FBI has seized your computer over child porn” thing, they need to be caught and flayed.
...Luke was able to use the “view” function of his email to see that the images were child porn and he did not open them...Hate to tell ya, but "view" means the image was "opened". That's how "view" works -- it opens the file.
The fact that a separate application such as photoshop or gallery did not launch means nothing. The image was opened.
Just sayin'...
I’ve worked with law enforcement doing data forensics for cases like this. The simple inadvertent viewing of these images is difficult to prosecute. Going to a website and you suddenly realize it has these pictures isn’t going to get you arrested. Not if you leave the site upon realizing what it is.
Its when people camp out on the websites or save the pictures to their hard drive that the crime is committed.
So similarly simply receiving an email isn’t a crime. I fully agree with reporting it and documenting it to protect yourself. No email is truly anonymous and it should be possible to track the source given access to the systems involved. An action the FBI is unlikely to take in the best of times, they simply don’t have the resources.
I suspect this action is intended to simply disrupt the activities of the people concerned and is less intended to actually get them in legal trouble.
Don’t know for certain but have to believe that the originators are setting up drones for some type of purpose. The purpose might be a two plus two equals four.
One would think so.
When in doubt, hit “reply” first without intending to send anything — you’ll see the real address of the sender, regardless of what was in the incoming “From:” field.
point given to your post ... and Thanks
Unless he cleaned (wiped) his drive the image is probably still there as well.
Erasing an email or a file doesn’t eliminate the data.
It is probably not that sinister. Sometimes the spammers are so incompetent that they botch which address to put in which field. I’ve gotten spam that has something like “*** product name here ***” in the “Subject:” field.
Blocking emails from foreign IPs (Russia, China, India, Brazil, Nigeria, etc) can help reduce the amount of junk.
A truly sophisticated person wouldn’t even need to send you an email.
All they’d have to do is post a properly crafted innocent image to a site like FR and get you to view it. That image would download the desired files to your PC without your knowledge. Wouldn’t work 100% of the time but it would be easy to target individuals in this manner.
yes ... the methods are outpacing the solutions in all aspects. Too far down the path to be too concerned though. Is any of this information classified? Don’t answer ... all of us might find out .... LOL
“... in the hopes that the FBI will have a better chance of catching the perp.”
Wow, I hope Mr. Rhodes isn’t the naïf he seems to be.
This Hope and Change, Mr. Rhodes.
Nope, and the bad guys already know all of it.
Its really really sad what people do to children.
yes to both statements.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.