A Warning About "GUN" The New Social Networking Website for Radicals

From Snitchwire

According to posts on Indymedia sites:

'The Guerrilla Underground Network (GUN) is an autonomous & rhizomal co-mutiny of resistance, & is open to all who seek social change from below.

You can customize your page, share photos, post your own videos and music, post blogs, start your own groups, CHAT, and much more! Feel free to invite your friends.

Obviously social networking (mapping) sites are sketch as fuck and should be approached with caution and the utmost security culture (see our Online Security discussion for tips on internet anonymity), but hey, it's better than facebook or myspace.

Hope to see you there. guerrillaunderground.ning.com"

SnitchWire STRONGLY cautions people to NOT USE this site. Here are our reasons for doing so.

1. It is hosted on a third party host (ning.com) (like Geocities or Blogger for social networking sites). This means that ALL information gathered by this site is viewable by a third party.

2. The domain registration information for Ning.com does not list any real names, only their postal address (735 Emerson St. Pal Alto, CA).

3. The property listed in the domain registration is owned by "Strategic Decisions Group" which sounds like an intel collection firm if we've ever heard of one. According to their website "Strategic Decisions Group is a strategy consulting firm renowned for its expertise in strategic decision-making, risk management, and shareholder value creation." On their website, they list their allies and customers. Among the list is Nuclear Power, known gentrifying forces, and pretty much anybody evil you can think of. They were targeted by Santa Cruz activists for their association with military recruiting centers.

4. The advertising on ning.com will hand over your IP address to
advertisers such as Google and anybody who chooses to buy an ad (as they
must be displayed to you, causing you to connect to them). If you have
javascript enabled, these banners can grab your browser history. If you
have javascript and flash enabled (if YouTube works for you), even using
the "clear private data" function on your computer/browser won't protect
you from things such as flash cookies.

5. Ning.com has a horrible privacy policy, allowing them source
information about you from external sources and release your personally
identifiable information if "we have a good-faith belief that doing so
is required by a subpoena or other judicial or administrative order or
otherwise required by law". In other words, they don't require a warrant
or other legal process, only the threat that it will be enforced.
"Additionally, Ning may disclose Personal Information where we, in good
faith, deem it appropriate or necessary to prevent violation of the Ning
Terms of Service, or our other agreements; take precautions against
liability; protect the rights, property, or safety of Ning, any
individual, or the general public; maintain and protect the security and
integrity of our services or infrastructure; protect ourselves and our
services from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses; investigate and
defend ourselves against third-party claims or allegations; or assist
government enforcement agencies." SO, they'll be giving your information
to anybody in a suit who asks for it if they aren't the suits
themselves. They will also give your information to any entity who buys
Ning. It's worth nothing that many such services and organizations have
been set up by spooks in the past for the purpose of gathering information.

6. Social networking in general is a bad idea. There's no reason to use
it given the privacy you're giving up.

7. Tech collectives that have a long track record in the activist world
such as Riseup.net already have social networking platforms such as
crabgrass (we.riseup.net) if you really must use social networking.

8. Unlike Riseup and other activist-run services who encrypt the data on
their servers and have vowed to protect their user information (and only
gather it when absolutely necessary), Ning does not encrypt their
information or at least I couldn't find any proof of it.

9. In their posts advertising their site, they encourage people to check
out the "security advice" on their website, which suggests that people
use a one-hop proxy to "protect their anonymity" but these proxies are
completely worthless. They also provide non-https links to
https://www.torproject.org and other legitimate anonymity/encryption
systems, allowing an intermediary (such as the NSA) to see what you're
doing on those sites with ease. It also allows an intermediary to inject
a fake program in place of the real program without your knowledge.

Anybody with additional interesting information is encouraged to contact
SnitchWire (at) gmail [ dot] com. If you get down with encryption, use
our PGP key.

why not use we.riseup?

why not use we.riseup?

i use we.riseup but there's

i use we.riseup but there's just such limited activity on there. isn't it just an alpha test version?

With a population so divided

With a population so divided in reality, and so into social networking sites, it's tempting, but just not worth it. we.riseup is a bit awkward to use, but functional and well-intentioned at least.

it is divided as in Dems and

it is divided as in Dems and Republicans. The anarchists are on the fringe buddy.

Like this site is any safer?

Like this site is any safer? If you get busted like Jesse Forrey, just flip like your kind usually does and then whine like a lil' bitch when the Judge give you 120 days.

wtf do you mean 'flip'? and

wtf do you mean 'flip'?
and what are you supposed to do when the state steals chunks of your life? thank them and kiss their ass?

> "6. Social networking in

> "6. Social networking in general is a bad idea. There's no reason to use it given the privacy you're giving up."

We get so concerned with certain luddite-insurrectionist fads going around that sometimes we fail to notice that we don't really NEED to debate such inanity. It's alright if they lag in comprehension of such basic components of the world how the world is developing. They're aggressively pursuing irrelevancy.

thanks to snitchwire for

thanks to snitchwire for these concerns.

i am "Ab Irato," the creator of GUN.

i would like to say that the lack of communication on this issue is unfortunate.

i like to be accountable to my community and wish you all had just come to me with these concerns.

i was unaware of the issues with nign, which are legit concerns.

would you say it's any worse than myspace, facebook, blogger, etc.?

we.riseup.net is great and will get better.

i should also say that i

i should also say that i know jack shit about internet anonymity and that is something i'm trying to learn right now. i apologize to the community if the social network i created has become a liability or something. such was not my intent.

The intent of your group

The intent of your group didn't point to anything particularly militant to be spoken of in your forum and I feel the author of this is largely hyperbolic and fearful of most social networking. I am on facebook, as are numbers of anarchists and it is well known that facebook is compromising for anything that would actually behave as an underground. You and other GUN participants are invited to participate on the RAAN forums to discuss this issue further. Many people that participate in RAAN use the internet, while others don't at all. Also grabass, I mean crabgrass, sucks.

thanks hp/ i'm trying not to

thanks hp/ i'm trying not to take all this personally. i know they're just trying to look out for our peeps.

snitchwire is on blogger,

snitchwire is on blogger, which is google-owned an operated. how is that any better? (granted, snitchwire doesn't serve as a social network, but still...)

"SnitchWire exists solely

"SnitchWire exists solely for the purpose of investigating and objectively reporting on the existence and actions of known informants, infiltrators, rats, snitches, and provocatuers."

well, apparently not solely.

yeah sounds like

yeah sounds like complainWire on that one. <3

oh no, an organization

oh no, an organization violated its original purpose!

This concerns SnitchWire

This concerns SnitchWire because the State can use social networking to link informants with activists as well as use data they gather from the usage of these sites to use against people in the real world.

fair enough

fair enough

does AnarchistNews and

does AnarchistNews and similar anarchist websites have mechanisms to avoid informants from gaining information about people to be used against them irl?

I'm gathering information on

I'm gathering information on all of you right now.

OMG!As if the panopticon was

OMG!As if the panopticon was not realised 8yrs ago.All this paranoia!Get a non-anonomous life!

"They also provide non-https

"They also provide non-https links to
https://www.torproject.org"

fixed.

social networking "in

social networking "in general" is fine, its social networking on a computer thats given up information on yourself to everyone.

If you're concerned about

If you're concerned about your privacy, you truly shouldn't be on the internet at all, seriously.

Take a look at the book "How To Be Invisible" or any of the number of other books on privacy concerns. Nearly all of them declare that there is no such thing as privacy on the internet.

And what was the slam at the "luddite fad" thing? Are you still caught up in the green versus red debate, friend? Come on, get with the times, the new shitstorm is insurrectionary versus identity politics. Gawd. Oh, and fuck you for the slam anyway-the internet has existed for how long? And human beings existed for how long without it and now eek by an "existence"? Fuck ya!

Co-Intel Pro

Co-Intel Pro warning!!

Having checked-out the website above and followed some of the links back to another website and done a little more digging here are my own personal conclusions

It appears that concerns about the website GUN may not be totally unfounded.

Below are some discussion threads which appeared at another site related to the individual calling themselves 'Dirty Hands' in this thread.

I personally have no information that could confirm or deny any of the serious accusations contained in these links, and post them only in the interest of full disclosure

First link: Woman Indicted of Threatening Bomb-Plot Informant Brandon Darby

Second link:VOTE!!! PROPOSAL AGAINST POLICE ACTIVITY ON GNN: JHOLON

Third link:An Underground Alternative to GNN

I urge readers not to jump on any bandwagon, but to read and decide for themselves. I do not subscribe to the theory that "there is no smoke without fire".

Please remember the definition of the phrase "Honey Pot" when used in a security context

yeah take the word of those

yeah take the word of those slandering, Tea Party, Patriot/Liberty Movement, 911 Truth, UFO/crop circle fuck-faces. god fucking damnit people. for real.

i mean, one of those fucking

i mean, one of those fucking assholes took my REAL FACE from a indy press pass from the DNC where i filmed for subMedia and photoshopped it onto a wanted poster for Brandon Darby. if there's any COINELPRO-type shit, it's the accusations thrown around against me (ShiftShapers) on GNN.

for sure, judge for yourself. it should be obvious enough that those fucks are full of shit.

the people whose accusations you're considering here are straight-up trolls

bad-jacketing

bad-jacketing

their basic argument is that

their basic argument is that i do not denounce armed struggle (and in fact support it as a right of the oppressed) so i just must be an agent provocateur. we're talking about people who hate anarchists here. Alex Jones fans. anyone organizing against the DNC must be a cop working for the Republicans. that kind of thinking.

I read through those links

I read through those links posted earlier.

Oh wow, some of those people really don't like you, do they?

But dismissing them all with the catch-all phrase 'Alex Jones Fans' seems to me to be just an appeal based on emotion or an appeal to a hoped-for pre-existing anti-jones bias, rather than to reason.

No one is automatically taking the word of those "slandering, Tea Party, Patriot/Liberty Movement, 911 Truth, UFO/crop circle fuck-faces" as you put it. At least I am not.

You might not to have noticed that the anonymous poster above did specifically request that people make up their own minds and not jump to conclusions.

You do seem to have come here to try and influence readers though. 4 posts in 5 minutes, and then another 2 posts later. 7 in all. They do seem to be getting to you.

"Honeypot" doesn't seem like the correct term to describe your home page at that site, GNN, but personally I'd be suspicious of any anarchist that only seeks to portray anarchy as violent.

A new-kid-on-the-block might think it was cool, but I've been around a long time (I was quietly active on the Philly scene during the terrible Reagan era) and have seen many cops try and act like anarchists in order to infiltrate. They often slip-up by over-acting the role. You don't appear to be a new-kid-on-the-block according to what you say about yourself, so what are you playing at?

I'm not surprised that someone has pointed the finger at you when I look at the overall image you are seeking to portray on your home page, to be honest. There is a lot of paranoia about these matters.

Having once worked in marketing (I know, I know - what can I say, I was young and foolish :) I immediately saw that the imagery on your home page seemed to be aimed at appealing to young testosteroned teenage males, which does seem to be that websites main demographic.

The GUN site contains much the same sort of imagery, and it just seems to be a replication of your other home page. As one of the posters in one of those linked threads said: "too many cowbells"

The remark in one of the linked threads about you re-posting ELF Press Office releases even after being warned about them does seem a little 'off kilter'. It's fairly well-known in the Anarcho scene that ELF Press office might well be Feds.

Again I have to ask, "What are you playing at"?

Draping yourself in Anarchist symbols and constantly promoting violence is really not what anarchy is about.

If you were some teenage kid I would understand. But you claim to be oldskool

i don't claim to be

i don't claim to be "oldskool." i've always been transparent about my activities.

"4 posts in 5 minutes, and then another 2 posts later. 7 in all. They do seem to be getting to you."

yeah incessant accusations can take their psychological toll. it's tiring.

and i don't "portray anarchy as violent," i just don't condemn armed revolt against oppression.

"Draping yourself in Anarchist symbols and constantly promoting violence is really not what anarchy is about."

agreed.

You agree a lot but offer

You agree a lot but offer nothing in the way of explanation.

You were all riled-up and offering unasked for self-justification earlier. Now when someone actually seeks an explanation for what looks like an unwise promotion of petty violence (at least to me) you clam up.

Strange.

By the looks of it you're not willing to engage on any of this so your earlier claim of wishng to accountable was just soft-soaping by the looks of it.

Simply agreeing with me that "Draping yourself in Anarchist symbols and constantly promoting violence is really not what anarchy is about" makes it look like you're totally oblivious to the fact that it was actually your behavior I was referring to when I wrote that. Again, strange.

And my reference to 'oldskool' had nothing to do with transparency.

"And my reference to

"And my reference to 'oldskool' had nothing to do with transparency."

what i meant was that it's quite clear how long i've been active and what i've been up to. how 'oldskool' can someone under 30 be, i mean really?

Isn't GNN just a place for

Isn't GNN just a place for people to fuck around on? I mean, are there people who actually take it seriously? If so, then my mind is blown. Also, are you ShiftShapers, or are being accused of something by ShiftShapers -- you're sentence was confusing to my drunken, feeble intellect.

yes i am ShiftShapers

yes i am ShiftShapers

Cool. Bonjour, Shiftshapers!

Cool. Bonjour, Shiftshapers!

For social networking

For social networking activists on facebook:
Log-out and visit the your "locked" facebook page
See the list of friends with pictures to the right of your pic?
Refresh the page again
A new batch of friends
Keep refreshing, copying, and pasting, and you have your entire friend network...

Maybe try GUN.

Maybe Dirty Hands would now

Maybe Dirty Hands would now like to expand on what he actually 'heard' about Australians trolling anarchist sites recently. If he has any hard information we can work on it at this end because we do have a few lunar-rightwing nut 'national-anarchists' down here.
Of course if all he has is hearsay and suspicions then he's doing CoinTelPro for the govt for free.
Professor rat ( my nom-de-gurre, NOT a psuedonym email pro2rat@ yahoo dot etc au)

wait what? did i say

wait what? did i say something about Australians? Prof. Rat, are you drunk? heh no just kidding. but seriously i don't get your post. but i'm aware of the nationalist "anarchist" fucks in Australia, and we have BANA and others here in the states. the trolls on gnn are of an entirely different nature. gnn isn't an anarchist site, though there are a few of us holdin' it down there. anyways the folks who troll me there and call me a cop are alex jones fans. you know, the kind who called Unconventional Denver cops for organizing radical resistance against the DNC.

anyways, many of you have met me irl and due to my community organizing work here my identity is unfortunately already all over the internet. i'm not afraid of GUN because i've been doing the same shit on GNN for years and also am on facebook and have Myspaces for our local anarcho-shit like SDS, FNB, & Critical Mass, Wild Roots Feral Futures, etc. i use google groups like a mug to make easy and simple discussion lists for the same groups. Danny Don't!, you say. agreed, none of these are secure. act accordingly. it's the fucking internet. you won't see me saying anything stupid there. i use these things to promote totally legal and above-ground activities. i don't think there's anything wrong with that. there would be something wrong with it if i thought it was an appropriate forum for an underground, but that's not the deal here yo.

Prof. Rat, are you drunk?

Prof. Rat, are you drunk? heh no just kidding.

wtf, is this guy for real?

And everyone that 'trolls' you is an Alex Jones fan??

WTF??

Are you drunk?

Stop obsessing about your

Stop obsessing about your nationality!!It is irrelevant and boring!!

the reply to my email from

the reply to my email from snitchwire, shared w/their permission:

hey there!

I hope you didn't take our post personally or perceive it as a slam against
you or Dirty Hands. We actually love the work you guys do and want to visit!
Commends as well for reaching for accountability, which really I hope you're
not concerned too much about because GUN seemed well-intentioned, not as a
trap for young, internet-savvy activists to link up with informants (which
is what we see anarchists on the internet in danger of).

Generally, we recognize that facebook/myspace/ning/whatever is just bad
security culture. It can be nice to find friends online (hopefully that
translate to real life), but when a third party can literally trace back
that whole web of communication back to certain liable individuals, it
becomes a hazard to struggle.

I don't deny that it could be convenient for radicals to link up securely on
the web. I wish crabgrass was more. Unfortunately, doing it through free
services like ning or facebook (they are all the same, really) isn't secure
and it could put the more naive or young at unnecessary risk. Not to
mention, a little muckraking lead us to some gnarly conclusions on who might
own ning and thus revealing possible horrible scenarios that could arise
through using the service.

If you are really interested about facilitating this kind of project, why
not contact the crabgrass team and see if they could use some help? As for
the future of GUN, we would recommend addressing the points brought up in
our article on site and warning users of potential consequences. The idea
that a radical social networking site could merely facilitate introductions
between new friends and encourage communication between old friends far away
from each other is something that makes us excited. However, taking a look
at the site now, it appears there's people talking openly about tagging fed
buildings and shit. Educating people about basic security culture (NO WAR
STORIES/BRAGGING!) could help GUN be a positive tool rather than a haven for
agent provocateurs and spies collecting data.

Thank you for your concern, I hope we can meet on better terms soon!

in solidarity

snitchwire

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 9:34 AM, wrote:

> hey there snitchwire.
>
> i created GUN, and guess i'm an internet novice, because i was unaware of
> the problems you bring up.
>
> i want to be accountable to my community and am wondering what advise you
> have. just abandon the project?
>
> and shouldn't snitchwire make similar statements about the more popular
> social networking sites (myspace, facebook, etc.) before a project by and
> for anarchists?
>
> i was unaware of ning's fucked up nature and thank you for bringing that
> to my attention.
>
> i am also trying to learn about internet security which i know nothing
> about so forgive me if i've fucked up somehow.
>
> soidarity,
>
> -Ab Irato

"is encouraged to contact

"is encouraged to contact SnitchWire (at) gmail [ dot] com."

Fucking hilarious this so called "warning" about "GUN" and Ning being an intelligence gathering tool....yet you want any and all "snitch" comments to be sent to your email address hosted by Google?

You didn't even bother to contact the creator of the site before you ran with this so called "warning"..

Here's an idea...

Just shut the fuck up.

in all fairness i have been

in all fairness i have been in correspondence with the snitchwire folks since this was posted and they are very friendly folks with great intentions and doing great work. hell i've been syndicating their stuff on my shiftshapers.gnn.tv blog for a while now.

i do not hold this against them for any reason and understand all social networking sites are sketchy, which i would have thought went without saying in the context of GUN.

this could have been approached/written differently but the intent is to look out for one another, which i fully support.

approach GUN as you would Myspace or facebook. you know what that means. i hope.

Dirty Hands Ab Irato

Dirty Hands Ab Irato ShiftShapers is a provocateur of violence and a liar. He is a fake and the more you pay attention to what he does the more obvious it becomes. He tries so hard to craft his internet image as a hardcore radical activist but it's pretty easy to see right through it to his cointelpro tendencies.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.