Thuggish petro-state Canada is at it again:

The Vancouver-based activist was en route to Portland to give a speech critical of the Games. By Renn’s own account, U.S. guards refused to let her cross the border. They cited her lack of employment. She finished school three months ago, and doesn’t have a job.

Renn claimed she was photographed, fingerprinted and searched. Guards went through her cell phone. She was grilled by Canadian and American officials about her anti-Olympics activism and contacts in the U.S. The interrogation lasted hours, Renn said.

Z Magazine: Olympics activist detained six hours at US border

This follows Amy Goodman being detained for 6 hours at the Canadian border and questioned about the Olympics.

Update: See also Naomi Wolf on border restrictions and fascist shifts.

“Much of Canada’s sovereignty has already been eroded, but a North American Union would be the final nail in the coffin for an independent nation. It use to be the NDP who championed preserving Canadian sovereignty, but they have become a shadow of their former selves, and it appears as if they have been taken over by the very same interests that they had sworn to fight and protect us from. For what it’s worth, I have challenged the NDP to make this issue the pillar of their election platform. The Canadian Action Party (CAP), a little known party with limited resources, is putting the NDP (a national party) to shame, especially in regards to fighting and exposing the NAU agenda. Even with no current members in the House of Commons, the CAP may serve as a real alternative and play a big role in defeating the NAU and preserving an independent Canada for future generations to come.”

(via Stop Lying)

(via NAU Info)

(see also Canada Admits the NAU Exists)

In the context of all the good advancing copyright law can do for us as we move further into the twenty-first century (see “How creativity is being strangled by the law“), I almost shed a tear for Americans this afternoon because of these two bills being rushed into action:

House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.

That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection. [cont.]

Download A Song–Lose Your Loan

Page 411 of this 747-page bill is “Section 494(A): CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION” wherein the bill’s meaning takes a serious detour from its title. To prevent college students from illegally accessing copyrighted material, the section says all schools shall (when you see the word “shall” in a law, it’s a requirement, not a suggestion):

1) Have “a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property”
and
2) Have “a plan to explore technology based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”

The craziest thing about this is that noncompliant schools would lose all their federal funding, for all their students. No more Pell Grants. No more federal financial aid. No more student loans. This is not just draconian punishment for students who break the law, this punishes all students at that institution even if they did nothing!

Beyond that, both requirements actually work against the point of the bill itself–implementation would likely raise school fees. [cont.]

I won’t name names, but recently I helped out a friend occultist in California review Canadian cities to expatriate to. I sent him a bunch of info on crime, lifestyle, popular job markets, and some ethnic/religious backgrounds to the cities to help him decide which was more his flavour.

As we move into an era where identity exists more and more online, and who knows as more transhuman technologies become more mainstream over the next decade. Copyright, essentially communications in general, has become the quiet battleground in the American government. Because these Draconian laws benefit not only the corporations down there, but the right-wing zealous nuts who want the world safe for their Sears-inspired Christian regime, might I suggest you, too, look at moving abroad rather than putting up with the weird Fourth Reich that is bubbling and brewing.

For those of you not caring or fighting your government before it swelters and your personal freedoms are abandoned in favour of a “safe, secure Christian state,” please feel free to inquire with any of us Canadian occultists about which cities might be welcome to you. There’s always South America, Asia, or Europe if you’re thinking more exotic, and I have friends that are always flying down to South Africa to work.

For those of you that decide to fight on your native soil, kudos to you. To the rest of you, if you don’t feel it’s your battle, the world is your oyster. America is not the end-all, be-all of the human experience.

Just a friendly word from Fell. And if there is any interest, perhaps I should put together an Guide to Canada for American Counterculture Expats. Aforementioned Californian seemed to appreciate it and is checking out his city of choice this winter. And I know we’re not exactly 100% sovereign from the U.S.’s influence, but things are nowhere near the psycho state that is growing down there. =]

EDIT — A bit of a perception/context update for the SAFE Act, via the good boys at Ars Technica:

Despite hyperbole to the contrary, the SAFE Act that passed the House yesterday won’t force local coffee shops, libraries, and home users to monitor their network connections for child porn.

Airing tonight at 11:00p (I dunno the timezone, probably PST), Tuesday, 4 December 2007, on the CBC’s The Hour. In Canada. Or for those of you with satellite or in the U.S. who subscribe to Newsworld.

Adam.

UPDATE — Due to this wonderful thing called technology, you may now watch the segment online!

Larry Lessig gets TEDsters to their feet, whooping and whistling, following this elegant presentation of three stories and an argument. The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you’ve ever seen.

EDIT — Couple links I thought might be noteworthy in regards to Lessig’s talk: BBC’s “The view from The Pirate Bay” and Boing Boing’s current coverage of the upcoming Draconian copyright laws being pushed forward in Canada (similar to the ones already enacted in the U.S.).

“Is the CBC affiliated with the Chinese Government? This would explain why the CBC opted to protect Beijing by trying to dissimulate the truth on forced organ harvesting in a documentary on Falun Gong called “Beyond the Red Wall” aired on Nov. 20 in Canada.

Let me get this straight. Last week after a phone call from the PRC bosses, the CBC undertook several rounds of re-editing and carefully doctoring what first started out to be an ?independent’ film by long-time respected producer Peter Rowe.

The funny thing is that the film had been aired in French last March and it was a done deal. Then the CBC’s reputation went under fire for first pulling the doc hours before it was supposed to be aired on Nov. 6 and went reported in over 200 media- from NY Times, to the Jerusalem Post, the Taipei Times, CFP and others. By that time, the CBC realized that they couldn’t get away with not showing the documentary due to pressure coming from everywhere not to mention from the Beijing government. What to do? Make more cuts with or without the producer! Finally the film was aired on Nov. 20.”

via the MWC News

Upload the movie via Between Heaven and Earth

I was just watching The Hour on CBC Newsworld and was happy to see its host, George Stroumboulopoulos, introduce its Disinfo segment. That’s right. Everyone’s favourite mainstream counterculture media darlings are an official part of one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s most popular hour-long news programmes. (Newsworld is the CBC’s 24-hour news channel here in Canada, but also available in the U.S.)

Watch segments and clips: LINK TO THE HOUR’S DISINFORMATION

OK, I’m a day late on this one but I’ve been in Canada, so I’m catching up and I can’t not bring this up. Individualist anarchist Wendy McElroy (who I think is a Paul supporter but I could be wrong):

I don’t get it. So Guy Fawkes was used as a role model in a comic book (actually a wonderful graphic novel V for Vendetta that was trashed by its movie adaptation)…does that make him a libertarian ideal? There was nothing libertarian about Fawkes. He was a Catholic crusader who wanted to blow up Parliament as part-and-parcel of removing a Protestant monarch from power. He wasn’t against government or tyranny; he was against one form of government that he wanted to replace with another form he liked better: a Catholic one. There is no indication that Fawkes was a champion of the people whose personal vision of political power would have produced less tyranny than what proceeded it. Certainly, 17th century Catholic states were no more tolerant than Protestant ones — indeed, the Protestant Netherlands were freer and more tolerant than most. If wanting to overthrow a government per se makes you a libertarian, why not idealize Che Guevara? At least he was a successful revolutionary.

Full Story: WendyMcElroy.com.

A small political party in Canada is suing the government because the state-owned postal monopoly refused to distribute information on the party. Called the Sex Party the party advocates relaxation of laws on sexuality.

[...]

The flyer was an attempt to recruit members and the party did run three candidates. But the post office would not deliver the pamphlet. They say they are obligated to protect people from anything they might find offensive. But they did deliver an anti-gay brochure by a Christian group that was very aggressive in its tone and dislike of gay people.

The head of the post office said they delivered the anti-gay brochure, which she said was vile, because they aren’t in the business of censoring the mail. But when it came to the Sex Party they were in the business of censoring the mail. And since the post office is a legal monopoly the ability to send one’s message another way is very limited indeed.

Full Story: Classically Liberal.

(via ifeminists.com).

This week marks the beginning of the “terrorism preparedness” drills Top Officials 4 and Vigilant Shield 08:

VS-08 will be conducted concurrent with Top Officials 4 (TOPOFF 4), the nation’s premier exercise of terrorism preparedness sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, and several other linked exercises as part of the National Level Exercise 1-08. These linked exercises will take place October 15-20 and are being conducted throughout the United States and in conjunction with several partner nations including Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as the Territory of Guam

As usual, the truthers are shitting their pants in anticipation of a false flag terror attack and/or a preparation for the declaration of martial law. Nevermind that these threats failed to materialize during Operation Noble Resolve last August. (Aside: does anyone have a list of times that Alex Jones has “cried wolf” about terrorist attacks and/or declarations of martial law?)

Critics on the war on terror often remark on how our reaction to 9/11 is exactly what the terrorists wanted. We now cower in fear of terror attacks, give up freedoms, and question each other loyalty. I can’t help but wonder if the reactions to these drills aren’t exactly what the police state wants: a constant state of fear and loathing. Besides, “they” don’t have to declare martial law. We’ve been living under martial law since at least the 80s, when Reagan escalated the war on drugs to its current paramilitary status. But even before the effective beginning of martial law in the 80s, the US has had a long history of government repression. The real question is not whether the United States is becoming police state, but to ask if it has ever been a democracy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, this is a post for all the Canadians out there. Americans have their own problems.

Apparently the Calgary Sun is okay with flagrantly propagating un-researched Christian gobbledygook. Licia Corbella (email: licia.corbella@calgarysun.com) has this to say about how much the world apparently just adores us. Please, my Canadian friends, take the time to write her with some corrections. And then write a Letter to the Editor. Please. I am.

And after, go cleanse your brain with Joe Rogan or something.

Last year as my family and I toured the federal Parliament buildings we took note of the numerous Bible verses and Christian symbols literally carved right into the rock or wood walls.

My husband facetiously said: “I’m surprised some nitwit hasn’t demanded it all be sandblasted away.”

Luckily, however, our magnificent Parliament buildings are declared National Heritage buildings and can be restored, but not altered. Hallelujah! Read the rest of this entry »

Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.

Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.

Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years, but there would be no explicit medical requirements.

continued via the New York Times

Just fyi, Canada Alberta is willing to trade Toronto for New York. In fact, we’ll give you most of Ontario in exchange…

I received the new issue of Seed today in the mail and in it is an interesting article on E. O. Wilson and his attempts to create a truce between science and religion. He is best known for his seminal work Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge – which I am definitely going to be picking up to read as it deals with some concepts I am hugely interested in, namely syncretism of knowledge – as well as his new book, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth. The whole November issue of Seed takes an interesting look at the religious right’s fight against science and evolutionary theory. It’s a good issue.

You crazy Americans. I just learned that out of a butt-load of developed nations on the planet, you rank at the bottom, along with Turkey, in believing in Darwin. I mean, hey, I have some esoteric theories I subscribe to. But c’mon, Darwin has something going on there. You guys…

This is officially an open invitation for everyone that thinks – just thinks in general – to move on up to Canada. Our doors are always open.

Aside from icons such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and, more recently, Tool, not many bands are well-known for being spiritually radical or esoteric. (Marilyn Manson aside, as I believe his theatrics outweigh his message. Plus, I think he’s been going downhill since Antichrist Superstar.)

The occult isn’t well known for its association to hip hop. And as this site has a large American audience, I wanted to point out that I’ve been noticing more esoteric references in Canadian hip hop than other artists I’ve heard. I’ve been culling a lot of MP3s – both pop and underground – over the years that use themes of revolt (‘Something to Believe In,’ by The Offspring), introspective awareness (‘Right Where It Belongs,’ by NIN), and spiritual themes in general. But today I wanna share some new music with Technoccult’s audience that they may not be aware of:

A few tracks from the new album by Swollen Members, Black Magic. Sometimes a tricky band to take, especially in light of the mockery that is popular gangster rap in the States, Swollen Members doesn’t take itself too seriously. They’re the genuine article when it comes to the gangster thing, though: bikers and drug runners. (Canada is run by the Hells Angels.) Yet, their lyrics more than often refer to Marvel comics, Dungeons & Dragons, and other silliness. Their tracks are not the most esoteric, but the references paint a picture happily open to interpretation.

k-os, an Ontario b-boy who grew up a Mormon and has apparently been on a spiritual journey since. Jazzy hip hop with great beats and personal, introspective lyrics.

And Sweatshop Union members Kyprios and Innocent Bystanders. Kyprios turned a lot of heads with this spoken word piece on the topic of hatred. Innocent Bystanders wove this New Age rebellion sort of piece that I always like to listen to and have noticed others enjoying, too. Both are signed to Swollen Members’ Battle Axe Records.

MP3s available for download here (compressed to RAR): Part 1, Part 2.

We dip back into the vaults of this past summer to bring you a lost episode. Drinking to Chicago, talking about Canada. We’ve got our boy Calgary Conrad – fine soldier, trouble maker at large, and free agent Canadian. Conrad talks about his experience during his visit to Chicago and we also talk about how Americans are viewed abroad… in Canada, France and beyond. We chat on Terrorism in the States and bad airport stories and how Canada felt about 9/11 and the US’s response to the attacks. This leads to a discussion of the vast differences between the seeming honorable battle of World War II and the patent lies of our current clusterfuck in Iraq.
And once we’re done with the softballs we get to the hot hits like, are there christian kanucks? And did you know mormons wear mystical underwear?

MP3 32 minutes 30 MB.

Viking Youth Power Hour.

Check this out:

They are coming with night-vision goggles, cellphones and possibly guns. They plan to unfold their lawn chairs within spitting distance of the Canada-U.S. border on Oct. 1.

What are they trying to do? Keep Americans from escaping to Canada? Or since Bubba’s job has been outsourced to China and he can’t afford cable anymore he’s going to spend his free time kicking back in a lawn chair watching the border for Fox News phantasms of Terror Masters creeping through the Canadian forests? Or is it just some excuse to get in a little varmint hunting? (and man, if they ever do anything to hurt bigfoot . . .)

Article here.

I guess I’ll see you dodgers up here in Canada.

The Selective Service System wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board.

link

There was a time when the name R.U. Sirius was synonymous with cyberculture. His seminal magazine Mondo 2000 predated Wired, and was even more enthusiastic in its wow-gosh sexification of the new geek order. Articles predicting a slick future of nanotech parties and smart drugs were mixed in with batches of fearful predictions of terrorism, economic collapse, draconian copyright enforcement, increased surveillance and invasive advertising. But Sirius didn’t stop there: After the collapse of Mondo, he went on to write for magazines like 21C, Salon and Disinformation, and edited Getting It. He created the Revolution Party, a non-ideological anti-authoritarian political organization (“If even the alternative parties like Libertarian and Green seem a bit rigid to you, consider joining us”), and campaigned for Presidency of the United States. His latest project, The Thresher, is a political magazine.

But The Thresher is a print magazine. Sirius hardly goes online anymore, except for research. The truth is, the Godfather of GeekChic has moved on.
Read the rest of this entry »

As government surveillance increases, many people are turning to encryption to protect their privacy. After the 9/11 attacks, many governments have expanded their surveillance powers, including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Snoopers may not understand encrypted communications.

Encryption codes a message so that it cannot be understood by anyone other than the intended recipient. This can be done by talking in code over the telephone or by mathematically encrypting data over the Internet. Strong encryption usually refers to virtually unbreakable military-strength data encryption. It is used outside of the military primarily for private messaging, securing purchases online, online identity verification, and transmitting sensitive doctor-patient information.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is the standard for Internet encryption. PGP works by creating both a public key and a private key. The public key is available to anyone, while the private key is kept a secret. The public key is used to encrypt a message and the private key is then used to decode it. PGP’s security comes from the difficulty in factoring very large numbers. Until a more efficient way to factor numbers is found, cracking a PGP encrypted message is virtually impossible. It is frequently pointed out that ‘pretty good’ is an understatement about the privacy offered by PGP. The only way an outside party could decrypt a message would be to somehow acquire the private key from the user or try every possible key (which would take about 100 million years with modern technology according to MIT mathematician Roger Schroeppel). For more information on PGP security read the PGP Attacks FAQ.

New Legislative Powers

In the United Kingdom the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP) of 2000 makes it a crime to withhold encryption keys from the government (punishable by up to seven years jail). The United States has a history of trying to limit civilian use of military-strength encryption. Legislation was proposed to require government back doors be built into encryption software during the Clinton administration. These proposals failed due to commercial opposition and protests that encryption bans simply would not work. Public outrage over post-9/11 legislation, ostensibly for “homeland defense”, has created greater awareness of encryption techniques. Government and law enforcement agencies, consequently, have a renewed interest in limiting access of encryption to the general public.

Encryption’s opponents contend that sacrificing some privacy is necessary to insure national security. “[Encryption makers] have as much at risk as we have at risk as a nation, and they should understand that as a matter of citizenship, they have an obligation [to provide the government back door access to encryption products],” Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) said in a floor speech after the 9/11 attacks. Gregg was pursuing legislation that would require government backdoors to be built into all encryption software, but suddenly changed his mind according to Wired News.

The Clipper Chip

Strong encryption’s security is compromised by the backdoor system proposed during the mid-1990s. The system, known as the Clipper Chip would transmit keys to law enforcement agencies so that they could acquire keys to unlock encrypted messages. Unfortunately, when the government’s copy of a key is transmitted to “key banks” it risks being intercepted. Additionally, key banks themselves could become targets of terrorist hackers. See the Clipper section of the RSA’s Cryptography FAQ for more information. The material that terrorists could possibly intercept through government backdoors includes credit card numbers that could be used to fund terrorist acts and personal information that could be used for identity theft. “Having a good, strong crypto infrastructure in our country is part of what we need to combat terrorism,” PGP creator Philip Zimmermann told Reuters news agency.

In addition to the security issues presented by government backdoors is the question as to whether backdoors would do any good for law enforcement agencies. “. . . It [a law banning strong crypto] doesn’t prevent terrorists from getting their crypto from somewhere else,” James Lewis (director for the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC) pointed out in a Zdnet News interview.

DoJ v Zimmerman and PGP

The controversy began in 1991 when Philip Zimmerman created PGP. The software was capable of encrypting files and e-mails through the use of state of the art patented encryption algorithms. Zimmerman’s friend Kelly Goen distributed the software by uploading it from his laptop to various Internet newsgroups and dial-up bulletin board systems from pay phones with an acoustic coupler. Steve Levy’s book Crypto (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001) reveals that Goen was very caught up in the drama of distributing the software. Levy quotes computer activist Jim Warren saying Goen “. . . wanted to get as many copies scattered as widely as possible around the nation before the government could get an injunction to stop him.”

Even though Goen was careful to only upload the software to US-based software, Zimmerman spent the next five years involved in a legal battle with the US Department of Justice for violating export regulations on encryption software. In spite of this (or because of it) PGP became the standard for encrypting electronic data. In 1996 the Justice Department dropped the case and PGP was sold to Network Associates who is trying to sell the rights to another company.

PGP is available for all major operating systems and is easy to use. It has also spawned a non-patented clone called GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard). Zimmerman now working for HushMail, a free Web-based e-mail service with built-in PGP encryption.

Encryption: A Guide to Possibilities

If backdoors in software or RIP-esque key on demand laws become an international standard, there are ways to get around them. One-time pads and deniable encryption such as steganography would still be able ensure privacy.

Rubberhose: Rubberhose is a UNIX-clone software package from the United Kingdom. Rubberhose allows users to hide data on their hard drives. According to the Rubberhose site: “If someone grabs your Rubberhose-encrypted hard drive, he or she will know there is encrypted material on it, but not how much — thus allowing you to hide the existence of some of your data.” This is advantageous in the RIP-model. If a corrupt government seizes a hard drive, it would be possible for the user to only give away the keys to certain non-offensive data (such as a file named “Mom’s Secret Cookie Recipe”). Of course, this would be of little use in the backdoor model because use of encryption without backdoors would be illegal.

Steganography: Steganography is the practice of secretly embedding data into other data so that it doesn’t appear that communication has occurred. This could be done non-technically, for example, by using code words in the classified ads section of a newspaper. Software such as OutGuess hides messages in seemingly random portions of other files such as images or sounds. According to the OutGuess site: “OutGuess preserves statistics based on frequency counts. As a result, no known statistical test is able to detect the presence of steganographic content.” The drawback is that the recipient must have a key to unlock the hidden information, and that key must somehow be transmitted. One of the major advantages is that a message can be posted in public if the recipient knows what to look for, thus making it difficult for others to detect that communication has even occurred. Your recipient could agree, for example, to communicate through popular files on the Gnutella network. Imagine a group of hackers communicating through Britney Spears publicity photos.

One-time Pads: One-time pads are a form of un-breakable encryption through the use of random numbers. In a plain text message, a different random number represents each character each time it is used. Only someone with the key can decipher it because all possible values for the random numbers are equal. The only way to break this code would be to acquire a copy of the key. The problem is that two parties communicating through this method must have a secure way to transmit keys. The other problem is that the key can be longer than the message itself. The advantage to this method is that it does not require a computer, only a way to generate random numbers.

Whether it’s an embarrassing note about your sex life or your secret recipe for banana pudding, everyone has something they would rather other people not see. The recent increases in government-permitted surveillance make encryption useful to everyone, not just paranoid nuts.

More:

PGP International

The home of Pretty Good Privacy, the de-facto standard for Internet-enabled digital encryption. Features news, manuals and downloads.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
“The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was created to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web. EFF is the first to identify threats to our basic rights online and to advocate on behalf of free expression in the digital age.”

Philip Zimmerman

Philip Zimmerman created PGP. This site includes his PGP writings, Senate testimony, news, consultancy services and an extensive links collection.

RSA Cryptography FAQ
RSA Laboratories have created an extensive FAQ on cryptography’s history, the major cryptosystems, techniques and applications, and real-world cases. Highly recommended.

One-time Pad FAQ

A quick guide to one-time pads, explaining how this cryptosystem works, distribution methods and sources of randomness.

GnuPG
An open source encryption standard. The site includes an extensive FAQ, the GNU Privacy Handbook and more. “GnuPG stands for GNU Privacy Guard and is GNU’s tool for secure communication and data storage. It can be used to encrypt data and to create digital signatures. It includes an advanced key management facility and is compliant with the proposed OpenPGP Internet standard as described in RFC 2440.”

HushMail
Free encrypted Web-based e-mail. “HushMail eliminates the risk of leaving unencrypted files on Web servers. HushMail messages, and their attachments, are encrypted using OpenPGP standard algorithms.”

Freenet Project
Freenet is a peer-to-peer (P2P) publishing network that enables you to publish encrypted documents. Ian Clarke’s system has been used by grassroots political groups and individuals to publish controversial information.

Rubberhose
“Rubberhose transparently and deniably encrypts disk data, minimising the effectiveness of warrants, coersive interrogations and other compulsive mechanims, such as U.K RIP legislation. Rubberhose differs from conventional disk encryption systems in that it has an advanced modular architecture, self-test suite, is more secure, portable, utilises information hiding (steganography/deniable cryptography), works with any file system and has source freely available.”

OutGuess
“OutGuess is a universal steganographic tool that allows the insertion of hidden information into the redundant bits of data sources. The nature of the data source is irrelevant to the core of OutGuess. The program relies on data specific handlers that will extract redundant bits and write them back after modification. In this version the PNM and JPEG image formats are supported.”

(This article originally appeared at http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id2007/pg1/ January 31, 2002)

“On Project Purple and It’s Initiatives,” the manifesto of Project Purple, was written in 1971 by the nebulous Thomas Jefferson Allen. As a legendary figure within the underground movement, this bizarre work of principles of propaganda and misinformation fueled the fires of the subversive organization he’d helped found years earlier.

It was also, says Ludwig (self-anointed scholar of “The Grand and Mutable History of Plundergate”), a fraud.

“The distribution commonly given freely on the Internet today was written by a close friend of Allen, and is so full of nonsense that it tends to provoke the myth that Project Purple is a hoax, or at least a discordian conspiracy. This was, I suspect, the original intent,” says Ludwig. Project Purple customarily releases such misinformation regarding it’s formation to the conspiracy community at large. This adds to the mystery and intrigue of the group, but, according to the (supposedly) original version of “On Project Purple and It’s Initiatives” is also a tactic which they borrow from the “socioeconomically inclined” (the upper class) to cloak their activities from the prying eyes of the government.

While the history of Project Purple is, expectedly, contradictory in several ways and very difficult to untangle, the most commonly accepted version of events begins in 1934.

Thomas Jefferson Allen was born to a poor family in the year 1934, earning an education under the tutelage of his grandfather and the papers (as he worked for a news stand from age twelve to age sixteen). The first exposure to the underground, anti-war movement within the United States was when a group of people, masked, defaced an Uncle Sam poster, replacing the words “for US Army” into “to Kill, Kill, Kill!” (or “to Kill those Chinks!”, depending on who you ask).

By age twenty-three he had written a number of essays on a variety of topics, but his written work alone was not enough to satisfy his desire to take action. Two years later, on his twenty-fifth birthday, he is said to have made his first overture to a group of close friends about forming “an organization aimed at disorganization, a subversive society aimed at subverting society. In short, my friends, an opposition to effective governance within our stifled, dry little world.” (from “the Strange-ness of October”, first p. in 1962, Masked Press)

The group (at first calling itself “Bach’s Orange Six Overture”) contented itself with the circulation of false reports to the local press and small-scale culture jamming antics. However, as the group drew in new interest from other youth groups, it began to take it’s role only slightly more seriously. As the sixties rolled around, the group took on a whole new face: an activist group.

Throughout the sixties the group worked within student organizations on university campuses and spread it’s liberal, funloving doctrines. Always working under a new guise they managed to incite protest where ever they ended up and seemed to enjoy themselves. Rather than being mere harbingers of misinformation they had become social activists with real enemies.

It wasn’t until 1971, when the group was performing some of it’s more memorable acts, that Thomas Allen decided the group needed a manifesto of intent. With the usual attitudes intact, Allen released “On Project Purple and It’s Initiatives” to an awaiting audience. As expected, it was a success.

The newly christened “Project Purple” was more than just a clique of friends doing what they felt was right, it was an underground movement that could not be put down. Throughout the seventies the group prospered as small cells popped up across the United States and Canada, then into Europe. As the eighties dawned the group became less well-recognized and fell deeper into the underground. While the campaign of misinformation and sometime outright rebellion against the social climes continued, with a perfect target in Ronald Reagan and his Cabinet, the group began to dwindle away.

Then came the Internet.

“The Internet revived and expanded Project Purple, much like it did to many other audience cults, including discordianism,” Ludwig speculates. “It allowed the group, as a whole, to come out and cause trouble in a whole new landscape. I suspect that some of the pioneers of the Internet freedom activism were involved in Project Purple, to one extent or another, at some point in time.”

It was in 1999, after years of medical troubles, that Thomas Allen passed away in his sleep. The founder of Project Purple, and some say a pioneer of modern day culturejamming, died at the age of sixty-seven.

As many will tell you, Ludwig included, all of this information is subject to speculation. True to form different accounts involving the “Bach’s Orange Six Overture” being called by different names (Greenman and Plundergate are popular candidates) and varying reports of differing antics, including the establishment of the Earth Liberation Front to “make other activist groups seem peaceable and reasonable by comparison.”

For further information on Project Purple or Thomas Allen, contact ppinfodev@soft-ware.de.

Thanks to Jon Spencer, Atomic Boy, The Walrus and Mad Hatter for their assistance.

Special thanks to Ludwig for his assistance in gathering background information and providing sources.

Further Reading

twenty-purple:the age of the internet astronaut includes the original distribution of “On Project Purple and It’s Initiatives” as well as links to discordian sites.

After five years Nivek Ogre and cEvin Key, the founders of the band Skinny Puppy, will reunite for a one time show at this year’s Doomsday Festival in Germany.

The festival, to be held August 19 and 20 in Dresden, will feature a number of electronic and gothic bands from around the world.

Ogre and Key met in Canada in 1983. The two had similar interests in film and music and decided to start a band to explore these interests. Mixing performance art with live music, Skinny Puppy’s concerts were a walk through the darkside. Ogre frequently mutilated himself on stage while images were projected on screens. In the mid 80s Dwayne Goettle joined the group to play synthesizers and Ogre met Ministry’s Al Jourgensen. After personality differences caused a schizm between Ogre and Key and Goettle the group split. Key and Goettle worked on various side projects including Hilt while Ogre toured with Jourgenson’s Ministry and Revolting Cocks.

The group eventually got back together to do more recording, but drug addiction and further personality conflicts led Ogre to tour with Pigface and to contribute very little to the Puppy album Last Rites. After being diagnoses with Hepititus and kickign cocaine Ogre rejoined the group full time to create their last album, the Process. However, Goettle’s drug problems and the persistant plague of interpersonal conflicts led to the bands final demise. After the band had officially split, Goettle died of a heroin overdose. The Process was stiched together by producers Martin Atkins (of Pigface) and long time Puppy collaborator (and nin mixer) Rave.

Ogre began a new project called WELT with Mark Walk, but the album has yet to see the light of day (rumor has it that it will be released under the name “Ohgrr”). He then went on to create a project called Rx with Atkins and to record and tour with KMFDM. Key continued working on many of the side projects he’d been working on before including Download and Tear Garden and also founded the label Subconscious Communications.

Every year the organizers of the Doomsday festival have asked Orge and Key to do a reunion show. Finally this year Key and Ogre agreed.

Skinny Puppy FAQ and Lyric Archive Go here first. Has a FAQ, Puppy history, and annotated lyrics. Great stuff.

Litany Up to date Skinny Puppy, Dowload, Rx, and related project news. Excellent site!

Skinny Puppy Internet Database Major Puppy resource with images, texts, multimedia, and more.

The Vault of Skinny PuppyIncludes real media songs and videos. Lots of rare stuff here.

Skinny Puppy CentralOne of the oldest and best Skinny Puppy web sites.

Mike’s Startup Logos Lots of Skinny Puppy start up screens for Windows.