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Getting Around an Internet Kill Switch

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 7:42 pm
by editor
I just read an article on one of my regular mailing lists which I want to pass along, and also add some information.
Attack On Arizona's Internet Was the Beta Test for the Implementation of Martial Law
by Dave Hodges

At approximately noon on February 25, 2015, the Internet went down in a wide swath ranging from just north of Phoenix stretching to Flagstaff, Arizona. Internet service was restored the following day around 1pm local time.

The very first reports I received about the outage, coming out of Wickenburg and Prescott, was that the ISP from Century Link went down because a car crashed into a transformer. Shortly after that, reports stated that a construction crew hit a power line causing Internet service to go down. From the Phoenix media, we now know that this was the work of "vandals" who discovered where cables, buried several feet underground,were located in the midst of rough terrain. These "vandals" subsequently cut through the Internet cables which were inches to a foot thick and this was the cause this massive outage.

The event had a crippling effect on local communities from central to northern Arizona.
  • 911 service and the communications of first responders were taken down.
  • Point of sale debit/credit card transactions could not be initiated due to the outage.
  • ATM's did not work.
  • Banks were not able to access their computers and were forced to issue paper receipts for any deposit.
  • All cell phone providers were inoperable except for Verizon Wireless.
  • Most cable companies were not able to carry programming (e.g. Phoenix TV stations) due to the takedown of live streaming. The same was also true for many radio stations.
In short, businesses, schools and personal lives were totally disrupted. Yet, the national coverage afforded to this major event was negligible as I discovered after calling friends and colleagues from across the country to gauge their reaction. As of yesterday afternoon, most people had not heard about this event. I am not surprised as similar events transpired in both Florida and Oklahoma, AT THE SAME TIME! Steve Quayle shared the following email with me last night which described a similar event in Oklahoma:
Steve,

I just read with interest the Q Alert about phone and internet being out at mid-day from north Phoenix to Flagstaff yesterday. We dropped internet here in NW Oklahoma (outside Woodward) about mid-day yesterday as well. It happened twice, about an hour later for about 20 minutes at a time. No explanation was given by the provider (Pioneer Cellular and Internet). We have cell service, for which the data was messed up, but the towers were still operative.

About that same time, NOAA Space Weather lost data for several hours ... complete blanks in their monitoring systems.

Interesting this is all going on about the same time the FCC was preparing to take over the internet.

Blessings!

Dane
Whatever hit Arizona on February 25th, also hit two other states at about the same time. This was a well-coordinated attack.

The Key Word of the Day Is "Vandals"

The media has been very uniform in describing this act as the work of "vandals".
  • -Independent Channel 3 referred to the outage as the work of "vandals".
  • Phoenix CBS Channel 5 also used the word "vandals".
  • Phoenix Fox News, Channel 10, described this as the work of "vandals".
  • Phoenix NBC, Channel 12, said this Internet take down was perpetrated by "vandals".
  • Phoenix ABC, Channel 15, also used the word "vandals".
  • AZ Central, the website for the Arizona Republic used the word "vandals" to describe the origin of the attack.
  • Even the BBC and Russia Today used the word "vandals".
For those of us that have covered events such as this, we can often smell a cover-up when we see the repetitive use of a key word or phrase. In this case, the key word is "vandals". In this instance, the implied use of the word "vandal" is designed to indicate that whomever attacked these cables, presumably owned by Century Link, were amateurs who were engaged in some kind of prank. As I investigated further, it became clear that this was a well coordinated and well planned attack by persons with expertise related to the attack. Further, whomever did this had to have had specialized equipment to cut through these cables. The simple act of just finding where these cables also required specialized knowledge.

This was a very sophisticated operation in which these remotely located cables, in rough terrain were located and cut with precision. The getaway was effected without so much as leaving a clue and we are supposed to believe this was the work of "vandals.

This was a very sophisticated operation in which these remotely located cables, in rough terrain were located and cut with precision. The getaway was effected without so much as leaving a clue and we are supposed to believe this was the work of "vandals.

My Professional Contacts Weigh-In

This was also an "in-and-out-job" which left no clues and no traces. Amateurish "vandals" with nothing better to do did not take down the Internet in the manner described. That is also the opinion of several of my contacts who would be, or would have tasked with assisting in the investigation and the restoration of service.

Nearly two decades ago, I was a Maricopa County Volunteer First Responder. I did so until DHS took control of the operation in 2002. As such, I received specialized training related to various forms of terrorist attacks and the likely response protocols to each attack. Subsequently, I developed many friendships and contacts in this business. Yesterday, I contacted a dozen of these people and I heard back from four. Two are still active and two are retired but still retain volunteer status related to their expertise. All five of us are unanimous in that this was not the work of vandals, this was an attack requiring inside information, specific training and and specialized equipment.

Two of my contacts believed that this was a beta test performed by Muslim terrorists (e.g. ISIS).

Two others thought this was a dry run rehearsal for a preemptive strike upon the grid on the eve of war (i.e. Russians and/or Chinese). Additionally, at briefings held by the FBI in 2005, two of the men stated that they were told if it was necessary to invoke martial law, they would take down all communications so dissidents targeted for arrest could not warn each other. Additionally, the Phoenix media is reporting that the Phoenix PD was in charge of investigating the vandalism. However, one of the four people I spoke with stated that DHS and the FBI were on the scene and were controlling the investigation. The Phoenix PD was releasing prepared media releases and were repeatedly using the word vandals.

Who Is Responsible?

I reside only seven miles south of the impacted area. I have learned from some locals that accessing the site of the crime is not possible. Security personnel, without any identifying insignias, were in place and were turning unauthorized people back. I have been told that this was not a typical crime scene and until late yesterday afternoon, this had become a highly secure area.

As I contemplated the opinions of my fellow and former first responders, I have tried to determine who is correct and who was likely responsible and what was the motivation for the attack.

Fifteen months ago, I reportedthat, against all common sense, the Russians were being allowed to participate in the highly secure and classified Grid Ex II drills in November of 2013. Since this was the period of time that President Obama was attempting to justify the invasion of Syria, and Putin was threatening nuclear retaliation for doing so, I was among those who questioned the logic of allowing the Russians to learn the intricacies of power grid organization.

Nearly one month ago, I reported the depth and degree that the Obama administration had been penetrated by individuals with clear and undeniable connections to the Muslim Brotherhood along with their influence in DHS and the Fusion Threat Centers.

Two weeks ago, I reported that DHS has assumed control of all intelligence gathering information and this meant that operationalizing a mobilization effort to secretly arrest dissidents, under NDAA provisions (i.e. the Red List spoken of many times by Doug Hagmann and Steve Quayle), was now very likely based upon a hostility rating known as the "Threat Matrix Score". I further reported that there are two programs designed to round up people who are viewed as a danger to the status quo. The two operations are labeled "Operation BOA", as in boa constrictor, and "Operation Lightening Strike".

I have some operational details, but at this point they are still sketchy. Suffice it to say that Operation Lightening is the 3AM round up of all perceived dissident journalists and even some local politicians. This will be accomplished on a single night of terror. Operation BOA is a more deliberate process and will focus on more non-media threats such as outspoken veterans, gun rights activists, etc. Martial law will not be called martial law, it will be labeled as "Continuity of Government". The announcement of the procedures designed to enhance the "Continuity of Government" policies will be made by a four star General from NORTHCOM. "

Let's not forget that when was Janet Napolitano was leaving DHS she warned that attack upon the grid was not a matter of if, but when.

Napolitano did not issue this warning once, but twice before leaving DHS.

"A massive and "serious" cyber attack on the U.S. homeland is coming, and a natural disaster, the likes of which the nation has never seen is also likely and on its way."

In seeming unrelated actions, yesterday, the Obama administration enacted two more unconstitutional Obama decrees:
  1. Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets;
  2. The FCC took complete control over the Internet (private citizen communication) yesterday. The first action is clearly a move to remove citizens ability to defend themselves against the forces of tyranny at some future date. The second move is designed to cut off the head of the Patriot movement and severely impair communications. These are both martial law related actions.
Connecting the Dots

Both Steve Quayle and I agree that we witnessing the introduction of the "Red List" strategy. What happened in Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma was a martial law preparation beta test designed to simultaneously take down communications. Why would DHS want to take down communications? When the Red List roundups begin under Operation Lightening Strike, the powers that be do not want to allow their intended round up targets to be able to warn each other. Further, the crash of the ATM's and point of sale transactions limits one's ability to go on the run.

How do Russians factor into this? We know from surveys done by various organization (29 Palms military base) that American troops cannot be counted on to fire upon American citizens. Therefore, the Army manuals pertaining to FEMA camps call for the use of foreign assets. This would be the Russian troops that I have repeatedly reported are in the US training on American soil for martial law implementation. Why do you think they were allowed to participate in the Grid Ex II war games?

Conclusion

What happened over three state region was not the actions of "vandals". This was a highly coordinated and sophisticated attack upon certain aspects of our grid designed to take down communications and commerce. I suspect that Russian Spetsnaz were the boots on the ground for this beta test in preparation for martial law. The only question which truly remains is how far away are we from complete implementation of this operation?
I should add some information which is probably not known to a lot of people who read this article.

The Internet was not really created by Al Gore, it was developed and originally implemented by ARPAnet, an agency of the U.S. Military.

ARPAnet did not envision the all-encompassing scope of the Internet we have today. The purpose of their creation was to develop a reliable means of communication which could not be easily brought down by enemy combatants.

The one big "killer-feature" of what we call the Internet is its almost ridiculous redundancy. Millions of computers connected together, not just by one cable, but by hundreds of different potential routes.

Internet routing software contains lists of all these routes, which is updated on a constant and continuing basis. Routing is based on first-come-first-serve availability, and if one route is not available the software will search until it finds an alternate route to the destination. The design is such that any packet of transmitted data will likely take a different route to its destination than the one before it, and the one after it.

Most Microsoft Windows users are phobic about command-line terminals, but Linux users like myself are familiar with a command-line program called "traceroute". It sends a signal to a given IP address and, along the way, reports the IP address of each server the signal passes through, along with how many milliseconds it took to reach that server. Point this program at any given IP address two or three times, each instance only seconds apart, and you will see that your signal takes a different route each time.

My point is that the very idea that Internet could be completely lost by the cutting of one cable is preposterous. The real effect of cutting any one cable is that many surrounding areas would experience slower service, while the system adjusted to the increased traffic going through alternate routes. Data would take longer to reach its destination, but it would still get there.

One might argue that the Internet is now much larger than it was as conceived by ARPAnet, but this argument only reinforces my point. The more systems interconnected (and by varying means which did not even exist in the early days), the more redundant the system becomes. Localized residential areas might be taken out by cutting one cable, but this would not have a wide effect.

Of particular interest to me in the article was the statement that all cell communication, except Verizon, had gone down. The landscape all across America is dotted with microwave towers, which transmit Internet data long distances without any cables. Cell towers supplement this system. I would be very surprised if Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and any other mobile providers with their own towers, do not have reciprocal routing agreements. What I'm saying is that in the event of emergency, these companies will undoubtedly route traffic for their competitors.

Consider the network of hard-wired cable AT&T has running everywhere. Then consider the microwave towers, cell towers, satellite transceivers, and even shortwave packet modems all across the country. Now look me in the eye and tell me the Internet can be brought down in a significant region of the country by vandals who cut one cable. Try to keep a straight face, if you can.

Ever since the first CISPA-type laws were proposed, we've heard terms like "Internet kill switch". The distributed nature of the Internet makes any single kill switch very difficult to achieve. The Internet is like the mythical Medusa, cut off one head and two more instantly take its place. At present, there probably isn't one. If you ask me, this recent takeover by the FCC is most likely a move to create a kill switch, or a few kill switches, ultimately controlled by a master switch. Such a thing would need to be tested...

Re: Getting Around an Internet Kill Switch

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 8:08 pm
by editor
A year or more ago, I was listening to an Infowars Nightly News, and an interview with "The Health Ranger".

He was talking about the coming shutdown of the Internet, and steps that he personally was working on to avert the damage. If I remember correctly, he said he is working in conjunction with Alex Jones to create an alternate Internet. One which can't be easily controlled or shut down.

He didn't go into any more detail, but I'd like to share an idea on this topic.

The idea isn't original. I first read about it more than ten years ago in a science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge.

The idea is that every device such as a cell phone is connected, not just with central towers, but also with every other device within range. So every cell phone carries data, not just for its owner, but potentially for hundreds of people in its immediate vicinity.

The distributed nature of the software would be very similar to the existing software that runs the Internet. The increased traffic would mean batteries would go down faster, but this is probably workable. We'd need strong encryption, but we already have that. All this stuff already exists, for the most part. I'm sure issues would have to be worked out.

The biggest obstacle to this is the cell providers themselves. It would not be in their best interest to allow customers to find a way to communicate without using their towers. This means that these providers, who in a large part control the design and software on the cell phones themselves, cannot be counted upon for such an innovation.

If the solution relies on hardware, this will have to be done independently, by some company such as Ubuntu. Or by one of the failing companies such as Blackberry, that could use this idea to leverage a last gasp for survival into a multi-million dollar success.

Naturally, the FCC would try to kill this idea, since it envisions communications without any central control, and would make a kill switch impossible.

The government also opposed allowing the public access to military grade encryption, until a man named Phil Zimmerman released to the world a program called PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann, back in 1991. Zimmerman did this at great personal risk, but once the cat was out of the bag, the government couldn't stop it. Such encryption is what makes today's Internet possible, and online commerce would not exist without it.

The best way to implement this idea, in my opinion, is to make it software based as much as possible; make it free, open source, and widely distributed; and such that it will operate on most any smartphone with wifi capability. An additional attachment to boost range would be desireable for people in outlying areas, but this can come later, when the principle of free distributed communication has already taken hold on the general public.

Now we just need someone to create it. Any takers?