How to Overthrow a Government [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1lhGqNCZlA

243 43 10 years ago

The speaker's previous presentation at a different year of the same conference, about using online records to fabricate your own death or the birth of a made-up baby, is also worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs.

pilif• 10 years ago

Thank you very much for posting this. This is nearly unbelievably bad and also reminded me of last weekend's discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12511202 and brings that into a completely new light: Why even bother trying to vanish in order to fake your death when you might just as well just fill out the required forms on your own.

unixhero• 10 years ago

I liked the media manipulation part.

1_listerine_pls• 10 years ago

Made me realize I need to get a farm and a couple of solar panels.

nxzero• 10 years ago

I'm sure marauders would thank you (nicely of course) for all of your hard work to supply them with your booty.

eternalban• 10 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...

guelo• 10 years ago

I don't get it, there was a lot of screenshots of consoles and such, is he implying that he actually did do this? .

olh• 10 years ago

Yes but not for real, it revolves around the idea of making hackers the most feared bunch of people.

emp_zealoth• 10 years ago

But was it done by hackers? Or the whole talk is full of shit?

cromulen• 10 years ago

He did pentesting for Kuwait government.

He's saying he could have done it.

eatbitseveryday• 10 years ago

Why not follow through with something mild to demonstrate his case (with or without admitting to it)?

josh_fyi• 10 years ago

This is the classic book on the topic:

Edward Luttwak, Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, 1968

RGamma• 10 years ago

One review on Amazon says "[...] The only asterix one would attach to it is that the second, and most recent, edition was published in 1979, so we don't have anything about dealing with the internet, mobile phone networks, etc.".

It seems that's a really big omission in any "practical" handbook. Apparently the author is still alive. Time for a third edition? (and I have yet to watch the video)

thomasfoster96• 10 years ago

There is a new edition which was published this year (2016). I was able to get it via Amazon - maybe the review is a bit old? I haven’t read much of it so far as I have a few other books on the go but the internet and mobile phones are certainly mentioned.

Edit: Revised edition still has the original author.

Edit 2: Amazon link (not affiliate link): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674737261/ref=oh_aui_deta...

HillRat• 10 years ago

To be fair, he wrote the original as an analysis of how coups d'etat tended to evolve during the postcolonial period; the "practical guide" was just a bit of academic provocation. (As Luttwak admits, he only knows of one coup that actually used his book as a resource, and it failed abysmally.)

I'm totally with you that an entirely new book, post-Arab Spring, is in order, though -- perhaps one half devoted to how to overthrow a government, the other half on how to ruthlessly suppress dissent.

leksak• 10 years ago

I was expecting to see the comedian for some reason.

lucb1e• 10 years ago

Oh he's a comedian, that explains why the talk was like this. Can't say I found it very amusing though.

pearjuice• 10 years ago

Will I be on a watchlist after watching this?

teekert• 10 years ago

Of course.

ablation2• 10 years ago

Depends. How's your opsec?

Cthulhu_• 10 years ago

Depends on what watchlist you're referring to. Short answer: yes, multiple, but not because of the subject.

What you probably want to ask is 'how big is the watchlist'.

hackaflocka• 10 years ago

How big is it?

collyw• 10 years ago

Any idea where I could read up more on watchlists. I kind of assumed they are happening but no idea what sort of thing gets you on one other than a sensible guess.

chukye• 10 years ago

Is he just saying that you can put down a government by faking a lot of news?

ablation2• 10 years ago

It appears to be a large part of what he's saying, yes, but it looks like it certainly helps to have the hacking chops to be able to move millions of dollars between hacked bank accounts, compromise state-wide telcos at the root, and have the backing and advice of an international mercenary and special forces veteran.

mtgx• 10 years ago

It's why China is cracking down "Internet rumors", and also why in the U.S., Twitter, Facebook, and Google, are forming an alliance to crack down on "fake news" [1], starting with stuff like censoring Hillary Clinton's passing out video and related trending hashtags [2][3], or videos of North Dakota's pipeline protests [4].

We're going to need a decentralized and censorship-resistant Internet/social media sooner than people think. By the next U.S. election, I fear the these three main sites will have already been co-opted to work as government propaganda arms [5], as a smooth transition from old TV media propaganda to Internet propaganda, as more people cut their cords.

The worst part is people won't even be able to easily see it. It's one thing to see a moderator on TV constantly hitting (or praising) a candidate and eventually realizing that maybe he or she isn't very fair or is biased, and may have ulterior motives for doing that.

But it's quite another to be so vigilant as to notice when Google shows you mostly pro-Clinton search results for neutral election-related queries, or when Facebook and Twitter "don't" allow some topics to trend (although I think more people are starting to catch on to these tactics, but it's probably not happening fast enough to make a difference this election).

[1] https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/14/facebook-twitter-first-d...

[2] http://observer.com/2016/09/facebook-and-youtube-show-franti...

[3] http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/11/hillary-health-stor...

[4] http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/15/12926058/facebook-dakota-p...

[5] https://theintercept.com/2016/09/07/google-program-to-deradi...

inanutshellus• 10 years ago

It seems these days that misinformation is the name of the game. It's all-but-impossible to tell the difference between intentional misinformation from a biased source and crying foul by a victim of misinformation, however. ("He's a psychopath!" "She's near her deathbed!")

Somewhat relatedly, I tried following both the main Clinton and Trump subreddits for a while and there was significant value in doing so. They were often talking about entirely different shenanigans going down... but... they were so vitriolic (and, frankly, childish) that I had to unsubscribe to them.

Natanael_L• 10 years ago

I remember seeing a file based social network built using Keybase.io's KBFS for sharing/publication. Can't find it again, though.

Stuff like that + decentralized technologies would be great for social media, if we could get momentum behind it.

okwhatthe22• 10 years ago

How to Overthrow a Government [video]

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