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Direct from the mind of the guy who bought you the "I will kill you" presentation at DEF CON 23, is another mind bending, entertaining talk. This time it's bigger and badder than before.
Are you sick and tired of your government? Can't wait another 4 years for an election? Or do you want to be like the CIA and overthrow a government overseas for profit or fun? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions than[sic] this talk is for you! Why not create your own cyber mercenary unit and invoke a regime change to get the government you want installed? After all, if you want the job done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself.
Find out how over the last 60 years, governments and resource companies have been directly involved in architecting regime changes around world using clandestine mercenaries to ensure deniability. This has been achieved by destabilizing the ruling government, providing military equipment, assassinations, financing, training rebel groups and using government agencies like the CIA, Mossad and MI-5 or using foreign private mercenaries such as Executive Order and Sandline. Working with Simon Mann an elite ex SAS soldier turned coup architect who overthrew governments in Africa, Chris Rock will show you how mercenary coup tactics directly applied to digital mercenaries to cause regime changes as the next generation of "Cyber Dogs of War".
The YouTube video promises to teach you, among other things:
- How to gather intelligence to analyze a government's systemic weaknesses on financial, societal values and political climates that is leader- or country-specific to structure your attack.
- How to identify and prioritize government resources, infrastructure and commercial companies and how to use these compromised assets to stage the coup.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:56PM
1. I don't really understand where you're coming from, but that probably cuts both ways. I don't see myself as being pessimistic, merely pragmatic; history bears out everything I wrote, although I was a little hyperbolic about the state of affairs today. Detachment is necessary to gain perspective, once you have an rational point of view you can think about change in a practical way.
2. I agree that most people don't want a revolution, or at least don't know that they want one. As I said, most people are too busy staying alive and living to be concerned about politics and all of the mostly petty games "powerful" people play. It's my belief that revolution in the traditional sense will only feed back into the loop of history rather than breaking the cycle of suffering and apathy. The "revolution" that is needed now is cultural, global, and possibly impossible: the concept of government needs to dissappear. As long as people consent to being "governed", the same issues will occur, because humans as a whole cannot escape the animal tendencies of dominance and it's varied ills until we reject animal social structure.
3. The middle class has been a dominant force in the past 1000 years, but it's not often taught that way. England achieved her historical dominance due to a thriving and empowered middle class, while France and the American Colonies ended at revolution due to discontent in the middle class. The Enlightenment was a middle class thing - organized religion and nobility waned in influence as the artists, merchants, and scientists gained it. The middle ages show a prime example of the rise of the middle class with the development of larger towns and cities and the subsequent weakening of feudal hierarchies (serfs could escape to towns and become free). In the modern (post WWII) era, even though technology continues to connect people in unprecedented ways and make access to information so easy and rapidly approaching universal, and basic education has long been commonplace, there is still a definite ruling class which believes in Hobbes and Plato and rejects the ability of the common people to govern their own lives. These Hobbesian viewpoints and oligarchic tendencies combined with rampant corruption ensure that the middle class is marginalized and that freedoms are steadily restricted "in the interest of the common good" while bread and circus keep the masses occupied.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:23PM
I apologize. I had been under the impression that your post was one of those "don't bother voting, it doesn't change anything" type of despairing type. If that had not been your intention, than never mind.
Interesting point about the middle ages. I would agree that the rise of the middle classes (due to things like Industrialization, or the Black Death) did lead a good portion to the ending of the old system. You are correct that as a general rule, the middle class (or rather, people with resources but relatively little power) are the ones which cause various revolutions. However, I would assert that if you just look at human history, it is rare to have a strong and thriving middle class. The past 60 years in the US have been the exception, not the rule.