TrapWire: Wikileaks reveals ex-CIA agents running a face-recognition profiling company that surveils NYC subways, London stock exchange, Vegas casinos and more

Douglas sez:

Newly released WikiLeaks publications from the Stratfor leak reveal much about Trapwire, a multi-country surveillance network run by a private US company, Abraxas, led by ex-CIA operatives. The network operates in NYC subways, the London Stock Exchange, Las Vegas casinos, and more. It uses real-time video facial profiling and is linked to red-flag databases.

Here is a US GOV pdf diagramming its workings. Here is an RT article on the subject.

The WikiLeaks publications related to Trapwire are difficult to access now because WikiLeaks.org and many of its mirrors are under heavy DDOS attack. (Good time to donate!) However you can see the publications here via Tor.

Australian activist @Asher_Wolf is organizing a nonviolent campaign against Trapwire, including an effort to spam the network with creative false positives.

TrapWire: International Surveillance Coordination Network (Thanks, Douglas!)

• [Noctilucent Studios]

  “ex-CIA operatives”.

  No such thing.

• [JenniferS]

  Someone should probably also link to the Tor software so that people can use the Tor link:  https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en

  • [Cowicide]

    Also, instructions:

     1) Download and install TorBrowser bundle via JenniferS’ link above.
     2) Launch the TorBrowser app.
     3) Paste this into the url field in the Torbrowser after it launches:
    http://isax7s5yooqgelbr.onion/gifiles/

• [PaulDavisTheFirst]

  From the RT article, possible prize sentence in the easy-to-overlook-because-its-buried-at-the-end…
  

  Separately, former NSA tech director William Binney and others once with the agency have made claims in recent weeks that the feds have dossiers on every American, an allegation NSA Chief Keith Alexander dismissed during a speech at Def-Con last month in Vegas

  • [disillusion]

    Well of course he dismissed it.  Why would the NSA have dossiers on all Americans?  Wouldn’t it suffice to have only those that are in the US?

    Mere wordplay, but remember, even people in Brazil are technically American, and I think he’s dismissing that statement since it can be said to use the broad term “American,” which is generally assumed to be synonymous with someone that lives in the United States of America even though it could very well also be used in the same way “European” is used.

    I wouldn’t put it past them to use that kind of reasoning to deny something such as that statement.

  • [kmoser]

    No need for the Feds to assemble a dossier on you when public records (not to mention your Google search history) already contain all that information and more.

• [Genre Slur]

  Waldorf:   “The CIA are tracking people, this is news?”
  Stadler:     “If the rest of the audience has been asleep as much as I have, then YES!!!”
  In unison:  “HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!”

• [Noctilucent Studios]

  Pretty awesome hack to make your face invisible to cameras.

   http://mods-n-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-infrared-mask-hide-your-face-from-cameras-201280/

• [Charles Edward Frith]

  NSA, CIA, ONI, CIA, TSA, DHS, DIA… all a bunch of psycho paranoiacs with greasy snouts in the security complex pork barrel.

• [kmoser]

  If we all started wearing masks of  terrorist suspects, would that constitute a DDoS attack on their facial-recognition network? Not advocating, just asking.

  • [gehringer]

    We don’t even need to go that far.  All we need to ‘DDoS’ them is to find a way of making this fashionable:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/face_detection_hacking/

• [sumsco vanpat]

  I want to know, who watches those that watch us?

• [Jer_00]

  Can anyone explain to me why these guys tend to name their corporations after things like gnostic archons, ancient gods, or random demons?  Do they get a kick out of the “demonic symbology” that their names are invoking or are they getting their names from some “random evil corporation name generator” that I can’t find on the web?

  ’cause I got to tell you – if I’m building a company that’s going to do automatic face recognition/tracking of everyone who goes through all of my systems, I’m naming it “HappyFace” or “SmileTracker” or if I want to be less playful/cuddly and more severe “police” sounding I might go with “GlobalGuardian” or something vaguely superhero-sounding.  Hell I can even see grabbing the name of an Olympian or Egyptian god (Something based around Nemesis or Horus would be fitting).  But I don’t see naming my company after one of the Gnostic Lords of Creation.

  Really, the Abraxas Corporation sounds like a front company for a cult of Nyarlathotep or Yog-Sothoth from a Lovecraft homage.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    You equate gnosticism with demons?

  • [Noctilucent Studios]

    “” Really, the Abraxas Corporation sounds like a front company for a cult of Nyarlathotep or Yog-Sothoth from a Lovecraft homage.”"

    what makes you think that’s not the case here?

    Also really surprised to see that this post hasn’t gotten all that much attention from the boingers. Seems to be tailor made for us.

• [Adam Parfrey]

  The Abaraxas Corp seems to be some sort of homage to Boyd Rice, who began an organization in the ’80s called “The Abraxas Foundation” …

  • [William James]

     Adam, Abraxas was in use long before Boyd used it.

    BTW, I love your work.

• [Coderjoe]

  Does this company include Jesse Ventura? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtWnqDBi5H8