WARNING - THE WTBS CAN LOCATE YOU

by Jim Dee 67 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  LovesDubs

  Prominent Bethelite said one time that the Society was developing its own version of the Net Nanny to be distributed to JWs. The purpose of which obviously would be to control where they went. My guess is that it also would keep TRACK of where they went somehow as well. It was supposed to disallow the JW from going to buzz word sites. Perhaps they decided this was becoming too 1984, much like controlling when JWs had or if they had, oral sex was. They cant very well tell the JWs they cant be on the internet and that the internet is bad and continue to open and hold their OWN web sites. That is nothing if not hypocritical. They are in a catch-22. They cant NOT put their information out there, and they cant really put it there either and totally discredit the internet as a source of lies and apostacy.

  Im quite sure the advent of the internet is something they couldnt possibly have seen coming. Hey...if I was at Bethel, I sure as hell would jump at the chance to sit and be online all day playing Secret Agent versus doing laundry, loading trucks, washing toilets and making cheese LOLOL!

  Now they are going to have to suspect the ones they hired internally of divulging information too. The paranoia just keeps growing and growing and growing :)

  I believe these "secret" elders meetings will eventually come equipped with metal detectors, bugging device trackers and cell phone blocks...but they cant debug peoples memories. If the stuff is gonna come out...there isnt a thing they can do about it.

  Read CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE by Former Governing Body Member RAY FRANZ

  * http://freeminds.org/sales/most_burned.htm
• 

  Simon

  I think what you are referring to is the "referrer" field that the browser sends when you click on a link. This is used to generate the server stats that let you see where your visitors are coming from.

  I have seen, for instance, that a new web site called http://www.jehovahswitness.com/ has been setup which is made to act like an etry page to this site (I do not know why and it is not connected to this site in any way).

  If you have something like Norton Internet Security then it can be set to hide the referer field but if you set it to be hidden on this site you may have trouble posting because I use it to check that form submissions are made from this site to make it more difficult to spam the forum.

  I doubt the WTS would use this method as there are far easier ways of harvesting IP addresses of people visiting a forum such as this. Even this would be of limited use though because they would need the authorities / ISP cooperation to tie the IP to a real person.

  I wouldn't be too concerned to be honest
• 

  Utopian Reformist

  Rhett:

  Good points. Nice meeting you!

  Now, back to the discussion:

  Also, even if the WTBS uses "packet filtering tools" what does that accomplish? Filters are primarily used for either blocking certain types of traffic and closing certain IP ports, or allowing /redirecting certain traffic to certain ports.

  A "packet" decoder/analyzer is what is necessary to "capture" live packets, and analyze the data contained within, such as protocls, source/destination addresses, service access points, sockets, hardware addresses, etc...

  Then, there are "remote management/desktop management/keystroke monitor" programs that create virtual sessions in stealth mode with remote clients like ZENWORKS 3. You can watch monitor screens and see everything and with some additional tools, use can record all of the I/O (keyboard/mouse input/output) that a user executes.

  And again, there is always the legal issues. The WTBS are extremely over rated in their authority and capabilities, and that is primarily due to typical JW profile demographics.
• 

  SYN

  Carnivore? At Bethel? Please! Those people couldn't hack their way out of a PAPER BAG!!!!!!! (You know I'm laughing my tits off when I use that many exclamation marks, LOL )

  You are seriously overestimating the technical prowess of the Dubs. PULEEEEEEZE. The day those people install Carnivore (which is classified FBI technology BTW, nobody has it except it's creators) is the day that I start preaching Islamic teachings in the American Congress!

  Maybe, *just maybe* they are using some sort of a simple referral tracking system (this is very easy to implement), but anything further than that is very, very doubtful. JWs are just too honest.

  Then again, they are very well known for their spying abilities, aren't they? It's conceivable that some Dubs work at ISPs and have access to some of this information, and could get it to Bethel...but this would almost be like science fiction.

  To summarise: This is impossible. Referrall (sp?) tracking maybe, but THAT'S IT!!!

  Get yer facts straight, dude. No offense intended, but I think this is ludicrous. I was a Dub for nearly 15 years, I went to Bethel A LOT. (Well the one in Johannesburg, which doesn't really count...), and believe me, they simply aren't up to it.

  For what you're envisaging to happen, you'd need some pretty talented crackers who have access to large numbers of administrator's passwords to do the back-dereferencing on the mail servers. Even then that won't help them against some of the smarter apostates who use tunnelling HTTP bouncing servers to connect to the Internet.

  These people are not Samurai, they are sad cult drones. Deal with it.

  "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869.
• 

  rhett

  Don't forget everyone to cut and paste http://watchtower.org@63.92.157.81/mxplk4.htm into your browser (if you just click on the link it won't work right) to see just exactly what the WT is capable of.

  I don't need to fight
  To prove I'm right
  I don't need to be forgiven.
• 

  sf

  < http://www.privacydigest.com/2001/04/06

  A portion:

  If you think about it a bit more its not that confusing. The problem is that while the public thinks that valid law enforcement needs certain powers/tools to do their job, they do not trust them to do it correctly and without overstepping the bounds of propriety. Remember that the Carnivore system has no builtin audit trail or verification system. Assuming physical access to the box there is no log of what commands have been entered/processed. Considering the power of this tool, and the fact that the FBI or its agents has been known to overstep their bounds in the past this is a disaster waiting to happen.
• 

  Utopian Reformist

  OOOOOOOOOOH! I'm scared! Someone posts a web page with a threat and we are all supposed to be amazed, like it has never happened before?

  Give me a break. The IP address listed there is not registered to the WTBS domain. For the thousandth time (posted before by many others) here is the WTBS profile from NETSOL:
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Registrant:
  Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. (WATCHTOWER4-DOM)
  25 Columbia Heights
  Brooklyn, NY 11201-2483
  US

  Domain Name: WATCHTOWER.ORG

  Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact:
  Gott, Joel (JG5823) [email protected]
  Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc.
  25 Columbia Heights
  Brooklyn, NY 11201-2483
  (718) 560-5333 (FAX) (815) 346-2198

  Record last updated on 08-Mar-2001.
  Record expires on 15-Mar-2003.
  Record created on 14-Mar-1996.
  Database last updated on 7-Feb-2002 02:49:00 EST.

  Domain servers in listed order:

  NS1.SECURE.NET 192.41.1.10
  NS2.SECURE.NET 161.58.9.10
  ______________________________________________________________________

  The IP address "63.92.157.81" probably belongs to a provider. Since it is a class A address, there are too many possible subnet & host configurations to isolate the ISP without getting a look at the mask they are using. Provide the mask, and we can determine the subnet and then find out who owns/leases the public address.
• 

  rem

  Rhett,

  That's pretty funny! (though I wasn't fooled - I've seen that trick before) :)

  This paranoia about the WTBS tracking you over the Internet is ridiculous. The worst they could do is track emails and packets from within Bethel to see if information is leaking out, and even then it would be a daunting task.

  Some people are so paranoid about people knowing their IP address. So what? Your IP address cannot be used to identify you, except in rare cases where law enforcement subpeona ISP records. Your IP address most probably changes quite often, so it can't reliably be used to track you down, unless you are doing something illegal and law enforcement get's involved.

  There is no way the WT can find your identity (legally) through IP addresses if you are a normal dialup/cable/satelite/dsl user. And it would take way too many resources to try and get the information illegally - it's not like they can just look you up in a database or something, they would have to hack you and that takes time and resources. The WTBS is not a black hat hacking community, they are just a cult.

  When I toured Bethel a few years ago, hoping to be recuited into their networking department (LOL), I got to see their systems and I was not impressed at all. It was sad! They didn't have much of a network to speak of and they certainly weren't doing anything advanced. I'm not sure how things have changed since then, but I don't suspect that they have recruited much talent in that field with all of the money available in the job market. Plus, their charter is not to hunt for apostates by hacking on the net, it's to manufacture books.

  rem

  "We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain
• 

  SYN

  AHAHAHA! http://watchtower.org@63.92.157.81/mxplk4.htm points to a server called AsteroidModels.com!!! Whoever registered this site didn't fill in the domain name form properly:

  Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
  
  Organization: Rhett Bourland
  address: 3022 N. Fulton Ave.
  Evansville, 47710 IN UNITED STATES
  
  Admin contact: Rhett Bourland
  email: [email protected]
  phone: 812 4219764
  fax: Tech Name............ YahooDomains Techcontact
  
  Tech contact: YahooDomains Techcontact
  email: [email protected]
  phone: 619 8813096
  fax: Name Server.......... ns8.san.yahoo.com

  See what I mean??? Anyone who gets duped by this...well I won't say...if you look at the URL it's obviously just a hardlink to some IP address, but I guess not everyone has been working in the industry for years like me, so exceptions will happen.

  For your information here, good people of JW.COM: If you see a URL with an @ near the beginning, everything before the @ symbol is garbage. You could write PollyanaHasAGiantParrot before the @ symbol and the URL would still point to the same server.

  "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869.
• 

  Jourles

  OK, I finished reading through the posts and I am glad that when I reached Mindchild and Rhett's posts it was straightened out. If there is one thing that bugs me the most is when someone goes off half-cocked and tells everyone about technology that they themselves have no clue about.

  Here's the skinny:

  1. Hyperlinks from a website, such as this one pointing to another web site, generate a referral log in the redirected site's access log that shows the link where the person came from. Nothing special here, no Carnivore, just plain old internet logging.

  2. Carnivore was already touched on earlier. To put it in simple terms, if you were to have any experience in using an ethernet sniffer, you would know that you can retrieve all ethernet and IP traffic IF you are on the same 'wired' LAN, not WAN. For the FBI's use, Carnivore is placed on the ISP's last switch or hub before the uplink to the IP cloud router. This allows packet sniffing of all incoming and outgoing traffic and can be matched to a particular MAC(your computer's NIC, modem, router, etc), IP address, or however else they want to tag it. It is merely an overglorified ethernet sniffer that also has a backhaul link that routes/copies the 'tagged' packets and sends them to a database that compiles all of the information they want on you. CALEA is similar. It is used by law enforcement for wireline/wireless phone tapping. The phone technicians in the central office never touch the CALEA box once it is installed. The law enforcement agency gets its court order and does their own tapping remotely.

  3. Blocking cell phone usage in a building. If it's in the USA, then it is illegal, due to 911 issues and carries with it a hefty fine of about $10k a day I think. I'm not sure how other countries stand right now. I have heard of some using them in theaters and religious temples though.