If you can't have a conversation on Twitter you may be doing something wrong. Thanks to the peers on the network we've found all sorts of interesting things.
Things like the location of rockets associated with sarin attacks in Syria[0] placed squarely on Mezzeh military airbase in Damascus. The rockets at the time were thought to be Iranian Falaq but more evidence showed them to be part of their own distinct program.
The discussion did not stay entirely on Twitter but was the main venue for it. Without being able to rope millions of random peers you may not know you will converse with later into one IRC channel, Twitter works for wide broadcast fast paced discussion.
Blocking people helps sure, but I think many people's problem seems to be a perceived lack of interesting peers.
Sure sounds like you're blaming antirez for people on Twitter taking his tweet out of context and running with it. It's also completely unfair to say "Twitter was awesome in this very explicit situation so you obviously did something wrong in your situation".
No, that is on the people who did that. If anything I would blame antirez for getting flustered enough about this non-Twitter specific problem to write a blog post.
He is not to blame at all. He made a good faith effort to communicate which did not work and openly reasoned about the challenges of a relatively new platform that many people are still trying to make the best use of. I'm glad he posted.
You need to power devices and protect said devices. Water will come crashing in eventually so prepare for that. Tends to disrupt communications right quick. Those umbrellas did a bang-up job deflecting spray from police but won't for riot trucks.
Apps like Bambuser allow live streaming but also leak details like GPS coordinates if not careful about what settings are turned on. If you end up getting shot at, you don't want to lead aggressors right to you.
Malicious people will get users to spread malware, state entities like intel agencies just as well as thieves. People will be looking for 'things' that work, be aware of these 'things' be it a VPN or chat app.
You will be monitored via ISP level hardware like activists were in Syria via BlueCoat equipment. Encryption is your friend for anything outside of very public channels. Try to coordinate outside of the most public channels before broadcasting plans widely.
Moderation of chat as you mentioned is key, consider setting up chat channels in places that can be moderated like IRC. Having a wide assortment of moderators is good for eyes on the problem, but focus on technical problems like flooders instead of political/social. All but the most aggressive trolls can simply be ignored, they will flame out if not fed.
Overall depending on centralized communications is a problem, internet can and will be cut if deemed a problem. Walkie-talkies and other independent devices can help keep crowds coordinated. But really police and intel agencies are in love with the data mobile/internet networks yield. Expect IMSI catchers and other nefarious hardware sniffing communications.
edit: Many I knew from Syria no longer exist, don't get shot. That disrupts communications permanently.
> Finally, for people who like puzzles we've left a clue to our announcement right here on this page. With a little lateral thinking you may be able to figure it out.
It is because many DDoS websites sitting behind Cloudflare are FBI run. See titaniumstresser[0] as an example. One of their sub-domain's IP address is allocated to the FBI[1]. Seems like the longest lasting sites peddling stolen info, child pornography, or malicious services are all run by feds.
Hostname: direct.titaniumstresser.net
IP Address: 153.31.25.12
Organization: FBI Criminal Justice Information Systems
LOL, that's just so someone (of a rival group) who tries to get their real IP address (to ddos them), finds that subdomain, and doesn't look closely, and goes to ddos the FBI.
Many automated scripts script kiddies use to DDoS will do a basic check for subdomains like "direct.domain.com" and "direct-connect.domain.com" if the target domain is behind Cloudflare, and the scripts are naive and immediately assume that's the server's real IP.
Setting it to the IP of a site they dislike is also a popular choice.
There was a similar incident that comes to mind, BlueCoat hardware deployed by Assad's government in Syria.
It was found that Assad was having traffic monitored through BlueCoat proxies installed at the ISP level. Logs were leaked showing monitoring of religious, sexual, political content.
Of course many are now dead, countless others imprisoned. Much thanks to BlueCoat and salesmen who assisted Assad's government in procuring the hardware.
Sidenote: This topic, and others around it have gotten several accounts of mine here ghosted. Best stick to discussing how your start-up wants to sell traffic monitoring hardware and SaaS via independent sales agents to whoever has cash.
Similarly, reddit will completely shut down any threads that start to become too activist on the grounds of "witch hunting." It's amazing how we've already systematically nerfed the internet as a tool for bringing about political change.
Things like the location of rockets associated with sarin attacks in Syria[0] placed squarely on Mezzeh military airbase in Damascus. The rockets at the time were thought to be Iranian Falaq but more evidence showed them to be part of their own distinct program.
The discussion did not stay entirely on Twitter but was the main venue for it. Without being able to rope millions of random peers you may not know you will converse with later into one IRC channel, Twitter works for wide broadcast fast paced discussion.
Blocking people helps sure, but I think many people's problem seems to be a perceived lack of interesting peers.
[0] http://wikimapia.org/29357078/Falaq-2-Launch-Site