Il suddetto “gruppo d’affari”, la Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, ha già coinvolto l’ex direttore della Nsa Keith Alexander e una società guidata dall’ex capo della Sicurezza Nazionale Michael Chertoff per “facilitare” la realizzazione del progetto.

La banda c’è tutta! Lo stato, ex lacchè di stato, banchieri… ma manca qualcuno. Chi sarà? Ah, è vero, siete voi! Ma non preoccupatevi. C’è un ruolo anche per voi. Tanto per iniziare, vi tocca il conto.

Quando Alexander scoprì che il suo servizio di sicurezza, offerto tramite la sua società di “consulenza” IronNet Cybersecurity, Inc. al prezzo di un milione al mese, non era un gran successo, decise di spolverare la vecchia fregatura della “società pubblico-privato”: chiudi in un serraglio i “clienti” che non hanno voglia di pagare e fai entrare lo stato, che poi passa il conto ai cittadini sotto forma di tasse.

Una “società pubblico-privato”, anche banale, è sempre una pessima idea. La parte “pubblica” si occupa del pagamento (vostro) dei costi. La parte “privata” si occupa dei benefici (i loro). In caso di fallimento, stato e socio “privato” dividono le colpe. Non nel senso che se le dividono tra loro, ma nel senso che se le rimpallano a vicenda fino allo sfinimento, finché tutti si dimenticano cosa è successo e loro possono tornare a frugare nel vostro portafogli.

Ovviamente né “pubblico” né “privato” significano quel che sembrano. La parte “privata” è formata da persone come Alexander, Chertoff e i loro amici banchieri senza volto: non più, o non ancora, tecnicamente alle dipendenze del governo, ma saldamente attaccati alla mammella. La parte “pubblica” è formata da burocrati governativi ansiosi di intraprendere una simile carriera in futuro. Le due parti sono collegate tramite una porta girevole. Se è difficile da vedere è perché gira molto rapidamente (sentite il sibilo?). Voi sborsate i soldi e per il resto non sono affari vostri.

Questa particolare “società”, però, è ben lungi dall’essere banale. Come faccio a dirlo? Semplice: c’è la parola “guerra”.

Le guerre hanno parti. Le guerre hanno nemici.

Non mi credete? Chiedetelo a Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, che è appena tornato dall’ospedale dopo che arditi (“pubblici”) guerrieri antidroga hanno lanciato una granata stordente nel suo box durante un raid. Forse avete sentito la storia nei notiziari della sera, infilata tra uno spot e l’altro della “pubblicità progresso” che pubblicizza la (“privata”) Associazione per una America Senza Droga. Questo è ciò che vi è dato sapere della lotta alla droga.

L’obiettivo di questo sforzo bellico “pubblico-privato” è la riparazione del muro eretto tanto tempo fa (dagli stessi attori “pubblici” e “privati” di oggi) attorno ai servizi bancari, finanziari e di pagamento.

Il suo nemico è il far west dei mercati e i loro clienti (compresi voi). Pensate a Bitcoin. Pensate a Uber e Lyft.

Questi mercati operano (a volte di fatto, altre potenzialmente) fuori dalla rete di normative di stato messa su per offrire fette di mercato, come i monopoli, a quelli che hanno amicizie politiche. Sono sempre esistiti (pensate al baratto, alla moneta spontanea, ai minibus e i taxi abusivi), ma oggi stanno spuntando come funghi. Alimentati dall’accesso diffuso ad internet e dalla disponibilità di forti tecnologie crittografiche, rappresentano un pericolo crescente non solo per alcuni particolarimonopolisti, ma per l’intero sistema statale di controllo che garantisce loro il monopolio.

È già in corso il dispiegamento della propaganda giustificativa che alla fine culminerà in qualche “standard di sicurezza” accompagnato da “azioni energiche o preventive”. Forse non è un caso se la notizia di questa proposta da parte dei media segue immediatamente la notizia di un articolo di un blog, presumibilmente legato al gruppo Isis, in cui si parla dell’uso di Bitcoin per “diffondere la jihad”. Non mi sorprenderei se dovessi sapere che gli autori di quell’articolo e gli addetti stampa del “consiglio di guerra cibernetica” condividono lo stesso ufficio al Pentagono… o perlomeno sono in contatto telefonico.

La cattiva notizia è che probabilmente non potete fare nulla per evitare questo “consiglio di guerra” o i suoi piani bellici.

La buona notizia è che potete vincere questa guerra. Tutto quello che dovete fare è capire che avete bisogno di mercati nuovi, migliori e non controllati più che di mercati controllati dallo stato (o dello stato, se è per questo) e agire di conseguenza.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

The aforementioned “trade group,” the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, has already brought in former National Security Agency director Keith Alexander and a firm headed by former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to “facilitate” the project.

The gang’s all here! The government, former government hangers-on, bankers … hey, wait, someone’s missing. Who could it be? Oh, yeah — you! But don’t worry. You do have a role to play. For starters, you get to pick up the check.

When Alexander discovered his security services (marketed through his “consulting” firm, IronNet Cybersecurity, Inc.) weren’t a hot seller at $1 million a month he dusted off the old “public-private partnership” scam … round up “customers” who aren’t willing to pay, then bring the state in to stick taxpayers with the bill.

Even garden variety “public-private partnerships” are bad ideas. Their “public” parts relate to payment of costs (that’s you). Their “private” parts relate to allocation of benefits (that’s them). The state and their “private” partners split the blame for failure — not by sharing it, but by tossing it back and forth until everyone gets worn out and forgets what happened and they can get back to picking your pocket.

And of course neither “public” nor “private” means what it sounds like. The “private” side consists of people like Alexander, Chertoff and their faceless banker friends — no longer or not yet technically in government employ but teeth clamped firmly on the teat. The “public” side consists of government bureaucrats eagerly anticipating similar future career paths. A revolving door connects the two sides. If it’s hard to see, that’s because it’s whirling so fast (listen for the sonic boom). You pay the freight, but you’re not really involved otherwise.

This particular “partnership,” though, is far from garden variety. How do I know? Simple: It’s got “war” in its description.

Wars have sides. Wars have enemies.

Don’t believe me? Ask Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, who’s home from the hospital after rampaging  (“public”) drug warriors threw a flash bang grenade into his playpen during a raid. You may have seen his story on the evening news, sandwiched in between “public service announcements” for the (“private”) Partnership for a Drug-Free America. This is your brain on the war on drugs.

The objective of this proposed “public-private” war effort is to repair the government fence long since erected (by the same “public” and “private” players asking for it) around banking, payment and financial services.

The enemy is unregulated markets and their customers (including you). Think Bitcoin. Think Uber and Lyft.

These markets operate — sometimes actually, always potentially — outside the web of state regulation set up to deliver such markets as monopolies to those with political pull. They’ve always been around (think barter; think community currencies; think “jitneys” and “gypsy cabs”), but these days they’re growing like Topsy. Powered by ubiquitous Internet access and the availability of strong encryption technology, they represent a growing danger not just to particular monopolists but to the system of state control that guarantees their monopolies.

The justifying propaganda rollout that will eventually culminate in “security standards” and “proactive/preemptive action” is already in progress. It’s probably not coincidence that media coverage of this proposal immediately follows coverage of an allegedly ISIS-linked blog post on using Bitcoin to “enable jihad on a large scale.” In fact I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that the authors of that blog post and of the “cyber war council” press release share a cubicle in the Pentagon … or at least have each other on speed dial.

The bad news is there’s probably nothing you can do to prevent this “war council” or its planned war.

The good news is you can win that war. All you have to do is realize that you need the newer, better, unregulated markets more than you need the state-controlled markets — or, for that matter the state itself — and act accordingly.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Guerra Cibernetica: Il Nemico Sei Tu.

As US Vice President Joe Biden might put it, this was a big —-in’ deal. The attackers deployed DDOS resources nearly an order of magnitude more powerful than those typically seen in large-scale cyber attacks, and so far as we know they didn’t have the resources of a state at their disposal. Lots of juicy implications there with regard to governments’ ability to attack Internet freedom versus users’ ability to aggressively respond. But that’s not what really caught my attention.

Maybe I live under a rock or something, but I had never heard of SpamHaus before this incident. I knew there were non-user-level “anti-spam services” available, but I hadn’t ever considered how they might work or what impact they might have on the essential openness of the Internet.

According to its web site, Spamhaus “is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to track the Internet’s spam operations and sources, to provide dependable realtime anti-spam protection for Internet networks, to work with Law Enforcement Agencies to identify and pursue spam gangs worldwide, and to lobby governments for effective anti-spam legislation.” It “maintains a number of realtime spam-blocking databases” which “are today used by the majority of the Internet’s Email Service Providers, Corporations, Universities, Governments and Military networks.”

Now, I don’t like spam any more than most people like spam. But what I like even less than spam is the idea of some centralized organization deciding what is and is not spam FOR me, without me ever seeing it, and deleting the things its operators don’t think I SHOULD see.  Especially if that organization associates itself with “Governments and Military networks.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m comfortable handling my own spam policing duties. Yes, my preferred email client (Gmail) does tentatively class a lot of mail as spam, but it doesn’t just delete that mail. It sticks it in a different folder than the usual stuff, and I’m free to peruse that folder, decide that some of the things in it aren’t spam, and arrange for them not to be treated as spam in the future.

Spamhaus looks, well, dangerous to a free and open Internet. And as we dig into the details of  its dust-up with Cyberbunker, even more so. The kerfuffle didn’t start this week. The attack on Spamhaus wasn’t preemptive, it was retaliatory. And while the attack on SpamHaus was along the lines of a “surgical strike,” albeit with some alleged “collateral damage,” its previous actions were more like dropping a nuclear weapon on a city full of innocent civilians.

In 2011, Spamhaus identified Cyberbunker as the host from which a spammer was operating. Instead of simply adding that specific spammer to its blacklist, SpamHaus attempted to intimidate CyberBunker’s upstream provider, A2B, into shutting down the entire hosting service. When A2B declined (while shutting down the specific spammer in question), SpamHaus cleared its Enola Gay for takeoff and dropped a Little Boy, adding all of A2B’s IP addresses to its global blacklist. A2B filed an extortion complaint with police; it’s unclear whether the matter has since been litigated.

If SpamHaus only worked with private sector service providers, I’d probably just write them off as a bad idea and ask my own ISP and/or email provider not to use them. But  their publicly disclosed (nay, promoted!) associations with “Government and Military networks” make them more than just a bad idea. SpaumHaus is effectively a transnational Internet secret police force,  in the service of various governments, acting with an arrogance, impunity and absence of accountability which poses a clear and present danger to the Internet itself. Here’s hoping that the recent DDOS attack is followed up with more effective countermeasures.