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by the International Minister, July 6, 2001
updated March 18, 2002
updated September 28, 2007
Anything electronic or having electronic components is a preferred target of U.$. imperialist spies. Internet, email, phone, fax and auto information is available in electronic form. You may be scanned by satellites both visually and for sound. The old-fashioned technique uses vans with men and equipment. However, do not be overwhelmed. You can emit false information and divide tasks among your comrades so that only some expose themselves to the public electronic world.
We ask that people communicating sensitive information to MIM to use PGP or GPG. PGP and GPG are computer programs that encrypt messages, so instead of sending a message that says, "my favorite color is purple," your message says "X-@XYYYYA:&**;;" and has to be decrypted by a program. The reason to do that is to make it harder for the government and even various hackers from reading your mail. Of course if you trust all individuals in the government or hacking, then speak without encryption.
On the other hand, when it comes to news or theory articles, the point is that many people will read them, so there is no point in encrypting them. We wish to spread them, even if snoops want to read them. We also seek to spread unencrypted disinformation to the enemy as much as possible. It is possible to spread disinformation to the government and hostile hackers through both encryption and public means. This means that the movement must distinguish between things that could confuse itself and things that only the enemy wants to know. Things that the enemy wants to know should be expressed as 95% disinformation. History, current events, analysis and theory should all be 100% truth.
When your computer is connected to the Internet, the enemy can try to take control of it and send information about your computer to the enemy's own computer. Use this program to set up a "firewall."
Study this page and the issues raised on it!
Study this classic Anonymizer web page and the issues raised on it!
(Purchasing Anonymizer services is not necessarily a good idea, but understanding the services and obtaining them elsewhere
might be a better idea.}
Keyloggers may be visible pieces of small hardware added to your computer or software that snuck its way on
The enemy spies on you in a number of ways. MIM specifically does NOT endorse the above web pages and their services. However, you must understand the issues involved BEFORE you use the Internet in ways that the enemy would attack and you should find some solution for the problems these web pages talk about. Work on your security a little every day and don't get overwhelmed and lazy thinking that the enemy has all the advantages.
It is so prone to problems, we won't even speak of the problems of instant messaging. Don't use instant messaging. Use email from anonymous places.
The Internet is a public resource developed with public money--an "information super-highway" similar in many ways to airports or subways. Although lawyers and judges are catching up in their understanding of the Internet, it is also true that Internet-users are unfamiliar with public interest and civil liberties law. The Internet will not be handled as a completely new era of humyn history causing the political system to change fundamentally, but instead will be incrementally adapted by capitalism and its existing legal structure.
*Be careful how you use that word "spam." Too many civil libertarians, anarchists and communists casually use the word "spam" just as the U.S. Government is considering ways to ban "spam." Most egregious is not distinguishing between political speech and for-profit speech, as the U.S. law already does in a major way separating thousands of cases. Political activists should never make the mistake of mushing volunteer and commercial speech and should always keep that distinction at front and center.
*Shopping malls, barbeque organizers and airlines have already learned something that many on the Internet have not-- that according to U.S. law, calling something "private property" does not eliminate public rights. Sooner or later, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will face the same reality--that being private companies does not eliminate their responsibilities to the public and does not give them the right to infringe on privacy or free speech--and yes that may mean some expenses to ISPs or even some lost revenue as a price of doing business with the public on a public resource. Those that do not like it should go out of business before engaging the public.
*Government agencies have chosen not to disclose their Internet activities to the public. Therefore, never assume that a hacking incident or spamming is not government initiated. The government is in fact involved in spreading software viruses. Others with a self-interest in ruining the Internet include all the major newspapers telling horror stories about the Internet, which just so happens to eliminate the need for buying old paper and ink products.
*Don't get caught up in defending corporate profit concerns. The corporations' efficiency does not come before our need to spread our message. MIM is unconcerned if pornography houses or other for-profit establishments cause other for-profit concerns losses of money. In actual fact, without the advertising spread by the Internet through various and sundry means, we Marxists know that the capitalist "realization crisis" only speeds up. Yes, advertising is a waste of everyone's time and money, but that's how capitalism works or not at all. It's hypocritical to complain about advertising and pollute the whole atmosphere for free speech while living under capitalism. The Government is not going to be able to distinguish protecting corporate profits from speech and is in fact going to intentionally muddle the issue if given the chance by people raising minor irritations to a question of law. People opposed to advertising should support socialism instead of piecemeal solutions that only frustrate everybody without solving anything, thereby leading to fascism. We can be sure that if the bourgeoisie is not guaranteed "free speech" to make money, it will be less interested in "free speech" generally. In other words, we cannot count on the bourgeoisie to always distinguish the two; even though it has distinguished the two at a high-level of legal principle. Lesser lawyers and judges make mistakes and eat up everyone's time.
Overall, keeping political line on the front-burner is the key link to defeating enemy spies and provocateurs. The five most important actions to take on behalf of security are:
1) A pig is a cop who barges in your front door. A pig question is any question about the who, when and where details of an activist doing something or just merely living. The classic pig question concerns the identity of a persyn. Of course, completely innocent people ask pig questions, but completely innocent information often ends up in the hands of police, which is why it is important never to ask or answer a pig question. Whether or not asked by a pig, the question would be asked by a pig.
It is MIM policy to assume that information provided in the answer to a persynal question ends up in the hands of police and other enemies including right-wing crackpots, including those cases of Nazis who have government jobs. MIM does not run electoral campaigns that necessitate persynality-focussed public opinion work. MIM's general policy is to promote line and only when necessary for action provide a concrete and public name or other info for activity.
Often people who ask extensive questions about persynality and psychology are politically and scientifically backward, not cops. Such backward people are as yet unable to distinguish between political line and the persyn speaking it.
2) Comrades working on the Internet or in public should not only not answer pig questions but should also not volunteer information about themselves. The more anonymous but easy it is to do political work, the better. Figuring out how to accomplish this is an important goal of MIM circles. Advances in Internet technology make it easier to spy on people, but they also make it easier to disseminate scientific information.
3) In the imperialist countries, it is against Maoist policy to engage in armed struggle. Comrades should think twice before joining up with someone who claims to want to take "real action." There is always the possibility that the government is taking the action and hoping to hook others in to blame them for it.
4) Post-modernism has made the state's job much easier, by providing a focus on who says what instead of what is said. It is important to know what social group's interests are served by what political line, and in many cases that is not the same answer as the answer to who is saying what, thanks to "false consciousness" present in all social groups.
When someone tries to slam MIM by saying, "MIM's members are all students" or "MIM's members are all lumpen," or the like, the purpose is to turn one social group against another when it comes to upholding Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The tactic of pitting one social group against another in MIM's circles is a common police tactic, one abetted by post-modernists. Not for nothing we Maoists say, "ideological and political line is decisive" and we oppose the line that social background or lifestyle is decisive.
The attack on the social backgrounds of MIM circles also plays into the hands of the state on pig questions. People who become indignant about the all-"student," all-"Black," all-"white" or all-"lumpen" accusation then provide details about themselves or their comrades to prove contrary. This is a sucker-punch we must avoid. Disproving state lies is not the main goal of the party in all circumstances. When proving state lies are lies would require providing pig question information, we allow the state to continue its lies unhampered. Real revolutionary scientists will not fall for their baiting and this in itself is a source of our strategic confidence in security matters. State agents who continuously lie will eventually have their work fall apart and come to naught.
People who blather about their identity and attack MIM or its circles for their alleged identities show that they are either cops or people who cannot distinguish what is said from its speaker, a basic fault of logic. The use of logic benefits the revolution, because there is no scientific reason that the proletariat would not do a better job ruling than the imperialists. It is the imperialists who benefit from raising irrational reasons for the proletariat and its allies to split, since it is the imperialists who stand so outnumbered globally.
5)In addition to negative strategies aimed at dividing revolutionaries along lifestyle or social background lines, the government also uses the "honey-trap" strategy. In this strategy it is possible to collect information by appearing to be revolutionary.
By distributing MIM Notes for instance, someone can claim to be from MIM, assume a false identity and then spy on the revolutionary movement. To defeat this strategy it is necessary to make MIM's publications widely available while teaching people not to trust people who are not working hard for the revolution. Important information should not be shared with people or organizations who are not dedicated to the cause. Maximum gains to the enemy state agents occur when it is easy to set up a honey-trap with a few actions or statements not involving long investments of time and money in years of proven action. The harder the state has to work to lure potential recruits or information, the less worthwhile it becomes to the state. Of course, the state will have some well-placed and very hard-working infiltrators who do invest years of time, but we can sift out the 90% that are not relatively easily. By perfecting anonymity and defense against pig questions, a comrade can do much to minimize the enemy's gains from the honey-trap strategy.
The above is a general list of police tactics. Below we fill in some of the typical details of state spies and provocateurs from various countries.
1) Amerikan spies and infiltrators include a) people posing as Vietnam Veterans or others experienced with weapons for the purpose of luring in suckers for an adventure or to kill innocent people with a cover, as in the state infiltrator seen in the New Haven Black Panther trial b) people posing as Nazis in order to have a cover for nefarious activities ranging from spying to killing anti-racists as in Greensboro, 1979 c) people spreading adultery, homosexuality, gang-banging or other sensational accusations to take advantage of the Liberalism of the sexual politics movement and split the revolutionary ranks. d) spreading rumors about movement leaders ranging from their competence to their energy to their lifestyles, and thereby elevating persynality questions and putting line on the backburner.
2)Israeli spies and provocateurs that we know of have adopted the following tactics: a) Distributing, posting or painting inflammatory swastikas and Nazi material in order to justify the existence of Israeli imperialism b) faking Arab attacks to justify Israeli imperialism's existence, even at the cost of Jewish life (and hence we must assume at lesser costs as well) c)collecting information on all who criticize Israel
Defeating the Nazi, Israeli and Amerikan infiltrators hinges on implementing line that the enemy cannot successfully take over. Nazis seek to let white oppressors off the hook and save capitalism by blaming all oppression on Jews. Without Nazis, the Israeli imperialists would also have less justification for themselves and Amerikan state agents would have one less cover to adopt and sort out. Without an understanding of the global parasitism of the imperialist countries it will be impossible not to strengthen both Nazism and Zionism.
3) Chinese rulers of the Deng and Jiang Zemin era are marked by subjectivist-empiricism. Like the post-modernists, they are in the habit of denying that anyone not Chinese could know something about China. They then set about determining the credentials of their critics. Such credentials information is also good information for police. You have no need to prove how Chinese you are or any other experience you may have. Don't let people bait you for persynal information.
[To be continued.]
Recent events in public have shown that while they still have national contradictions and secrets amongst themselves, state intelligence agencies also work together, on U.$. territory, in Afghanistan, etc. Hence, Chinese agents may have a job to do on U.$. territory allowed by the U.$. intelligence agents, or Israeli agents are openly invited to tour the rubble of the World Trade Center etc. Agents from NATO countries may be allowed to do things in the U$A that others or even U.$. agents are not. The U.S. Government is making no secret that it is buying the services of other countries' intelligence agencies. Sometimes it is true that they are buying it, but sometimes the U.$. intelligence agencies are simply trying to discredit people or organizations who need credentials apart from U.$. interests. That is the U.S. Government says it has bought off somebody who is in fact completely genuine.
Those with the means can set up elaborate electronic "counter-intelligence." While the U.S. Government has elaborate eavesdropping, wiretapping and satellite imaging technology, it still has the task of separating true information from false information. For this reason, even Saddam Hussein set up decoy devices in Iraq for the United States to bomb. Likewise, it is easy to set up decoy electronic communications and multiply them thousands of times for phone, fax, radio and other transmissions that the U.S. intelligence agencies will take in.
While it is reasonable to think that the U.S. Government may have the "best" high-tech repression available, there is no reason to become overly pessimistic. It's much like the situation of having a "better" nuclear weapon than someone else: it's of high cost to both sides. While the international proletariat and rebellious former lackeys like Saddam Hussein will have inferior counter-repression and counter-intelligence in general, U.$. imperialism has no chance of being able to afford all the work of sorting out true information from false.
One last point we would like to make is that people with cable modems or DSL lines can contribute to proletarian security by downloading the whole MIM web site. Go to the bottom of this page for the link to download the whole MIM web site!
Capitalism actually needs open borders and communications to expand. In the process of this expansion, it created the Internet. Now it is more difficult to repress the truth than ever before. Cops, infiltrators and surveillance while becoming ever more elaborate are actually evermore overmatched by the forces arrayed against imperialism.
*See also, "Vouching and credentials as a bad means of security"
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