NewsPoliticsA new Sky documentary that investigates some of the most mind-boggling conspiracy theories of recent years has been shining a new light on some of the most baffling fake news stories to come out of the US

Wednesday, 10th June 2020, 4:06 pm

After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News aired earlier this month, and surveys the effects of disinformation campaigns on social media and the impacts of well known conspiracy theories.

One of those theories is that of Pizzagate, and the film follows the growth of the story on forums like Reddit and 4chan, how it was fomented by the alt-right and Alex Jones, and then translated into a real-life dangerous situation.

Heres everything you need to know:

Pizzagate was a widely discredited news story which linked Hilary Clintons presidential campaign with a fictional human trafficking ring.

Its so-called because the alleged headquarters of the operation was the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C, which according to the conspiracy was also a meeting ground for Satanic ritual abuse.

It all began in March 2016, when the personal email account of John Podesta, Clinton's campaign manager, was hacked.

WikiLeaks published the emails later that year; conspiracy theorists claimed the emails contained coded messages that alluded to human trafficking and a child sex ring.

The emails contained multiple references to pizza and pizza restaurants, but there is no evidence that they are code or refer to anything else.

Had the claims been true, it would have implicated a number of high-ranking Democratic Party officials.

How was the story debunked?

The story has been widely debunked by a number of fact checking a news organisations from across the political spectrum even Fox News has said the story is completely false.

Theorists claimed that similarities between Comet Ping Pongs logo contained symbols linked to Satanism and paedophilia; the New York Times noted these similarities could be found in the logos of completely unrelated companies, if you looked hard enough.

Claims of a secret underground network beneath Comet Ping Pong were disproven by the fact the establishment has no basement, and evidence that John Podesta played a part in the kidnapping of Madeleine McCann were simply sketches of a suspect taken from the descriptions of two eyewitnesses.

No alleged victims have come forward and no physical evidence has been found.

Despite the theory having zero evidence to support it, that didnt stop those who opposed Hilary Clinton believing the story wholesale.

That included gunman Edgar Maddison Welch, who travelled down from South Carolina to confront the owners of Comet Ping Pong.

He entered the pizza restaurant in Washington D.C. packed with families on a Sunday afternoon and fired an automatic rifle.

Thankfully, no one was injured in the disturbance; Mr Welch told police he had driven from South Carolina to investigate the restaurant after reading online reports.

Why is Comet Ping Pong back in the news?

Though its been four years since the height of the Pizzagate story, the owners still have to deal with death threats and abuse.

As employees continue to search for a new rhythm [during the coronavirus pandemic], say the Washington Post, they still field calls from Pizzagate obsessors.

A few weeks ago, someone jammed the phone line for an entire day, frustrating customers who struggled to place orders. [Comet] has received almost 70 Pizzagate messages in recent weeks.

There also seems to be a renewed interest in the false story in the wake of news that US prosecutors want a face-to-face interview with Prince Andrew over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

The story has been trending on Twitter again, despite remaining completely untrue, with theorists linking Epsteins private jet the Lolita Express and his private Epstein Island with the restaurant.

There is no evidence to suggest any of it is true.

More:
What is Pizzagate? The fake news scandal involving Hillary Clinton and Wikileaks explained - and why its trending amid Epstein inquiry - The Scotsman

The HSE has secured High Court orders preventing an IT worker from distributing highly confidential and sensitive information about hospital patients.

It is alleged that Neill Bradley from Cork had distributed confidential information he obtained from the HSE computer servers during the course of his now-former employment with a third party contracted by the HSE to perform certain IT services.

The information includes patients' personal data and medical databases allegedly sent by Mr Bradley to Wikileaks, the non-profit organisation that publishes news leaks provided by anonymous sources.

The orders were granted by Mr Justice Tony O'Connor, whosaid he was satisfied Mr Bradley had gained access to private and sensitive data through his former employment.

The judge noted the defendant in one post on social media had referred to information he obtained, which Mr Bradley knew should be kept secure.

The HSE launched proceedings against Mr Bradley following a probe it commenced after becoming aware of a potentially serious data breach from posts on social media of screenshots of the HSE's internal servers.

The HSE claims the posts appeared on three Twitter accounts it says were set up and controlled by Mr Bradley.

Through those accounts, Mr Bradley allegedly sent messages to a senior official at the HSE, as well as posting to the social media accounts of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Ministers Simon Harris and Pascal Donohoe, media figures and Dr Tony Holohan.

In his communications, Mr Bradley made allegations of a cover-up and a scam by the HSE and said he would make public data from over a dozen Irish hospitals, it is claimed.

It is also claimed he used various hashtags on his posts including #covid19 #lockdown Ireland #notmytaoiseach #MAGA and #mediascum.

The HSE said during previous employment as a systems administrator Mr Bradley was given access to its servers and patient databases to carry out tasks his previous employer was contracted to do.

That firm's role was to maintain and service a 'smart' automated system used to dispense, record and manage medication given to patients at various hospitals called Omnicell.

The system is used in many hospitals throughout the state.

Since becoming aware of the situation the HSE, in co-operation with Mr Bradley's previous employer, who terminated his employment after learning of the HSE's concerns, have taken steps to secure the servers and prevent the information from being published.

These steps include having posts on thepastebin.comsite and links to the confidential material removed.

The HSE also sought and obtained court orders, including injunctions to prevent him from attempting to post more links to confidential information.

The injunction is to remain in place pending the outcome of any full hearing of the matter.

The application for the injunctions was initially heard in-camera, meaning that the proceedings were in private.

The Judge subsequently lifted the in-camera ruling allowing the media to report on the case.

In its action, the HSE, represented by Eoin McCullough SC, Joe Jeffers Bl instructed by Philip Lee solicitors sought the orders against Mr Bradley with an address at Carrigeen Hill, Conna, Co Cork.

Counsel said Mr Bradley had been informed of the application against him.

However he did not attend, nor was he represented during, the court hearings.

Mr Justice O'Connor in making the orders said Mr Bradley would be given the chance to advance a defence to the HSE's claims at a full hearing of the action.

The injunction restrains Mr Bradley and any person to whom he has communicated or may communicate the confidential information from disseminating publishing, communicating by any means, or using any of said information through specific twitter handles and email addresses attributed to him.

The order also restrains the defendant, and anyone who received the confidential information from him, from destroying or deleting the information.

He must also deliver up all documents, records and devices containing the confidential information to the HSE's solicitors for forensic analysis.

The court further restrained Mr Bradley from leaving Ireland until he has complied with the order to deliver up the confidential information, and hand over his passport to An Garda Sochana, who will retain it until further order.

The HSE solicitors were given permission to notify the Department of Foreign affairs, An Garda Sochana, authorities at all points of exit from the State about the court's orders.

Mr Justice O Connor said that Mr Bradley had said in another tweet that he had sold his house and was moving about Europe in a camper van to "ply my skills elsewhere."

The judge also noted the HSE lawyers undertaking to give the Data Protection Commissioner, the Minister for Health and the Attorney General copies of the order and the documents put before the court during the application if requested by those parties.

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Cork IT worker accused of sending personal HSE files to Wikileaks - Echo Live

The HSE has secured High Court orders preventing an IT worker from distributing highly confidential and sensitive information about hospital patients. It is alleged that Neill Bradley had distributed confidential information he obtained from the HSE's computer servers during the course of his now former employment with a third party contracted by the HSE to perform certain IT services.

The information includes patient's personal data and medical databases allegedly sent by Mr Bradley to Wikileaks the non-profit organisation that publishes news leaks provided by anonymous source founded by Australian internet activist Julian Assange.

The orders were granted last week by Mr Justice Tony O'Connor, whosaid he was satisfied that Mr Bradley had gained access to private and sensitive data through his former employment, which he threatened to facilitate the dissemination of patients details and private records.

The judge noted that the defendant in one post on social media had referred to information he obtained, which Mr Bradley knew should be kept secure, as being "stolen. "

The HSE launched proceedings against Mr Bradley following a probe it commenced after becoming aware of a potentially serious data breach from posts on social media of screenshots of the HSE's internal servers.

The HSE claims the posts appeared on three twitter accounts it says were set up and controlled by Mr Bradley.

Through those accounts Mr Bradley allegedly sent messages to a senior official at the HSE, as well as posting to the social media accounts of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Ministers Simon Harris and Pascal Donohoe, media figures and Dr Tony Holohan.

In his communications, Mr Bradley made allegations of a cover-up and a scam by the HSE and said he would make public data from over a dozen Irish hospitals, it is claimed.

It is also claimed that he used various hashtags on his posts including #covid19 #lockdown ireland #notmytaoiseach #MAGA and #mediascum.

The HSE said during previous employment as a systems administration Mr Bradley was given access to its servers and patient databases to carry out tasks his previous employer was contracted to do.

That firm's role was to maintaining and servicing a 'smart' automated system used to dispense, record and manage medication given to patients at various hospitals called Omnicell.

The system is used in many hospitals throughout the state.

Since becoming aware of the situation the HSE, in co-operation with Mr Bradley's previous employer, who terminated his employment after learning of the HSE's concerns, have taken steps to secure the servers and prevent the information from being published.

These steps include having posts on thepastebin.comsite and links to the confidential material removed.

The HSE also sought and obtained court orders, including in junctions to prevent him from attempting to post more links to confidential information.

The injunction is to remain in place pending the outcome of any full hearing of the matter.

The application for the injunctions was initially heard in camera, meaning that the proceedings were in private. The Judge subsequently lifted the in camera ruling allowing the media to report on the case.

In its action the HSE, represented by Eoin McCullough SC, Joe Jeffers Bl instructed by Philip Lee solicitors sought the orders against Mr Bradley with an address at Carrigeen Hill, Conna, Co Cork. Mr Bradley had been informed of the application against him.

However he did not attend, nor was he represented during, the court hearings.

Mr Justice O'Connor in making the orders said Mr Bradley would be given the chance to advance a defence to the HSE's claims at a full hearing of the action.

The injunction restrains Mr Bradley and any person to whom he has communicated or may communicate the confidential information from disseminating publishing, communicating by any means, or using any of said information through specific twitter handles and email addresses attributed to him. The order also restrains the defendant, and anyone who received the confidential information from him, from destroying or deleting the information.

He must also deliver up all documents, records and devices containing the confidential information to the HSE's solicitors for forensic analysis.

The court further restrained Mr Bradley from leaving Ireland until he has complied with the order to deliver up the confidential information, and hand over his passport to An Garda Sochana, who will retain it until further order.

The HSE's solicitors were given permission to notify the Department of Foreign affairs, An Garda Sochana, authorities at all points of exit from the State about the court's orders.

Mr Justice O Connor said that Mr Bradley had said in another tweet that he had sold his house and was moving about Europe in a camper van to "ply my skills elsewhere."

The judge also noted the HSE's lawyers undertaking to give the Data Protection Commissioner, the Minister for Health and the Attorney General copies of the order and the documents put before the court during the application if requested by those parties.

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HSE takes action against man who leaked patient information to Wikileaks - Offaly Express

Written by Om Marathe, Edited by Explained Desk | New Delhi | Updated: June 9, 2020 9:34:41 am The worldwide group is believed to include anyone who wants to join; its members being referred to as anons. (Source: Wikimedia common)

As racial tensions in the US continue to make headlines, the hacktivist group Anonymous is back in focus with social media handles believed to be associated with it promising retribution for the death of George Floyd.

On May 28, in a video posted on an unconfirmed Facebook page, a speaker wearing Anonymouss signature Guy Fawkes mask accused the Minneapolis police of having a horrific track record of violence and corruption and threatened to expose its many crimes, TIME reported.

Since then, the group has been accused of carrying out a cyberattack on the websites of the city of Minneapolis and its police department, making them temporarily inaccessible. The webpage of a United Nations agency was also defaced, and replaced with a memorial carrying an Anonymous symbol that read Rest In Power, George Floyd!

The group has been described as a decentralised online collective with no particular political affiliation, that rallies around causes such as opposing censorship and government control and promoting freedom of speech. In the past, it has expressed support for the Occupy movement and Julian Assanges WikiLeaks. The worldwide group is believed to include anyone who wants to join; its members being referred to as anons.

A signature characteristic of Anonymous is the Guy Fawkes mask, portrayed in the dystopian novel and film V for Vendetta, in which an anarchist anti-hero wearing the mask fights against a fascist, white supremacist government. Even beyond the internet, sympathisers of the movement have sported the Guy Fawkes at rallies around the world.

Another attribute of the group is the use of voice changers or text-to-speech programmes that let anons mask their voice in video messages.

Anonymous does not use any verified social media handles, with multiple factions using portals such as the AnonNews website and Twitter account for disseminating the groups motives and campaigns.

The movement is believed to have started on imageboard websites such as 4chan in the early 2000s, and first became famous in 2008 when it unleashed cyberattacks on the Church of Scientology after the latter sought to remove from the internet a controversial video of filmstar Tom Cruisean outspoken Scientologist speaking about his religious beliefs.

In 2010, Anonymous was believed to be responsible for cyberattacks on Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, after the financial services firms blocked donations to the controversial whistleblower WikiLeaks.

In 2011, Anonymous launched a tirade against the Westboro Baptist Church, a denomination known for its extreme opposition to homosexuality. Also that year, the group was alleged to have sabotaged electronics giant Sonys PlayStation network, after anons accused Sony of backtracking from providing an advertised feature. During the 2011 Arab Spring, it went after government websites in Egypt and Tunisia.

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A year later, after the US banned the popular file-storage website Megaupload, Anonymous shut down the websites of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice. In April 2012, Time magazine named Anonymous in its Worlds 100 Most Influential People list.

Also in 2012, the hacking movement called for protesters across India to oppose what it considered growing government censorship of the internet after a Chennai court demanded 15 service providers to block access to file-sharing websites such as Pirate Bay.

Over the years, the group has targetted child pornography websites and recruiting portals for the Islamic State. It has also gone after government agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon in the US and the Scotland Yard in the UK.

This is not the first time that Anonymous has taken part in protests against racial discrimination in the US. In 2014, anons attacked the City Hall website of Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, and threatened cyber attacks against police and local government if protesters were harmed.

Anonymous is known to primarily employ what is known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, in which hackers swamp a websites server with data that causes it to crash, making the website inaccessible.

Another tactic that it uses is defacement when the target websites pages are replaced with the hacktivists messages and graphics. A related method is redirection in which a change in the chosen web sites addressing causes its users to be redirected to another page.

The group also uses more serious methods such as doxing, in which private or sensitive information is stolen, destroying data using computer viruses, and phishing for extracting personal data.

Anonymous members have had several run-ins with the law, with government agencies making arrests for computer hacking, fraud, and cyber-stalking.

In 2017, American hacktivist James Robinson was sent to prison for six years after being convicted for carrying out DDoS attacks. Another hacker, Deric Lostutter, was sentenced to two years in prison after infiltrating the website of a high school sports team for exposing the alleged coverup of a 2012 rape case.

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Anonymous Explained: Everything you need to know about the hacktivist group - The Indian Express

The Kremlin has been emboldened by its successful attack on the 2016 election, and is coming back for more. Here's everything you need to know:

Will Russia interfere again?It never stopped. The Russian trolls and military hackers who undermined U.S. democracy in 2016 have continued their efforts to confuse and divide Americans, all U.S. intelligence agencies agree. As November approaches, the Kremlin is engaged in a multi-front cyberattack. Russia deployed social media bots to boost Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, U.S. officials said, and last week, the National Security Agency announced that a hacking group called Sandworm part of the Russian military unit that stole 50,000 Democratic National Committee emails in 2016 has launched a campaign to penetrate email servers in the U.S. Security experts were puzzled why Russia didn't wreak more havoc in 2016 after targeting election systems in all 50 states and penetrating Illinois' registration database. It was probably "reconnaissance," Michael Daniel, a cybersecurity expert, told Congress preparation for an even more ambitious future strike.

What's their objective? To sow chaos, inflame existing political divisions, and destroy public faith in elections and democracy. Dezinformatsiya, the tactic of pumping propaganda into rival nations, flourishes on social media, where Russians can easily pose as Americans. Russian deceit, however, is not limited to online activities: Russia infiltrated the National Rifle Association and evangelical groups in 2016 and organized at least 22 political rallies on U.S. soil. Russians tamper with election infrastructure and then exaggerate the success of their efforts, seeking to make Americans believe that election outcomes could be illegitimate. If Hillary Clinton won in 2016, Russia planned to spread the hashtag #DemocracyRIP.

What did Russia do in 2016?Four U.S. spy agencies, a GOP-controlled Senate committee, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller all concluded that Moscow ordered the attack in 2016 to spread disinformation and help elect Donald Trump. Russia's cyber operation, directly approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, employed more than 800 people who created memes, fake accounts, and bogus news articles to stoke Republican fear and anger and to convince Sanders supporters and African Americans that Clinton was corrupt and a racist. The DNC emails Russia stole and selectively published via WikiLeaks showed that party officials wanted Clinton to win the primaries angering Sanders' supporters. In his 22-month investigation, Mueller did not find proof of an explicit criminal conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign, but he did conclude that Russia had interfered "in a sweeping and systematic fashion" and that the Trump campaign had been "receptive" to Russia's help. Some 272 contacts between Trump's campaign and Russia-linked operatives were documented, with 38 in-person meetings. Trump aides overheard Roger Stone later convicted of obstructing the Mueller probe discussing coming WikiLeaks dumps with Trump. Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, gave detailed state polling data to a Russian oligarch and later lied about it. Standing beside Putin at a summit meeting in Helsinki in 2018, Trump said, "I don't see any reason" why Russia would have interfered.

What's Russia's strategy this year?Disinformation campaigns will be more sophisticated. Russians often did a sloppy job imitating Americans in 2016, posting in broken English from accounts traceable to St. Petersburg. Now Russians are thought to be working from U.S. servers. An analysis of Russia-linked Facebook posts last fall found a focus on stirring up racial resentments, spreading fear of immigrants and Muslims, and inciting gun owners. The accounts targeted battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Arizona, and Florida.

Are election systems vulnerable? The nation's nearly 8,000 local voting jurisdictions use a complex patchwork of websites, databases, and hardware, giving hackers countless potential targets. In the 2018 midterm elections, an estimated one-third of jurisdictions used voting machines that were at least 10 years old. Russia is clearly keen to exploit American weaknesses, and in February, an aide to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire told Congress that Moscow will try to ensure Trump's re-election. Trump berated Maguire for the briefing and fired him days later. The new DNI, former Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), is a fierce Trump defender who has questioned whether Russia really favored Trump in 2016.

How is the U.S. fighting back?Last year, Congress allocated $425 million to beef up the security of state elections systems. Many security experts say it's too late for states to implement major improvements by November. Still, intelligence services have toughened up U.S. defenses in some respects. On the day of the 2018 midterms, the U.S. military launched its first preemptive cyberattack against Russia, blocking internet access at the St. Petersburg troll farm. Nonetheless, 41 percent of Americans say the U.S. is not prepared to secure November's election. To succeed, Russia only needs Americans to doubt the results. "You don't actually have to breach an election system in order to create the impression that you have," said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy. "Chaos is the point."

Targeting vote totalsElection officials have insisted for years that voting systems are not connected to the internet and therefore can't be hacked. But it would take only a second of online activity for those machines to be compromised, and last August, a group of cybersecurity experts discovered dozens of back-end election systems in 10 states that had been connected to the internet, some for over a year. Moreover, many counties use wireless modems, some embedded directly in voting machines, to transmit results quickly to state officials. Russia is preparing to exploit this technology, allegedly sending GRU operatives to Rio de Janeiro and other cities to conduct operations through "close-access hacking," which allows break-ins through Wi-Fi networks. Hackers could exploit components of the election hardware chain, including wireless-enabled printers, USB drives with registration rolls, or digital check-in tablets. Harri Hursti, a data security expert from Finland, believes tampering with vote counts is possible. "Once you understand how everything works," Hursti says, "you understand how fragile everything is."

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

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Russia's 2020 plan - The Week

If youve been searching through your Twitter feed recently then you may have seen the phrase #pizzagate trending.

Youre probably just as confused as everyone else is by this strange phrase that actually has nothing much to do with pizza at all.

The term actually refers to a completely false conspiracy theory relating to American politicians Hilary Clinton and John Podesta back in 2016.

The theory is now being resurfaced in light of the Madeleine McCann and Jeffrey Epstein cases, and everyone is talking about it on Twitter heres exactly what it means.

The debunked conspiracy refers to a news story that began back in 2016 that involved Hilary Clinton and John Podesta.

These false claims linked the American politicians with a highly advanced paedophile ring that was said to be run from a pizza restaurant in Washington DC called Comet Ping Pong, hence the name Pizzagate.

It all began when the personal email account of John Podesta, who at the time was in close contact with Hilary Clinton, were leaked.

The compromised emails were then posted onto Wikileaks and available online to the general public.

People started looking at the emails and thought that some of them seemed a bit strange. Conspiracy theorists pointed out some potential code words that they thought linked the politicians to this sex-trafficking system.

However, there is no actual evidence that this is the case.

The conspiracy has little factual evidence, and has mostly just been fuelled by social media.

Many of the claims were simply just public opinion, which has been escalated and widely shared online.

Fake news online is a big issue in our current society, with people believing things just because it has been written online.

It is your own choice whether you believe or debunk a conspiracy theory like this one, but you must remember that without real supporting evidence, it can never be deemed as the truth.

In other news, What does No Healthy Upstream mean on Spotify? Is there a fix?

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Twitter: The false Pizzagate conspiracy explained debunked theory fuelled by social media! - HITC - Football, Gaming, Movies, TV, Music