Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

FBI Confirms Zodiac Killer’s Infamous 340 Cipher Has Been Decoded, And His Message Finally Revealed

A team of codebreakers decided to try and crack the code specifically because they knew it would be a challenge. 

David Oranchak, Sam Blake, and Jarl Van Eycke used software to help them break the cipher, first by finding the many possible reading directions that could be used if the cipher was transpositional. By sheer luck, Oranchak found that one solution for how the cipher could be transposed revealed fragments of messages, including “hope you are,” “trying to catch me” and “or the gas chamber”.

This gave them clues that the message wasn’t transcribed in one big block as it was presented, but instead was broken into three smaller blocks of text made up of nine lines, followed by nine lines, followed by a final two.

By starting in the top left hand corner, then moving down one line and across two spaces to get the next letter, a key which could be translated into letters and then words emerged. The letter “B” for instance, was represented by “□7”, “c” by a simple “9” and “A” by a whole load of symbols unavailable on a keyboard. You can see these neatly shown in the video released by the team below. 

Through use of this method, and some slight adjustments by ignoring a few words that stood out before transposing the text, a message was revealed:

I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME
THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW
WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME
I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER
BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER
BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME
WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE
SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH
I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS
LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH 

“Of all the things that stood out was the line ‘that wasn’t me on the TV show’,” Oranchak explained in the video. “At this point I jumped out of my chair because I knew the cipher was received on November 8, 1969, which is about two weeks after someone calling themselves Zodiac called into a TV talk show hosted by Jim Dunbar. While the caller was on the air, he said ‘I need help, I’m sick, I don’t want to go to the gas chamber.'”

This for Oranchak made the solution seem real, as it fit with the events around the time it was received. The rest of the message also seemed quite in character for the Zodiac Killer. 

Keep reading

Biden’s FCC Pick Reached Favorable Legal Settlement With TV Networks Just One Day After Her Nomination

Just one day after President Joe Biden nominated Gigi Sohn to the federal agency that oversees television networks, her nonprofit secured a favorable legal settlement with those same networks that reduced her financial liability by more than $30 million.

According to a confidential settlement revealed by Bloomberg Law, Sohn’s now-defunct nonprofit, Locast, agreed to pay a number of top broadcasters $700,000 after it illegally streamed their programming. That amount is a mere fraction of the $32 million Locast was initially ordered to pay. Sohn, who served as one of the nonprofit’s three directors, signed the agreement one day after Biden announced her nomination to the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the same networks she settled with.

Sohn’s settlement with the likes of ABC, CBS, and Fox has impeded her confirmation process. During a December hearing, Republican senators Roger Wicker (Miss.) and Roy Blunt (Mo.) expressed concern over the lawsuit, with Blunt asking Sohn if the ordeal would impact her “dealings with the very same local broadcasters that sued” Locast. Last week, Wicker called for a second hearing on Sohn’s confirmation due in part to the “timing of this settlement in relation to her nomination.”

“The possibility of the nominee’s future financial liability to a number of companies regulated by the FCC, and the timing of this settlement in relation to her nomination, demands a full discussion by the committee to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the ability for this nominee to act without any cloud of ethical doubt,” Wicker said. “The committee needs to hold a new hearing on this matter to provide the nominee an opportunity to fully address these concerns.”

While Bloomberg Law wrote that Sohn’s settlement “appears to undercut” Wicker’s “stated reason for opposing her nomination,” others aren’t so sure. American Commitment president Phil Kerpen questioned both the timing and terms of the settlement, arguing that it raises new ethics questions.

“How does this eliminate criticism? The terms of the deal are incredibly favorable to her,” Kerpen told the Washington Free Beacon. “How could anyone say that she can now objectively vote on anything involving any of the big broadcast networks that just basically let her company off the hook?”

Keep reading

Boston patient removed from heart transplant list for being unvaccinated

A 31-year-old father has been removed from the heart transplant list at a Boston hospital because he is refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, his family said.

DJ Ferguson’s family say he was first on the list to receive the transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital — but he is no longer eligible because of his vaccination status, CBS Boston reported.

His father, David Ferguson, said his son — who is fighting for his life in the hospital and is in desperate need of the transplant — doesn’t believe in the COVID-19 vaccine.

“It’s kind of against his basic principles, he doesn’t believe in it. It’s a policy they are enforcing and so because he won’t get the shot, they took him off the list of a heart transplant,” David told the outlet.

Keep reading

Leaked Chats Reveal Fascist Group Patriot Front Shames Members About Their Porn, Junk Food Habits

It shouldn’t be a surprise that fascists rule other fascists with an iron fist, but that’s the clear takeaway from a massive leak into the internal operations of Patriot Front, a group of white supremacists who swaddle their racism in a preppy Americana aesthetic. 

The inner workings of the secretive group were laid bare in the release of their chats and planning documents—400 gigabytes total—obtained and published by Unicorn Riot, a left-wing media collective, late last week. 

Many of the group’s roughly 220 members are required to regularly log their weight and fitness regimen, encouraged to take an obsessive and almost disordered approach to their diet, and provide updates about their “bad habits,” like porn and junk food. Patriot Front leaders regularly shame members for not participating enough in chats, skipping meetings, or failing to provide their mandatory fitness updates. 

And then there’s the financial aspect. Patriot Front members are actually expected to fork out a cover charge to attend their own rallies. They’re also expected to engage in regular “activism,” which entails scattering Patriot Front “promat”—posters and stickers—around their respective regions. But, “for the sake of quality control, information security and preferable flow of resources,” they’re only allowed to use promat that’s manufactured exclusively by Patriot Front leadership—and they must spend hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets for it. They’re then required to photograph and video their propaganda distribution efforts following strict style guidelines, and then upload that documentation as proof. 

Keep reading

Ukraine as Game Board

Washington cares less about Ukrainian independence and sovereignty than Russia.  Its primary interest in the territory is its location right next to Russia; its other interests lie in the resources and markets a Ukraine under US influence offers.  Of course, the latter also helps explain Russia’s determination not to let NATO assimilate Kyiv and the country it is the capitol of.  If Washington was truly interested in the independence of the Ukrainian people, it would call for a resolution granting autonomy to the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine, where a war for that region’s secession from Ukraine has been waging since at least 2014 when the US/NATO sponsored color rebellion overthrew the elected government in Kyiv.  It is that US-leaning government that Washington wants to preserve; a government first installed by US and NATO intelligence that may represent Ukrainian hopes, but certainly does not represent Ukrainian independence.  Only the Ukrainian people can determine that and their voice is both muffled and mixed.  Democratic socialists, unabashed capitalists looking towards the EU, families with old money stolen from the people after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, fascists whose legacy includes killing thousands of Jews and collaborating militarily with the Nazis, and millions of workers and farmers—these are the people of Ukraine.  In my mind it is the last demographic which should have the greatest say in their nation’s future.  However, if the rest of the world is any indication, their voice is the last to be heard.

Keep reading

Postal Inspectors Have Used iPhone Hacking Tools Hundreds of Times

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) owns sophisticated hacking tools that can breach iPhones, and has used them hundreds of times over the last several years, according to USPIS records.

Law enforcement’s use of hacking tools such as Cellebrite and GrayKey has attracted considerable attention in recent years, particularly following reports that the FBI used the Israeli-based Cellebrite to help access the iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook—though there has since been reporting to the contrary. More recently, records obtained by Vice Motherboard last year revealed how police departments use GrayKey.

The use of such tools by the USPIS, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service, is disclosed in its 2019 and 2020 annual reports, but has gone largely unpublicized until now. The Epoch Times has also reviewed an internal Postal Service letter, which shows that one technician in the USPIS digital evidence unit used GrayKey to crack more than 150 iOS devices—iOS being the mobile operating system for the iPhone.

Altogether, the records suggest that the USPIS has cracked hundreds of iPhones—generally thought to be one of the most secure commercial phones on the market—as well as other devices.

Keep reading