ATS History: COINTELPRO and "WhispersInTheDark"

This is slightly off topic, and I do apologize but through my experiences of browsing the archives I find myself running into this question time and time again.

William & SkepticOverlord.

One person?

that'd be affirmative , chissler, as pointed out by

CPYKOmega

posted on 24-10-2005 at 09:38 PM (post id: 1786756) -

He's been proven to be real, seeing asWilliam (Sceptic Overlord) has told us all about him in many threads. For those of you who want to know do a search for WITD. There are ample threads available. Umbrax why did you revive this old thread? I'm guessing because of the new game thats going on here on ATS?

The bottom line comes down to this and can be verified by SO. He was a hacker pure and simple, who changed the dates of his posts to make it look like he predicted the Jakarta Bombings. Plain and simple.

Wow! All kinds of interesting shtuff!

And I see the Ban-Hammer was in rare form.

And this was an illuminating tidbit-

by (Manhattan)William

Some time ago, when ATS was faced with monthly downtime and horrific performance from it's web hosting provider, I decided to help by improving the features, technology, and performance, as well as pay for a dedicated server. While I never expected thanks, I certainly didn't expect this.

Is this when you got your first spandex suit?

And new name?

You know you'll always be our Hero, no matter what color suit, yer sportin'.

Now if I can just find the beginnings of Springer, and Zedd, I think I'll have most of the ATS picture.

Thanks for the peek into RATS and the trip down memory lane.

1. In your opinions (SO/Springer) was WITD a script kiddie or an accomplished hacker? Is it easy to tell the difference? Wouldn’t an accomplished hacker want to appear amateurish?

2. Did WITD really know about the FBI’s involvement before you guys? (Is that part of the reading u2u’s exploit? How would he know which one to read)

SO already answered the IP/ DoD explit, I should’ve thought about IP spoofing.

The question about some members actually seeing the warning can’t possibly be answered by anyone.

3. Did the motto.. watch this space… begin in the aftermaths of the WITD affair?

4. I also read posts suggestion NetChicken’s involvement in the WITD affair. Was Netchicken involved? Is he a contender for the identity of Whispers?

Originally posted by Springer
Honestly, the first time I saw this I was amazed that someone would put this much effort into such a loony idea.

The Whispers-DragonRider legend is fascinating! It peeked my interest almost immediately after joining the board. At the time the clues were hidden within the RATS’ vaults and I didn’t have access. I finally got (earned!) RATS access and finally read the then-privileged information. Now thanks to SO everyone can check it out.

But I wanted more…

I wanted to know what had happened to DragonRider and found him in the BlackVault Forums under the nick “DragonFlight”. (clever guy) I read his posts there, but he was quickly rebuked by ATSers, and the needless board pollution ceased. He then joined (or form) his own forum, Shadow Conspiracy. A lot of his posts there are still in the Google cache and the Internet Archives, but I didn’t find anything directly related to ATS.

Later, Valhall pointed me to a podcast which explained the whole DR aftermath. I realize that DR, although a brilliant poster, went to far and crossed privacy borders that should never be crossed.

Originally posted by ConspiracyNut23
1. In your opinions (SO/Springer) was WITD a script kiddie or an accomplished hacker? Is it easy to tell the difference? Wouldn’t an accomplished hacker want to appear amateurish?

My money is on an experienced ATS member or former member with moderate "script kiddie" skills. Someone with more advanced skills would have been able to do much more with XSS access.

2. Did WITD really know about the FBI’s involvement before you guys? (Is that part of the reading u2u’s exploit? How would he know which one to read)

I think he did in fact see this in a U2U. Given that he could execute simple SQL queries, and the XMB database structure is well publicized... it would have been very simple to dump all U2U's within a specific time frame.

3. Did the motto.. watch this space… begin in the aftermaths of the WITD affair?

"Watch this space?" I don't know what you mean?

4. I also read posts suggestion NetChicken’s involvement in the WITD affair. Was Netchicken involved? Is he a contender for the identity of Whispers?

Given his prankish history, and knack for causing us problems because of his pranks, I have to admit he could certainly be on the list. However, we never considered him at the time... and I doubt he'd have the one or two bits of arcane intel knowledge that WITD seemed to have.

I noticed that a lot of members posted Watch this space at the bottom of their posts. I thought it could be a reference to the infamous watch Jakarta. (as in remember this post and when it was posted)

Of course it could be common forum language I’m not familiar with. DR used it frequently.

[edit on 24/10/06 by ConspiracyNut23]

It appears to be advertising industry jargon. I withdraw my question. Thanks for answering my other questions.


[edit on 24/10/06 by ConspiracyNut23]

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
It seems as though he [dr] made contact with WITD and was somehow convinced of his story, and that we (ATS admin) had a level of involvement. We tried (over and over and over) to explain how the database exploits were done, how WITD was able to read U2U's, how WITD was able to read posts in the moderator forum, and use all that information to really mess with people.

Fascinating. I wonder if he still beleives it? Thanks for the info.

I

Looking back, I wish I could of been present at the time of this event.

Did it say that our Admin was contacted by the FBI?

Originally posted by chissler
Did it say that our Admin was contacted by the FBI?

Yep.

Apparently they have been here ever since

*waves to the FBI agents*

Question......when i searched for all of WITD's posts on ATS, they are all just a big black void of nothingness. Why is that?
It does not say that WITD's member status is banned....just black posts of doom.

Just curious about this....never see that before on a member.

'cause he is nutcase and a hacker that created complete choas on ATS for a period of time.

it was nothing special, just editted his posts to make it look like he predicted certain things and had inside information.

I remember that screen name. We never did get to the bottem of it either I think I still have some left over notes on that screen name somewhere. I can safely say though the snake pit of washington brings about all kind's of snakes from all kinds of locations.

If WITD was CIA or a cointelpro operative it wouldnt be any of kind of a shock. Seriously how many times has ATS been hacked sense the days of the ez board there are people out there that will do anything they can to keep websites like ats from getting as big as it has become today.

Look at what they did to me, burned down my house, shot at me more then once got me kicked off the air on one network hacked the other one. After all of that im still here somehow but you have to remember a old statement I made many years ago about these kinds of subjects.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. And there can be no question many pieces of information any of us have documented over a period of time if it was propaganda or not has had a effect. So yes chances are ats has possibly attracted some bad attention from time to time.

I remember a incident when the feds tried attaching some sucidal person that was reading ats at the time. And it was clear the reason that was being done at the time was over a sorry attempt to pass legislation regarding so called new internet laws which never happened because of exposer at the time.

SOP also known as Standard Operating Proceedure aka MO shows based on past evidence for instance the FBI has behind alot of this for years and is still doing it despite numbers of attempts to get them to stop.

This is what you can be investigated for now according to what I understand there's a new so called buzz word the FBI is using along with HLS aka homeland security to justify both illegal spying and illegal information gathering. Appeartly from what I understand it's called a "writeing campain".

Now all you have to do in order to be investigated even if you have done nothing wrong is nothing you just have to have had sometime in the past wrote something about a political official/judge/police officer exc exc in order to be so called investigated as a so called terrorist.

Guess that makes all of us terrorist then. But that's ok I think very soon the people that have done this are going to have a major wake up call.

Falcon

Originally posted by Nygdan
Props to the person that made the cartoon!

I am going to venture a guess...that most likely IMO 'wecomeinpeace' is the cartoom artist.......

(I have seen his work on the site a few times and he is awsome)

am I right ? ?

Originally posted by theRiverGoddess

Originally posted by Nygdan
Props to the person that made the cartoon!

I am going to venture a guess...that most likely IMO 'wecomeinpeace' is the cartoom artist.......

(I have seen his work on the site a few times and he is awsome)

am I right ?

?

Nope... This person is a completely different entity than WCIp. I agree WCIP is a hugely talented artist but he did not do this work.

I'll try to get to the rest of the as yet unanswered questions after I get a bite to eat.

Springer...

[edit on 10-24-2006 by Springer]

So, is ATS cointelpro or not?

And, whatever happened to Colonel? That guy was entertaining to say the least..

Originally posted by Shoktek
So, is ATS cointelpro or not?

And, whatever happened to Colonel? That guy was entertaining to say the least..

Ahhhhhhhhh, Colonel. He got banned, but for entirely different reasons. I miss him too.

How I remember the insuing chaos from WITD. I had been gone from the board for a a while and returned two days after all hell broke loose. I was very confused, then I began asking people about it. After listening to various people, I was definitely on the side of WITD being for real.

Dragon Rider was a good buddy of mine. I was sad to see him banned, and I feel it was somewhat my fault in some respects, because I sort of restarted the kindling that got him banned. I still feel bad about it.

As for WITD now, Ive pretty much forgotten about the whole incident. I remember his "prophecies" or what have you were on the 4th of August, 2003. Does anyone remember what happened in August of 2003, later in the month? If you were in the northeast, you should. That great blackout, where Boston, New York, and damn near all of New England and the Great Lakes lost power in the dead of summer. Needless to say, right on the heels of WITDs threads, there was MAJOR activity and speculation on the board about possible connections. That really piqued my interest in WITD. It was curious in its own right. I became VERY interested in him after that. But now, well, I am not convinced. For starters, nothing more has come of it. Second, now that I have a little bit more knowledge of some things geeky, I have come to understand that the old board was indeed easy to exploit if you knew something about administrative functions and a bit of script. These were things I was not aware of back then, though, so even I didnt believe SO's original explaination.

Dragonrider was not an idiot. He had his reasons for believing that WITD was legit. He had some friends in the military who were the ones who traced WITD IP number back to a DOD place in Virginia (Langley, maybe? I forgot). He also asked some very detailed questions of WITD and was convinced of his legitimacy. There were other factors.

Anyway, Dragonrider's issue was he did not believe that WITDs actions could have been the result of board exploits. He was not satisfied with William (SO)'s explaination. First, he believed that William had been intimidated and threatened by the FBI to keep his mouth shut. Then he became convinced that Skeptic was indeed working for them, as well as several other mods.

Then the thread one day was quietly deleted by admin, in hopes that now that the main fevor of WITD had died down, there was no point in keeping a known hoaxed thread around that was causing divisions and paranoia on the board. Thats where my blame comes in.

Dragonrider was a mod during this time. One night, I was going through a few threads and some offboard pages about 9/11 foreknowledge. I decided to have a look at the WITD thread again because I had remembered something curious in it. It was then I discovered it no longer was there. Dragonrider was a good friend of mine, and he was a mod and online at the time, and I u2ud him and asked him what happened. he was unaware it was deleted, and when he checked, he said that it was totally gone, so he went into Cosmic and began asking where it was. Thats what started his inevitible downfall and banning, because things began to get ugly from there. Accusations, suspicons, ect ect ect. Dragonrider would not let it rest, being how he was, and it eventually got out of hand. When Dragonrider was banned, there was a signifigant exodus of ATSers that went with him. Some voluntarily left in protest to DR's banning, others got banned because they began to get a bit beligerant or were starting their own campaigns of harrassment. One ATSer, Blade Runner, got banned, but he opened up an alternative site, The Shadow Confederacy, where alot of ATS exiles went. There was a bit of a war between the two boards for a while, too. It was VERY ugly.

In fact, it was the worst time in ATS history as far as I was concerned. We lost a huge chunk of our best posters, and it took a while before they were replaced with new blood, so I must admit, for a few months, I thought ATS really went downhill and sucked. But it survived and bounced back from the catastrophy, and here we are today.

I thought Id give this long, drawn out personal recollection in hopes that it might shed light on anything not covered so far. Weve moved well beyond WITD, and now we can bring his posts up again and wax in twisted nostalgia without fear of backlashs. There was a time, however, when it was basically forbidden to mention WITD at all, because of the massive trouble it stirred up.

And the whole "ATS is COINTELLIPRO" tripe has been around since I joined, and long before. Im sure there are government spooks and disinfo people on this board. Hell, Im sure they are on alot of boards. I just dont think the CIA or whoever is running this board.

If you are secure enough in the truth and wise enough to tell when someone is feeding you BS, then you have nothing to worry about from the government spooks. They can try and sell you their lies, but if you have really done your homework, youll know it for what it is.

Hi Skadi, thank-you for sharing your perspective, I appreciate it.

It's funny that on a conspiracy website that a thread would be quietly removed in such a way. Such a move was never going to go down well! Question for Skeptic, do you think this move was a mistake in hindsight? Or was removing a devisive cancer from the board more important than maintaining openess at the time?

Originally posted by Willard856
Hi Skadi, thank-you for sharing your perspective, I appreciate it.

It's funny that on a conspiracy website that a thread would be quietly removed in such a way. Such a move was never going to go down well! Question for Skeptic, do you think this move was a mistake in hindsight? Or was removing a devisive cancer from the board more important than maintaining openess at the time?

Well, I can't speak for Skeptic, but Ill give my own thoughts.

On hindsight, there was nothing sinister about removing the post. Basically, at the time it was removed, the thread was almost taking over discussion of all other conspiracy topics. Basically, a thread that William had pretty much discovered and proved to be a hoax was getting more coverage and attention than many other conspiracy topics. Eventually, alot of the other threads were basically half discussion about whispers. Ultimately, we were spending time giving attention, credit, and the spotlight to a hoax.

Discussion or outward interest in WITD eventually died out. I think William thought since the thread was a hoax, the best thing to do would be to trash it. I do think it was a mistake, as look what it caused. A better option would have been simply to lock it up, and publically announce that he decided that enough was enough, that WITD had taken up enough board resources, ect ect. Sure, some people would have protested. But I dont think it would have been as bad.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20. William had no clue what would happen, and he really felt at the time that he had provided sufficent proof that it was a hoax, and that people would understand. Obviously, he did not know at the time just how passionate and extremely convinced a good chunk of the membership remained.

Tp give William credit, he did post a topic explaining to everyone about what transpired behind the scenes, and how he discovered the hoax, and how it worked. Unfortunately, not everyone was convinced. You know how people can get when they have embraced a certain belief in something. Hell, back then, even I didn't buy it and thought he was making crap up. Back then, I became quite certain that there was definitely something legit about WITD.

By the way, to clear something else up:

The member who called the FBI was not a plant or a mole by anymeans. When the Jakarta bombings occurred, and people saw them supposedly predicted in WITD's post, he was concerned that WITD might be a terrorist or an agent of some terror network posting subtle warnings about future attacks, and thus, called the FBI out of concern that we might have an Al Qaeda agent on the board preparing for more.

The member was not banned, as he didnt do anything wrong, against board rules. However, many members were very angry with him, and felt that he had snitched on a possible government insider trying to get the truth out, and the member, becoming subject to alot of anger and abuse from other board members, chose to leave ATS on his own.

Most interesting thread and fascinating piece of ATS history. Thanks to Skeptic for bringing it into the open and to Skadi for sharing the anecdotes surrounding it.

It caught my attention from the hour it came up and with only SO's opening post I searched for whisper's posts and came across the thread "Bizarre thing in post". It nearly blew my mind as I was reading through its 39 pages. It also slipped my mind, it was actually a game kicked off by the mods. Until eaglewingz instructed me so.

Obvious the taboo, the event was barred by, wasn't greater than whisper's name could be used for a game. That American humour!

As a footnote, I'm not very good at games, so I never found out what it actually was about or how someone never posting on the thread could win it.

Never mind, I like history more than games and now I know from where the COINTEL myth originates.

Thanks again, and to Skadi especially, it's most appreciated.