Venezuela's Government Appears To be Trying To Hack Activists With Phishing Pages (vice.com) 74
Hackers allegedly working for the embattled Venezuelan government tried to trick activists into giving away their passwords to popular services such as Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and others, according to security researchers. From a report: Last week, the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called for citizens to volunteer with the goal of helping international humanitarian organizations deliver aid into the country. President Nicolas Maduro is refusing to accept aid and has erected blocks across a border bridge with Colombia with the military's help. The volunteer efforts were organized around the website voluntariosxvenezuela.com. A week later, on February 11 someone registered an almost identical domain, voluntariosvenezuela[.]com. And on Wednesday, users in Venezuela who were trying to visit the original and official VoluntariosxVenezuela website were redirected to the newer one, according to security firm Kaspersky Lab, as well as Venezuelan users on Twitter.
What happened to " allegedly" in the headline? (Score:2)
Blocking Humanitarian Aid (Score:2, Insightful)
Whenever I see articles talking about countries sending other countries "humanitarian aid," I think back to the articles regarding Russia sending "humanitarian aid" as a cover for Russia sending weapons and munitions into Crimea and the Ukraine. Back then, it was all too easy for the media to claim that the humanitarian aid shipments were munitions for the front line fighters, with maybe a little food and medicines placed on top for border inspectors to see and approve of.
"President Nicolas Maduro is refusi
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The Red Cross basically denied supplying the US provided "aid". So did the Vatican.
So USAID to the rescue it goes. An US state organization with clear links to the CIA.
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venezuelan here. while conspiracy theories are great, the real reason Maduro doesn't want the aid it's because he would implicitly admit his government has failed and people are dying and fleeing the country. it's as easy as that.
his regime along with chavez has been in power for 20 years. and now they blame the US sanctions (that have been for less than 2 years) for all the troubles.
Re: Blocking Humanitarian Aid (Score:1)
If you actually live in Central or South America and your blood doesn't run cold when Elliot Abrams says he's going to bring democracy to your country, you're probably looking forward to bayonetting infants or raping nuns.
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The sanctions have been in place since the 2015 Presidential declaration of National Emergency by President Obama. The pressure against the Venezuelan government has been in place and constant since Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1999. In addition, how can anyone ignore the 2002 failed coup attempt supported by the United States?
The Venezuelan government has rejected the politically-motivated offer of aid and they should. First of all, US NGOs form the tip of the spear in American foreign government i
Re:Blocking Humanitarian Aid (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this is food and medicine, nothing more..
Maduro would be forced to admit that his (and his predecessor's) policies of socialistic reforms have failed and the country is now solely dependent on handouts for survival. That the people are starving and in nearly open revolt because the system is broken.
This is a HUGE difference from the Venezuela of only two decades ago. The government has since taken over most private companies, soaked up their resources paying for social programs and ran everything into the condition we see today. This is how such ideas always have ended. Maduro cannot admit to his failure or the whole political gig is up for him and given the conditions he'd be lucky to make it out of the country alive to live in exile.
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Again and again.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Socialist Utopia in Venezuela crumbles.... Socialism has never worked. Yet we still hear calls for socialist ideas ringning loud and clear.
Those who know history are bound to watch in alarm while those who don't know history insist on repeating it over their objections.
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Yet we still hear calls for socialist ideas ringning loud and clear.
Well, The Economist thinks that this is yet another thing that we can blame on The Millennials:
Millennial Socialism: https://www.economist.com/lead... [economist.com]
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How about you take your mindlessness and go learn some history.
Venezuela was a vibrant economic force in South America only 20 years ago. They where rich in natural resources and had great prospects for ever increasing standards of living, improving health care and freedom for it's citizens. Now it's a country wide slum, the likes of which you've likely never seen, much less experienced. They are awash in poverty, death, starvation and oppression.
What changed? I dare you to go investigate and figure it
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Besides china, those countries are not socialist dipshit.
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AND.. What kind of standard of living does the average person in China have? China has been forced into making capitalistic reforms to keep their economy alive.
Oh, and don't forget, the only people trying to get into China for a better standard of living are from North Korea...
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> standard of living for the average Chinese
> makes capitalistic reforms to keep economy alive.
So, If China didn't adopt those capitalistic reforms their economy wouldn't stay alive and the standard of living for the average Chinese would be lower... Got it. Thanks.
Capitalism has done more to help people out of poverty in the world than any other system of economics. It's not perfect but it is a lot better than centralizing command of the economy in hopes that those in control are not idiots and/or ma
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Man, is this what they teach in schools these days.. Do try to think a bit past your nose and ask yourself a few "then what" questions.
Wealth is NOT a fixed sized pie. Wealth can be created and the pie gets bigger, or it can be consumed and the pie gets smaller. I dare you to think about that for awhile. More wealth means more to spread around and isn't that what we really need?
Capitalism is responsible for creating more wealth than ANY other economic model it makes the pie bigger. Socialism has exact
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I hope you enjoy dying of a treatable cancer when your health insurance company cuts you off. Here in the socialist hellhole of Canada I'll just get treatment. Such hell compared to your freedumbs!
LOL.. You DO understand that there can be no limits to health insurance coverage now in the USA right? It's literally illegal to write such a policy now.
Cyber civil war? (Score:2)
This sounds to me like the Maduro administration/military has just declared cyber war on its own people.
Could this be the world's first cyber civil war? Or has Syria, Iran, Russia or China already pulled a similar stunt?
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Have you ever heard of the NSA
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Location, voice prints.
A lot of early digital phone networks allowed a lot of interesting people to be found. Along with anyone they stayed in contact with.
Elliot Abrams (Score:2, Troll)
Elliot Abrams, the recently named special envoy to Venezuela, has a past of using "aid" shipments to smuggle weapons into countries south of the border, weapons later used to massacre countless civilians, and then lying about it in testimony. No government in its right mind would allow such a shipment. The Red Cross and UN have both decried this maneuver by the US as a political stunt. And Venezuela is in fact currently accepting aid, just not from countries which have a record of both using aid as a Trojan
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And of course it got modded as a Troll. This site has gotten more and more reactionary over the last ~5 years.
Re: Elliot Abrams (Score:2)
This can all be looked up readily if youâ(TM)re skeptical, itâ(TM)s not secret. Presumably you have internet access.
LOL (Score:2)
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actual real democratic support
It's pretty clear what your definition of democracy is. The guy backed by a foreign power. Not the guy people voted for. OK. China, India and Russia should proclaim that in fact Nancy Pelosi is US president.
Propaganda (Score:1)
The bridge thing is bunk. That bridge never opened because of a dispute with Columbia, and has been blocked by those containers for a while. The "intelligence sources" is CrowdStrike, the firm the DNC hired to keep the supposedly hacked mail server from the FBI.
How to roll back a color revolution (Score:2)
Calls got made and the CIA made offers.
Freedom, no war crime investigation, cash to stand down.
Counter intelligence never seemed to get a recording, never stopped such calls.
The military and police command stood down. The color revolution using protesters could move on.
What the more skilled counter intelligence services have finally worked out after decades is just how ac