Twitter Time in the Gray Box

Posted 2008:

“Most bloggers know about the WordPress timestamp that allows you to publish posts at a later date. This is a very handy feature if you’re going to be away for a few days but would like new posts to keep flowing. The timestamp allows you to write a bunch of posts in advance and then have them go live at a predetermined time. Thanks to a site called Tweet Later, you can now do that with your Twitter tweets. Tweet Later allows you to keep the tweets flowing even if you’re not in front of your computer or iPhone. If you know you’re going to be stuck on an airplane that doesn’t have Net access you can timestamp a tweet that say[s] ‘Stuck on an airplane that doesn’t have Net access’ and have it go live at the time you’re on the plane… Timestamped tweets can go out at a specific time or set to go evenly throughout the day.” http://www.johnchow.com/how-to-timestamp-your-twitter-tweets/     ….in other words, you can approximate a future event and insert the simulation into the real time stream.

In normal reality, “the uniqueness of time dimension is that you can travel only forward in it, not backward. This fact has profound implications. It protects causality, that is the law of cause and effect… cause should precede effect and it should not be the other way round…” http://www.buzzle.com/articles/does-the-4th-fourth-dimension-of-time-exist.html

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Posted April 24, 2013: “If you followed the Boston Marathon news last week on Twitter, you likely read lots of false information. Many users tweeted the name of one ‘suspect’ who wasn’t and there were endless ‘this is happening now!’ assertions about events that (again) weren’t, from folks listening to scanners. As a result, there [are] a few red faces this week, embarassed they tweeted such things – and kind of angry, it seems, at Twitter .”  http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/tag/editing-tweets  Turns out it was the independent journos tweeting information, “wrong” information, from police sources. They asked for Twitter’s help: “…it is in Twitter’s interest..to give us the tools to clean things up. Otherwise it risks becoming a cesspool of untruths and rumors. Twitter needs a way to reel bad information back in… an edit button, a correction process.” Apparently, these guys didn’t see the instructions on how to “edit tweets” that I saw.

Twitter on some level agreed. There was a lot of causality showing. Soon, Twitter said, they’ll be rolling out their new security and verification protocols. Until then, like the mild rebuke from “alltwitter” warns, the tweeters should model some better behavior. After that Twitter ought to change their motto too, “Find out what’s happening right now…”, and model some better behavior themselves. But truth-in-advertising is not my problem today.

The same “alltwitter” source has a standing post about timestamps that states “On Twitter.com …time is local time to you, depending on your Twitter timezone settings…  sometimes you’ll want to know exactly when a tweet was posted, certainly if you’re tracing the chain of events of an important story. It can also help you determine who was the first person to break a story on any given day… and who is claiming credit for somebody else’s work… We know that Twitter [..is] based in San Francisco, which is PDT. PDT is GMT minus 8 hours…” http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/tweet-timestamps_b14609

Timestamps have since all been rationalized to Pacific time no matter what timezone you’re in or when the tweet was posted. When did Twitter do that? Was it between September and December of 2012, after its Emergency drill in Japan? Any tweeters out there taking notice?

Why didn’t Twitter adopt the world standard, Greenwich Mean Time, when it gives out the GMT adjustment which it doesn’t use? I can think of a day in December when a clandestine fix of the timezone feature from Eastern to Pacific would make three hours of time disappear from the East.  Said another way, it would add 3 hours of Twitter time, unnoticed perhaps, if it never happened again. Bear with me and I’ll explain.

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“How social media is rewriting the rules of modern warfare”

“Software that tracks people on social media created by defence firm”

…..        

“Will Twitter war become the new norm?”

“Can the US military fight a war with Twitter?”

……………………………… “Twitter’s Efficient Role in Guarding the Truth”

…..  “…a new era!!! US Military approved iPhones and iPads for military networks”

…………………………………………………. “May the Crowd be With You”

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The Gray Box   “…the gray box is the command-and-control device used to direct operations in complex computer-regulated automation. In February of 2011, a code expert named Ralph Langner gave a TED Talk about his discovery of the Stuxnet virus altering the functions of gray boxes and creating a “man in the middle” which can deceive the monitoring operator at the computer console by showing a systems-normal screen image.  The interoperable communications of the mass-notification emergency system use similar gray boxes.” https://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/sandy-hook-early-birds

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“Twitter Broke the Story on the Boston Marathon Bombing”  https://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/the-boston-twitter-run/

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Editing Old Tweets

On December 19, 2012, Twitter blog announced that old tweets can be downloaded. This is the key to “editing old tweets” according to eHow instructions (that are undated), which requires uploading the edits afterwards. Twitter blog doesn’t mention editing tweets, in fact denies the capability as a matter of honest record-keeping. Tweets can be deleted after posting but not edited, says alltwitter.

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“Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Today, we’re introducing the ability to download your Twitter archive, so you’ll get all your Tweets (including Retweets) going back to the beginning. Once you have your Twitter archive, you can view your Tweets by month, or search your archive to find Tweets with certain words, phrases, hashtags or @usernames. You can even engage with your old Tweets just as you would with current ones… If you don’t see that option in Settings today, know that it’s on the way! We’re rolling out this feature slowly, starting today with a small percentage of users whose language is set to English. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll make it available to all users around the world..” https://blog.twitter.com/2012/your-twitter-archive

*

“…you can download your old tweets and then edit their content in a few simple  steps…” http://www.ehow.com/how_8327724_edit-old-tweets.html

The Boston Twitter-run

“Twitter Broke the Story on the Marathon Bombing”

…”Twitter users quickly started disseminating details including number of injuries and even raw video… The tragedy also helped demonstrate the value of the Twitter hashtag. One of these, #BostonMarathon, was the highest trending topic on Twitter much of the day. It started as a hashtag simply used to follow the day’s race news.  Later, it became the main channel for breaking news of the disaster as it happened… Twitter, while sometimes enabling the spread of rumors that inevitably occur immediately after a tragedy, also helped dispel rumors.  For instance, one report held that cell phone networks in Boston had been shut down supposedly to prevent remote detonation of additional bombs.  That report appeared later to be false…  It all serves as a reminder:  in a breaking situation or public tragedy, turn to Twitter and other social media for on-the-scene reports”

http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/04/twitter-google-marathon-bombing.html

……… 5:56 am……… Racers Start times [Eastern Daylight]: Mobility Impaired: 9 a.m…   Elite Men & Wave One: 10 a.m…  Wave Two: 10:20 a.m…  Wave Three: 10:40 a.m…

………Marathon Winners announced                              

…………………………………………..10:39 am

.   11:51 am    11:55

* 11:59 am, “Police pouring into Boylston finish line area”

*

 12:00, “Oh my God… A giant explosion just blew the glass out of my building. Someone tell me what is going on!”

*

 11:57 to 12:01      “Folks in the explosion are being told to stay off their phones as they could trigger more bombs”

*

……………  12:03…”just saw and felt a huge explosion, multiple deaths, legs blown off.”

…………………… 12:04, “We’re apparently on lockdown at the marathon media hotel. No one is allowed to leave”

. 12:12, “I saw people’s legs blown off. Horrific…”

……………………………. 12:14, “Marathon official tells us we’re still in lockdown, no official information…. scene looks pretty horrific on TV”

…………………..  12:16, “keep sharing. no news reports anywhere.”

…………………………………………… 12:25, “Spectator..”I saw people with bloody heads, people with their shirts blown off.”

 12:38, “Cannot access any Boston News website right now. This is insane….”

“Twitter’s the only thing that works….”

………………………………………………………….. 12:41, “Lenox Hotel is being evacuated”

* 12:49, “The Globe’s websites are down…”

*

…………………………………………. 12:50.pm, “…Obama has been notified…”

………………………….. 12:51, “Boston EMS is setting up triage on Boylston, thousands of police and emergency personnel on scene”

… 12:54, “Breaking News: Police will have controlled explosion on 600 block on Boylston Street”

………………………………… 12:59, “Photo from our John Tlumacki of Explosion on #Boylston”

*****   1:02, “I was 150 feet away when the..#explosion went off. I saw a young girl laying on the ground with multiple injurys.”

…………………… 1:06, “Small homemade bomb is preliminary cause of explosion…law enforcement officials tell NBC”

………………………………………….. 1:09, “FAA is issuing a temporary flight restriction over Copley Square.”

……………………………… 1:14, “Runners are walking down Comm. Ave…looking shocked and bewildered.”

  1:15, “..Police reporting 2 dead 22 injured”

  1:37, “Boston Police asking for everyone who has taken video of finish line to let them know, could have clues of activity.”

………………………………..  1:45, “…64  wounded…”

……………………….. 1:57, “..Runners that crossed finish line..continued to run to Mass General Hospital to give blood to victims.”

  2:02, “Authorities ID suspect as Saudi national…”

………………………….. 2:03, “..adult male w/injuries seen running from JFK library area after blast in trash barrel..”

…………………………………………………………. 2:05, “..cellphone service has been shut down…”

  2:15, MA Governor, “Copley Square is safe and secured. I am asking everyone to stay away from Copley Square and let the responders do their jobs.”

************************************************************************************************

“The first explosion occurred at 2:50 PM ET, according to

the Boston Police, when an unidentified device detonated on the north

side of Boylston Street…”

***********************************1st explosion in full flash; blue fence banner puffs and people start reacting –watch:  https://vine.co/v/bFdt5uwg6JZ       Observe a near simultaneous flash next to the scaffolding where the smoke is rising by the streetlight.

* 2:50 pm, “Explosions caught on video by Boston Globe. Amazing.”

……………………………… “witness: I initially thought it came from the storefront but a police officer told me it came from a trash can”

…………….………….

“Witness: ‘All of a Sudden Everyone Turned Around and Was Running in the Opposite Direction'”

“Veteran marathon runner noticed increased security before race started”

……………. “Witness: The force of the bombs ‘blew human beings and baby carriages across the street’ “

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…..  “…..IPAWS alerts used effectively in Boston during Manhunt”

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JUNE Update: Boston Globe reports that an “eerily similar” Operation Urban Shield exercise was in the planning:

“The scenario had been carefully planned: A terrorist group prepared to hurt vast numbers of people around Boston would leave backpacks filled with explosives at Faneuil Hall, the Seaport District, and in other towns, spreading waves of panic and fear. Detectives would have to catch the culprits. Months of painstaking planning had gone into the exercise, dubbed “Operation Urban Shield,” meant to train dozens of detectives in the Greater Boston area to work together to thwart a terrorist threat. The hypothetical terrorist group was even given a name: Free America Citizens, a home-grown cadre of militiamen whose logo would be a metal skull wearing an Uncle Sam hat and a furious expression, according to a copy of the plans obtained by the Boston Globe…  The planned exercise has eerie similarities to the police investigation that led to the capture of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers…   Officials from a dozen agencies had been meeting for months to plan the scenario. They behaved much like movie producers, recruiting students from Northeastern University and the Boston Police Academy to play the parts of terrorists and witnesses… The basic plot was this: Half a dozen members of Free America Citizens..would plant hoax devices, then stay on the scene to watch and record the bomb squad and detectives as they responded, as a dry run to a larger attack…“

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/06/07/before-police-could-plan-for-terrorist-attack-real-thing-happened/ufxjb9O0RXyzVZNPFyGkiI/story.html

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Sandy Hook, Boston, where is it leading….

AUDIO podcast, recorded May 1, 2013: thanks to Sofia Smallstorm and Jim Fetzer for letting me sit in

http://nwopodcast.com/fetz/media/jim%20fetzer%20real%20deal-smallstorm%20lake%20sandy%20hook.mp3

Sandy Hook Early Birds

*Newtown Bee                                                   A web crawler timestamped the Bee’s shooting article on December 13, 2012

………………………………………. (original) “Sandy Hook School Principal Dawn Hochsprung told the Bee that a masked man entered the school with a rifle and started shooting…”

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What Time is it? Eastern or Pacific? Could it be both? For an explanation of Twitter timestamps see “Twitter Time in the Gray Box” https://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/twitter-time-in-the-gray-box/; the gray box is the command-and-control device used to direct operations in complex computer-regulated automation. In February of 2011, a code expert named Ralph Langner gave a TED Talk about his discovery of the Stuxnet virus altering the functions of gray boxes and creating a “man in the middle” which can deceive the monitoring operator at the computer console by showing a systems-normal screen image.  The interoperable communications of the mass-notification emergency system use similar gray boxes. A ‘gray box’ alteration is not a necessary ingredient in this story –merely a possibility– if the accomplishment can be achieved simply by deactivating the published timezone feature.

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Tweet Tweet!                                             6:51am and 6:56am       7:02 …….. 7:09

 7:14

7:02 (Hartford Courant), “Newtown school officials confirm police are responding to a report of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School”

7:09, “Breaking news: On our way to Newtown. State police confirm shooting at Sandy Hook..”

7:14, “Follow *%*%*%..for all the latest info on the school shooting in Newtown!”

  7:24, “Breaking: According to the #Newtown Emergency Director, all parents should stay by their phone. Do not go to school.”

……… 7:34, “Elementary school locked down, two shooters possibly inside. ‘Unclear number of injuries.’ ”

7:37, “state police received call on Newtown shooting at 9:47, numerous shots fired near room #9. 40 troopers now clearing the school.”

           7:46 am

7:40, “State Police SWAT team already on scene, bomb squad also will be called… unclear if shooter is still on the loose.”

7:51, “one shooter is confirmed dead… there may have been two shooters.”

     

*8:22 and 9:11                                                              9:34 am, “Media’s staging at Treadwell Park…”

Everybody ready?

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Wikipedia:

“At about 9:35 am, using his mother’s Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle, Lanza shot his way through a locked glass door at the front of the school. He was wearing black clothing, earplugs and an olive green utility vest, carrying magazines for the rifle. Initial reports that he had been wearing body armor were incorrect. Some of those present heard initial shots on the school intercom system, which was being used for morning announcements…”

*

………….. 10:47 am, “Very brief press conference… They did mention that police were called to the school around 9 am”

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“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

― Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud. Quoted from Bernays’ 1928 book “Propaganda”

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The virtual School Shooter scenario above was a test of FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, the media messaging network that uses Common Alerting Protocols (CAP) to set the physical resources of multiple agencies into motion. The combined drill which enacts the full use of resources is called a CAPSTONE event. The participants are required to generate “real documentation” in alignment with their respective roles, hence all the conflicting news reports and “bad actors” in the videos, suggesting improvisation in the scenario.

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IPAWS tests Interoperability

“Philadelphia, PA, USA; 1 February 2010 –  The public and private sectors will join to conduct an interoperability standards demonstration at the Technologies for Critical Incident Preparedness (TCIP) conference, 2-4 February in Philadelphia. The event will showcase the OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) suite of standards including the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), Distribution Element (DE), and Hospital Availability Exchange (HAVE) standards. Simulating an incident defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the demo will show how authorities, responders, broadcasters, and other services providers can use EDXL to enact a concerted, coordinated emergency response… The Geo-Targeted Altering System (GTAS) will also play a key role in the interop. GTAS is a joint development effort between NOAA and FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). GTAS allows alerts and warnings to be targeted to geographic areas. The CAP IPAWS Profile message format will be used to demonstrate notification to the Emergency Alert System (EAS). “

http://www.oasis-emergency.org/node/50

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“On November 9th, 2011, the first-ever nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS) Test was conducted across the United States and territories at 2:00 PM Eastern time. The purpose of the test was to assess the readiness and effectiveness of the system for the President to address the public during times of extreme national emergency. Radio and television broadcasters, cable, satellite, and wireline providers across the country (commonly known as EAS participants) participated in the test.

FEMA originated an Emergency Action Notification (EAN) simultaneously to 61 Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations that serve as national-level relay points. These PEP stations rebroadcasted the message in their coverage area to local primary stations and other monitoring stations…   Additional testing of EAS will incrementally integrate other technologies that are Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)-based for a more resilient and effective system…

The test revealed several successes:

All PEP stations were connected during the test and over 90 percent were able to receive and relay the EAS message…

The EAS community took a proactive role in informing a FEMA IPAWS EAS Best Practices Guide…

*Regular and frequent testing of EAS is essential… Improving the EAS..takes time and requires a coordinated effort of diverse participants at multiple levels with varying roles and responsibilities…” http://www.fema.gov/emergency-alert-system

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Integrated Capstone Event (ICE):“Integrating multiple courses into a combined event is extremely important because it replicates what will happen in an actual community” http://www.emsworld.com/article/10716209/femas-integrated-capstone-event-expands-training-for-responders

The IPAWS mass-notification system required national technical compliance, enforced through the FCC, by June of 2012. In August 2012 it began testing its “geo-targeting” capabilities in a program called “Reaching the Whole Community”. Newtown’s Sandy Hook prepared for its role in future drilling by hosting Homeland Security training (HSEEP) at the Riverside Rd. Firehouse on Sept.22: “This blended approach will give participants hands-on experience that readily  translates to real-world exercise skills. Activities include creating exercise documentation, conducting exercise planning conferences and briefings, and  practicing exercise evaluation… Additionally, the HSEEP Training Course will briefly cover other DHS initiatives…” –like IPAWS. http://www.ct.gov/demhs/ical/eventDetail_page.asp?date_ID=CBC7CBCBCC83CDC9CC. While no one in authority is claiming that the Sandy Hook Shooting was a CAPSTONE event, it continues to bear the requisite details of just such an expansive drill, including the known priorities of the DoD an DHS.

…. published April 17, 2007

–Biometrics

–Human, Social, Cultural and Behavioral Modeling

–Clandestine Tagging, Tracking, and Locating

etc., etc.

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Kindergarten teacher Janet Vollmer (to CNN’s Anderson Cooper): “..there were noises that didn’t sound correct. So, there was no– anyone telling us it was a drill. We just thought something was not right.”

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Sandy Hook and Beyond was the media evaluation held April 22 at Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journaism & Trauma. During this day long program a number of clues in the statements of participants appear indicative of an IPAWS drill:

 “Lt.Paul Vance: The first call I got about the shooting was from a member of the press…”

 [Newtown Mayor] “Llodra: When I arrived at the firehouse, the media was already there…”

http://dartcenter.org/content/symposium-sandy-hook-and-beyond

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The Tweeter of these statements, who was a guest speaker himself at Sandy Hook and Beyond, is an National Public Radio administrator based in New York. NPR is the principal alert originator and disseminator in the IPAWS network.

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“At 9:53 AM, no more than ten minutes after the reported shooting ceased, the Associated Press published a story, “Official with Knowledge of Connecticut School Shooting Says 27 Dead, Including 18 Children.”  AP and the Washington Post have since removed the story from their websites…” http://memoryholeblog.com/2013/01/01/sandy-hook-the-illusion-of-tragedy/#more-1437

According to the audio record of the police scanner at 9:53, suspect gunmen were afoot and being pursued on the premises, “reporting one suspect down. The building has not been cleared.” The announcement of any given number of casualties was not stated over the scanner until 10:31. “Roger. One of the places is in the kitchen. There’s a teacher and eighteen kids there.” [transcript] www.sandyhookresearch.com

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On December 14, a mother picking up her child at the Sandy Hook firehouse gave a brief interview to  CT Channel 2:

Reporter: How did you find out about this terrible tragedy?

Mother:”..um. We got an automated call from the town that there had been a shooting… Nothing about where the shooting was and that the schools were on lockdown… And then I got another text from, uh, CBS that it was on Dickinson…”

www.youtube.om/watch?NR=1&v=YrX0qxMtlgQ&feature=endscreen

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………Twitter account “Pray For Newtown” created November 16, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-yJj2X7sI

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“As of the time of this writing, if you search on Google for the URL of the United Way Sandy Hook fundraising page (see instructions, below), you will get a Google search result saying the page was created on December 11, 2012… I did some checking around and found that one Google engineer says the date is a “glitch.” That seems odd, since Google’s date property seems to be accurate for everything else I can find… So I’m not sure why Google search results would be correct about seemingly all the others pages it indexes, but somehow wrong by three days on the United Way Sandy Hook fundraising page… Historically speaking, this is all very relevant because we’ve seen this before with 9/11. As the following video shows, in 2001 a BBC news reporter stood on camera and announced that the World Trade Center 7 building had collapsed even while it was still standing directly behind her!… Increasingly, Sandy Hook looks like it might have been staged as well…” http://www.riseearth.com/2013/01/sandy-hook-fundraising-relief-page.html