I decided to write this statement after seeing the continued escalation of dis/misinformation towards innocent bystanders, my background, and who the organization is/was. After reading many comments on the Ars article, I realize that many people feel that I am protecting the organization by not naming them. Some also feel that my coming forward was about me seeking to redeem myself publicly, and this couldn’t be further from the truth; I personally was on nobody’s radar prior to voluntarily coming forward, this was completely unforced. I came out a couple years ago masked, and I feel like I had to come forward unmasked to inform the public on how this news traveled, the mechanisms behind it, and the role I played in one of the organizations at the time, so the public could piece together what happened to better understand how to fight it and to help wake people up who are actively being manipulated. I knew there would be fallout from this, and if anyone thinks someone is willing to go under the constant horrible threats that I have gone under willingly to try to wake people up, I don’t know what more I can say.
I see things mentioned about money. I made very little money from this, I was frugal and saved, which is how I was able to have enough to get into the infosec industry full time.
I am seeing many conspiracy theories about Ax Sharma. Ax and I are not the same person. There wasn’t any ‘conspiracy’ associated with the article, or anything between him and I. He was wrongfully fired from Ars Technica. The only times I have spoken to Ax have been him getting quotes from me or asking me something about an article he was doing involving the hacking group I’m a part of.
I believe that people have such a hatred for Donald Trump that they missed the entire point of the article, and that even a neutral article that just stated facts, which the article was, seemed like a puff piece on me outing myself to some people.
I see things mentioning that I am ‘boasting’ about what I did. This is not at all what I was going for. I was impressed with what was being done as far as the results from a numbers standpoint, not myself. I think ‘mastermind’ at this organization is being misinterpreted and the more accurate word would be ‘manager’. The organization already had a large reach and plans to make it larger through the planned webring. I was the person who worked to see out their vision while eventually managing multiple fronts associated with the news distribution and exploding social media reach. I brought different things to the table for them to manage and see their plan through, the same plan described to me during my interview. The psychological aspects and scheduling was all my doing, and growing the reach on social media was all my planning and doing. I would come up with a process, maximize results, then delegate it to someone else within the organization.
I say that Russia had very little to do with ‘fake news’ because I was within the phenomena constantly at that point in time, and from what I saw, it was mainly what I believe to be American outlets. My claim that Russia had little to do with the news had nothing to do with me thinking that I was the sole person running the only machine ever and moved the election entirely myself. There were many other organizations and factors far beyond what I was managing. If these American outlets end up tracing to Russia I would be shocked. This is my opinion on what I saw.
Many people are surprised nobody is in jail. The truth is the organization has many lawyers and nothing illegal was done. Making sure things were legal was an aspect of the job, which is why they (and many others) still exist today.
It has been pointed out that this wasn’t actual hacking in the infosec sense of the word, which is completely accurate. This is why I put ‘hack’ in quotes, and would say that from an infosec standpoint I believe many things would be more accurately described as creative marketing and outreach, outside of the deep security within the organization’s infrastructure.
I came forward to blow the whistle on an organization, and I didn’t name them because I was scared for the safety of myself and my family.
I believe that I need to name them and go into further details about them. I understand that some feel that this is seen as a ‘half assed whistleblow’, and that was not my intention.
I believe naming them is the right thing to do, and I hope that the community supports me on this.
The Organization
Note: Before the big drop, I knew my life was going to turn upside down, but I knew that it needed to be done to wake people up. Reading Mike Adams article that night mentioning COVID’s “Spike” and “Thorn” and getting religious with it was just a further sign that this was so out of control, there were levels of crazy I could no longer fathom — and all during a pandemic where people are dying.
The man I interviewed with that day was Mike Adams, also known as the Health Ranger. The main site was NaturalNews.com.
When I looked up his site later, I noticed things on GMOs, which I had heard about and didn’t seem fringe as far as I knew. The company’s articles were being pushed through Yahoo News not too far before. I saw lots of natural health articles. My takeaway was that he was an internet natural health guru looking to use his current viewership to explore other topics outside of natural health — which included stopping Hillary Clinton. There were already random things like ‘chemtrails’ but like I said, I thought it was entertainment. His explanation of natural medicine didn’t include that ‘lemons cured cancer’ at that time that I knew of.
It was said that I ran a fake news empire the entire time while knowing about it. I didn’t. I did not know it was fake news when building things out. Some people will call bullshit on this, but all I can say is the truth. I don’t have screenshot proofs for what was going on in my head. In fact, saying at the beginning that I didn’t know it was fake news makes me look even stupider. The reason I didn’t know it was fake news at the beginning is because the machine needed to be built before it could be used, so I didn’t spend time inside stories outside of overseeing social media and numbers, at which point I did not factor in the aspect of whether the articles were true or not. I was strictly breaking down stories by headlines and breaking it down into numbers. With an occasional crazy headline that seemed harmless. One article that was popular was talking about how women with big butts are more intelligent. Seemed like entertainment, and I didn’t think people would believe that, would you?
Fake news wasn’t a known thing at that point in time to me. I saw some articles as ‘entertainment’ and didn’t believe people took them seriously, as I have stated; Individuals that were a part of the organization were vetted backing me up on this. The editorial process included citations required to back up what other sites were saying. There was even a writer going through, what, to my knowledge, were credible scientific papers to write from. I don’t know anything about health science papers, but that’s what I was told. I thought they were not trying to put out fake stories, and that people knew the difference between this and their entertainment articles. The only fake news I knew of at the time was like the national enquirer, weekly world news. Most of the writers were only writing their own articles and only checking the site for their own work’s share count to see how they were doing. The crazy was hidden in plain sight for many writers and employees.
At the initial building of the machine someone else was writing headlines, choosing stories to be written, as I have previously mentioned. My first tasks were to increase their social media presence and to help build up the machine and work with software engineers, all with security being a main point from the ground up. Some of this was taking over previously abandoned tasks. I didn’t even know there were known controversies with Mike until later, after things were already built. When I was putting together types of stories as my first task, I broke down emotional responses based on subject matter and headlines and times of day. I thought some of the weirder stories were purely entertainment. I made scheduling getting in peoples minds, this is one reason why it did so well and why I got horrified with it’s later weaponization. I would eventually put out headlines, select stories, but Mike would get his article out at the best possible time and I never knew what it was until it was out.
I am not trying to abandon my responsibility either for getting fake news out. I would for a time write and test headlines, but it wasn’t to be ‘fake’ it was to be ‘hard hitting’. I specifically say that I was trying to make the network credible, and that crazy would come purely from Mike. Other’s from the organization have been vetted backing this up.
The network would eventually be used to pump up pro-Trump and anti-Hillary news. Until that’s all it became.
You can see that after I started is when most of the domains were registered.
The ThinkTank out of the UK called ISD has traced much of their assets.
You can view a link to in depth information on Natural News at https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200620-ISDG-NaturalNews-Briefing-V4.pdf
The issue is that not only is this a massive network, that is now spreading dis/misinformation that is killing people, but for historical fact — yes — the network was used to help push Trump before the election while working to destroy Hillary, with a massive reach hitting tens of millions of people a week at that time.
I believe it aided in Trump being elected. It was not the single thing that got him elected, this one network, but it aided in it. I did not foresee a site based on ‘Natural Health’ fully turning into a Trump news network, but I also think too many people are concentrating on Trump’s election while missing the point that this is a massive network that’s currently spreading deadly dis/misinformation which is also prolonging the pandemic.
Some people think I am not being remorseful about what I did. I helped build a network that I would find to eventually be pumping out crazy stuff. I have remorse for a few reasons; one that I didn’t think people actually believed in the crazy stuff so deeply, second that I was someone who had a role in building this (although unknown to me at the time it would become the organization that it is), and third, aiding in the election of someone who became what they did, although I believe millions of people also didn’t see that coming.
I stayed at the company through the full Trump takeover of it. I supported Trump at the time, I am not trying to give a different narrative here like I had a come to jesus moment thinking Trump was evil during my time at the organization. I didn’t think he could win, and when he did it was eye opening because it made the people, especially ones commenting on the posts supporting the crazy stuff, seem like a larger portion of the population than I had thought. I came from Connecticut, we lost elections there. This is why I specifically said in my original blog post:
“After the election many of us were in shock that Trump had won. It wasn’t a shock like ‘the whole world is going to be set on fire’, the shock was around the power of the machine. We knew, without any doubt at that point, that the tens of millions of people a week we were blasting pro-Trump/anti-Hillary news out to were real people who actually showed up to vote. “
I ran tests on my own site I created and it made me believe that Facebook was complicit and enabled the spread of crazy things, especially the Macedonians who just made shit up.
I did not believe many of the crazy things being put out were being believed by people and did not think of it as an issue at the time. I think people are misunderstanding what I am saying: I am talking about known hoaxes, not every piece of news that involved Trump. It wasn’t until I started to see that people were believing in everything that I wanted to wake up the public because things got crazier over time. I tried to put out a call to everyone, “hey, look at what went down, look at what was built, this is going to be a problem”.
I understand that some people associate Trump being President with the beginning of the deadly fallout of this network (now after seeing what people are saying), and I agree that he played down the pandemic and acted like an idiot with it, and continued to push his supporters while falsely saying he had won the election. I did not see this coming and I agree that he is an idiot. At the point in time this was happening, as I explain it in the previous article, my explanation is why I believe some people think I don’t seem remorseful, is that I was explaining about that point in time. I had left before Trump went completely off the rails.
I came out a couple years ago, pre-COVID, before I even knew what QAnon was. I saw the crazy stuff being believed as well as people giving completely different takes on what I saw during the election period, and wanted everyone to know what I believe actually was the real aid to the Trump campaign and Fake News. I want people to know that when I was putting out the schedule on social media that it was based around their emotions (to put it short) and that it was powerful. They have been banned for a while now on Facebook, but continue to put out harmful things that I now believe are leading to the deaths of people through their COVID hoax propaganda.
Who I Think is Helping Fund Everyone in the Space
One thing I saw was lots of companies attaching themselves to a growing organization within the space who was taking in tons of money — and paying out boatloads of money. This organization is known as Truth About Cancer.
Ty Bollinger, who I believe is at the epicenter of COVID hoax FUNDING
Organizations make so much money off of their affiliate links that I believe that they are a big source of income for multiple companies who are promoting COVID hoaxes.
You can read the article at https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-05-13/inside-one-network-cashing-in-on-vaccine-disinformation
They were paying some people six figures in affiliate link payouts for a single summit.
If the public traces who is promoting them, they can see who most of the big players are in the COVID hoax space I believe.
My Background
There were multiple comments on my background, and I will provide detail into it. Some of the things mentioned were people saying I’m not neurodiverse/or saying I’m blaming my brain on lack of empathy for people. Another was things about my professional background. Others were getting into my political background. I have no problem answering all of these questions.
Neurodiversity
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger. I remember wondering why they kept saying the “H” when I thought it was known as ADD. I say I have “severe” ADHD because it includes multiple ticks, the inability to make eye contact, uncontrollable movement, the inability to touch some fabrics, touching things multiple times, among many other things. People know I am different the minute they meet me in person, and I have had other neurodiverse people call me out as soon as I met them. I am not faking anything, and I do take offense to trolls saying someone is pretending to have issues when they do not know me and have never met me. I don’t care what people think about me, but if you do this to someone else, you’re a real asshole.
In recent years I have found that many people were misdiagnosed years ago, and I took tests that said I had Aspergers. I also came to find that I didn’t get empathy, and it was related to this. I worked with people on my issues. I put lots of hard work into this. I have some documents I got from the initial diagnoses, and I haven’t been able to find the other tests. I think even providing what I am is going out of my way for these claims.
I have always been anti establishment. In fact, when I was younger my parents got in touch with the court system because I was “BEYOND CONTROL”.
Professional
One of the claims is that I haven’t been a hacker for long and that I was a marketer at a plumbing store. This isn’t true.
My introduction to technology was when I built by first computer — from ones I found at the dump. My first introduction to ‘hacking’ was in the late 1990s on AOL playing with script kiddie programs written in Visual Basic. I would eventually download a decompiler and rip them apart. This was the first time I saw code. I then got into Visual Basic and was taken out of my typing class to make programs for my school, from what I was learning outside of school. No screenshots, sorry. Only people I don’t feel like bothering and explaining that I need a statement for a blog.
I would continue to play with computers and use pirated programs, eventually getting into web design. I got into HTML/CSS/MySQL/PHP and Javascript. I played around with computers non-stop. I also worked in the back of a (since closed) local computer repair shop for a period. I began building a large resume of web work.
Because of this experience, when I was going to enlist in the military in 2006 (15 years ago), I was able to get a special interview for a neighboring states “unique” cybersecurity squadron. After the interview, I was given the green light to join.
I did not like mentioning this because I am worried that people would think since it was an “Information Warfare” squadron that they would think that’s what I was trained in here — having an effect on my methods for the Information Warfare fake news network. That is not the case. I only trained in networking and computer security before leaving. I got paid and put up in a nice hotel each drill.
I have said to many people, many times, that there weren’t cybersecurity jobs years ago and that people were all working in IT related fields, taking care of different security controls in their admin work. This is all I knew for jobs in the industry where I lived, and as far as I know there weren’t tons of specific security specific jobs until the past few years.
I would get a job at a manufacturer in the kitchen and bath industry as a web designer and assistant to the head of IT. As time went on departments would grow, I was in charge of multiple internal tech related things which became me being put in charge of digital marketing as well. Overseeing multiple departments, my title would eventually become “VP of Marketing”. Why? Because I did everything and that was the title they figured they would give me. I got a 30under30 award for ‘digital transformation’ of the company.
Political
People are sensitive about politics. And I get it. In fact, my major problem with talking about groups is that they change over time. And this is what happened with a newly formed group called the Tea Party at the time. I was introduced to it by a relative and was told they believed in Free Markets, Lower Taxes, and a Constitutionally Limited Government — and that’s it. That sounded fun to me, especially since spending so many years on the street gave me a lot of time to think about why me and everyone I was around was so poor with ultra-rare opportunities. I was given answers that business owners seemed to be saying were the reason why there weren’t more businesses in Connecticut — taxes. I would find that where I lived was one party rule, and they did not have our best interests in mind. The Tea Party at this time was a diverse group of people where I was, with many older women. Things were on the decline in Connecticut. and people knew where things were only getting worse. It was horrible. You can see articles written from the fallout of what was happening.
I eventually saw the Republican Party trying to take it over and am on a voice recorder somewhere talking about some Republicans in office trying to take advantage of the group — even though they didn’t stand for the groups (3) values. I went out of my way to try to build up groups across multiple towns, later being named a ‘leader’ in that congressional district. The last time I made the news with the Tea Party was after causing a rift saying that if the Republicans didn’t listen to us, we would vote them out of office. I would eventually leave because I saw the group as the wrong place to get anything done. The name was also getting dragged around negatively as the movement grew with a bunch of idiots joining in other areas of the country. The democrats literally destroyed my state, countless people I knew were either leaving or unable to leave.
You needed a major party backing you to get anything done, so I decided to work my way in with the Republican party. They were the easiest to get involved with, they had no power.
People have posted that I was a Republican candidate for State Rep, which I was. I would do anything to save my home and try to bring jobs to the state.
To everyone who doesn’t live in Connecticut, here is what everyone was dealing with:
After the election I gave up on the state. I was convinced that democrats would always have a super majority and continue their destruction, and it was time to join many others I knew in leaving the state. I was also sick of working in tech at a non-tech company when there were no other places to work. Everyone was always scared of losing their jobs, because there were no replacement jobs anywhere. I wanted to get into the tech industry, and that sounded like where the industry was moving when it came to Austin, Texas.
In 2015, I thought the job at a media place sounded like an exciting launching point to do something that didn’t totally suck in the new city, which is why I took the job. Seeing where I was coming from in my state, you can see why I hated democrats and would appreciate the revenge. People may be offended because they live in a different region of the United States, and I will tell you that parties in regions are completely different from each other, it’s true. Republicans in Connecticut are equivalent to Democrats in Texas, I’m sure, and Democrats in Connecticut are very far left. This gives a misconception about what was going on in this little blue state in terms of defining parties when it is placed on other states.
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There are other comments mentioned about me “still posting” to the ‘right wing’ site I created and social media. I wasn’t. I had given the site over to my Mexican friend to run/own to try to make ad revenue for money. I didn’t care, and it seemed harmless at the time, like I said, nothing batshit crazy happened yet. He eventually stopped in 2018 it looks like? He was in total control of it, as I have already previously mentioned.
The “conservative country” website: I eventually cut a deal with a writer to write under my name for a cut of the money. I originally was posting this but thought RealClear Media would get mad for me admitting it. They were starting to post some far out stuff on Facebook and I just thought they were doing whatever for views and just stopped caring to pay attention. I didn’t expect thousands of people trying to dig into each thing, or else I would have kept this note about the outsourced person. I didn’t see things as getting ‘dangerous’ at that point in time and stopped paying attention to political news altogether ~4 months after Trump took office.
Donald Trump got elected. I left 120 days after he assumed office. I remember it was mainly him complaining that people were undermining him at that point in time, but at this point I was far away from putting out news — it had been delegated. I had moved on to other developments within the company and offered a partnership deal for a lucrative place they were moving to that could have been worth millions. I decided to leave.
I didn’t deal with politics afterwards. I didn’t vote in the 2020 election.
I’m an infosec, cybersecurity professional who enjoys continuously learning and hacking. I also collect and make comics books. I role with my crew — Sakura Samurai. Follow me on Twitter @rej_ex.