Amazon Covers Up Return of Your Right to Sue Them

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          July 20, 2021

As I explained in The Decline and Fall of Amazon, Amazon is the quintessential IT company. And it is now, particularly given the Coronavirus Scare causing an irrational fear of going to stores, the most powerful company in history. Thus for better or worse — mostly worse — Amazon has a huge effect on IT law. For the last 10 years, starting under the Amazon-friendly Obama Administration between 6 and 29 Aug 2011 — as proved by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine — Amazon had taken away your right to sue them and replaced it with forced arbitration, which they controlled. Recently though, between 3 and 7 May 2021, under threat from a now Amazon unfriendly Congress and Administration, Amazon returned your right to sue them, mostly. However, fearing a flood of lawsuits, Amazon covertly announced this change to its customers, via a common and usually ignored "terms of service change" email, only on the evening of 19 Jul 2021, the evening before Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, was all over the (gullible) news for his 9 AM 10-minute tourist "space flight" on one of his rockets, on the anniversary of man first landing on the moon on July 20, 1969 and after which Bezos specifically thanked Amazon customers for paying for it. While this cover up worked as planned, you nonetheless can now sue Amazon. I will tell you why you would — Amazon fraudulently selling you used items at new item prices — and how to do so, without a lawyer.

Ransomwared Nuclear Power Plants Upwind of Major U.S. Cities

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          June 6, 2021

On the 77th anniversary of D-Day, in memory of those who actually fought and died to protect America.

As I emailed to news outlets in the major cities downwind of the very possibly ransomwared nuclear power plants, in summary of U.S. Surrenders in IT War, Starts Paying Tribute to Russia:

You are aware of the Russian-backed hacking and ransomwaring of Colonial Pipeline and the devastating effect on the south and east coast.

The Colonial Pipeline executive responsible for allowing this is IT incompetent Chief Information Officer (CIO) Marie Mouchet, whose only education is as an elementary school teacher. Before she became Colonial Pipeline CIO several years ago she was CIO for Southern Nuclear, which operates three nuclear power plants (currently two reactors each):

U.S. Surrenders in IT War, Starts Paying Tribute to Russia

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          May 31, 2021

On Memorial Day, in memory of those who actually fought and died to protect America.

Colonial Pipeline Company is a corporation headquartered near Atlanta Georgia, like also-hacked Equifax is. Like most large corporations, it is incorporated in Delaware, to take advantage of their corporate law and proximity to Washington DC. Colonial Pipeline Company's largest shareholder is Koch Industries, the private corporation owned by the Koch brothers, well-known conservative donors. The majority of Colonial Pipeline Company however, is owned by foreigners. Colonial Pipeline owns a critical pipeline, actually two, that runs from a refinery near Houston Texas (been there) up the East Coast to New York City (lived there), through major cities, including Atlanta, or with branches to them, including Richmond Virginia (been and go there) and Washington DC (been and go there). One pipeline carries gasoline, for cars at filling stations, and one pipeline carries diesel fuel, for trucks at filling stations, and jet fuel for airplanes, including directly to major airports along the way. If the flow of Colonial Pipeline is interrupted, transportation in the most densely populated part of the U.S. can be dangerously interrupted. Colonial Pipeline is thus a strategic military target.

Banned-For-Life Trader and Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget Using Fake News for Stock Price Manipulation?

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          May 5, 2021

After I wrote IT Reporting: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel with a Fake Facebook Data Breach, I wondered why a major media news outlet like Business Insider would publish fake news about Facebook and risk a multi-million dollar libel lawsuit that Facebook could easily win. Having written Stock Market Crash Deja Vu: Reddit Violates Securities Exchange Act earlier this year, the answer came to mind: Business Insider planned to make at least that much by short selling Facebook stock and driving its price down with the fake news. I then proceeded to mail a complaint of this illegal (Title 15 of U.S. Code, § 78i(a)(2)) stock price manipulation to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with copies mailed to Facebook and Business Insider. This SEC complaint is particularly important because it has a bearing on the federal government's current ridiculously-weak anti-monopoly case against Facebook: Federal Trade Commission v. Facebook Inc., U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 1:20-cv-03590. After mailing this SEC complaint, I was investigating who else at Business Insider should have their records, particularly emails, subpoenaed to look for evidence of the crime. I discovered that the founder, editor-in-chief, and CEO of Business Insider, Henry Blodget, had been convicted by the SEC of essentially the same securities fraud of stock price manipulation by fake news, been fined $4 million, and been banned for life from the securities industry. Thumbing his nose at and taunting the SEC, Blodget then founded Business Insider, which is the perfect cover for continuing this illegal stock price manipulation.

IT Reporting: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel with a Fake Facebook Data Breach

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          April 21, 2021

I've written extensively and expertly about the very sensitive information, perfect for identity theft, that Facebook has about its users: Facebook Reads Your And Government Officials'/Politicians' Email and Facebook Has A Database Of User ID Photos and, most importantly, Insecure Facebook Demands Your Passport, Bank Statements, Medical Records, ... I've also written about how Facebook let hackers have this information in a real data breach (September 2018, 50 million Facebook accounts hacked): Yahoo-Then-Facebook CISO Alex Stamos Allows Yet Another Massive Data Breach. That hackers may have stolen Facebook users' passports, bank statements, and medical records is a big story that the IT incompetent media completely missed. Instead, this month the IT incompetent media, particularly "journalists" with failing careers, have been hyping a fake Facebook data breach: half a billion Facebook users had their Facebook information, particularly phone numbers, "stolen" in a "data breach" that will lead to identity theft of a large percentage of the world's population. The IT incompetent failing liberal media has completely misunderstood what really happened and sensationalized the non-story to boost sales and careers and force their liberal political ideology on people, just as they did in the "Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal", another fake Facebook data breach. What happened was everyday perfectly-legal "scraping", which I will expertly explain here and which you benefit from. With reference to Information Technology (IT) Age v. Information Age, I'll explain how Google (the "Googolic Church") and Wikipedia (the "Church Scribes") were part of this IT incompetent failing liberal media frenzy.

Information Technology (IT) Age v. Information Age

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          April 12, 2021

Apscitu uses the term Information Technology Age (IT Age) instead of just Information Age, as created and hyped by the IT incompetent and history ignorant media, because as history shows, information, a.k.a. knowledge, has been important in all ages, even more than now, not just since the 1970's advent of widespread computer use, which is what Information Age refers to. What has really marked our age is information technology, like computers and, even more important for the spread of information, a.k.a. education, the Internet (actually the Web; for Internet v. Web see Websites: Simple is Smart, Secure, and Speedy), which was created in the early 1990's. However, this technology has actually led to a decline of the importance of information and of the information itself, via Wikipedia, Google, and universities. This decline is just history repeating itself — "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" — with Wikipedia and Google as the Church, the source of all information and thus the controllers of it.

Microsoft Guilty But Protected by NSA, AB PAC, India, and DelBenes

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          March 22, 2021

IT incompetent Microsoft is guilty of The Doomsday Microsoft Government Email Data Breach and Doomsday II: The Massive Microsoft Email Data Breach Sequel and should be in serious, even terminal, legal and public relations/business trouble for it, but remains untouchable. This is because Microsoft is being protected, for several reasons, by those in and closely tied to the federal government. First, Microsoft has become inherent in federal government IT over the decades and it's too late for the federal government to do anything but defend Microsoft, no matter how disastrously IT incompetent they are. Second, Microsoft has colluded with the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on Americans and is being rewarded for that by the federal government. Third, Microsoft, via its IT incompetent leadership, including those from India, has paid for many elected federal officials. These include U.S. Representative Suzan DelBene from Washington state, home of Microsoft, who used to be a Microsoft executive, and whose husband Kurt DelBene is a longtime Microsoft executive, except for when he was appointed by the federal government to implement HealthCare.gov, which was hacked at implementation; see HealthCare.gov Hacked. While at Microsoft, IT incompetent Kurt DelBene managed both Outlook, implicated in The Doomsday Microsoft Government Email Data Breach, and Exchange, implicated in Doomsday II: The Massive Microsoft Email Data Breach Sequel. Not to mention — and no one does — Microsoft liberally supports the dirty tricks political action committee, AB PAC.

Federal Judiciary Reacts To Hackers: Evidence Tampering OK, Exposing NSA Surveillance Not

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          March 17, 2021

As I showed in Hackers Own The Federal Legal System, the federal judicial system has been taken over by hackers and the federal judiciary has admitted to this and reacted. Their reaction were orders on Highly Sensitive Documents (HSDs) reworded from a directive by the same IT incompetent agency — the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO), particularly its director appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — that allowed itself to be hacked in the first place and is responsible for taking care of all documents (evidence documents and court documents), now all electronic, in the federal judicial system. These orders completely ignore the document tampering — to change court decisions — that will now occur, which was the main focus of Hackers Own The Federal Legal System, and only try to keep confidential the documents, HSDs, they consider important. What the AO considers HSDs that they will really try to protect now and non-HSDs that they will leave to the hackers, since they have been hacked permanently and undetectably, is outrageously self-serving. How the AO plans to keep HSDs confidential, when they already have a procedure for sealed and confidential documents that was hacked, is dangerously IT incompetent.

Hackers Own The Federal Legal System

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          March 12, 2021

One of the most important implications of The Doomsday Microsoft Government Email Data Breach and Doomsday II: The Massive Microsoft Email Data Breach Sequel is that hackers "own" the U.S. federal legal system, which consists of the legal departments and agencies of the executive branch and the entire judicial branch of the federal government. These organizations all used Microsoft email in some way so had their networks of computers hacked into, permanently and undetectably. The very foundation of the legal system, and what is assumed by it, is that police evidence (usually documents) and court documents have not been tampered with, but hackers can now undetectably tamper with these documents at will since these documents are all digital (a.k.a. electronic) and on computers these days. All judicial decisions are now questionable (including in some of my own cases), as some enterprising defense lawyer will soon point out to his guilty client's advantage. It's far worse than even Equifax Dead: Hacked So Credit Reports Worthless. Additionally, many court documents contain sensitive information that could be used to hurt the people involved and is supposed to be kept confidential, and all this is now available to hackers. The only solution is to go back to paper only documents, mailing them, and physical security for them. This will not only make the legal process more secure, but more fair, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment right to due process.

Doomsday II: The Massive Microsoft Email Data Breach Sequel

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          March 8, 2021

Only IT incompetent megacorporation Microsoft could have an oxymoron like Doomsday II, the sequel to the end of the world, in this case the sequel to The Doomsday Microsoft Government Email Data Breach. But perhaps it should be seen as taking doomsday on the road. The first Microsoft email doomsday data breach destroyed U.S. Government IT and the sequel is being called a global crisis, having also destroyed the IT of foreign governments and institutions. At least the IT incompetent media realized this time that it was Microsoft's fault — they call it the Microsoft Exchange Cyberattack — which they didn't last time. The first Microsoft email doomsday data breach was due to Microsoft's Outlook email, in all its various guises, and this sequel Microsoft email doomsday data breach is due to Microsoft's Exchange, which is their email server. Here I explain all this and how they are related.

The Doomsday Microsoft Government Email Data Breach

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          February 22, 2021

As Apscitu has been warning for years, since its inception, particularly through Stop IT Incompetence, the IT Incompetents Hall Of Shame (Government, Business, and Media), and Apscitu Mail, there has been a doomsday data breach of the federal government's email and (then) networks, and this was due to government IT incompetence, not the supposedly sophisticated foreign government hackers. This doomsday data breach was finally admitted to by the federal government starting in December 2020 and continuing, but may have been going on undetected for many months or even years and may still be going on undetected.

Those who have even a clue about this data breach, which doesn't include the media, are calling it the most massive — and not just yet another most massive — (thus worst) data breach in history, whose vast effects will be the major national security risk for many years into the future, if the United States survives it at all; hence "doomsday data breach". ...

Stock Market Crash Deja Vu: Reddit Violates Securities Exchange Act

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          February 2, 2021

This article is in honor of Groundhog Day, specifically the movie, where the same day, Groundhog Day, February 2nd, kept happening over and over again. In this case though the repeating day was Black Thursday, October 24th, the start of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. And in this case the villain was Reddit, whose modus operandi was illegal price manipulation of GameStop stock, intentionally leading to a short squeeze on important short sellers like hedge funds, which could have resulted in another stock market crash and ensuing depression, particularly during the Coronavirus Scare. In this case, there are no heroes, except perhaps someone who can clearly explain all this, as I do here, since the mainstream media clearly can't.

FOIA: That's Some Exemption, That Exemption 6

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          November 11, 2020

I file a lot of Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Many are to discover the outrageous salaries of IT incompetent government IT officials for the Government IT Incompetents Hall Of Shame (ITIHOS). These are usually successful, although after many months. But some are for Apscitu Mail, to discover the government email addresses (.gov) of government officials, which is part of my preparation for a lawsuit against the U.S. Government for violation, in its use of email, of my First Amendment right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". These are usually not successful, because of Exemption 6 of the FOIA law (Title 5 of the United States Code, § 552(b)(6)). If you actually read Exemption 6 though, you realize it's ridiculous to say it applies to government email addresses. The whole situation is as surreal as Catch-22, which I read as a teenager and later saw the movie. I play Yossarian, instead of Alan Arkin, and the U.S. Government plays itself, again.

IT Incompetent Attorneys General v. Google

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          November 7, 2020

A few days before Halloween, U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced that he and the attorneys general (AG) of eleven states were filing a civil lawsuit against Google in U.S. District Court (the lowest federal court, where all federal cases must start) of the District of Columbia (where conveniently Google has a corporate presence) for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (Title 15 of the United States Code, §§ 1-7). While Google is a prime candidate for an anti-monopoly lawsuit, given the IT incompetence of all the attorneys general and the IT incompetent track record of the U.S. Attorney General, and his Department of Justice, in antitrust lawsuits against IT corporations, this will take years and cost millions of dollars, and result in no real help to Google's victims.

Proofpoint Investigation: Fraud and Government Email Tampering

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          January 10, 2020

The research for Net Neutrality: Who Controls the Communications of the Communications Controllers? led to further investigation of Proofpoint Inc., the IT incompetent email service provider for the IT incompetent Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It was discovered that Proofpoint is also the email service provider for the IT incompetent Department of Commerce (DOC) and that Proofpoint is illegally reading and blocking emails from people trying to contact both the FCC and the DOC based on Proofpoint's own arbitrary criteria, probably political or profit-seeking. Moreover, it was discovered that Proofpoint's Cybersecurity Executive Vice President (EVP), Ryan Kalember, is an IT incompetent fraud who has widely lied about his qualifications.

Net Neutrality: Who Controls the Communications of the Communications Controllers?

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          August 10, 2019

Answer: Proofpoint Inc. of Sunnyvale California, just minutes down the road from Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The question more specifically: Who controls the email of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)? Your question: What does this have to do with net neutrality? My answer: Read on.

The Internet in the United States has a backbone. It's fiber optic cables able to carry massive amounts of data, starting with voice, across the country (note: I'm a certified fiber optic technician). These fiber optic cables, or at least their copper predecessors, were laid by AT&T back when it was a government-authorized monopoly — so could more easily get rights-of-way, the most valuable asset — long before the Internet started in the early 1990s.

FBI Hacking Investigation Negligence Lawsuit

By Duane Thresher, Ph.D.          February 22, 2018

My family and I, particularly our young daughter, were the victims of not one but two(!) health insurance company data breaches: Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services and Premera Blue Cross. At the time (2013 – 2015) these were two of the worst data breaches ever.

It was officially pretended that identity theft was the only concern from these so only cheap credit monitoring (probably using the now-hacked Equifax) for a couple of years needed to be offered as a remedy. However, child abductors, including pedophiles, find this information invaluable since it includes names, addresses and medical records, which is personal information that greatly aids a child abductor.