The newly released WLDragnet App shifts the balance of power between targets of social media mass surveillance and those who have been drag-netting their data.

PROFILED, MONITORED & TRACKED: Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, independent media figures like Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal, and Jimmy Dore, as well as tens of thousands of everyday citizens who are active on social media supporting a variety of social and political causes, are revealed to be targets.

We promised. We delivered!

The engine behind our groundbreaking WLDragnet Search tool has today been gifted to the world. (Read the press release here)

Released as Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), the code behind our WLDragnet Search tool can now be audited, reviewed, deployed, extended or contributed to by developers around the world. The code has been penetration tested by top security experts and audited by Founder of Exodus Privacy, Esther Onfroy (also of Defensive Lab Agency.)

“A first of its kind application built by the Panquake.com development team, the newly released WLDragnet App shifts the balance of power between targets of social media mass surveillance and those who have been drag-netting their data. In two simple clicks, users can easily search the WLDragnet database and generate custom reports, for free. The reports contain data about the collection and analysis of their social media activity and profiles, by shadowy industry players.” Suzie Dawson, WLDragnet Designer and Chief Product Officer, Panquake.com

Background

In October 2021, Talk Liberation published WLDragnet - an investigation that included 1,600+ reports and a repository of 7,100+ files that prove US military contractors and weapons manufacturers are utilizing open-source intelligence to track and analyze the social media conversations of persons, hashtags, keywords and topics of political consequence. Featured in the target lists are whistleblowers, journalists, activists, and thousands of regular citizens. The files can be onerous to manually search through and difficult to understand, so Talk Liberation created a more high-level and stripped-down view: the WLDragnet Search.

High profile targets

The monitoring of the social media activity of a number of high profile whistleblowers, activists and journalists is evidenced in the WLDragnet source files.

Each report contains a series of ‘Top 10’ rankings, frequently constituting a who’s who of activism and journalism. Their social media handles are listed according to various metrics. Top replied to, top mentioned, top keywords and other metadata including links shared, domains referenced, and word pairs used by each sub-group, are ranked in the lists.

The highly personalized nature of the targeting is indisputable in certain source files such as the following, which uses large red arrows to single out award-winning journalist Max Blumenthal.

“The open source release of the WLDragnet Search app was reviewed and tested by top cybersecurity and privacy experts. The tool is a beautiful and user-friendly complement to the bombshell WLDragnet article but it's much more than that — it's a groundbreaking data journalism tool that demonstrates the ethical design and development skill of the Panquake build team. Each day these devs prove they have the chops, the dedication, and the heart to deliver high-quality Free and Open-Source Software.” Sean O’Brien, WLDragnet co-author and Chief Security Officer, Panquake.com

Privacy Focused Design

Users of the Search tool can look up their own Twitter accounts - or anyone else’s - without those searches being recorded by the application.

Other privacy features of the WLDragnet Search tool include:

No cookies on the WLDragnet.com website
No web trackers
Search requests (inputted user handles) are not captured or stored
Reports generated via the tool are not captured or stored
No logging of browser, device or visitor information
Source links go to archived versions of the files - preventing the entities involved in the social media mass surveillance from tracking visitors
Hyperlinks to Twitter accounts in the custom reports lead to Nitter - a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy

More information about WLDragnet

A neat accordion-style Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page has been made available, explaining the who, what, when, where, why and how of WLDragnet.

Wish to cover this reporting? Contact media@talkliberation.com to arrange an interview or obtain comment.

Next generation data journalism

Talk Liberation’s unique pairing of deep dive investigative journalism with open source software development sets an exciting new standard for contemporary technology and information security reporting. If you love what we’re doing, please consider contributing $5 per month so that we can continue providing you with vital, unique reporting and innovative new open source tools such as Panquake!

This post by Talk Liberation Investigates was written by Suzie Dawson in conjunction with Sean O’Brien; Graphics by Kimber Maddox with editorial assistance from Kitty Hundal.

Talk Liberation Investigates is dedicated to Eynelys Garcia, our exceptionally talented, caring and dedicated Digital Media Team Coordinator who recently passed away in a tragic hit and run accident. Eynelys is survived by her disabled younger sister, and her mother who is fighting cancer. Please join us in supporting Eynelys’s family here.

Talk Liberation Investigates is brought to you by Panquake.com. We Don’t Hope, We Build!

© Talk Liberation CIC Limited. The original content of this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Please attribute copies of this work to “Talk Liberation” or talkliberation.com. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact licensing@talkliberation.com

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