Russian internet trolls hired U.S. journalists to push their news website, Facebook says

Facebook said the website is run by people affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, which inflamed political tensions in the 2016 election through social media.

Some of Russia’s most notorious internet trolls have launched a news website that hired real-life journalism freelancers — including Americans — to contribute, Facebook said Tuesday.

The site, called Peace Data, launched this year with coverage focused largely on the environment and corporate and political corruption. Facebook learned through a tip from the FBI that people formerly associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency, which created a number of influential Twitter and Facebook personas to inflame political tensions in the 2016 election, ran Peace Data and has taken down its known affiliated accounts. It had yet to gain a serious following, said Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s head of cybersecurity policy.

“It confirms what I think we’ve all thought: Russian actors are trying to target the 2020 elections and public debate in the U.S., and they’re trying to be creative about it,” Gleicher said.

“But the second thing that it confirms is, it’s not really working,” he said. “You can run a loud, noisy influence campaign like the one we saw in 2016, and you get caught very quickly. Or you can try to run a much more subtle campaign, which is what this looks like. And A, you still get caught, and B, when you run a subtle influence campaign, you’re sort of working at cross-purposes with yourself. You don’t get a lot of attention for it.”

👀 👉🏼 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/russian-internet-trolls-hired-u-s-journalists-push-their-news-n1239000

#usa #influencing #facebook #DeleteFacebook #elections #russia #trolls #journalists
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Russia spreads fake news to disrupt elections in the USA

As it was to be expected, Russia is also trying to disrupt these elections in the USA. The following example shows how easy it is to fall for fake news.

‼️ ... Fake News:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/09/01/millions-of-us-voters-details-leak-to-russias-dark-web-kommersant-a71307

👀 👉🏼 michiganvoters.info - voterrecords.com

So be attentive, and don't let yourself be led up the slippery slope ;)

#fakenews #russia #usa #elections
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US Authorities Can Now Track the Privacy-Focused Monero Cryptocurrency

The leading crypto intelligence firm CipherTrace has developed a toolset to assist U.S. law enforcement to track the privacy-centric Monero cryptocurrency.

The cryptocurrency analytics firm CipherTrace has made the announcement that they have created a toolset designed to help trace transactions made using the privacy-centric Monero virtual currency – stating that they did so under contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

‼️ Monero Can Now Be Tracked

A press release by CipherTrace stated that the goal behind development of the tracing tools was harnessed from the U.S. law enforcement need to track the transactions made across criminal networks using the Monero cryptocurrency.

The firm reflected on the fact that Monero has since grown to become the second most popular digital coin in the dark web – with estimate figures indicating that about 45 percent of dark web platforms have adopted Monero integration.

It is for the above reason that law enforcement interest has developed around the digital currency as the facilitator of darknet-backed cybercriminal enterprises. As mentioned already, Monero offers far better features than Bitcoin, including the ring signature mechanism to ensure user anonymity.

Ring signatures work to mix transactions so that when third party actors try to figure out the source of funds sent in Monero, it will appear as though multiple users participated in the transaction. The feature makes it virtually impossible for law enforcement agencies to identify the true sources of such funds.

👀 👉🏼 https://tapeucwutvne7l5o.onion/us-authorities-can-now-track-the-privacy-focused-monero-cryptocurrency

👀 👉🏼 https://ciphertrace.com/ciphertrace-announces-worlds-first-monero-tracing-capabilities/

#monero #cryptocurrency #ciphertrace #usa #authorities #tracing #Privacy #thinkabout
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Norway: E-mail accounts of members of parliament hacked

Emails of some members of the Norwegian parliament have apparently been hacked. The exact extent of the data outflow is still unclear.

The Norwegian Parliament announced on Tuesday that data had leaked from the e-mail accounts of some members and staff. The parliamentary administration had reported the incident to the police and was working closely with the relevant security authorities, the press release said. The incident had apparently already been noticed last week.

👀 👉🏼 https://www.stortinget.no/no/Hva-skjer-pa-Stortinget/Nyhetsarkiv/Pressemeldingsarkiv/2019-2020/it-angrep-mot-stortinget/

👀 👉🏼 🇩🇪 https://www.golem.de/news/norwegen-e-mail-accounts-von-abgeordneten-gehackt-2009-150627.html

#norway #hacker #hacked #representatives
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Darknetdiaries - EP 53: Shadow Brokers

The NSA has some pretty advanced, super secret, hacking tools. What if these secret hacking tools were to end up in the wrong person’s hands? Well, that happened.

🎧 👉🏼 Darknetdiaries - EP 53: Shadow Brokers
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/53/

#darknetdiaries #truecrime #podcast
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Darknetdiaries - EP 73: WannaCry

💡 It is recommend to listen to episodes 53 “Shadow Brokers”, 71 “FDFF”, and 72 “Bangladesh Bank Heist” before listening to this one.

In May 2017 the world fell victim to a major ransomware attack known as WannaCry. One of the victims was UK’s national health service. Security researchers scrambled to try to figure out how to stop it and who was behind it.

🎧 👉🏼 https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/73/

#darknetdiaries #truecrime #podcast
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Threema Goes Open Source, Welcomes New Partner

Strengthened Through Partnership

After an intense startup phase, Threema lays the foundation for continuity, further growth, and an acceleration of the product development thanks to the entry of the German-Swiss investment company Afinum Management AG.

Afinum fully shares our values regarding security and privacy protection. The additional resources gained through this partnership enable Threema to grow beyond the German-speaking part of Europe, and we can use our energy for visionary new ideas and projects. That said, Threema’s founders – Manuel Kasper, Silvan Engeler, and Martin Blatter, all software developers – will continue to lead the company and still retain a significant ownership interest.

Open Source and Multi Device

Security and privacy protection are deeply ingrained in Threema’s DNA, which is why our code gets reviewed externally on a regular basis. Within the next months, the Threema apps will become fully open source, supporting reproducible builds. This is to say that anyone will be able to independently review Threema’s security and verify that the published source code corresponds to the downloaded app.

In the future, it will be possible to use multiple devices in parallel thanks to an innovative multi-device solution. In contrast to other approaches, no trace of personal data will be left behind on a server. Thanks to this technology, Threema can be used on a PC without a smartphone.

In conclusion, Threema will become even more trustworthy and even more convenient to use.

👀 👉🏼 https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/open-source-and-new-partner

#threema #opensource #afinum #swiss #germany
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To Surveil and Predict - A Human Rights Analysis of Algorithmic Policing in Canada

This publication is the result of an investigation by the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the Faculty of Law. Read the full report and our explanatory guide that provides a summary of research findings as well as questions and answers from the research team.

👀 👉🏼 Read the full report (PDF)
https://citizenlab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/To-Surveil-and-Predict.pdf

👀 👉🏼 Algorithmic Policing in Canada Explained
https://citizenlab.ca/2020/09/algorithmic-policing-in-canada-explained/

👀 👉🏼 https://citizenlab.ca/2020/09/to-surveil-and-predict-a-human-rights-analysis-of-algorithmic-policing-in-canada/

#algorithmic #policing #canada #study #analysis #pdf
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Warner Music Group finds hackers compromised its online stores

NOTICE OF DATA BREACH

On August 5, 2020, we learned that an unauthorized third party had compromised a number of US-based e-commerce
websites WMG operates but that are hosted and supported by an external service provider. This allowed the unauthorized third party to potentially acquire a copy of the personal information you entered into one or more of the affected website(s) between April 25, 2020 and August 5, 2020.

While we cannot definitively confirm that your personal information was affected, it is possible that it might have been
as your transaction(s) occurred during the period of compromise. If it was, this might have exposed you to a risk of
fraudulent transactions being carried out using your details.

👀 👉🏼 https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7201631/Warner-Music-Group-Breach-Letter-BC.txt

👀 👉🏼 (PDF)
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7201631/Warner-Music-Group-Breach-Letter-BC.pdf

👀 👉🏼 https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/warner-music-group-finds-hackers-compromised-its-online-stores/

#warner #music #breach #hackers
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rC3 – remote Chaos Experience

This year, CCC hosts the Remote Chaos Experience (rC3) instead of an on-site event in Leipzig.

💡 This endeavor requires creativity, joy of experimentation and active support.

A face-to-face event with 17,000 people will be neither responsible nor legally feasible this year. But after this tedious and painful 2020, we really deserve a nice finale!

This is why the rC3 – Remote Chaos Experience will be held.
As much as virtually possible, we want to convey the joy, content, togetherness and wonderful madness that make up a Chaos Communication Congress.

Hackers are used to remote work and online meetings. This makes our annual face-to-face meetings all the more important. Of course, it will be difficult to re-enact online all the things that make Congress what it is for us.
But then someone said it would be impossible. Our ambition was aroused.
Just like every year, we want to see the concentrated energy and creativity of hackers with dedication.

👀 👉🏼 https://events.ccc.de/2020/09/04/rc3-remote-chaos-experience/#english

#rC3 #CCC #RemoteChaosExperience
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AlphaBay Darknet Market Moderator Handed 11-Year Prison Sentence

A former AlphaBay market moderator has been sentenced to 11 years in prison

A Colorado man who served as moderator for the now-defunct AlphaBay dark web market is set to spend 11 years of his life in prison.

Through a press statement by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), authorities announced that the 26-year-old Bryan Connor Herrell has been sentenced by the U.S. District Court Judge Dale Drozd to 11 years behind bars.

The convict had initially faced charges in June 2019 for the part he played in enabling the sale of illicit goods and services via the AlphaBay market. The court session took place in the Eastern District of California, with the defendant pleading guilty in January 2020.

Reportedly, the DOJ had planned to set a hearing date for the man’s sentencing in May, but took place just recently owing to the government-sanctioned restrictions related to the current global COVID-19 crisis.

👀 👉🏼 https://tapeucwutvne7l5o.onion/alphabay-darknet-market-moderator-handed-11-year-prison-sentence

👀 👉🏼 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/colorado-man-sentenced-11-years-prison-moderating-disputes-darknet-marketplace-alphabay

#alphabay #marketplace #darknet #moderator #prison
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Maltrail

Maltrail is a malicious traffic detection system, utilizing publicly available (black)lists containing malicious and/or generally suspicious trails, along with static trails compiled from various AV reports and custom user defined lists, where trail can be anything from domain name (e.g. zvpprsensinaix.com for Banjori malware), URL (e.g. hXXp://109.162.38.120/harsh02.exe for known malicious executable), IP address (e.g. 185.130.5.231 for known attacker) or HTTP User-Agent header value (e.g. sqlmap for automatic SQL injection and database takeover tool). Also, it uses (optional) advanced heuristic mechanisms that can help in discovery of unknown threats (e.g. new malware).

💡Architecture

Maltrail is based on the Traffic -> Sensor <-> Server <-> Client architecture. Sensor(s) is a standalone component running on the monitoring node (e.g. Linux platform connected passively to the SPAN/mirroring port or transparently inline on a Linux bridge) or at the standalone machine (e.g. Honeypot) where it "monitors" the passing Traffic for blacklisted items/trails (i.e. domain names, URLs and/or IPs). In case of a positive match, it sends the event details to the (central) Server where they are being stored inside the appropriate logging directory (i.e. LOG_DIR described in the Configuration section). If Sensor is being run on the same machine as Server (default configuration), logs are stored directly into the local logging directory. Otherwise, they are being sent via UDP messages to the remote server (i.e. LOG_SERVER described in the Configuration section).

👀 👉🏼 https://github.com/stamparm/maltrail#introduction

👀 👉🏼 ipsum:
https://github.com/stamparm/ipsum

#stamparm #maltrail #ipsum #tool #malicious #detection #blacklist
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Florida congressman wants Edward Snowden pardoned

TALLAHASSE, Fla. (CBS12) — U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL-1) wants Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, pardoned.

Gaetz simply issued a one-word tweet with Snowden tagged on Thursday.

Snowden, 31, is a former CIA subcontractor who exposed the NSA's mass surveillance programs and capabilities in 2013. Snowden was charged with violating the Espionage Act and could face up to 30 years in prison. Because the US is pursuing his extradition, Snowden is now exiled in Russia.

On Wednesday, Snowden re-tweeted the ACLU, which reported that a U.S. federal court ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records was illegal, saying "seven years ago, as the news declared I was being charged as a criminal for speaking the truth, I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA's activities as unlawful."

👀 👉🏼 https://cbs12.com/news/local/florida-congressman-wants-edward-snowden-pardoned

#snowden #whistleblower #usa #congressman
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It’s Time to Dismantle the DEA

For nearly 50 years, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has fueled mass incarceration, wasted taxpayer money, abused its authority and blocked scientific research.

It’s time for change.

By Every Measure the DEA and its Drug War Have Failed

The DEA was established in 1973 ostensibly to consolidate drug enforcement activities into a “superagency” that would bring together federal drug enforcement resources. In the last 50 years, it’s been a tremendous waste of resources and left a wake of devastation in the United States and abroad.

DEA personnel have repeatedly engaged in unlawful operations, spent lavishly, ignored civil rights, packed federal prisons, and still failed to make a significant impact on drug supply. Meanwhile, Congress has engaged in little scrutiny of the agency, its actions or its budget.

WASTING TAXPAYER FUNDS

The DEA is the central player in the failed war on drugs. When the DEA was created in 1973, it started with less than $75 million. In fiscal year 2020 U.S. taxpayers spent more than $3.1 billion on the DEA. President Trump asked for even more for fiscal year 2021 - a staggering $3.5 billion, with more than $520 million specifically for its international programs.

What has it done with all that money?

It has facilitated the growth of paramilitary forces on U.S. soil, expanded surveillance, and embedded itself in communities throughout the U.S. and abroad. It has directly participated in domestic enforcement at the local level and even conducted its own research and public propaganda campaigns.

Ten percent of its Special Agent and Intelligence Analysts are permanently stationed overseas conducting drug interdiction, including undercover operations, surveillance, money laundering, paying informants, and facilitating arrests. Internationally, the DEA-led drug war has contributed to increased violence in many countries, as well as political and economic instability.

👀 👉🏼 https://www.drugpolicy.org/DEA

#dea #timeforchange #drugpolicy #thinkabout
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Google lists which Firebase SDKs require Google Play Services

Google is a pretty ubiquitous name in the Android space. Not only does the company own and maintain the Android Open Source Project itself, but it’s also in charge of the largest distribution platform on Android: the Google Play Store and the underlying Google Mobile Services (GMS) suite. GMS is the important part here. Firebase, Google’s cross-platform toolkit for things like analytics and crash detection, uses GMS to provide a lot of its functionality.

That’s all well and good if your target devices come with Google apps preinstalled, but what if they don’t? What if a user has unlocked their bootloader and flashed a Google-free ROM? What if someone’s using a Huawei device, or they’ve imported a phone from China? Will the Firebase-dependent parts of your app just not work?

Thankfully, if you’re trying to implement Firebase into your app, you don’t need to guess which SDKs will work on Google-free devices and which won’t. Google has helpfully released a list of all its current Firebase SDKs, and whether or not they depend on GMS. You can use this to tell at-a-glance which SDKs you can safely implement and which you may have to supplement or avoid.

💡 👉🏼 Here’s a table listing the Firebase SDKs and whether or not they have GMS dependencies:
https://www.xda-developers.com/google-list-firebase-sdk-require-google-play-services/

💡 👉🏼 https://firebase.google.com/docs/android/android-play-services

#google #list #firebase #sdk #playservices #dependencies
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The Scene: A Stress Headache That Most Pirates Can Do Without

Many up-and-coming pirates dream of one day being elite enough to become a member of The Scene, hoping to bathe in the collective mystery, kudos and notoriety it exudes. But for most, however, the headaches and stress would probably outweigh the benefits of this exclusive 'club'.

Over the past two weeks ‘The Scene’, the individuals, groups, and entities that are often described as sitting at the top of the so-called ‘Piracy Pyramid’, has been thrust into the mainstream media.

A US Government-led operation, carried out on several continents against the ‘Sparks Conspiracy‘, listed three individuals from the UK, US and Norway as the main targets of a massive investigation. What took place on the ground, however, ended up being something much, much bigger.

While SPARKS and related groups GECKOS, DRONES, ROVERS and SPLINTERS were placed front and center, operations like this don’t and can’t operate in a vacuum. These groups were part of an organic network built up over years and, as such, their activities and members touched huge numbers of disparate yet interconnected individuals involved in the piracy world overall, not just ‘The Scene’ itself.

One of the interesting things about The Scene is that over almost two decades, it has gained almost mythical status as an almost impossible-to-penetrate ‘place’ where only the most elite of pirates hang out. As a result, many people aspire to become a ‘member’ one day, hoping to bathe in the collective mystery, kudos and notoriety.

What the unfolding events of the past two weeks have shown, however, is that The Scene is already much closer to regular pirates than most people might think, touching and even intermingling at some level with private and public torrent sites, streaming platforms, and similar services.

👀 👉🏼 https://torrentfreak.com/the-scene-a-stress-headache-that-most-pirates-can-do-without-200906/

#pirates #piracy #Sparks #GECKOS #DRONES #ROVERS #SPLINTERS #conspiracy‘ #usa #uk #norway
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Locking down Signal

Concerned about the privacy and security of your communications? Follow our guide to locking down Signal.

The encrypted messaging app, Signal, is quickly becoming a newsroom staple for communicating with sources, accepting tips, talking to colleagues, and for regular old voice calls and messages. While it’s a practical tool for anyone concerned with the security and privacy of their conversations, people working in newsrooms are particularly interesting targets, and should benefit from locking down Signal.

💡 (If you’re not yet using it, learn how to get started here.)

Signal makes it easy to have a secure conversation without thinking about it. On its face, it looks and feels identical to your default text messaging app, but security experts so often recommend it because of what it does in the background.

First, Signal offers end-to-end encryption, meaning only conversational participants can read the messages. While regular phone calls or text messages allow your phone company to unscramble your conversations, even the team behind Signal can’t listen to them. You don’t need to take their word for it. Signal is open source, meaning the code is available for anyone to review. This also makes security audits simpler for independent specialists, who have torn apart the code and published findings that everything works as intended. Finally, Signal retains nearly no metadata — information about who spoke to whom, and when. (The developers proved as much in court.)

These are some of the advantages you want in an encrypted messaging app.

Because newsrooms can attract a lot of attention, journalists who already use Signal should consider hardening it against physical access, as well as unwanted remote access and network-based eavesdropping. So let’s talk about how.

👀 👉🏼 https://freedom.press/training/locking-down-signal/

#signal #encrypted #messaging #app #guide
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The growing China black list of the USA

After Huawei, China's largest chip manufacturer SMIC is now also threatened by an embargo by the USA. US companies are then no longer allowed to do business with the contract manufacturer.

The Trump government, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Defense, is considering adding SMIC to its blacklist. The companies listed there have virtually no access to US technology. The list already contains over 300 Chinese companies.

👀 👉🏼 The China-black list of the USA (PDF):
https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/regulations-docs/2326-supplement-no-4-to-part-744-entity-list-4/file

#usa #china #blacklist #embargo #pdf
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📡@NoGoolag

You have a secret health score and it's as dystopian as it sounds

Insurance companies use big data to predict your health and profitability. Your life choices may easily cost you your coverage or accessibility of treatments.

📺 👉🏼 https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?app=desktop&v=f6LMp74goVc&quality=dash&dark_mode=true&autoplay=0

#insurance #companies #secret #health #score #surveillance #bigdata #thinkabout #why
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
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The Internet’s Biggest Webmaster Forum Had a Data Breach

Another day and another big data leak. On July 1st the WebsitePlanet research team in cooperation with Security Researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered a non-password protected database that contained records of the internet’s largest webmaster portal. Upon further research it appeared that Digital Point had leaked the data of 863,412 users.

Digital Point claims to be the world’s biggest webmaster forum and marketplace for web related services. The forum lets people buy and sell websites, SEO, and a wide range of services. The site caters to those individuals who maintain or create websites either for themselves or customers.

👀 👉🏼 Data Breach Summary:
https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/digitalpoint-leak-report/

#digitalpoint #leak #report
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What’s missing from corporate statements on racial injustice? The real cause of racism.

An analysis of 63 recent statements shows that US tech companies repeatedly placed responsibility for racial injustice on Black people.

On August 31, Airbnb launched Project Lighthouse, an initiative meant to “uncover, measure, and overcome discrimination” on the home-sharing platform. According to the company, Project Lighthouse will identify discrimination by measuring whether a renter’s perceived race correlates with differences in the rate or quality of that person’s bookings, cancellations, or reviews. This project comes amid an outpouring of solidarity statements and policy changes from the tech industry in response to uprisings after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25.

While these nods toward racial justice may be well-intentioned, they highlight a problem that casts doubt on whether the industry’s efforts to date can truly combat bias: the tendency to position race, not racism, as the cause of discrimination.

This way of thinking about inequality is emblematic of “racecraft,” a term coined by sociologist Karen E. Fields and historian Barbara J. Fields to describe “the mental terrain and pervasive beliefs” about race and racism in America. Though Fields and Fields outline many aspects of the concept, their basic proposition is that the very idea of race arises out of racist practices rather than biological realities. Racecraft, they write, is a “conjuror’s trick of transforming racism into race, leaving black persons in view while removing white persons from the stage.”

A good example can be seen in Airbnb’s introduction to Project Lighthouse, which states that the company was “deeply troubled by stories of travelers who were turned away by Airbnb hosts during the booking process because of the color of their skin.” Were those guests really turned away because of their skin color, or because their prospective hosts were racist?

The same maneuver can be seen in a statement from Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, in which he says the platform’s efforts to ensure that Black voices are heard “won’t stop with the disparities people may experience solely on the basis of race.”

👀 👉🏼 https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/05/1008187/racial-injustice-statements-tech-companies-racism-racecraft-opinion/

#racial #injustice #statements #tech #companies #racism #racecraft #opinion #thinkabout
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