By John P. Smith
Independent Journalist
I think I hit an information booby trap this weekend.
Two things happened Saturday morning as I was researching for a couple of articles I’m working on. I searched (using Duck Duck Go) for a second-source verification (aka real journalism) for a Vladimir Putin quote I want to use and, the first site I visited didn’t confirm it, while the second site I tried threw a malware attack and tried to install ransomware.
A screen popped up screaming I’d hit a virus and that I MUST call the number on the popup to get help to clear the computer. It also disabled the mouse in an attempt to lock the user out of the system. Being better trained and more experienced than the average screen junkie, I cleared that from memory, dumped the page and erased my internet cache, ran a virus scan and cleaned the system files.
I moved on to looking for the passenger manifests for Epstein’s Lolita Express. The first site, a criminal media national magazine, only listed names, with of course, Donald J. Trump as the first name on the list. (There’s a shocker. He’s never denied he took a flight. Allegedly only took one and never did it again. Bill Clinton, Chief Justice John Roberts and other protected clientel were hidden near the bottom of the list.) The next site I viewed said it had the PDFs of the manifests, so I went there and BOOM! Another malware and ransomware attack, different splash screen and phone number.
Interesting…I wonder who would want to cyber attack someone looking for that kind of information? I think these sites are deep-state bait. This was an attempt to trap people who go looking for that stack of data. After running through the cleaning process again, I changed tactics.
In my next attempt, I fired up my Raspberry Pi running Raspian Linux and performed the same search. The idea here is the system is newly installed, clean, isolated from the rest of my network and completely disposable. If the system gets hit with a malware attack that I can’t clear, then I just power down, pull the 32 Gig SD card and wipe it. Reinstall Raspian and go again. Takes about 15 minutes.
I found a site alleging to have the goods on the Lolita Express flight manifests and did not suffer a malware attack. I was able to download the documents to the linux system. I was also able to find and verify the Putin quote in question (at The Dispatch) without hitting a ransomware attack on my disposable Linux machine.
I realize it may be nothing. But I search a lot of news, visit and read a lot of sites. I rarely hit malware. I keep my systems clean and healthy, with good virus and malware protection. Hitting two in about 10 minutes was something of a shocker. I’ll continue work on the articles (which may turn into podcasts) and keep on trucking.
I wanted to send out this warning in case anyone else runs across something similar. I think it was triggered by the specific information I was searching for, rather than being random. Again, possibly coincidence; probably not.
For anyone interested, below is the Putin quote I was trying to verify:
Vladimir Putin, “The ruling classes of the Western countries, which are supranational and globalist in nature, realize that their policies are increasingly detached from reality, common sense and the truth, and they have started resorting to openly despotic methods.
“The West, which once delcared such principles of democracy as freedom of speech, pluralism and respect for dissenting opinions, has now degenerated into the opposite: Totalitarianism. This includes censorship, media bans, and the arbitrary treatment of journalists and public figures.
“These kinds of prohibitions have been extended not only to the information space, but also to politics, culture, education and art -- to all spheres of public life in the Western countries. And they are imposing this on the world; they are trying to impose this model, a model of totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious cancel culture of widespread bans.”
