Posted: 08 Aug 2010
Voice of the Voiceless
by Peter Young
Since Darren Thurston’s release from prison, the informant in the Green Scare A.L.F. / E.L.F. case has resurfaced as a computer security consultant.
Darren Thurston – Snitch
A warning to anyone who has received computer security services from someone going by hard_mac , or rad_boy : Your consultant was once working for the FBI, and may still be.
Thurston became an asset for the federal government in the Green Scare case after his arrest on arson charges for the 2001 torching by the Animal Liberation Front of a BLM wild horse holding barn in Susanville, California. In exchange for reduced charges, he implicated several others in serious arsons. Among them was Justin Solondz, who is serving a three year sentence in China on unrelated charges after being arrested there while a fugitive.
Thurston’s computer security consulting site can be viewed here . [ In case Thurston/Hard Mac is working for the government, we would make it clear that activists should not go to his web site on their own computers. We have heard that the government has the technology (and is using it on at least one site) to put tracking devices (probably keyloggers/screenloggers) onto every computer that visits a web site, without even downloading anything but simply by visiting the site. If Thurston/Hard Mac is working for the enemy, this could be one of those sites. Perhaps this is being overcautious, but security is better than needless risks.]
Perhaps not by coincidence, there is information another government informant, Justin Samuel, has also gone into the computer security field. Samuel provided 86 pages of testimony , and perhaps additional undocumented information, to prosecutors investigating mink releases in 1999.
It is possible the FBI has found the perfect niche for former activists who have switched sides: giving them “expert” status and putting them in charge of sensitive data on others’ computers. Warrants may be unnecessary when the FBI has a “man on the inside”.