Overview: Cyberpunk music is often described as “music with a feeling of living in a cyberpunk world.” Some would prefer that music with lyrics that tell a story; Others prefer just the music. If you prefer instrumental “ambient” cyberpunk, Colin Timothy Gagnon has an album for you to download into your ear canals. Released late last year, here’s how he describes his work:

A collection of tracks composed between 2002 and 2008 in the style of late ’80s and early ’90s video game music. I was reading a lot of seminal cyberpunk fiction when I composed the earliest of these tracks, and I imagine those authors expected the future to sound a little like this.

To me, ambient music is much like the “magic eye” autostereograms from the mid-90s; You may get it right away and the effect is spectacular, or you struggle with it and never get it. Fortunately, Gagnon’s site has a built-in player that will allow you to test the tracks to see if you like them. For now, let’s see what the individual tracks have to offer.

Quiet. The opening track is more tension than actual quietness, with echoing drums. I can probably hear this tune playing in the background while exploring Neocron’s Industrial and Outzone sectors.

Asphalt Dawn. Daybreak over the gritty city. Don’t think I quite got this one, but it does sound uplifting, like watching the sun rise.

From The Ground Up. Not sure about this one. Maybe looking up at the towering buildings

Bad Deal. A transaction has gone sour and now you need to run.

Mass Transit. Try listening to this the next time you’re on a subway or bus on your way to… wherever.

These Doors Are Open. I can imagine waking past a club and hearing a tune like this near the front door.

It Never Stops Raining Here. The opening does sound like water dripping from the roof after a recent rain.

The Path of Least Resistance. Funky bass line at the start, soaring the rest of the way.

Arena. Music you would expect at any sporting event. Bring on the gladiators!

Macrocosm. A term for how one interprets large-scale patterns, maybe like the rifts in this tune.

Insertion Point. You arrive at a spot, ready for action when the music picks-up the pace.

Conclusion: Whether or not this album is cyberpunk enough depends on how you interpret ambient music. Best advice: Visit Gagnon’s site and listen to the tunes via the player application, and make you own call. I’ll be listening to this work to see if I can get it.

Source: WikiLeaks Special 9/11 site

Biggest Leak Ever.

From 3AM on Wednesday November 25, 2009, until 3AM the following day (US east coast time), WikiLeaks released half a million US national text pager intercepts. The intercepts cover a 24 hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

The messages were broadcasted “live” to the global community — sychronized to the time of day they were sent. The first message was from 3AM September 11, 2001, five hours before the first attack, and the last, 24 hours later.

Text pagers are usualy carried by persons operating in an official capacity. Messages in the archive range from Pentagon, FBI, FEMA and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults at investment banks inside the World Trade Center

The archive is a completely objective record of the defining moment of our time. We hope that its entrance into the historical record will lead to a nuanced understanding of how this event led to death, opportunism and war.

This message, on the WikiLeaks 9/11 site (click the logo above to access), is WikiLeaks’ explanation for broadcasting some half-million intercepted pager messages. Also on the site is an index of the messages, and a zip file to download.

While WikiLeaks intentions may seem honest, there are questions concerning the pages. The most important question being:

WHO INTERCEPTED THESE PAGES?

Inquiring minds want to know. The question surrounding the pager intercepts has not gone unnoticed in DC. From Newsday.com:

Concerned about the release of 500,000 intercepted pager messages from Sept. 11, 2001, Rep. Peter King said he plans to have his Washington staff begin a preliminary investigation.

“It does raise security issues, and we will look into it in Washington,” King (R-Seaford), the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, said Friday.

Note: The link may not work properly unless you disable javascript for newsday.com. If left enabled, you will only get the first paragraph along with requests to subscribe to see the rest.

The fact that someone had intercepted such traffic, albeit unencrypted, is giving some security people like King concerns about why such the intercepting was going on… and by whom.

Most pager users either don’t need to intercept the traffic or do not have the expertise to do so, (Phil) Lieberman (president of Lieberman Software Corp. of Los Angeles) said.

But clearly, those with the right technology can accomplish it. Literature of one pager company acknowledges that an experienced person with sophisticated equipment can break into the data transmitted for pagers.

Since, at the time, the World Trade Center was home to many financial companies, someone who has the means to intercept the pager traffic would have unprecedented access to information that could have altered markets.

History rewind… In what has to be an unfortunate timing of news stories, a story from the subscription site Wayne Madsen Report re-posted on Online Journal and Op-Ed News reminds us that someone had indeed been engaged in snooping on America’s electronic messages long before the towers came down. From writer Wayne Madsen:

National Security Agency (NSA) sources have reported to WMR that the signals intelligence agency’s warrantless wiretapping program was more widespread than originally reported and that it began shortly after the 2001 inauguration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, some six months prior to the 9/11 attacks.

Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio reported that NSA requested that his firm take part in the warrantless wiretapping program in a February 27, 2001, meeting but that he told NSA that Qwest would refuse to participate. AT&T, BellSouth, SBC, Sprint, and Verizon all agreed to participate in the wiretapping program, which resulted in such a large database of intercepted calls, faxes, and e-mails, that NSA recently announced it was building a huge 1 million square feet data warehouse at a cost of $1.5 billion at Camp Williams in Utah, as well as another massive data warehouse in San Antonio. The cover story is that the warehouses are part of NSA’s new Cyber Command responsibilities. NSA sources have told WMR that the warehouses are to store the massive amount of intercepts collected by the ongoing Terrorist Surveillance Program, an above top secret program once code named STELLAR WIND by the NSA.

Nacchio was later convicted on 19 counts of insider trading of Qwest stock and sentenced to six years in federal prison. Nacchio maintained that his prosecution and conviction was in retaliation for his refusal to participate in the illegal NSA surveillance program. NSA also canceled a major contract with Qwest over its refusal to wiretap calls without warrants.

This would certainly answer who and possibly why. Following money trails to “terrorists” might seem logical, and the WTC would be the most likely spot to intercept the messages. But if it really was the NSA intercepting the pages, why post them to WikiLeaks? Did someone have a guilty conscience and wanted to come clean? Or was it the NSA’s way of saying “This is what we can find out about you, and you brain-dead sacks of sheep-shit can’t do a fucking thing about it!”

If it was the NSA, they’re not saying… and neither are their corporate allies, as one curious Indiana University grad student found out when he asked about what customers are being charged for wiretaps. From Wired:

Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?

That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.

Yahoo! claimed that releasing such information can embarrass them, while Verizon objected on the grounds that customers may get confused and scared. Like having jumbo-jets crash into buildings won’t confuse and scare people enough.