Category Archives: Law

Grayscale, never Black or White

Grayscaling has been around since the beginning of photography, 30 years ago it was a lot more important as colour screens were not great and monochrome exposure came at a much higher quality (higher resolution, Hercules graphic adapters), others followed for the longest time and until EGA evolved (with overpriced monitors) we were all happy to think in grayscales, it was also more precise and easier on the eye. Even home computers had its version. The Atari MEGA STe with 4MB memory was ahead by a lot when you consider that the PC could not manage more than 640Kb (1991), more important, it was an almost direct attack on Macintosh who was up to 600% more expensive in those days, so it was a nice DTP alternative.

Yet today grayscaling had been done for, at least that was what I thought. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/10/watchdog-finds-work-of-patisserie-valerie-auditor-unacceptable) shows us mere hours ago that I was wrong, especially when we are confronted with Grant Thornton and the fact that that the work from this auditor has been regarded as unacceptable (basically in Black & White). It gets to be worse when we see: “Across the industry, one in four audits failed to reach required standards, a finding that will intensify pressure on the firms“. That is a massive failing that is no longer merely the optional rotten apple in the basket; this sets the stage that the entire harvest is no longer trustworthy. In the days of the Atari MEGA STe the work of accounting auditors were close to beyond reproach, so the slipping of quality is one of much larger concern, it is a much larger issue of quality; optionally it is now the age of butchers being granted to perform operations on people because the shortage of surgeons is too overwhelming.

And when we see the quote: “Grant Thornton’s chief executive, David Dunckley, exasperated MPs in January when he said it was not his firm’s job to uncover fraud or judge that a company’s books were correct“, is that not the foundation of an audit? Is the audit not to make sure as they ‘judge that a company’s books were correct‘ is that not at the core to check before they are signed off on? Of course it comes with the step to slam my favourite Tesco auditor when we see: “The FRC also criticised PwC, one of the big four accountants, for an unsatisfactory drop in the results for its audits. Only 65% of the firm’s audits of FTSE 350 companies required no more than limited improvements, down from 84% a year earlier and well short of the FRC’s 90% target“, I think the stage is becoming clear that these two places should no longer be considered as valid auditors. Like the Atari MEGA STe, they have become obsolete and optionally overpriced and useless. If we consider that they were optionally the beez knees in 1991, it is the passage of time how that view is now reduced against my smartphone.

 

Atari MEGA STe

Smartphone Difference

Alternative

CPU 16 MHz 2.4 GHz 150 times better +15,000%
Memory 4 MB 4GB 1024 times more +102,400%
Storage 20 MB 128 GB 6400 times more +640,000%
Display 640*400 2340 * 180 16.45 times more +1,645%
Price $1995 $499 75% cheaper -75%

 

We can all accept that technology moves on and I am comparing one tech that is 5 generations and 27 years more advanced, but that is the setting with these auditors. They are failing in quality again and again and they are still tolerated to operate, the FRC (Financial Reporting Council) is as I personally seeing this ignoring its duties, perhaps politicians have yanked out their teeth, so that they can merely bark, but the amount of issues that we see, issues that predates that so called Tesco clambake of 2013. The issue is not merely the fact that impacts places like PwC and Grant Thornton, it is larger and the sliding of quality is now well beyond embarrassing and for the most actions have been largely null and void. If there is something to be learned from the Carillion disaster, it is the fact that KPMG (at £1,500,000) a year dropped more than just the ball, they are setting the stage that auditing needs to be a lot more on par towards criminal prosecution and investigative prosecution than ever before. Before it got to the auditors, the financial controllers, the bookies and the CFO’s worked those books and that facilitating side needs to stop. There was an interesting view that was given in February 2018. Accountancy Age (at https://www.accountancyage.com/2018/02/26/carillion-inquiry-missed-red-lights-aggressive-accounting-pension-deficit/), and as we read: “In a series of scathing joint committee sessions MPs took to task Carillion directors, pension regulators and KPMG and Deloitte auditors– grilling them on missed red flags, aggressive accounting and the pension deficit reaching nearly £1bn“, is it all that simple? Is it not the task of the auditor to make sure that the books are 100% ok? It seems now that the auditors are facilitating to their paying clients on what they can get away with, and to some degree that is fine (it is about looking at black letter law and to see where the border is), because it is about what the law allows, yet the flaws of PwC, Grant Thornton and KPMG shows is that the auditor needs to be more towards prosecuting their client on what will not pass the tax laws and reporting laws, there is a much larger difference between these stages and as such the FRC needs to grow a set of teeth (optionally balls too) and whilst we accept the stage as it is, it is no longer a stage that is acceptable and that needs to be clear. The impact to people as we saw in Tesco and Carillion has been much too large and those board members walked away with more than just a pretty penny, so did the auditors and that requires adjustment of a much larger kind.

Even as we are shallowly given: “Audits carried out by PwC that the FRC inspected included Kier Group, the construction and services company whose recent profit warning prompted comparisons with Carillion, and the struggling department store chain Debenhams. The FRC did not disclose which audits were substandard from the list of companies it reviewed“, we could set the stage that these players can no longer audit any firm with a revenue over £1 billion or more than 1,000 employees. I feel certain that such a limitation will chase these players to much higher standards. Let’s face it, when we get to read small printed facts that PwC made an accounting error of £40,000,000 can we assume (read: speculate) that their flaws are larger and go deeper? Should we allow these dangers to set the stage where 1,200 jobs are cut because there was no more room to wiggle?

As I personally see it, the stage is actually rather simple. Any firm that makes the statement: “Kier Group plc’s Group financial statements and Company financial statements (the “financial statements”) give a true and fair view of the state of the Group’s and of the Company’s affairs as at 30 June 2018 and of the Group’s profit and cash flows for the year then ended;” all whilst we see that there was a £40,000,000 ‘oopsie’ is not a firm that should be allowed to set the stage where that statement was given in the first place.

It does not matter which excuse is given (the contracts were way to complex), or how the stage seemingly turned through operational changes (this quarter has seen over double the number of weeks of refresh disruption compared to the same period last year). They are all excuses of an unacceptable level and no matter how we slice this, it seems that some accountancy firms can no longer keep up and they should be cut from clients that have grown beyond certain sizes. We have rules on the F1 races, we have rules on how soccer teams become premiere league, even the Olympics requires rules before athletes can compete and when they cannot keep up they no longer qualify, it is time for these accountancy firms to be held to qualifications to a much higher and larger degree, having a degree no longer takes the cake, we need to consider that issues like Tesco, Carillion, Debenhams, Kier group and several others are also case for limiting access. Each of these failings should be seen as the tipping point to the limit of companies with ‘a revenue over £1 billion or more than 1,000 employees‘ are required to find another auditor, or face an optional complete audit by an FRC appointed auditor (at the expense of the firm being audited). I feel certain that once this rule is in play that quality will suddenly go through the roof, it will also allow the smaller firms to become an optional future big four, even though it is more likely that the reduced pool will create a stage of a new big seven tier of accountancy firms; even though we think all accountants are evil, they are not and plenty are above board trying to be the best in their business, we all (including me) forget that at times and we too need some adjusting. It does however begin by clipping the wings of no less than two auditors at present.

There is also the idea that it is all in the presentation, and perhaps to some degree it is. Yet when something is marketed as a new 50 shades of grey for male readers, it is nice to know that it is marketing of a different kind, not a summary report that there are equal scales for two different groups, because that is not an oversight, that is an example of direct applied deceptive conduct and I think that we have seen too many victims of those twists. It needs to stop and perhaps the FRC will finally push for a stage that allows for larger changes, as this mess has been going on for well over 5 years now.

 

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Demanding Dismissal

The actions of Eggy Calamari (aka Agnes Callamard) require me to now loudly demand her dismissal from the United Nations. She might be regarded as a person who is not entirely ignorant of matters; she still shows the largest concern of acting in dubious legal ways through popularity. Al this started in the middle of the night (actually 13 hours ago) when I received the news (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/expert-urges-world-powers-reconsider-g20-riyadh-summit-190703064336474.html). Again this so called essay writer is set in a stage where we see: “UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, in a report last month found “credible evidence” that linked Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to the killing of Khashoggi“, in this stage ‘credible evidence‘, is nothing, it holds no water and therefore it should have no legal value. Involvement, being a co-conspirator requires the person to be found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt; there is no exemption to that.

Yo Eggy, you did learn that in the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Grenoble, did you not? That and your presence in Başkent University as well as the PhD on Political Science from the New School for Social Research in New York did give you that part of law, did it not? Even as we go for French Civil law that uses “the preponderance of the evidence” (basically was it more likely than not that something occurred in a certain way), your verdict does not hold water. Even when we rack up all the circumstantial evidence, it lacks and you know it Agnes!

Then we need to consider the issues surrounding Mr. Mohammed Alotaibi, the Saudi Consul General in Turkey. His name is all over the report and I would like to raise the issue at [79]. Here we get: “It is not clear that all of this conversation was captured on the tape made available to the Special Rapporteur“, as well as (at 142) “On 17 October, press reports began circulating that Consul General Alotaibi had been fired“, was Jamal Khashoggi part of the reason for him being fired (I do not know), but that gives a person at the scene motive for murder, was that investigated?

Now we get to [176] where we see: “The Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where Mr. Khashoggi was killed, was overseen by Consul General Mohammed Alotaibi“, that is optionally correct and we do not oppose that, yet now under Executive Order 13818 it now partially becomes US law and under Common Law it is all beyond all reasonable doubt and you do not have that, not in any way, you do not even have a cadaver to work with. So when we see: “The Saudi officials we are sanctioning were involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi. These individuals who targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States must face consequences for their actions” all your evidence is circumstantial and as such you have a whole lot of nothing. And when we get to 192 we see: “On 8 April, the United States Department of State issued a list of sixteen Saudis designated in the murder of Mr. Kashoggi, one less than the seventeen named in the Department of Treasury sanctions from 15 November. The State Department sanctions did not include Consul General Mohammed Alotaibi” and when we get to the list of former Consul General Mohamed Alotaibi, we see no Turkish arrest warrant, no arrest warrant for the KSA, no sanctions from the state department and merely sanctions from the US treasury. We accept that all people are innocent until proven guilty, yet the situation is that former Consul General Mohamed Alotaibi is much more likely the murderer than the Crown prince of Saudi Arabia ever was and you cannot even prove that, so it makes your actions merely rash and vindictive, and speaking out against the G-20 being in Riyadh an action by a young girl who failed her duty (implied duty) to prove in the documentation that the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is directly responsible for the optional wrongful death of Jamal Khashoggi and the evidence when properly vetted will not bring that out. It is what you can prove in court that matters and your essay does not give us this.

So when I get confronted with two parts, the first is Al Jazeera with ‘UN expert urges world powers to reconsider G20 Riyadh summit‘, you do not get to make that call for more limelight, you failed to the larger extent of your essay and as we all agree something happened, no part of it can hold up in court. Through the media Turkish ‘officials’ made all kinds of references tainting the evidence they claim to have. and even in your report you phrased (or rephrased) it as “a review of the rules of evidence and jurisprudence conducted by the Special Rapporteur shows that the admissibility of the tapes and potentially other intercepts relating to Mr. Khashoggi’s death will depend on the form in which they are ultimately produced, their reliability, the fairness to the defendants of using such evidence“, when we see ‘the form in which they are ultimately produced‘ implies editing and as such no reliability remains. As I personally see it, you want to give over increased validity to your essay and as such give a statement that was not yours to make in the first place.

In the second place, your actions on the G20 where we see: “U.N. rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Agnes Callamard told newspaper Algemeen Dagblad it was “more than disappointing” that the Dutch queen had apparently not raised the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with the Saudi prince“, you do not now, not ever dictate the stage of conversation that was made regarding HRH Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. When you grow up and leave your teenage years behind you, you will see and learn that royalty and more precise Monarchy speakers all over the world (there is also Sweden, the UK, Denmark, Jordan, Japan, the UAE and others to consider) who have been able to start a conversation when some politically driven and opportunistically speaking politicians blew options out of the water, President Trump, President Trudeau and President Macron representing well over 100 events in this matter alone. As such, not merely because of etiquette, you should refrain from commenting on that. This is not me impeding you as a person with the rights to ‘press’ opinion, it is mere common sense that the act was utterly stupid, even if you had optionally a case, the G20 meeting was not about your essay and is never should be.

It is these two events alone that requires the United Nations to consider your dismissal, it gets to be even worse when you called “Donald Trump’s administration has to share its findings into the murder with the international community“, please explain to me how the United States has any actual evidence regarding the events in a foreign nation on a consulate that is another nations grounds? How was this evidence collected? Creating a mountain of non-substantial evidence is not really evidence, even as circumstantial evidence that is founded on probability will not hold water, even if the statement “officials have said they have high confidence“, they lost the credibility they had with a silver briefcase holding evidence on WMD in Iraq, you do remember that part, don’t you? (It was roughly 16 years ago)

You pushed for more and more whilst the foundation of where issues optionally happened was tainted from the very beginning, the fire you add at [369] where we see: “if the United States (or any other party to the ICCPR) knew, or should have known, of a foreseeable threat to Khashoggi’s life and failed to warn him, while he was in Turkey (or elsewhere), and under circumstances with respect to which it could be argued that he was under their functional jurisdiction, then the United States or any other State would have violated their obligations to protect Mr. Khashoggi’s life“, if that was unknown, why is there optional evidence collected in Turkey by the CIA? even if we could not shotgun the part ‘to which it could be argued that he was under their functional jurisdiction, then the United States or any other State would have violated their obligations to protect Mr. Khashoggi’s life‘ how was this the case? The consulate is Saudi territory, Turkish territory (the grounds around the Consulate) was implied to be monitored and there too a lot of errors were made, judgment calls that were basically colossal blunders. The realisation of any journalist getting so much attention with the dozens and dozens of incarcerated journalist in Turkish prisons calls for another venue and all these so called venues give rise that there are plenty of others with an optional issue with Jamal Khashoggi and you calling out HRH Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud should be regarded as stupid, the lack of evidence and the amount of circumstantial evidence alone calls you out.

In an optional fictive case: ‘there is a person who has every need to ascent his position, then there is an person of exulted position who was never near the claimant and the claimant was wrong, is it more likely than not that the person with the need to promote himself is more likely than not the person doing the act compared to the exulted position person?‘ In this case alone, the circumstantial evidence gives a much larger rise to the actions of Mr. Mohammed Alotaibi? I am not stating that Mr. Mohammed Alotaibi is guilty of any wrongdoing; I do so because there is no evidence to that effect. Yet you pastry the road with cherry pies brushing aside one for the other whilst the essay does not give actual conclusive evidence, I state again conclusive evidence that either was responsible for the act. the lack of a body emphasizes this and the fact that there is no evidence of any kind, only speculating on what optionally happened to Jamal Khashoggi merely confirms a lack of evidence for any trial and you set the stage so that you could remain in denial, that and the two events you had no business blasting on merely enforces the need for your removal.

Without the two events (G20 Riyadh and HRH Queen Maxima) you would have remained being a ‘young’ lady who wrote a pretty and optionally suspenseful essay, you yourself changed that premise.

So consider Le Salon NYC (at 310 E 44th St, New York) and Haircutters of Paris (at 320 E 49th St, New York) that are close to your current location, optionally see if you can run your own uber from your UN office, it might be a goldmine, just two of your options to consider in the near future.

Have a great Thursday Agnes!

UN Khashoggi Report June 2019

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Drones to the wild

There was another attack in Saudi Arabia less than 24 hours ago, it went wrong (for the drones) and the Saudi military was able to intercept the drones. And when we look at the quote: “Saudi Arabia has intercepted two drones launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a Saudi-led coalition spokesman has said“, most people look in the wrong way. The western media to the largest degree ignores: ‘Iran-backed‘, the issue is seen in two parts. In the first part the stated Qasef-2K is not merely that it is more advanced than the Qasaf-1, it is that Houthi forces do not have the ability to make the Qasef-1, this was not determined by me, Drone experts looked at it and were able to conclude without any doubt that it is beyond their ability. There is a lot more wrong with the Houthi forces, but this is a first part. the second is that the denial to register this implies that the western media is willing to falsely accuse Iran, but is unable to recognise the hand of Iran and is unwilling to hold them to account, their fear of losing whatever nuclear agreement joke there is, they want to cling to the impossible and most delusional setting of an agreement that will not work.

The fact that Qasef-2K is made and still shipped to Yemen gives rise that there is a much larger logistical support to keep the Houthi fighters active and the Yemeni people will suffer, that is the simple equation and the western media to the largest degree will ignore it and merely point fingers at Saudi Arabia, but with this much overwhelming evidence, and it is not conjecture, it is actual evidence. the part towards the Yemeni Qasef-1 is: “this claim has been disputed and there is widespread suspicion that it is Iranian-built“, the report [Iranian-Technology-Transfers-to-Yemen] by Conflict Armament Research gives us too much to consider and Yemen does not have the ability, I personally would go as far as stating that the assembly and manufacturing of these drones is nowhere near possible by Houthi/Yemeni parties and this counts heavy towards the required ‘spanking’ of Iran, and that was just the previous model, so the ante is up, because Houthi forces would not be able to research and evolve any drone technology in this current condition, pushing more pressure towards Iran, but the Western Media refuses to do this, merely the unfounded accusations of the optional killing of a journalist that no one cares about through a published UN essay.

So whilst we ponder the findings: “the Qasef-1 appears to be a type within the Ababil-II family of UAVs, produced by Iran’s Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA)” and “The Qasef-1 not only shares near-identical design and construction characteristics with the Iranian UAV, but also features identical serial number prefixes“, and the fact that the western media steers largely clear, we find ourselves in a corner, how can any conflict be resolved when the principal player is not recognised to be involved to the degree it is?

And this is not news, these results have been known since 2017, the issue has been that pressing for that long. The 8 drones that were taken a hold of in the Ma’rib Governorate show the evidence clearly, but for the most, the media shuns it. And it is only now that we get initial reports stating: ‘Iran is Using Western Drone Technology against America‘, I wonder if the American drone had not been shot down would there have been any coverage of Iranian drones? Even Al Jazeera joins the confusion when we see: “In May, two oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia were targeted by drones causing minor supply disruptions highlighting an apparent significant leap in the drone capabilities of the Houthis“, the article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/saudi-arabia-intercepts-houthi-drones-launched-kingdom-190630060904968.html) gives us another part, with: “US officials told the Wall Street Journal that those attacks originated in Iraq, not Yemen, the paper reported on Friday” there is another part that comes into the frame. the article that was given by the Wall Street Journal (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-saudi-pipeline-attacks-originated-from-iraq-11561741133) give us: “U.S. officials have concluded that drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry in May were launched from Iraq“, it does so with the very clear premise of: “Iran’s allies in the region“, a stage that could be accepted, yet is it still Iran directly, or is it Iran indirectly via Kata’ib Hezbollah? either could be the case, yet until there is a lot more clarity we will not know for sure, the reeling and dealing of Iran so far have shown that this proxy war is done indirectly so that Iran can keep its delusional stance that it has clean hands in all this, the idea that anyone will believe this to be any serious level of truth is beyond me in all this.

Whether one place or another was used in this stage is not part of the issue, the fact that Iran is not asked to explain itself by every nation is the issue, there is too much pointing to Iran, yet the best we can see is a shallow statement that ‘Iran says it will soon exceed enriched uranium limit under nuclear deal‘ even though here are several considerations in place that Iran did that well over a week ego, so when that reality hits the people, how much longer before the nations at large will act against Iran in all this?

Most nations seem to be talking in a low pitch, trying not to create waves, that too is droning, but then again, it might the intent of some European players to create confusion on what a drone actually was. Clear communication is usually not expected to come from the European Union, or Strasbourg. that part is given voice and strength only 11 hours ago when Forbes reported (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2019/06/30/europe-circumvents-u-s-sanctions-on-iran/#7d5089da2c8d) ‘Europe Circumvents U.S. Sanctions On Iran‘, It is not merely on how they perceive themselves to be clever, the quote: “Europe has found a way of circumventing U.S. sanctions on Iran. The governments of France, Germany and the United Kingdom have developed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to enable European businesses to maintain non-dollar trade with Iran without breaking U.S. sanctions“, one could argue that Europe has decided to cater to the warmongering needs of Iran, do maintain some state of delusion on a nuclear accord that is clearly not worth the value of paper required to print the accord on. This created delay, whilst not holding Iran to account in its proxy war actions is exactly why Saudi Arabia should be looking for actual allies, and actual options for growing its defence, it is also another indication that the European Union has stopped being a force of good, no matter how they slice it.

The drones might be wild and game for ignoring, but only because global media was as facilitating as it could possibly be to ignore the clear indicators of those behind the screens pushing for these attacks in the first place. The fact that we also saw just a few days ago: ‘US can’t attack Iran without European support’, is not about setting the stage of ‘keeping the peace’, in this Franco Frattini, former Foreign Minister of Italy (twice over) is setting the stage of enabling Iran in all settings and cases against whatever is coming their way. It is this short-sighted approach to dealing with Iran where we see a much more dangerous setting soon enough, and I will be around to give the quote ‘I told you so’ soon enough, a weary push by deflating its options and abilities whilst inflating Iranian pride to do whatever they want. There has been no case in history where this worked out the way others have planned it, and the excuses will come soon enough.

Iranian-Technology-Transfers-to-Yemen

 

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Wrong way intersection?

We all look at times, we look in the direction that we are going we look at where we want to be, in this we are all alike and for the most, we stop to look where we were, what we passed and where we came from. These are natural moments. So what is natural on focussing on Huawei, especially the accusations by Finite State, a Matt Wyckhouse undertaking. I have a few issues here. You see, when a person hides behind statements like: “‘The Finite State report was highly critical of Huawei, claiming that the Chinese company’s “devices quantitatively pose a high risk to their users. In virtually all categories we examined, Huawei devices were found to be less secure than those from other vendors making similar devices.” According to Finite State, this included potential backdoors. “Out of all the firmware images analyzed, 55% had at least one potential backdoor,” Finite State reported. “These backdoor access vulnerabilities allow an attacker with knowledge of the firmware and/or with a corresponding cryptographic key to log into the device.”“, when the bla bla is surrounding “Out of all the firmware images analyzed, 55% had at least one potential backdoor“, a percentage with ‘potential backdoor‘, you should optionally be regarded as a hack giving a hatchet job, plain and simple. A real cyber security firm will give us: “These are the clear backdoors found“, there is no percentage, and it will be presented as evidence plain and simple. That is how this works; let’s face it, Columbus Ohio is not really Silicon Valley, is it? (there is a plot twist, read on please)

And when TechRadar gives us: ‘Huawei’s telecom equipment is more likely to have flaws than rivals’ claims report‘, my question becomes based on what evidence? When it is linked to: “when compared to similar equipment manufactured by its rivals Juniper and Arista“, why are they dependable? Or perhaps only the NSA has those backdoors? There is a disgusting amount of bias coming out of the mouths from those who should stay absolutely neutral, and it gets to be worse.

Twenty four

It is like a real time drama with Kiefer Sutherland, less than 24 hours ago, Cisco gave us: “Cisco issued three “critical” security warnings for its DNA Center users – two having a Common Vulnerability Scoring System rating of 9.8 out of 10“, which is really really bad and the rest of the media ignores it completely. So when we get: “In one advisory Cisco said a vulnerability in the web-based management interface of DCNM could let an attacker obtain a valid session cookie without knowing the administrative user password by sending a specially crafted HTTP request to a specific web servlet that is available on affected devices. The vulnerability is due to improper session management on affected DCNM software” there is a much larger story, especially as Cisco is working to remove a few severe failings in its own system, which are unlikely to be removed for a few more months, all leading to larger issues, but the media is seemingly more interested in spouting anti-Huawei materials and not interested in warning optional victims, how does that go over to you?

TechRadar also gives us: “Finite State makes big claims in its report but until it is publicly released, we won’t know for sure if its findings are accurate. However, now that the news is out, further investigation into its legitimacy will likely be carried out by the media, world governments and of course by Huawei itself“, a relatively unknown company in the middle of nowhere; that is how it reads to me and I will happily have my serve of humble pie when they are proven to be correct, yet that public release is likely to find delays to maximise on fear, all whilst Cisco is evading the limelight by media friends. This is not entirely correct from my side, Cisco has been warning all kinds of parties since they were found and that is a noble thing, yet the media does not hand out that reality to the larger media does it? (They had not responsibility to do so)

I have a second issue, this is supposed to be a ‘for profit‘ venture and that is fine, they have been around for 2 years, yet we now see: “the security report was done pro-bono as the company believed making this information public was the best way to inform policy makers of the security issues in Huawei’s equipment“, so this report requiring a massive amount of hours and testing if we go by: ‘all the firmware images analysed‘, the (initial) absence of numbers is also debatable here, so in all this time and resources required, this report was done pro-bono? Is (like it goes in deceptive conduct) merely a pro-bono report, or are they servicing Juniper and/or Arista? Is that not a valid question?

I find the setting debatable from the mere TechRadar point of view. From my point of view, well known cyber experts have looked at Huawei and none of them have given any clear indication that there was a clear and present danger with anything that Huawei has, they had shown previous issues and they had been dealt with, so unless Finite State gives the golden bullet with clear evidence, than the future of Finite State might not be that bright. Can we expect anything form a cyber-firm that facilitates for others? Well, yes but those are not known as Cyber Experts, they are merely digital marketing firms and the method used implies that they are not very good at what they do.

So I can jump in there and show them how to do it, as long as it comes with 300 W Spring St #1904 as a stating bonus (we all have our price), it is 2 blocks from the Ohio FBI office, as well as a nice view of the Scioto River (good for enjoying coffee in the morning). Would I compromise? Optionally, but do you want to have faith in someone who compromises, or someone telling you how it is at a price? I get it, at times there is a tactical reason to do things pro-bono, sometimes it brings in the larger fish, yet in this case, when the floor falls from under them, in the way it was presented, do you have faith in them looking towards keeping you safe? Is that really the security you want to bank on?

Cisco has issue, yet they came forward (almost) immediately telling us how it is, the fact that the media is treating them darling and keeping them out of the media to the largest degree is not a crime, it places merely question marks on the integrity of the media, and how much credibility do they really have?

There is a larger concern and it is a serious one, the media has set the stage that less and less information is trusted, especially in fields where trust is essential. It changes the game, but how is not to be told, we cannot tell, yet there is every concern that Europe, Asia and India are less and less likely willing to trust US equipment. There has been clear indicators that 5G evolution did not give rise to trust, the fact that so called pro-bono work is working out is also not a given, until there are clear trustworthy sources showing all that Finite State had indeed the silver bullet, things can only go worse for many over the long term and that has been proven in several ways offer the last decade. It is not that I want.

Let’s not start kidding around here, the report is damning, there is no doubt. When we look past the TechRadar hype created and take a serious look at the paper (at the end), we get 55 pages of tech heaven, all jetlagged turbo text, with all the hypes that any techie get off on.

When a firm gives us: “Across the firmware tested, there were 8,826 observations of vulnerabilities with a CVSS score of 10.0, the maximum severity level, indicating serious flaws in the systems“, it better come with backing, and the source of the data, as well as the firmware better be verifiable, from my point of view, any discrepancy shown and Finite State becomes liable. Even when we see: “Our automated system analyzed more than 1.5 million files embedded within 9,936 firmware images supporting 558 different products within Huawei’s enterprise networking product lines“, the sources are not given to us (as far as I saw). The appendix does give us the hardware list and it is a huge list, so now that the die is cast we will have to see what happens next, not merely to Huawei and Finite State, large names have stated on the record that no issues had been found, they will be in equal measure get judged if the scrutiny on the Final State paper holds up, no matter how this goes, there is a shit storm coming and it will impact at least one party, yet how large it will be cannot be stated at present, the claims are too loud and if the scrutiny breaks the paper it might be the end of Finite State and its board of directors before they got decently started, should they make it, the opposition is a lot larger and it gets to be a lot uglier for many players involved.

The paper also gives clear premises, for one there is: “It is common for embedded devices to ship with a default password enabled for the primary account, “root” in this case, as long as the password can be changed and is documented as part of the standard operating procedure of the device.” OK, that is fair enough, but there is a second part, how many consumer get told on how to change that? And how does that compare to issues found with Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon as documented parts that show users how to do that. Is that not equally important? In the end I can debate all the parts until I look like a failed auto asphyxiation attempt, yet the scrutiny from me has little to no value, it is the response of Huawei and the other players that now becomes the part, because these expert making 1000% or more of what I make will not be allowed the ‘Oops!’ or ‘That was not part of our investigation’ excuse, in that way whatever comes next will get ugly fast and in light of my initial exposure of anti-Huawei goons, I have an equal responsibility to take this to the next level, no matter how it goes, because that too is part of accountability. No matter how we slice it, Finite State has given us something serious to look at (one of the very first to do so), so now we look at the boffins at MiT and Stanford on what they make of it, and if the technical dudes at DARPA decide to wake up for this one, that would be nice too.

I look forward to round two, because it will be a beauty to watch on hundreds of channels all over the planet, this would make for great TV (and optionally ten times better than anything the Kardashians can show) so I’ll get the popcorn for this one.

https://finitestate.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Finite-State-SCA1-Final.pdf

Finite-State-SCA1-Final

 

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Slapping the New York Times

This is a weird day, I for one had never expected to have a go at places like the Washington Post, or the New York Times; they are supposed to be journalistic bastions. Now, for the most I avoid slapping the Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi was one of theirs, I get it, tensions and emotions run high. The New York Times does not get that excuse.

So when I saw ‘Saudi Arabia Is Running Out of Friends‘ I got a little hot under the collar. First off, this is an opinion piece and that makes it not really a New York Times part, or does it? They decided to publish it. The article (at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/opinion/saudi-arms-sales-britain.html) raises a lot of questions, not on Saudi Arabia, but on the people and their comprehension of the issues that are involved. And it goes further than that. The start gives us: “a United Nations expert released a report calling for an investigation into the role of Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia, in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The next day in Washington, the Senate voted to block arms sales worth billions of dollars, the latest in a string of congressional efforts to halt American support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen“.

  1. The full UN report (added later down).
  2. The Saudi-wed war in Yemen.

The first will be dealt with further down; the ‘Saudi-led war in Yemen‘ is a disruptive boast that has zero validity. First of all, the Yemen issue comes from the ‘Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen‘, which came from the call for help by the internationally recognized President of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support, which was as far as I can tell, his right to do so, it was a response to attacks by the Houthi movement. In the entire article the following words are not found: ‘Houthi‘, ‘Hezbollah‘, and ‘Iran‘ they are all participating players on the side attacking ousted President of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. And for the more comprehensive part, what is regarded as Saudi led, which is not a lie also involves the United Arab Emirates, Behrain, Kuwait, Qatar (only initially), Egypt, Jordan, Marocco (until recently), Senegal, and Sudan. They all seemingly agree that the Houthi forces are the evil bringers here, and that is before we all realise that there is a mountain of evidence linking Iran to all that, and the press has done its massive share to not inform the public on those parts.

So as we get to: “As the chorus of condemnation grows louder, defending the arms supplies that have always been a core feature of the West’s ties to Riyadh has become a near impossible task“, well sell them to me, I will happily and proudly offer these goods to the Saudi government, any cowardly and weasel likened politician (mostly Americans) want to be in denial, I will step in. My commission and bonus comes from their share, some things come at a cost, as it should.

Then we get to the ugly part: “They want the sources of the present crisis to be resolved, not left to fester, which means a swift conclusion to the Yemen war and a satisfactory accounting for the murder of Mr. Khashoggi“, in this we will get to that journalist later, the entire ‘swift conclusion to the Yemen war‘ required the world to do something about the Houthi support system. This includes terrorist organisation Hezbollah and its hosting nation Lebanon, as well as Iran. The US as well as the European Union failed at least 5 times, mostly because Europe has this delusional thought that the nuclear pact could be saved somehow, in addition Iran has been facilitated to by Turkey who had a larger role to play and we will get to that soon enough. It failed by blocking arms and intelligence when it mattered most, it failed by not giving proper light to the activities of Hezbollah training, as well as optionally (still unproven) firing missiles directly into Saudi Arabia, in all this it might be unproven, yet the hardware used in conjunction with the skill that Houthi forces could not have, gives us a clear light that the operators of these missiles were optionally Iranian, or Hezbollah (Lebanese), the press steered clear of that part to the largest degree.

Then we get the empty threat: “If the world finally gets serious about tackling the climate emergency, a large proportion of existing oil reserves will have to remain in the ground, leaving the Saudis sitting on stranded assets“, so how about the reality that hits the US when 100% of Saudi Oil only goes towards Europe, India and Asia? When that flow to America stops, fuel prices (based on Chicago) will go from $3.62 per gallon, to $5.99-$7.51 per gallon within weeks. Good luck trying to have an economy in America at that point. In New York (where that paper comes from) the taxi costs will soon go up by 50% or more, what happened the last time that New York was completely dependent on public transport? And for those driving their own cars? That will be for the wealthy only, so let’s keep a real sense of reality, shall we?

Now we get to the hard part. There is an issue with: And in London — on the same day — a court ruled that Britain had acted unlawfully in approving arms exports to Saudi Arabia“, there is the optional stage where the arms deal is merely delayed. We see that in the BBC part: “Judges said licences should be reviewed but would not be immediately suspended“, which was a week ago. It comes from “Under UK export policy, military equipment licences should not be granted if there is a “clear risk” that weapons might be used in a “serious violation of international humanitarian law”“, this is an issue, but not the one you think it is. Yes, there is a chance that these weapons are used in Yemen, yet as I stated earlier, the entire Yemen war is misrepresented by ignoring three warring parties, the Houthi, Hezbollah and Iran. In addition Houthi forces have resorted to terrorist tactics by placing weapons and troops directly behind civilians, basically using them as a shield. In addition, Houthi forces have done whatever they could to stop humanitarian aid and claiming whatever they could for their own military forces, they are the catalyst to the Yemeni humanitarian nightmare and the media remains largely silent on it. We get additional evidence from Gulf News only 11 hours ago with: “Yemeni government forces had repulsed fierce attacks by Iran-allied Al Houthi militants that had targeted residential areas inside the coastal city of Hodeidah and outskirts, military forces said on Thursday“, this is still happening right now, but the media remains silent, why is that?

So as we finish part one of the hatchet job that the New York Times allowed to be published in their papers, it becomes time to raise part 2, the full UN report [UN Khashoggi Report June 2019].

There are several issues with the report but let’s start with the ruling premise that they place in item 37 “This human rights inquiry into the killing of Mr. Khashoggi raised many challenges. By the time the inquiry was initiated, much had already been reported about the killing and the likely responsibilities of various individuals. The risks of confirmation bias (the tendency to bolster a hypothesis by seeking evidence consistent with it while disregarding inconsistent evidence) were particularly high.

There are two parts, the first is ‘the killing of Mr. Khashoggi‘, now I personally believe he is dead, through methods unknown, and there is credibility in that statement, but there is no evidence whatsoever. If we are nations of laws, than we must adhere to these laws. We must also accept that the law is not always our friend, and here we see Turkey facilitating towards Iran to the largest degree. They had set a stage in motion by relying on here-say, using things like ‘might’ and adding evidence that is none of anything. When we see the rumour mill giving us millions upon millions of articles all based on hearsay and unverified anonymous sources, we see an engine that was designed to halt whatever positive actions Saudi Arabia were trying to do on an international stage. Turkey succeeded in being the puppet read: bitch) of Iran to a degree never seen before and let’s not forget, Turkey holds the current record of having the most incarcerated journalists in the world at present.

And the most damning part starts at the very beginning, but not in the direction you would like it to see. Here we see: “Mr. Khashoggi’s killing constituted an extrajudicial killing for which the State of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible. His attempted kidnapping would also constitute a violation under international human rights law. From the perspective of international human rights law, State responsibility is not a question of, for example, which of the State officials ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s death; whether one or more ordered a kidnapping that was botched and then became an accidental killing; or whether the officers acted on their own initiative or ultra vires“, as I stated: ‘We can assume that Jamal Khashoggi is dead‘, yet where is his body? There is no evidence in any direction and it happened in a nation that is facilitating to a nation that is actively hostile and in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia, a fact no one seemed to acknowledge, that Turkey has currently imprisoned 68 journalists and is regarded to have killed dozens more.

Now we get to point 11 (page 5): “She also found that Turkey’s fear over an escalation of the situation and retribution meant that the consular residences or consular cars were also not searched without permission even though they are not protected by the VCCR“, Was it really ‘fear’ or ‘orchestration’? Turkey has scathed all laws for numerous reasons, broken promises and not adhered to issues, and now they are ‘suddenly’ afraid? I acknowledge that this is speculation from my side, yet aren’t all parties speculating here?

when we seek the word evidence in the report we see ‘no independently verified evidence‘ and all kinds of fusions with other words, yet not with ‘evidence found‘, is that not weird that the UN spend all this time on a report and there was no ‘clear evidence found‘?

You can check for yourself, the report has been added. The special rapporteur (or is that reporter) gives us: “The Special Rapporteur reviewed four potentially credible hypotheses related to the unlawful death of Mr. Khashoggi“, it merely turns paper A/HRC/41/CRP.1 into an essay, a very expensive essay I might add (OK, I am exaggerating here).

And now we get to the paper and the recommendations that start at page 95. Here we see: “Initiate a follow-up criminal investigation into the killing of Mr. Khashoggi to build-up strong files on each of the alleged perpetrators and identify mechanisms for formal accountability, such as an ad hoc or hybrid tribunal” Yes? How?

There is no evidence and most evidence was tainted by Turkish authorities by mismanagement and by allowing so called government officials make statement that had no bearing and touched no evidentiary surface. It became a 70 million article joke with references to burned remains and all kinds of photographs that show nothing at all.

In this I find item 480 even more hilarious. For the most (it seems) there is a lack of knowing what accountability means, you merely have to look at several issues in the UN with a special reference to the UN and UN security council sides in Egypt (1981) Assassination of Anwar Sadat, there has been several moments where it was uttered that certain paths were not fully investigated, does it matter? So when I see: “Accountability demands that the Saudi Arabia government accept State responsibility for the execution” whilst that evidence is not in existence. There is a case for rogue activities, if that constitutes evidence, than the UN should take a hard look at Viktoria Marinova, optionally investigating the mere accepted fact by the media that the ‘they did not believe the killing of Marinova was connected to her work, suggesting it was a “spontaneous” attack‘, or there are the unanswered questions regarding Abdul Samad Rohani. What is most striking is that the Taliban was never shy of admitting their acts, so why was his death closed when the Taliban was very apt in denying this one? It is important when we consider this unidentified government spokesman in light of the fact that this happened in a place where there is a flourishing opium trade, so as some gave clearly: “Rohani was killed for his reporting on drug trafficking and its possible ties to government officials“, yes because that has always been a reason to keep a journalist alive, has it? So Agnes Callamard, where are those essays?

It is in that light that I want to illuminate another item that was in the document: ‘Turkey failed to meet international standards regarding the investigation into unlawful deaths‘ (Page 4, Item 5). So why was that? There are always truckloads of excuses to find, yet who was responsible to keep international standards? Why were these standards not met? That term was used in several ways, yet the mention and clarification of Turkish ‘international standards‘ and more important which person, or perhaps more correctly stated which Turkish office was responsible for that is also missing in this Agnes Callamard document, is that not equally part of the investigation in all this? Why is that part missing in this document?

In the end the entire matter of Khashoggi smells and the Washington Post in this one instance can hide behind rumours and speculations all they want, the New York Times does not! In the end there are too much questions, but the participating player (Turkey) has its hands in too many Iranian issues and there is clear evidence (actual evidence) that the entire Khashoggi investigation got tainted and no longer an option to investigate. Yet that too is seemingly missing from the essay of Agnes Callamard (I remain cautious as I might have missed a piece in that 99 page essay.

I will leave it to you good folks to draw your own conclusion and the issues I reported, feel free to Google Search it, feel free to text search it in the document. the opinion piece did not mention the other parts making it unfair, unbalanced and as I personally see it completely unworthy of the New York Times, as such I do place blame, but from my point of view the buck stops at Dean Baquet, it is on his watch that this happened, we accept that everyone is allowed their opinion, but in a paper like the New York Times, it should not be this unbalanced ever, not for a global paper like the New York Times

UN Khashoggi Report June 2019

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Falling off the wagon

It all started with a success story, it then ‘evolved’ into the age of complacency as it was lying in a lazy floating chair in a swimming pool. America was lazy, complacent and greed driven.

Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecommunications-equipment manufacturer in the world, then casually overtook Apple in 2018 as the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, still behind Samsung Electronics, and rose to the 72nd rank on the Fortune Global 500 list. In December 2018, Huawei reported that its annual revenue had risen to US$108.5 billion in 2018 (a 21% increase over 2017).It is at this point that America was a mere 3rd position, Huawei is presently servicing 47 of the 50 largest telecom operators on the planet, for the first time in history America no longer really matters as a technology provider. Sources like the Economist, the Guardian, Fortune and TechRadar all give the same news. It is at this point that the USPTO has to give the goods (read: the bad message) that Asia has surpassed America with registered patents by a lot, and the US has to deal with more and more bad news as they get strangled by a debt that surpasses $22,000,000,000,000. 22 trillion and no end in sight to turn it around, now that 5G is off to the races more bad news is given as the American and Nokia 5G solutions are decently inferior to the ones that China (Huawei has). The American overreaction is astounding and it comes with additional levels of humour. When we see an article by cyber security expert Zak Doffman in Forbes ‘Huawei ‘Slams FedEx Vendetta’ After Courier Refuses To Deliver P30 Phone To U.S.‘ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/23/huawei-slams-fedex-vendetta-after-courier-refuses-to-deliver-p30-phone-to-u-s) where we see: “Parcel returned by FedEx due to U.S. Government with Huawei and China Government—return to sender, the humour is here as we also saw a month ago: ‘Drug traffickers’ favourite way to move fentanyl is FedEx and USPS‘, so Fedex can stop a Chinese mobile phones, yet is incapable of stopping drug traffickers. It has become that bad and for the life of me, the idea that that stupidity has grown to this degree at the moment has made me realise that pretty much my only option left is to offer my IP at 10% value to China as America clearly can no longer be trusted to stop the stupidity in its own ranks.

And it gets to be worse. Now we see: ‘The U.S. blacklists five Chinese supercomputer firms, including AMD joint venture THATIC‘ (at https://www.pcworld.com/article/3404464/the-us-blacklists-five-chinese-supercomputer-firms-including-amd-joint-venture-thatic.html). So as we are now introduced to ‘U.S. firms will be forbidden to do business with the companies‘ we are shown more than stupidity. I have been an avid fan of the segregation, isolation, and assassination triangle in tactics, but this is pretty much the first time in history that a nation is doing it to itself, implying that American bankruptcy is so close to the collapse that they need whatever they can to delay the collapse of their economy. I can never trust any government in that position to be honest about any trade it holds. Handing my IP over to China is perhaps the only option to get any decent amount of funds out of them, and I have to pay the rent at some point.

Do I care about these Chinese companies? Not really! Apart from my trusty Huawei mobile, I do not know any of them and there is no real reason to know or care about them, but the actions of America to the degree that they are doing it, like they are the biggest whoring bully on the block also implies that they can do it to anyone else and as I see it, there are plenty of UK (BT), Swedish (Ericsson), Finnish (Nokia) and other firms they can do this to when things do not go their way. They will come up with some kind of National security scheme like Finland is next to Russia or something like that. It is nice to advocate open and fair trade when you are the only one dealing (IBM, Microsoft) but that is no longer the case and Microsoft has become too self-indulgent as they screw up market after market just to push their Azure solution. America can no longer be trusted, that is the short and sweet of it, they know it and Americans know it too, but they are too desperate and there is no stopping a desperate bully who is about to no longer matter.

And the world is not ready for a bully like that. Japan is too deep into its own problems, Europe is desperate to avoid whatever recession comes next and the others have no independent voice. In all this India is as isolated as it gets and that takes 12.5% of the global population out of the equation. As the risk of a 2020 recession in Europe is nearing an almost certainty there is panic, there is panic on Wall Street because the 2020 recession will hit the US squarely in the chest during the elections, ending whatever small edge the Republicans have and it changes everything for them. The 2020 recession will be worse than ever because the ECB squandered their reserves on incentives and stimulus as there are no reserves left. The ECB, IMF and Wall Street all knew that this could come and the 5G hype was all about avoiding it so that the new economy could restart what was lost, but their lag against Chinese Technology vendors (read: mainly Huawei) is so large that it will help the Chinese economy, but the others will only get a fraction of the IP they do not own and that fallback (or non optional fallover) is a lot larger than some are willing to admit to.

Now the short sighted American bias against Huawei and China is hitting new heights as they try to isolate China, yet in the end they are isolating themselves as Europe is seeking another option, they are seeing the value of Chinese IP and they want alternatives, especially if it could delay or even turnover their own impending recession, in that scenario America will lose more and more because their own technology is flawed, untested and lacks innovation. It will hit Europe, whilst benefitting the Middle East as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have signed up with China, America lost more than just weapon deals there.

What Cisco achieved with UTS in Sydney a decade ago is now happening in Qatar, Qatar University College of Engineering now has a similar deal with Huawei, implying that Qatar might be the first place where Huawei trained 5G engineers and innovators are born pushing 5G innovation. For Qatar this is more than good news, there is a first stage where Al Jazeera could become technologically more advanced than CNN, another blow to American pride and Al Jazeera is eager to really get there. They have miles to go, yet with 5G fully deployed they can do it in less than half the time we expect. All elements that push America back further and further. When I stated that this was a stupid move by America in 2018, I actually had no idea that they would lose to this degree, but at present they are and their decisions are making things worse not better.

As we see the first Huawei Authorised Information and Network Academy (HAINA) programme launched in Qatar, we also recognise that this will enable Saudi Arabia and the UAE more and more, so there might be a diplomatic stance ending the unfriendly border issues between the three and they will profit stronger and stronger.

There is absolute truth in the statement: “Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Dr Ibrahim Al Nuaimi, said developing the technology capabilities of Qatar’s youth will have a significant impact on the smart evolution of society and country, contributing to the growth of Qatari economy.  “Initiatives such as this one between Qatar University and Huawei demonstrate the power that cooperative action can have in shaping the future of a nation,” he remarked“, it still requires the foundation and the nurturing of how to grow innovation, yet I have seen again and again that the hungry will find alternatives to make food and Qatar is clearly famished at present.

And there is one more nightmare to face. You see if China gets any IP hands on anything that could replace x86 technologies, the US is truly done for. At present they will laugh, scream and make all the claims that an ego driven nation could make, but then there is the history. We have 1975 when Federico Faggin and 11 employees created the Z80, there was a small team led by Chuck Peddle who came up with the 6502, it hit Intel and Motorola hard, a chip at less than 15% of the cost of an Intel or a Motorola processor. It would fuel an industry that would sell well over 15 million computers in an age where computers were not popular. We recognise that America was the driver in all this, it drove RISC to be the factor for the creation of Summit, still the fastest Supercomputer in the world, yet now that China surpasses America in patents, they have the core to create a new age of computer technology. We see that from 2017 onwards the Huawei Mobile Phone is the personal server to have; the fact that it is a mobile is beside the point. My IP was a security pass on personal mobile servers and that is the foundation of the next decade. It is not the personal computer or desktop, there is still the laptop and Chromebooks (and likeminded devices) have the option to be the next power drivers, but Huawei has the hand with 4 aces, they have the foundation of mobile personal servers and it scares America. My idea for what would have been (optionally) the Google Tome was founded on that idea as I created a solution to stop the NHS collapsing. Now that most elements are with Huawei and Chinese operators, America actually matters less. Even as Microsoft is still screaming Azure (whenever they can), we see that there are other options that could do similar and could surpass Microsoft within 4 years, that realisation is scaring America to death. They have no options when that happens. Complacency got them there and the next generation of these so called ‘captains of industry‘ are holding a hand with a two and a seven and they are playing Texas hold’em. A proverbial Snake eyes for the craps dealer in the house, which is the setting and the stage they can no longer escape. It is where they are at and their overreaction merely shows their levels of desperation.

In 2021 we will see that not only will they have lost 5G to a crippling degree, the other players will fare even worse. If China gets a decent deal with Japan, America will have segregated itself, they isolated themselves as Europe and the Commonwealth will seek whatever keeps them afloat and at that point with the debt closer to $25 trillion, they will end up cutting their own wrists with all the uber wealthy Americans seeking sunny shores in their mega yachts. Suddenly places like the Riviera, Dubai, the Virgin Islands and Italy will be swamped with Americans who will be quiet as mice as they wait for America to reinvent itself in the span of 2-3 decades, and America needs to get lucky to do it that fast. As the world is set to the currency of IP and patents, it might take a whole lot longer than that.

When I decided to get my Master in IP in 2010 I knew that there was a change in the winds, it was the clearest in IT, but I saw how it would impact to a much larger degree, I saw the shift to mobile patents in 2012, and now I see the other shifts too. I feel certain of my view, I cannot tell how politicians will react because that too impacts the changing tides, but overall they seem to align to the need of greed too often as such, my predictions are more likely than not coming true. It’s a sad world, if only American firm had not been so lazy relying on iterative technology for a decade, things would be very different indeed.

To complete the change China really only needs three more innovative steps in 5G communication to make it certainty and turn these steps into nail to service the coffin that is America, with the Middle East in play, there is every chance that they will pull it off, the rest of us (the non-Americans) will need to decide on how that future serves us best, because that too is a choice we face, and we have to make it ourselves.

And if you were in doubt until now, the Wall Street Journal reported only hours ago: “U.S. President Donald Trump is looking to require next-generation 5G cellular equipment used in the United States to be designed and manufactured outside China, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.” So consider this quote really clearly: the entire China matter has been going on for weeks, yet yesterday we see that equipment is to be ‘designed and manufactured outside China’, a discriminatory tactic that shows that there was no clear tactic in play, and clearly the Americans are not up to scrap at present. What else was not anticipated on?

Someone fell of the wagon and others were unable to see the dangers clearly, The US still does not recognise that it has a real problem; the first stage of solving the problem is at present not met. Do you really need more convincing?

 

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The seventh guest

Yes, it is a game, but this is not about gaming, it is the game we detest, but it is being played and we sit in the middle, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sits in the middle and the Trump administration is uniting behind “the shooting down of a US drone could have been carried out by a “loose and stupid” Iranian officer without authorisation from Tehran“. So good morning it is Friday, no throw back Thursday for us, just the start of meaningless banter from the political isles.

To get to the 7th guest, you have to understand the content. It was a brilliant puzzle game released by Virgin in the 90’s. The story was over the top but cool, it was a journey to stay alive until the next morning. The house was filled with puzzles that needed to be solved to continue. It was a little more like an interactive movie (in those days). The first puzzle was to carve a cake in equal pieces, there were 6 guests to each person and the cake was 6 by 5 squares. Simple you think, but the clue was ‘2 skulls and 2 stones, the rest is just icing‘, and now cutting the cake was not as easy as initially seemed.

Now we get to the icing of Yesterday (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/06/20/the-ice-and-the-icing/) where I quoted in response: “It is seen when the most stupid of all actions is given with: “If Iran did breach the uranium limits, the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action, gives both sides time to go into a disputes mechanism before it is declared void“, is it really that bad, after the ‘breach’ Europe still wants to talk?” It seems that boar mongering President Trump is now trying diplomacy, to not let things escalate too much. The biggest bully on the block is eager to not get into a fight, when did logic ever prevail?

So when we see: “We didn’t have a man or woman in the drone. It would have made a big, big difference,” Trump said. Asked how the US would respond, he said: “You’ll find out.”“, as well as ““I find it hard to believe it was intentional if you want to know the truth. I think it could have been somebody who was loose and stupid that did it

This is how Iran has ‘sanctified’ the weapon deployments to Hezbollah, is Mr. Bad Hair Cut really going to play the card that enables Iran? Apparently these $120,000,000 drones are well insured, or is he taking the loss out of his own pay check?

I can only wonder how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia feels after the disappointing support that both the United Kingdom and United States are giving them at present. So as we see that the allies of Saudi Arabia are backing down when the drums of war are sounding with the increased cadence of (what they call) vigor by Iran, Saudi Arabia needs to reconsider who their real allies are. I am certain that Russia and China will use this opportunity that opened up, I just do not know how at present. In addition now that we know that President Trump is not about sticking to his guns, I wonder how long his own party will suffer the blunders he makes day after day, it will optionally be the first impeachment that gets full support from BOTH the Democrats and his own Republicans.

How to continue?

That is the larger question and I feel certain that this is on the mind of the ruler in Riyadh as well. Saudi Arabia must do what is best for Saudi Arabia, Israel needs to do what is best for Israel and so does Europe and the US, yet in this there is no real skin in the game for Europe and the US. Iran will strike at Israel and Saudi Arabia when it can and keeps the other two at bay with fear and both are now facilitating towards Iran through the fear of removing all diplomatic options.

CNBC gives us that a mere 5 hours ago with: ‘EU top diplomat says Europe will try to make sure ‘escalation is avoided’ between US, Iran‘, there is a time and place when avoiding escalation is the best of all options, I personally feel that it is way too late for that, again, the proxy war utilising the terrorist organisation Hezbollah is evidence of that. And the escalations are still going on, the strike a mere 12 hours ago as we are told (by Al Jazeera) that ‘Attack by rebel group on facility in southern province of Jizan the latest in string of attacks on Saudi targets‘ gives rise that Iran is actually still playing both an offensive game optionally with their offensive group Hezbollah and a defensive play where officers get a bonus and a promotion if they hit an American drone. Yet when we see: “The Houthis have stepped up missile and drone attacks in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks amid rising tensions throughout the Middle East fuelled by a bitter standoff between Iran and the United States” no one is asking how these drones are paid for, because Yemen is out of money and has no technological stage to make them. I wonder how to see the statement: “US, Iran and Saudi Arabia have all said they do not want a war to break out in the region“, in my view Iran is telling any story that the others are willing to swallow, America is broke and Saudi Arabia has no real allies to rely on, the weapon case in the UK and the US president doing a 180 degree direction on previous statements, It puts Saudi Arabia in a poor place, that is unless Germany and China get out of the dug-out and properly give support to Saudi Arabia.

I don’t get it, what purpose is served to cater to the needs of a child called Iran to this degree? I stare at the maps and I look at the places being hit, and to be honest, for the life of me, I do not understand how Saudi Arabia is able to keep calm at present, the moment highway 30 is hit in multiple places, the direct threat to Riyadh will be visible and all options will be taken off the table and I fear that this is sooner than we think, giving Iran more time to use the misdirection to finalise their Uranium requirements. At that point WW3 is almost the only step left to us, there is no way that Saudi Arabia and Israel will accept such a threat.

Yet there is an upside, with 5-9 million dead Iranians, the carbon footprint goes down a little, a small victory for the environment, you see, give me a lemon, some water and I will sell you a melon juice smoothie.

If that is what is required to play the game, I am in!

I will end this part with a personal message to Chinese President Xi Jinping (and to Chen Wenqing: ‘No, I am not trying to corrupt him with western ideology‘).

Dear Sir,

I would like to discuss the purchase of 20-30 Chengdu J-20 fighters. In light of both a first order discount, as well as a student discount (we are all students on the path of life), I believe that should the talks be successful, that 20-30 planes at a unit cost of $27.35 million (with rebates, discounts and commission applied), in addition the 2 years of full service with no regards to hours flown, mileage traveled or missiles fired. This is based on 2016 flyaway cost. The benefit is that these fighters will be directly engaging Iranian forces and as such you will have access to a massive amount of data enabling you to start on the 6th generation fighter, optionally making you the first country to have one. We would also be interested in the testing of the Xian H-20 prototype that is now nearing completion. If the specs are as they are claiming to be, it will help us in removing morale from Tehran and from the IRGC as a whole. In this the unofficial word is that the sky is the limit as regarding to the price of this place (my 2.17% commission still applies). My client is ready to upgrade several army based parts (both light and heavy guns), however I hope that this part can be tabled until Iran decides to attack directly, at which point Saudi Arabian boots on Iranian ground becomes a direct first.

Kindest regards,

Lawrence van Rijn

I look forward to a mutually fruitful support towards presenting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a proper defense option that will result towards strength and stability in the Middle East region, under the guiding lights of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

That was not hard was it?

So in one strike the BAE loses 2 years of commerce, but the British anti-weapon league is happy, the UK loses well over $4 billion in business opportunity in the long term but you can get the green party to sell grass to a place called whatevernation, can’t you? The US loses its arms options overnight and enables China to economically grow 9%-12%, and as other options fall away for Europe and the US to a much larger degree, Russia will be ever ready to pick up a few scraps in the process.

It was a really simple equation and by choosing the facilitating side of a route that goes nowhere, other options came out to play. Let’s be honest, in light of what has happened, does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have any cause to trust the US or Europe in any of this at present?

In the end the 7th guest was about another person in the house (hint) that only showed 6, it makes the game decently apt to the situation the Middle East faces at present. The question is that when that puzzle is solved, will some of the political voices in Iran, Europe, America, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Yemen stay in denial?

 

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London Bridge had fallen

This is not some event involving Mike Banning as the never failing US Secret Agent, it is also not a movie involving Gerard Butler in command of a Nuclear Submarine (Cool movie though). No this is reality!

In 2017, on June 3rd an attack took place, the inquest is still going on 2 years later. 3 people ramming pedestrians and after that ran into the public in the Borough Market area and decided to stab a whole lot more people. They were wearing fake explosives, carrying knives. That pretty much sums it up. In the end 8 died and 48 were wounded, the three ‘terrorists’ were killed in the process.

According to all sources these three were ‘inspired’ by ISIS.

I took notice of it initially, but it was not high on my radar, it got my attention again last week, but i was looking into the Strait of Hormuz issue. It kept at the back of my mind. So let’s start with last week: ‘MI5 admin errors meant attackers link ‘was missed’‘, it got to me as MI-5 does a whole lot of things, errors are actually quite rare and anyone stating that there should not be any errors is an idiot. Anything involving intelligence gathering is prone to issues. The right stage, the right interpretation, the right connections and the right actions. These are all matters that influence the stage. You can check this for yourself, go to any recruiter and apply for a job, what are the chances that he/she places you wrong or gives you less useful advice, considers you not to be the ‘right’ person for the job? That chance is rather high.

So when I see the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48626134) giving me: “Youssef Zaghba was stopped at Bologna airport in 2016 after telling staff he was going to Turkey to be a terrorist“, so in the clear setting of a first, a terrorist does not tell anyone he/she is one. The more verbose version is: “Asked why he was going to Turkey, he said to be “a terrorist” before quickly changing his answer to “tourist”, the court heard“, o now we get a person who is basically an idiot and customs has to deal with hundreds if not thousands on a daily basis. This part is already numb and done for. So at best we have a video game wannabe, at worst we have a person with mental health issues. At present neither two score high on the list, at most a police chat would have been warranted.

Regarding Zaghba we also see (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40169985) In 2016, Zaghba was stopped at Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport by Italian officers who found ISIS-related materials on his mobile phone. So what materials were they? He apparently was placed on a watch list, which is shared with many countries including the UK, as such is he merely watched when he travelled or 24:7? There is a difference and one does not warrant the other.

Yet now there is a clarity of optional failure that is increased with: “Witness L, who is head of policy, strategy and capability for MI5’s international counter-terrorism branch, told the court MI6 did not translate the Italian request for two months – and then sent it to the wrong person in MI5“, not only is my question:

  1. How could this be send to the wrong person and why was there no return/response on wrongful send information?
  2. Then we get: ‘The optional escalation had 1 year to find corrections and optional change in surveillance. Why was this not done?
  3. How often is the shared list vetted and checked for additional information whether the watch list is still accurate and more important useful?

Three direct questions that now put MI-5 on the radar for a few failings. In addition we also need to enlarge the scope, if SIGINT is GCHQ, how was this optionally missed twice over?

There are also serious questions regarding the Lawyer of the 6 victims. When we see that he had: ‘previously told the court there had been missed opportunities to prevent the attack.‘ It is important to see this part. In another story we get: “Gareth Patterson, the lawyer representing several victims’ families, said there was evidence the attackers had been in contact since January 2017“, here I disagree to some degree, and with ““any reasonably competent investigation” had the chance to detect the planning that was going on between the three men” I disagree even further.

You see, when we look at the elements. The fake explosives means that it could have been made in any way, for the most stuff from a toy store might have sufficed, at most a stroll through B&Q or Wickes would have sufficed. Then there is the stage of interpreting the Zaghba part, a terrorist claiming to be one is not one. I would have been able to do all the needed parts without setting off any flags or alarms. The biggest risk I run is getting a lorry, they did not get one either for mere payment issues that one element also shows that they commenced a terrorist act, but were not terrorists (or almost the worst prepared one). The absence of planning, the absence of dotting the ‘i‘ and crossing the ‘t‘ is what sets them apart. Merely three men with water bottles, pretending that to be explosives, knives that one can buy at IKEA and when we learn that the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/10/worse-terror-attack-on-london-bridge-foiled-by-chance-police-say) that the van had “13 wine bottles containing flammable liquid with rags stuffed in them, essentially Molotov cocktails” that were either forgotten, or just ignored by these three, we see a wannabe terrorist who forgot that they had options to increase the death count by a lot. These are all elements that count, because MI-5 is there for serious threats and these three were seemingly ignoring all their options even during the event. Going back to the lorry, that one might be easy when I stalk the right bars and mickey the right person, with him tied up in the back of the van I could start my spree, no flag raised at all. In my case I would have been able to get the stuff that goes boom; I merely needed to change perspective on the how. All issues that would never raise a flag; that is what MI-5 has to deal with and they have the one additional benefit that they are on an island.

We agree that steps were missed on Zaghba, but none of this is still evident that it would have prevented the attack. The higher part is Khuram Shazad Butt, he has enough flags that warrant consideration, his presence is a real issue, yet how much flags did he raise before the attack? We seem to blame after the effect, yet in the UK we see more whingers and whiners on freedom and privacy than in most other places in the world, well, congratulations! If MI-5 had that data this might have been prevented, they did not. You wanted the Data Protection Act 2018, you got it, you wanted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and it was handed to you, you also face additional dangers because of it, so stop crying!

Back to the attack! I see Rachid Redouane as the actual fuse here. An illegal immigrant, a failed asylum seeker and he remained under the radar, also implying he could get a lot of stuff done whilst not being noticed, not getting noticed and working as a pastry chef, so how did he get that job? He was the part that Butt needed, and as such MI-5 had optionally even less to work with.

You see, when we look after the event, we might see issues to blame MI-5 (optionally GCHQ) with, but there are a lot more markers making at least 1 out of the three a dud from the start. And in all this, no one seems to realise that a failed Asylum seeker was hopping back and forth between the UK and Ireland, there is a larger failing in all this, yet I am stating that MI-5 was not it.

Yesterday

The Guardian yesterday (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/17/communication-issues-left-london-bridge-attack-casualties-without-first-aid) gives us the larger failing, but not in regards to the attack. When we see: ‘police waited for help that wasn’t coming‘ we feel anger and frustration, yet in which direction?

The first is seen with: “police and members of the public being left to treat victims of the London Bridge terror attacks and not knowing why paramedics were not coming to their aid“, as well as “when paramedics were told to evacuate the area, the officers in the courtyard were left treating the casualties on their own awaiting help that did not arrive” we get the first gist of it. You cannot send paramedics in a dangerous situation, we get it we understand it and we accept it. I believe that an alteration to the armed response unit is required. I believe that any armed response unit requires a trained medic to give first aid like in a metropolitan war zone. Yes, it would be great to send in the paramedics, but let’s be honest how would you feel when a police officer tells you: “Look, there are three terrorists over there somewhere, can you go into that place ad see if you can treat some of the wounded people?” I get it, plenty of them medics would, but it is optionally super reckless and highly irresponsible. The fact that the police was not properly warned on the spot could have been for several reasons, all unintentional. This is a situation that is not merely fluid, it involves a lot of people thinking on their feet, whilst running trying to scope the size of the issue in absence of reliable information. These are not mistakes made, they are to some extent coming from experience and actual successful attacks have been really rare, besides that at some point you cannot just call for boy scouts (SAS) at any point, time is a factor. So when I see: “Five people died in or around the courtyard, one of whom, Sebastian Belanger, 36, a French chef, could possibly have been saved if he had received swifter, higher-quality medical attention“, I accept the stage and I accept the premise, but the score on getting ‘higher-quality medical attention‘ is optionally not a realistic one, not in a location of armed conflict and so there we see the stage of time versus location versus available intelligence. We can jump high and low, but reality is a factor and I feel that the after the fact Monday morning quarterbacks are now feeding an inquest of what ‘might have been done’, and I accept I am in this view a Monday morning quarterback as well.

For the larger view we need to go to the actual inquest and I noticed something in day 20 (at https://londonbridgeinquests.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/LBI-Day-20.pdf). The transcript gives us a side that was not part of the actual attack, yet it does involve Khuram Butt, it is actually a lot more important than you think for two reasons on opposite sides of the scale. The transcript gives us:

Witness M, you will appreciate that the investigation that you are here to help us with lasted for something in the region of two years, so I ’ ve got a fair amount to cover but I ’ ll try to be as concise as I can be.

You were asked questions by Mr Hough about the Transport for London employment and you told us that there came a time when you and your team learnt about this job that Khuram Butt obtained working at Westminster underground station.

A: That is correct , yes.

Q: So can I be clear : you learnt about this after he had begun working at that station ?

A: I cannot recall at what stage we learnt about him either seeking out employment or having that employment.

Q: Was that something that you – –

A: But we were aware of the fact that he was working at London Underground.

Q: So it wasn’t something that you learned at the application stage before the decision had been made as to whether they should give him the job?

A: I cannot answer that.

Q: Were arrangements in place at the time for the counter terrorism police to be notified by Transport for London of the names of people applying to be employed by Transport for London in vulnerable locations ?

A: I ’m not aware of any such arrangement. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist , but it ’ s not something I’m aware of .

Q: So to this day can Transport for London receive applications by people who might be terrorist suspects, the subject of ongoing investigations , and then a decision made to employ them without you or your partner agency being notified ?

A: So, again, I can’ t categorically say whether that process exists . That sounds to me that it’s something, if it did exist , would be more in the ”protect” side of our business.

It is important, and let us look at both sides of this equation. On the one hand if there was stronger vetting there was a chance that Khuram Butt might have been stronger on the radar, yet the attack would not have been prevented as the London Underground was not a stage and was not used to set the stage, more importantly there was a chance to set off alarms within Khuram Butt making him a lot more cautious, optionally resorting to a different style of attack. On the other hand, we see that this path would have given MI-5 up to 1500% more work, so a lot less resources to deal with optional more serious threats.

We see more in Day 20 (on page 4, paragraph 9, 10). Here we see the flags issue I raised earlier and the questioning party who is seemingly not all up to date on intelligence, more on finding a part to blame. When we see:

Q: In September 2016 the categorisation was downgraded to P2M, so the risk is now a medium risk, you told us?

A: That is correct. Yes, it was categorised down to a P2M.

Q: And when you dealt with this in your report at paragraph 5.9, you linked this decision to the fact that there had been no indications of actual steps to plan an attack.

A: That’s correct, that is in my report.

Q: But as you’ve accepted a number of times, from the very start, this is somebody who had, throughout, exhibited a degree of operational security.

A: We see that across the entire range of individuals we investigate.

Q: Yes. But an ordinary member of the public with nothing to hide is unlikely to be taking steps to avoid surveillance or to hide their activities; would you agree?

A: He’s not an ordinary member — he was not an ordinary member of the public; he was under investigation.

Q: But that of itself rings alarm bells, doesn’t it , if he is positively taking steps to disguise what his activities are?

A: It’s concerning, but it becomes more concerning when it is attached to other intelligence around other activity. And that will elevate the risk and elevate our posture and our response.

Q: After that decision to recategorise as medium risk, he then re-engaged, you told us, with ALM in the autumn of 2016.

A: So that – – that’s correct, that was the assessment at the time that he started to re-engage with other ALM individuals.

Q: He was also identified as having an inflammatory presence around other extremists, wasn’t he?

A: How do we know that?

Q: Well, you confirmed yesterday that you were aware of that and that’s information that reached you via MI5. We see it in the report of Witness L at paragraph 116.

A: Okay. So I can’t say with any certainty I was aware of that before that time, but just the mere presence — the mere fact that he was associating with other ALM individuals or becoming further engaged is of concern

I see this as an issue. The issue is not the interview, the issue is the available resources and the questioning party seems to live in la la land as there is the consideration that at any time all resources are available, that one clear failure makes the inquest a problem to some extent and that is merely looking at one day, merely Day 20. The focus on Khuram Butt being an ‘inflammatory presence‘, we could argue that this is a good thing, we could argue that pushing other extremists before they are ready is one clear sign to botch attacks (MI-5 will be pleased), the two parts in the transcript give rise to a larger failing, in part the inquest is set to a stage it does not comprehend, it does not facilitate a stage of comprehension where it concerns lone wolves and wannabe’s. In the second degree we see the push regarding re-engagement and the consideration of a medium risk person. Even as there is no valid intelligence giving us that direct action was called for (implied at least). So when I see ‘there had been no indications of actual steps to plan an attack‘, my less diplomatic view towards the barrister would be ‘move the fuck onwards barrister‘, if there is no indication of actual steps, there is no indication for acceleration of increasing profile surveillance, the resources are just not there.

It is the largest failing, not merely the fact that there is no SIGINT working on data that could have been worked on, the stretch on resources, what is available, its definition and the stage of recognising on how to use resources are in the wind and that failing matters, because that recognition is essential to stop attacks by an actual terrorist, a lone wolf or a wannabe, and as long as that part is not clearly in play, there will be more successful attacks and here I regard the premise of a successful attack any attack where more than 5 lives were lost.

We need to accept that choices have impact, we need to see that the attacks will continue and until we find a better way to register dangers this is how it will be and we need to see that the failing was larger, but there is no one to actually blame.

Consider blaming customs for allowing a failed asylum seeker (Rachid Redouane) going back and forth between the UK and Ireland, getting other places to live, is that landlord to blame? There are cogs that are not working for numerous reasons and when we realise that ‘the machine‘ is off its mark by a decent amount, we do not get to blame MI-5 (or GCHQ for that matter). When we consider that Youssef Zaghba might have made a claim and if GCHQ had a right at that point to capture all data regarding that person, there might have been a chance that together with the Khuram Butt data there was a decent chance that this could have been stopped (in theory), but that was not an option was it? Here the Data Protection Act 2018, as well as the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) stopped GCHQ from getting essential results to report to MI-5, you wanted this so from my point of view you have to accept the dead people too. You cannot get it both ways, it is just not on.

There is, as I personally see it a larger failure in play, it is not MI-5, it is not GCHQ, it is not the police, it is us and the bullshit setting of privacy whilst we hand over all of our private lives to Facebook and mobile game data collectors, we are doing this too, we ourselves. We can optionally argue that there needs to be a better direct action armed response unit with a trained medic in these teams, but that is an optional investigation for another day, one that is far far away.

 

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Blackadder to the rescue

Yes, now for something completely different. Today only partially continues yesterday’s conversation. The article ‘Iranian puppets‘ gives us (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/06/14/iranian-puppets/) where I mention: “I will never proclaim myself towards Iran“, I also made mention of the 15 bitches and a serve of coffee (between the lines), yet I will always proclaim towards evidence. Evidence is everything and even whilst Iran is the most likely guilty party, I tend to follow the evidence. The evidence puts us with Houthi forces, optionally there is enough circumstantial evidence involving Hezbollah, however, this seemingly changes today as more than one now give us: ‘UK joins US in accusing Iran of tanker attacks as crew held‘, here I remain cautious. You see, the US had graphics in the Iraq WMD part and that got us in different waters, even as much better questions should have been asked with that clusterfuck in the making. The UN secretary general António Guterres called for an independent investigation, a part I very much support.

The intelligence suckers tend to be driven by EGO and whoever their Commander in Chief is and that tends to be needlessly politically driven and there the not guilty tends to be a target, this is not the same as the innocent, but you see the impact I am referring to. In the UK the Foreign Office is giving us: “It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible“, I am willing to agree with this, however we have seen decently clear evidence that in more than one case Iranian flag officers acted on their extreme self, not with the official support from the actual government. It is the consequence of the Iranian clerics having direct access to Iranian generals and acting on what they proclaim is the will of Allah. Those who do not grasp that part are out in the cold, pointing at the wrong party and creating escalations.

So whilst the world goes with: “Iran did do it. You know they did it because you saw the boat. I guess one of the mines didn’t explode and it’s probably got essentially Iran written all over it … You saw the boat at night, successfully trying to take the mine off – and that was exposed” that is one view to have and it might be the correct view, yet we already have two parts here. The fact that the mine did not work implies that Iranian hardware has additional issues (or optionally a non-trained individual had access to that hardware and did not set it up correctly, which is actually more likely). The second part is that the act was about deniability, giving more need to point at a state actor, but was it one with clearance or one deciding that they had to make their government look good? The issue around deniability is set not in stone, but it seems to be on a tablet where someone else has the erase function active. And in this the US and the UK have played similar games over the last 10 years. So let’s set this in a speculative example.

The Iranian Ministry of Roads and Transportation is run by Ali Nikzad. He decided that the boats were transgressing on Iranian sovereign waters and ships are transport, so Ali Nikzad decided to give these transgressors a lesson, he gets a hold of officers who are eager for promotion and he plays the ‘I need to test our equipment for transportation of dangerous goods’, he gets mines (plural) and he tests the mines with an engineer who is not really qualified to operate mines. The attack works, but one mine was not set properly. Now he has a problem, because even as he got the equipment, he was not allowed to operate in the way he did as that was a military action, and he is merely a lowly Minister of Roads, commercial shipping lanes and Transportation, he now has to resolve the issue before it taints him and he gets someone to remove it (most likely the engineer who wrongly set the mine).

In addition to this, when we see how Belgium defused a mine situation according to the Dutch, will we see more or less reliability? Was it the image that made for the change?

All this a speculation, but the play is not that speculative, several players have engages in similar games, optionally the IRGC knew of the operation, and they did not act because their fingers were not in the cookie jar; they all have a scapegoat and there is no physical evidence to support any story that anyone tells.

This is one of the intelligence games that are out there and now we have a state actor and everyone (led by the US) are now pointing at the wrong state actor and the evidence is out there proving some right as the involved person is seemingly Iranian, but wrong as this is a bogus action in the first place. Now we see Hamid Baeidinejad (Iranian ambassador to the UK) all huffy and puffy because he is doing what Tehran told him to do and the game he plays looks good, because he truly believes that he is playing the proper game as instructed by Tehran and let’s face it, the US does not have a great track record when it comes to Intelligence data and parsing intelligence data to create actual verifiable data, do they. When in doubt, call the NSA at +1-301-688-6311, ask for Deputy Director Barnes (General Nakasone is often too busy according to his personal aide).

In all this, there is a surprising realisation, you see, the opposite is also an option and I wonder why it is not actively investigated, there is an opposing solution that takes Iran out of the equation and it is a solid solution that stretches 74,967 meters in length and could change the game, in addition to that it could hinder Iran to the larger degree, basically to the degree where Bandar Abbas would financially be decimated, its economy would plummet to below basement levels.

I wonder how willing the UAE would be to change the game to benefit their economy. Oman could optionally benefit as well, so there is a solution that could propel two nations, whilst freezing the Iranian economy twice over. You see, as I look at the state of play, a proxy war can go in two directions; you can be in denial as there is no proof, or you can go into proclamation to set the stage of something that is legally allowed, people look at the first and then ignore number two. I let you work out the puzzle and let you figure out what some never considered.

A Monty Python solution presented by Blackadder gives us the second option in two ways (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzXhLp2wLQo) we see the approach to a literal following of orders then (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBhN28eTuP8) we see the application of intelligence: “I beg leave to commence a private prosecution the accused for wasting the courts time“, and in all this, the stage is set and optionally correctly set, yet there is a range of issues that have not been addressed.

Some will go with the smoke and fire part and that is all good and fine, yet when did we get a proper investigation before pointing the finger (optionally through the slipping them the bird)? To let this sink in, let’s take a look at American accusations: “By labelling some of the high-level waste as low level, the US would save $40bn in cleanup costs across the nation’s entire nuclear weapons complex. The waste which has been stored in South Carolina, Washington and Idaho would be taken to low-level disposal facilities in Utah or Texas“, whilst the clear danger of radioactive waste has been out in the open for decades we are confronted with: “This administration is proposing a responsible, results-driven solution that will finally open potential avenues for the safe treatment and removal of the lower level waste. DOE is going to analyze each waste stream and manage it in accordance with Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards, with the goal of getting the lower-level waste out of these states without sacrificing public safety“. In this application of rules, we are not merely rephrasing the stage of what is regarded as ‘safe treatment‘, it changes the face of danger by diminishing risks on the need for cutting 40 billion. Now we can agree that 40 billion is serious cash, yet after it passed the facilities in Utah and Texas, what damage will be left behind because standards and definitions were changed by people who desperately need things to get cheaper? And when this backfires, how will the US afford the reparations that will be in excess of a trillion dollars easily? saving $40 with a decent certainty that it will cost you $1,000 around the corner is not clever, it does not save anyone anything and it decimates the quality and value of living in Utah and Texas, so how good is that step once the proper denials are in place?

The same can be said in the UK and their approach of Fracking, shale gas options. In a stage where the Netherlands has had: “A total of 127 damage reports were received after a fracking earthquake in Groningen on Sunday morning“, in addition “the TCMG receives around 200 damage reports per week. Over the past two weeks, the committee received at least 200 reports per day“. Also before I forget, when I was young and living in the Netherlands, Groningen was plenty of things, there was even a rare occurrence of an earthquake (once ever whilst I was in primary school), the entire stage of living in Groningen changed after Fracking, a clear change in values and cost of living as properties have diminished and the entire area is now a minefield of accusations and litigations, how much will that cost the government in addition to the claims they get? There is a second danger, if any of those chemicals ever make it into the groundwater; the Netherlands has some options, whilst the UK as an island does not. Dangers that we see give the rise towards people and politicians seem to regard the element of denial, a dangerous stage on two fronts, in the UK the danger for living expenses as it goes up by 1500% when UK tap water is no longer safe to drink; in the US where radiation contamination when found too late will have new long lasting disastrous effects.

Merely two elements that have the same stage; the stage of denial can be a very dangerous one and in Iran we see a stage where we cannot afford to give in to that danger. We need to be certain, an actual war, one that Iran will lose regardless will still impact and optionally disrupt crude oil paths for decades, consider the next decade when oil returns to prices like $163/barrel. The restoration of any economy becomes close to nil, unless you make money from the oil industry. That is why I want to make sure that Iran is properly dealt with and in all this, my plan B remains valid and an optional alternative path to increase pressure on Iran.

Nobody is saying, stating or implying that Iran is not involved, the issue is WHO placed the mine and there is where we get the issue. The US and the UK clearly know this. In case of the US we have Timothy James McVeigh. Now consider what would have happened if that attack was post 9/11? I am not stating that anything wrong was done by the FBI, I am however decently certain that the entire investigation would have had a dozen other turns and double turns. There is absolutely no guarantee that the same result would have been presented. I am not stating that the FBI did anything wrong, I am not stating that anything else happened.

To look at this setting we need to consider a quote by Counterpuch.org. Here we see: “The FBI suffered another debacle last Friday when an Orlando jury returned a not guilty verdict for the widow of Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 in his attack on Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in June 2016. The biggest terrorism case of the year collapsed largely thanks to FBI misconduct and deceit” there are more sources. NPR Radio gives us: “the prosecution had withheld crucial information for the development of their argument. It was not until after the prosecution had rested its case, nearly two weeks after the trial opened, that prosecutors disclosed the information in an email last Saturday“, as well as “federal authorities had also opened an investigation of Seddique Mateen after the shooting, basing the probe on a series of money transfers he made to Turkey and Afghanistan not long before the massacre. The defense argued that without those details, the defense had been unfairly hamstrung — an assertion that Byron rejected. He denied the motion earlier this week and allowed the trial to proceed” denial of facts as well as denial access to facts, denial of due process in light of whatever reasoning was given and as denial of circumstances. At this point the widow of Omar Mateen was regarded as not guilty and there is no way of knowing whether this was just, correct or merely the consequence of stacking the deck knowingly and willingly.

When you consider that personal ego made these leaps of consideration, and we see the impact, the need for higher intelligence usage and the better investigation of what is happening in Iran and by which person becomes a lot more essential. When we see three players all in a stage to wage war on Iran (an idea that I do not oppose) lets at least do it for the right reasons. Doing the right thing based on flawed and incorrect intelligence corrupts the act and over time degrades the reasoning of the act. It is important to see that difference, and whilst there are optional paths to making the Iranian economy tanking it to the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz, I will remain in favour of doing that. You need to have seen war in all its majesty of cadavers and victims to appreciate alternative parts, only those who played call of duty might like a direct war, which will only last until you actually get to wash the blood out of your hands, that sweet smell of blood will follow your nose until the day you die.

Iran might be going into a wrong direction, yet we do not have to follow them like stupid lemmings, as I stated, I am not against setting a war against Iran, I merely want alternatives that gets us the same result. A proxy war goes both ways, we merely have to alter the signs on the entrance door; it is our door, so we get to do that.

 

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The Persian Gulf match

We are on the edge of what we know, mostly of what we are infromed about and it seems that it is n the interest of the US to focus on Saudi Arabia. Al Jazeera starts with ‘US senators seek to block Trump arms sales to Saudi Arabia‘ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/senators-seek-block-trump-arms-sales-saudi-arabia-190605154958283.html). The sub line gives us “Senators to try to pass 22 resolutions that’d halt Trump’s plan to bypass Congress to complete arms sales to Saudi, UAE“, it seems that with the effort of getting 22 resolutions passed, there is cause for concern, not merely for the one side where the US is seemingly a lesser ally than they are claiming to be. The problem is that there is actual sense in play. when we see the quote by Senator Todd Young giving us: “Congress has an essential oversight role in the decision to sell weapons and we must ensure proper procedures are in place in any weapons transfer“, I would counter that with the notion that proper procedures should have been in place for decades, in addition, the fact that Saudi Arabia has never been the enemy of the United states (as far as I know), makes it weirder. It is at that point where Senator Todd Young goes from simplistic to stupid bordering on moronic. With: “In light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, we have an obligation to ensure the adequate guardrails are in place and that weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do not exacerbate the conflict“, so how about taking Hezbollah and Iran out of the equation? Had the Senator for Pennsylvania considered that part? The issues around Senator Young do not improve when his lack into Yemen is shown. With: “Selling more bombs to the Saudis simply means that the famine and cholera outbreak in Yemen will get worse, Iran will get stronger, and al-Qaeda and ISIS will continue to flourish amidst the chaos of the civil war” he shows just how little he is aware, the fact that there is no mention of Hezbollah is one part, the additional stage given to us less than 24 hours ago (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-wfp/yemens-houthis-and-wfp-dispute-aid-control-as-millions-starve-idUSKCN1T51YO) with ‘Yemen’s Houthis and WFP dispute aid control as millions starve‘ is not because there is no resolution, it is because the Houthi forces do not want a resolution, they are awaiting Iranian hardware and Hezbollah troops. So as we see: “the U.N. agency, which feeds more than 10 million people a month across the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation, said last month it is considering suspending deliveries due to fighting, insecurity and interference in its work“, we see just how dumbfound the status of Saudi Arabia is in the US Congress. The issue of the international press going out of their way not reporting on Hezbollah activities in Yemen is just a little too weird, and seemingly no one takes notice.

Saudi Arabia will have to consider other options soon enough (more to follow at the end).

In the second part of one side we see the report from CNN (at https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/05/politics/us-intelligence-saudi-arabia-ballistic-missile-china/index.html) the headline: ‘US intel shows Saudi Arabia escalated its missile program with help from China‘, we need to realise two elements, the first is that Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, a sovereign nation with the rights to defend itself. It has been in a proxy war with Iran for years and Saudi Arabia must prepare any way it can, apparently the United States is not there for the nation they call an ally, and as such China would easily step in to facilitate (Russia seems to have lost out on it). With Saudi Arabia in a stage of 5G thanks to Huawei, the Chinese government is (according to CNN) in the article. Even as we are given: “While the Saudis’ ultimate goal has not been conclusively assessed by US intelligence, the sources said, the missile advancement could mark another step in potential Saudi efforts to one day deliver a nuclear warhead were it ever to obtain one” implying that they actually do not know, the vague ‘were it ever to obtain one‘ should be seen as an article presently dipped in speculation. And as the one truth is given through “the Saudis have consistently taken the position that they need to match Iran’s missile capability and have at times sought help on the side from other countries, including China, which is not a signatory to the pact“, so the actual issue is that Saudi Arabia is in a stage where they will not accept being under defended when Iran is on a clear path to increase its ballistic missile setting. A clear setting that has been known for years and no one does anything valid or actual about Iran, that part is not set in the lime light is it. In all this I found the premise of Tom Udall senator from New Mexico the most hilarious one. With “citing the Washington Post report on the satellite images, asked what the US was doing to prevent foreign sales of ballistic missile technology to Saudi Arabia“, the direct and not too diplomatic answer would be: ‘It is none of your bloody business what Saudi Arabia buys from whomever they want to‘ (there is some diplomacy as I avoided using the F*** word). The truth is that they no longer matter; US Congress seems to be forgetting that they are no longer a superpower. 21 trillion dollar debt did that to them. Their utter inactivity in Syria and Yemen shows that they no longer really matter and the actions by both Turkey and Iran shows that they no longer have the balls to actually interfere and act. Their actions are now limited to economic sanctions and that tactic is becoming less and less efficient.

The additional fact that this is still connected to a dead journalist no one cares about is further evidence still. You see if it was actually about that than the US government and Global media would have illuminated the actions of Turkey and its incarcerated and murdered journalists every single day and that has not been happening at all, again more evidence that this is all about posturing and imagery but nothing on creating actual lasting results.

In all this I am happy that Democrat Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey gave us: “Failing that, I am prepared to move forward with any and all options to nullify the licenses at issue for both Saudi Arabia and [the] UAE and eliminate any ability for the administration to bypass Congress in future arms sales“, I will use that shortly, thank you.

On the other side

The other side of the Persian Gulf has other issues. Less than 14 hours ago, the Japan News (and several others) gave us: “Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Tehran would not be “deceived” by U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of negotiations and would not give up its missile program” the entire stage of peace, or some way of moving forward was dependent on that part, the fact that it was never adhered to and the only part we get is US saber rattling gives light that the US has no actual solution here. Even as some Senators made the claim that any war with Iran would be a short one can no longer be proven, the engineering joke that is now known as USS Zumwalt is one part, the fact that Congress never approved a budget for its cannons to be fully armed is a second part and the failings that is this $21 billion project and is showing to be close to disastrous is further evidence that the US has no real modern navy to fight Iran with, it is at best at par with Iran and in an actual war setting without the ability to ‘hide’ within Saudi waters gives rise to the fact that a direct war (which Iran would lose) will not be a quick one and the casualty list would be massive. A nation that is basically bankrupt is now limited to saber rattling, it is sad.

A similar quote was seen in TV7 Israel News where we get: “Ali Khamenei said: “We can see that today, in the defense and military arena, we have reached a point of being able to deter our enemies. And the fact that you see they insist on (curtailing) our missile program, is because of this (deterrence). And they want to deprive us of this capability. And of course, they will never succeed.”” the stage is accepted but the premise is not. The Iranian missile program has never been one of defence, it is an offense stage with possible nuclear ramifications and there are indicators that there is more, one unconfirmed source (reliability unknown, language implied it to be American) gives us: “Iran in mid-May presented the IAEA with a comprehensive report on all aspects of its nuclear program, which comprised over one thousand pages. The D-T procurement was not mentioned in the. “comprehensive” report. It is not alone in this regard: since June, a large number of Iranian nuclear activities not admitted to by Tehran, have been reported, notably the attempts to sanitize a suspected nuclear facility in the neighborhood of Tehran” another dark web source gave mention of deuterium-tritium gas earlier this year crossing into Iran at Bājgirān. I partially took notice but ignored it as I had no real idea what it was used for (I am not a chemist), in light of the two it is not an indicator or any actual evidence where Iran is at, but it does give reason for Saudi Arabia to increase its capabilities regarding ballistic missiles. The fact that Iran has the muscle to move options here implies that it has access to funds it should not have, for the mere reason that whoever is doing it will not be doing it for anything less than an 8 figure number. I am decently certain that Russia (and most other nuclear players) would never be willing to give a Trump card like that into the hands of Iran, not when they have other needs to milk Iran for as long as they can. That is merely my personal view on the matter.

Iran does have other options, as Janes reported yesterday: “Iran launched a Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) in December 2018, the Israeli representative to the UN told the Security Council in a letter released on 5 June“. My issue is not Jane, they are established as a reliable and accepted military source of information, the fact that this issue has been known for 6 months and the fact that at present there is no real exposure of the Khorramshahr with its range of 2,000 km with a 1,800 kg warhead, we see that no part of Saudi Arabia cannot be reached, giving a much larger pressure on Saudi Arabia and that is before you realise that the news included: “Iran has transferred technological knowledge to enable Iraq’s Technical Directorate for Military Production (TDMP) to produce the Mohajem-92 unmanned aerial vehicle“, that so called UAV is one of the drones that have been deployed against U.S. and coalition targets (Source: Al Jazeera June 21st).

These drones are optionally also in the hands of Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation, as such the pressure is on in several ways and there is more than one indicator that the US remains where it is, sitting on its hands merely because it seemingly ran out of budget.

Image of a Paper Tiger

In conclusion: I believe that the media and the US government have been hiding behind excuses and counter acting actions as it cannot afford to be in anything for any price. It has no ability to enforce any actual rules and when we see the egocentric call: ‘what the US was doing to prevent foreign sales of ballistic missile technology to Saudi Arabia‘, we see what was once a superpower is now optionally nothing more than a Paper Tiger.

If I have to give any official advice to the House of Saud then it would be:

Your Royal Highness and members of the royal family,

I believe that it is now more and more important to seek unity and actual commerce with providers that will enable you to properly defend yourself against the unacceptable danger that Iran has become. I believe that trade with the United Kingdom, France, Germany and China should replace your American portfolio. Each of these four have technologies and military solutions that would equal the solutions that America has offered. I believe that there is no one solution, by gaining the hardware from all three (each their own field) it would be optionally quicker to get the essential defence materials that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs to keep its nation safe. The American position after the attacks by Hezbollah through Houthi forces give rise to the additional dangers that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia faces by not seeking a more powerful defence. The actions of the American US Congress have shown that what they regard as being an ally is not what an ally is; it is not even what a wannabe ally would consider to be.

As such apart from your advancement in technology and infrastructure a much larger foundation for your national defence is seemingly essential in the immediate future. The shown delays that the European Union have shown to be regarding Iran, Turkey and terrorist organisations like Hezbollah give rise to the essential need of China to become part of that solution.

With highest regards,

Lawrence van Rijn

Finale

I believe that the inaction’s have gone on for way too long, even as some state that there are diplomatic options, the realisation that Iran hid themselves through the terrorist organisation Hezbollah and the fact that this has been known in intelligence circles for years is clear evidence that there is no push for a solution, merely a need for a standstill, or stalemate at best. It never resolves anything, it merely decimates the Yemeni population through Houthi blockades a small issue killing thousands and Reuters gave us that news, but no, plenty of media ignore that fact and keep on pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia and shouting ‘Jamal Khashoggi’ whilst no one cared about him to begin with (exception of Washington Post people noted).

The idea of politics through inaction an stalemate has created more damage than anyone realises and the inaction on matters has the dangers of creating cogs of war that will ruffle both sides of the Persian gulf to the largest degree is now too dangerous. The inaction on Hezbollah, the inaction by the US and Europe now have a lasting impact on the Middle East. When this comes to blow, there is no doubt that Iran will lose, and anyone pushing for stalemate tactics will be recognised and removed from consideration for what could be the largest impulse to a global economy in history, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar are part of that economic pulse and those not part of that will end up going through 2-3 iterations of recession lasting 20+ years. The others will find themselves on an improving economy track and enable themselves on a larger economic scale than before. There is now ample view on the matter to consider that America is steering away from that option for no good reason. When that happens, those who get to be enabled will end up being in a much stronger position. I personally prefer the United Kingdom to be part of that, yet in the end that is a decision they will need to make for themselves.

 

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