Category Archives: Politics

January 30, 2020 · 14:03

Just like in the movies

Steven Soderbergh made an interesting gamble in 2011, he took a collection of all cast stars and wrote about a fictive disease and the issues that the would would have dealing with it. Today less than 10 years later we see ‘death toll jumps to 170 amid evacuation delays for foreign nationals‘, as well as ‘returning Britons could be kept in quarantine for 14 days‘ and many more. This morning I saw a staggering amount of people with face masks. All fearing what could come next. Steven Soderbergh was an optimist.

Frances Mao (BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51290312) writes “For over a week now, the Australians trapped in Wuhan – many of them children – have been calling on their government to help get them out. But the announcement of a two-week quarantine on Christmas Island have given many pause for thought.” It is a nasty thing, especially for Australians and their view (as well as the UN view) on Christmas Island, a place where you go when you stop believing in any form of Christmas.

For the UK (the Guardian) we see “Planners earlier looked at holding returnees at a hotel or military base. But, after an emergency Cobra meeting on Wednesday afternoon chaired by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, it is understood that they will be flown into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and taken to an NHS facility to be monitored and treated if symptoms develop“, the issue is not who gets treated and who gets flagged, the issue is actually all the people who circumvent the flags and who avoid scruples as they claim that they are not sick. In this case it is a much larger issue, most people become spreaders even before they realise that they are sick and that is a decently rare occurrence in medical matters. The fact that we saw Yesterday ‘The death toll from the virus has risen to 170‘ is only part of the problem. The optional fact that we see less than an hour ago the simplified facts that ‘the number of infections jumped by nearly 30 percent‘ as well as ‘China Now Has More Cases Than It Had of SARS‘ (source: NY Times) implies that it will not merely hit healthy people, it will be the foundation of fear mongering, which the movie Contagion showed was counterproductive.

And my case of ‘the people who circumvent the flags‘ was not academic, Japan reported 30 minutes ago that they had 11 cases, so how long until that one person overlooked has infected their whole neighbourhood? The issue is not fear mongering or academic, there is every chance that this is happening and there will be a larger issue following that. CNN gave a link to the Coronavirus map in China and it shows that it is confirmed in 20 locations ALL OVER China. This implies that there are in addition to this at least 5 more locations unconfirmed and optionally a dozen cases on the run (read: travelling) with no indications where to and how many that they will infect. And even as most will herald the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering for this map, how many are afraid to be on this map? Because their fear will propel the disease to healthy regions. It is hard to continue because of the fear that I become the fearmonger. I also want to be clear that my response is not as a critique on the China’s National Health Commission or the CCDC. the fact that we were seeing 6,000 cases (infected) on Wednesday and that we see a global number that surpasses 7,800 cases one day later gives rise to the thoughts I am having. Now we need to be certain that we also accept that there will be a percentage which are false positives, those with a normal flu, giving rise to a larger boost to the numbers. Even as I accept that this percentage is not to be speculated upon and that we need to be savvy of all cases, there is still a growing chance that people avoided being flagged and flew just before the curtain thinking that they were clear and that they would deal with their flu over the weekend. That is the stage we need to fear and the escalation of thousands of cases.

Even now as we are told that Tibet has its first case, how many did this person infect? We see countries and numbers, but the truth is that there are cases in Hong Kong, the United States, Taiwan, Australia, Macau, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Vietnam, Nepal, Cambodia, Finland, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates. Each country where one person stated ‘Not me, I merely have a cold‘, that person will infect dozens more each day. That is how a pandemic starts. Let’s be clear, the term pandemic means an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region (including multiple continents). In support we should also see that a widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic. With the Coronavirus, there is still no vaccine, there is no cure and its growth is almost like wildfire because of panicking people getting away from this disease whilst they spread it, most importantly they were carriers even before they were sick, so fear was not the instigator. In all this there is one additional fact that the New York Times gave us “Taiwan, Germany, Vietnam and Japan had patients that had not been to China“, which gives rise to the fact that unflagged people were involved, or even scarier, as this started with animals, we need to consider that the issue is larger than we thought. It needs to be clear that this Coronavirus is NOT new, it was discovered half a century ago but in all these cases, it was animals that infected humans. In several cases we see the fingers pointed at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, yet Science Magazine published on the 26th (Jon Cohen) that ‘Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally‘, there we see “a description of the first clinical cases published in The Lancet on Friday challenges that hypothesis” this comes from a large group of Chinese researchers and here we see “In the earliest case, the patient became ill on 1 December 2019 and had no reported link to the seafood market, the authors report. “No epidemiological link was found between the first patient and later cases,” they state. Their data also show that, in total, 13 of the 41 cases had no link to the marketplace“, and here we see that Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University seems to agree with the assessment, 13 out of 41 is too large a group to ignore. In my personal view it is not impossible that there is a covariant, if we consider that spreading happened before the personal marie celeste’s realised that they were sick, would it be possible that a busdriver was the link that was missing?

And it is here that we see the part where I went for and Science Magazine (at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally) gives us “the virus possibly spread silently between people in Wuhan—and perhaps elsewhere—before the cluster of cases from the city’s now-infamous Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was discovered in late December“. A silent interference on data. When we realise this we need to consider and agree that this is not fear mongering, it is almost hard chiseled facts that lead us here and as such watching the movie Contagion a little late is not the worst idea to have.

And it is that same magazine that gives us another part “Earlier reports from Chinese health authorities and the World Health Organization had said the first patient had onset of symptoms on 8 December 2019—and those reports simply said “most” cases had links to the seafood market, which was closed on 1 January” a situation that slowly took hold all over the world and this is the stage we now have and whilst officials are all about positive influence and flying home the ‘healthy’ people, they will optionally be the group spreading a much larger foundation of the disease. I say optionally, because there are clear foundations for testing, yet it is Bin Cao of Capital Medical University,a pulmonary specialist, wrote ““Now It seems clear that [the] seafood market is not the only origin of the virus,” he wrote. “But to be honest, we still do not know where the virus came from now.”” and there is the killer in all this ‘we still do not know‘ in a stage where we are given ‘a common source—as early as 1 October 2019‘ that is the foundation that eludes many of us and in hindsight when we consider the international infected, how many escaped a flagged view and how many did they infect? That is the question that officials need to have (and they might), yet we do not know and whilst we are all about ‘How can UK citizens leave Wuhan amid the coronavirus outbreak‘ yet the damage is optionally already done.

I do believe that there is no solution in fearing and burning at the stake anyone who has a cold (I have a cold at the present) yet the foundation of fear must be stopped in any way we can. For the simple reason that ‘My anxiety is increasing day by day‘ is not merely a Wuhanian expression, it is soon optionally to be a global one until we can give rise to clarity on where the disease is and until the vaccine is ready, the bulk of all people will be gripped by fear, just like in the movies.

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Tagged as Australia, BBC, Bin Cao, Cambodia, Canada, Capital Medical University, CCDC, CNN, Cobra, Corona virus, Daniel Lucey, Finland, France, Georgetown University, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, John Hopkins, Jon Cohen, Macau, Malaysia, Matt Hancock, Nepal, New York Times, NHS, NY Times, Science Magazine, Singapore, South Korea, Sri-Lanka, Steven Soderbergh, Taiwan, the Guardian, the United States, UK, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, WHO, World Health Organisation, Wuhan

January 29, 2020 · 11:59

The emergency meeting on doing nothing

Isn’t that the reality we all face? We are called into the office of the boss, we get some high winded tale of how things have to be better, we have to get better and we need to do better, and after that meeting we get word that he will overlook our actions in the coming month. It tends to be that meeting that takes an hour, the boss highlights anekdotes that have little to no bearing and it is a waste of an hour, make that a lot more, because the group is about 6-8 people, as such one working day was lost on absolute nothing.

That is how we need to see ‘Yemen rise in violence threatens to derail peace moves, UN warns‘, and comes with a call for an emergency meeting of the Security Council. Yes, the coloquial anekdote of “We have to get the genie back in the bottle” is also present. Martin Griffiths talks nicely but he is basically wasting everybody’s time for the simplest of reasons. There is no peace process and there never actually was one. When I see the Houthi situation I see a situation that reminds me of Hamas v State of Israel, Hamas will only open for peace talks when their ammo levels are low. And they bicker over every point until the next shipment comes in. As such all the metaphors like the wheel is coming off, the genie back in the bottle and Everyone wants de-escalation is all talk around a setting that is not going to satisfy anyone and even when some accord is finally brokered, when the Houthis have a decent supply of cannon fodder and ammunition they will start all this all over again.

So whilst Martin gives us ‘tragic, egregious and inexplicable‘, and the added ‘did not directly attribute the Marib attack to the Houthis‘ we get a Griffiths that goes into “My job is to find areas of commonality rather than judging parties. But we need to understand why it happened“. It is all flavoured BS. This flourishing civil war is not going away and if there was not a large group of hesitation in this, the war would have been settled well over a year ago, now the UN gets the bill (which they do not pay) for up to 9.8 million people in Yemen and they are all in need of health services. This is (when you consider) in light of the total population that is at almost 25 million, a rather large chunk (almost 40%).

Yet there is also some clarification required, if the Houthi’s actually wanted ANY peace then there would be humanitarian aid, there would be a system of health care that the UN could set up, but this has been halted every time. Even now (from Associated Press) we see: “Peter Salisbury, Yemen expert at the International Crisis Group, said the Houthis may be using their military successes to gain leverage before talks resume next week in Oman” and as I personally see it, this game is replayed again and again and people like Martin Griffiths are part of the problem, until this civil war is dealt with, and until they AGREE COMPLETELY to stop all blockades to Humanitarian help, there is no solution, and there will not be any solution until well over 40% of the population is dead.

Even as we are told (at https://apnews.com/2ead3437db66e3d539d421561a85f7ee) “Following intense international pressure on the Saudi-led coalition, the foreign ministry announced on Monday that for the first time in years, Yemen would start direct flights for seriously ill patients seeking medical treatment in Egypt and Jordan“, we are told a bag of goods, one that is settled in rhymes of BS, and do you know why that is? It is because the text absolves the Houthis and in this also Iran from any involvement and they are very much involved. That is why this will not be resolved.

It is interesting on how this article is so absent of Houthi and Iranian involvement. The fact that Houthi’s have been blocking humanitarian aid for months is not mentioned, in addition, the involvement of Iran had been shown in several ways through missile and drone strikes, two technologies that Houthis cannot create themselves, not with the equipment they have at their disposal. So why would there be any success in Oman? I personally do not see that happen and whatever will be agreed on, will be broken before the agreement ink properly dries.

All this, especially in light of CNN article (at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/19/middleeast/yemen-houthi-attack-intl/index.html) last week where we were treated to ‘80 soldiers killed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen‘, and as we are given “At least 80 Yemeni soldiers attending prayers at a mosque were killed and 130 others injured in ballistic missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels“, we might see one thing, but the clarity is that this setting is larger. Even as we accept “The Houthis did not make any immediate claim of responsibility“, which gives an indication (but not verified) that this went beyond Houthi actions, the entire proxy war in Yemen is taking larger tolls and larger changes and the UN ignores those as it is all about “find areas of commonality“. Austin Carson is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago states this as “By maintaining plausible deniability, Tehran can signal its displeasure at American policies while giving opponents a face-saving way to avoid further reprisals, thereby dampening the risk of further escalation“, yet no matter how it halts escalations, it also halts any chance of a working peace process. An actual partial working solution would be to stop smuggling of drones and missiles into Yemen, by having a NATO fleet on the South coast and sinking any ship defying searches. There is almost no other option and even in that case, some will still get through with military hardware.

As such whatever they are meeting on, it will be on doing nothing regarding the peace options and the continuation of 10 million corpses all staged towards disease and famine, as such two of the horsemen of the apocalypse will be jumping for Joy. And in all this, the (what I personally see) as a short setting by Martin Grifiths is aiding in all this. Now, I am firmly stating here that this is NOT his fault. His approach is one path to take and he took it, whether or not under orders from the security council. Yet there is enough evidence all over the field that this will more likely than not be a fruitless exercise into talks and ending up with merely a delay towards more violence and more cadavers.

As we go into more talks and more talks, we get the news (yesterday) that “rebels capture strategic road connecting Sanaa to provinces of Marib and Jawf“, in that light as the Middle East Eye reports, how will it be possible to get any level of actual peace going? It is also here where we see that the International Crisis Group reports “if the renewed fighting spreads, it would represent “a devastating blow to current efforts to end the war”.“

My simple response would be: ‘You Think?‘

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Tagged as AP News, Associated Press, Austin Carson, CNN, Houthi, International Crisis Group, Iran, Martin Griffiths, Middle East Eye, Oman, Peter Salisbury, Saudi Arabia, Security Council, the Guardian, UN, University of Chicago, Yemen

January 28, 2020 · 11:17

The incompetent view

I’ll admit, there are other things to write about, yet this is a larger issue than anyone thinks it is. The previous writers did not ponder the questions that were adamant, and Stephanie Kirchgaessner follows suit (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/27/nsa-faces-questions-over-security-of-trump-officials-after-alleged-bezos-hack) when we consider that the focus here is the NSA in ‘NSA faces questions over security of Trump officials after alleged Bezos hack‘. You see, it is not merely the fact that they got the stage wrong, it is the fact that everyone is looking at the stage, whilst the orchestra is missing, so how about that part of the equation and that leads to very uncomfortable question towards WHY the US is tailing on 5G and why it is trying to tailgate into the 5G room. They forgot what real innovation is and Saudi Arabia is seemingly passing them by, a nation that has forever been seen as a technological third world is surpassing the US and it is upsetting more and more people.

“The US National Security Agency is facing questions about the security of top Trump administration officials’ communications following last week’s allegations that the Saudi crown prince may have had a hand in the alleged hack of Jeff Bezos“, with this the article opens and basically nothing wrong is stated here, yet when seen in the light of the byline which was “Democratic lawmaker asks agency if it is confident the Saudi government has not sought to hack US officials“, as such it becomes an issue. first off, the question is not wrong, because the US administration has a duty to seek the safety of communications for its coworkers (senators and such), yet in all this, it does become a little more clear when we see “Ron Wyden, a senior Democratic lawmaker, asked the director of the NSA whether he was confident that the Saudi government had not also sought to hack senior US government officials“. You see in the first, Saudi intentional involvement was NEVER established, moreover, the report (I looked at that last week) has several hiatus of a rather large kind, as such the formulation by this 70 year old person is quite the other issue.

It is my personal conviction that a Fortune 100 company should consider the danger they open themselves up to when letting cyber issues be investigated by FTI Consulting. The entire matter of how infection was obtained (if it was infection), and that the entire matter was instigated by any third party who had gained access to the phone of Jeff Bezos, and in all this enough doubt was raised who got access and more importantly that there was no evidence that this was ANY Saudi official, as such the short sighted “whether he was confident that the Saudi government had not also sought to hack senior US government officials” by a 70 year old who shows issues of lack of critical thinking, no matter what which school he went to when he was half a century younger.

And again we see the reference towards “The senator from Oregon is separately seeking to force the Trump administration to officially release the intelligence it collected on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist who was killed in a state-sponsored murder in October 2018“, which is another flaw as there was never any clear evidence that anyone in Turkey was “killed in a state-sponsored murder in October 2018“, more importantly, the French UN Essay writer who was seemingly involved in both reports is showing a lack of critical thinking all by herself.

All this whilst Paul Nakasone (director NSA) is confronted with “was believed to have been the victim of a hack that was instigated after he allegedly received a WhatsApp message from the account of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman“, the problem is twofold, in the first I personally see the report by FTI Consulting as a hack job, not a job on a hack. There are several sides that give doubt on infection source and moreover there is additional lack of evidence that the source was a Saudi one. More importantly other sources gave away issues on WhatsApp some time overlapping the event, exploits that made it into the press from all sides giving the weakness that any unnamed party could have played to be a Saudi delivery whilst the file was not from that delivery point. Issues that were out in the open and the report gives that FTI Consulting ignored them. It could read that a certain French Essay writer stated ‘I Have a Saudi official and an American phone, find me a link, any link‘, I am not stating that this happened, but it feels like that was the FTI Consulting case. When was the last time you saw an intentional perversion of justice and truth?

And when we see: “The issue is now the subject of an investigation by two independent UN investigators“, we see an almost completed path. When we see all this lets take a step back and consider.

An American Civilian had his mobile allegedly (and optionally proven) hacked.
The hacker is not found, the one accused cannot be proven (at present) to be the hacker.
This ends up with the UN?

And I am not alone here. Three days ago (after my initial findings) I see (at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/24/tech/bezos-hacking-report-analysts/index.html) the headline ‘Bezos hacking report leaves cybersecurity experts with doubts‘, there we see “independent security experts, some of whom say the evidence isn’t strong enough to reach a firm conclusion” as well as “several high-profile and respected researchers, highlights the limits of a report produced by FTI Consulting, the company Bezos hired to investigate the matter“, so basically, the hair lacking CEO, who owns the Washington Post (where Khashoggi used to work) is allegedly hacked, he seemingly hires FTI Consulting on what I personally believe to be a hack job on hacking phones and the UN is using that biased piece of work to slam Saudi Arabia? Did I miss anything?

Yes, I did, the quote “The report suggested the incident bore hallmarks of sophisticated hacking software“, the problem here is that there is no way to see WHERE IT CAME FROM. Yet other sources give out several pieces on WhatsApp and how other sources could have a free go at infesting people. All whilst we also see “the paper revealed a lack of sophistication that could have been addressed by specialized mobile forensics experts, or law enforcement officials with access to premium tools“, all this whilst the entire setting went around the existence of cyber divisions. There is a link Jeff Bezos – Amazon – FTI Consulting – United Nations. At no point in this do we see any police department, or the FBI, why is that?

As such when we see “A key shortcoming of the analysis, Edwards said, was that it relied on a restricted set of content obtained from Bezos’s iTunes backup. A deeper analysis, she said, would have collected detailed records from the iPhone’s underlying operating and file systems. Other security experts characterized the evidence in the report as inconclusive“, I would state that this is merely the beginning.

Rob Graham (CEO Errata security) gives us “It contains much that says ‘anomalies we don’t understand,’ but lack of explanations point to incomplete forensics, not malicious APT actors” and Alex Stamos, the former chief information security officer at Facebook and a Stanford University professor gives us “Lots of odd circumstantial evidence, for sure, but no smoking gun“, in all this the extreme geriatric Ron Wyden (Oregon) is asking questions from the NSA with the text “asked the director of the NSA whether he was confident that the Saudi government had not also sought to hack senior US government officials” with the emphasis on ‘also‘, a stage that is not proven, and more importantly is almost redundant in the hack job we got to read about. As such I am not surprised to see “FTI Consulting declined to comment“, I wonder why?

It is even more fun to see the CNN article have the stage where we see “a research group at the University of Toronto, offered a suggestion that could allow investigators to gain access to encrypted information that FTI said it could not unlock“, as such we see that there are skill levels missing in FTI, for the simple reason that this report was allowed to leave the hands of FTI Consulting, a Firm that is proudly advertising that they have 49 of the Global 100 companies that are clients. If I had anything to say about it, those 49 companies might have more issues down the road than they are ready for, especially as they have over 530 senior managing directors and none of them stopeed that flimsy report making it to the outside world. I would personally set a question mark to the claim of them being advisor to 96 of the world’s top 100 law firms. I would not be surprised if I could punch holes in more cases that FTI Consulting set advice to, in light of the Bezos report, it might not be too hard a stage to do.

CNN also has a few critical points that cannot be ignored. With “The report’s limited results are a reminder that it can be extremely challenging to reconstruct the activities of a determined, well-resourced hacker, said Kenneth White, a security engineer and former adviser to the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security“, I do not disagree with that, but the stage where WhatsApp had a much larger problem, is a given, and the report does not bring that up for one moment, that report was all about painting one party whilst the reality of the stage was that there was an open floor on how it was done, yet the report silenced all avenues there. In addition, Chris Vickery (Director UpGuard) gives us “other evidence provided by FTI increased his confidence that Bezos was being digitally surveilled“. that is not in question, core information directs that way, yet the fact that it was a Saudi event cannot be proven, not whilst Jeff Bezos is around hundreds of people in most moments of the day, that part is the larger setting and FTI Consulting knowingly skated around the subject, almost as it was instructed to do so.

One expert who wanted to remain anonymous gave us all “There’s an absurd amount of Monday morning quarterbacking going on” as well as “This isn’t a movie — things don’t proceed in a perfect, clean way. It’s messy, and decisions are made the way they’re made“, that expert is not wrong, and he/she has a point, yet the foundation of the report shows a massive lack in critical thinking whilst the report relies in its text on footnotes (as one would) yet on page 3, the text is “Al Qahtani eventually purchased 20 percent ownership in Hacking Team, apparantly acquired on behalf of the Saudi government. 8“

all whilst footnote 8 gives us “https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xvzyp/hacking-team-investor-saudi-arabia” so not only does the FTI Consulting Job rely on ‘apparantly‘, the article gives in the first paragraph “Hacking Team was thoroughly owned, with its once-secret list of customers, internal emails, and spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see” as such we see ‘spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see‘, how did FTI Consulting miss this? That and the WhatsApp issue in that same year opens up the optional pool of transgressors to all non state hackers with considerable knowledge, as such the amount of transgressors ups to thousands of hackers (globally speaking).

FTI Consulting missed that! and it missed a lot more. The article also sets a link to David Vincenzetti and for some reason he is not even looked at, there is no stage in the FTI report that his input was sought out, which in light of all this is equally puzzling. He might not have had anything to report, or perhaps he had enough to report taking the focal point away from Saudi players, we will never know, the joke (read: report) is out in the open in all its glory on limitation.

In light of all this, did the question by Ron Wyden to the NSA make sense? As far as I can see, I see several points of incompetance and that has nothing to do with the one expert stating that this is a messy, the entire setting was optionally incompetent and for certain massively incomplete.

More importantly, the last paragraphs has more funny parts than a two hour show by Jimmy Carr. The quote is “Anyone who has had communication with either MBS or his brother Khaled should assume their phone is hacked. Congress needs to get answers from NSA on what it knew about the hack of Bezos phone, when it knew it, and what it has done to stop Saudi criminal hacking behavior” and it comes from CIA analyst Bruce Riedel. Now, the quote is fine, but the hilarious part is how it was phrased (expertly done). Lets go over it in my (super subtle) way: “Anyone who has had communication with either MBS or his brother Khaled should assume their phone is hacked by Saudi, US or Iranian officials. Congress needs to get answers from NSA for a change on a matter that they were never consulted on whilst the report ended up with the UN on what it knew about the hack of Bezos phone, a person who has a few billion and a lack of hair but beyond that has no meaning to the US economy, he keeps all his gotten gains, when it knew when the phone of a civilian was allegedly hacked and, and what it has done to stop Saudi criminal hacking behavior which is not proven at present other than by people who have something to gain from seeing the Saudi’s as the bad party (like Iran), all in a report that is lacking all levels of clarity and proper investigation“, this is an important setting here. Just like the disappearance of a Saudi columnist writing for the Washington Post (another Jeff Bezos affiliate), we do not proclaim Saudi Arabia being innocent, merely that the lack of evidence does not make them guilty, in the present the hacking issue does not make Saudi Arabia guilty, the irresponsible version of the FTI Consulting report shows a massive lack of evidence that makes any Saudi Arabian party more likely than not innocent of all this and as both reports have one UN Female French Essay writer in common, it is more and more like a smear campaign than an actual event to find out what actually happened. Who signed up for that? I wonder if the NSA did, I feel decently certain that until they get all the actual evidence that they do not want to get involved with political painting, their left foot is busy keeping them standing up in a world of hunkered and crouched idiots.

Yet that is just my simple personal view on the matter.

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Tagged as Alex Stamos, Amazon, Bezos, Bruce Riedel, Chris Vickery, CIA, CNN, Crown Prince, David Vincenzetti, Defense Department, DHS, Errata Security, FTI Consulting, hacking, Kenneth White, Mohammed bin Salman, Motherboard, NSA, Paul Nakasone, Rob Graham, Ron Wyden, Saudi Arabia, Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Guardian, UN, University of Toronto, UpGuard, US, Vice, Washington Post

January 24, 2020 · 11:45

Evidence? Why?

I ignored the news initially, as I saw it, it was nothing more than some bash piece on Saudi Arabia. Yet something hot me, it was just a thought and it was: ‘What if I illuminate parts and let common sense people decide‘ (which takes out many journalists and mostly all politicians). As for me? The issue is that the media is all about bashing any royal part of Saudi Arabia, all whilst ignoring evidence (and debatable evidence to a much greater degree, their pursuit of circulation and agreeing to the beat of shareholders and stakeholders has gone to the heads of too many editors and I get a real rush to illuminate this part.

I have never ignored evidence, yet just like with Huawei, it is seemingly all about the big bully shouting, whilst the deciding world for the most ignores evidence and I think that it is a weird situation. Not merely in this blog, but on a few matters, we will get to hold them to account in a few years, at that point these people will make hastily formulated excuses whilst running to their mummies to get breastfeeding (I reckon).

So, lets begin. In the first we have ‘How the UN unearthed a possible Saudi Arabian link to Jeff Bezos hack‘ (the Guardian at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/22/how-the-un-unearthed-a-possible-saudi-arabian-link-to-jeff-bezos-hack) as well as ‘Did Saudi Arabia’s crown prince hack the Amazon king?’ (the Economist at https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/01/25/did-saudi-arabias-crown-prince-hack-the-amazon-king), a nice side effect is that the Economist, is viewed and acted on on the 24th of January, whilst the article states that it is the Jan 25th 2020 edition, but enough about that. Let’s start with the Guardian who tells us “The UN’s demand for law enforcement authorities to conduct a proper investigation into the alleged hacking of Jeff Bezos’s mobile phone came after it reviewed the findings of a cybersecurity firm, FTI“, we might not see anything here, yet the UN, who is underfunded and strained has time for this? Is this another US Essay like the one by some French girl on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi? And what about ‘after it reviewed the findings of a cybersecurity firm, FTI‘? This implies that the United Nations called for the inspection, notified a cyber security firm (FTI) and investigated the phone of some so called billionaire (postage and shipping required). So why exactly is this not with the police or an official investigative body like the FBI Cyber division?

Following this we get the real beef with “concluded with “medium to high confidence” that it had been compromised because of actions attributable to a WhatsApp account used by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman“, first of all, if I want to investigate the corruption at an army base, I will not go in as the lawlordtobe, I would enter the situation as some poor schmuck who is from the city of Noonecares. It is almost like an assasination and the official in question uses his own service revolver instead of someone else’s. And what goes with ‘medium to high confidence‘, what evidence was uncovered? Then we get the part where is all falls to shambles. With “The UN was careful not to be definitive. Instead of pointing the finger, its statement said the apparent hack had been achieved using software “such as NSO Group’s Pegasus or, less likely, Hacking Team’s Galileo, that can hook into legitimate applications to bypass detection and obfuscate activity”“, just like the Khashoggi essay fiasco, the UN is all about being not definitive, as such we want to know how accusations can be made when you are not definitive. As such I would like to point the UN troll to a kids game called Clue, there in that games (for ages 8+) we are introduced to the concept of evidence, where you need to collect facts and state “I am accusing Colonel Mustard who killed Dr. Black (aka Mr. Boddy) in the Kitchen using the lead pipe” and then we look at the evidence and see if the claimant had his or her facts straight. None of that CIA BS where we see ‘medium to high confidence‘, I would offer that if the confidence is already medium, what was not looked at and what was discarded. The statement comes directly before “The NSO Group, an Israeli cyber-surveillance firm, strongly denied that its surveillance tools were responsible“, as such we are left with ‘less likely, Hacking Team’s Galileo‘. so there is a mountain of doubt on an article that throws the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in a bad light and there is seemingly an increasing lack of evidence. As we go on, we see the NSO giving the statement that offers direct opposition to some firm called FTI with “These types of abuses of surveillance systems blacken the eye of the cyber-intelligence community and put a strain on the ability to use legitimate tools to fight serious crime and terror. We expect that all actors in this arena put in place stringent procedures and technological controls, such as those that we have put in place, to assure that their systems are not used in an abusive manner“, as such there are larger questions not merely on the UN for setting the stage of something that is not on their plate, they apparently went to another small operation (who knows) and let them set up the stage of doubtful and debatable documentation, doubtful as we get one of the implied companies go directly into denial and setting a document based on evidence that is regarded as ‘medium to high confidence‘.

And then something beautiful happens. We see “The FTI report cited by the UN special rapporteurs, Agnes Callamard and David Kaye, noted that both NSO and Hacking Team, an Italian company, offered tools that could theoretically have performed the attack” where we are (again) introduced to that UN essay writer, the one that had given us the joke called some Khashoggi report (Agnes Callamard), as well hiding behind ‘tools that could theoretically have performed the attack‘, the idea that this joke from a building based at 760 United Nations Plaza, Manhattan, New York City, New York 10017 and hide behind the word ‘theoretically‘, as such pardon my French (oh, that was funny!) but how the fuck does she still have a job?

For several reasons I will not use the Economist (as I am not a subscriber), but the quotes in their magazine “which was soon used to steal large amounts of data—though the un did not say exactly what, or how it was used” as well as “It called for an “immediate investigation”. The Saudi embassy in Washington, dc, said the accusations were “absurd”.“

As I see it, the UN is nothing more than an advertising paper tiger, adhering to the commands of some stakeholder (identity unknown), if this was a direct action by the UN, those people need to be investigated immediately, I feel decently certain I will get both China and Russia to sign off on this, as this has the distinct smell that comes from neither region, so they would score a win, in addition to that, the UN would have to submit data as to what exactly was taken and how it could be identified, which is also an issue that is unclear and optionally unclear to the UN people involved.

The Verge had a lot more, they had (at https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078828/report-saudi-arabia-hack-jeff-bezos-phone-fti-consulting) the actual report, and there we see on page one we see the person we need to hackle for information, it is Anthony J. Ferrante who needs to give us the names of who this so called ‘Confidential Report’ was given to, because it seems that it was leaked. And there we see the originator (vice.com) giving us “The report, obtained by Motherboard, indicates that investigators set up a secure lab to examine the phone and its artifacts and spent two days poring over the device but were unable to find any malware on it. Instead, they only found a suspicious video file sent to Bezos on May 1, 2018 that “appears to be an Arabic language promotional film about telecommunications.”“, however, this is not the end. They also give us “Investigators determined the video or downloader were suspicious only because Bezos’ phone subsequently began transmitting large amounts of data. “[W]ithin hours of the encrypted downloader being received, a massive and unauthorized exfiltration of data from Bezos’ phone began, continuing and escalating for months thereafter,” the report states“. In this I state OK, let’s take an actual look.

And they do give us more, quotes like “The digital forensic results, combined with a larger investigation, interviews, research, and expert intelligence information, led the investigators “to assess Bezos’ phone was compromised via tools procured by Saud al Qahtani,” the report states“, as well as “A mobile forensic expert told Motherboard that the investigation as depicted in the report is significantly incomplete and would only have provided the investigators with about 50 percent of what they needed, especially if this is a nation-state attack“, ““They would need to use a tool like Graykey or Cellebrite Premium or do a jailbreak to get a look at the full file system. That’s where that state-sponsored malware is going to be found. Good state-sponsored malware should never show up in a backup,” said Sarah Edwards, an author and teacher of mobile forensics for the SANS Institute“, and “The investigators do note on the last page of their report that they need to jailbreak Bezos’s phone to examine the root file system. Edwards said this would indeed get them everything they would need to search for persistent spyware like the kind created and sold by the NSO Group. But the report doesn’t indicate if that did get done.“, which is as I personally see it the shallow political BS that some people go for. As such we see in the report “The following investigative steps are currently pending“, and more profound, on page 4 we see: “On May 1st, 2018, Bezos received a text from the WhatsApp account used by MBS“, my issue here is that this might have been the infected one, yet if I did that, I would use an originator that was real. And there we have it, the Dailymail gave us ‘New bug allows hackers to send fake messages pretending to be you – and there’s nothing you can do to stop them‘ (at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6039533/WhatsApp-users-beware-Hackers-send-fake-messages-pretending-you.html) with the additional text: “First discovered by Israeli cybersecurity group CheckPoint Research, the flaw is incredibly complex and involves a gap within the app’s encryption algorithms. Writing on their website, the team said the vulnerability could make it possible for a hacker ‘to intercept and manipulate messages sent by those in a group or private conversation’ as well as ‘create and spread misinformation’. Hackers could use the bug to alter the text sent in someone else’s reply to a group chat, essentially ‘putting words in their mouth’, the group said.“

It took me 5 minutes and Google search to find this. I am not stating that this is true and that the Daily Mail is the source to use (they often are not), yet this is a larger failing, I expected this from the very beginning, the origins of the setting was not properly investigated. Then Vice.com gave us “the report is significantly incomplete and would only have provided the investigators with about 50 percent of what they needed“, which is what I expected before I read one word of the accusation, and with US Essay writer Callamard involved (yes again it is her) we see what this is, another mindless attack on a nation and one person. They did not even bother getting him properly smeared, and no one is asking questions, I reckon that the involved stakeholders are likely to go for the, if we create enough barbeques, someone will shout fire: ‘I ran’ for office! Anyone?

what is the most irritating part is that the UN is again used as the cheap tool that they are. In this there is also the involvement of the FTI and more interesting that a Cyber Security firm did not look past the simplest trappings, as as we consider the optional involvement of Anthony J. Ferrante we need to consider sending quota to all 49 of the Global 100 companies that are FTI clients. Even if it was merely to make a few people sweat. When a non Cyber adapt like me can see through this part they have a clear problem and whether Anony Mouse Bezos was part of this or not will not matter. There is one other part in the report that should be considered. On page 2 we see “More significantly. al Qahtani is known to have played a key and senior role in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.” In the first, he was acquitted (in a Saudi trial) and there has been no other trials, as such the statement should be read as false, no clear evidence was ever presented. In the second, as this is part of the executive summary, it seems that this was a way to blatantly strike out against one individual and the evidence is not corroborating any of this, too many questions are left unanswered and the media is not asking them either, as such I wonder what is to be believed, especially in light of the Daily Mail ‘revelation’ last August, which implies long in advance of this report. The fact that this (optional) fact is ignored gives out a much larger issue, the work in incomplete, debatable and political, not factual, as such sending serious cyber letters to the 49 of the Global 100 companies that are FTI clients, as I personally see it, these players are all about facts and when their provider and be painted as open for considerations, we should entertain all kinds of questions.

I would also look at the footnotes and take a larger look at that descriptive part, I wonder what is left once I have had the chance to take a red pencil through this report. Now, I am not stating that Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud is innocent, I am merely considering that his evidence is so shallow, that I would never accuse him of anything, not before a lot more work was done (and a lot more footnotes were properly weighed), in this consider on page 3 footnote 8. When we go there, we see that the article is Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai a member of Motherboard (so why is there no Motherboard article that is the source), we see “An investor from Saudi Arabia is apparently behind a company that bought a stake in the controversial spyware vendor” where ‘apparently‘ is the operative word. It is also where we see: “Hacking Team was thoroughly owned, with its once-secret list of customers, internal emails, and spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see“, were all these customers on a secret list investigated? There is also ‘spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see‘, a small fact that is apparently not investigated, additional players all optionally ready to give someone called Bezos the time of his on-line life. Then we get “this apparent recovery is in part thanks to the new investor, who appears to be from Saudi Arabia“, a line ruled by, you guessed it ‘apparent‘ and ‘who appears‘, so much filtering and doubt, and in this FTI used that as a footnote source? A program co-owned for 80% by none other then David Vincenzetti. That does NOT make HIM a guilty party and neither is there any convincing evidence of any kind towards the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud.

When I see all this I wonder if the UN (or FTI) has any clue how much we should regard them as tools. I cannot tell at present what kind of tools they are, but my personal view is that if this is the debatable level of evidence that some employ, we all are in so much more trouble then we ever thought.

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Tagged as Agnes Callamard, Anthony J. Ferrante, Clue, Cluedo, Cyber, Ferrante, FTI, FTI Consulting, Jeff Bezos, MBS, Mohammad bin Salman, Motherboard, Phone Hacking, Saudi Arabia, the economist, the Guardian, the Verge, UN, US, Vice.com, WhatsApp

January 22, 2020 · 11:46

What we do not get to read

Yes, we have all seen it, the bias in the media, the stage of reporting and more important not reporting, yet in all stages there was always the BBC. Now, for the most I am all about the BBC, I love that channel, whether it is one, two or BBC24, there is a place for all of them and as a conservative it is hard to judge as I went to the small island of Australia (extremely SSE of the UK) and there we do not have the BBC (weird, I know). Yet they are also online and I do see the BBC there regularly (mostly the news), so when the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/21/dominic-cummings-thinktank-called-for-end-of-bbc-in-current-form), where the Dominic Cummings thinktank announced that it was time that the UK ‘called for ‘end of BBC in current form’‘, and I got all huffy and puffy on that notice. When we look at some of this we see:

the undermining of the BBC’s credibility;
the creation of a Fox News equivalent / talk radio shows / bloggers etc to shift the centre of gravity;
the end of the ban on TV political advertising.”

Well let’s start with item one, anyone who is out there giving us that someone needs to be undermined has ulterior motives, I have never known that undermining is an acceptable fair strategy, more importantly, anyone making any claims towards undermining or optional smear campaigns need to become weary of the bringer of that message.

The second part is even more hilarious, there is a Fox News equivalent, it is called Fox News, I reckon that the UK has plenty of issues, a lot of them in the direction of discrimination and adding to that with a flair of news worthiness is not the way to go, in light of the morning shows, there is a decent representation. As such, Fox would have a hard time getting a share, let alone someone who treats the news as something on the go, a voice to stage biased views is not the one to go with, especially when you require credibility.

The third is everyone’s favourite thing to oppose, we are all stoned to death with political pushes from nearly EVERY station on the planet, the articles are often politically laced and less political BS is very much appreciated by most people

As politically I see it, there is a larger issue and as I see it this is about something else, even as we are told that it is about one thing, it is not. People like Dominic Cummings are about large corporations, this is as I see it a first stab at the monarchy, they will not claim it, the more likely they will massively deny it. You see, they are about the message, yet what that message is, is not debated, even as they hide behind “the “mortal enemy” of the Conservative party“, it is not what they are, as a conservative I never had issues with the BBC, if MP’s are not prepared that is THEIR mistake, when they are caught with their pants down THEY are at fault and both sides know that.

The issue is that people need to be under an advertisement blanket 24:7 to become effective, that is the American way and what is the actual danger is that the Monarchy is a blight to large American corporations. Even as Brexit went wrong, the yanks think that blanket advertisement could have prevented this. There is a truth, it might have been, but at that point the people would have unknowingly taken the path of the wealthy industrialists, and glossy newspapers and some newspapers are all about that, are they not?

When we see “allow politicians to speak directly to the public in ad breaks during Coronation Street” we see the docile approach and when we are told “government ministers should avoid appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme” we see a different level of subterfuge, lets face it, people can ALWAY decide not to appear anywhere, yet at times that leaves a larger question mark and in this it is not the BBC where that question mark is. If a politician is not prepared to answer hard questions, we need to see why not and it seems that BBC 4 Today asks the right questions, or so it seems.

And as we see: “The suggestions were made in a series of long blogposts in 2004 and 2005 by the New Frontiers Foundation, which was a short-lived free market thinktank that aimed to emulate rightwing US organisations such as the Heritage Foundation” we see a larger truth, this is about stating the right wing agenda, not the conservative agenda and you better believe that there is a difference. As such we see the steps of change, and you better believe that “decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee as a first step” is not a first step, it is an advanced step into the undermining of the BBC, I get it, most people do not want to pay it because there is a budget issue, we all see it and we all face it, yet there is a truth behind the existence of the BBC too, it is not shading or colouring, but the option to give a direct view of what is. So when we see “The prime minister first called the licence fee into question during the election campaign and Nicky Morgan, the culture secretary, has suggested a move to a Netflix-style subscription system could be considered for the BBC” you better believe that it is a direct assault on public broadcasting and its disappearance will have far reaching consequences.

It is enahnced by Ben Bradshaw, a labour MP who gives us “they would like nothing more than to replace the BBC with a rightwing propaganda channel like Fox“, it is the stage for replacing information for advertisement and it would not change immediate, it would be a gradual chance and it can be that way because those who want propaganda have money, they have serious money and partially becasue both sids of the ile were cowards in the past. They refused to properly tax corporations who like the idea of £30 million, instead of the accounted part of £4,600,000,000 which ends up being a lot more than £30 million and there are 5 players already on that line, and more will want that situation but that is not possible in a monarchy and there is every chance, especially after the media debacle of HRH Prince Harry and his wife Meghan that too many people have had enough of that and as such these parties require a propaganda channel sooner rather than later, the BBC is too dangerous for them, as such they need that credibility gone.

The second truth, the obvious one is also give to us by Ben Bradshaw “The BBC belongs to the British public, not the government, and the public value the public service ethos of the BBC, objective and accurate information and news and the broad range of much-loved radio and TV programmes and would not take kindly to them being sacrificed to Rupert Murdoch“, the immediate issues here are ‘the British public‘, the BBC to a larger degree works for them and as such political players cannot use that channel for ‘their’ message, the get asked serious questions and if they cannot answer, they are smeared with custard (pie in the face routine). In addition, any thinktank that is setting the stage where the people are sacrificed to Rupert Murdoch, or Roger Ailes. Now, they are both good at what they are involved in, yet the news is a larger stage. Even as we need to credit Ailes for a lot, his stage was set to “If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, “I have a solution to the Middle East problem,” and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?“, it is a fair assessment of our own needs, but at times we do not need a pretty picture, we need to get a real setting of where we are. And even if we do not like it, when it personally hits us we wanted and needed to know what was real and to a larger extent the solution that Cummings is attacking is a really bad thing. There is some level of acceptance as the US is a large place and WE do not watch the local news, but there tends to be local news, in the UK it is a much larger setting where that impact will hurt all the people in the UK.

Now, I made an accusation earlier on and it is time to set the right frame there. When we consider the ludicrous attacks on the royal family, like the ones on HRH Prince Harry and is wife, most get a little angry, yet the larger population who was tainted by glossy news was not and that is the setting the UK is going to, as the real news is more and more presented in a breakfast and glossy way, we get mixed and opinionated news and it is not the same as actual (read: factual) news, but it is the first step in diminishing the monarchy. We seem to ignore (some successfully) on the news out there, when we look at late last year we see headlines like ‘Meghan Markle In New Documentary Said She Was Warned UK Tabloid Press Would “Destroy” Her Life But Was Unprepared For How Bad It Would Be‘, or perhaps even better Newsweek with ‘FOX NEWS HOST SAYS HE’S ‘SICK’ OF PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE: ‘BRITAIN SHOULD…BECOME A REAL REPUBLIC’‘ and there we see another example of what America needs, it does not need a monarchy where we look out for the wellbeing of EVERY citizen, it is about a republic where big business rules and the media (as I personally see it) as a well paid prostitute only adheres to their needs

their shareholders
their stakeholders
their advertisers
their circulation

In this the British royal family does not add to the circulation and is an opponent to the first three who wants that juicy collection of consumers that add up to 55 million, they will not care about the well being of the 13 million they end up casually ignoring, and destroying what little degree of freedom they have in their life, they want a population with 100% enablers. That is the danger and it is time for the people in the UK to wake up to that danger, because the 55,000,000 will not care initially, but as they move from being a consumer/enabler, they will care a great deal as they become the target, and that will happen.

This is why I see the message from people like Dominic Cummings as a very dangerous one, and I feel it is important to speak out against such dangers. Yes, we all see the BBC, a lot of us see and hear the boring (and a real classic) music by Eric Spear of Coronation Street, and the Manchester setting, but the larger truth is that the people in the UK own the BBC, not the politicians. If there is one truth then it is the one where we need to remain aware that what is not owned by politicians could end up giving us the actual facts, not the ones that will make money for the rich industrialists, they have plenty of options, they merely want zero opposition so that they can wield us more comfortably.

As I see it, they need it all done, because too many people are shouting about tax changes, tax changes that properly tax large corporations to a fair degree. I have no problems with corporations having a profit, yet the stage where there is a tax bill of £30 million against £4,600,000,000 which leaves them with an optional 99.992% of their profits, it does not add up and that should not ever be allowed, more important, when that Cummings foundation gets their way, you will not even be informed on those events, unless the evidence gets spread to a much larger degree in a much wider setting, when that is no longer possible, we will be told and most will accept whatever the industrial driven media gives us and you better believe that this is not a good idea.

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Tagged as BBC, Ben Bradshaw, Conservatives, Dominic Cummings, Fox News, Monarchy, Nicky Morgan, Prince Harry, Rupert Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, the Guardian, Thinktank, UK

January 21, 2020 · 11:28

The second lap

We always seem to have a problem with the second lap, the first lap is OK, it is new, we just started, it is the second lap that is the problem, it is that stage where you are tired from the previous lap and the second wind has not started, mainly because the second lap is not the moment where the body adjusts for prolonged exercise.

That is how some see the EU at present (mainly the Observer). The setting of ‘the EU’s weakness on the world stage‘ is however no laughing matter. As we are introduced to “Ursula von der Leyen believes Europe should take a leading “geopolitical” role in international affairs, reflecting the EU’s status as the world’s largest trade bloc. But turning words into deeds is proving problematic“, and it is “We must use our diplomatic and economic strength to support global stability and prosperity… and be better able to export our values and standards” that is part of the problem, in the first, the EU is su up to the gills in debt through the idiotic scheme by Mario draghi that the EU has no economic strength. The IMF gives the EU in GDP growth 2.8% (2017), 2.2% (2018), 1.5% (2019), and 1.6% (2020). This seems like an improvement, yet 0.1% increase is not really an increase and when we consider that the devaluation of the currency gives the EU debt that is currently around € 10,593,000,000,000 a much larger issue to battle, at present only the German debt is decreasing slowly, but the debt in Spain, Italy, and France (all in the trillions) is still increasing, so where does the EU think it has economic strength? And all this whilst the Financial Times informed us yesterday on ‘Europe braces for new fiscal battles‘, here we see Paolo Gentiloni trying to shake things up (no idea why he was referring to shaking up). The issue is larger than anyone can see, because the stage of “widely disliked given their impenetrable and convoluted nature“, the game where you adjust the rules in the middle of the game with 27 players, the entire stage goes awry in this game where the option of “On the Italian social democrat’s reform wish list will be changes making the rules more symmetrical — allowing for countries to be pushed to boost their economies via fiscal policy in downturns, rather than just reining in deficits and debt” (at https://www.ft.com/content/a062fb2e-3b24-11ea-a01a-bae547046735), and it is the debt these never elected officials are trying to be in deny with. Yet there is also an upside in this (as I see it) if this play goes on, the German population will not tolerate the EU to continue. None will address their debt and Germany (as one of the big four) is the only one who got the debt below 72% of GDP, the rest is in a bismal state and whilst we get that the Italians (French and Spain also) are all about ‘new investments’ they are doing it on a maxed out credit card. And whilst we all see this, we also see “One idea is to give countries extra scope to borrow to fund green investment“, yet the basic issue is that this is yet another idea to IGNORE outstanding debts and the people will have to pay for that. So as we see “has already run up against opposition from conservative northern European states“, we see that the Italian factor (Genitoli) is hiding behind “the urgency of the green agenda could improve its chances“. So whilst we now see “Some will want to use any reform opportunity to loosen the regime. Others will wish to use the greater clarity to make the deficit rules even tighter“, we see a basic fight between the spenders and the none spenders and the non spenders have had enough of it all, it founded the Brexit and there are others who do not want to be caught with the consequences of another nation in a stage with their pants down, as such all the other players will have to grab their ankles (you get the idea).

So while we go back to the Observer view (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/19/the-observer-view-on-the-eus-weakness-on-world-stage ) we might see “Trump’s illegal, and unilateral, action effectively blew up the most prized achievement of Borrell’s predecessors, Federica Mogherini and Cathy Ashton – the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which was already on life-support because of US sanctions“, it seems that the EU is in some kind of a delusional stage where they take the filtered media view on Iran. Iran had been in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia, it has repeatedly threatened the state of Israel and whilst we are given “the US then insisted that the EU3 (Britain, France and Germany) trigger the deal’s dispute mechanism“, whilst the violations by Iran on the Nuclear pact are completely ignored. All in a stage where the delusional parties are setting the stage where Joseph Borell is in a stage to ‘talk’ with IOran whilst Iran has been refusing to do so and littered transgression upon transgression and the EU remains in denial and seemingly gives the EU press the stage that they are not to report on it for all kinds of unknown reasons. And when we look at the media, they are all so against war that it scares them (which it does), I merely wonder if the US and the UK press would have written ‘The Wrong Track for Confronting Germany‘ in 1943, as we see the New York Times write up the Iranian stage 12 hours ago. In addition, Al Jazeera reported 5 hours ago ‘Iran’s new Quds leader vows ‘manly’ revenge for Soleimani killing‘, which is fine, but this escapes the entire stage as they already had their missile go, yet their ego is not satisfied, so as we are treated to ‘Iran warns of ‘repercussions’ for IAEA after European moves over nuclear deal‘, as well as ‘Iran says it still respects 2015 nuclear deal, rejects ‘unfounded’ EU claims‘ (yesterday, source: CNA), all whilst there are dozens of reports as well as public statements that Iran had transgressed on set limits, so exactly HOW they are ‘respecting’ the Nuclear deal?

In all this the lack of strength in response from the EU has been frightening. And in regards to the responses, we see on the 20th of January “Mr Mousavi said: “Tehran still remains in the deal. The European powers’ claims about Iran violating the deal are unfounded“, all whilst the news on January 5th was ‘Iran will no longer abide by uranium enrichment limits under 2015 nuclear deal‘, as well as the fact that Iran on state television, on January 5th responded that they pulled out of the Nuclear deal agreement (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsQ-NBaOUMw), as such we can all speculate on what Mr Mousavi is smoking, but more importantly, in light of all this, the utter lack of diplomatic power by the EU, as such the EU statement “We must use our diplomatic and economic strength to support global stability and prosperity“, Ursula von der Leyen sounds nice, but she cannot deliver on any of that. The EU is in the second lap, out of energy from the first lap and their second wind is nowhere near kicking in. Iran might be the strongest example, but it is not the only one, the lack of action in Syria, the lack of action in Yemen and the opposing support against Saudi Arabia, whilst ignoring the actions of Iran in a proxy war, in a speculated stage of a nuclear pact that was not sustainable in any degree and several parties are in denial of all this whilst there is enough optional evidence that the creation of the amounts of enriched Uranium that is now at the core of it all could not be produced by the amount of centrifuges allowed, there are more factors to consider, yet the supporting evidence is at present too thin (a lack of exact numbers is in play too).

In the end, the EU is an organisation that is on its final steps of becoming irrelevant, the debt made them so and these so called elected officials never stepped in when they were supposed to step in as debt levels were pushed to excessive levels as even now, people like Paolo Gentiloni (not just him mind you) are trying to find ways of getting around the debt for spending purposes.

And the matter will get worse soon enough, as the EU nations are in shambles on the EU budget, especially as Brexit is nearing completion, the members are all in a desperate setting of non-union, as we see news like “a French minister has warned nations they will have to pay more“, which is slightly weird as this was always going to be the setting, I warned of that almost 3 years ago. The stage at present is that Germany (at present) pays 20.78% of that budget and France is up for 15.58%, those are the big two and they are looking at an additional 3%-4% after brexit, which now implies that the long term budget up to 2027 will get a massive slam into a wall, it is in that setting, where nations are now feeling the pinch are confronted with a Paolo Gentiloni who wants to spend more and as such all nations have to pay more. Even as the big three are confronted with the impact on their loans from that change, the smaller nations are still in shambles as they were eager to overspend in their first option and they too will have to pay more, so now we optionally get to see an EU gravy train where none of the members agree on anything, as such that expensive train will keep costs high and not produce results, merley delays.

So when we look at the stage of the EU and the setting of Ursula von der leyen with her “We must use our diplomatic and economic strength to support global stability and prosperity“, all whilst there is no economic power left in the EU and its diplomatic strength (which is linked to their economic power) dwindles basically as fast as their economy does, I wonder what Ursula von der Leyen is looking at, because the outlook from this side is really grim for the EU.

The second lap is the killer for a runner, as the runner gets better he can run longer, yet the reality of crossing that startline the first time and realising that you have less energy whilst you are at the beginning is the realising factor, yet there is a difference, a runner tends to be realistic about where he is and where he is going, as I personally see it, the EU is seemingly a lot less focussed on the reality of the matter as I personally see it. You merely have to read enough media and focus on the quotes to see that part of the equation.

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Tagged as Al Jazeera, Ashton, Borrell, CNA, Eu, Financial Times, France, Guardian, IAEA, Iran, Italy, Mogherini, Mousavi, Observer, Paolo Gentiloni, Saudi Arabia, Spain, UK, Uranium, Ursula von der Leyen, Yemen

January 17, 2020 · 12:04

As the house comes down

There are two articles in the Guardian, both are mere hours old and it shows the impact that bully tactics have. In the first it is the EU who starts with ‘EU trade commissioner ‘will call Trump’s bluff’ over Huawei security‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/16/eu-trade-commissioner-will-call-trumps-bluff-over-huawei-security), where we also see ‘Phil Hogan convinced US president will not withdraw intelligence cooperation with UK and EU‘, it appears that Mr. Andrew Parker was right as I expected him to be. The text “The EU trade commissioner has said he will call Donald Trump’s “bluff” on threats to withdraw the US’s cooperation with the UK and the rest of the bloc on intelligence and security over Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant” and it is important to note that the US has still not shown one lick of evidence that Huawei is under the intrusion thumb of the Chinese government. It was an odd situation, do you think that the Chinese government would interfere with such a large setting of income, whilst the data will be coming to them already through the direct means of applied usage of social media? However, we need to recognise that the US is n a worse state now, even as direct numbers are not given, the political hounding of Facebook and Google, could see a much larger jump of people to Harmony OS and as such these companies could lose a large stage of data coming their way. I personally believe that this is the direct impact of electing into the oval office a man who is known for the one-liner ‘You’re Fired!‘, but that is just me.

There is also the given part of “Phil Hogan has also risked the wrath of the US president by declaring that the EU is not, in principle, opposed to giving the Chinese tech group access to 5G plans. At a press conference in London he said the US did not have exclusivity on safety and security of its citizens, and predicted Trump would come round to the EU view that they had shared interests in that regard“, I believe that Phil Hogan is right, the foundations of the threats were not based on evidence (as I see it), in addition as the US is losing more and more ground in intel gathering in the Middle East, they will become more and more dependant on the EU and UK sources out there and not sharing is really disadvantageous for the US, it will take well over a decade to regrow the size and quality of sources they had.

The second issue is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/16/iran-says-it-is-enriching-more-uranium-than-before-nuclear-deal) in the article ‘Germany confirms Trump made trade threat to Europe over Iran policy‘, as we are introduced to ‘Defence minister says Trump threatened to impose 25% tariff on European cars‘, here the stage is different, it is not Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, it is the larger EU political community that is the danger. Iran is a clear and present danger, it was so before America offed Qassam Soleimani and Iran will remain a threat after. The media on a global scale has been all about minimising the impact on Iran, even as there was no way that some nuclear deal would ever make it, but the political hacks in the EU had the arrogance to think that they could (a valid option), yet even now, well over a year later, there is still nothing there. Even now as we get from various sources in the media that Iran is presently enriching more Uranium than ever before, we are given the raw dangers. Even as the EU members are in denial through “In invoking the dispute mechanism for the Iran nuclear agreement or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in other words, in deciding to hold Tehran to account for its breaches of the deal – the UK, France and Germany insist that they are still firmly behind the deal” we see a dangerous escalation delusion from the EU side. the problem is that if Iran makes a false move on willing to talk, we get the same situation that America faced when Japan stated that they were willing to talk in the months before Pearl Harbour, the problem now is that the target is Israel and optionally a scare tactic towards Saudi Arabia and for some reason people are oblivious to the fact that if the ground of one nation is radioactive, that dust is likely to spread to neighbouring nations. As I see it, Iran will not care about what happens to Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, optionally it will cross the mediteranian and impacts Italy, Spain, Turkey and Greece for generations. If the radioactive matter hits the sea that will happen for certain. Yet the arrogance of the EU politicians that a place like Iran will talk whilst their Uranium enrichment is running at full force is a dangerous precedence. I do believe that America is doing the wrong thing for the right reason and when (not if) that first missile mysteriously makes it into Hezbollah hands, the denials from Iran will be as loud as possible as it will ‘hide’ behind the military power of Russia, I am just not certain if Russia will be willing to be part of that mess.

So even as we see: “Iran initially denied responsibility for the crash, but three days later admitted that it had downed the plane believing it was an incoming US missile. An Iranian national security commission is investigating the episode“, it does not mention that the person releasing the video is now arrested for matters of Iranian national security. Still the EU politicians think that they can weave some kind of deal and the months of delay is working into the Iranian hands as well and those politicians need to be woken up as soon as possible, because once it is too late, the costs will be beyond comprehension and at that point the EU politician will hide behind ‘fair play’ and ‘unforeseen complications’ all whilst history has seen these issues all before. And in all this, the one part that matters is not addressed. Even as we see and are told that Uranium enrichment is at an all time high, the method of how they are doing it is ignored. Thousands of centrifuges were under critical eyes disposed of, so how were they replaced so easily? With the response as to the killing of January 3rd, we now see that there are Iranian claims that enrichment is back, yet how was this done in under two weeks? It could only have been done if the hardware was already there and if enrichment was the main agenda point from before July 2019, and that means that Iran intended to break the Nuclear accords long before they lost one general, is no one seeing that part?

The media is certainly not making any mention in that direction. The fact that one part of the deal was the reduction of centrifuges from 19,000 to 6,104 (at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/16/middleeast/rouhani-iran-uranium-enrichment-intl/index.html). So how can they be back to enriching so quickly? The second part is that enrichment would stop at 3.67%, there is no clear word on how rich their uranium is (at present), but there is also the locations, only Natanz was supposed to be active, but the implied amount stated gives rise to the importance of the fact that there is no way that Natanz can produce that much, implying that Arak, Ishafan, or Bushehr is either back online, or that the EU missed a few places (not entirely improbable).

The second part is that the only registered mine is Bandar Abbas, to continue on the track they are now, the traffic there would have increased massively and no one noticed? An optional issue is that there is MORE than one Uranium mine in Iran, this has two distinct issues. In the first it would mean that Iran has a much larger Uranium consideration, the second is that another mine has been largely unnoticed. It all adds up that in the first the EU dropped the ball to a much larger extent, in the second that the EU was unaware and therefor unable and unwilling to be a true investigator. Now we see the bully threat that America wrongfully made for the right reasons. My small speculation becomes, what is happening to the South, South West and West of Tabas (South Khorasan Province)? And in addition, why is there no open awareness in the EU in these matters?

It gets to be worse, but I will spare you that part (for now).

There is another side to all this, it is the financial side. All these actions are costing a boatload of money, money that Iran should not have and that implies that it is getting fueled to some extent from somewhere. Even as we are treated to ‘Defying U.S. sanctions, Iran boosts gas oil sales to neighbours‘ (source: Reuters), we are looking at a larger Iranian infrastructure need, and as far as I can tell, gasoil sales will not fuel that need, and even as we are given “more than 80% higher than the previous quarter and nearly four times higher than the first quarter, data from consultancy FGE showed“, the math doesn’t add up.

So either Iran had the means hidden, or there is a larger play going on. Consider that Iran had to replace well over 5,000 centrifuges to make their setting truthful, these things each costs a bundle, the mining operations needed to be ‘upgraded’ through manpower and that is another infusement of funds, last we see the missile and drone programs, it all adds up to the costs that they cannot afford, someone has handed Iran a credit card, or made funds in other ways available and I cannot see where it comes from (which makes sense as I do not walk in those lanes), yet the media is also not reporting on any of that and finding this would be a massive scoop for any paper, so why is there nothing? Is there nothing? If that is so then the nuclear threat from President Rouhani is hollow and empty, but I do not believe that to be true (personal conviction).

The main problem for all nations is that Iran has an advanced weapons program, one that does NOT include nuclear weapons, yet the technological knowhow is largely there, as we see enrichment continue, the setting for a dirty bomb is merely months away, so Iran could use a dirty bomb in 2020 if it chose so, an actual nuclear weapon is less likely, yet not impossible. The problem that a weapon like that would be developed in unknown (read: unvisited Iranian) locations and the trigger would be part of a non-nuclear bomb, even if there was nuclear fission, they need the bare minimum to test that, hence hiding a 1Kg bomb in 3 tonnes of TNT would be easily hidden.

When we go by “The total radioactivity of the fission products is extremely large at first, but it falls off at a fairly rapid rate as a result of radioactive decay. Seven hours after a nuclear explosion, residual radioactivity will have decreased to about 10 percent of its amount at 1 hour, and after another 48 hours it will have decreased to 1 percent. (The rule of thumb is that for every sevenfold increase in time after the explosion, the radiation dose rate decreases by a factor of 10.)” (source: Britannica) and a weapon with less than one Kg would be acceptable for testing, Iran has plenty of places where this would happen unobserved and within hours the larger extend would not be registered, the only path is the EMP, as long as there is no measurement around, it will go unnoticed if the bomb is small enough, so as Iran tests its nuclear detonation options, it can go a long way in staying undetected end the nuclear trigger is pretty much the same for a 400Gr and a 10KT bomb, so that is the danger and we have no idea where Iran is at at this point. Yet the latest info is still that Iran has NO nuclear weapons technology. However, if it can create the amounts of fission that Iran is claiming to be making, they might not be far off, in the most positive scenario they are at best a year away from that.

And in that environment the EU politicians rely on ego and arrogance that Iran will play ball, I might not agree with the bully tactic, but in this case the US and all others have very little to go on. My issue is that I personally believe that anyone (including Iran) is innocent until proven guilty, yet as we witness the statements by president Rouhani and the actions by Iran, can we afford to take that path? Can we actively set the stage of endangering the State of Israel (the most likely first target) to this level of danger? And when that happens, what are the levels of danger that Saudi Arabia faces? More importantly, depending of the first blast, what are the dangers of the surrounding nations of the target? Lets not forget that the Suez Canal goes straight through that area, not only destroying an economy, but endangering the economy of the entire EU.

When we are in a house as it is coming down on top of us, we need to see what our options are and that part is in no way clear, all whilst we know that running out of the house will bring new and other dangers.

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Tagged as Andrew Parker, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Arak, Bushehr, China, CNN, Enrichment, Eu, Iran, Ishafan, Israel, JCPOA, Khorasan, Middle East, Natanz, Nuclear, Phil Hogan, President Rouhani, President Trump, Qassam Soleimani, reuters, Saudi Arabia, the Guardian, UK, Uranium, US

January 16, 2020 · 10:30

The time is now

Yesterday, an article in the BBC made me aware of a few items. Now, I was aware to a larger degree of most items, yet I kept it in the second drawer of the third desk of my brain, it was something I took for accepted and then shrug it off, so what changed? Nothing actually changed, but the article seems good enough to take a few items on view.

The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51115315) gives us “Google has announced a timeline for implementing new privacy standards that will limit third-party use of a digital tool known as cookies“, now this is nothing new, it was always going to happen, yet we also see: “analysts say the move gives Google more control over the digital ad market where it is already a major player. To make advertising more personal web browsers collect small bits of information that allow them to create a profile of the users likes and online habits“, the question becomes, is that actually true? And when we see “This presents a core problem from a competition perspective. It is yet another example of Google diminishing ad rivals’ access to data for the stated purpose of protecting users’ privacy“, a quote from Dina Srinivasan, a lawyer focused on competition issues is not really that truthful, is it? Apple made a similar move in 2017 and when we go back in time, we see Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. Most will have forgotten Netscape who became defunct in 2003, and basically stopped making a blip 2 years before that. We seemingly forgot about the exploitative market that Microsoft had in those days with Internet Explorer and all the crap it added to our HTML files (as did Word when we saved as an HTML file), in those days data in files was still an issue because there was a limit to what we could safe when we were not rich. Chrome was the first to keep our files clean, or at least lacking a lot of rubbish. Netscape was however on a different route, an employee of Netscape Communications, which was developing an e-commerce application for MCI. MCI did not want its servers to have to retain partial transaction states which was a killer for storage, as such they asked the people at Netscape to find a way to store partial options and methods of transactions where it mattered the most, at the side of the buyer, Cookies provided a solution to the problem of reliably implementing a virtual shopping cart, Google found a new way of using that idea and used cookies in the far reaching solution it currently has, they innovated, others merely took on board someone else’s solution and not they are all crying foul. Perhaps when these people had taken the time to innovate, they would have the choice, and the option of two years seems decent, so when I read “advertisers had hoped to have more time before it was implemented” is as I personally see a larger BS issue on timeframes and exploitation, if advertisers are in the now, they would be all about advanced implementation, yet they like their bonus and they seemingly do not like to spend money on investments to counter the timeline (an assumption from my side).

Google’s director of Chrome engineering, Justin Schuh gives us “Users are demanding greater privacy – including transparency, choice and control over how their data is used – and it’s clear the web ecosystem needs to evolve to meet these increasing demands“, which seems slightly too political to my liking, but there we have it. Business Day gives us “But GDPR also made life harder for a cohort of second-tier adtech players trying to compete with the likes of Google and Facebook. The regulation’s provision to prevent data being shared wantonly with third parties seemed to give the tech giants an opportunity to tighten their control over user data” where we see that this was one of the foundations that led to the end of SizMek, some state that it was DSP Rocket Fuel that ended the heartbeat of SizMek, yet everyone ignores a simple truth, ‘an overcrowded ad tech market with independent vendors with an inability to face serious cost pressures to their pricing structures‘, they all arrogantly believed that THEIR solution was the real one and they all basically read cookies like the ones Google had distributed. You can all claim to have the magic potion that Asterix drinks, but when the truth comes out that he drinks Darjeeling tea from India, the playing field gets overcrowded and when the customer figures out what they get priced for the end is pretty much around the corner of the next door you face.

So as we are told “third-party ad sellers will need to go through Google to get information about internet users. But critics say that is an advantage that makes the market less fair and safe“, in my view my question becomes: ‘Which critics, names please!‘, the problem is that third party ad sellers have no rights, none at all, the rights should be with the owner of the computer, Google (Apple also) are setting (not by their own accord) that stage, Microsoft is using their Azure Cloud to counter the Cookie option on PC and Microsoft Console, but the hard sight is already there, the people who are unable, unwilling and cannot afford to set the stage still want their freebee and they are now starting to complain as they are made aware that their time has ended, even though this was the direction we saw in US politics and EU politics well over three years ago. The EU had their General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and everyone shrugged their shoulders stating that it would not happen that fast, yet that was three years ago and now the time has been set back to merely two years to go and the ad sellers are feeling the pinch of the cost they will actually face. Moreover, they are seeing the red lights of career ends. The Verge gave us “an industry that’s used to collecting and sharing data with little to no restriction, that means rewriting the rules of how ads are targeted online“, they gave us that on May 25th 2018, so 1.5 years ago, why is this now a problem? The people wanted this, ad soon it will be here, Google has not been sitting still updating their systems accordingly, and as such we see that the flaccid and non-concerned rest is now looking at a deadline a mere two years away. When we look to the larger field we see Criteo, LiveRamp, Trade Desk, Rubicon, and Telaria, all losing value as ad-tech providers, yet the opposite could also be true when they offer to the customer a value, a value where most ad-tech companies never bothered going. Yet the power of any ad-tech was never the cookie, that was for the most merely the revenue. They had 5 years to consider the power of ad-tech and they didn’t. The power of this is basically engagement. Facebook showed this year after year and now it is out on the larger field, those who engage will survive, the rest will end up on a dog eat dog football field and a few will survive but only as long as they push to the next hurdle and make it, if not they will end up on the obituary page (just like Netscape, however Netscape ended there for other reasons).

I wonder if that is why Google is so adamant about its stadia? It would get a massive tier of small time developers creating engagement content to be released on mobiles. That i me merely speculating.

Still the words of Dina Srinivasan are not entirely without merit, she gives the Facebook issue (at https://www.wsj.com/articles/yale-law-grads-hipster-antitrust-argument-against-facebook-findsmainstream-support-11575987274), and she makes a good case, yet the history of certain players need to be taken into account. Even as she was her own misgivings about the evolution of the digital advertising market, history had been clear, some of them basically did not bother, they wanted it handed to them for free and in the beginning they got away with it. And she made a point with “How could a company with Facebook Inc.’s checkered privacy record have obtained so much of its users’ personal data?“, yet equally we need to weigh this with the words of U.S. Attorney General William Barr. He gives us “he is “open to that argument” that consumer harm can exist through the use of personal data, even if a service is free. “I am inclined to think there is no free lunch. Something that is free is actually getting paid for one way or the other”“, which is what I have been saying on my blog for around 4 years, so happy to see people wake up in January 2020. So when I see “Ms. Srinivasan would prefer that Facebook be forced to change certain business practices, including how it tracks users when they are off the company’s platforms“, I wonder when they give account to the small truth that Facebook is a free service for a reason and they are no longer alone in this, you are going after the large players when they are in the largest danger by losing slices of that revenue pie to contenders elsewhere in the world (EU and China).

Whatever you want to do is fine, but realise that it will put a large group of people in the streets without a job, I am not against them losing their job, but that revenue and that data will also flow in other directions and that is the one part that all players (with political support) are trying to counter as much as possible. I wonder if they will succeed. The weird part is that if this group had been properly taxed 3 out of the 5 major issues would also fall away and in that view a workable solution could be pivoted to.

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Tagged as Apple, Azure, BBC, Buiness Day, Criteo, Digital advertisement, Dina Srinivasan, Eu, GDPR, google, Google Chrome, Google Stadia, Internet Explorer, Justin Schuh, LiveRamp, MCI, Microsoft, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Privacy, Rubicon, Safari, Telaria, the Verge, Trade Desk, US, Wall Street Journal, William Barr

January 15, 2020 · 12:08

Devil in the details

We all make mistakes at time, the issue is not that we make mistakes, the issue is on how to clear the error in question, that is always how I saw work, we (without question) try to work without error, the people that tell you that they never made a mistake are usually lying to you. Some hide it, some clean it up before it is noticed, these are merely two types, but in honesty, who would you prefer to be working for your company (or the company you work in)? So when I got wind of ‘UK concealed failure to alert EU over 75,000 criminal convictions‘, I had to take a step back, you see, this is not some failure, this is not some sall bungle, the quote we are give is “The police national computer error, revealed in the minutes of a meeting at the criminal records office, went undetected for five years, during which one in three alerts on offenders – potentially including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states” and as I see it it is not some small mistake, a stem like this does not work sometimes, it does not work or it works always. This leaves me to think that issues were filtered, optionally on purpose giving out a larger concern when we see “It’s an ongoing glitch that we need to fix. We are working towards getting that done“, I personally refuse to believe that this was a glitch, this was orchestration set to pass as a glitch, the question is why and when we see “There is still uncertainty whether historical DAFs [daily activity file], received from the Home Office, are going to be sent out to counties (sic) as there is a reputational risk to the UK.“

In this the Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott gives us “It is bad enough to have made serious errors in relation to sharing information on criminals, but it seems that there was also an attempt at a cover-up. Ministers need to come clean. When did they know about these failures, why did they not make them public, and how are they going to prevent any repetition? A full, urgent investigation is needed.” In this situations she is almost right, I believe that there was a ‘cover-up‘, I merely think it ended up on a ministers plate and that person reacted poorly to the situation. And with ‘how are they going to prevent any repetition‘ we see a much larger failing. From my point of view the system was designed or was set up to optionally hide certain elements, yet the reason behind this is unclear. For some reason I believe that at least part of the reason is ‘fear of damaging Britain’s reputation‘, yet not in the way that this is shown in the article. When you look at the statistical numbers all over the field, consider that the crime numbers were supposed to be 30% (the one in three) higher (if every conviction based on merely one crime), what then?

The Labour party would blame it all on austerity, yet the truth is (as I personally see it) much more refined. We have been in denial of what any government needs to do and we in turn do not try the criminal path, and let’s face it, we saw other news that allows to take care of the shortage of police officers.

As issues like we see with Netflix are not resolved, and as another article gives us “This research shows that Netflix is ripping off our public services by channelling profits through tax havens even though it appears to have employees, property, and a substantial customer base in the UK,” yet linked to this is “the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts will make just £30m each from the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Google and Netflix“, so basically 5 companies see the light of optional international passing their revenue, avoiding well over £1,000,000,000 in tax payments, do you not think that this would have lowered austerity (and improved police visibility)? So when we see a group of losers wrongfully blame a tennis player for the environment, what if we ask the people in the UK all to renounce their Netflix subscription? Let’s not forget we have Disney Plus now (as well as Stan and a few others), I wonder how that massive hit will go over with Netflix. After that we start taking care of Amazon, Facebook and Google, the other four will actually be much harder to deal with, but Netflix is not, there are alternatives and the people protecting Netflix (and others) better realise that we are all about redistributing that one billions and taking their £ 350,000,000 profit away from them without any hesitation.

Yet I digress, it is the crime statistics that might go out of whack, optionally impacting tourism if they had been released. Now we need to consider that not all crimes are alike, yet the article gives us: “including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states” and that statement surprised me, not because of those two, but because the number of armed robbery convictions would more than likely be much higher. We also do not know what happened to these people after their sentence, so there is the immigration and deportation part to consider as well.

Yes, the article gives a certain lack (not judging), mainly because the start gives us ‘the Guardian can reveal‘, implying that this article had a pushed deadline to be first, as such the follow up in this matter would be interesting to read, I reckon that in the near future the Guardian would have a full page (or two) on this matter. So even if we had last may “There is a nervousness from Home Office around sending the historical notifications out dating back to 2012 due to the reputational impact this could have“, I personally believe that the Office for National Statistics (GOV.UK) has a much bigger problem in their near future, when the numbers going back to 2012, the interpretation of these numbers will suddenly get a very different story to content with. You might remember the sort of researchers that make a nice story when they get statistics and top line results. Their “when we look at these numbers, we can clearly see” and likeminded responses. When the results are a part of the 30% of convictions off, ‘we can clearly see‘ becomes an entirely different matter in this situation.

It is the setting of “historical backlog of 75,000 notifications” and we see that, but not before we consider the National Crime Statistics site, which gave us a few parts we need to consider “4% decrease in police recorded homicide offences (from 728 to 701 offences)” for Homicide, “11% increase in police recorded robbery offences (to 85,736 offences)” for Robbery, and “According to the CSEW, there was no change in the proportion of adults who experienced sexual assaults in the year ending March 2019 (2.9%)” for sexual assaults which is up to March 2019. Now consider the fact that (optionally) there was no decrease in homicide, optionally a small increase, that the robbery numbers are higher than now and that sexual assaults did not stay the same, they went up. This would change the story for the Police department to some degree (not their fault) and the stage we see now that the investments required would change a whole lot because of the non registered foreigner effort. You see, I believe that the situation is less positive. I believe that “UK has failed to pass on the details of 75,000 convictions of foreign criminals to their home EU countries” has a much larger impact. In my mind there is no way that people will avoid looking at the statistics when 75,000 conviction cases are missing. I believe that there is a larger (speculated) play and it is not merely my point of view. When we look (at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/focusonpropertycrime/yearendingmarch2016), we see again and again “theft from the person offences along with cash or foreign currency and mobile phones“, when we consider ‘foreign currency‘, yet why are these merely crimes by Brits? and why is it ‘cash or foreign currency‘? I believe that there has been a trend and even as 75,000 convictions do not add up against some of the numbers, but when we see “Crimes recorded by the police show a 7% rise (539,767 offences) in criminal damage and arson offences“, we see that 75,000 convicted criminals are more likely than not to be a much larger impact on the numbers and now we see correlation and optional co-variant impacts on some of the crime, yet even as a co-variant is not always a good thing, we optionally now see a larger impact and in this instance can the government give clear answers on whether these 75,000 criminal convictions are part of these numbers? I have reason to believe (I have no evidence) that this might not be the case. It is a larger setting and I personally believe that it was not merely a play to make the foreign governments not aware, it was merely a side effect.

You see, if that was not the case, the issue of ‘foreigners and crime‘ would have had a much larger hit and a lot sooner, a total of 75,000 might force the Home office to take a different stance, one that costs money. It is my personal believe that there are elements missing. Not due to the Guardian of course, because that would take a lot longer to investigate and it is more likely that not that the Guardian and the Independent will be all over this when the impact of damage is seen to a larger degree (the size of larger remains debatable).

Consider these statements:

In contrast a much lower number of adults had been a victim of theft from the person (only 7 in 1,000 adults) or robbery (3 in 1,000 adults)
Around 3 in 50 children aged 10 to 15 had been a victim of personal theft and around 1 in 50 had been a victim of criminal damage to personal property

Now consider the (optional and speculated) impact of the statements after the 75,000 convictions are considered

In contrast a lower number of adults had been a victim of theft from the person (only 9 in 1,000 adults) or robbery (5 in 1,000 adults)
Around 4 in 50 children aged 10 to 15 had been a victim of personal theft and around 3 in 50 had been a victim of criminal damage to personal property

The shift seems small, yet still visible, the fact that the damage to children is now (mind you speculated) approaching 10% is an actual much larger setting then before, its impact would constitute the need for the government to change its position on crime and support a different stance on crime related issues from police to prison it would impact the government budget to a much larger degree. Now, we need to remember that this is speculated and the impact of data is not clear at present, yet I remain that ‘one in three alerts on offenders – potentially including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states‘ feels wrong, a system fails or works, it does not filter, this all feels like orchestration, yet the stage is not clearly set. The Daily Mail was off course a little more colourful with “More than 2,000 foreign killers, paedophiles and rapists are waved into the UK without criminal records checks as police arrest TWO every day” yet there is still no (clear) information on how the numbers impact, as I am personally not convinced that this was merely one system, as the shift in the department of corrections would unbalance the system with numbers that did not match the Home office and as such the issue would have been seen well within the 5 years it took now.

Could I be wrong?

Of course, the issue of data is largely unseen which give optional strength to my speculation, and we need to be clear, I am speculating on the matter, yet the issue is based on a larger issue, a clear IT issue, until there is a clear open presentation on WHY one in three did not make it into the register, I feel that I am correct. However, when we consider the sources that the UK has, I truly believe that this could not be contained to merely one segment, and that is my personal view on the matter. As such I believe the 75,000 will have impacted numbers all over the stage, the foreign policy part being the one that (finally) exposed it finally after 5 years.

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Tagged as Crime, CSEW, Daily Mail, Diane Abbott, Eu, GOV.UK, Home office, IT, National Crime Statistics, the Guardian, UK

January 14, 2020 · 12:27

The cornered bully

We all have these moments, when we have to speak out against dopey (the bully in the corner) but the boss we report to is a spineless sack of shit and he will not do anything, more importantly he seems to be heralding the voice of the bully like he has credibility. So there we are, the bully (America), the spineless boss (pretty much most nations in the EU and the Commonwealth) and the people ready to speak out, the IT experts who are muzzled by bosses, because they are afraid to start a fight.

That is the setting that the Guardian introduces us to with ‘Using Huawei in UK 5G networks would be ‘madness’, US says‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/using-huawei-in-uk-5g-networks-would-be-madness-us-says). We have seen it before, the US is now getting more and more afraid of the billions being missed out on and they are going full throttle with the fear mongering. Even as we see “Matt Pottinger, presented an incendiary dossier which they said featured new evidence of the security risks of relying on Huawei technology in future phone networks“, we get introduced to the Gerbil-in-the-groceries Matt Pottinger the new flagship for presenting ‘news’ just like Colin Powell with his Silver briefcase. You see, I am not afraid to face that music, neither are the hundreds of intrusion experts who have been unable to validate the wild fantasies of America, America took the VHS example and is trying to steer the ships of nations and now they are boasting an unwillingness to share intelligence. This is nice, but in the end, the Intelligence from the US is backdated and there is every chance that it is as false as any news they spread. The entire bully network comes to blows when we see “The intense and public lobbying presents an immediate headache for Boris Johnson“, I also do not disregard “having been repeatedly advised by the UK’s security establishment that any security risks can be contained“, this is equally important, because Alex Younger who is the official Big Boss at MI-6 stated that infrastructure this important should not leave British hands, this is not a case of Huawei being a danger, it is a national policy and that is fine, I would even state that this gives the UK and option to buy the Huawei technology, rip it apart, set it under a loop and optionally give BT a chance to become a contender, US firms will jump at that opportunity, to have Huawei technology without the Huawei fear. Let’s face it, Huawei offered that solution to the US last year, but there is a larger concern and for the US it is not really spying, it is the fear where data will end and there are several new players all non-American whilst the American data gatherers are tapped out (financially), so the US is bullying all others to wait hoping that Silicon Valley will come with an American solution that is actually real 5G, all whilst it is not coming and at present all those who delay are losing momentum and twice the amount of time on the 5G path, so any delay up to a year means a 2 year delay and they all know that you are either better (the US is not), you are first (the US can not) or you cheat (the only path the US has at present).

This all gives us two distinct realities, the first is that for the first time the US is not the first at the top in technology, a shock they have a hard time surpassing and they are not the only 5G company, they are really not ready for real 5G, you see in my past blogs I showed that whatever they call 5G is really not 5G, nowhere near, not at those speeds. The Guardian also gives us “Ahead of the UK decision the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, said over the weekend that he saw “no reason to think” that using Huawei technology should threaten intelligence sharing with the US“, Mr Parker is right, but mainly because the quality of US intelligence is seemingly fading, they are losing sources all over the Middle East and they have too little in the Far East, as such we lose out on a source that is mostly redundant. Mr Parker’s assertion is in opposition to “a senior US official who was part of the delegation, who said: “Congress has made it clear they will want an evaluation of our intelligence sharing.”“, two parts are shown here, the fact that the bullying continue and the fact that this ‘senior US official‘ is left nameless, just like the fact that this matter is on the desk of a deputy national security advisor. In the age where America goes to vote next year, no one wants to burn their fingers and their career on this, and when the truth comes out (and it will) their careers are gone in the international field and the national field no longer has the juicy options it once had.

When we get to “The officials, who had flown in specially from the US, would not spell out what the “relatively recent information” that they had shared with their UK counterparts was“, it is all a load of HogWash (American expression), you see, If there was any actual danger the US would spread it like a wildfire to EVERY security IT Consultant, but they did not and the news is flat on that. What we do get is ‘Facebook and Google are as much of a threat as Huawei‘ (source: Marketwatch) where we see “Facebook is already undermining the democratic process, including in the U.S. itself, where the platform has facilitated foreign interference in elections.

In addition, Facebook has fueled division and fear, and refused to remove hate speech, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic posts. The platform has been described as a “megaphone for hate” against Muslims, and it is accused of facilitating a genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar. For these reasons, the British actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen recently called Facebook “the greatest propaganda machine in history.”” This is true but it is only he side effect of the matter, the real issue is not there it is seen in “these threats already exist, because Facebook (which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp) and Google (which owns YouTube) have an astonishingly comprehensive range of data about their users — their location, contacts, messages, photos, downloads, searches, preferences, purchases, and much else” It is not the porridge, it is the spoon, the data is everything and as the data no longer merely flow to America, but it will flow to China as well (via aps and so on) in a larger growing slice it will no longer flow to the US, that is the real fear, it will impact all firms relying on data and that is the real ticket and it will have an impact sizing up to billions of dollars every year, it is a larger impact as data becomes the new currency. I will go as far as setting the stage that the IP I had designed will impact it even further for the globally based 400 million small business firms. Even as America sneers at the little guy, they are the foundation of data, not Google and not Facebook, they are merely the facilitators not the creators. That reality is now up for grabs in more than one way. If it was really all about security, the news would have picked up to a much larger degree to ‘Cisco critical bugs: Nexus data center switch software needs patching now‘ with the added text “Cisco has disclosed a dozen bugs affecting its Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) software, including three critical authentication-bypass bugs that expose enterprise customers to remote attacks” (source: ZDNet), this is not the first time, I gave more info months ago when at least one such an issue woke up and whilst all are screaming about 5G security and feigned Chinese values, they all ignore the Elephant in the room (Cisco), I do believe that it was an honest mistake, there was no ill practice at work (from the side of Cisco), but there is a larger concern and those security advisors connected to the Oval office do not seem to care (or optionally merely not comprehend), it is a larger issue that is impacting the Fortune 500, but the press is blind to it. In support there is also ‘A Cisco Router Bug Has Massive Global Implications‘ (source: Wired) with the added information “The devices play a pivotal role at institutions, in other words, including some that deal with hypersensitive information. Now, researchers are disclosing a remote attack that would potentially allow a hacker to take over any 1001-X router and compromise all the data and commands that flow through it. And it only gets worse from there“, which was given to us last May, with the almost complete rundown by researchers from the security firm Red Balloon. And the added information “Once the researchers gain root access, they can bypass the router’s most fundamental security protection. Known as the Trust Anchor, this Cisco security feature has been implemented in almost all of the company’s enterprise devices since 2013“, this is the setting, an impact that is global and the US is keeping it quiet, yet the unproven stage without any real evidence is heralded to the max, which gives the larger implication that this is about data and about the financial security of the US, and why should we pay for that? They were flaccid for years, they refused to innovate and China started to innovate, even as we see in the Guardian article that the kit from Huawei “cheaper and more advanced than rivals“, we see one part, the fact that the US has nothing to counter what Huawei offers is the larger concern (for America), they are 2-3 years behind and that implies that they have nothing to enter the field with until 2025 and become a real contender, at which point Huawei is the new standard and as such data will flow via Huawei and not via American solutions, the data loss for America will be to some degree crippling. their revenue from advertisement, their revenue from data sale and other revenues liked to that are all impacted, it could cost the US 50-150 billion in the foreseeable future and that is where the US fear kicks in, their debt is out of control and that amount would have a much larger impact on the infrastructure that can no longer be paid for, one system after another will fail, a cascade of systems all collapsing because the US has no reserves left, the EU is also out of reserves and they see the 5G part as essential to surpass American firms and most need to contend with spineless politicians and long winded ‘talks’ by the EU gravy train, the are all in it for the money and commercial EU is seeing it all come apart, they can hold on if they get the 5G edge, an option that the US dreads.

As such the cornered bully is getting more brazen, relying on past tactics that exploded in everyone’s face and they are still doing it, hoping that they can get away with it the second time around, optionally they will rely on other technologies, as long as they are not Chinese, it is not the hardware, it is the data. Ericsson gives us “5G is designed for industrial applications. This means that falling behind on 5G as a platform for innovation will jeopardize the European industrial base. With two global vendors based in Europe, the continent has the prerequisite to lead” (they merely fail to inform us (for valid reasons) that the two players are Ericsson and Nokia, but their solutions are almost two full generations behind Huawei, they would need two years to upgrade and that is what they face, they were all asleep at the wheel and now that the ferryman wants to get paid for all the time they were asleep, they are no longer willing to foot the bill, 4G is almost at a break even point and that is stopping most to go forward, even as they see that 5G is going to take over, they are all afraid that the next iteration of hardware is just beyond the horizon. And they are still setting larger foundations for themselves, because the real cash is the data, not the hardware and that is the stage where they all need to select an optional new provider, the devil you know beats the devil you know not and they want their coins.

In all this the bully in the corner is getting more and more aggravated and we see that, but they did this to themselves, when I can surpass the US in IP (something I never thought possible) that is the point you need to realise where the US failed, their IP is just not there and they have no real counters other than the Silver Briefcase scenario hoping it will buy them enough time. You see, when we accept the foundation of one quote: ‘5G Antenna Market was estimated to be US$ 9,835.0 Mn in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 34,720.1 Mn by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 15.5% over the Forecast Period Owing to the Evolution of Smart Antennas‘, we see what the US is missing out of, the antennas alone are setting the stage of 9-15 billion each year surpassing my estimation of 50 billion value by 2022, yet that is merely the antenna’s, Huawei launched their 5G routers last week and that is where the money becomes a serious setting. When we combine the stage offered “The power of the chipset enables the router to be the first to support commercial application of 4G and 5G dual-modes. It is the first to have the capacity to perform to industry benchmarks of peak 1.65Gbps@100MHz download speeds” with “LTE Advanced has been available for several years now and some carriers (notably AT&T in the US) are calling it 5Ge, or 5G Evolution, even though it is most definitely not an official 5G standard, but rather the latest iteration of 4G” (source: Forbes) you get to see how dire the US situation is for the US, they claim to be 5G and they are not, they claim that Huawei is a danger and they cannot prove that it is, the data is everything and they are at an ever growing risk to lose large chunks of it. Now that Huawei is forced towards their Harmony OS, we will see a growing non US population switching, meaning that the data is no longer going to the US in a readable format. That is the larger loss for the US and they are getting close to desperate.

In my view, that is the consideration of dumping the brains that they needed and that is the consequence of a flaccid business path, down the track it tends to cost and the US is scared of that moment, hoping to scare all others, we see that the EU is considering their options and as the US loses nation after nation we see larger stage, when the data surpasses into national hands again, they will not care about US substandard intelligence, most will have their own and a new generation of apps will be adopted by its users on a global scale.

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Tagged as 5G, Adrew Parker, Ales Younger, Boris Johnson, China, Cisco, Colin Powell, Commonwealth, Ericsson, Eu, Facebook, google, Harmony OS, Huawei, MarketWatch, Matt Pottinger, MI5, MI6, Nokia, NSA, Red Balloon, UK, US

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