Tag Archives: BBC

August 8, 2021 · 19:50

Late to the party

It happens, we all are late to a party at times, I am no exception. I was busy looking at the stupidity of law, the stupidity of plaintiffs, waiting the courts, all whilst the approach to common sense was kept at bay. As such I did not read the BBC article ‘MP Maria Miller wants AI ‘nudifying’ tool banned’ until today. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57996910) shows the stage of what is called ‘a nudifying tool’. We can argue that the tool does not exist, because AI does not exist. You see, what some call AI is nothing but deeper learning. Someone took a deeper learning approach and accepted and acknowledged the setting that ‘sex sells’ and used that to create a stage. It is a lot worse than it sounds. You see when we consider ‘Nudifier APK for Android Free Download’ and we consider the hundred of millions horny guys (of all ages) and we see a market, a market for organised crime to exploit as an injector of backdoors (no pun intended) and in this Maria Miller loses from stage one. You see the app gives us “allows you to pixelate parts of your photo so that the illusion that your body is naked is also there”, they know how it will be used, but this statement washes their hands. Nothing is ever for free and this free download comes at a price I reckon. And with “By the way, packed with decorative elements for the picture, for example, the magazine cover is also paid separately. And that’s $ 0.99, which is the same price as the app.” We see the setting where the maker is looking at the setting to become a multimillionaire by September 30th. 

So when we get to see some Getty image of a despairing woman with the text “Currently nudification tools only work for creating naked women”, we wonder what on earth is going on, even as we also get ‘one developer acknowledged was sexist’, just one? How many developers were asked? It becomes a larger stage with “similar services remain on the market, many using the DeepNude source code, which was made publicly available by the original developers.While many often produce clumsy, sometimes laughable results, the new website uses a proprietary algorithm which one analyst described as “putting it years ahead of the competition”.” Is no one standing still at the one small part ‘a proprietary algorithm’? Proprietary algorithms are never handed over, this has a larger stage coming and even as we see the actions of Maria Miller, I wonder how far it will go, the moment someone attaches the word ‘art’ whilst not taking responsibility of the images used (the user does that), where will it end? 

And I am right, the end of the article gives us “The goal is to find what kind of uses we can give to this technology within the legal and ethical [framework].” But in the meantime we will see hundreds or even thousands of senior high school girls see their images with a nudified version, all whilst the stage was known for the better part of 2 years. I reckon that within 5 years the glossy magazines will all have nudified versions of every celebrity, thats how the money flows and that is how the station will go. Is it right? Of course it is not, but the larger stage of ‘sex sells’ has been out there for decades and the law never did anything to stop it, yet some MP’s listened to silly old clerics and they merely attacked porn, now we see that the larger station is evolving and the involved parties are all wondering what to do next. And in this no one takes notice of ‘one developer acknowledged was sexist’, just the one? The UK has approximately 408.000 software development professionals. The US has almost 4 million developers. And we see that one developer who acknowledged it was sexist? I have not even included the EU and Asian developers. So in all this, I reckon we have a much larger problem, optionally the writer Jane Wakefield needs to take another look at the article. So whilst millions of 14-23 year old boys are looking to find DeepSukebe’s website, hoping to reveal a slightly more interesting view of Olivia Wilde, Laura Vandervoort, Leslie Bibb, Emma Watson, Paris Hilton and the cast of Baywatch? We need to consider  that this was always going to happen, there are shady sides to deeper learning and whilst the enterprising and greed driven people are pushing for others to take a look, so are the members of organised crime, so are the enterprising people who considered an IT solution to push millions of paparazzi’s out of work. You really thing that some glossy magazine will ignore images when the people cannot tell whether it is real or fake? Consider the image below, as the technology becomes so good that we can no longer tell the difference in a face we have seen in dozens of movies, do you think we would be able to tell whether the boobies and shrubberies we never saw were real or deepfake? And when the images achieve 2400dpi, do you think the glossy magazines  and gossip providers will ignore them when circulation and clicks grow? 

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August 4, 2021 · 02:43

The flavour of a dictionary

Let’s take a look at the stage. The Intercept (at https://theintercept.com/2021/08/01/saudi-arabia-twitter-harassment-jamal-khashoggi/) gives us “Before he was murdered by Saudi Arabia, Jamal Khashoggi faced online harassment from influencers and bots”. I have an issue with this. In the first, Jamal Khashoggi is merely missing. If someone states that it is likely that something bad and terminal happened to him I will not disagree. The problem is that there is no evidence, none at all that there is ANY evidence proving that Saudi Arabia did this. That UN essay writer gave a report that is riddles with ‘it is highly likely’, but in common law it does not hold water. In addition, the UN and the Washington Post did everything to flame as many newspapers as possible to repeat whatever they were giving. As I se it ad as the law sees it, a person is innocent until proven guilty. We can argue in equal quantities that the guilt of Saudi Arabia cannot be proven, yet in opposition, the innocence of Saudi Arabia cannot be proven either. I accept that, yes a person is innocent until proven guilty and if guilt cannot be proven then that person is innocent. I agree, and I disagree. I have been around long enough that the absence of guilt does not mean that this person is innocent. The law does that, I have a few more grey levels, so I do not. Yet I am still moved by evidence and the lack of it as well as the sources are not properly investigated, not by the United Nations, not by the Washington Post and optionally ignored by the CIA. 

The intercept also gives us “A short video clip posted to YouTube and Twitter this March characterised him as a mortal enemy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The narrator, Hussain al-Ghawi, alleged Golberg’s “entire work aims at smearing Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE” — the United Arab Emirates — “by publishing fake analytics banning patriotic accounts and foreign sympathisers.”” The article gives us the view of Geoff Goldberg, he makes note of al-Ghawi, a self-proclaimed Saudi journalist. I accept that, the YouTube video could be seen as evidence, that is after a forensic data specialist digs into this. Yet there is another side here, it is given to us by Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World. She gives us “The Biden administration should ask itself what it is going to do to protect Americans from these attacks, as long as the Saudis feel that they have this uncritical U.S. backing, they’re going to continue to believe that they have a license to attack their critics in whichever way that they like. These coordinated attacks against people they dislike that begin online have already proven that they can be deadly in the real world.” She is not wrong, yet in opposition, the issues is also, When will the media be held accountable for innuendo and vague references that have for the most no direct imprint on actual and factual reality. 

You see, that same media will not give us “In response to the coup d’état and reckless endangerment of live by citizen Donald Trump, we are now made aware that two more casualties with a deadly end were added to the list of numbers. Two more Washington, D.C., police officers died after defending the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot by Trump supporters, bringing the grim tally of such deaths to four. This is merely one of the larger numbers, numbers that are given to us with the added GOP lawmaker who downplayed the Capitol riot as ‘a normal tourist visit’ doubled-down on the remark after police testified about the violence they faced”, is it true, is it false or is it a nuance of events? It seems that the western press is all about the innuendo on outside USA events, but not on internal ones. Why is that? I am not stating that Saudi Arabia is innocent, I am not stating that Saudi Arabia is guilty, the evidence is not there either way. The fact that this happened in a country with one of the most incarcerated journalists in the world, with sources that are massively unreliable, all whilst the full tapes of events were never handed to the people who forensically established evidence on the validity of the tapes as well as the establishment of WHO was on the tapes. Sources relied on mere minutes that are debatable in a few ways, all whilst these same sources avoided mentioning Martin Bashir as the man seen to be guilty of reckless endangerment of the life of Lady Diana Spencer, optionally complicit in the manslaughter of Lady Diana Spencer. Yet they were happy to assist in mentioning of ‘faked documents’ and as they avoided the mention of ‘forged bank statements’ they optionally kept out of the reach of the Crown Prosecution Services, how good is that? But they will continue slapping others on innuendo, optionally absent of evidence.

It is the flavour of a dictionary. Don’t say he has a nightmare, mention that he is now the owner of a female night horse. The dictionary is one, the flavour is given by adding triviality to the facts, or by hiding the absence of it. It seems to me that the media is forgetting that part, which also gives us ‘Sky News Australia banned from YouTube for seven days over Covid misinformation’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/aug/01/sky-news-australia-banned-from-youtube-for-seven-days-over-covid-misinformation) and the message here is that if we can no longer tell the difference between the spreaders of fake news, misleading news and news information, how can anyone expect the media to be held higher regard than a drug pusher on a schoolyard? 

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July 24, 2021 · 07:11

The New business

The BBC informs us(via another route) that there is a new business in town, this business works on the old premise of the bully and the backstabbing method called Ransomware. Now, this method was not unknown, we have seen it before, yet the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57946117) called ‘Ransomware key to unlock customer data from REvil attack’ gives us “US IT firm Kaseya – which was the first to be targeted earlier this month – said it got the key from a “trusted third party”.” Yes, this might sound true, but I still have an issue here. And the quote “Kaseya’s decryptor key will allow customers to retrieve missing files, without paying the ransom. The company’s spokeswoman Dana Liedholm declined to answer whether Kaseya had paid for access to the key”, I get it, Kaseya accepts that there is a cost to doing business, without the key they are helpless, but in this instance they have also given voice to the new business. This is not on Kaseya, ransomware is a much larger stage and the law is not ready to deal with it. So when we get “But members of the group disappeared from the internet in the days following the incident, leaving companies with no way of retrieving the data until now”, I think that it was not merely fear. I think that they found a weakness in their armour and they needed to fix it, perhaps the FBI and NSA got too close? It is speculation, but I reckon that any hacker inviting the wrath of the NSA has something to fear, only the stupid do not fear that hunting machine. So when we get to the jewel of the article, a setting that describes a few elements by Joe Tidy (Cyber reporter), we see “Firstly, giving away the key now is far too late for most of the victims of this massive ransomware attack. Secondly, the mystery gifter was most probably linked to – or working with – the criminals directly.” I feel that he is on the right track, I get that Kaseya prefers the term ‘trusted source’, but that does not put Kaseya in the clear, moreover, as I reported the massive bungles that were made and the lack of oversight within Kaseya gives them a reason to cooperate with organised crime, but not a right, a right to do that is a form of treason towards ALL their customers and as Joe said it “giving away the key now is far too late for most of the victims of this massive ransomware attack”, if you doubt that call Coop (at +46107400000) and ask them the damage of 500 supermarkets shutting down, as well as a loss of data. And then Joe gives us the gem at the heart of this “I’m told by a hacker who claims to be a part of the inner circle that it was “a trusted partner” who gave the key away on behalf of the group’s leader, who calls himself Unknown. My contact says it’s all part of “a new beginning”.” I understand that this is hard to swallow and optionally it is a form of bragging, but I am not convinced that this is the case, as Joe gives us “it could well be the start of something else”, yes that has the ring that sounds true. It is the start of a new business venture and Kaseya is merely the pilot. In this we have two sets of minds, the first is that the shortsighted greed drive of Kaseya (as I discussed it in ‘Dream number three’, at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/06/dream-number-three/) needs to have consequences. The dominant sales types with their ‘we’ll fix it down the road’ can no longer be allowed in this industry. The second part is that we have no choice but to return to a stage of targeted killing, and I do not care whether one of the hackers is a poor little 16 year old person hiding behind  ‘minor protection laws’, they guilty they get the $0.17 solution (price of a 9 mm bullet). We have no choice, the law did nothing for too long, giving hackers pass after pass as they ‘claimed’ that it was the only way. Well, so far it did nothing for a lot of people spanning a timeline that is a little over a quarter of a century, it is like an armistice race with too many casualties and the law merely shrugging at the damage that was not theirs. With Kaseya a large corner is turned and Kaseya partially has itself to thank for that. And in all this is has become time to recognise that Kaseya is not merely a victim (no matter what Dana Liedholm tells us), it did this to themselves as the source in the other article “were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it”, as such the ‘we’ll fix it down the road’ no longer holds water, especially as we take tally of the victims that are victims because of the shortsightedness of Kaseya. And they are not alone, there is every indication that the Microsoft exchange group and Solarwinds are part of that same stack. I have personally seen how the needs of proper testing took a back seat to Marketing and the board room drive of greed in more than one instance and that too needs to be addressed, yet I feel that the media will paint over that part with articles in emotional ways, their stake holders will not allow that to be any other way, adhering to their bonus whilst relying on marketing and sales to set out a new path based on ‘we’ll fix it down the road’, should Joe Tidy be correct (and I believe he is), we will soon see a new wave of REvil attacks and the law will be on the sidelines, as will governments all pointing at one another, all whilst keeping their ‘friends’ out of the line of fire.

It is merely my look on things, and I expect to be proven correct before the end of 2021. 

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July 23, 2021 · 12:32

From horse to course

Yes, there is a horse, it is not Mr. Ed, there is no kind conversation. This one has wings, and there are a few versions, including the off-spring of Lord Poseidon. Whether we believe Hesiod or not, it does not matter. Pegasus became a part of our oldest mythological stories. Yet today, Pegasus is something else, a figment from the imaginations of the NSO group and it was made real. It has been out for some time and last week we got the media and their overemotional response that it had a connection to 50,000 people, with 0.36% of these people journalists.

So what gives?
It is important to look at a few sources. The first is the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-57922543) who gives us ‘Princess Latifa and Princess Haya numbers ‘among leaks’’, perhaps yes, perhaps no, who cares? We do get “The discovery of the princesses’ phone numbers on the list – and those of some acquaintances – has raised questions about whether they could have been the possible target of a government client of the group.” And here the questions start and the BBC is not asking them. Just like it is steering clear of alleged man-slaughterer Martin Bashir. So when we see ‘could have been the possible target of a government client of the group’ could is here the operative word. You see, no one is doubting that list, no one has given us a clear rundown of the names, a dashboard if you like, with the option to drill per nation and per class of person. This could all be a ruse of anti-Israeli groups, optionally the ruse of a competitor. And when we see “NSO has denied any wrongdoing. It says the software is intended for use against criminals and terrorists, and is made available only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies with good human rights records”, so which government leaked the list and how did THAT government leak what is implied to be a complete list? Then we get to the option that the leak came from within the NSO Group, which might be the most ludicrous thought, but I tend to look at all angles, so it is an angle that is most unlikely, but the chance is not zero. The article is all about Princess Latifa, not much about the NSO Group, it is an emotional lamentation to steer clear of massive screw ups like Jimmy Savile, Lord McAlpine, Sir Cliff Richard, and Lady Diana Spencer. As some say, the credibility of the BBC has never been lower. 

The second article is also from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57922664) less than a day ago gives us ‘Pegasus spyware seller: Blame our customers, not us, for hacking’. Here we are given “Investigations have begun as the list, of 50,000 phone numbers, contained a small number of hacked phones”, silly me for thinking that when we see ‘Investigations have begun’, we also get ‘a small number of hacked phones’, as such there is a much larger stage, and the BBC gives us “Pegasus infects iPhones and Android devices, allowing operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones and cameras”, so if there are only a small number of hacked phones, how does that part matter? And when we get “a consortium of news organisations, led by French media outlet Forbidden Stories, has published dozens of stories based around the list, including allegations French President Emmanuel Macron’s number was on it and may have been targeted.” We get the real deal, a consortium of news organisations, led by Forbidden Stories hide behind ‘allegations’ and ‘may have been targeted’. Is anyone catching on? The media want to create emotional waves, yet does not want to be held accountable for their actions. The stakeholders are key here. A ‘consortium’ implies shareholders and stakeholders. It implies also that their issue is not that the NSO Group might do something outside of governments, it might show that the media does a lot more to anger the audience it desperately needs. 

And then the media does one more jab towards a currently missing journalist no one cares about with “including those close to murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi”, this is the emotional stage handed to us. It is “67 agreed to give Forbidden Stories their phones for forensic analysis. And this research, by Amnesty International Security Labs, reportedly found evidence of potential targeting by Pegasus on 37 of those”, so out of 50,000 we see that 67 are investigated and potentially we see 37 are targets, but there is no evidence that the NSO Group did this, these 37 might have been targets of the NSA or even the DGSE. 

And at this point there is one interesting flaw. If it was me, the first think I did was set up a dashboard that allows us to see where these 50,000 names are part of, where they are and how they were hacked. They have had a week and the stretch of media that gives us emotion after emotion is a much larger stage of stakeholders that need a negative view to be pushed onto the NSO Group. I admit that my view is equally speculative, but is it a wrong view? 

Finally there is the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/22/israel-examine-spyware-export-rules-should-be-tightened-nso-group-pegasus) where we see ‘Israel to examine whether spyware export rules should be tightened’. Here we are treated to “An Israeli commission reviewing allegations that NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was misused by its customers to target journalists and human rights activists will examine whether rules on Israel’s export of cyber weapons such as Pegasus should be tightened”, I can accept that view, but that also means that governments are largely to blame for this mess, if the list is real that is. There is every chance that this was a ruse to make the NSO Group less large, less of a challenge to a competitor and this is exactly what stakeholders tend to do, and using the media as their bitch is not out of the question.

My view is reinforced by “NSO has said Macron was not a “target” of any of its customers, meaning the company denies he was selected for surveillance using its spyware, saying in multiple statements that it requires its government clients to use its powerful spying tools only for legitimate investigations into terrorism or crime”, so as Macron was never a target, the BBC articles are less than accurate and that leaves the media open to all kinds of attacks. Yes, I will admit that it is a he said she said setting (she being the media), but that also means and implies that the NSO Group is not out of the woods at present. And let’s be honest, who needs a tool like this to keep track of the Dalai Lama? The man is out there in nowhere land and when he is travelling we see 50-150 reporters surrounding him, all ways to keep track, no NSO Group required.

As we see the horse Pegasus go on a course towards the government destinations, I see less of an issue with the NSO Group and a hell of a lot more with the Stakeholders who do not have the ideas, the innovations, but they really like the money attached to it. Do you still think I am on the wrong horse track?

There is always the time will tell part, but consider that if the media has not released a dashboard of these 50,000 numbers, I believe that my case is rather clear, I would personally consider that list is nothing more than the fabrication of a stakeholder who needs the revenue that the NSO Group currently has.

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July 17, 2021 · 20:13

The choices made for us

Yes, that happens. It happens all the time. We vote and the elected people make choices for us. We support charities and that allows them to save who they think are important. These are choices that happen, to some degree with our consent. In the other hand we are confronted with choices made FOR us, without permission and without consent. And there the problem starts, we cannot make all our decisions and all our choices, in this we also set a larger stage that we can never control, and that is where the issues begin. 

In the first stage we see ‘Covid misinformation on Facebook is killing people’, the article by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57870778) gives us “The White House has been increasing pressure on social media companies to tackle disinformation”, which is nice, but utterly useless. As I see (as a Republican) that there can never be freedom of speech without accepting the accountability of what we say. To put it mildly, I wrote ‘The accountability act – 2015’ On June 4th 2012, almost 10 years ago I saw the solution that all the high and mighty lawyers are steering clear from. My thoughts never became reality, and you might wonder why not? When we see today at the BBC “Earlier on Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Facebook and other platforms were not doing enough to combat misinformation about vaccines”, I am stating that people like Jen Psaki are wording the thoughts of people who are at times too stupid for everyones good. We need to accept that solutions like Facebook are mere publishers here, the people uploading their views are to be held responsible for what they say, but politicians for well over a decade refused to do so. I get it that there should be freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but in that same setting those freedoms need to be enriched with  accountability. 

In the second stage we see ‘Under the skin of OnlyFans’, also by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57269939). There we see “Soon Tina was making $2,000 (£1,450) a month and able to rent her own flat. But in January, a hacker seized control of her account, blackmailed her for $150 and uploaded streams of IS terror videos”, as such we see “one of the million content creators on OnlyFans”, yet how much is revealed on the terrorist that resorted to blackmails. So the BBC and others are all about the OnlyFans part, but only (in passing) the BBC mentions blackmail and terrorism. So how much is there on that hacker and has that person been arrested yet? We can optionally see that Tina takes accountability for HER material, but who holds the terrorist accountable? 

Then there is level three, which comes from the Dutch NOS. There we see (at https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2389685-zo-opereert-de-digitale-maffia) ‘This is how the Digital Mafia operates’. The articles gives us “We were able to listen in on a piece of negotiation between a Dutch security company and a hacked company. The online criminals are so professional that the negotiators work in team services. They even seem to use scripts during the negotiation – as if you were calling a customer service”, they even give a video on how a ransomware kill chain is operated by seven different groups, and the US president Joe Biden is all about blaming social media, instead of hunting down these digital criminals with optional targeted kill orders. 

As I personally see it, our freedom has been given away hiding behind ‘freedom of speech’ posters, and the freedom of expression for digital criminals is to get every penny they can get. No one is held accountable for their actions. A choice made FOR us, against us and in opposition of our safety and freedoms. 

So how does that sit with you?

Yes, we might see one side of the table, all whilst the other side is covered with a table cloth. And the Dutch version matters, in this age, after criminals executed the crime journalist Peter R. De Vries the public might get angry enough to force the issue and that gives us a new stage, the dozens of criminals feeling safe in the Netherlands might suddenly lose that freedom of action because of the acts of a person allegedly acting for (or in response) Ridouan Taghi. I reckon that it will take time to ascertain one or the other, but the public does not wait, they will act in loud response and that might be just the coin toss a few people are hoping for and especially the digital crime circles dreads, they are all about white collar crimes, all whilst the response is well above their heads and others will respond in kind, even criminals will react, all to push the limelight away from them. This is the response we get to have in a world of ‘freedom of speech’ without accountability.

In a world where no one wants to pay the bill for what they caused. This might be most visible on Covid and disinformation, but soon enough the Trumpists (drummers as well) and others will see the consequence of action without accepting the liability attached to it. Even now as life in the US becomes close to unliveable, we see that politicians are allowing QAnon speakers to take the limelight. You think the age of Donald Trump is over? Think again, as long as there is a lack of accountability is continuing this wave keeps on going on. 

And the opposition? That is easy, it will not take too long, but the intelligent people could pick up their IP and take it to Canada, the UK and the EU, when that happens and the US Credit card is considered too overdrawn, the stage of life in the US will soon change and not due to a heatwave. In 2021 $15 billion in drugs patents will expire, the year after $36 billion more, and over the next 5 years the US will see well over $20 billion in technology patents expire and now consider that an estimated $25 billion in patents move somewhere else, an economy with an immediate write-off that goes optionally beyond $100 billion lost. Now consider what happens to your credibility when your collateral is diminished by 100 billion? The US might need a new song, one that is different from blaming big tech, they are keeping the US economy alive. All drenched in choices made for us, made for us all. Yet how many of them were made FOR us? And this is not merely about the US, when they go under so does Japan and soon thereafter the EU as well. Do you still think that freedom of speech is the real saviour? It is a one sided coin of a larger stage that ignores the other side of that very same coin. 

Good luck!

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July 15, 2021 · 20:31

Only death is flawless

I crossed a BBC article this morning that I had to mull over in my mind. I didn’t want to ignore it and to blatantly answer on the spot seemed wrong. The title ‘FBI failed to investigate USA Gymnastics abuser, watchdog finds’ is pretty damning to read. And it does not stop when we see “Numerous missteps and cover-ups by FBI agents allowed his abuse to continue for months after the case was first opened, the report found”. I particularly noticed “numerous missteps and cover-ups”, a setting we always face in every walk of life, but to see it in the FBI corner is a little weird. There is also “the Department of Justice Inspector General found that despite the seriousness of the allegations against Nassar, the FBI field office in Indianapolis dragged its feet in responding”. Here we see ‘dragged its feet’ and I wonder what else the 119 page report had to offer. The report gives us from the start an account from Stephen D. Penny “During the meeting, among other things, Penny described graphic information that three gymnasts (Gymnasts 1, 2, and 3), all of whom were minors at the time of the alleged sexual assaults, had provided to USA Gymnastics. Penny further informed the FBI that the three athletes were available to be interviewed”, so we have 3 accounts, from minors this was in July 2015. Then on the next page we get “The MSU Police Department Learns of Nassar’s Alleged Abuse and Executes a Search Warrant on Nassar’s Residence in September 2016”, so there is a level of inaction for 14 months. Perhaps inaction is the wrong word, the endangerment of minors was unanswered for that amount of time. We also get “FBI’s Lansing Resident Agency first learned of the Nassar allegations and opened its Nassar investigation on October 5, 2016 (neither the FBI’s Indianapolis Field Office nor the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office had previously informed the Lansing Resident Agency of the Nassar allegations)”, as we see there is now a stage of seeming inactivity for almost 15 months. There we get the larger issue “The Lansing Resident Agency ultimately discovered over 30,000 images of child pornography on the devices seized by the MSUPD during its search of Nassar’s residence”, so we get two issues, not only was there a larger stage of inactivity, the criminal in question had 15 month to do away with ‘30,000 images of child pornography’, we can only be thankful for the arrogance of some criminals. Even as I am on the fence mainly as the mention of the word ‘child pornography’ 30 times, yet on page 55 we also see “The audit indicated that, on May 5, 2016, the week prior to the call from the Los Angeles Field Office, the Indianapolis SSA accessed eight FD-71s in an electronic file which we determined, by the case number, to be an FBI Indianapolis “zero classification file” for child pornography cases that are no longer being investigated. None of those files concerned the Nassar matter”, there are a number of issues with that statement, but I am also willing to admit that there is a larger stage here and the lack of details do not make Nassar guilty, yet the lack of details and the the added “The Indianapolis SSA told the Los Angeles SSA that he had created a formal FBI complaint form (FD-71) in 2015 to transfer the Nassar allegations from the Indianapolis office to the Lansing Resident Agency; however, the Los Angeles Field Office, the Indianapolis SSA, and other FBI employees stated that they searched for the FD-71 in the FBI’s computer system but could not find it. The OIG also found no evidence that such a document had been sent to the Lansing Resident Agency in 2015” at the top of the file gives us a few more items.

Consider the gravity, now consider “The OIG also found no evidence that such a document had been sent to the Lansing Resident Agency in 2015”, an issue with serious criminal gravity and there is a lack of follow up, which gives me the feeling that this was more than ‘dragging their feet’, this was in my humble opinion an event to shovel something this serious under the carpet. When we add the events around Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, there is a larger stage that  nearly every walk of law enforcement seems icky about, and the fact that most of them have kids comes across as massively weird to me.

This is seen on page 16 where we see “Under federal law, law enforcement personnel who, “while engaged in a professional capacity…on Federal land or in a federally operated (or contracted) facility,” learn of “facts that give reason to suspect that a child has suffered an incident of child abuse,” including sexual abuse or exploitation, “shall as soon as possible make a report of the suspected abuse” to the appropriate law enforcement agency” this gives us a few issues and there we see where the failure takes a much larger turn, are certain abusers protected? Yes, it is highly speculative, but after Epstein, is that such a stretch? The timeline shows that this started on July 28th 2015, he was in the end arrested on November 21st 2016, so he was left ‘unattended’ to for well over a year. In addition, children were left in danger as he was released on a bond. It took a Wall Street Journal reporter who send an alarm light on January 17th 2017. The timeline also gives us that on February 8th 2018 we get “including its claim that the Indianapolis Field Office provided its findings to the Detroit Field Office”, so was this falsifying records? It is a leap, but not quite the leap we think it is. Yet the most damning part is seen on page 26, a part the BBC does not really give us (no blame to the BBC). It is “Both the Indianapolis ASAC and the Indianapolis SSA told the OIG that Penny was instructed twice during the July 28, 2015 meeting to report the Nassar allegations to local law enforcement where the violations were committed, as no apparent violations occurred in Indiana.” Some might say that this was passing the buck, but the frame of accusations is a lot larger, the direct flaw of this is what I would call ‘Clarification, Verification and Follow up’. In a stage where the lives of children are reported to be in danger (or any serious crime for that matter), do you really think that a phone call or a direct email is too much? When IT systems fail again and again, relying on one part is jut too dangerous and that flaw is found in nearly all governmental systems, not merely the ones in the USA. And the ‘excuse’  that we see with “Penny was instructed twice during the July 28, 2015” which is in this document, all whilst the surrounding events. This report (at https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/21-093.pdf) shows a larger failing, and the issue is not pounding the FBI, although there is some entertainment found in having a go at Christopher Asher Wray merely for the need to boost ones ego. Yet the larger stage of that document is that this event is as it is documented a much larger treasure trove for governments to see, check and verify how their own systems are holding up to scrutiny. Yes, we know that plenty of nations have their own systems, but is this document used as a template to see if there are flaws in their own system? I wonder. 

Listen,. We can all have our Monday morning Quarterback moments, my larger issue is wondering how the US and other nations evolve their systems to prevent this from happening (again). I have always lived by the setting that ‘the person who claims to make no mistakes’ has either never worked or is lying. It is important to repair end evolve any system, any protocol and any procedure. It is essential for any evolving forward motion. 

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July 12, 2021 · 16:34

Murdered by politicians

Yes, that is the setting, the danger that a politician is getting you murdered. The evidence? Consider the setting we are given We are given “Google is being sued by 37 US states over policies on its Android app store, Google Play” you might think that this is fair, but is it? The governments (US, UK, EU) they are all helpless to stop players like REvil and bitcoin miners. They say that they are on top of it, but consider asking the millions of Sweden that could not enter the 800 supermarkets close because of what was done. You see a trickle of events and that is good, merely a trickle, yet when the iOS and Android stores open up, it becomes a tidal wave. 37 states catering to the greed driven, they want to avoid paying their dues all whilst tax offices cannot properly adjust theirs, all setting a stage where the pathetic (Epic) can report that they are avoiding their 30%, but in all this the stage becomes that you will be transgressed on your data and your systems and it will not be a trickle, it will become a tidal wave of advertisements on gambling and deceptive conduct, with every game you have it will increase 200%, so with three games you are looking at an expected 8 times the amount of advertisement (Read: harassment and bullying). So when we see “It criticises the commission Google takes on purchases made within Google Play, which can be up to 30%, in line with Apple’s App Store policies and the stores of other rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft XBox” and there is the second party. These stores promise (and so far kept) all kinds of promises, when you are outside their store, it ends, your internet actions will go to the highest bidder, your system will have all kinds of advertisements and the people who screwed up the neat life you had will back away in the shadow, saying it is out of their control. 

That is how I see it, that is what I am speculating will happen. The moment that comes through, I will delete EVERY game I have, I will remove any third party that was offered to me, the price will be too high and find out how high it will be for you when you leave even one application on there. 

And in an interview (source: BBC) with Sundar Pichai we get “I asked about whether the Chinese model of the internet – much more authoritarian, big on surveillance – is in the ascendant, Pichai said the free and open internet “is being attacked”. Importantly, he didn’t refer to China directly but he went on to say: “None of our major products and services are available in China.”With legislators and regulators proving slow, ineffective, and easy to lobby – and a pandemic taking up plenty of bandwidth – right now the democratic West is largely leaving it to people like Sundar Pichai to decide where we should all be heading”, this fits as the interviewer is not giving the larger stage to what happens when the greed driven get involved, it tends to stream towards organised crime, because they are as entrepreneurial as anyone else, when it is about the green they tend to be a lot more innovative than any government has proven to be, and that is a setting you do not want on your mobile store, ANY STORE. So as Amazon, Apple and Google are turning them away, all the others are a lot less likely to do and for the alleged avoidance of 30%, so far I have not seen any third party player willing to do that. And consider the 10 apps you do have, when they give you the additional 1-4 advertisements, do you see any money there? No, I wonder where all that coin will go to, that I merely the beginning, after that it gets ugly in a hurry, yet at that point when we ask the names of the people involved in these 37 states that include New York, Tennessee, Utah, North Carolina, and Washington DC. How reachable will these people remain for answering questions? I am willing to lay a bet there that they will all vanish like snowflakes in a heatwave. What do you think?

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July 9, 2021 · 07:30

Greed and Law helping each other

I have written about it before, it is my point of view and my conviction. It is my setting that gives rise to what you could see, and gives rise to what you could know, you already did, but you seemingly decided to ignore it, you decided to enable the greed driven and all parties are smitten by greed, they call it different, yet as I see it, it is mere greed.

How it ends
The end is shown by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57770557) with “It marks the first step towards the OxyContin painkillers maker paying out $4.3bn (£3.1bn) to settle cases related to the opioid crisis”, it was always about the money. There is an old saying “μυστήριον, Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη, ἡ μήτηρ τῶν πορνῶν καὶ τῶν βδελυγμάτων τῆς γῆς;” The book of revelations 17:5. Did anyone consider it could optionally reflect on Attorney General Letitia James from the state of New York? We might see and take notice of “While no amount of money will ever compensate for the thousands who lost their lives or became addicted to opioids across our state or provide solace to the countless families torn apart by this crisis, these funds will be used to prevent any future devastation”, will it though?

The method
We see ‘OxyContin is one of the most commonly abused prescription drugs’, and we see that it belongs to the Sackler family, the members who own Purdue Pharma, privately held. They are not guilty, yet they are also not innocent, greed drove them towards their billions, yet they are not the demons we all paint them to be, to not be innocent and to be a demon is to be a different cattle of fish and any Attorney General could tell you that, but they have the money and they all wanted the money, the real demon.

Culprits
Yes, there are culprits in this story. You see some sources give us that in 1996 316,000 prescriptions were dispensed, it grew to an impressive amount topping over 14 million prescriptions with an estimated value of $3,000,000,000. The issue we see everyone painting over is ‘prescriptions dispensed’, this is not something that a person can get, it needs a doctor and it needs a pharmacist. The top 5 are Walgreens Company, CVS Health, Walmart, Rite Aid Corp and Krogers company. They own a little over 25,000 stores and around 113,000 pharmacists. There are ere players in the game. Yet how many Oxycontin did they hand out? How many doctors did these prescriptions?
You see, the interesting side is not what we see, but what we saw on TV in 1978, it was an episode of Lou Grant and that episode (season 2 episode 1 “Pills”) shows us the larger station that plays here and THEY gave the people (government also) the goods 20 years earlier. We all want one demon, but there was not one, there were a truckload of them, but the US government cannot fill their pockets there.

Innocence
It is the first fatality in any war, there is no exception and this is not different. The Sackler family is not innocent, but they are not the guilty demons that the media and the flaming screamers claim them to be. It was simple and it was out there. 14,000,000 prescriptions and only doctors can make them. Yes, we see “lawsuits regarding overprescription of addictive pharmaceutical drugs” yet it is given out by doctors and it is handed out by pharmacies. Yet the New Yorker in 2020 gives us “Purdue Pharma played a “special role” in the opioid crisis because the company “was the first to set out, in the nineteen-nineties, to persuade the American medical establishment that strong opioids should be much more widely prescribed—and that physicians’ longstanding fears about the addictive nature of such drugs were overblown”, I get that and we should understand that, yet in this (at https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/opioid-manufacturer-purdue-pharma-pleads-guilty-fraud-and-kickback-conspiracies) we also get “Purdue also paid kickbacks to providers to encourage them to prescribe even more of its products”, so who were those providers? Who received these kickbacks? We are not likely to see those are we, we will merely see words like ‘settlement’ and ‘undisclosed parties’, innocence was the first victim to fall, none of the players were innocent. And the government is equally guilty. The NPR (at https://www.npr.org/2020/12/22/949309266/doj-sues-walmart-over-unlawful-distribution-of-controlled-substances) gave us in December 2020 “The Justice Department is suing Walmart. In a civil suit filed today, the Justice Department alleges that the company’s pharmacies and warehouses helped fuel the opioid crisis. Walmart’s pharmacy chain dispensed billions of opioid pills, including OxyContin and other highly addictive medications. And this lawsuit claims that the company broke the law hundreds of thousands of times”, so that took a decade? And when we consider ‘broke the law hundreds of thousands of times’, how come that store is still open? And it is Brian Mann who gives us “according to the DOJ, Walmart did exactly the opposite, filling huge numbers of unsafe and illegal prescriptions, allegedly doing so for years without alerting the government”, and there we have it, the crux of the Lou Grant episode, the evidence that set the caper in motion in 1978, but that is not all, the article also gives us “NPR has been looking into this. And we found that some of the company’s own former pharmacists tried for years to raise the alarm about allegedly illegal activity. Ashwani Sheerin (ph) is a pharmacist who worked for Walmart in rural Michigan. He told NPR he saw real red flags”, not all pharmacists are evil, but we see the stage of revenue pushing, it is greed in action and when we see ‘tried for years to raise the alarm’ we see that the Justice department is not innocent either and the media is not innocent either. A stage where they all love revenue, circulation and ringing the bell loudly was apparently not an option. So whilst we see “had reached an agreement with Purdue that would see its owners, the wealthy Sackler family, pay an additional $50m”, I wonder where Walmart is in this and with them a whole range of pharmacies. Because it was never Walmart alone, not with an annual 14,000,000 prescriptions.

Solution
There might not be one, but us all recognising that Justice reacted well over a decade too late, that is as I personally see it, the FDA dropped the ball, likely more than once, especially as this has been going on for years, optionally well over a decade. And it is Attorney General Letitia James with “prevent any future devastation” who has the ball now, I wonder if she drops it, or hands it over to someone else, as NPR gives us pointing the finger at Walmart, but they are not alone and the records of the FDA are also in question. When I look into ‘Federal Regulations for Clinical Investigators’, I wonder if it helps investigations, or slows them down.
You see Oxycontin is a schedule 8 drug and we get “Doctors must follow state and territory laws when prescribing oxycodone and must notify, or receive approval from, the appropriate health authority”, you see this matters as pharmacies need a doctors prescription, so which doctors were behind the 14,000,000 annual prescriptions? 

So there you have it, I made no claim that the Sackler family was innocent, they are not, but they are not the demons we see them to be, this is a much larger problem and it was left unchecked for well over a decade, or there was at the very least a decade of inaction and too many filled their pockets and yes the Sackler benefitted, but they were not alone, Walmart was part, but there too they were not alone and the doctors who prescribed these pills, what is their price for a prescription? As I personally see it, the law enabled greed to continue for too long, the law and greed enabled each other, and the end is still not in sight, no matter what Attorney General Letitia James and in this she is not alone either, doesn’t San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia not have any Attorney Generals? Where were they in the 2000-2021?

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July 6, 2021 · 21:38

Dream number three

I am trying to remember something. Yesterday I came up with short story number three, I dreamt the story and the big lines were done, but now I forgot the dream, only fragments remain. A stage where it is about one thing leading to another, I see the ending but I can no longer see the beginning. It is a shared setting that eludes me, and every time I my mind moves back to the story, it is overwhelmed with other facts. It takes me back to yesterday as I was writing the Kaseya story. The BBC is giving us “Researchers from the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure found the problem and were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it”, yet if we are to believe ‘long before the hackers found it’ I wonder why Kaseya was continuing on the path they were. More important, if that was really true, why was Kaseya not monitoring the situation 24:7? In my case the story is not completed, I am creating it (almost) on the go. Kaseya is seemingly in a stage where they are in denial. First a few, then up to a 1,000 and now, after other sources give us a stage that sets the premise to up to 100,000, some sources give us ‘Between 800 and 1,500 companies potentially affected by Kaseya ransomware attack’, I get it, it is optional a seesaw that is balancing between optionally managing bad news and the speculative media on the other end of the seesaw. Neither side is overly reliable in my personal view. Yet the BBC gives us “the way the cyber-security world has pulled together to reduce the impact of the attack has been incredible”, you see, I have been involved in IT work since 1982, I have never seen competitors pull together, so the story of ‘the cyber-security world has pulled together’ remains debatable. They are all scared, they wanted solutions faster, automated and cheaper, it is like the house where you can choose 2 out of three, now the choice is nil, because the underlying factors are haywire. In this setting, and yes, this is all speculative. We have a solution that is faster/slower, automated/manual and cheap/expensive. They wanted it fast, but that requires matching hardware and software. This is where ‘plugging the hole’ is a problem, as such there was never a cheap solution. Then there was the automated setting, that is the one that they could pull off, but in a stage where there is too little security, and if ‘long before the hackers found it’ is to be believed, I speculate that the need was manual when the wrong parties opted for automated. And in the third we have cheap and expensive. They needed a solution that was cheap, but they needed a lot more expensive elements. This is ALL speculation, but the setting where we see system after system fail, in my personal opinion is all a setting towards shortcuts and that led to the weakness we now see exploited. I personally believe that players like Kaseya are too plenty and when we see ‘the cyber-security world has pulled together’, we see a stage where they all have a seemingly fat meal, they all get to set a field of limitations for all others and that will have long term repercussions. Microsoft, Solarwinds, Kaseya are examples that how us that the hackers are gaining more and more advantage and that is the larger stage. In this setup hell will get one happy resident and it is not the ruler of hell, I will let you consider who I am talking about and it is not a player that is mentioned in this article, neither is REvil, they seemingly found a gap that they exploited hoping to bank $70,000,000 but the stage is out there and the snippet “were helping Kaseya plug the hole long before the hackers found it” is merely a factor, so how long did the plugging take and why was it not successful? The words ‘long before’ should be an indication. So why are we (clearly) seeing several facts and the hack was still successful? The article is (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57719820) merely one factor, the amount of MSP’s are another and the lack of alarms is a third part. A dangerous setting of cheap, seemingly fast and proclaimed automated systems in a stage where no one was the wiser. Consider a fast automated system without proper alarms and without logs, and that is merely one player using (or claiming to have) cloud solutions. A stage that is no solution (ask COOP in Sweden if you doubt me) and one that hands over cash to organised crime. How much risk are you willing to take with your business?

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July 2, 2021 · 21:03

Mercy on stupid people?

In this age when we have 8,000,000,000 people walking around, should we show mercy on stupid people? I am not talking about people with some mental disorder, I am not talking about people with a speech impediment or people with a physical disorder. No, I am talking about people with a  greed disorder, a mental stage of everything is for free. Should we allow them to be alive? It is a serious question. You see, the BBC gives us ‘How hackers are using gamers to become crypto-rich’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57601631) and the BBC adds to the stupidity to put a picture of a nice girl there, although these transgressions are most likely done by well over 90% males. The list “Versions of Grand Theft Auto V, NBA 2K19, and Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 are being given away free in forums” implies that. You see NOTHING is for free, and nowadays, the sun might be (for now) the only thing that comes for free, but air is close to no longer free. In the last decades we wasted air quality to such a degree that more and more need oxygen and that stuff is not free and not cheap. So when I see “hidden inside the code of these games is a piece of crypto-mining malware called Crackonosh, which secretly generates digital money once the game has been downloaded. Criminals have made more than $2m (£1.4m) with the scam, researchers say.” I reckon that this goes far beyond the UK borders and as such the revenue will be a lot higher, in addition, the stupid person thinking that they are getting a free game are using electricity like there is no tomorrow. So any gamer having anything from a 750W Corsair to a 1200W Asus Thor will be donating $0.50 – $0.75 a day per PC to that criminal group. And that is the best news theory, if they leave the computer on and unattended the price could go up by 200%-400% a day, which means that this free game is costing you a lot more, optionally buying that game in the story will cost you $48 at Amazon, implying that you will pay for the game more than once after 15 days, if you are lucky after 20 days. So how free was that game? You might not pay for the electricity yourself but it will reflect in the bill and mom and dad will hold your PC up for ransom if you do not pay the electricity bill. 

So far two places out of a lot more gives us: 

United States: 11,856 victims
United Kingdom: 8,946 victims

As such the $2m is delusionally optimistic, the damage is more than likely a lot higher, especially when we see 

When Crackonosh is installed, it takes actions to protect itself including:

disabling Windows Updates
uninstalling all security software

And that was merely the better news, when you consider elements like

computer slowing down
wearing out components through overuse

You end up with the short end of the stick, and you better believe that it is a lot shorter than you hope it is. So should I feel mercy when a stupid act degrades a persons PC, sets the cost of living a lot higher per week, but that does not matter, does it? You got a free game out of it!

There is one side that bothers me, it is the quote “Tracking the hackers’ digital wallets has revealed the scam has yielded over $2m in the cryptocurrency Monero, Avast says”, it is the part ‘hackers’ digital wallets’, wallets is plural, as such there is every chance not everything has been found and there is even a much larger chance that they will find one group and have several groups walk away, because they were never spotted, and they were optionally a little more clever than the other players. The damage I a lot worse, yet when it comes to stupid people, I do not mind, more game time, more original game time for me. And this is merely the first setting, you see, I took notice because it flushes the one element out into the open. I touched on this with “I believe that it is a first step in the overly effective phishing attacks we face, Facebook might not be part to that, but I reckon the phishing industry got access to data that is not normally collected and I personally believe that Facebook is part of that problem, I also believe that this will turn from bad to worse with all the ‘via browser gaming apps’ we are currently being offered. I believe that these dedicated non console gaming ‘solutions’ will make things worse, it might be about money for players like Epic (Fortnite), but the data collected in this will cater to a much larger and optionally fairly darker player in this, I just haven’t found any direct evidence proving this, in my defence, I had no way of seeing the weakness that SolarWinds introduced. It does not surprise me, because there is always someone smarter and any firm that has a revenue and a cost issue will find a cheaper way, opening the door for all the nefarious characters surfing the life of IoT, there was never any doubt in this.” I wrote it in ‘Not for minors’ in December 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/18/not-for-minors/) and anyone (read: Epic) with claims that they will stop this, would be lying to you. Criminals are massively intelligent and their opponents (police and FBI) are not equipped to deal with this, that is beside the manpower shortage they would face. So when you get to slide between stupid kids and greed driven short sighted IT solutions, the people are about to lose a bundle, for the tech criminals it will be Christmas for them 340 days a year (with 25 very well paid holidays).

And that was just the beginning, how long until these easy virtue characters offer games with even more powerful ways to mine? A version of some merge 3 game but now utilising 95% of your processor 100% of the time? It will not interfere with receiving calls, it will not interfere with laptop, tablet and other device, but you become the pawn in a need to mine and it will cost you a lot more than you think. How long until someone combines screensavers and locked screens with the old SETI program and let devices mine the truckloads out of massive data files and we all contribute for every downtime minute every day? That was the danger that greed driven Epic contributed to (as I personally see it), that is the danger that we all face, and it gets worse. You see Yahoo told us ‘Epic is deliberately keeping ‘Fortnite’ off Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Game service’, isn’t that interesting? The cloud is their competitor, so they want to open up all the markets for THEM, but they are not that eager to hand their game to a streamer where they cannot collect as much. As I personally see it, it is about their margins, it always was and as such I personally consider their case to be a bogus one, but they opened a door, a door criminals will be eager to use, so how long until they offer Fortnite cheats, Fortnite chests with weekly prices, hardware and skins? It will be the gateway to more systems and the law is not ready and the makers of games will find out too late that the floodgates had been opened. That is how these events usually go, but in the end it will not cost them anything, because they will cover all third party solutions and it will be up to the gamer (and their parents) to pay that price. 

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