Tag Archives: FBI

March 17, 2026 · 18:32

Where is the trust?

That is most of the time the setting, so as ABC gives us (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-17/middle-east-live-updates-march-17-2026/106462358) “A tanker has been struck by an unknown projectile while anchored near the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier, US President Donald Trump turned his ire on European allies who he claimed “weren’t that enthusiastic” about helping the US secure the passage. The threat of Iranian missiles and drones targeting oil tankers in the strait has effectively closed the shipping channel, amid the country’s conflict with the US and Israel.” With the added ‘Rockets and drones fired at US Embassy in Baghdad’ an hour ago. Consider that President Trump gave us (on march 8th, Politico) ‘Trump says Starmer seeking to join Iran war ‘after we’ve already won’’ so, that was 9 days ago? What changed? Then yesterday, the Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/mar/16/iran-war-live-updates-news-oil-trump-hormuz-dubai-airport-israel-targets) “As Donald Trump expresses frustration with countries declining to send warships to reopen the strait of Hormuz, the response remains muted among those he directly called upon.” And this happened a mere 4 hours ago. Where are the vessels of the United States? Where are their minesweepers? Simple questions and it defies knowledge why this is not front and centre everywhere. So when the Sydney Morning Herald adds spice to the setting (at https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/with-10-damning-words-pete-hegseth-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-20260314-p5oafr.html) with ‘With 10 damning words, Pete Hegseth says the quiet part out loud’ where we see “US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth believes the media has not been sufficiently effusive about the success of the American military operation against Iran.

He had just finished speaking about the massive damage inflicted upon the regime in Tehran – its leadership, its missile stocks, its navy, its weapons infrastructure – when he turned his attention to the Pentagon press pack.” Now, I am willing to accept that I have not been part of any defence department for 43 years. I can assure you that a certain clarity is required in communication (from the defence side) and whilst I feel ready to blame the press on several matters, they are massively without blame here. The March 8th setting was the first damning setting. Then as I yesterday lighted on the ‘Just for fun’ setting that President Trump gave us and whilst the tactical setting that Kharg Island provides a sea port for the export of up to 90% of Iran’s oil products, as well as supplying storage for up to 30 million barrels. Bombing the hell out of it might have been essential, but it is a mere export point. There are 10 refineries doing the bidding of capturing oil and whilst I was able to device methods of stopping those settings, the clear message is to bomb those 10 locations to really put pressure on Iran. So when were they done? No, As I personally see it, President Trump what’s that oil this is the clear setting that is tactically seen and now that 2,500-5,000 boots are getting on the ground, that setting becomes the pressure point that Iran can put on the United States. So whilst I created IP to close harbours and disable trains, stopping the bulk of oil transits, it was merely one stage that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE could do to take pressure away from themselves and as such I gave Saudi Arabia and the UAE that IP. I did my thing to stop the war to go towards the gulf states. 

So what are we now left with?

Well, the SMH also takes care of that. We are given “As former CNN Pentagon reporter Barbara Starr noted, it’s possible that Ellison will be none-too-pleased about Hegseth’s implications.

Starr, a 21-year veteran of the defence beat, pointed out on X that CNN has sent personnel to combat zones for decades, with some even losing their lives. “You have a legal and moral obligation to defend the free press, even the ones you don’t personally like,” she told Hegseth.

As a former TV presenter before he was tasked with running the world’s most powerful military, press freedom should be Hegseth’s instinct. His comments today – and his vainglorious move to banish press photographers from his briefings – suggest he sees the media more as a vassal to serve his interests.” I can get behind that thought. As such there are sides to this entire setting that aren’t reported on this enough. The first one was that no formal declaration of war was ever given by the United States. As such we were given: “the Trump administration officials have offered various and conflicting explanations for the war, such as to ward off an imminent Iranian threat, to pre-empt Iranian retaliation against US assets after an expected Israeli attack on Iran” My issue here is that the international courts in The Hague might side with Iran concerning the seemingly unprovoked attacks by Iran (I know that is hilarious), Iran has been waging proxy wars for decades and that is the power of a proxy war. I reckon that the attacks by Israel and the United States give a bitter taste in the eyes of the law. Israel is decently clear because of all the attacks by Iran via Hamas and Hezbollah, but the idea given “to ward off an imminent Iranian threat” is laughable. It is like New Zealand attacking Australia, the Sopwith Camel doesn’t have the range to cross that distance and as far as I know New Zealand does not have an aircraft carrier. The same applies to Iran. There is no way that an attack can result from Iran. Even Lone Wolf attacks are unlikely to succeed and the United States still has their boy-scout organisations (FBI, CIA, DIA) in place, as such they can either do their job or they cannot. 

As such my speculative view was that the United States needed the oil that Iran has (for now). After failing to get to Canada’s rare earths (the 51st state attempt), Greenland resources (through failed annexation) and Venezuela oil (which is seem simply useless to the United States) the United States are now going for the Iranian oil. After that merely Russian oil remains (and Ukraine is doing something about that too) so what is left? I might be wrong in all this and there is a simple way to show me I am wrong. Merely bomb the 10 refineries. Several sources seemed to side with me on this as we are given ‘GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham Brags ‘We Are Going to Make a Ton of Money’ on Iran War’, which was given to us on March 9th. So as we were given “Graham seemingly suggested that the conflict with Iran as well as President Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro aim to help the United States take control over major oil reserves. “Venezuela and Iran have 31% of the world’s oil reserves. We’re going to have a partnership with 31% of the known reserves. This is China’s nightmare. This is a good investment,” he said.” As well as ““We’re going to blow the hell out of these people,” Graham said, adding that “nobody will threaten [the U.S.] in the Strait of Hormuz again.” He also said there could be a collapse of Iran’s leadership. “This regime is in a death throe now, it is gonna be on its knees, it’s going to fall, and when it falls we’re going to have peace like no other time,” he added.” It seems that after 9 days he was proven on nearly all fronts and now that it is out in the open that the United States needs oil (because they have so little at present) there is now the setting that the United States are too broke to seemingly pay their bills and as I see it, the moment the boots come on the ground, the media will report on nearly everything and that will put team Trump/Hegseth in a new folly and in the limelight, Because if I can figure this out in the last decade and now we get that Dave Kelly (JP Morgan, as per OCT2025) can figure this out, you should wonder why others couldn’t figure this out. I get that I am a no one in all this, but David Kelly is the Chief Global Strategist and Head of the Global Market Insights Strategy Team of JP Morgan and he is a voice to consider no matter how you slice it. 

So whilst we now get the Guardian (read: recently) give us “March 2026, Hegseth stated during a press briefing that US forces in Iran would show “no quarter, no mercy” to enemies. Analysts and Sen. Mark Kelly pointed out that a “no quarter” order—meaning to take no prisoners and kill them instead—is a direct violation of international law, specifically Article 23(d) of the 1907 Hague Convention IV.” All whilst media like the Conversation give us “Legal scholars have argued that Hegseth’s actions, particularly regarding the Venezuelan boat strikes and statements on the Iranian conflict, could expose him to investigations for violations of international and U.S. criminal law.” As such I reckon that both President Trump and Pete Hegseth fear the international courts. Iran optionally have a case here (I rely on optional as they have done plenty of bad things, among them attack Saudi Arabia without a formal declaration of war), so it makes sense that Pete Hegseth is in the stage that he wants to trivialize the international courts of law in the Hague, which is set through “The International Court of Justice, or colloquially the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It settles legal disputes submitted to it by states and provides advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by other UN organs and specialized agencies. The ICJ is the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between countries, with its rulings and opinions serving as primary sources of international law. It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.” It was established in 1945 and it should now confuse all the readers on why António Guterres remains silent on this. It merely gives my thoughts on the United States being broke seeming validity. The person who attacks Israel at any option he gets, remained silent on too many settings we are seeing here. Even the rebuke on the settings of Pete Hegseth ‘attacking’ the international courts should have put him up in arms. There is the smallest notion that the media had not covered it, but I doubt that. As I see it, the seat that António Guterres hold is seen as one of the 100 most powerful seats in the world. It might not be as powerful as that uncomfortable seat that the pope has, but that would be a buttock conversation. 

So I think I have given you something to think about and consider why the bulk of the refineries are left untouched, because that creates the wealth of Iran and isn’t that the superiority of any army? We are given “Sun Tzu’s The Art of War emphasizes that the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting, making the destruction of an opponent’s economic base (or wealth of a nation) a superior strategy to direct physical conflict. Sun Tzu advises that a protracted war exhausts a state’s resources, dulls weapons, and dampens morale, meaning attacking an opponent’s economic ability to sustain a fight is crucial.” And I wrote about that on March 8th (and before that too, at https://lawlordtobe.com/2026/03/08/ones-creative-process/) the story ‘Ones creative process’ gave you the setting that the harbours and railway of Iran should be destroyed and I was happy to hand the IP that could set that in a certain view of certainty to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Because I am just that sort of guy. It is never about personal profit in some stage of war and these two countries were hammered with drones and missiles. As such I did more than talk (are you watching this Pete Hegseth), I delivered. 

So you all have a great day and enjoy the day because Vancouver just joined us this Tuesday. 

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December 28, 2025 · 22:01

The nightmare of some

I have been ‘playing’ the same routine, whenever I got an idea, I put it on my blog and I am fine with that, because I have four scripts and three need completion, but today I had a brainwave that made me change this. I had an idea and I will keep that under wraps. A thriller/horror story that is not set in myth or supernatural settings, but a horror of governmental making. The idea I had would give nightmares to those in charge of the NSA and GCHQ and it particular for these two people. I don’t think that anyone (outside of the porn realm) made a movie with one person in mind, but I am not one to follow normal patterns. As such when these two don’t sleep, I reckon that sleep can be a foregone imagination with the FBI, CIA, MI5, MI6 and a few other agencies. I reckon that both their counterpart in the FSB and China might get squeamish too, but that is not my concern.

A setting that is not set in anarchy, but in strict settings that enables splinter cells in any government and that is the idea of the script that went in front of my eyes. It started with an idea of renewing IP and then it hit me. Why do that when the reality might be much more frightening. And as such I made the idea a little more real. But before I start the Idea, I will have to brush up on Lowenthal’s from secrets to policy. It might give me a few more ideas on getting Lieutenant General William J. Hartman I little more sleep deprived as well as his counterpart Anne Keast-Butler. I think I need a hobby but that is for later. At this point I have a new doctrine. Setting the stage of reality to new heights and no BS AI in this, such a system can be programmed into irrelevancy. No, this is hardcore low tech by enabling of anarchy through order. That is the premise, because as I thought (some time ago) on downing Microsoft (by executing 280,000 employees), we can forgo the violence and let the chips fall where they may and it occurred to me that 32,000 employees cannot control 348,000,000 Americans and in case of the UK it is 7,200 employees and the population is 69,500,000. These are out of control settings that are merely imaginary, so when people start yanking that equation around, the storm drains get flooded really fast and from there infrastructure goes the way of the Dodo (massively fast), so I need to do some homework and set this to a new premise. I hope that it takes a little over 3 months, so these two individuals better catch up on sleep. The summer of 2026 might be a real sleep depriver for some.

Well, that is it for me and I had not expected to get such a brainwave, so silly me for not expecting the unexpected. As such, IP was over rated, although a film script is also IP, so I stayed true to my vocation. Have a great day, I might forego a little sleep today.

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October 30, 2025 · 19:21

Operation Hoodwink

Yes, the setting is virtual and imaginary and consider the name of the title, there is the chance that deception is part of this setting. So as my slumber ideas gave grip to this setting. Let me reveal part of the plot. 

There is a young man walking the street of X (near a racecourse) he is having a grand day, he will see his girlfriend soon. So as he is walking , he cannot believe his eyes. Is that Vin Diesel? And Vin gestures him over. “Hi, what is your name?” The man is in disbelieve and answers “Mario”. Vin answers “Great Mario, he have a little problem here, we need a few extra man here Can you help us out? It takes about 2-3 hours and you don’t have to do any acting. Merely jump away from a car speeding at you from in that shop. Can you do that?” There is a C-note in it for you and time on the big screen. In the mean time the coffee kart is there” he points at a barista kart. “Whatever you are having they should have it and you can drink as much as you like. There are even some pastries there. You game?” Mario frantically nodded his head in a yes gesture. He went to the coffee kart ordered an espresso. The Barista asked if he wanted normal, 3 shots or 5. He grinned at the idea of 5 espresso’s. “Five please, oh can I have one of these cannoli’s?” The barrister complied and two minutes later he was sitting in a cast chair with a large espresso and a cannoli. He was drinking his espresso feline mighty fine. About 10 minutes later Vin came back in the picture. “OK, we are running late, so you have 10 minutes. In 5 minutes we take you to the shop and we rehearse a few things, we need to get this right as we only have one take for this.” Mario nodded “OK, whatever you want Mr. Diesel” Vin replied “Vin please, Mr. Diesel is my father. So drink your espresso and eat your cannoli. Ill be back.” And Vin Diesel walked away. He came back 5 minutes later. “OK, lets go over this. It’s a little psychedelic as it is part of that movie. So in we go” and they walked into the shop. He then walked into the door in the back and it was a completely white room filled with rows of White plastic foam domino stones, 4 rows all having their own color. “So you will be standing here. And we will be filming you from that corner, where the little window is. You jump up to that bar, pointing to a bar in the wall. Can you make that jump?” Mario tried, it was easy. “If you can pull yourself up, that is fine, make it look good. That is all you have to do. The car will come through the wall so stand against that wall the bar is above you. Stand there for a moment.” Vin talked in his earpiece. “What? OK.” He signaled Mario. “Can you take one step forward?” Mario stepped forward half a step, looking upwards to the bar. “Are we good?” He gave a thumb upwards to Mario. “Hold on” Vin said. “Mario, try to jump to the bar now” It was easy. And Vin talked into his earpiece again “Did you get that? What? OK? Mario, can you do this jump a few more times so we have actual footage and if you miss the point later, we have something to work with.” Mario jumped half a dozen times more. And Vin Diesel looked pleased. “So now we check the light” they tested the light a few more times. It was OK. “So now the hard part. When you hear a noise, it will be a car going through the front window, at that point you have a mere 2 seconds to jump to the bar. You good?” Mario nodded. He never considered that he would be a Hollywood extra some day. “OK, I am going towards the front and get things rolling, m do you have any questions?” Mario shook his head in a no, it seemed clear as water to him. “OK! Excellent. The take starts in a few minutes and it should be over 30 seconds later. Don’t touch these domino’s stay there and focus on the light, when it goes green it starts and 3 seconds later I go through the shop. After that you have a mere 2 seconds, so do not hesitate to jump. Just focus on the light.” Mario nodded “Im ready” “I’m sure you are, your doing great” and with that Vin walked away closing the door behind him. Sure enough 2 minutes later the green light lit up and Mario got ready and three seconds later as stated he heard the car and he jumped. The car came through the wall, Mario was safely hanging on the bar. The car went through the room and the dominos went everywhere and Mario dropped to the floor. He saw the hole in the wall and he looked at where the car went. It went though the second wall and he was looking some kind of drone repair shop. The foam dominos were melting away and the bar had retracted into the wall. In seconds security jumped on him telling him to go to the floor. And Mario was more confused then ever before.

The stage is set and the story continues. Vin Diesel was a lookalike, the film crew had vanished and the car had no driver. Mario was in deep shit. It was a setting where the family of Mario had to entertain favors and the politicians were eager to help. It was a hoodwink to flush out the crooked politicians and to show where the FBI and CIA could see where the problem lies. Not all settings are domestic and Operation Hoodwink was called to figure out which politician and optionally which judge was on the records of Organized Crime. And as America was bleeding funds they decided to do something about it. 

A simple setting and as I am flooded with 3 projects any Canadian film maker that sees light in this. Feel free to use this idea. Have a great day and it is time for me to look deeper at at my next project (working on it) and as it mostly plays in New Orleans, I need to rely on Google Maps (I have never been to New Orleans). Anyway, that is it for me for today.

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November 18, 2024 · 12:04

The return of the man

That is what I had to see when I engaged myself to what I had lost. The Khaleej Times (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/tech/is-bluesky-the-next-twitter-why-millions-are-ditching-elon-musks-x-for-this-new-platform) where we are given ‘Is Bluesky the next Twitter? Why millions are ditching Elon Musk’s X for this new platform’ And we get the starting sentence “As discontent with Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) grows, Bluesky has emerged as a fresh alternative, attracting millions of users in search of a better social media experience.” I currently have both. Hoping that this setting is the one that starts the cleaning services of X at the behest of Elon Musk. You see at present (at ZDNet) we get “According to the newest stats, it has shot up to more than 16.7 million since Tuesday, up from 9 million in early September and 12 million around mid-October.” At present the numbers give us 18.9 million users or a 9.3 member growth per second. Now we get that like me there are a few users that remain in both camps, but this will hurt the Musk advertisement numbers to no end. The giggle moment I had that there is even chance that at present X (yes, I use the expression now), there is a chance that bots are paying revenue to advertise to other bots. The reality is that brisk. To optionally lose 20 million people by December 1st should be a warning sign to Elon Musk (and not the first one mind you). And there is a larger concern for him. If every member attracts 3 to 4 other people The power of X will have been decimated to the largest effect before January 1st 2025. So what will come of this 45 billion dollar Edsel? Well, to close it down is to early to say, but there are a few suggestions that people from the FBI gave others, and I reckon that the NSA is on board with at least two of those suggestions. 

I gave the idea to Google a few months ago (merely because I wasn’t sure what Bluesky was up to) and I leave it to you to see where it goes from here. 

As I see it, there is a larger option for Bluesky and Nostr to get the bulk of what was formerly known as twitter to reduce its sentience to a mere hollowed out cadaver. How far this goes is up to Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino to decide, yet in this I think that the shareholders would want to make a massive turn about. Merely because the idea of bots advertising views to other bots might seem hollow to them. Its like a salesperson engaging with a non-decider in a company. It is a waste of both times (well, the non-decider might get a few meals and drinks out of this). So as ‘advertisement’ revenue drops (like brick) in that setting the shareholders will be massively unimpressed and so they should be. As such Elon Musk and Saudi prince and billionaire Al Waleed bin Talal al Saud, who rolled over $1.89 billion in former Twitter shares at the time of the deal. Might presumably see their stock diminish in value for a little over 40% by the end of the year. Well, I gave prince Al Waleed bin Talal al Saud the option of control of an idea to the extend of $5,000,000,000. An expected idea, that was merely the setting of IP in the first phase, which could grow to a lowly estimated $15 billion to $20,000,000,000 annual, after the second phase would be possible (not guaranteed). This would have costed him my fee of $50 million (post taxation) plus 3% annual revenue for 20 years (pre taxation). I think there is a chance he missed out on both. The first failure I personally did not see coming. 

I expected Elon Musk to be more mindful of his sink (that visualisation can be used in both directions). A friend of mine had evidence ready to be presented to Elon Musk showing him that the 45 billion was too high a price (his data showed the valid reason of diminishing that amount by 30%-45%, not a speculation, he had lot more data than I did. So as I see it, this setting will bring back the man Jack Dorsey by a lot more visibility and overly carrying suitcases full of dineros. As such The recent reports of the UAE taking the steps to set the stage with X could be faltered by the mere reason that they should have included Bluesky. I reckon that before the en of the year that move would be evidently clear. 

I wonder how this all plays out at the lemon-lime brand named X at present and the closure of this year. We’ll just have to see it. Anyways my day goes to fruition nicely as I do not own any stock in X. Still I have no stick in BlueSky either, as such I could be doing better.

So hasta lasagna to everyone and a fair Monday to all as well.

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September 25, 2024 · 21:13

Good News

Well, it is good news of a sort. The Guardian reported yesterday (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/23/violent-crime-murder-rate-fbi-2023) that ‘FBI confirms US murders declined in 2023, contrary to Republican claims’, it is here we get “Murder dropped by more than 11% in largest single-year decline in decades while rape and other crimes also fell”, as plenty of us consider the one nation that is mostly in decline (due to the Karen’s) it is nice that we see an article like this. We also get “Meanwhile, the broader category of violent crime nationwide decreased about 3%, said the data, which is audited and confirms earlier reporting from unaudited statistics”, as well as “the FBI said rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%, property crime dropped 2.4% and burglary fell by an estimated 7.6%”. Some say that it is nothing to write home about. The larger setting is that in a country as overloaded with 343,477,335 people both good and less so. These drops are nothing to be sneered at. I say hurrah to the police and FBI department on a national scale. I am still of the mind that criminals tend to find other ‘activities’ to fuel their need for greed and violence. What it is is anyone’s guess. In certain fields I tend to be a gloomy source of skepticism. And it is here that Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said: “Data drives policy, and without having a complete understanding of the problem, we cannot effectively address this significant surge in hate violence” OK, I will agree with that. Data tends to be the driving instigator in understanding certain crimes. It is also a little weird that hate violence would be the driving power against sexual assaults and burglaries. One does not optionally fuel the other side and as such I feel uncertain what to think. That is the other side of data. The lack of numbers does not fuel the understanding into another side. It is not that we can state with any kind of ‘comprehension’ that (2022) 16 sexual assaults + 84 burglaries = 14 sexual assaults + 58 burglaries + 28 hate crimes (2023) it just presumptuously does not work that way. But in the end crime went down to some extent and for that we can say ‘hurray ye police departments’ and ‘hurray ye FBI’. We then get ““Our administration has improved and expanded background checks, announced the single largest investment in youth mental health in history, and been an unprecedented resource to states, cities, and local communities,” said Kamala Harris” I am less convinced here. I am not debating the soul and spirit of the thought, there is a larger stage to consider. I wrote a few years ago that the ATF is staggeringly underfunded and for the longest time there was no head at the organisation. There was a lack of IT funds and all kinds of settings that sets the ATF with decades of lack of innovations at their disposal. In addition, last year the WBUR (in 2023) gave its audience ‘Does the man enforcing the country’s gun laws have the tools to do the job?’ I had raised that amendment issue a few years earlier. They gave us “ATF protects the public from crimes involving firearms, explosives, arson, and the diversion of alcohol and tobacco products. Regulates lawful commerce in firearms and explosives, and provides worldwide support to law enforcement, public safety, and industry partners.” All whilst the gun lobby does everything to make things harder for the ATF. And all whilst all the Tech biggies (Amazon with AWS, Microsoft with Azure and Google with Gemini) have lacked in assisting the ATF in ways that work. I am not placing blame in any of those three, but the lack of innovation in IT power in the ATF is staggering. And in that setting the FBI and the local police forces need to do their work. Weird is it not? Then in 2020 we see ‘Rethinking ATF’s Budget To Prioritise Effective Gun Violence Prevention’ apart from the fact that the ATF was without a permanent director for seven years the wondering setting by Kamala Harris with “Our administration has improved and expanded background checks” but I have issues with the statement. I will fully agree with the statement that it was true, but consider a car in 2022 when it was going at a speed of 23 mph, the fact that it now does 43 mph makes the statement true, but when we consider that the fact that the ATF is to be seen as The Tiger Brigades (1974) where the officers relied on something not dissimilar of the Ford model T, the improvements would be impressive all whilst the criminals out there relied on their Lamborghini Countach LP400 (179 mph), you do see that the police has absolutely no way of winning. When we realise this a lot more could be done, but political players relying on the gun lobby donations are o so willing to throw a clog in the wheels (the origin of the expression saboteur) and the larger issue is not that America needs to stop crime. It is important that they are gaining access to the tools that allows them to do their job.

So I am not attacking the good news we were given, but the fact that the truth is that certain organisations were supposed to do their job with one hand on their back. The lacking funds for infrastructure does not help I reckon. 

All reasons for applauding the local police departments and the FBI for getting some of the work done. So to all involved: “Well Done!”

I am now pondering a thought I had yesterday and a larger premise. Not sure yet what to do, but it is a consideration to behold. And now, with my eyes on the Scotia bank on Yonge street (Toronto) I will sign off and enjoy a glass of ice tea.

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September 7, 2024 · 03:34

Is the media now too corrupt?

That is the question that I saw coming my way (via my brain). I stumbled on an article accusing something bad, in many ways. The issue becomes that there was only ONE source. No one touched the article. Does it make it fake news? Or is the media now so corrupt that Microsoft gets a pass on everything? It is a serious question. You see the story starts with ‘Bombshell allegations that Microsoft is using Chinese employees inside China to oversee DoD, Federal government cloud infrastructure’ after all the anti-China rumbles, they are OK with this? 

The article (at https://lawenforcementtoday.com/bombshell-allegations-that-microsoft-using-chinese-employees-inside-china-to-oversee-dod-federal-government-cloud-infrastructure) gives plenty to worry about. If not Microsoft then at least the media. The setting tarts with “In September 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a conference that China has a “bigger hacking program” than the competition. He warned that Beijing has a “cyber espionage program so vast that it is bigger than all of its major competitors combined.”” And it gets a lot worse after that. We get “Tom Schiller, a senior software developer with a stellar resume, is the CEO of Next Defense, a consultancy agency specialising in Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence for defense training. Schiller is a subject matter expert. He reached out to Law Enforcement Today, and what he told us was chilling. He told us of a program hatched between Microsoft and the Obama administration that is directly tied to China and puts our national security in peril.” This is the first setting that the media should have referred to this article. They have no issues copying text on faceless accusations against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, but this is not touched? And I waited a fair amount of hours (in case all the media was suddenly asleep). And before you think that this is nothing we get “After the raid, a China-based Microsoft spokesperson emailed, “We’re serious about complying with China’s laws and committed to SAIC’s questions and concerns.” That statement contradicts the Microsoft president’s statement before the House Homeland Security Committee in June 2014, when he said that the Chinese government had previously ordered the company to comply with their laws and probes. He said the Chinese were told that he “was not allowed that and will not.” Schiller also noted that Microsoft has shared source code with China and let them insert their own source code into Microsoft’s proprietary source code. That is a direct contradiction to the Microsoft president’s statement to Congress.” So we get the setting that a key member of Microsoft made a statement to Congress that seemingly is found to be contradictive. Take time to read the article, there is way too much in there and copying the text seems a little overactive, so I am putting a pdf version of that page at the end of the article. So the end does give a hot stick of dynamite. 

We are given “Schiller advised Gimenez that he had alerted the DoD CIO and DISA IG about a possible breach in the US cloud infrastructure. 

“In my expert opinion, the breach has significantly compromised all U.S. Government and DoD cloud services, posing a grave ongoing and present danger to our nation’s security and the safety of the American people. He continued to explain to Gimenez Microsoft’s use of “un-cleared Chinese nationals based in China to conduct and control over 90% of the work and support for the Microsoft U.S. Government and DoD cloud environments,” explaining that the “authorisation agreement…was inadequately written, leaving things open-ended and unclarified.” He told Gimenez that “Microsoft has taken full advantage of this and has in turn used to essentially hand over control of the U.S. Sovereign Cloud to China,” adding that this had “actively been going on since around 2016.” Schiller told Gimenez he has “three additional senior-level whistleblowers from the Microsoft U.S. Government and DoD contract who are prepared to testify.” Schiller asked Gimenez to contact him so a complete briefing of facts could take place.” So lets recap the lessons of history. America goes anti China in a heartbeat. It sanctions Huawei (A Chinese company) and tells Europe to stop handing business deals to Huawei and now we see that China is managing the clouds of the Department of Defence and the US Governments? Where is the logic in this? 

And the way the media is silencing this makes even less sense. They weren’t the source and they could have stuck with their usual BS (like inserting words like ‘alleged’ and ‘anonymous sources let us know’) we see non of that and only ONE article comes up in Google Search? This does not make sense. I will not blame Microsoft without ‘evidence’ but this article is a clear setting of time going back to 2022 and no one saw this? 

I wonder if the media suddenly wakes up, their is something amiss in all of this. It is either one side, or the other side. In this scenario there is no non-side. Oh and the source of this piece was Law Enforcement Today, so I would side with the fact that this is a serious stage for the United States, or do we call them the Peoples Republic of America from this forward?

So have a nice day and remember in China they prefer Long Jing tea, you should have some in stock if you are in America.

Bombshell allegations that Microsoft is using Chinese employees inside China to oversee DoD, FederalDownload

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August 15, 2024 · 17:40

Streamers wake up

Yup that is pretty much the setting. They are all trying to reinvent the wheel and there is nothing wrong with that, in some cases the new wheel is more up to date and a good show, or movie. As I saw the second iteration of The Andromeda Strain, this time produced by Ridley the alien Scott we see a new version that is ‘up to date’ with the technology settings, the story makes sense and it is a great story to watch in two parts. So as I was brooding on different matters, I was reminded to a good movie from 1987 with the one and only Jon Cryer. The movie was called 

Hiding Out. Now this is no Oscar winning material, still the movie was thoroughly entertaining and I think it deserves a remake. 

The main reason for the remake is that with all the digital currency scams, a remake is nearly essential and Netflix better wake up, or someone else will get to it. So in comes the actress of choice (Anna Taylor Joy). 

She has something in common with an actor like Tom Cruise. You see she could appear like a teenager until she turns 50 and in light of the setting of Hiding out, especially in a high school, this matters. 

The story (roughly) goes that she fell in love with a bitcoin broker and the setting is that he is the guilty foe and a lot of bitcoins go missing, more than enough that he gets himself killed. The last thing he does to ‘save’ his hide he lays blame on the actress of choice and as such she suddenly gets chased and she does not know why. Het only escape is to hide in a place where no one would seem to know her. As she loved her summers with her aunt in Nova Scotia. Her aunt is now dead, but she remembers the place and she is off to Nova Scotia and as such she hides as an international Uruguayan student in the St. Francis Xavier University. She enters as student in journalism and communication. 

In the meantime they are still hunting her but no one knows where to look for her. We get an appearance make over in the beginning when she gets to Nova Scotia (also the one link how they find her). So as the new student she lies low and tries to figure things out. In the meantime her office becomes aware of the $2,000,000,000 loss through theft (TV item) and the death of her lover. Now we get the FBI involved. The story goes that the FBI through digital CCTV traces get a possible handle on her (the train station where she vanished) and someone at the FBI blabs that to the criminals. Her tracks are lost in Saint-Lambert. She took the bus to Antigonish. The bus ride gets us some moments of her past life. 

She is relatively safe for now. And as she ‘embraces’ her anonymity and the new life she is making for herself she (of course) falls in love with one of the teachers and as she focusses on journalism she gains new skills in finding things out, more importantly she finds evidence that the bitcoin company seemingly have been white washing currency. In the meantime, she interns at a newspaper and one of the photographers takes a liking to her. When he takes a snapshot for a column where she is placed in the paper as the new intern, the links are found and the FBI goes after her, as well as the criminals. We now get that the FBI is after her, with criminals close on her too. I still need to think of a few sidelines where she has had positive influence through journalism, like a blue tuna fishing boat (water scenes) or something like that. 

In the end we see that her locket (an heirloom from her mother) contained an SD card with the currency encryption which is still in an account that no one could find or reach because it was encrypted. The SD card was the key to unlocking it. At the end the FBI catches the mole, retrieves the mob money and find the evidence that clearly identifies her previous boyfriend as the guilty party, the movie ends with her changing her life to Antigonish with her teacher. Now, wouldn’t it be nice to give Doug Al-Maini (professor of philosophy at said university) that role? I am a corruptor of the young and innocent (so sue me). And it might make a nice setting for Antigonish. 

It’s all I thought of in less than 2 hours. Netflix eat your heart out. Anyway use this idea as you see fit, I think it would also be nice to give Jon Cryer a nice small role here, to link the old to the new.

Have a great day and try the Nova Scoria Tuna today.

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December 22, 2023 · 23:44

Collected work

This is what we see at times, we see several cogs, we see that there is a connection, but we cannot see, or comprehend the connection. I am no different. I miss things at times. I am not smarter than you all (merely smarter then some). 

As such we see news, but can we see the connections? I started it yesterday with the phrase “it is a place where the bullies and the woke decide on the fate of others, regardless on what the others want” now we get a few settings, all at the same time. The first is ‘Trump caught on tape pressuring Wayne County officials not to certify election’ (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rudy-giuliani-bankruptcy-new-york-election-b2468135.html) There we are also given “Rudy Giuliani, filing for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $148m in damages to two Georgia election workers he defamed” You see, this is weird, especially when we see ““No person could have reasonably believed that Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount,” spokesperson Ted Goodman said.”. Rudy is a politician, a lawyer and Mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, as such, how many defamation cases did the city of New York face between 1994 and 2001? Did any media look into that? Was there any way out of this? The more you look into the matter, the worse it gets, the less the media seems to check, the less politicians seem to do in equal measure (example Zelensky and false yacht rumours). 

Now we see, through ABC (at https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-surge-threats-colorado-justices-ruled-trump-primary/story?id=105855615) ‘FBI looking into surge in threats against Colorado justices who ruled Trump can’t be on primary ballot’ it is here that the bullies are shown in force and the insurrection on January 8th 2021 shows just how much problems America has. The bullies are seemingly taking over. In all this they have a larger problem. If this isn’t stopped now, it goes out of control fast. When supreme court judges are swamped with threats, the problem is now starting to look largely out of control and it gets to be worse. On one side we see that 16 states are moving papers to remove Trump from the ballots, and even if that happens, when the primary starts and whomever gets that part decides to put Trump on the ballot America faces another danger. When his ‘friends’ are given leeway and convictions overturned or removed the danger of chaos increases by a lot. If the FBI remains incapable of stopping insurrections and prosecuting bullies the chaos starts in another direction. No matter how that goes, American business will take a massive dive in revenue and that gives America another turn of bad luck and it already has several bad turns to deal with. So whomever (especially Americans) think that I am full of wind and this will never happen ready up on what is going on. The fact that the two media cases on disinformation (Giuliani and Jones) still have no end in sight, the victims are deprived of all funds coming to them and now that Jones is on X and has (according to some) 800,000 followers you should see just how bad things could get. But there is an upside (possible) the amount of nations that will take in Americans is vanishing faster than snowflakes in a heated oven.  In all this America has prized themselves out of many markets, and as such the largest danger becomes will America implode and become a haven of dangers. Some state that the US economy is growing less than ‘predicted’, but it is worse than that. France has gained defence contracts that America was hoping for, so that is $8 billion less. China is gaining more projects in construction, defense, telecom and infrastructure. So they are up more billions and America loses additional billions. So what was not clear here? This has been going on since 2020 and the media was taping over these issues with flammable content. In this the EU is not out of the woods either, more issues are rising and when we add the ‘free Palestine’ and ‘Just stop oil’ cults all over the EU, the picture becomes slightly more complete. They are seemingly heading towards an equally bad place. So feel free to disagree, but the writing is on the wall, on the web and on the Walkman. You merely have to look on what is real and fake and that is another matter that needs attention. Media is too much about fake news. The BBC gives us that a former US Marine (now living in Russia) was allegedly behind the story that Volodymyr Zelensky bought two yachts. Not only was the news false, at least one ship is still for sale. I do not care, but fake news has impact. It seems that members of the US Congress making crucial decisions about military spending were repeating the accusation. Apart from the stupidity that members of US congress have on not vetting information. According to the BBC Tom Tillis, a Republican Senator is one of those less-intelligent people. 

All these matters are important as they connect to a dislodged population and a very dislodged administration (Congress). As such the collected works of bullies and false prophets are now in full swing all over America and I am not sure if the FBI and CIA are equipped to deal with it. The CIA because not only is this a former marine, he is setting the stage from Russia no less and it is impacting US politics and policies. The bullies threatening Colorado judges are getting away with it and the FBI seems unable to deal with this at present. So I think I made my case. There is a stage with collected works and the are diverting the light, the cameras and are giving the limelight to fake news, that is how I see it.

Enjoy the day, the Saturday before Christmas is now 20 minutes away.

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October 19, 2023 · 00:07

X to the power of sneaky

I was honestly a little surprised this morning when I saw the news pass by. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67137773) gives us ‘Twitter glitch allows CIA informant channel to be hijacked’. To be honest, I have no idea why they would take this road, but part of me gets it. Perhaps in the stream of all those messages, a few messages might never be noticed. The best way to hide a needly is to drop it in a haystack. Yet the article gives us “But Kevin McSheehan was able to redirect potential CIA contacts to his own Telegram channel” giving us a very different setting to the next course of a meal they cannot afford. So when we are given “At some point after 27 September, the CIA had added to its X profile page a link – https://t.me/securelycontactingcia – to its Telegram channel containing information about contacting the organisation on the dark net and through other secretive means”, most of us will overlook the very setting that we see here and it took me hours to trip over myself and take a walk on the previous street to reconsider this. So when we are given “a flaw in how X displays some links meant the full web address had been truncated to https://t.me/securelycont – an unused Telegram username” the danger becomes a lot more visible. And my first thought was that a civilian named McSheehan saw this and the NSA did not? How come the NSA missed this? I think that checking its own intelligence systems is a number one is stopping foreign powers to succeed there and that was either not done, or the failing is a lot bigger then just Twitter. So even as the article ends with “The CIA did not reply to a BBC News request for comment – but within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” we should see the beginning not the end of something. So, it was a set of bungles that starts with the CIA IT department, that goes straight into the NSA servers, Defence Cyber command and optionally the FBI cyber routines as well. You see, the origin I grasp at is “Installation of your defences against enemy retaliation” and it is not new, It goes back to Julius Caesar around 52BC (yes, more then two millennia ago). If I remember it correctly he wrote about it in Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Make sure your defences are secure before you lash out is a more up to date setting and here American intelligence seemingly failed. 

Now, we get it mistakes will be made, that happens. But for the IT department of several intelligence departments to miss it and for a civilian in Maine to pick it up is a bit drastic an error and that needs to be said. This is not some Common Cyber Sense setting, this is a simple mistake, one that any joker could make, I get that. My issue is that the larger collection of intelligence departments missed it too and now we have a new clambake. 

Yes, the CIA can spin this however they want, but the quote “within an hour of the request, the mistake had been corrected” implies that they had not seen this and optionally have made marked targets of whomever has linked their allegiance to the CIA. That is not a good thing and it is a setting where (according to Sun Tzu) dead spies are created. Yet they are now no longer in service of America, but they are optionally in service of the enemies of the USA and I cannot recall a setting where that ever was a good thing. You see, there was a stage that resembles this. In 942 the Germans instigated Englandspiel. A setting where “the Abwehr (German military intelligence) from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. German forces captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands and used the agents’ codes to dupe the United Kingdom’s clandestine organisation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), into continuing to infiltrate agents, weapons, and supplies into the Netherlands. The Germans captured nearly all the agents and weapons sent by the United Kingdom” For two years the Germans had the upper hand, for two years the SOE got the short end of that stick and this might not be the same, but there is a setting where this could end up being the same and I cannot see that being a good thing for anyone (except the enemies of America). Now, I will not speculate on the possible damage and I cannot speculate on the danger optional new informants face or the value of their intelligence. Yet at this point I think that America needs to take a hard look at the setting that they played debutante too. I get it, it is not clear water, with any intelligence operation it never is. Yet having a long conversation with the other cyber units is not the worst idea to have. You see, there is a chance someone copied the CIA idea and did EXACTLY the same thing somewhere else. As such how much danger is the intelligence apparatus in? Come to think of it, if Palantir systems monitor certain server actions, how did they miss it too? This is not an accusation, it is not up to Palantir to patrol the CIA, but these systems are used to monitor social media and no one picked up on this?

Just a thought to have on the middle of this week.

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October 3, 2023 · 22:10

Cutting corners

Something did not sit well with me yesterday. I have been mulling things over for most of today and it all started with Politico (at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/12/pentagon-cyber-command-private-companies-00115206) where we are given ‘The U.S. is getting hacked. So the Pentagon is overhauling its approach to cyber.’

This setting comes in a few stages. Lets start with the given that I have no opposition to the Pentagon getting involved. But the stage is not that simple. So we start with the quote “attacks on critical U.S. companies and federal agencies, and as the Pentagon eyes Chinese hacking efforts with increasing concern.” The first issue is that I would have said “Chinese and Russian hacking efforts”, it would be more accurate. There is an additional side to all this. If American corporations had done their job BETTER, this issue would not be the critical issue it currently is. 

Equifax (2017)
Marriott International (2018)
Capital One (2019)
First American (2019)
Solarwinds (2020)
Colonial Pipeline (2021)
LikedIn (2021)
Microsoft Exchange Server (2021)
Twitter (2022)

This is merely a small grasps, this grasp has millions of records online for each of these cases, In this Linked in stood out with “Personal records of over 700 million users – 92% of the user base – were scraped from the platform and put up for sale in a hacker forum. Why did this happen? Attackers found a public API without authentication and breached it to scrape content.” This case is also the larger issue (beside the fact that it was an API and I wrote about that risk in ‘A simpleminded A, B, C’ On August 30th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/08/30/a-simpleminded-a-b-c/) a simple setting now out in the open. People still think I was grasping at straws? Now here we see (in the LinkedIn case) “Attackers found a public API without authentication”, as such couldn’t they do their bloody jobs? I understand the setting of the Pentagon, but there needs to be a bill for utter stupidity and a link to your data without authentication is definitely one.

Corporations have been cutting corners on cost and staff and now that the consequences are out in the open, the Pentagon needs to rescue them? Screw that!

It is nice that the Pentagon comes to the rescue, but every rescue needs to come with an audit of that company and a hefty bill for the action. Consider a pointless rescue by coast guard and Marine rescue, these people get a hefty fine, I see that someone employs an API without authentication in pretty much the same way.

Yet the article is merely the start. You see, we can all agree on “Hackers are increasingly infiltrating private companies and government agencies far outside the Pentagon’s usual purview, and the hacks are being perpetrated by cybercriminals who honed their strategies abroad before striking the United States.” OK, that is fine and the fact that the Pentagon and its digital weapon systems are brought to bear is fine, but the utter stupid setting by corporations that cut corners is part one and that is on those corporations. I am even willing to accept that it took a disgruntled employee to hand visibility to the wrong people. Yet that also implies that these corporations have a larger problem and THEY have to pay for that. 

So about Three weeks ago, we were handed the 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy guide. The PDF (see bottom) is a nice piece of work. My issue is with page 6 where we are given “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organization, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicize this information as circumstances permit.” As I personally see it, it should say “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organisation, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors, whilst registering corporate shortcomings. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicise this information as circumstances permit, where corporate shortcomings will not be silenced.” In this case some will state that this is not the job of the DoD and they would be correct, but Corporate America fell short and they now want help, that shortcoming needs to be illuminated as well. You cannot have it both ways.

The document gives us a lot to think about and I agree with 99% of it all, especially when it comes to the Department of Defense Information Network. 

I created the Hub+1 intrusion solution in 2014 (or 2015). As far as I know, no one is at this time ready for that creative little caper. I got there shortly after the Sony hack. The information never added up to me and I started to wonder how it could have been done (always a nice way to find the issue by re-engineering the possibilities). And all this is long before we consider issues like non-repudiation, a simple setting I learned about in UTS (University of Technology Sydney) about 3 years before the Sony hack and corporations have been cutting corners ever since. Consider the routers of the FBI, DoD, DMV, Department of Homeland Security and the postal services. Now check EVERY router and tally the ones where the password was Cisco123. I reckon you will find close to a dozen routers. I know it is more presumption than speculation on my side, but that is the larger failure and that is BEFORE we check all the corporate routers. People in IT have been too lazy (for many obvious reasons) and most of them involve resource shortages and why should the Pentagon pay for that bill?

I see that corporate America needs to pay for their cutting corners, the Pentagon has enough issues to work through and when it needs to step in (and when shortcomings are found) that corporation needs to get billed. This is specific. Corporate players cannot shield themselves from top tier hackers, that is BS. But letting the Pentagon pay for corporate stupidity is equally stupid and that needs to be out in the open. 

So this was my rant on stupidity, enjoy the day.

2023_DOD_Cyber_Strategy_SummaryDownload

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