Tag Archives: FTI Consulting

The three day delay

Yes, it is not new, I had my go on this a few times, yet due to what we see now, after three days, it is time to renew this event. It started basically in 2014, the Yemen war became something serious and the west had no idea how to react. They reacted poorly and to make matters worse, events driven by Iran was kept out of the news. The people got a one sided story. Over time weapons sales went stale, were blocked and the defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a setting of debate by people who had no clue what was going on, because the ego trippers needed their Iran peace accord through a nuclear deal, something that even now is still not done. Matters became worse when the west decided to spin the events around Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. So even as the press al invoked “By 16 November 2018, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded that Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s assassination.” In this that the CIA stated that is was highly likely that this had happened, but no evidence was EVER brought to light. No evidence that could survive the rigours of academic investigations. The essay by the United Nations did not help any, that is for certain. Then we get the hack of Jeff Bezos, a disgracefully inadequate report by FTI Consulting. It is important to take notice of the Verge (at https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078828/report-saudi-arabia-hack-jeff-bezos-phone-fti-consulting) that also gives us “Facebook’s former chief security officer Alex Stamos, for example, said that there was “no smoking gun” in the report. Some researchers said that FTI should have been able to analyze the encrypted file that the crown prince sent Bezos which reportedly hacked his phone. And one said he didn’t see evidence in the report to suggest that Bezos’ phone was hacked.” I believe that Jeff got hacked, but there is no clear evidence WHO did the job, but there were some wannabe reporters that were really happy to blame the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Even though several newspapers earlier that week showed that certain hacks allowed people to pretend they were someone else, and that too is missing from the FTI report. 

So we have all these negativity, projected on the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and now the US wants a favour? You have got to be shitting me!

So we get back to the article where we see “Why should America’s regional allies help Washington contain Russia in Europe when Washington is strengthening Russia and Iran in the Middle East?” And this is the larger folly, a stage where the wrong people cater to Iran, all whilst they require other stuff too, but you cannot get it both ways and now that China is stepping in gobbling up billions upon billions in sales and services, we see the US in a stage of denial. They now need cheap oil, all whilst the two largest suppliers are set to the mind that premium prices will do just as well. And I warned for these situations for years, but everyone was in denial. It would never come to that and now that it is coming to that, the US, the EU and others are in denial on what is required. So at present the oil prices are on the rise, just for how long is impossible to say, yet we also acknowledge that reserves are being used to stop the rise. Just how long until that stops? What do you think will happen when the reserves are gone, because most nations do not have that much in reserve. They can avoid the winter this year, but that will drain the reserves and even as they can build up some of those reserves during summer, winter 2022 will show to be the year that people will need to choose, be warm, avoid hunger and pay rent/mortgage and there is every consideration that many households will only be able to do one of the three, two if they are lucky. 

That is the direct impact of catering to the populist view, the price of adjusting one view for another, one deciding on what was likely, not what could be proven, ignoring what was proven (Iran attacks) and catering to something that is still not a reality (Iranian nuclear agreement) and Iran has clearly been catered to and now the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are telling you all that enough is enough. You want oil at a premium, you got it and at a premium means that within the next 12-15 weeks oil prices might get back to the $130 marker, at that point, how much will it cost you to get groceries, to get to work, to get home and to refuel? All that whilst these two nations are now looking at China to deliver defence systems. Slap upon slap upon slap and now 19 hours ago we were given ‘Iran Says U.S. Is Responsible for Stalled Talks on Reviving Nuclear Deal’, another fiasco and the involved political players are all in hiding as not to get painted with that fiasco. So when you wonder what happened to the oil prices, it is simple. Your government royally screwed up and gave you the bill for their failure. 

So good luck with that.

Advertisement

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Politics

Wow, it was actually worse

Yes, that was pretty much the first thought I had when I was hit with the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59290301). The BBC gave me ‘Beirut blast: UN ignored plea for port disaster evidence’ this morning, a story that was out several hours at that time. There we see “the UN has repeatedly ignored requests from bereaved families for information to help the official investigation into the Beirut port explosion which killed 219 people in August last year”. This is seemingly poured on by worse data collection with “The Beirut Bar Association represents nearly 2,000 families and survivors at the investigation. Its chairman sent three separate letters directly to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, asking for some specific details. They requested two things. Firstly, all available satellite photos taken on the day of the blast by member states. And secondly, whether Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) checked the MV Rhosus – the ship that carried the explosive material which caused the explosion – back in 2013, before it arrived at Beirut port”. There is a larger play in motion. You see, I always had issues with Stephanie Kirchgaessner (an essay writer for the guardian), I showed this a few times over and in this case lets get back to January 28th 2020 when I wrote ‘The incompetent view’, there we see ““The issue is now the subject of an investigation by two independent UN investigators“, we see an almost completed path.” The issues of a blast are not investigated, and the ramblings of a highly debatable investigation by FTI Consulting apparently is. Even as cyber experts (a lot more in the know then me) had shone their light and found the report debatable. The article gives you more if you need it (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/01/28/the-incompetent-view/). There is more, bit it is less relevant than I need it to be for this. 

You see, when we see that the UN is ignoring please for a blast that pretty much wiped a city of the map, all whilst it is allegedly investigating debatable information on a member of the Saudi Royal family, they act? So is the UN the paper tiger is has been seen as for too long, by too many members? Has the UN become nothing more than a political tool for players like the United States? It is not a weird thought, plenty have said so, I merely act on evidence that the media releases, then again on information other media releases, so the thought is not out of bounds. And whilst I await my good fortune (see other stories), I might as well fill it with act on waking people up. 

And this remains on Beirut, the UN seems eager to ignore what happens there. I saw the massive blanket media ignoring the simple facts that a fire could not ever create this amount of an explosion, especially as the fire was near, not on the ship. And the massive explosion implies that there were explosives on the ship and that is what Hezbollah fears will come out and there we see the Iran play, the need it to be about something else and it is far fetched, I will admit to that immediately, but the powers that are controlling the stories dropped a few items and that gets noticed, especially the digital advertisement hungry media. They like their flames in a controlled manner, to make it last longer. Beirut would blow that setting out of the water (and it seemingly did so with additional help). 

So whilst we might take notice of “Until this day we don’t know what caused the explosion, we don’t know if it was an intentional act, we don’t know if it was caused by negligence, we have no idea”, we do need to take notice of “The first of the families’ letters was sent by the Bar Association on 26 October 2020. A follow-up was dispatched three weeks later on 19 November, noting “it has been more than 100 days since the blast, to date none of the member states or Unifil has sent any photos or information”. The third letter, dated 17 March 2021, states: “Seven months have passed since the blast and five months since our letter, and unfortunately our letters remain unanswered and unacknowledged. Lebanon is a founder member of the UN and is asking for help.”” So, is it a lack of support, or is it all about specifically directed support, support that the US hopes will ‘aid’ their need to make Iran heel, all whilst it is aiding Iran to set up delay after delay. And in all this the UN is happy to cater to the ignoring of Beirut whilst bashing Saudi Arabia for good measure. And do not take my word for it, Search for “the Guardian + Stephanie Kirchgaessner” on Google. Should you doubt one of the two parts, when you do set it next to the station of the UN and their 7 months of not looking at the Beirut situation. It can not have the resources as they had it to waste on matters that do not relate to UN activities. So you tell me.

In that station we are all the piggy in the middle. And it is a game with four parties, we are the piggy, the UN is one player, the US is allegedly the other player, but who is player four? Lobbyists? Stakeholders governments? At present still unknown parties? I actually do not know, yet I wonder who does. It is not because I am not trying, it is because the players are really good on keeping their presence, both natural and digital unseen, we can speculate that they get serious amounts of help, but that too would be speculating. You see it is set to the premise of a 4 player piggy in the middle, but that is instinctive speculation, if the speculation is wrong, the field looks different, but there is one clarity, the 7 months silence, the acts of an essay writer and the setting of the biggest non-nuclear blast I have ever seen sets that stage. But I will admit upfront that there are speculative sides, if the speculation is wrong, then so is the view. I will let you do your own searchings and decide for yourself. It is all I can do, it is all I should do.

So as I conclude today, the view is seemingly worse than even I thought it would be, the BBC brought that to the surface and as some media will give more visibility to the failings of the United Nations, feel free to wonder how much they are getting paid and what they should be doing. Consider their failings in Yemen due to acts by Houthi and Iranian stake holders, how far did they get? How often was Saudi Arabia blamed whilst Houthi forces as well as their Iranian benefactors were unmentioned? Now consider the stage of Beirut and what the United Nations has achieved there. We can agree that Hezbollah is part of that equation, but it is not enough for the failing to be this big, there needs to be another player in this game for the math to work decently.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Military, Politics

Where the media should never be

A case was brought to my attention, normally it goes nowhere, but this article (at https://millichronicle.com/2021/03/opinion-ghada-oueiss-lies-about-saudi-and-american-spies/) struck a nerve. In all this, there were a few unknowns. I had never dealt with the Milli Chronicle, I did not know the writer and it was against Al Jazeera, a news outlet that had shown to be often enough to be in good faith, but the article still stung. Lets take a look

There was ‘Al Jazeera anchor Ghada Oueiss sues Saudi and UAE crown princes over phone hack, harassment’ (at https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3113604/al-jazeera-anchor-ghada-oueiss-sues-saudi-and-uae-crown), the South China Morning Post gives us this last December. It is there where we see “She sued Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed for allegedly hacking into her phone and stealing and doctoring images to silence her”, this is interesting because it is not the first time that Mohammed bin Salman is accused of this. I am wondering how much of it is actually true. You see one definite part in this is that one should always keep their hands clean, as such there is a larger debate on who did the deed, and as such how is any evidence of this tested and validated? Perhaps Ghada Oueiss is seeing a pay day? When we look back at a similar accusation we saw the failed papers and the debatable papers by FTI consulting. There was clear evidence that his phone was hacked, but there is also a decent setting that MBS was framed and that a third party hacked his phone.

All this becomes a second stage when we see ‘Al Jazeera anchor’s anti-Semitic Twitter persona’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/1704376/media) a setting that was seen last July. There we see “On July 8, Al Jazeera anchor Ghada Oueiss wrote an opinion article for the Washington Post in which she detailed her alleged struggle with cyberbullying campaigns on Twitter at the hands of — as she claims — droves of Saudi and Emirati bots”, so in all this we see another Washington Post mention all towards a columnist no one gives a fuck about (pardon my French). Isn’t it interesting that they all knew one another and they are all the making the ‘alleged attempt’? As I see it Al Jazeera just entered the frame where they should not be ‘Creating the no news’ and there is every chance that this will now hit their credibility. We are also given ““Al Jazeera, though Ghada Oueiss and others, calls for chaos in its support for militias and violence against the state and calls for hatred in any form possible to defy and distort the image of those who oppose its sponsors in Qatar and its ally Turkey,” Egypt-based media expert Hani Nasira told Arab News.” This requires me to have more in depth knowledge of Hani Nasira which I do not have, but it also gives (optionally plasters) Ghada Oueiss as a tool for usage as we are treated to “Al Jazeera, though Ghada Oueiss and others”, gives rise to a different kind of journalism, I wonder who was looking that deep? So as we return to the Milli Chronicle and “Ghada needs defendants who reside in Miami, Florida in order to bring her lawsuit there. Two of the USA Defendants live in Miami, Florida—which is why Ghada made them defendants in her lawsuit. Ghada complains that these two Americans joked about eating dinner at the Olive Garden Restaurant in Miami, so now, Ghada no longer feels safe in Miami—even though she lives in Qatar.” And perhaps this reminds you of something? I wrote about it a few weeks ago and let me get a sample. It is seen in my article ‘Number of states’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/06/number-of-states/) there we see (at https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.220747/gov.uscourts.dcd.220747.66.1.pdf) at [4] “Fortunately, in the United States, justice is measured not by the might of one’s arms; what is lawful is measured not by the reach of one’s sword; and the law itself is not laggard when faced with a prince who, having directed the dismemberment of a prominent U.S. journalist overseas, also dispatched a team of hunters and killers into the United States and Canada to murder again”, it is interesting that all the elements were outside the USA, more important, there is a lack of Canadian Courts in play when it comes to Dr. Saad Aljabri. And personally, it might be me, yet how much value do we give a complaint when it starts with “Richard III, William Shakespeare” a play that is seen as a tragedy, just like that court case, so why was the intending ‘victim’ not in a Canadian court? And it does not end there, the opposition (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) is shown in the Guardian ‘Saudi state companies sue ex-spy chief in Canada over alleged $3bn fraud’ with the additional part “Aljabri, exiled in Canada, was a top aide to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was deposed as heir to the throne by Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a 2017 palace coup.” I am not stating that one is true and one is false, but which journalist dug into the finances of Dr. Saad Aljabri? $3,000,000,000 is a lot more than most will ever make, and even as a top aide to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef there is a decent option that Dr. Saad Aljabri would end up being a millionaire, even a multi millionaire, but not a billionaire. 

I feel certain that I can live like a king in Monaco for €250,000,000, so why would I need more? Some do and for a top-aide to end up being a multi billionaire, that requires some doing and no one is asking those questions, they are all doing the same thing from different directions, like a bachelor getting to work in the morning every day from a different direction, someone is getting screwed. The people expecting neutral news is one, there are a few more but I will let you decide on that.

You see, we all want confirmation, one stating that fraud was not committed whilst the court case is filed in the US, not in Canada. So what investigation took place in Canada? Then when we see the Milli Chronicle with “It seemed like a crazy joke until the reporter said there was actually a lawsuit number, 1:20-cv-25022– and that I was personally named as a member of a shadowy, nefarious, evil-doing operation that Ghada calls “The Network” on pages 19 and 20 of her 93-page diatribe”, who investigated this stuff? The fact that it makes the Milli Chronicle and not the NY Times is a valid question, but there is every indication that the Washington Post system is working full throttle in their attempt to paint a target and they are using all they can and the non-friends of Saudi Arabia are the helping hands that the Washington Post is seeking. It is speculative, but it is my view and the evidence is stacking up against the Washington Post and now against Al Jazeera as well. I do hope that the chief editor is taking a hard and a very critical look at the work of Ghada Oueiss. I will let them decide and figure out what is actual truth and I do hope that they will inform the audience, they allegedly have credibility to repair.

1 Comment

Filed under Law, Media, Politics

Some heavenly statement

Yup we all have the moment. We have that small voice within ourselves that suddenly screams out in 50+ decibels, others cannot hear it, because it is all between the ears. So we get in a stage where we rely on ‘God made me do it’ or optionally ‘the Devil made me do it’. It happen to us all, when we slam our Mario cart into the cart of our partner winning the race, the stage where you look into the distance stating ‘is that a car crash’ and whilst everyone looks, you quickly devour the cake that wasn’t meant for you. We all have these moments. Some of these situations when it is more than a game or a piece of cake, we end up in court. Court has strict (or stricter) rules in setting the stage. We get evidence and beyond all reasonable doubt. Spending on the nation we see a much larger stage. So when we see Al Jazeera with ‘Saudi crown prince served court summons via WhatsApp’ and that is merely the tip of the napkin. We also get “New documents filed to a US federal court show the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), was issued a summons via WhatsApp last month on charges of torture and directing an assassination attempt against a former Saudi security adviser”, can anyone tell me why this was not set via the state department, even more laughing is the small fact “In the lawsuit, a former security adviser, Saad al-Jabri, alleges MBS sent a 50 person “assassination squad” from Saudi Arabia to Canada in an attempt to “eliminate him” in October 2018, but the Saudis were denied entry at the border”, so here we get two elements. The first is ‘the Saudis were denied entry at the border’, as such there was no assassination, the fact that Saad al-Jabri is still alive might have something to do with it and the second part is ‘50 person “assassination squad” from Saudi Arabia to Canada’, Canada? What the frick is happening here? That is before the humour of “Al-Jabri claims the assassination attempt took place days after Khashoggi’s murder” hits us, oh: “Someone tried to assassinate me, it was a devious dapper Dan of the British SAS”, as such: “Your highness, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, in light of this, can I please receive GBP 132,556,322.24 in damages? I can send the invoice via WhatsApp, what is the number of your personal assistant?” Now, I have no chance of that deposit happening to me, a pesky things like evidence, is most likely not accepting any of it. Yet the station that we all see should be clear.

  1. An allegation of assassination, more dumb is the fact that it was 50 men, so can we see the border even with 50 confirmed identities, weapons, things like that. Unnamed sources were able to get me part of it by submitting to me the alleged battle plan created by someone named K. McAlister of the US Rangers (alleged), see the image above.
  2. Saad Al-Jabri still lives, one person with a long range sniper rifle could have done it. The other 49 people? What were they for? One for getting coffee, one to get the bagel, one to comb the hair, one to do the massage if the muscles cramp up?
  3. Court summons are done in person or by registered mail. There is a rumour that it is done via “Summons is usually issued by the clerk of the court. In many states, the summons may be issued by an attorney, but some states use filing as the means to commence an action and in those states, the attorney must first file the summons in duplicate before it becomes effective”, so where is the State department in all this? And who on earth is Thomas Musters? Is he a representative of the Department of Justice? What evidence is there that the phone was operated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?
  4. As Al Jazeera gives us “sent a hit squad to assassinate him in Canada”, who in Canada confirmed this, who in Canada filed papers for the arrest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? 

This is a smear campaign was set up as window dressing for a joke (a bad one at that). So as the article gives us “It is alleged MBS used WhatsApp to spy on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos”, all whilst the evidence was flawed on several counts, it was countered by Cyber Specialists and the report by FTI Consulting was so debatable that if they caught a drug dealer they filmed doing just that could not be convicted, there were massive gaps in that report. And for the journalist no-one gives a toss about, there is no evidence that shows in any way that a Saudi Royal member was involved. As for “Several intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have reportedly concluded MBS ordered Khashoggi’s killing”, those fucking idiot could not find any WMD’s in Iraq, as such their credibility is in the basement. The paper by UN Essay Writer Agnes Callamard has a few more issues and I addressed them in the past. 

In this I would like to see the Washington, DC court names involved. I want to see who in the US State Department is involved and the official papers the have been filed, but I reckon that we will never see this, the article is window dressing, for what?  I am not sure.

So before that the Wall Street Journal gave us in July ‘Saudi Arabia Wants Its Fugitive Spymaster Back’ OK, that makes sense, and is it a leap of faith that Saad al-Jabri arranged 50 friends to be at the border of Canada making a ruckus? Making a stage where he is seemingly assassinated so that he can live whatever life he has in the US? Oh, and in light of the ‘Canada’ link, how many newspapers looked at the Canada link? It might exit, it might not, I for one find the WhatsApp link to be dodgy as hell. There is no way to factually and actually prove that is was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who got the summon, this is why it is done via lawyers and clarks to hand these papers, I reckon the in this specific case a decently high ranking member of the State department might also fit the bill, did anyone talk to the State department? 

You see the State department and the Canadian government are overly not visible in this article, why is that?

Was Canadian coffee not good enough for the filers of this article?

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Military

Intentionally creating imbalance

This happens, it happens more often than you think, but that is a separate issue. Yet too often have you seen that the media all over the world have thrown evidence to the side of the road, just to aid in imbalance? Consider that stage for a second. We all have our own windmills to fight, it is not simplifying to Don Quixote, even though it is tempting. I would be drawn to “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water”, even as some might rely on “Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness”, a stage we all all face, all sides of it. In this Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra might have been a larger philosopher than anyone realises, even if it made little sense in those days, it does in these days, in the age of digital awareness, sides of insanity and madness finally make sense.

In this I start with ‘Jamal Khashoggi: Journalist’s fiancee sues Saudi crown prince’. It is not the first page but it is another page that in isolation makes the most sense to use. Yes, there are all kinds of people telling me how insane I am, the madness that I show in this when soo many sources telling me otherwise.  A stage that I would accept if the soup wasn’t getting cooked on a high flame. In the BBC article I start with the fiancee is the one party I would give a pass on. I believe that she was hurt and she is filing, but there is the real matter, is it not? 

Even as we are given “Hatice Cengiz and the rights group Khashoggi formed before his death are pursuing Mohammed bin Salman and more than 20 others for unspecified damages”, so a group formed before his death? It is the ‘unspecified damages’ that takes the cake, the biscuits and the pot of tea. In the matter we need to look and address ‘a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, accusing him of ordering the killing’. This part we need to see with a clinical view. What evidence exists? The term ‘ordering the killing’ requires proof beyond all reasonable doubt. The infamous UN essay by Agnes Callamard showed that there is no evidence, there is no body and the work of fiction called ‘Blood and Ice’, shows even more lack of truths. As I personal see it ‘Blood and Oil’ is a fictional work by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck, a fictional work with a collection of facts based on people who actually exist. It reads easy and is seemingly created for a longer term, a stage I have not seen in Journalistic work, but this is not that, is it? It is an important take to realise, as the case created by the ‘Hatice Cengiz and the rights group Khashoggi’ calls for it. Consider the stage of a court, the costs involved. I will concede that there are leagues of people willing to set the stage through pro-bono work because of the limelight the case will get, but in the end, there was no evidence, the bast we can hope for is that Jamal Khashoggi is missing. This is not about personal feelings or personal knowledge, it is what can be proven in court and even if any evidence EVER comes to the surface, the setting that it can be linked to the Crown prince is close to impossible to prove. A stage where a person no one cared about (except his mum and the person he shares a bed with) has received close to 80 million hits online and that is merely a conservative guess. At some point I saw the counter go well over 60 million and that was a year ago. So has something bad happened to him? Personally I believe tht to be the case, but I cannot prove it. I was not there and NO ONE presented any evidence to the fact that this has happened. It happened in  nation that is the puppet of Iran and tht nation has the most incarcerated journalists in the world and that nation has been the discussion of a whole range of murdered journalists, murders that cannot be proven, but they state that they have the evidence on this, yet they never properly presented it. As I personally see it, the acts of a puppet nation without evidence. 

As such, when we see “After listening to purported audio recordings of conversations inside the consulate made by Turkish intelligence, UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard concluded that Khashoggi was “brutally slain” that day”, the UN report does not show any evidence to positively confirm that the person allegedly being interrogated was Jamal Khashoggi, in the UN report at [398] we see “In an international forum at least, a review of the rules of evidence and jurisprudence conducted by the Special Rapporteur shows that the admissibility of the tapes and potentially other intercepts relating to Mr. Khashoggi’s death will depend on the form in which they are ultimately produced, their reliability, the fairness to the defendants of using such evidence, and the interest of the international community in providing justice to Mr. Khashoggi and his family”, here we see no mention that the tapes PROVE that the tapes are beyond the shadow of a doubt the recordings of Jamal Khashoggi. Yet at [41] of that report we are given “Recordings of only seven different conversations over a two-day period were made available to the inquiry. Combined these amounted to 45 minutes of tape, when, according to Turkish Intelligence, they had access to at least seven hours of recordings. The remaining six hours and 15 minutes may or may not be relevant to the inquiry, but without doubt there remains much more recorded information than that made available to the Special Rapporteur”, consider that allegedly only 10.7% of the available recordings were made available, so in what universe does that not constitute reasonable doubt or even an alleged form of tempered evidence? This is merely a setting of 2 elements in a much larger report. None of it proves murder, to a much larger extent it is a document that due to manipulation could set many optionally involved people free. 

My setting is seen in the report at [244] where we see “Much attention has been focused on whether the Crown Prince himself ordered the murder. However, this focus on “ordering” the crime and on finding the “smoking gun” creates expectations which legal systems, both domestic and international, may not be able to meet.  The search for justice and accountability for human rights violations should also and as importantly require identifying those that have abused their influence and power or failed to act with the diligence required of their positions” and the stage of ‘which  legal systems, both domestic and international, may not be able to meet’. It was the stage I had from the very beginning, whatever happened, it cannot be proven and now we get to the good stuff. A report that is well over a year old gives us this, so why continue, this is not about ‘justice’ this is about creating middle east imbalance, optionally this is about people catering towards Turkey and Iran for a third reason and they have no issues burning Saudi needs. The larger stage is however a much more dangerous side. As some seemingly clever people are setting their needs of ‘we need no Saudi Arabia’, we see a stage where Russia and China are willing to set a much larger stage, as such it could cost the EU and the US well over $15 billion in trade deals and goods over the foreseeable future. I will be happy (not knowing whether if I am able) to take over that business. Yet walking way for crumbs from a $15,000,000,000 piece of pastry is even larger madness; of all the windmills I face, an income well below $135,000 a year (pre taxation) is perhaps the easiest to overcome if the opportunity is offered. The moment the two larger players are set in a stage where they lose out, we will see all kinds of demands and contemplated compromises, I merely wonder if it will be too late for them at that point.

And consider the larger issue, how much effort had been made towards all the murdered journalists in Turkey, or even those currently in a Turkish prison? How much articles have you seen on that part of the equation? Some sources give 47 (one less than China) some sources say a lot more, theft that in 2016 well over 100 were in prison gives us question on some data that Forbes presents (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/12/12/the-countries-imprisoning-the-most-journalists-in-2019-infographic), even as we see one source giving us ‘85 journalists and media workers in jail in Turkey’ (complete with a name list) we see a stage of catering and hiding behind ‘media workers’, yet the stage of 47 and 85 is a little too big, so I am willing to go on a madness quest and state that the media themselves are catering to the wrong parties and they need to consider this a lot quicker then they currently are.

Could I be wrong?
Yes, absolutely! Yet consider the evidence and sources. I reflect on the produced US report (which I will happily label a mere essay), and when we see the other stage (like Jeff Bezos and FTI Consulting) and accusation after accusation, all whilst evidence open to the media is ignored, you tell me, Am I wrong?

When a book refers to “dismembering Khashoggi’s body like butchers”, all whilst the body is never found, all whilst evidence of dismembering cannot be produced and whilst there is no digital evidence of any kind, we see “a gripping work of investigative journalism” and in all this, no one is asking questions. I for one do not stand for the hypocritical stage that is exploited by the media on several fronts. Fell free to disagree, yet I feel that there is enough evidence on my side, whilst the lack of evidence on the other side is massively questionable.

I will let you decide on this, like I pretty much always do.

Leave a comment

Filed under Law, Media, Politics

View of a different nature

We all have a view, we all have a way of looking at things. I am no exception, that is the sight we have. Yet some people (and I personally count myself among them) have a much stronger ability to adjust the views we have. Some (like myself) have the ability to adjust when needed. In this age of being told a story, it is important to be able to look at the data.

My adjustment started in early 2018 when I was made aware of Neom City. The new city that was to be build by Saudi Arabia. Its foundation was so overwhelming that it was enticing to applaud it. Never in the history of mankind was something like this ever conceived. A city around 20 times the size of New York was to be build. That setting was inspiring and it drove me to create some of the IP I ended up having. The setting of a new all tech city was overwhelming, yet that was only the beginning, it was then that we got to see an increasingly amount of anti-Saudi events and articles. So when the Guardian gave us ‘Revealed: Saudi Arabia may have enough uranium ore to produce nuclear fuel’, I decided to dig. The first thing I noticed was the presence of Stephanie Kirchgaessner. I saw her name on ‘Jeff Bezos hack: Amazon boss’s phone ‘hacked by Saudi crown prince’ in January this year. There we are introduced to “that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, sources have told the Guardian”, I had an issue with the hatchet approach, no matter what Kirchgaessner calls herself. I basically debunked the hacking issue, as well as security forensics firm FTI Consulting in less than an hour, the Guardian was that thorough before publishing what they would call at best ‘highly probable’, yes that is what we need from those so called investigators and the fact that I was able to pump holes in the setting within an hour, in addition to actual electronic forensic experts giving even more evidence that led to believe that the accusations were debatable at best, completely ejectable at worst, that is not a good setting to be in and now that same name comes back to the Guardian article. Now we see “The disclosure will intensify concerns about Riyadh’s interest in an atomic weapons programme”, yet the monarchy of Saudi Arabia have always stated the they would not go near an nuclear arsenal until Iran does and it seems that the pussies of this world (politicians and journalists all over the world) have not been able to do anything ab out Iran, so they have another go at Saudi Arabia. In all this the entire setting that the quote: “Confidential Chinese report seen by the Guardian intensifies concerns about possible weapons programme” is driving this all. Let’s be clear, the two places where journalists have no access, the Guardian gets a report? And the evidence is debatable, it is all linked to “These are “inferred deposits”, estimated from initial surveys”, so it is based on estimations, a debatable source. Now we can accept that it is possible the there is Uranium in Saudi Arabia, and it was never a secret, there has been plans that go back to 2016 that Saudi Arabia has had plans to extract uranium for the domestic production of nuclear fuel. The UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was also assisting Saudi’s nuclear ambition (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-15/saudi-arabia-s-atomic-ambition-is-being-fueled-by-a-un-watchdog)

Yet the Guardian gives us “The greatest international concern is over the kingdom’s lack of transparency. Under a 2005 agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Saudi Arabia avoided inspections through a small quantities protocol (SQP), which waives IAEA monitoring up to the point where fissile fuel is introduced into a reactor. The nuclear watchdog has been trying to convince the Saudi monarchy to now accept a full monitoring programme, but the Saudis have so far fended off that request”, And in this Reuters gave us 3 weeks ago “IAEA providing support for Saudi Arabia as it plans to adopt nuclear energy”, it seems that the Guardian is giving us an adjusted negative view, with a lacking support on several fronts and I wonder why that is happening. In all this the Guardian also evades the entire enrichment issues the are required for nuclear warheads in opposition to enrichment for fuel, why is that part missing? All this, whilst the escalating party (Iran) is given leeway after leeway. You see, in this the one party is fuelling the other and Saudi Arabia has been up front about the from the beginning.

The Guardian gives us that with “The kingdom’s nuclear ambitions have become a source of heightened concern in the US Congress and among allies, particularly since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declared in 2018 that if regional rival Iran develops a nuclear bomb, “we will follow suit as soon as possible”” Yet part from the Iran drive, the Saudi drive was for fuel only and that part is missing, there is a lot missing and when we consider the quote “who have been scrambling to help Riyadh map its uranium reserves at breakneck speed as part of their nuclear energy cooperation agreement” whilst this started in 2017, I merely wonder if the writers at the Guardian have any clue of the concept ‘at breakneck speed’, as I see it, in 3 years mapping is not breakneck speed, especially when we add the ““inferred deposits”, estimated from initial surveys” it smells like something it is not and yes, we should keep our eyes open (both Saudi Arabia and Iran), yet IAEA part is merely a small paragraph, and part of that is inferred, not the way I would go, but the is me. I think that the Guardian went wrong here, I would have made the entire IAEA a lot more important, and as the headline gives us ‘may have enough uranium ore to produce nuclear fuel’, my question becomes, why is there a ‘may’ in the headline? I would consider the setting that if there is a ‘may’ after the entire setting had been going on for 3 years, we have a larger issue and the stage of ‘confidential documents seen by the Guardian’ becomes a lot more debatable when there is a massive absence of ‘enrichment’ in the entire article. Did anyone notice that? So where is the fuel getting enriched? So whilst the article goes on with “for either an energy or weapons programme” we need to consider that enrichment is essential for weapons, so where does Bruce Riedel (the expert from the Brookings Institution) get his information? Why is the article skipping enrichment, the most essential element towards weapons? We are happy to see “The Guardian could not independently verify the authenticity of the report”, yet that merely makes the article more debatable, not less so.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics, Science

Innuendo on the aftermath

The BBC is giving us more, and more, and more. Now they give us “The coronavirus crisis might be causing widespread economic upheaval around the world, but the world’s biggest tech firms are thriving.” And why is that? Consider the simple truth, Apple, even though not completely innovative, does give us something lovely. A lot of people got access to their Super early because of the Coronavirus, we do not want to splash and splurge, but when you are in lockdown, you cannot escape yourself, you can stare down the walls, go insane, or do something else. Surf the web using a Apple iPhone, or a Google Pixar, read a book, play a game or watch a DVD that is ordered via Amazon, then there is the surfing and 2 billion visit Facebook, so yes ‘the world’s biggest tech firms are thriving’, shops would not have been a great offer, lockdowns do that, but the people can order things and some get the hardware to do this. When you have one day to live, the option to see in brilliance and astounding quality matters a great deal to that person. And in all this, the digital highway will be travelled a lot more than usual, people working from home, people being denied high resolution Netflix because the internet if congested, but the advertisements go through, and we all see them. Then we get “At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, lawmakers grilled the companies about whether they were abusing their dominance to quash rivals, noting the sharp contrast between their fortunes and many other firms”, as I personally see it, they aren’t quashing rivals, they are using their expertise to gain faster and more. 

Beyond that there is “Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner asked Mark Zuckerberg why Twitter had removed a post by the US president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, discussing the efficacy of the drug hydroxychloroquine. Twitter is not owned by Facebook. “I think what you might be referring to happened on Twitter, so it’s hard for me to speak to that,” said Mr Zuckerberg.””it gives my earlier view on the stupidity of politicians, as Jim Sensenbrenner cannot tell who owns what and addresses the wrong person on the matter, we see the Cowboy show I expected to see, a waste of time, and poor entertainment at that. 

It becomes a larger issues when we see “Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked Jeff Bezos for a “yes or no” answer: Did Amazon ever use seller data to make its own business decisions? This was a reference to reports that Amazon has used data gathered from businesses selling products via its site to design and price its own rival first-party goods – something the firm has previously suggested had been limited to a group of rogue employees. Mr Bezos responded that he couldn’t give an answer in such simple terms” That is part of the problem, the lack of knowledge, when we look at “Did Amazon ever use seller data to make its own business decisions?” What exactly is ‘seller data?’, is it a cookie that the users has agreed on, was it sales data from the application that was used, as such, what application data is in play? Was it a customer review? Three questions that rip out the threads of the conversation. As such, as we saw Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal rip Attorney General William Barr to shreds, she should have known better from the start, and we go from cowboy act to dog and pony show. In all this there is also debate on ‘to make its own business decisions’, especially as APN partners have options to make choices and decisions, it was a poorly phrased question and a wrongly lit situation from the get go. And last but not least we see “Republican congressman Matt Gaetz claimed that Google collaborates with Chinese universities that take “millions upon millions of dollars from the Chinese military” and noted that tech investor Peter Thiel had previously accused the company of “treason””, so how stupid is Matt Gaetz and where does he have ANY evidence that Google was taking money from the ‘Chinese military’? It is these levels of stupidity that gets no results, mere innuendo, yet they ALL seems to agree that overhauling Tax laws and competition laws would be a larger need, especially that in light of 5G and optionally 5G plus (a new IP I am working out) the need to both would be essential in keeping the playing field level, but these politicians, but their own account they sealed their own lives. Even as we see: “But Cicilline goes on: “This is the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just about Covid. Facebook gets away with it because there is no competitor. It’s the only game in town.”” I still remember the setting in 1997, I saw so called bullet point executives having no clue on the digital highway, dismissing it of hand as some paths had no business purpose, the setting did not change before 5 years AFTER Facebook was created by people lacking innovative vision and trying to bleed off Facebook settings, and history is about to repeat itself in the 5G environment, the back-fall is that big and US Congress, seemingly ignorant of the digital dimension are making things worse by stopping the only 4 resources in the US who have a chance of c countering what comes next. So well done djotto’s! And it does not end there. Considering the lacking intelligence by these democrats, when the people realise just how far it lacked, we get to see that the upcoming election is not a given, not by a long shot. I keep on wondering what the hearing was about, when will we get to see these documents and so called evidence that they rely on? I wonder how many holes I get to shoot into that part of the equation. I talk about innuendo and here it is, proudly brought to you by the BBC. It was Republican Greg Steube who sets that in motion with the question “Do you believe the Chinese government is stealing technology from US companies?”, mind you that he tried to push for a yes-or-no answer in light of the simplistic minds that these members of Congress have. Yet consider that the most powerful tech bosses and owners of the IP stated “I don’t know of specific cases where we have been stolen from by the government” (Tim Cook), and that is the first part where we see the issue. Then there was “no first-hand knowledge of any information stolen from Google in this regard” (Sundar Pichai), “I haven’t seen that personally but I’ve heard many reports of it” (Jeff Bezos), in this we only have Mark Zuckerberg who gives us “I think it’s well documented that the Chinese government steals technology from US companies”, this issue here is in the first that it was narrow-minded to set a shallow question on a closed answer, all whilst Tim Cook gives us that he does not know the the Chinese government is stealing, but cheap knock off’s, especially when it is promoted by Kylie and Kendall Jenner (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53596192) are getting promoted by people of no mind and a clever approach on what they can get away with, I think they are called criminals. Sundar supports the view, or basically leads in his own fairway that Google was not a victim of that approach. We get Jeff giving us that he has seen many reports, yet I wonder who wrote them, I hope he is not relying on FTI Consulting for more than one reason. Only Marky Mark remains, I cannot fault his view and perhaps he is right, but in light of the Bezos hacking view and the issue on Sony and North Korea, there are too many questions on who does what and so far too many issues have left us with too many questions on how short the comings of come of the US cyber divisions really are, and that is not all. The hand that could be feeding them is the hand they are biting whilst not adjusting for the laws to make a proper job, that is the setting that we are left with in the aftermath and the innuendo around us leaves us with questions on politicians seeking the limelight. And why was Microsoft not there?

It is a weird setting and it will get a lot weirder in 2021. 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

The Fantastic Four and the bully

Yup its Friday! The match is set and also tempered and set against the Fantastic Four, they face it because the people who they are defending against are not that clued-in on the abilities of the digital economy and they merely want better pickings from these four, I am actually surprised that Netflix is missing there on a few stages, but perhaps they promised the not so clued in spectacle seekers to give them all the illumination they are worthy for, it is a dicey call, but when you can lose it all, you can also play it all.

They are up against a congress who has fiddled and played away well over 8 trillion in stupidity, the rest was unavoidable, they are that not clued in and the batter is about to hit the hedges, so they need a play so that they can retire unabated and without accountability. This was not new, there had been announcements and for the most, I actually thought that in light of what was playing now, that US Congress might give this a miss, but no, I was wrong.So as we look t the article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tech-congress/big-tech-ceos-ready-defenses-for-u-s-congress-hearing-into-their-growing-power-idUSKCN24O16K), we notice the lead ‘Big Tech CEOs ready defenses for U.S. Congress hearing into their growing power’, yet did we also notice “The panel is questioning the companies as part of its probe into whether they actively work to harm and eliminate smaller rivals, while not always making the best choices for their customers”, perhaps you remember the old court case, where we get the number one hilarious moment (at https://www.nbcnews.com/video/senate-gop-and-white-house-tentatively-agree-on-1-trillion-coronavirus-relief-88172613521), NBC was not the only one giving us that, but you get the idea on how clueless American Politics seems to be. You see, there are two parts in this. The first is “while not always making the best choices for their customers”. The sides here are 1. ‘Who is the customer?’, and 2. ‘What are the best choices?’, as I personally see it, congress does not have the brightest players in the first place, so there is every chance that at least 20% of that panel is clueless to the digital environment. And that is not all. If we consider “The high-profile hearing, which will bring together Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai, will be a key moment in the growing backlash against Big Tech in the United States and is likely to set up a face-off between the executives and skeptical lawmakers from both parties”, we see an optional stage of discrimination. In the first Twitter and Netflix are not there, in the second, as far as I (and others can tell), these players have acted on the letter of the law, the fact that others can’t do that, is not competition Law, it makes it something else (not sure what actually). I agree that I do not have all the answers, but this in the end we need to see that this is optionally not about what they say it is, the European Law and their GDPR is biting hard, as the US privacy shield is falling short by too much, there is every chance that the US government is missing out on terabytes of personalised data as their FISA act opted access for and that is not sitting pretty with them. So where is my evidence?

We see part off this in “Apple is likely to be quizzed about the way it manages its app store after facing criticisms it hurts newcomers. Apple told Reuters it will argue it does not have controlling market share for apps. The iPhone maker views its store as a feature designed to ensure the security and reliability of its phones.” The App Store is a rather large being, but it is amped towards Apple products, and as such security is key. So far the issues we see are a mere fraction of what could be. In this Forbes gave us that part yesterday with “With the July 22 launch of the Apple’s SRD program, security researchers will be able to go and hunt bugs much deeper within iOS. Apple said that the iPhones, which will be dedicated exclusively to such work, and known as security research devices, will come “with unique code execution and containment policies.” What this means, for example, is that the file system will be accessible for inspection rather than just looking at crash log snapshots or using jailbroken devices. The latter being far from perfect as jailbreak vulnerabilities are generally patched quickly, and so any research is more easily denied by Apple as being flawed.” Again, this shows two parts, the first is that Apps are often defined by hardware and Apple hardware is in transit, making most issues moot for Apple, the second part is that we see “the file system will be accessible for inspection rather than just looking at crash log snapshots”, we can argue that this betters the US government access to data, but does not really prove it, the merely get a better look at where to seek what they desperately want. I am still not convinced that this hearing isn’t an option for old goats (oops, I meant members of Congress) to get selfie time wit the 4 most wanted selfie objects in history.

I wil forgo on Amazon, these people have enough problems to set a proper definition of what is a hazard and how to identify it, I briefly discussed that in ‘6 simple questions’ in February this year, where a load of shortcomings, or is that shortcumings? Are set in motion, I never understand how people get their rocks of on bad work, but that might merely be me. I discussed it (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/6-simple-questions/) it also had a link to another article that shows questionable parts of FTI Consulting, as such and quoting CNN who gave us “The report’s limited results are a reminder that it can be extremely challenging to reconstruct the activities of a determined, well-resourced hacker”, all whilst the identity of the hacker is still up in the air, and this is set against a person who has more money than the combined resources of all who live in New York, which is saying something. He is 25% of what Congress faces? To be honest, I feel that the US audience are facing another Mickey Mouse show, which is weird as Disney is not in the dock, but I got extra popcorn, so that I can watch and giggle at the same time. Oh and by the way, I wrote this all on an innovative MacBook Air, as such we see that other players are not up to scrap to show us what is truly innovative. As I see it, this is the first truly innovative piece of hardware since the release of the G5 in 2004, so I wonder what Congress is really trying to achieve. And when we see “in recent weeks the firm has published blog posts and a white paper asserting that it still faces plenty of competition and that the fees it charges ad buyers and sellers are justified.” We see an optional path for Google, all whilst the non US Data centres of Google are being upholstered to avoid GDPR issues, as I see it the US Bully, oops, I mean Congress, are out of their depth in an age where computers and hardware changes quicker then the identity of the average man’s mistress. There are so many tackles and interactions, I have no trust in what US Congress is trying to achieve, but there is an upside for me, a they fail more and more, we see that my IP is still untouched and no one got near it, all this whilst the 5G site is going forward in most area’s, l except the USA. Perhaps Congress should have other priorities, like sorting out the tax laws that these four face, is that a little over the top?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Politics

Who is Miss Calculation?

There is something happening in the Middle East (there is always something happening in the Middle East mind you), yet the events of last week are seemingly larger and I am not sure in what direction it is heading.

There is a much larger stage and even as the media informed us on ‘Saudi royal arrests: Why top princes have been silenced‘ (source: BBC), we get “Prince Mohammed (commonly known as MBS) has displayed a ruthless ambition to force his way to the very top of the political tree“, as well as “The unfortunate subjects of MBS’s ambition this time were other members of the Saud family – most notably one of his uncles, Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz, a former interior minister; and a cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (known as MBN), a former crown prince and interior minister – who were detained for questioning and placed under investigation for treason, although no charges have been made“, this issue is that this does not add up. In the first, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that was never in question and there is no opposition in open play, as such the BBC statement (which is the same as almost every other statement in the media) is seemingly faulty. So why do I believe that I am correct and all the media is wrong? 

It is an important question as it gives rise to something much larger. In all this the intelligent part comes from Al Jazeera who gives us ‘There is a perfect storm brewing in Saudi Arabia‘, with the important byline “But why now?” it is the part that most media circumvented. 

The first we see is “Two separate issues are at play here. First is the sense of a crown prince on a mission to eradicate all forms of dissent and to ensure a smooth transition to becoming king“, I would want to question that, yet I know that I am at a loss in part as I am a non-Muslim, there might be parts of Islamic Law that I am unfamiliar with (as I am completely in the dark on Islamic law), as his father proclaimed him the Crown prince, I am at a loss why anyone would oppose the wishes of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud? As such the ‘why’ part is under scrutiny. 

Yet Al Jazeera has something to tell us, it starts with “Facing a range of parabolic pressures from domestic and international sources, the Saudi state is in a precarious position, with much at stake for MBS, the architect of the kingdom’s future trajectory” and it gives strength to the ‘Why Now’ part. We get a few “That this did not happen has been seen as a sign of weakness on MBS’s part” statements and the entire issue that revolves around Eggy Calamari (aka Agnes Callamard, the UN essay writer) should not be ignored. There are several players on the world stage shouting anti Saudi rhetoric, all whilst these people are not scrutinised on any issues that involves issues like evidence or supporting evidence. Yet the people who get the anti Saudi filtered news accept these accusations like gospel.

As such we see “these questions mean little domestically, outside the kingdom they contribute to perceptions of MBS as a reckless leader, prone to rash moves” and these issues keep on adding up, whilst the media refuses to scrutinise the information handed to them.

As such, as Al Jazaeera is stating the article by Simon Mabon, we get at the final end “The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance“, as a Middle Eastern expert Simon has achieved a lot and knows a lot more than me, yet I have analysed data for over 30 years in all matters of complacency and the data does not add up. In all this we need to see ‘Behind the Russia-Saudi Breakup, Calculations and Miscalculations‘ (at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/europe/russia-saudi-oil.html), tere we see “With oil prices plunging and Russian state television blaming Saudi Arabia for the collapse of the ruble, the kingdom on Tuesday signaled what seemed to be an escalation. Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, said that on April 1 it would start providing customers with 12.3 million barrels a day. That is a 26 percent increase on its output before the deal with Russia collapsed” yet in all this, we see no reference on Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz (former Interior minister), Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (former Crown Prince) and their Russian Links or any other international links, which in light of everything is equally wrong. Not that it was not reported by the Saudi Government but that the international media failed to investigate it. Even the Guardian revolves around “allegedly aimed to block crown prince’s accession“, all whilst Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been clearly and accepted as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, in all this the lack of questions is astounding, but I guess that an inflammatory essay by that French girl at the UN will follow shortly. 

All whilst the New York Times is sitting on the one gem that mattered, it is “Russia is now calculating that many companies cannot survive as prices fall below their break-even point“, both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Russia have the air to hold out on the events, yet it seems that the lungs of Saudi Arabia are larger and have the stability and long term sitting that Russia has not, in all this the two arrests are optionally the Russian council that cannot be accessed by Russia any more.

Am I correct?

I do not know, but the investigation in his area is not done and that makes for a much larger failing. And whilst the media wakes up and looks into “Russia is also worried that other high-cost producers, among them companies pumping off the coast of Brazil, would cut into European and Asian markets” a much larger stage is overlooked, so whilst too many stare at “State television stations blamed Saudi Arabia for the ruble collapse and offered as solace expert commentary that the United States and Saudi Arabia would ultimately suffer more.“, I merely glance at ‘expert commentary‘ and find it lacking. 

I believe that there needs to be a unified Saudi front against all other players, I believe that there could optionally be more arrests and it has nothing to do with the needs of MBS, and everything to do with those advising others where the goal is to harm the needs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia has to avert that. In addition, the entire NSO matter (now being gagged) is also not a sitting pretty issue, it allows for more and more media attacks on Saudi Arabia, all whilst the media does not scrutinise the materials received. So as the media goes with “A report published by the security forensics firm FTI Consulting concluded with “medium to high confidence” that was the case“, the larger issue that is seen is that the origin of the hack cannot be established and is conveniently left out of the media. No one denies that Jeff Bezos has a phone that was hacked, yet who did it is undetermined and the report that followed is abundant in links to opinion pieces and other non valid urls to sources where the determination is open to all kinds of supposition and indeterminate forms of questions, all whilst the UN uses it like gospel. A report that uses language like “While the possibility exists” we see the media merely publishing and not asking the questions that matter. It is a created stage where the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has little choice but to create a unified front. 

In a stage where plenty of Cyber experts have question marks in the report that is ‘exclusively’ given out. It is one of several attacks on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince, it is this stage that matters, as it is a doubling of the Khashoggi stage (a journalist no one cares about) and the linked stage of embargoes against Saudi Arabia, whilst no one is asking the questions that matter “Who gets that income now?” We all ignore that part and so does the media, yet there is every chance that with the Russian links out and the American links in question, there is a larger chance that communications and weapons design will fall towards China more and more. And as we are in doubt of one, we get to see “Saudi Arabian Military Industries is prepared to move forward with product development“, a stage where China is optionally the larger winner in all this and the debts of Germany and the US will get a larger boost in all this, that is the price of removing the freedom of Choice (of Saudi Arabia), the data is simple and readable on that front, even as the media remains in doubt and removes all events of these actions.

Andreas Schwer stated (at the Dubai Airshow) “We have signed more than 25 agreements with foreign partners, so we have multiple opportunities to acquire alternative technologies from other partners where there are no limitations. There is no risk that any limitation of a single country or government can block Saudi Arabia from getting a full localized portfolio of products“, so tell me, how many media outlets had that bit of news? Defence News might be one of the few and that has a limited readership, so how many newspapers had that? 

I personally believe that after the events mounted up towards the Vision 2030 act of Saudi Arabia, there has been an attack after attack on Saudi Arabia, yet the verdict of evidence remained away for the longest time. And as the media looks at the figures for the Miss Calculation votes, we are left in the rear not getting any data that matters. 

It is seen in the 5G spot where Zain KSA gives us “Zain KSA has launched 5G in Saudi Arabia, with the first phase of the rollout being implemented through a network of 2,000 towers that cover an area of more than 20 cities in the Kingdom“, that was last year in October. So how much 5G do we presently see in Europe, Australia or the US? Not that much, I can tell you that, all whilst the US parts have NEVER shown any 5G speed that surpasses the 4G systems. All issues largely unreported on, so as such How happy are we when we see that we are  member of the Miss Information group? 

How correct am I?

That remains to be seen, yet the media gives out close to nothing on the history of actions of Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz, we see accusation after accusation on the actions of ‘purge of relatives’ whilst that information remains debatable (when you consider how large that family really is). Even if we would accept that, where is the evidence, it has never been produced, displayed and scrutinised. I could not find more than a thousand links on the first name and well over 50% was about the first name and for the most they are all stating the same thing with references of ‘purge of relatives’ and no evidence to support this. There were a lot more links on Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (over 13,000), yet there too, the links I saw were lacking in evidence. Now we can agree that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia likes to wash its laundry out of sight, but the media is faltering again and again in showing us any acceptable evidence, or showing us supported evidence. In the end, we see a few mentions of “allegedly planning a coup“, which might be enough reason, yet the media shows no evidence of any kind, and this is the media claiming to be on top of matters, as the Khashoggi and Bezos events showed us, the media is merely on top of spreading gossip and showing us debatable documents (one of them with highly debatable links). 

So as we go into a phase where we switch the auction from Miss Information to Miss Calculation, we should wonder why we have to reside our beliefs in either of the two. Al Jazeera states: “Such misjudgements have prompted some in the kingdom to question whether MBS is the right person to rule the Saudi state“, yet at present the pressures are applied from the outside and are seemingly applied as the powers outside have too little impact on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia and that worries these people. In a stage where Saudi Arabia is visibly surpassing other nations in 5G, bringing Vision 2030, which is a vision surpassing any vision the US has given us in 50 years and a stage where too many companies have  need to become active in Saudi Arabia and they are limited for what they can do, it seems that the need for Saudi Arabia is greater than most expect and that is what is feared in both the US and Europe. Both players need Saudi Arabia and it seems that Saudi Arabia needs neither, not whilst China is actively seeking expansion of technology and it finds Saudi Arabia wanting. As we now see the impact of all these embargoes against Saudi Arabia, the EU nations are learning the hard way that the deals they had with Saudi Arabia was a good thing and now that Iran is buckling its nuclear pact, the EU is left with nothing and the US with even less. And all this as presentation managers relied on bullet pointed presentations, all whilst Saudi Arabia requested a finished product, the entire slamming Saudi Arabia seems to be founded on the principle that anyone on the defence, staged on a fence is malleable and now as we see that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not playing along with that requirement, we see western desperation set in. As we are given “recent advances in defense equipment have enabled Chinese defense contractors to compete more effectively while retaining lower prices, making Chinese arms an increasingly attractive choice for customers worldwide” (source: National Defense), we need to understand that certain matters are linked. Even as China pursued smaller projects, the option to get the largest arms importer in the world is tempting, a nation that is set to stability and has a need for its growth of SAMI still means that China can gain a decade of important sales. That part is now set in motion and could improve Chinese salespaths by 30%-50% in the years to come, all by gaining one customer. All funds that the west will miss out on and the two players that were optionally internationally a beacon of information, are now arrested. I agree that it relies on the two players to be the ones that have international allure, yet as I stated, the intelligence is lacking on every angle, and what we need to see is where the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wants to go and where it needs to go to get to where it wants to go, as I personally see it, the EU and the US are more and more lacking and that will have far reaching repercussions.

So whilst the people are treated to “US lawmakers and tech experts want a strong American competitor“, we see that the essential path is that it is about Anti Huawei, we see that Huawei has little to fear as it now has a much larger grasp on the Middle East and it is removing the options that the US used to have (mainly by US actions), and even as the US still gives us “the U.S. and other countries are concerned that Huawei poses a national security risk due to its reliance on the Chinese government and its leaders’ own ties to the country’s Communist Party“, all whilst Huawei has openly disproven the “reliance on the Chinese government” more than once, it is still phrased. Just as that same media phrases MBS and its connections to Bezos hacking and Khashoggi, all whilst those accusations cannot be backed up by evidence, when we see these elements in actions we see the first line that gives us the larger image.

The first line is that the US 5G plans are still evolving and for now largely failing (source: 5Gradar.com). Here we see “A new Opensignal report shows T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T ranking poorly for 5G across different metrics“, as well as “5G networks in the US are failing due to a lack of mid-band spectrum“, that was last week and the news is not picked up by any of the large media groups, it is n my personal opinion only reporting on what its shareholders and stakeholders want and as they are also (more often than not) advertisers, we get to see almost nothing on this. It is an essential element, they require us to take notice of both Miss Calculation and Miss Information, yet will not support evidence, evidence that holds up in court. In all this a place like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a much larger pool of evidence on all the achievements that Huawei is making and therefore a problem to the United States. As such, I personally expect that the focal point of the attacks are launched against the Crown Prince and against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Let’s be clear, it is not merely the attacks, it is the lack of acceptable evidence that is part of all this. To a much larger degree the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is surpassing the US in several fields and the US wants that to go away, in addition the EU is pussyfooting to much around Iran and as it is in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia, we see too much that is about filtering out Saudi Arabia whilst we see several key elements of filtering down the danger that Iran poses and it is filtered by people linking their ego’s to the benefit of Iran, a double whammy that will work against them soon enough. As such, how much real information on the acts of Saudi Arabia and specifically Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is out there and actually being scrutinised? The media is not giving us any information on that are they? Even now (7 hours ago) Al Jazeera gives us “The latest arrests within the Saudi royal family show the young crown prince still feels insecure about his position“, yet the ‘evidence’ is limited to “rumours of an alleged coup plot in Riyadh” no reporting or evidence on the acts and actions of Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz or Prince Nawaf bin Nayef are shown, we see “along with a number of high-ranking officials“, I merely wonder if it would help me to walk the streets in Riyadh to find more information than any news agency is giving us. Whilst we are given “another attempt by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to consolidate power” we are not given any evidence one side or the other. We are merely treated to the implied “these developments show that the young royal still does not feel fully secure in his position“, treated with the complete absence of evidence. We also get “he launched a war in neighbouring Yemen without consulting senior royals” without the clear information that is out there “answering a request by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, Saudi Arabia began a military intervention alongside eight other Arab states and with the logistical support of the United States against the Houthis” a part that we had seen again and again from Reuters and Bloomberg, even Al Jazeera made mention of this, as such this article gives a much larger setting in creating emotion whilst the linked evidence is forgotten to get mentioned.

As such, whilst the media is all about the Legitimacy of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, we see a lack of evidence, the simple evidence (and outspoken evidence) that the current king, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud made the statement that Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud would become his successor, I fail to see the wisdom in avoiding that part, a nation where the line of succession is determined by the King of its kingdom, can you explain the logic of ignoring that part? 

I doubt it!

 

1 Comment

Filed under Media, Military, Politics, Science

The hack game continues

The press continues to assault Mohammad Bin Salman and Saudi Arabia, the same press that has ignored hostile acts by Iran, the same press who have knowingly and from my point of view ignored (read: and downplayed) several issues in Yemen caused by Hezbollah. 

So as I got to see (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2020/jan/22/jeff-bezos-phone-hacked-allegation-saudi-crown-prince-video-explainer) the video that was placed two weeks ago, in light of what I wrote yesterday. I thought that the video gives light to several questions that link to this. It is also important, because it shows a global FAILING of cyber security, not by the hairless man (Jeff Bezos) by the way, who in this is basically a consumer (one with deep pockets that is).

The video starts off with Stephanie Kirchgaessner, where she says (at 00:14) ‘who is somehow personally involved‘ (1). Then we get (at 00:32) ‘according to his own security team victim of some sort of hack by Saudi Arabia‘ (2) we get more accusations, but with the word ‘allegation’, as such she is in the clear. After that we get a clip from CBS This morning (at 1:08) with a followup and direct accusation towards the WhatsApp account ‘from the account of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia‘ (3), even as I am tempted to ignore ‘We can’t know what was going on in the mind of Mohammad Bin Salman‘ (at 1:55) (4)

After that there is a reference to ‘the experts that she spoke to‘ (at 2:12) and they point to the fact that he is the owner of the Washington Post, not the owner of Amazon or merely a rich dude. ‘It was an attack on the Press‘ is what seemingly comes out of this. 

We get a few more events, but nothing that is too interesting, not in this view.

Personally I actually do not care about Bezos and his needs, I do not give a hoot about a few items, and my personal view is that any person is innocent until PROVEN guilty and the attacks on Saudi Arabia as well as the Crown Prince are offensive to me as we should know and act better.

So as we get to the stage of the why, we need to see the stage we are entering. This is not (merely) a Criminal situation, this is a cyber ploy and that is where the focus is, I have written more than enough about the joke that is the FTI Consulting report, but in the end it is linked to all this. 

  1. Who is somehow personally involved

How? I am not referring to item 3, there is a larger stage here. The alleged infecting file was received on May 1st 2018. In this I am using alleged as the investigation did not start until February 2019. However, the FTI Consulting report on page 12, item 22 gives us that hours after the reception of a file resulting in egress data in excess of 29,000%. I do not question that, I do not question that Bezos got hacked. 

Why am I opposing here?

As I stated in ‘6 simple questions‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/02/03/6-simple-questions/) yesterday. Other experts give us “Check Point Research, however, recently unveiled new vulnerabilities in the popular messaging application that could allow threat actors to intercept and manipulate messages sent in both private and group conversations, giving attackers immense power to create and spread misinformation from what appear to be trusted sources.” This is important when we consider ‘allow threat actors to intercept‘ as well as ‘spread misinformation from what appear to be trusted sources‘ as such Check Point research gives us that false information could be sent to a person from anyone claiming to be anyone else. The source of the infection cannot be verified in this. that is an important fact, one that was out in the open and FTI Consulting never went there.

  1. According to his own security team victim of some sort of hack by Saudi Arabia

So his security team are cyber experts? And they know somehow that Saudi Arabia did the attack? Based on what evidence? I showed in the previous point that this is optionally not the case and the FTI Consulting report is nothing short of a joke (as I personally see it), there is no path to where the data is going, there is no evidence on where the infection came from. 

  1. from the account of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

Here is the larger issue and even as I debunked it in point one, we must not ignore this, there is one path that is not investigated and not one that can no longer be investigated. The mobile of the Crown Prince might be infected itself. My point one avoids it, but we cannot ignore it. The chances of Saudi Arabia or its officials in light of the attacks cooperating is close to zero and as such this point will remain on the books. From my point of view gathering intel and evidence before shouting foul would have been a much better approach and why the UN gets involved in this is still open to debate on a few sides. 

  1. We can’t know what was going on in the mind of Mohammad Bin Salman

In this we can speculate and debate until we are blue in the face, but the truth is that all this started 2 years ago and the evidence is largely missing, more important, whomever was involved has removed whatever sides they needed to and as such the actual guilty party will never be found. Yet the foundation of the accusation is larger.

He was being attacked by the press and we seemingly forget that the infection started BEFORE someone seemingly ended the life of some columnist named Jamal Khashoggi, as such we can argue that there was no attack on the Washington Post. To be more honest, at the time of the infection Jamal Khashoggi was some columnist most people on the planet had never heard of (apart from the Washington Post readers) 

Yet when we look at the Vice article (at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-jeff-bezos-phone-technical-report), there we see that former FBI investigator Anthony J Farrante gets into the fight and the report gives us ““to assess Bezos’ phone was compromised via tools procured by Saud al Qahtani,” the report states“, it is an interesting plot, especially when we consider another Vice article (at https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xvzyp/hacking-team-investor-saudi-arabia) where we saw “Hacking Team was thoroughly owned, with its once-secret list of customers, internal emails, and spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see“, so lets put this in the right frame, Anthony J Farrante is going out to prove that a tool procured by Saud al Qahtani, and as far as we can speculate is in the possession of thousands of hackers through ‘spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see‘ is the guilty perpetrator. How is that ever going to work? 

Well that is optionally still the case if we can examine the source of the problem, and that is basically already debunked by Alex Stamos, the former chief information security officer at Facebook who gave us “Lots of odd circumstantial evidence, for sure, but no smoking gun“, in this I also got to “several high-profile and respected researchers, highlights the limits of a report produced by FTI Consulting, the company Bezos hired to investigate the matter“, as well as “A key shortcoming of the analysis, Edwards said, was that it relied on a restricted set of content obtained from Bezos’s iTunes backup. A deeper analysis, she said, would have collected detailed records from the iPhone’s underlying operating and file systems. Other security experts characterized the evidence in the report as inconclusive“, and “a research group at the University of Toronto, offered a suggestion that could allow investigators to gain access to encrypted information that FTI said it could not unlock” (source: CNN), we see a whole range of experts giving out claims towards non-conclusivity, lack of expertise and optionally students in Toronto giving out solutions to a situation that FTI said it could not unlock. 

These are all matters that played out over time, some before the video report and it seems to me that the press is bashing with smoke signals as loud as possible hoping someone will scream ‘fire!‘. That is my view on the matter!

Now, all what I see and expose does not make any party innocent, it merely shows that there is no evidence to call anyone guilty on and that is what matters, because we want to turn this into an event where a person needs to prove that they are innocent, we must prove that anyone is guilty. In some cases beyond all reasonable doubt and in some cases on the setting of probability of guilt set against the average man. The entire cyber event fails on both terms and that is not merely me, and when we see ‘Other security experts characterized the evidence in the report as inconclusive‘ we need to realise that (apart from) FTI Consulting did a piss poor job in this case, the finding of actual and factual evidence is a lot harder in this day and age. The WhatsApp vulnerability showed that there is a larger problem and when we cannot determine the origin of any hack or virus, we are in for a much larger problem and this is happening before 5G is fully rolled out. That nightmare was brought nicely by Kenneth White, former advisor to DHS with “it can be extremely challenging to reconstruct the activities of a determined, well-resourced hacker“, this is what the Jeff Bezos team faced and from my view, they went about it the wrong way. Their report was never ready for release and the fact that basic parts were missed gives out a much larger problem, if billionaires rely on someone like FTI Consulting and this report is the standard, then the entire cyber setting in the United States could be regarded as a larger problem from beginning to end.

In this there is one highlight that Vice gave us that matters here, it is “The second obstacle regarded the password for the iTunes backup“, and “They apparently never obtained the password” that makes no sense, because the owner should have his backup, so unless Jeff was hit by the ID10T virus, we see a failing on more than one level and as such at what stage, in light of EVERYTHING out there in 2018 why was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ever accused?

That is what angers me, not who was accused, but that an accusation came whilst there was a whole truckload of information out there making it a bad choice from beginning to end, so was the Washington Post owner hacked, or was the hack a way for the Washington Post to strike out to someone? That is the larger game that is now in the court of perception, a massive failing of properly assessing pieces of evidence by the media (and the UN). 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Politics