Tag Archives: Israel

November 5, 2021 · 03:41

As Credit Cards run dry

That was pretty much the first thing that went through my mind as Reuters gave me ‘UK could speed up criminal sanctions for big tech, minister says’ an hour ago. The article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-could-speed-up-criminal-sanctions-big-tech-minister-says-2021-11-04/) gives us the first dangerous setting ““It will not be two years, we are looking at truncating that to a shorter time frame,” she told lawmakers. “I’m looking at three to six months for criminal liability”” in the first I have all kinds of emotional outbursts as to the uselessness of certain political players. Then there are a few more chapters, yet it is not yet the moment for that (it will come soon enough). When we see “Powers to make executives liable have been proposed as a “last resort” to be introduced at least two years after the rules have been set, the government has said”, we see the first part that it is a timeline change of almost 75%, then there is the statement ‘as a “last resort”’ and I personally believe that none of it will hold up to scrutiny. There is of course the ‘old’ setting of “In general, Facebook may not be held liable for slanderous or defamatory posts due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 protects internet service providers, like Facebook, from liability for content posted to their platform by third-party users” Yet it also means that a demand could be made to hold Journalists up to those same standards, and that is where the shoe stops fitting and the dance ends real quick.

Consider Stephanie Kirchgaessner, someone at the Guardian. On July 19th 2021 she gives us “A phone infected with NSO malware, as Kanimba’s has been, not only gives users of the spyware access to phone calls and messages, but it can also turn a mobile phone into a portable tracking and listening device. In the period before she was alerted to her phone being hacked, Kanimba said she had contacts with the US special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, British MPs, and the UK high commission office in Rwanda – all of which could have been monitored”

We now see:
A. ‘A phone infected with NSO malware, as Kanimba’s has been’
So where is that evidence? As such the guardian could be just as liable and hiding behind ‘big tech’ optionally constitutes a case for discrimination and the Guardian is also on Facebook, Twitter and so on, so what gives there?
B. When was the phone infected? Can the moment of infection be proven?

The Daily Mail reported on October 25th 2021 “The alarm was raised after an online harms issue known only to a few people at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was raised by a senior executive at Facebook in a recent meeting” So we see “I’m looking at three to six months for criminal liability”, basically Facebook would be prosecuted for events that the employees of that government leak on Facebook? How insane is that train? Who would be the conductor of that crazy brain train and with that in sight, when we consider that some of these messages come from all over the globe. And in plenty of those cases the so called trolls are to blame for some messages. When we consider that the track record in the US, UK, EU and larger commonwealth fails to deal with trolls, can we demand more from Facebook? Consider that the Council on Foreign Relations reported on June 7th 2021 “Chinese trolls are beginning to pose serious threats to economic security, political stability, and personal safety worldwide”. So how long until not so intelligent politicians see a larger string of attacks and fine Facebook whilst the business shifts to China where the US, UK and EU have no say in the matter? How stupid does one need to get to consider their stretched credit cards to get fines whilst losing billions in taxable revenue and optionally global revenue? When it all shifts to China (as well as the Russian equivalent) people like Britain’s Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries were too close to clueless to understand the digital media? Yes, we get it, Zuckerberg created a Behemoth, one a lot larger then even he thought was possible, but the rest had no idea whatsoever (I used to work for a few of them). So in all this we see lofty words like ‘criminal liability’, yet that same government (as the BBC reported) gives its population just 1.6% of rape allegations in England and Wales result in someone being charged, something the government has said it is “deeply ashamed” about. Charged, not convicted, that is a mere 80%, leaving 98% of the assailants free to do it again. That government who failed its population for well over three decades thinks it can judge “big tech firms already had the capability to make their platforms safer”, how is that insight gotten? Because as I see it in too many places the people have no clue on digital media issues, especially in social media. 

I believe that this is another ‘tax the wealthy’ stage, this time it is on what I regard as ‘false grounds’. And in that light, lets take a gander into another stage (adjusted stage in this case) of ‘flawed reasoning’

6 Most Common Causes of Wrongful Convictions

Eyewitness misinterpretation.
The stage where the observer does not comprehend all the elements of a digital track and uses his or her status as expert witness, or witness to the event all whilst the stage cannot be seen as a lot of the variables involved are not visible to that witness.

Misinterpretation.
Misinterpretation is set to what is seen, the data behind it and the stage on why and who placed it. In many cases (especially with flamers and trolls) several of these elements are faked and wrong values are captured mainly because flamers and trolls know what to change. This is similar to all the scam calls showing a UK/US number whilst the scammer is in India. YouTube is filled with those examples.

Incorrect forensics.
Is slightly the wrong term, it is incomplete forensics, because governments listened to self righteous pinko’s who demanded privacy and as such digital platforms cannot capture what needed to be captured to do more, so first (overly graphically stated) the government cuts off the hands of the media giant and then tells the media giant to pick up the right ‘pick-a-stick’, how lame is that part of the equation?

False confessions.
There is the cry-baby (hoping to get freebee’s), the trolls and flamers and those with a natural aversion to one side (abortion, politics, vegans), take a subject and there will always be a crying opponent and they are willing to embellish their side and optionally lie on what they feel, all sides that goes straight into social media and often several times over.

Official misconduct.
Basically is is seen on both sides and always will be, I used the government staff leaking lists, but the opposite side is also there (like Amazon staff greasing personal (family) needs. Several options and these things happen and time is the only way to get there, yet the issues mentioned earlier drains close to all resources.

Use of informants.
That is the larger problem, who is a real informant, and who is there to play some political game? The data will not reveal either but it also constitute a wrongful case.  A seemingly small but growing issue on a stage where size is the least visible element of all.

Inadequate defense.
The largest problem issue. It overlaps with technical abilities, privacy abilities and false confessions, they all impact the defence that is offered and as such is the easiest overrun in court or in a hearing. This also is a stage with documentation and as we see with some players at the ICIJ (Pandora papers) as well as the NSO group. There is no adequate defence as the presented attacks are too often absent of evidence, yet still there is a conviction against the players and the media became part of that problem. A stage where defense was not possible because some players were allegedly tainting the field. 

Six elements and they are out in the open, so when we see “Britain’s Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who was appointed to the job in September, said she wanted the powers brought forward” I personally wonder whether she is clueless on what is involved, or is this a mere ruse to get fines so the governmental Credit Card is not cut into pieces by too many banks? And if the UK is in that stage, how deep is the EU and the US at present?

Before we leap to rush to the small minded people, lets make sure that they do not end up driving business to players like WeChat. A site that will not adhere to anything that is seemingly non-Chinese.

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October 23, 2021 · 22:41

You again?

That was my first thought when I saw the Guardian give us ‘France and Israel hold ‘secret’ talks to defuse phone spyware row’ with the added ‘Stephanie Kirchgaessner’. I have seen her work before and it happened on March 26th 2021 when I wrote ‘The joy of discovery’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/26/the-joy-of-discovery/)  there I stated “this was an article that an intern could have written and as such more and more question marks on ‘Saudi bashing’ surface and the ring of those doing this is is becoming more and more debatable. Yet in all this, no one is asking questions, no one seems to notice. I did initially in a previous video article with Stephanie Kirchgaessner, but it could have been an editing issue, now I am no longer sure. I am not questioning the stage we see here, yet such a space for a threat all whilst dying children in Yemen get less space, whilst Al Jazeera gives us ‘People in Yemen are not just dying, they are being left to die’ (2 days ago), I start to wonder what the focal point of a US investigative reporter has become”. Now I see her in this piece and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up. So, let’s see if I am right again.

The first thing I see is “In July, it was reported that the phone numbers of some French cabinet members, as well as Macron himself, appeared on a leaked database of mobile phone numbers which included some selected as possible targets for surveillance by government clients of NSO” I and others reported on this, in several sources thee is debate on the truth of that leaked list, the second part is that the list was also regarded as fake in another source years ago. I discussed this part in ‘From horse to course’ on July 23rd 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/23/from-horse-to-course/) it is there that I mention the Guardian who gave “NSO has said Macron was not a “target” of any of its customers, meaning the company denies he was selected for surveillance using its spyware, saying in multiple statements that it requires its government clients to use its powerful spying tools only for legitimate investigations into terrorism or crime”, the setting that the so called leaked list sets the stage that the NSO group must have had an income surpassing $600,000,000 which they never did (they are doing well, but not that well). In addition the lack of any dashboard and a lot of other elements make the stage a waste of time. In this I personally see that Stephanie Kirchgaessner has become the journalistic joke she might always have been. The cranky aunt you keep around on Christmas to entice you to have more eggnog so her voice fades into background noise. 

In this there is (as I personally see it) no leaked list, there might be a list, but it is someone else’s list. And the waste of time is seen with “There is no firm evidence that the phones of the five cabinet members were successfully hacked, but the Mediapart allegations indicate the devices were targeted with the powerful spyware, which can intercept phone conversations, text messages, emails and photographs. It can also turn a mobile phone into a listening device by remotely controlling a phone’s recorder”, so basically through this, the Guardian has now less credibility than Russian news organisation RT? In the second, if there is no evidence, how is behind “the Mediapart allegations” why are we not given that? So as the article ends with “Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International led the journalistic collaboration”, I personally wonder if that part should read “Fake Stories, a Paris-based glossy joke, and Amnesty Insufferable led the tantrum collaboration”, I personally wish that these jokes were buried (alive) and that these articles will not be allowed again until these so called journalists present a proper dashboard, they’ve had months now. It would have been one of the first things I did, just like the Pandora papers, all alleged claims and no verified substance. And like before why on earth is so called ‘Stephanie Kirchgaessner is the Guardian’s US investigations correspondent’ involved in something that is happening in France? Doesn’t the Guardian have credible journalists in Europe (preferably in France) or Israel? Did no one consider that little hiccup of debatable information?

And what are these so called traces? Its always nice to see anonymous sources and with “citing multiple anonymous sources and a confidential intelligence dossier”, all whilst the debatable sides are out there, it seems that the Guardian is slipping from top tier newspaper to some Murdoch wannabe glossy production. Feel free to oppose me, but do some of your homework and you will se that I am right. 

I wonder when people will catch on that this is a mere ploy, optionally an anti-Israel one. 

Enjoy the weekend!

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October 17, 2021 · 20:19

It was the smell of coffee

We all have this and we all try to ignores it when it is not Sunday. Yet that was for me the setting this morning. I was going through the Guardian with the smell of coffee in my nose. Still half asleep I noticed the words ‘shun workers’ and I saw the picture of a lovely young lady (Genevieve LeJeune) and my mind went ‘whats this about?’ And I started to read the article. As such the title became ‘Sex discrimination: why banks shun workers in adult entertainment’, I saw the word ‘sex; and I am a simple guy, so I was very much in the ‘lets read this’ mood. So the article gives us that the HSBC bank was part of “I didn’t think for one minute they would have an issue with what the business was about. And why would they be concerned, as long as I’m cashflow positive and I do all the right things, and it’s completely legal?” It was basically as was stated “She said she told the bank that she ran a community for the “B” in LGBTQ+ and was not chased for any further information”, by her own account a community with 16000 members. They were suddenly cut off and we get “She has spent more than four years battling HSBC for access to more than £20,000 trapped in those accounts” with in the finale “only regained control of the cash this spring after complaining to the Financial Ombudsman Service”. There are two parts that catch me in the article. The first was the setting given “she ran a community for the “B” in LGBTQ+”, and the subsequent part of the article that paints them all as “sex workers”. One is not the other and even as we accept that Bi curious women might see of there is a penny, it is not a given, it requires evidence and that is even a larger problem because are stated they are not breaking the law. So let’s take a look at the other side. 

In 2018 we get ‘HSBC ‘divests’ from Israeli arms company Elbit Systems’, HSBC only acted when pro-Palestinian voices became too loud and personally I do not think they had to give in. 

. Oh and Elbit Systems is an electronics company (mostly drones), the ICIJ reported only last year ‘HSBC moved vast sums of dirty money after paying record laundering fine’, so a laundering company makes waves over skirts? How is that for irony? So when we are given (at https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/) “HSBC was profiting from an international criminal scheme even while on probation for having served murderous drug cartels and other criminals. HSBC had admitted to U.S. prosecutors in 2012 that it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least $881 million controlled by the notorious Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug gangs”, we see a setting where Bi-curious women have less rights than drug gangs in the eyes of the bank? I reckon that the drug gangs didn’t have to go to the Ombudsman (why is that?)

And only last July the Guardian reported (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/28/hsbc-faces-questions-over-disclosure-of-alleged-money-laundering-to-monitors) ‘HSBC faces questions over disclosure of alleged money laundering to monitors’ with the byline “Bank was under supervision by US Department of Justice-appointed team because of previous violations”. I think we need to do something else. Something I have never ever done on this site before. I am calling ALL readers to see if they or their friends use the HSBC as a bank, and ask them all to switch banks, to whatever bank they prefer. It is time to give HSBC an education on hypocrisy. I have no connections to that bank, and I hope the large numbers of readers (especially in the UK) will move to another bank. 

I feel this is the only path open to us. Now if you feel that curious women are to be discriminated against, I leave it up to you, but a bank with these standards acting against people who broke no law whilst they are on the US laundering top 10 with ties to drug gangs should not be allowed to function, should they?

P.S. WordPress still has not fixed colour issue

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October 15, 2021 · 01:49

The rule of guns

This is not new, this is not even novel. It is the continuation of something that has been going on for decades, I saw it with my own eyes in 1982, others saw it too. Some objected, others did not. And when Beirut had its fireworks party on August 5th 2020, so many voices were eager to give rise to a setting that could never be, and all rejoiced when the media forwarded those messages. They must have thought it was in the bag. But I knew a think or two and I gave the readers ‘Boom goes the dynamite’ that very same day (about 6 hours later, might have been 12). And I gave the readers “It is speculation, but consider the blast, according to some the blast was noticed well over 100Km away. I do have a point of reference, the Fireworks blast in the Netherlands (Enschede) had a similar effect, but nowhere near the size, the video’s I saw told a different story, one car on the highway with a distance of around 2000 meters away got its windows blown out and the rear view mirrors got blown off the car, and that is one of a few video’s that show me that this was no ordinary blast”, so there was a lager stage and the people who were behind it went under the rocks like cockroaches. I calculated that it took a massive amount of 40’ containers and the cargo, 125 40’ containers worth cannot go up like the way it did, not in one go. And I rote more than one article about that. So when we now see in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/14/gunfire-beirut-protest-judge-leading-port-blast-inquiry), the setting of ‘Five dead as shooting breaks out at Beirut protests over port blast inquiry’, we now see “demanding end to judge’s investigation of huge blast last year”, all whilst we see Hezbollah types being brave behind their balaclava’s. So whilst we get the terrorist spokespeople Nabih Berri and Hassan Nasrallah make noise, we see the attacks on judge Tarek Bitar continue. I see no surprises, once a terrorist, always a terrorist. And when we see “However, demands that all aspects of the explosion be investigated seem almost impossible to deliver, with ministers summoned for investigation refusing to turn up”, something that I saw and I feel certain plenty of others saw that too, we wonder when Hezbollah will be held to account. So whilst these political chihuahua’s refuse to appear we see the stage changing, a stage where a lot of people are demanding that ALL HELP towards Lebanon will stop until someone correctly muzzles Hezbollah. And I see a reason to divert those aid funds to Israel (if needed). A larger stage erupts as the smaller (2020/8/5) subsides. This is not about local rights, this is about Hezbollah is showing itself as the bully it always was, it was that in 1982, it still is that now. In this I am not making judgement on judge Tarek Bitar, I know too little about him, but the stage that Hezbollah wants it stopped and they are happy to show themselves (often with balaclava’s) exercise that right wielding an RPG-7, or other hardware of the ‘firearms’ variety shows them to be the aggressor, to be the bad apples and now as the energy crises is pushing into winter, the stage of anger changes even more. Now there is a larger explosion and it could go on into its neighbouring places and one of them is Israel the other one is Syria and neither accepts the Hezbollah approach. I nice stage to set and the people of Lebanon do not get a choice in the matter, they let things slide with Hezbollah for too long and this will implode in all kinds of wrong settings. Even now we see all minds of media including Iran in this mess. I cannot follow that as I remain a follower of evidence, but it does make sense. And even in light of the humanitarian side of ‘Hezbollah-run oil shipments from Iran’, enough players were willing to let that slide, but it would not take long until Hezbollah thought it was in control (because to some degree they are) and now the world has had enough, some will stop funds, more will stop goods and Hezbollah will learn what war against hungry and cold fellow citizens look like, they will not give Hezbollah any consideration in all this and neither should we. There comes a time when enough is enough and too many have hit that point now, so as Hezbollah and Amar will seek ‘compensation’ (optionally for their lost explosives), the larger station is no what they want, it is what they were part of and that is what fears them. The Times of Israel gives us “Local commentators said Washington, worried about chaos in Lebanon amid raging, multiple crises, may have decided to look the other way”, but that is not the real deal. The slightly more real deal is “humanitarian assistance in Lebanon to more than $372 million in Fiscal Year 2021” and it has become time to stop that. Let the cancer die, let those people die. This in not inhumane, it is an essential part of stopping terrorism by Hezbollah. If there are no people to care, there are no recruits, there is no Hezbollah and the times and the economic pressure are growing in this direction. It would have been less of an issue if someone muzzled them, but no one did so we have a new stage to look forward to. In the first the UN trying to smooth things over, the other all the heart bleeding people who ache for the people of Lebanon, yet none of them are willing to hold Hezbollah to account, why is that?

To keep instability around? It is too late for that, Wall Street solved that problem for you all. 

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October 14, 2021 · 06:07

Is wealth $$$?

An article threw me yesterday. It was given by the Dutch News agency NOS, it was not merely the title, it was the entire setting that threw me. So as we are considering the translated title ‘Dutch in 4th place richest citizens worldwide’ (at https://nos.nl/artikel/2401433-nederlanders-wereldwijd-op-4de-plek-rijkste-burgers) we should consider the list that Allianz seemingly gives the viewers. In that list we see: 

  1. USA (218.000 euro) 
  2. Switzerland (212.000 euro)
  3. Denmark (149.000 euro)
  4. Netherlands (129.000 euro)

Now, that would be fine were it not that there is a place in Europe called Monaco where the average wealth is 1,824,177 Euros, it might be all those billionaires and multi millionaires in that place. Then there is Luxembourg with the average 663,661 euro’s and that took seconds to check, so what does Allianz think it is doing? They give us “The report ranks the assets and debts of nearly 60 countries” I see this as a report that heralds filtered information bringing. Some call it lying but I think they are bonkers. It seems that news, the media, and politicians are all about filtering the information. It reminds me of someone. Ah yes, was that not a premise in George Orwells 1984 as well? 

And when we reconsider “nearly 60 countries” what are the chances that none of the zero tax nations are part of that? And when we consider “Switzerland ranks well on the list because the country attracts a lot of wealthy people, due to its low taxes.” Might this all be a ruse? I have no idea where they are going with all that, but they have a plan. A place like Allianz has the German grundlichkeit, so something is up. Now if that report had a separate section for Zero tax nations I might have had some peace with it. Yet when we search further we see “According to BMO, the average Canadian household now has more than $1 million in total assets, even after accounting for debt”, we got that last July, as such is seems that the average Canadian is twice as wealthy as an American, so what is Allianz doing this and more important, what the fuck is the Dutch NOS doing publishing an article without proper vetting? 

And that leaves us to think, is wealth really about ‘$$$’, ‘£££’, or ‘€€€’? Me and many others (especially as we do not have it) believe it to be so, but I will accept that money gives less complications and as such we would be happier. And there we have the rub, do we really have less complications as we are being lied to? 

In this is filtering the information we get a new form of lying? That took me back to 1984 (not the year). I remember when I read it and a few parts never made sense. One of those were “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought”, I had an issue because if we (me claiming to be me) are of pure thought (not some paedophilic clergy edition) how can we be corrupted? I learned that over the years. I was lied to from basic school onwards. The christian invasion in the middle east was not to protect any land, not even a fictive holy one, so as we go on we were lied to more and more and it was not a point of view, the Crusades gave us that part. It would be a few more years as I got a hold of one sided information and later on filtered information the circle was nearly complete and now we see a larger stage, the last bastions of actual news reporting are now falling. The pointing powers behind the screens are now afraid of everything that comes and they will force new slogans like ‘tax the rich’ onto the people setting us up for some small version of civic war, but they will call it something else. Some form of social war. 

Yet there is more, The Global Wealth Report 2021 (at https://www.eulerhermes.com/content/dam/onemarketing/ehndbx/eulerhermes_com/en_gl/erd/publications/pdf/2021_10_07_Global-Wealth-Report.pdf) gives us more. Allianz gave that report to the world and even as the NOS bongs it, it does not mean that I need to do the same, does it? And on page 38 I see the first part, the part that shows grundlichkeit. There we see “Debt in the US represents 81.5% of output, while in Canada household liabilities are 114.7% of GDP. The ratio increased substantially from 2019 (US: 76.6%; CAN: 105.3%), not so much because of the increase in liabilities, which was also at highs not seen since 2007 (EUR522bn), but rather because of the sharp economic contraction of 2020”, as well as “There are still 2mn borrowers in debt forbearance who are vulnerable to financial distress once the forbearance programs come to an end. As of today, debt delinquency is not a problem. But going forward, when the pandemic protections expire, the historical debt burden in the US, not just among households, but also related to the government, might become a risk factor in the road to recovery.” OK, so that sounds better, well not that much better but at least there is a large solid pedestal it is all build on. On page 19 we see some graphs that explain the list (even as Switzerland was number one) and the other charts show that there is a larger story and we also see that none of the Zero Tax places are included. 

So as a non-economist I do grasp decent parts of the report, but what boggles the mind is how the NOS set the stage to what it published. Especially when we consider page 38 giving us “the historical debt burden in the US, not just among households, but also related to the government, might become a risk factor in the road to recovery.” When we read this with a debt of $28,000,000,000,000 How are they the richest player? When that debt goes south, they will be worse off than Mexico ever was (my speculated view). And when we see the list on page 52, we see where the NOS got its list, yet when we consider ‘by net financial assets per capita’ or to the right of that where the Swiss are number one and USA is number two giving us ‘by gross financial assets per capita’, I feel there is a lot missing (mainly that I am not seeing it all), but the report does show a whole range of issues. It also gave me the surprising view that Germany is way behind nations like Belgium, New Zealand, Italy, France and Israel. A stage I never expected, but that happens when you have a partial view, I personally believe that this is report is a partial view but that is not a bad thing. It is not some filtered view, it is a partial view of the elements that set the assets and equities (a stage that I feel happy I never understood). And that is not on Allianz, but the flaky article that the NOS is giving its Dutch citizens is on the NOS. For the life of me I have no idea where they expected to go, a 55 page report created by a dozen economists reduced to a 5 bullet-point article by someone who could never have been an economist. That’s today’s media for you. 

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September 27, 2021 · 04:43

Stark contrast

There is an old ‘expression’, The people will rally against the injustice of children, yet for the most, only if it hurts THEIR children. It is a saying that most people ignore because there is a string of pain, the realisation that the need of ‘me’ overrules the need for all. And guess what, Apple joined those ranks a while ago. We see BBC News headlines (last year) like “Ricky Gervais slams Apple over Chinese factories” and we laugh, but the pain is a lot more real than you think. There is an ignored side and there Apple does not seem to give an ‘eff’ (as long as the revenue comes in. It is there advertisement section, the one that is ‘hidden’ in games. Games that give an advertisement and that is OK, but then they take you STRAIGHT to the installation page. Where did we sign up for that? And this is not some innocent ‘barbie game’ this is how pokie and gambling sites assault the weary and the vulnerable. They take the game and the problem to a whole new level. You see, the ad is not the real issue. The issue becomes when you want to close the window and the super-small ‘X’ that closes the window is in the top left corner, and if you miss it, the excuse will be ‘We assumed you wanted the program’, but the close icon is small enough to miss it way too often.

So not only is Apple setting a stage, they are doing this in the setting of “We do not want any issues in the schools where OUR children go, we do not care about the rest” it is a stage that is speculative, but consider the impact. How many children get exposed to that part? And they are not alone, there is more and more out there coming to all of us regarding a ‘game’ named coin master. Even if it has an ad with Joan Collins. In Change dot org (and a few other places) we see messages like “I have been playing coin master for about 8 months and saved up all my coins and spins and spent a fortune on the game then one day i open up my game and the 117billion coins i had and 22,000 spins are gone , i had been reset , apparently coin master are reseting accounts with high savings which is against their own rules because they cannot tell the difference between people who play honest and the cheaters”, now this is a setting of accusation that require data and evidence and I do not have any myself. But coin master is important as it is not only vying for your cash (which is fair enough). It is combining with the ‘sentiment and acceptance’ of pokies, but what we see is not a pokie, it is a game that looks like a pokie and there we see a problem. The makers were decently brilliant, but there is a new stage, “what looks like one” is not the same as one actually is and the makers are in the clear and there is a larger station where it is happening under the noses of Apple (and a few other places), but there the stage is not protective, because it is as I paraphrased “in the schoolyard where we see no Apple employees” so no one at apple seems to care. So when we take a look at some media that give us ‘Complaint Website Flooded By Angry Coin Master Players’ we think that there is a case for action, but that article is almost 2 years old, as such they are doing something really really right or Apple just does not give a hoot (or is that hooters) about their consumers? And the stage is rapidly getting larger. Deceptive conduct (like the gardenscape ads), several ads all showing something that the game does not have, or perhaps in some obscure mini game. And the people are getting less and less choice, because the in game advertisements are seemingly not policed. 

And Apple (Facebook and Google too) needs to start acting. 

And here is the rub, we might see the complaints, yet the game was downloaded in extent to 100,000,000 times, so their app will hold what Apple might see as a remarkable advertisement magnet, and there is the problem, when an app becomes too big too fail there is every chance that the three players will not act in fear of driving people to one of the other two channels, but in the mean time your children are just in danger, because if an app (or game) like ‘Happy Color’ can spout these two advertisements, what other apps will expose your children to the dangers of gambling? 

And consider the start contrast hat Forbes is trying to give us (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2021/09/04/ios-15-apple-just-revealed-a-game-changing-new-iphone-privacy-feature/) a mere 3 weeks ago. There we saw “We already knew iOS 15 would come with multiple privacy features that will further hurt the data-hungry habits of Google and Facebook. But now, Apple has just revealed that iPhone users will finally get a choice whether to enable Apple’s own personalised ads on their devices” yet, how does that fare for the in-game advertisements? The Forbes article does not bare that out and I feel decently certain that Apple (Facebook and Google too) is not willing to put the foot down there. So in the end how much danger are your children in when they play a ‘free’ app? Consider that nothing is for free and a player like Coin Master makes on average $24,000,000 a month. I did not look into the revenue of Lightning Link, but that is clearly a pokie, so it is clear gambling. The problem there is that kids might not understand the difference. So you thought EA games was pushing a setting? I think parents have bigger problems and in this Apple (Facebook and Google too) have a much bigger problem protecting the vulnerable and that is something the media seemingly tends to shy away from a little too eagerly in my books. This whilst somewhere in February this year we saw ‘Apple slapped with class action suit over gambling apps’ where we also see “according to plaintiffs, users are unable to collect actual cash in the casino games, but they do have the ability to win and therefore acquire more playing time. This system — paying money for a chance to win more playing time — allegedly violates anti-gambling laws in the 25 states at issue in the case” and that is only the US setting, Apple et al could have stopped this by blocking that stage but it seems they were eager to get more cash, so even as some would voice “The people who play, are literally paying to kill time”, it is a point of view that is fair enough in some cases, but the advertisements seen are using the little tricks to get a few more vulnerable players into their fold and that is a larger station. If there was a much larger ‘X’ in the advertisement they might have been in the clear, but they did not and moreover they take you STRAIGHT to the app installation page whilst the sentiment to do so was not there. A stage of deception a few times over and there will be a larger invoice for all the players allowing for this. In a stage where political players all over the field are gunning for their coffers these players did something really stupid, they are making it easy to gun for them and when the politicians get to use the cards ‘gambling’, ‘vulnerable people’ and ‘easy exploit’ together (optionally in one sentence), places like Apple (et al) will be handed a fine that could end up being considerably larger than the $1,200,000,000 fine they faced in march. 

These players see it as mere parking fines. The fines are tax deductible, the 100,000,000 downloads seem to validate a speculative advertisement revenue of $10,000,000 a day in just ONE APP and that is the stage, if the case only takes 2 years, the players are looking at an optional $7,000,000,000 in advertisement revenue, the people do not stand a chance to get a fair shake here, so where can they go?

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September 16, 2021 · 08:13

The same gramophone

It started over a month ago with ‘From horse to course’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/23/from-horse-to-course/) there we saw the attack and the debatability on some of the presented evidence. Today we see (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/15/eu-poised-to-tighten-privacy-laws-after-pegasus-spyware-scandal) ‘EU commissioner calls for urgent action against Pegasus spyware’ and it would make sense, until we get to “The investigation was based on forensic analysis of phones and analysis of a leaked database of 50,000 numbers”, so in well over a month there are no top-line statistics? The list was attacked by a few well over a month ago, but here we see the Guardian, specifically Daniel Boffey hash over the same stage with nothing to show for it, so is he what some might call ‘a fucking tool’ for stakeholders or a wannabe journalist? Consider that we pretty much get the same details we saw in my article and these parts came from the BBC and the Guardian’s own article from last July. That article gave us “NSO has said Macron was not a “target” of any of its customers, meaning the company denies he was selected for surveillance using its spyware, saying in multiple statements that it requires its government clients to use its powerful spying tools only for legitimate investigations into terrorism or crime”, so whilst we now see “analysis of a leaked database of 50,000 numbers, including that of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and European Council president, Charles Michel”. So did Daniel forget to do his homework or was he acting on the needs of a stakeholder? I actually do not know, hence I ask here. The largest failing is that the Guardian gives us some emotional charged article and no homework was done, there is no top-line on the nations involved with the 50,000 phone numbers. All whilst I also showed (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/07/28/retry-or-retrial/) a few days later when The Verge got involved that 50,000 numbers imply a cost of no less than $400,000,000 which is still not looked at, so why is the Guardian (BBC too) this unable to perform? In that article ‘Retry or retrial?’ We see the Verge giving us “The Washington Post says that the list is from 2016” and that journalist no one cares about was still alive. A setting that is seemingly overlooked by TWO news organisations and none of them vetted information through a top-line which is what I would have done first. So how many of these numbers are EU numbers? How many are in France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany or Sweden? In over a month neither newsagent got that part done and if the Verge is to be believed the 2016 list without a top-line shows newsagents to be massively incompetent. 

Added here we see the added part “A consortium of 17 media outlets, including the Guardian, revealed in July that global clients of the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group had used hacking software to target human rights activists, journalists and lawyers”, that part negated is that the NSO group is a service branch towards governments on the tracking of criminals and terrorists. This caper costs a government “$500,000 for an extra 50 phones” (source: The Verge) all whilst the entire list represents a minimum value of $400 million. So which governments spend that much on these numbers and when you consider that it was a list of governments, we see additional info that the leaked list is a fictive list, there is no leak that hands the phone lists of all these governments and that is before we consider that one number might be on several lists. Consider that both Macron and Johnson want to know where Merkel gets her lingerie (ha ha ha). OK, that was a funny, but the setting is valid, there is a genuine need for several governments to keep track of a person and when we consider that I could have made a top-line within a week (depending on how the data looks) why did the Guardian and the BBC not succeed? Why do they not have any reference to the leaked list being a 2016 list? 

Also in the end we see the Guardian give us “NSO says it “does not operate the systems that it sells to vetted government customers, and does not have access to the data of its customers’ targets”” when we consider that we see more debatable sides to a list of 50,000, we see the lack of actions for well over a month (almost 2 months) and at no stage do we see any clear allegations against any government apart for some mention of Hungary, all whilst the top-line results could have pointed the finger at someone. Do you actually believe that the UAE or Saudi Arabia have any interest in a Dutch Human rights activist? At the prices that the NSO charges, I very much doubt it. 

So here I stand asking the Guardian (and specifically Daniel Boffey) what on earth do you think you are doing? Who are you serving, because the lack of evidence and lack of clear verifiable data implies you are not doing this for the readers, if that were true the article would have looked very different.

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September 15, 2021 · 07:58

As questions rise

The BBC gave us the rundown late yesterday (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58540936) where we are given ‘Apple rushes to block ‘zero-click’ iPhone spyware’. A setting that comes at times and this is not against Apple, yet the article left me with questions. I get that there is initial finger pointing, as such pointing to the best in the field makes perfect sense to me and it is done with “it had high confidence that the Israeli hacker-for-hire firm, NSO Group, was behind that attack”, I do admit that the term ‘hacker-for-hire’ will be one that requires more precise explaining. Bill Marczak from the University of Toronto’s Citizen which first highlighted the issue gives us “we previously found evidence of zero-click spyware, but “this is the first one where the exploit has been captured so we can find out how it works,”” and this got me thinking. 

Where is the timeline? With what version of iOS does it start? Version 14, version 14.5, version 13? So how long was this in play? It is not the fault of the BBC and it is the first issue.

We then get “the security issue was exploited to plant spyware on a Saudi activist’s iPhone”, so how many activists are monitored? When was the transgression detected? How was the transgression detected? At least two of these questions require investigation and the BBC did not go there. We can argue whether they were required to do so. 

So whilst we are lulled to sleep with “Security experts have said that although the discovery is significant, most users of Apple devices should not be overly concerned as such attacks are usually highly targeted” which could be an absolute truth, we see the setting that Apple is protected. So why was the weakness there in the first place? The answer might be extremely valid, no system is truly secure, we have seen that for a long time. Yet in the moments where I saw this article I phrased a few questions that I have not seen anywhere else (as far as I could tell). And of all the people who could be infected, we get the mention of ‘Saudi activist’? The article was set to certain measures and without proper and a clear explanation there is every chance that additional questions will be asked from the University of Toronto as well. This is not against them and I have nothing against Bill Marczak (I do not know anything about him), but the stage was set in a few measures and that makes for a worrisome setting. A BBC article absent of a few facts and the insertion of a few innuendo’s. All whilst there optionally might be questions from the NSO Group. A stage where we see a setting where (in my personal opinion) someone was standing of the axial of a seesaw to keep the almost in balance. And as the NSO Group, Saudi Arabia and Apple where alternating on the seesaw, the man in the middle offset the balance by just enough to make is wonder, to make us lay blame. Yet all that happened with several facts missing and the smallest mention of “continue to provide intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world with life-saving technologies to fight terror and crime”.

We all need to do what we need to do, yet I wonder if the BBC (and Reuters) did enough here.

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July 23, 2021 · 12:32

From horse to course

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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May 28, 2021 · 00:28

When one is obsolete

We all face that moment, I will too, even with over 3 decades of IT experience, at some point I will become obsolete, it is the nature of things, we can all fight it, we can all swim against the current, but there you learn you must exceed the speed of the current just to keep even. At some point we can no longer muster the energy, as such, I have been preparing all my IP for public domain, I might become obsolete, but I will push close to half a dozen wannabe’s in that same stage, but I will have mattered, it is as good as it gets. Jeff Bezos or Sergey Brin might call with that £50,000,000 post taxation offer, but reality does not work that way (neither do fairy tales). As such the stage for Public Domain was created. Well over half a dozen IP points with a lot more on 5G, the application of Fibretech, and optionally Keno Diastima as well, I might never finish that work, perhaps it will make the setting of a few short stories, it is something I need to consider. I know that this is the route where I am heading and many more went that way too, some were aware, some believed that they would make it before the finish line and they did not.

Yet what happens when we do not realise that stage?

And in comes Haaretz with the view on Michelle Bachelet where we see “she had seen no evidence that civilian buildings in Gaza hit by Israeli strikes were being used by for military purposes”, so what evidence did she look at? Perhaps she had lunch with a very angry employee from AP News? As for evidence, have they looked into how 4,000 missiles were built in Gaza? Where the people with that level of knowledge is? Where these materials came from? So when we see “Israel’s deadly strikes on Gaza may constitute war crimes, and that the Hamas Islamist group had also violated international humanitarian law by firing rockets into Israel” a stage where Israel is guilty of war crimes and the actions of Hamas are trivialised. In addition, consider that Gaza is 365 km², it seems like a lot, but well over 70% is under 24:7 satellite coverage, as such, where does one hide 4,000 missiles? It is only possible if the population conspires with terrorists hiding them. Which at that point makes ‘no evidence that civilian buildings in Gaza hit by Israeli strikes were being used by for military purposes’ debatable at best. As such, I personally see ‘we have not seen evidence in this regard’, I see the statement as something a obsolete person would state, we do get “Each one of these rockets constitutes a war crime”, yet it was “Referring to the 4,400 rockets fired into Israel”, I see this as trivialisation of the act, the elements of that, which I showed 11 days earlier was ignored by the media at large. I am not claiming that Israel is innocent, neither side is innocent, too much has happened. Yet intentional overlooking by the media, trivialisation by the political power players at large shows the State of Israel that they are ignored, abandoned and those claiming to be allies are merely that for as long as it makes them rich (one way or the other), as I personally see it, all the events were merely possible through hefty support by a player like Iran and the larger group of media ignores that part too, what does it serve?  Perhaps we need to look into WHO it serves. 

And when we see “her office had verified the deaths of 270 Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 68 children”, so how was that done? Most people cannot get anything done in a week in Gaza, and suddenly they were able to verify 270 cadavers? Who is writing these reports? What level of verification and who seconded these verifications? So when you look at Haaretz (at https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/un-rights-chief-says-there-s-no-evidence-that-israeli-strikes-hit-civilian-buildings-1.9849501), all whilst the larger media has close to nothing, we need to wonder what the others are doing. So when you look into all the publications that involve Michelle Bachelet, I see no CNN, no Washington Post, no NY Times, no Times, no Guardian. So is this a person swimming against the current to avoid becoming obsolete one more day? It is rough? Yes, it is, but in all this, there is no clear answers on 4400 rockets, that entire mess is trivialised up the gills and several military experts are in that same stage, I reckon they all agree that Iran is involved, but that requires evidence too. The fact that they are the only party who can and would does not make them guilty, that too we must accept. 

But this stage is seemingly more and more evolving on those who matter no more (or t least a lot less), when one week in we see ‘no evidence’, all whilst the UN avoided making calls against Syria in the 2013 sarin attack, how long did that take and what was achieved? And here (not in a chemical capacity) we suddenly see ‘results’ is about a week? There is a need to ask serious questions, but the media is not asking them, why is that?

A stage shown in several lights and they are seemingly all avoiding the limelight and there are no questions. I have an issue with that and there is too much facilitations towards Hamas, a terrorist organisation. When will the people wake up and tart taking notice? 19 hours ago Russell Brand gave us a doze of realistic truth (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs2_2jJlaqk), he gives us a doze of reality and it is true, I am not the greatest expert in all this, I never claimed to be. Yet, I did see questions that were not asked by those who should have asked them. There is a stage we need to see and one of the most ludicrous comedians gives us a doze of truth, we need to wake up, we are given a clear doze of realism and we need to take notice. And consider the final point, in 8 minutes we get more value from Russell Brand than we get from 3 hours of Michelle Bachelet, we need to realise that the fight against waves towards becoming obsolete is lot more important than you think, in this I raised the evidence used, the source and how evidence was located, verified and used is important, it taints what we see and the media gives us a side where credibility of media evidence is to be questioned to a much larger extent then we are doing, why is that?

Consider the questions I raised and ask your own questions, see where the ACTUAL and FACTUAL evidence is shown, and who offers them. It is a lot more important than you think.

Have a great day.

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