Tag Archives: NSA

The first coin drops

I have stated it a few times in the past. The US is basically bankrupt, it can merely feign activities and merely resort to financial pressures, as such the Canadian CBC gives us ‘After Biden and Xi speak, U.S. warns China could face sanctions if it aids Russian invasion’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/biden-xi-call-china-russia-invasion-ukraine-1.6390235), yes, yes, yes. We all heard it sanctions. It is what the opposing parties see and expect. You see a paper tiger only looks menacing to those who cannot see that it is merely only a paper one. So when we get “President Joe Biden warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday there would be “consequences” if Beijing gave material support to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, I wonder what President Biden expects to happen? I think that President Xi Jinping understands really well that the longer the Ukraine situation takes, the weaker the US looks, the less he gets involved the better China stands. If I were to move this into an old saying, for China it is better to watch the two junkyard dogs slug it out (US and Russia) and walk away with the bone when they are too tired to move. And there is a lot to be gotten. There are increasing indications that the US is done in the Middle East and when China gets their military contracts, when more Chinese firms get options towards building Neom, the US will have lost. In the Ukrainian setting, President Xi Jinping merely has to wait. The US royally screwed up too many options and they are now at the end of the options tether. In addition, with China winning options in Saudi Arabia, they will get a foot in the Egyptian door as well. A station that the EU feared for a while. Whilst they are shouting options and opportunities opposing the silk road. As the US goes, so does the EU, too deep in debt and no real options remain. For a quarter of a century they refused to overhaul the tax laws (both US and EU) and now the stage becomes too uncomfortable for both as you are about to find out. 

This takes us to the second article that the BBC gives us ‘War in Ukraine: America is learning the art of humility’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60799659), well actually they haven’t. They shouted ‘Money talks, bullshit walks’ and now that stage is in play. The US basically shows that it cannot afford too much anymore. So now we get treated to “The US’s leverage over China is limited, and readouts from both sides suggest the call didn’t achieve much. But it was part of an orchestrated diplomatic strategy that contrasts with much of the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency.” There is a problem here. You see ‘Inaction through inability’ is different from ‘orchestrated inaction’, when a nation is unable to fund what is needed they will desperately look towards “This was genuine alliance building”, I personally believe it to be incorrect. You see, we were given all the actions of a nation who (sort of) bullies others into complacency, but the credit card is no longer working, the US method cannot be afforded and some administrations (read: CIA and NSA) have played the wrong Trump card and now credibility is in the basement. They pissed off France, Saudi Arabia, Germany and the UK (to some extent). So when we see “US diplomacy helped win German support” we merely get a partial story, we merely get half the teacup and not that much tea. The US will not be opposing any German needs in several places, they are now that much in a state of ‘inaction through inability’. Feel free to oppose this view and that is your right, but consider what the US has actually achieved since their departure from Afghanistan. That list is short. Very, very short. 

And you do not need to consider me the problem, the problem is out in the open. It is not really President Xi Jinping, it is the fact that he realises more than ever that he gets the shielded threats from a paper tiger and that makes him giggle (I expect that he is giggling). He knows he is about to win a global war without ever firing a bullet, China is showing orchestrated inaction (as I personally see it) and when the silk road comes to the doors and windows of Europe, they know they have won. The largest win will be a direct connection to Neom, which gives them a massive boost into Saudi Arabia and most of Africa as well. That is the point the EU and the US have lost and at present neither have any option to counter the engineering path China is on. So when President Xi Jinping stated “War is not in anyones interest” He was right, it slows down his Silk Road and that takes precedence for China, so their inactions are orchestrated and as the US (EU too) show inactions towards an active field in the Ukraine there are a few reasons, a full fletched war in Europe being one of them, but their inability to afford a war is another. If only that USS Zumwalt worked, it would be a great pressure point, but wait, it was a failure on many levels and now it is useless. The United States is losing options and Russia knows this, they are also learning (the hard way) that the Ukraine is more of a threat than the US has been in close to half a decade, so cheers all around.

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Where are we heading?

That is the stage we comment on and most comment on events in Europe, most would and that is not bad. But something happened in Lebanon that got my attention (something is always happening there). You see, many might have noticed ‘UAE set to be put on money laundering watchdog’s ‘grey list,’ report says’ (source: CNBC), we are given quotes like “The Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to combatting money laundering and illicit cash flows, is set to put the United Arab Emirates on its “grey list” over concerns that the Gulf country isn’t sufficiently stemming illegal financial activities”, now I am not debating it, it might be true, it might not. I cannot lay claims to events I have no data on. But whilst we see that, Reuters also gives us (at https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/lebanese-bank-closes-over-30-british-held-accounts-after-uk-ruling-depositors-2022-03-04/) ‘Lebanese bank closes over 30 British-held accounts after UK ruling-depositors’ group’. There we see “A Bank Audi official told Reuters the bank was “asking that the UK residents apply the terms applicable to anyone opening a new account: no international transfers, no cash withdrawals””, so just to help me out. You create a bank account and you are not allowed to withdraw cash? How does that make the bank a bank? And we also get “More than $100 billion remains stuck in a banking system paralysed since 2019, when the economy collapsed due to decades of unsustainable state spending, corruption and waste”, as such my question becomes what on earth is the Financial Action Task Force doing monitoring banks? First Credit Suisse, through state sponsored hacking and now we see Bank Audi. Two elements showing a massive cash stage running into the hundreds of billions. So what the hell is the Financial Action Task Force doing? Why are they not investigating banks? We see the mention of Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the mention of nations, not banks. Banks are seemingly flying below the radar and we see an alleged flaccid response from action groups. Oh and it would be nice to see specifics. Not some journo’s BS approach towards emotional garbage. I discussed this in ‘The presumption is mine’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/21/the-presumption-is-mine/) where I wrote “so all that space on what amounts to 0.03% of the entire amount. Just like the ICIJ, shortsighted and a waste of time. So we get repeated invitations to explain 0.03% of what is such a massive leak? Is anyone waking up yet?”, now if the FATF did its job and also gives us why the UAE needs to be on a grey list and NOT the bank it becomes a different story, optionally an acceptable one. That same setting applies to Switzerland, home to 242 banks and Credit Suisse. Oh, and before I forget the data leak never explained (it never will) why such harsh methods needs to be applied to the other 242 banks. No one ever asked that question, not other authorities, not the wannabe journalists either. Is that not weird too?

We need to see where we are going and what games certain parties are playing. I saw the Credit Suisse for nothing but a simple fishing expedition. A chumming exercise by the NSA (most likely culprit) to get some of the fish out there. And no one saw that? I am clever, but I am not that clever (compared to self proclaimed clever people), which (as I personally see it) implies orchestration. 

Am I right, am I wrong? I also ask that question from myself. The Switzerland setting alerted me to weirdness of it all, the UAE draws the setting to the surface. The UAE and its 20 local and 30 foreign banks. Yes that is also the case, so the FATF better come with a very good and very large folder with evidence on a whole range of banks. And before you think the UAE does nothing, we saw a week ago “The government confiscated assets worth $625m last year.” As such I hope that the FATF can prove its setting of “concerns that the Gulf country isn’t sufficiently stemming illegal financial activities” it seems that the UAE has proven activities, so is the FATF merely blowing its own horn? Perhaps it needs to look into the Audi bank and a few other banks too and several of them are not in Switzerland or the UAE. When we see quotes like “About $227.8 million money laundering in USA in 2020 according to our calculation that based 2020 Money Laundering Offense Report”, so how much did the US confiscate? Just asking.

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Red flags

We all have them, we all see them, it is what comes next that matters. For me it was a visit to the introduction of a cyber course. There were so many red flags it was weird. The first flags came two days before the presentation, two emails to set the stage, one with the option to delay payment to six months after the course was done, the first sales pitch. Now there is nothing wrong with sales pitches, but here it seems misplaced, cyber space os pedantic to say the least. So I went to that presentation, even though there were already red flags going up. Then there was the event. To be honest, it wasn’t all their fault. There were IT issues and IT couldn’t figure out what was wrong. This happens, the moment sucks, but that is part of the game. 

Then there was the space, 2 attendants, the rest via zoom.  I was one of the two, no drinks, not even water. If it is a sales pitch, you want people relaxed, so how does a thirsty presentation go? They had bought water for themselves. Then there were no handouts, in case of a training you want people have the information, hand outs are a great option for them to have the slides and make notes. The presentation was not updated and was still saying November 2021, remember I stated pedantic? Then the presentation, so much mention of “You do not need to be from IT” and then all the examples of people who were from another education, there were good parts, but so much a sales-pitch. The number of red flags were passed and I left. 

So was I wrong?
There is no indication that they weren’t what they said they were, they were in a decent place, they did this with a well known University, so this was all on the up and up, but the hairs on my neck were up, it was about revenue, it was about sales and the approach was wrong. You see the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60387324) gives some of the goods. It was titled ‘the con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency’, the BBC gave it two days ago and there we have the problem. The BBC gave us “those who had turned on their cameras didn’t know was that some of the others in the meeting weren’t real people. Yes, they were listed as participants. Some even had active email accounts and LinkedIn profiles. But their names were made up and their headshots belonged to other people.” The enforcing of a sales pitch. As such we see “the real employees had been “jobfished”. The BBC has spent a year investigating what happened.” You still think that being pedantic is something else than a virtue? Yes, we get “the job represented more than just a pay cheque – but a UK visa too. If they passed their six-month probation period, and met their sales targets, their contracts said Madbird would sponsor them to move to the UK” and there is the real pitch, exploitative slavery, hiding behind a piece of shit hiding behind “I have put 16 hours every single day for months and done the best that I could to make this work. I should’ve known better and for that I’m truly sorry.” No he isn’t and I feel that people like that should get one bullet through the back of their heads. We get “By February 2021, not a single client contract had been signed. None of the Madbird staff had been paid a penny”, we are given “Some recruits ended up leaving after a few weeks, but many stayed. Many had been there for almost six months – forced to take out credit cards and borrow money from family to keep on top of bills” that should have been a big red flag but in this world of pandemics, too many feel the pinch of desperation, but an agency that cannot pay you? That is an agency that has no real clients, no revenue and no real future at that point. We are given “a photo showing an open issue of GQ magazine, with Ali Ayad modelling a blazer in a full-page ad for Spanish fashion brand Massimo Dutti. “Hustle in silence, let your success make the noise,” read the caption.” As well as “a post claiming he had modelled for Massimo Dutti in British GQ which received 4,000 ‘likes’”, “Ali Ayad has over 90,000 followers on his Instagram – in his bio he describes himself as an “influencer”” as well as the stolen identities, I personally see a clear case for targeted killing. You see this world is changing and if State players can do the games they play, going after created leaks on Credit Suisse, hack and spell the goods through Pandora Papers, I can make a clear case that some of these exploitative nut-jobs are in the market for targeted killing. It is time that we clean the streets on both sides of the isle but not merely on red flags, that does not constitute evidence and for the Cyber setting I might be wrong, it is more than a gut feeling, it is more then small pressure point, it is more than a sales-pitch (which was never invalid) and the half dozen red flags I do not mention here is because they are personal, they are based on the corporate and university world I have faced over decades, and based on what THEIR bosses see as proper etiquette. The red flags does not mean wrong, it means that the pedantic levels I have seen in the cyber world does not constitute evidence, it does not and I know that. The BBC shows a different version, a version that it takes a year to get to a piece of shit like that. So when we see “We contacted all 42 brands Madbird had listed as former clients – including Nike, Tate, and Toni & Guy. None of those that responded had ever worked with Madbird.” We also see that this is becoming a much larger problem. And I have over 50 people for my case, some who lost thousands. I feel decently certain that the image he used is optionally not him, the stage of “Whilst Madbird and Ayad have seemingly vanished”, as I personally see it, the NSA/GCHQ better get fucking active, if players like this can play their tax the rich approach, they can also hunt down people like Ali Ayad and prove that they are serious about stopping certain crimes. The 50 people have rights and their rights were trampled upon. It was not mischief, it wasn’t some prank and it was not to do “the best that I could to make this work” it was exploitation, it was mislabeled slavery and it needs to stop. We cannot blame some of the social media on how people like this do what they do, but we can execute them. I prefer long term prison but so far Ali Ayad has vanished, and making him run in fear is better than him walking away to restart the scam somewhere else.

That is how I see it but here too is the problem. I am the problem on the relying of red flags, the setting of expectation regarding a pedantic setting, I get that, but between the two events is a borderline, I am not certain where it is, or where it should be, but that border needs to be created, governments have sat on their asses for too long and the wrong people are left with the bill of scammers, that is not completely on social media and more on governments, but that is merely how I see it and I admit, I could be wrong.

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The presumption is mine

There is a setting that does not agree with me and I have seen this before. Yet before I do that there are two words we need to look at. The first one is speculation, it means ‘the activity of guessing possible answers to a question without having enough information to be certain’, then there is presumption ‘the ground, reason, or evidence lending probability to a belief’. So one is a guess, the other is an educated guess. It is always stronger than a guess, but it is till lacking certain levels of evidence and that is important to know.

This all started as I was just unwinding of several (too many) hours playing Horizons 2: Forbidden West. I started that second play-through without completing the first. I did this with the first game. You see, Eloy needs power and skill and running after the main quest (something I erroneously did in the first game) will not do it. You need skill points and the game is large, really really large and when you start finding adversaries that are (on land) a lot bigger than you think you will be either running for your life or running for cover. Those who go meet the challenge head on are shredded. Yet I digress (or do I)?

The Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/20/credit-suisse-secrets-leak-unmasks-criminals-fraudsters-corrupt-politicians) where we see ‘Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians’. There Is one problem. You see I do not think that this is happening, the Guardian was a happy tool just to get the exclusive. So as we are given:

Massive leak reveals secret owners of £80bn held in Swiss bank
Whistleblower leaked bank’s data to expose ‘immoral’ secrecy laws
Clients included human trafficker and billionaire who ordered girlfriend’s murder
Vatican-owned account used to spend €350m in allegedly fraudulent investment
Scandal-hit Credit Suisse rejects allegations it may be ‘rogue bank’

You see, my issue is that just like the ICIJ Pandora papers farce, this is an orchestration. I cannot say by who, we can point towards the NSA or a likeminded player (GCHQ), but the setting is larger. The US and EU are close to bankrupt, they play a nice tune, but the musical instrument has not been tuned for too long. A debt surpassing $30,000,000,000,000 and the EU is set to be in debt for about €10,973,338,444,376. They need to do something and going after some specific people is a first need. You cannot overhaul finances until certain ‘progressive entrepreneurs’ (aka white collar criminals) are dealt with ad the courts take too long, the problem is two fold. In the first the ICIJ was all about tantrums and BS, not much real useful info. We saw the accusations here and there with added ‘No actual laws were broken’ additions and it was a farce from beginning to end. Basic intelligence gathering acts were ignored, basic dashboarding was cast aside, and after 304 messages I know it was a wash. It was all about the power towards a ‘tax the rich’ flame which was happily drowned in whatever they used. Now we see the scolding of Credit Suisse and there are two parts here: 

  1. In the first they are accusations, so there will be a time gap, not a short one either. But it will be a message to ALL other banks that certain people have had enough.
  2. We see “billionaire who ordered girlfriend’s murder”, which might be fine, but which of the 2,755 billionaires was it? Well, the article gives us “his Lebanese pop star girlfriend”, so it might not be that hard. 

The issue is not the article perse, it is “A massive leak from one of the world’s biggest private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes. Details of accounts linked to 30,000 Credit Suisse clients all over the world are contained in the leak, which unmasks the beneficiaries of more than 100bn Swiss francs (£80bn) held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions.

Let me take you through the numbers. There is not one employee that has access to the 30,000 accounts, so it is the CEO, CTO, CFO, or something like that. Do you think that they are the whistleblower? Nope? Neither do I! Then there is the IT, but Credit Suisse is global, so it we get back to the CTO. One IT person does not have this kind of access without getting caught. This level of data has all kinds of security. It needs to have it. Then there is the inside part Who is the drug trafficker? Who is the corrupt? Who is the torturer? This is not set into an account, it requires data aggregation, something a way to large computer can do but leakers tend to now have that access, without getting caught. And the Swiss laws are strict, massively strict so there is doubt on the stage of “held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions” as well. The levels of security and insight cannot come from a leaker, just like with the Pandora papers. I stated that from the beginning. This was a state operator and the NSA is the most likely culprit. The USA is in too much debt, it needs to release pressures and they are out of options. So when the ICIJ strikes out, we get this. 

I have worked in data for decades and I have had less then 5 instances where I had national levels of data access, but I was monitored all the time (as one does), one protects the data it has. And I was able to do my job and aid the people involved. In an age of data being currency, do you think this is some leak? An £80bn leak no less? Then there is “leak reveals secret owners of £80bn held in Swiss bank”, a bullshit header if ever there was one. You see Swiss bank laws are strict, very strict and have been for a very long time but someone wants access and a leak would never reveal that. Such information can only come from state players, players with aggregated data on a very large level and there is every indication that the dat did not come from the bank but from other sources who transferred the funds from one to the other. The setting of ‘Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians’ debunked in mere minutes. It took me at least 4 times longer to type this all. And when we get one example where the article is so ‘huge’, we get “the leaked Credit Suisse data shows his accounts were left open until at least well into the last decade. At one point after he left Siemens, one account was worth 54m CHF (£24m). Seidel’s lawyer declined to say whether the accounts were his. He said his client had addressed all outstanding matters relating to his bribery offences and wished to move on with his life”, as well as “The lawyer did not respond to repeated invitations to explain the source of the 54m CHF. Siemens said it did not know about the money and that its review of its own cashflows shed no light on the account”, so all that space on what amounts to 0.03% of the entire amount. Just like the ICIJ, shortsighted and a waste of time. So we get repeated invitations to explain 0.03% of what is such a massive leak? Is anyone waking up yet? 

This is about something else, it always was and in this the Guardian is allowing themselves (yet again) to be the tool in all this. It is not rocket science and it took me minutes to debunk a setting that is intentionally being misrepresented by 5 writers, I did this all alone in less then an hour (including the writing), so what fairy tale will the newspapers (via a state actor) serve up next?

Charging in full frontal will get some state players shredded, so they decided on the Eloy solution, illuminate from the tall grass and stay out of sight, plenty of players eager to take that limelight.

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1-800-LoadMyMissile

Yup, I had to go there. And when you see the headline ‘F-35 program seeks cyber reinforcements’ you might go there too. Now, you need to know that there is nothing wrong with the article that can be found (at https://fcw.com/defense/2022/02/f-35-program-office-seeks-cyber-reinforcements/361848/). Yet the quote given to us 2 days ago “To improve the joint strike fighters’ defences against cyber attacks, the program office responsible for it wants an open system design solution” implies there is close to nothing, all whilst this danger was out in the open for some time, so why react this late? And when we are given “the program office responsible for the aircraft is looking to create a multi-phased process that would enhance the security of F-35’s – and supporting ground systems – through newly developed or integrated technologies, such as real-time, automated in-flight detection, response and recovery” concerns should be raised. You see that dinky toy (the F-35) is not the cheapest of all Corgi toys, so something should have been in place already. The issue is not that simple, I get that. To take a more Cisco stage of expression. Every plane will need a router that has SecureX platform, Secure Firewall, Secure Endpoint and connects to the ground in a similar way and does it in real time, not the easiest of tasks and in this the real-time part will be the hardest to get working. A system that can interact with every system. 

As I personally see it (see image), it is a setting that has a number of points (like hardware points) for fire solutions, navigation, weapons systems and the security station. It cannot check all, but each system has its own header, and the headers check each other, so if one is hacked the others fix the one hacked and the system is back on tour, there is no guarantee that this will work, but hacking one system is one thing, hacking all 5 becomes virtually impossible. And there is another problem, such a system will need online load balancing. Not online like we know online, but a system that is always checking the load balance of every header station and as this is all done in real time will require an upgrade of hardware, because there is no way that the added electronics will not have an impact on current efficiency numbers and with the costs already way out of proportions, I have no idea how this gets passed the budget committee and even if they get some kind of new Cisco device (which is one of the leading cyber authorities) the hardware will not come cheap and it will require a new OS to make it work. I wonder if relaunching ADA would be a solution. It would be allowing one of ADA strengths to be deployed and if the NSA can boost the security and it is implemented with a newer version of Cisco Cyber Constructs, there is a decent chance it might work but all this requires specialists working together and in the IT field that is almost a challenge on its own (like making a submarine fly). So I have no idea where it all will end, but taking into consideration that the expected acquisition costs is set to $406.5 billion, with total lifetime cost (i.e., to 2070) to $1.5 trillion in then-year dollars, and the cyber equation will ramp up costs by another 10% (rough estimation) and my estimation is set to the fact that it is smooth sailing, but that has never been the case so there is every chance that the F-35 will break all records, including cost to produce.

That is my mere speculative thought in the equation that the FCW brought to light. 

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When ding-dong goes clingaling

Yes, as titles goes it is a snazzy one, yet there it is. It all started for me about 6 hours ago and I took notice of the news. The initial issue I had with it is usually seen in dictionaries. When you seek Grundlichkeit you get:

Gründlichkeit noun
thoroughness [noun] care; attention to detail; also see German intelligence services.

So knowing what was in stock I decided to take another look, especially in light that the news is now also all over LinkedIn. 

There are two sides. In the first there is that I have no idea whether she is right or wrong, I DID NOT SEE THE EVIDENCE. That needs to be clear from the very first setting. However, as I was looking into an article from August 2021 giving us “When activist Lilith Wittmann drew attention to a security problem with a CDU app, the party pressed criminal charges against her” (source: Berliner Zeitung). There we also see “The Landeskriminalamt – a branch of the police focused on serious crime – is investigating the IT security researcher – as she calls herself. The CDU lodged a criminal complaint against Wittmann after she told the party about a security vulnerability in the CDU-Connect election campaign app. The activist has thus became the target of a paragraph in Germany’s criminal code for which the CDU is chiefly responsible.” And there as a 25 year old, we see that she worked in this field for 10 years, so she started in this field when she was 15. When the BZ adds “Paragraph 202c makes the interception of data a punishable offence. The law is considered controversial because, depending on how it is interpreted, it also covers people who investigate security vulnerabilities in order to report them, not to exploit them. Thanks to §202, Wittmann could now stand trial” Yet that is not enough, the article (at https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/en/the-cdus-leaky-campaign-app-li.176310) also gives us “Due to a security gap in the app software, data on around 500,000 people who had been visited by CDU door-to-door campaigners had been stored on servers without any major security barriers and was therefore basically open to public scrutiny. She could also access the data of about 18,000 users registered with the app – i.e. election workers – as well as 1,300 records of people who had indicated that they wanted to support the election campaign.” The numbers and facts are not that important. It is “Wittmann had been alerted to the potential security vulnerability on Twitter back in May.” It matters that she never discovered it, it does not mean that the issue did not exist, it implies that she is someone’s tool. She becomes the alibi no ones to be. So when I see ‘Apple AirTags Used by German Researcher Uncover Secret Intelligence Agency’ (at https://www.techtimes.com/articles/270997/20220125/apple-airtags-used-german-researcher-uncover-secret-intelligence-agency.htm) I wonder what actually is going on. You see, the Tech Times article gives us “a German researcher has used one to expose the secrets of the government, according to Apple Insider”, this leads us to “Lilith Wittmann, a German activist, claims that she has uncovered how Germany’s Federal Telecommunications Service is just a front for a secret intelligence agency”, is it though? Do not get me wrong, I believe that the Dutch AIVD uses KPN Telecom, GCHQ uses British telecom and so on and that puts the NSA in a bit of a mess (especially if they rely on Sprint Telecom), with a big laughing out loud at the end of that. Yet to see these companies (including the German Federal Telecommunications Service) as an intelligence front is a bit of a stretch. What I see (due to the Berliner Zeitung) is a wannabe with a chip on her shoulder, She is seemingly used as a tool, but to what end is not clear, and it will not be clear until someone digs into the data she was led to. Yes, I am distinct here, Twitter led her to one part, but I reckon that she is someones tool. 

German intelligence (thanks in part to East German Stasi) is unearthly painted with the colour of grundlichkeit, so the story does not fit and 4 years after the Apple Watches leading to a black site makes the Apple gadget a clear no go. And when we see “Some of the steps that she details can no longer be reproduced, like looking up a list of federal authorities online. Similarly, the researcher includes transcripts of phone calls with an official whose phone number that she reports then has stopped working.” We see evidence that is not verifiable and the sinister theorists of a dark nature will rely on “You see! That is evidence” It is not, it really is not. There are other paths to verification and I see none of them, someone is leading us through some rabbit hole telling us to ignore the sideways there but that is a shallow setting to anything that makes sense. I personally see nothing more than an article to set a system up for clicking and receiving digital dollars (an applied click bitch principle). 

And in the middle of it, a self proclaimed activist who worked in cyber security since she was 15, she should know better and she should have been able to present more evidence if there was any. You see German grundlichkeit is one thing, systems with log files are another, the most basic setting in any system and it is not seen here. It is not reported here. Why is that? You see, as I personally see it grundlichkeit also implies records (to show grundlichkeit), records can be tracked, they rely on log files (in many cases) and in many cases it leads to something, not that it is valid, but it could imply that and now we see a cyber operator (to coin a phrase) who uses an Apple AirTag and she does not have a log file to present that shows us something? Weird is it not?

I think she is being used, for what, by whom and to what end remains unknown, but perhaps German intelligence might make something of it, and me? I am hungry and I have deserved an ice cream. I would go for Weißwürste with Haxen and a large Munich pint with Kaiserschmarrn yet I am in Australia, so an ice cream will have to do. 

Unfolding the ravings of a conspiracy theorist makes me hungry, I never knew why.

Enjoy!

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This is weird!

Yup, it is weird and you will see what I talk about soon enough. You see, not unlike the Sony fiasco, some players are all about blaming the one we all see as a boogeyman, it happens and it lulls us all to sleep. Yet when the BBC gave us 18 hours ago ‘North Korea hackers stole $400m of cryptocurrency in 2021, report says’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59990477) I took a little time to mull a few things over. You see, it is nice that we are given a (state) hacker and a setting what apparently gave them $400,000,000, yet the danger is different. For me it started with the Sony hack, it gave me an idea to create a new hack that was never done before and the nice part is that it could be implemented in several ways and in several places. Yet then I started to think: “How can a nation observed by so many agencies pull this off, all whilst we saw evidence, journalist supported evidence, that military officers in North Korea had NEVER seen a smartphone, or one of its base functionalities?” This thought matters, because that lack tends to seep through the fabric of ANY organisation (to some degree). So I felt certain that the Sony hack was never done by North Korea, and several accredited and more capable cyber people than me felt the same way. 

So here when I see “From 2020 to 2021, the number of North Korean-linked hacks jumped from four to seven, and the value extracted from these hacks grew by 40%,” Chainalysis said in a report” I feel that I am in a stage where I am watching a blame game develop, all whilst the fault is somewhere else. And there is more, the report the BBC talks about gives us “These complex tactics and techniques have led many security researchers to characterise cyber actors for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as advanced persistent threats (APTs). This is especially true for APT 38, also known as “Lazarus Group,” which is led by DPRK’s primary intelligence agency, the US- and UN-sanctioned Reconnaissance General Bureau. While we will refer to the attackers as North Korean-linked hackers more generally, many of these attacks were likely carried out by the Lazarus Group in particular.” It is an issue, because “cyber actors for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as advanced persistent threats (APTs)” implies an infrastructure, one that a lot of open nations do not get to have. I am not stating North Korea is innocent (well, they might be of this), I am stating that someone wants us to think it is North Korea, so that others stop looking in THEIR direction. You see, the reference to the Lazarus group (one I personally take offence with) and the DPRK gives a rather large voice, but in that it could only be if senior ranking North Korean officers knew what a smart phone was and that part is weird as some journalists who were in North Korea (2019, I believe) saw the opposite. This does not make sense. As such we cannot ignore hackers, optionally hackers who for a fee took shelter in or near North Korea, yet that puts them in the most watched part of the internet by at least half a dozen players. Personally it makes much more sense if they were working from China. 

And now we get to the good stuff. This is seen in “Once North Korea gained custody of the funds, they began a careful laundering process to cover up and cash out,” the report on last year’s cyber attacks added. A United Nations panel that monitors sanctions on North Korea has accused Pyongyang of using stolen funds to support its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes as a way to avoid international sanctions.” I reckon that laundering is not beyond the abilities of North Korea. Yet the setting of “accused Pyongyang of using stolen funds to support its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes” something that is possible, but the knowledge North Korea has stops this, moreover, their ballistic programmes are set upon failure after failure. Which with $400,000,000 in merely 7 operations sounds goofy to say the least. 

It is my personal feeling that the hackers might be anywhere but in or near North Korea. The Sony hack is optionally a slice of evidence towards that. Consider that Russia has now Arrested REvil, yet no one is wondering how this group had “more than 426 million rubles (£4m), including about £440,000 worth of crypto-currency”, including 20 premium cars. These things get noticed, as such I believe that REvil had some massive levels of protection, a setting North Korea cannot do, it is too unbalanced. With REvil, there was a Russian valve of protection, a state player that is on the top tier, a place where North Korea has no access. When you see these elements questions rise and a lot more questions rise that one would expect. So who did steal that $400,000,000? I have no idea, but consider that someone offering North Korea in its current state is offering $100,000,000 for denying the blame, is that good business practice? It would allow the perpetrators months to set safe 75% and a nice settlement in a very nice place. I would definitely consider such a move and with the world searching, getting the not look in the wrong place is a good place to start.

In all this, I could be wrong, but am I? How much evidence of advanced computer technology (outside of Olympus has fallen) regarding North Korea have we seen? We saw the images of a North Korean president and his top staff looking amazed at a 3 year old Dell computer, one we see in many households. Where is the advanced hardware needed to remain undetected? All questions in addition to the dozens watching their every digital move. If they get away under these conditions, they would be more able than the NSA, DGSE, or FSB. How likely is that? When you look at the larger frame, too much of this is weird. On the other hand, it gave me the idea to create the Hop+1 listening systems, just a little idea I had to scare the Pentagon a little (I need my amusement too). So perhaps this will set me on track for another piece of IP, I have done more with less, so here is hoping.

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Getting a mute to lead the blind

Confused? Good! It has been going on for a little while, but Al Jazeera heads the setting of others with ‘Is the US crackdown on spyware firms just getting started?’, the article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/22/is-the-us-crackdown-on-spyware-firms-just-getting-started) gives us “The Biden administration blacklisted Israeli spyware firm NSO in November, but experts say more needs to be done.” Well, that might b e nice, yet the absence of evidence means that they take to the streets with the stupid and flammable people. It becomes even worse with “a collaboration by Amnesty International and a coalition of media outlets – revealed that NSO’s software was sold to authoritarian governments that used it to spy on political leaders, journalists, executives and human rights activists, including people close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” As I personally see it, it was a collection of wannabe’s and fakes. They are that because evidence was not ever presented. And now the plot thickens, you think it does not? Well hold on, we are about to really up the throttle on this.

You see Bloomberg hands over the evidence I claimed all along. I wrote in several articles that if that list of 10,000 numbers was real the NSO Group would have a $400,000,000 piggy bank. But Bloomberg gives us ‘Pegasus Spyware Maker NSO Group Throws Cash at New Ventures to Survive’, where we are treated to “Israeli spyware firm NSO Group burned through most of its cash this year in a desperate bid to move past the scandal surrounding its phone-hacking tool Pegasus, according to a person with knowledge of the matter and private financial documents seen by Bloomberg News”, this could be seen as implied evidence that the money was never there, as such the list has to be (to a larger) part fake. Something I saw in less than 5 minutes, but all these wannabe essay writers You know, the one the Guardian has in Washington DC, as well as a wannabe essay writer at the United Nations with an outspoken hatred of Saudi Arabia. All going on flames and friends, but not a lot of evidence. Last Week at Wired we also get ‘Google Warns That NSO Hacking Is On Par With Elite Nation-State Spies’, but I will get back to that. You see the Bloomberg article (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-21/nso-group-burned-up-most-of-its-cash-to-shift-away-from-pegasus) also gives us “Two American funds have expressed interest in NSO’s Eclipse technology — which can detect, commandeer and land drones — and in its new big-data analytics platform, for which the company signed its first contract this quarter, the person said. Pegasus would either be shut down or brought under the same umbrella as the other businesses in a bet that U.S. ownership would improve its standing, according to the same person.” In this I personally think that these American Funds can go and get fucked (apologies for the language), you see if the NSO is on a blacklist, the Americans can go try and make it run on a kite. 

Although, there is every chance that China, Russia and optionally Saudi Arabia might want these technologies. So as we consider Wired giving us “The exploit mounts a zero-click, or interaction-less, attack, meaning that victims don’t need to click a link or grant a permission for the hack to move forward. Project Zero found that ForcedEntry used a series of shrewd tactics to target Apple’s iMessage platform, bypass protections the company added in recent years to make such attacks more difficult, and adroitly take over devices to install NSO’s flagship spyware implant Pegasus.” You see what Google (Apple too) isn’t telling you is that the transgression was possible to begin with. This is not some nerd in his mothers basement. This is the kind of person that can equal if not surpass both the NSA and GCHQ. More importantly both Google and Apple were not prepared, so just how many gaps are there in mobile phones? You want to complain about Huawei and their security dangers? Google and Apple are doing that all by themselves, just like Cisco did, but you probably missed those articles. Credit to Cisco of alerting everyone to this, but the media was eager to ignore it, much sexier to accuse Huawei without evidence.

So whilst the White House idiot gave the people a blacklisting, we get:  “NSO issued a statement at the time saying it was “dismayed” by the Biden administration’s decision and that its technologies “support US national security interests and policies by preventing terrorism and crime”” So now the parts are here, we get to my use of ‘White House Idiot’, fair enough! You see, as the finances show that members of the media have been lying (optionally by not vetting information). We also see that the members of the NSO Group might sell to anyone BUT the Americans. A stage that will cost America greatly, especially if China acquires this technology. So after they squandered weapons sales to Saudi Arabia (I am still hoping for my 3.75% bonus on sales to China), the setting is now that one of the most sophisticated pieces of intrusion software might end up where no one wanted it to go, it reminds me of the old saying regarding ‘A cornered cat’, and it serves the mother goose brigade as I personally see it and you can see it too, you merely need to look at the actual claims and the fact that we see words like ‘alleged’, we see ‘might be infected’ and we see no clear number system. No dashboard that gives optional validity to the claims by wannabe essay writers. 

You know what? I am slightly too angry. First the yanks go all out on Huawei whilst evidence was never presented, now we see that the 5G networks are AT BEST a mere 50% of what Saudi Arabia has and in case of the US it is a mere 1.4% of 1%, it is THAT slow. Now we see the same exercise and it will be anyones guess who ends up with the NSO group software. It will be up to the NSO group to decide, yet I feel strongly that it should never end up in American hands. A person should not be allowed to be THIS stupid and being given a slice of cake, if it does happen, it better be valued at several billions. If you are THIS stupid, you cannot be much of a software maker, so pay you will, optionally Google could buy it to make their hardware more secure. It is a stretch and it is a steep price, but it could mean that the Apple supremacy ends and that might be worth a bag of coins to Google. 

Yet the best moment was when I saw that the media nailed their own coffin (the finance bit), so whilst Wired and the Washington Post did the right thing, the others can take a long walk of a short pier as far as I see it. Oh yes, the Wired article was at https://www.wired.com/story/nso-group-forcedentry-pegasus-spyware-analysis/ 

One day until Christmas, I reckon it is that time of the year when we take a little more time to see what weapon systems are out for sale. I need a new hobby!

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The more it stays the same

 On one side it is nice to the the US of A being s stupid as they were in the age of Joseph McCarthy. In the time he was in office (January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1955) he was able to become one of the strongest black pages in American history. To be honest, I cannot say whether the fear was real or not, this was all before my time. Yet the largest station of fear created was also the setting of the cold war, the anti Communism events and a whole lot of other settings, like McCarthyism and the second red scare. The problem is that there was a massive absence of evidence. We see the practice of making accusations of subversion and treason, whilst there was an absence of evidence. Flaming was as good as it got and the media was part of this. The USA is now in a similar stance like ‘Tax the rich’, and the setting of ‘US sanctions drone maker DJI’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59703521) is now out in the open. We get to see “It has been alleged that DJI’s drone technology has been used for the surveillance of Uyghur Muslims in China.” If there was concrete evidence it is one thing, but to see ‘alleged’ so conviction without evidence is more than harsh. It shows how deep the US has sunk, a setting of BS and accusations that are followed up by convictions on alleged events. And all this is ‘simmered down’ by “the ban is largely symbolic as DJI is not a publicly-traded company”, my personal guess is that you miss the facts that follow, like “The company had close to an 80% market share in consumer drones last year in the US, according to Drone Industry Insights”, you see, it is a personal observation. Yet I believe that Huawei and DJI are showing the US how insignificant they have become. If I can come up with a dozen pieces of New IP, all whilst showing the US has nothing to oppose it, as I saw a solution where DARPA and the NSA struck out. When I created new 5G IP that NO ONE has, when I create movie ideas and new classes of hardware when the US and its companies have nothing to oppose me with I have shown to be the stronger party and that is why it is in hidden places in 4Chan. That is why, because the USA cannot steal it, they can replicate it and when I give the world the clear locations an how they can be read, all whilst at present one IP shows well over 10,000 hits, they will have no option but to admit that I got there first and before the market realised that China was there first. That is the benefit that they have in 5G, that is why the US keeps on lagging, and that is before you realise that the 6G advertisements might be preemptive as Huawei was already making headway there.

So as we realise that we re being told story after story, the realisation needs to be on what evidence there is. So when you read “Reuters has reported that the Biden administration is considering imposing more sanctions on China’s biggest chip-maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation” why this is done, to herald in a new era of McCarthyism now aimed at China, or is there evidence? You see if there was clear evidence and it was presented it would have been a different thing, but they haven’t done that and the BBC hiding behind ‘alleged’ is a problem, it is a huge problem because it implies that the rest of the world has no freedom of choice, if can only choose stuff that is approved by the Uncommonly Skint of America. When did you sign up for that? 

This is not some anti-America rant. I am not anti-American. I am anti-stupid and for the most the media can no longer be trusted. They did this to themselves. In all this I would be happy to be wrong, it merely requires the US to present evidence, a stage that is very unlikely to ever happen, they have done this before, and they will likely do this again. And whilst we see news on how much taxes Elon Musk will pay this year, no one is looking at the other 613 billionaires and the 5000 people who own well over $100,000,000, why is that you think? Why do we get flamed article by the ICIJ when evidence shows that a tax overhaul is essential and no one is moving into that direction, no the people will get a new version of McCarthyism, all flames and no adherence to evidence. You look for yourself and you judge, do not take my word for it, learn what is being done and then decide for yourself.

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From one to the other

That is a setting we are all familiar with. We get one and it tends to lead to the other. This is as generic as it can be stated and it applies to pretty much anything. In my case it is more than speculation, although it is important to realise that speculation is part of this setting. The idea started recently as I got a hold of an interesting PDF, there are many like it, but this one is now downloaded and mine (a Stanley Kubrick pun). It is also a larger station in the actions of the CIA and NSA towards the ICIJ (their favourite tool) and the Pandora Papers. You know that trough of information with millions of documents and relying mostly on flames and 600 essay writers. There was a side I had suspected, but I am (still) lacking in evidence. Yet suddenly my eyes cross a research paper that was published in 2016. It is called ‘Analysing How People Orient to and Spread Rumours in Social Media by Looking at Conversational Threads’, yet the more I saw of it, the more the secondary station became ‘Analysing How People Orient to instigated Rumours in Media by starting Conversational Threads’. The research gives a lot and the setting of the ICIJ and the insanely stupid articles written by essay writers is starting to show a new surface. Now, I cannot state that this is the CIA and NSA, but the amount of transgressions leave the NSA as only viable option and as this is a stage to change the international political grounds of the US it seems more than likely that the CIA is holding the hands of the NSA (courting them) and that is a speculative view, but it is the one I have.

Consider the hundreds of thousands of documents. Consider the headlines we have seen and now we see ‘Panama Paper leaks: More than Rs 20,000 cr undisclosed credits detected for 930 India-linked entities, says govt’ (source: Times of India) and all whilst they still have had no time to make a dashboard. Now we can go with “India’s Income Tax Department has detected total undisclosed credits worth Rs 20,353 crore for 930 India-linked entities in the Panama and Paradise paper leaks, the government Parliament on Tuesday.” We can accept that, or realise that someone is there as a secondary channel whispering certain people certain things via another channel. Like: “I just noticed something interesting. Did someone look at the tax records of …..?” Yes, it is a bit of a stretch, but when you seek the original raw files and consider how many people were ‘suddenly’ found all whilst the ICIJ never gave a clear dashboard implies that there is some form of orchestration and no one is asking questions, especially the media.

We can go all conspiracy theory on this, or we can analyse (I opt for the second one), when you set out those threads things make little sense, it is almost top-line reporting by the chaotic, and I do not really go for that. 

To understand the link with the two elements, I offer “The spread of misinformation is especially important in the context of breaking news, where new pieces of information are released piecemeal, often starting off as unverified information in the form of a rumour. These rumours then spread to large numbers of users, influencing perception and understanding of events, despite being unverified. Social media rumours that are later proven false can have harmful consequences both for individuals and for society” from the article. In it self a statement, a theory (one that has been proven correctly) but a simple observation. I am altering it (to a small extent) to give us “where new pieces of information are released piecemeal, often handed to us as ‘from anonymous sources’ giving us a speculative ‘more than a rumour’ and eagerly accepted by the hungry, angry and frustrated media observers.” Here we need to observe two elements. Because my version fits, does not make it true, the data of this research was captured with other means and other observational investigations, you cannot take a research on Apples and a research on pears and combine them into research on fruit. It does not work that way, yet the eery side of how certain stages match and the ICIJ with their “We got it as long as we did not investigate the source”, If it was GCHQ, DGSE, FSB or the MSS, these 600 essay writers would be all over the limelight breaking that deal after the data was received, leaving us with the NSA and by popular foreign demand the CIA as a linked buddy. 

So, yes there is speculation and as long as you realise that you are OK. Yet the document (added at the end) shows a few more images (as phrases go) and that sets in motion a larger area of consideration (which is not the same as a larger stage). At first we see “One of the main challenges when studying rumours is to come up with a sound definition of the concept”, as well as “Highly reputable users such as news organisations tend to support rumours, irrespective of them being eventually confirmed or debunked, tweet with certainty and provide evidence within their tweets.” And when you combine the two you see the fictive validity of the ICIJ (as I personally see it). There is a snag, it is not out in the open, but the population at large is more and more questioning what defines a ‘reputable users’ and as such news organisations catering to certain elements are less and less seen as reputable. And there are cases all over the world where being first tends to imply that vetting can be done afterward. Not unlike the image below.

So as we see the escalation of the Pandora Papers more and more lacking clear evidence and relying on flames, there is now a perspective view that the CIA is setting a stage where THEIR political stage is altered and less desirable political players (and their wealthy friends) are suddenly in the limelight, with al the angry people aimed through emotional articles and flames.

Am I right? Am I wrong? 

I honestly do not know, but there is more and more published evidence adding to my side of the scales and it does not look good for the global press at present, or perhaps to the pool of media supporting the ICIJ with their own essay writers. I will let you decide, yet consider what is already out there and how the media is spiking its population to themselves for all kinds of reasons and why the neutral absolute truth is not considered. I am not super intelligent (more intelligent than most), as such others especially in media would have seen these elements, but somehow they do not report it, why?

I will let you brood over that part of the equation.

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