Tag Archives: the Guardian

January 24, 2020 · 11:45

Evidence? Why?

I ignored the news initially, as I saw it, it was nothing more than some bash piece on Saudi Arabia. Yet something hot me, it was just a thought and it was: ‘What if I illuminate parts and let common sense people decide‘ (which takes out many journalists and mostly all politicians). As for me? The issue is that the media is all about bashing any royal part of Saudi Arabia, all whilst ignoring evidence (and debatable evidence to a much greater degree, their pursuit of circulation and agreeing to the beat of shareholders and stakeholders has gone to the heads of too many editors and I get a real rush to illuminate this part.

I have never ignored evidence, yet just like with Huawei, it is seemingly all about the big bully shouting, whilst the deciding world for the most ignores evidence and I think that it is a weird situation. Not merely in this blog, but on a few matters, we will get to hold them to account in a few years, at that point these people will make hastily formulated excuses whilst running to their mummies to get breastfeeding (I reckon).

So, lets begin. In the first we have ‘How the UN unearthed a possible Saudi Arabian link to Jeff Bezos hack‘ (the Guardian at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/22/how-the-un-unearthed-a-possible-saudi-arabian-link-to-jeff-bezos-hack) as well as ‘Did Saudi Arabia’s crown prince hack the Amazon king?’ (the Economist at https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/01/25/did-saudi-arabias-crown-prince-hack-the-amazon-king), a nice side effect is that the Economist, is viewed and acted on on the 24th of January, whilst the article states that it is the Jan 25th 2020 edition, but enough about that. Let’s start with the Guardian who tells us “The UN’s demand for law enforcement authorities to conduct a proper investigation into the alleged hacking of Jeff Bezos’s mobile phone came after it reviewed the findings of a cybersecurity firm, FTI“, we might not see anything here, yet the UN, who is underfunded and strained has time for this? Is this another US Essay like the one by some French girl on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi? And what about ‘after it reviewed the findings of a cybersecurity firm, FTI‘? This implies that the United Nations called for the inspection, notified a cyber security firm (FTI) and investigated the phone of some so called billionaire (postage and shipping required). So why exactly is this not with the police or an official investigative body like the FBI Cyber division?

Following this we get the real beef with “concluded with “medium to high confidence” that it had been compromised because of actions attributable to a WhatsApp account used by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman“, first of all, if I want to investigate the corruption at an army base, I will not go in as the lawlordtobe, I would enter the situation as some poor schmuck who is from the city of Noonecares. It is almost like an assasination and the official in question uses his own service revolver instead of someone else’s. And what goes with ‘medium to high confidence‘, what evidence was uncovered? Then we get the part where is all falls to shambles. With “The UN was careful not to be definitive. Instead of pointing the finger, its statement said the apparent hack had been achieved using software “such as NSO Group’s Pegasus or, less likely, Hacking Team’s Galileo, that can hook into legitimate applications to bypass detection and obfuscate activity”“, just like the Khashoggi essay fiasco, the UN is all about being not definitive, as such we want to know how accusations can be made when you are not definitive. As such I would like to point the UN troll to a kids game called Clue, there in that games (for ages 8+) we are introduced to the concept of evidence, where you need to collect facts and state “I am accusing Colonel Mustard who killed Dr. Black (aka Mr. Boddy) in the Kitchen using the lead pipe” and then we look at the evidence and see if the claimant had his or her facts straight. None of that CIA BS where we see ‘medium to high confidence‘, I would offer that if the confidence is already medium, what was not looked at and what was discarded. The statement comes directly before “The NSO Group, an Israeli cyber-surveillance firm, strongly denied that its surveillance tools were responsible“, as such we are left with ‘less likely, Hacking Team’s Galileo‘. so there is a mountain of doubt on an article that throws the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in a bad light and there is seemingly an increasing lack of evidence. As we go on, we see the NSO giving the statement that offers direct opposition to some firm called FTI with “These types of abuses of surveillance systems blacken the eye of the cyber-intelligence community and put a strain on the ability to use legitimate tools to fight serious crime and terror. We expect that all actors in this arena put in place stringent procedures and technological controls, such as those that we have put in place, to assure that their systems are not used in an abusive manner“, as such there are larger questions not merely on the UN for setting the stage of something that is not on their plate, they apparently went to another small operation (who knows) and let them set up the stage of doubtful and debatable documentation, doubtful as we get one of the implied companies go directly into denial and setting a document based on evidence that is regarded as ‘medium to high confidence‘.

And then something beautiful happens. We see “The FTI report cited by the UN special rapporteurs, Agnes Callamard and David Kaye, noted that both NSO and Hacking Team, an Italian company, offered tools that could theoretically have performed the attack” where we are (again) introduced to that UN essay writer, the one that had given us the joke called some Khashoggi report (Agnes Callamard), as well hiding behind ‘tools that could theoretically have performed the attack‘, the idea that this joke from a building based at 760 United Nations Plaza, Manhattan, New York City, New York 10017 and hide behind the word ‘theoretically‘, as such pardon my French (oh, that was funny!) but how the fuck does she still have a job?

For several reasons I will not use the Economist (as I am not a subscriber), but the quotes in their magazine “which was soon used to steal large amounts of data—though the un did not say exactly what, or how it was used” as well as “It called for an “immediate investigation”. The Saudi embassy in Washington, dc, said the accusations were “absurd”.“

As I see it, the UN is nothing more than an advertising paper tiger, adhering to the commands of some stakeholder (identity unknown), if this was a direct action by the UN, those people need to be investigated immediately, I feel decently certain I will get both China and Russia to sign off on this, as this has the distinct smell that comes from neither region, so they would score a win, in addition to that, the UN would have to submit data as to what exactly was taken and how it could be identified, which is also an issue that is unclear and optionally unclear to the UN people involved. 

The Verge had a lot more, they had (at https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078828/report-saudi-arabia-hack-jeff-bezos-phone-fti-consulting) the actual report, and there we see on page one we see the person we need to hackle for information, it is Anthony J. Ferrante who needs to give us the names of who this so called ‘Confidential Report’ was given to, because it seems that it was leaked. And there we see the originator (vice.com) giving us “The report, obtained by Motherboard, indicates that investigators set up a secure lab to examine the phone and its artifacts and spent two days poring over the device but were unable to find any malware on it. Instead, they only found a suspicious video file sent to Bezos on May 1, 2018 that “appears to be an Arabic language promotional film about telecommunications.”“, however, this is not the end. They also give us “Investigators determined the video or downloader were suspicious only because Bezos’ phone subsequently began transmitting large amounts of data. “[W]ithin hours of the encrypted downloader being received, a massive and unauthorized exfiltration of data from Bezos’ phone began, continuing and escalating for months thereafter,” the report states“. In this I state OK, let’s take an actual look.

And they do give us more, quotes like “The digital forensic results, combined with a larger investigation, interviews, research, and expert intelligence information, led the investigators “to assess Bezos’ phone was compromised via tools procured by Saud al Qahtani,” the report states“, as well as “A mobile forensic expert told Motherboard that the investigation as depicted in the report is significantly incomplete and would only have provided the investigators with about 50 percent of what they needed, especially if this is a nation-state attack“, ““They would need to use a tool like Graykey or Cellebrite Premium or do a jailbreak to get a look at the full file system. That’s where that state-sponsored malware is going to be found. Good state-sponsored malware should never show up in a backup,” said Sarah Edwards, an author and teacher of mobile forensics for the SANS Institute“, and “The investigators do note on the last page of their report that they need to jailbreak Bezos’s phone to examine the root file system. Edwards said this would indeed get them everything they would need to search for persistent spyware like the kind created and sold by the NSO Group. But the report doesn’t indicate if that did get done.“, which is as I personally see it the shallow political BS that some people go for. As such we see in the report “The following investigative steps are currently pending“, and more profound, on page 4 we see: “On May 1st, 2018, Bezos received a text from the WhatsApp account used by MBS“, my issue here is that this might have been the infected one, yet if I did that, I would use an originator that was real. And there we have it, the Dailymail gave us ‘New bug allows hackers to send fake messages pretending to be you – and there’s nothing you can do to stop them‘ (at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6039533/WhatsApp-users-beware-Hackers-send-fake-messages-pretending-you.html) with the additional text: “First discovered by Israeli cybersecurity group CheckPoint Research, the flaw is incredibly complex and involves a gap within the app’s encryption algorithms. Writing on their website, the team said the vulnerability could make it possible for a hacker ‘to intercept and manipulate messages sent by those in a group or private conversation’ as well as ‘create and spread misinformation’. Hackers could use the bug to alter the text sent in someone else’s reply to a group chat, essentially ‘putting words in their mouth’, the group said.“

It took me 5 minutes and Google search to find this. I am not stating that this is true and that the Daily Mail is the source to use (they often are not), yet this is a larger failing, I expected this from the very beginning, the origins of the setting was not properly investigated. Then Vice.com gave us “the report is significantly incomplete and would only have provided the investigators with about 50 percent of what they needed“, which is what I expected before I read one word of the accusation, and with US Essay writer Callamard involved (yes again it is her) we see what this is, another mindless attack on a nation and one person. They did not even bother getting him properly smeared, and no one is asking questions, I reckon that the involved stakeholders are likely to go for the, if we create enough barbeques, someone will shout fire: ‘I ran’ for office! Anyone?

what is the most irritating part is that the UN is again used as the cheap tool that they are. In this there is also the involvement of the FTI and more interesting that a Cyber Security firm did not look past the simplest trappings, as as we consider the optional involvement of Anthony J. Ferrante we need to consider sending quota to all 49 of the Global 100 companies that are FTI clients. Even if it was merely to make a few people sweat. When a non Cyber adapt like me can see through this part they have a clear problem and whether Anony Mouse Bezos was part of this or not will not matter. There is one other part in the report that should be considered. On page 2 we see “More significantly. al Qahtani is known to have played a key and senior role in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.” In the first, he was acquitted (in a Saudi trial) and there has been no other trials, as such the statement should be read as false, no clear evidence was ever presented. In the second, as this is part of the executive summary, it seems that this was a way to blatantly strike out against one individual and the evidence is not corroborating any of this, too many questions are left unanswered and the media is not asking them either, as such I wonder what is to be believed, especially in light of the Daily Mail ‘revelation’ last August, which implies long in advance of this report. The fact that this (optional) fact is ignored gives out a much larger issue, the work in incomplete, debatable and political, not factual, as such sending serious cyber letters to the 49 of the Global 100 companies that are FTI clients, as I personally see it, these players are all about facts and when their provider and be painted as open for considerations, we should entertain all kinds of questions. 

I would also look at the footnotes and take a larger look at that descriptive part, I wonder what is left once I have had the chance to take a red pencil through this report. Now, I am not stating that Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud is innocent, I am merely considering that his evidence is so shallow, that I would never accuse him of anything, not before a lot more work was done (and a lot more footnotes were properly weighed), in this consider on page 3 footnote 8. When we go there, we see that the article is Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai a member of Motherboard (so why is there no Motherboard article that is the source), we see “An investor from Saudi  Arabia is apparently behind a company that bought a stake in the controversial spyware vendor” where ‘apparently‘ is the operative word. It is also where we see: “Hacking Team was thoroughly owned, with its once-secret list of customers, internal emails, and spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see“, were all these customers on a secret list investigated? There is also ‘spyware source code leaked online for anyone to see‘, a small fact that is apparently not investigated, additional players all optionally ready to give someone called Bezos the time of his on-line life. Then we get “this apparent recovery is in part thanks to the new investor, who appears to be from Saudi Arabia“, a line ruled by, you guessed it ‘apparent‘ and ‘who appears‘, so much filtering and doubt, and in this FTI used that as a footnote source? A program co-owned for 80% by none other then David Vincenzetti. That does NOT make HIM a guilty party and neither is there any convincing evidence of any kind towards the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud.

When I see all this I wonder if the UN (or FTI) has any clue how much we should regard them as tools. I cannot tell at present what kind of tools they are, but my personal view is that if this is the debatable level of evidence that some employ, we all are in so much more trouble then we ever thought.

 

1 Comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Military, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 22, 2020 · 11:46

What we do not get to read

 

Yes, we have all seen it, the bias in the media, the stage of reporting and more important not reporting, yet in all stages there was always the BBC. Now, for the most I am all about the BBC, I love that channel, whether it is one, two or BBC24, there is a place for all of them and as a conservative it is hard to judge as I went to the small island of Australia (extremely SSE of the UK) and there we do not have the BBC (weird, I know). Yet they are also online and I do see the BBC there regularly (mostly the news), so when the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/21/dominic-cummings-thinktank-called-for-end-of-bbc-in-current-form), where the Dominic Cummings thinktank announced that it was time that the UK ‘called for ‘end of BBC in current form’‘, and I got all huffy and puffy on that notice. When we look at some of this we see: 

  1. the undermining of the BBC’s credibility; 
  2. the creation of a Fox News equivalent / talk radio shows / bloggers etc to shift the centre of gravity; 
  3. the end of the ban on TV political advertising.”

Well let’s start with item one, anyone who is out there giving us that someone needs to be undermined has ulterior motives, I have never known that undermining is an acceptable fair strategy, more importantly, anyone making any claims towards undermining or optional smear campaigns need to become weary of the bringer of that message. 

The second part is even more hilarious, there is a Fox News equivalent, it is called Fox News, I reckon that the UK has plenty of issues, a lot of them in the direction of discrimination and adding to that with a flair of news worthiness is not the way to go, in light of the morning shows, there is a decent representation. As such, Fox would have a hard time getting a share, let alone someone who treats the news as something on the go, a voice to stage biased views is not the one to go with, especially when you require credibility. 

The third is everyone’s favourite thing to oppose, we are all stoned to death with political pushes from nearly EVERY station on the planet, the articles are often politically laced and less political BS is very much appreciated by most people

As politically I see it, there is a larger issue and as I see it this is about something else, even as we are told that it is about one thing, it is not. People like Dominic Cummings are about large corporations, this is as I see it a first stab at the monarchy, they will not claim it, the more likely they will massively deny it. You see, they are about the message, yet what that message is, is not debated, even as they hide behind “the “mortal enemy” of the Conservative party“, it is not what they are, as a conservative I never had issues with the BBC, if MP’s are not prepared that is THEIR mistake, when they are caught with their pants down THEY are at fault and both sides know that. 

The issue is that people need to be under an advertisement blanket 24:7 to become effective, that is the American way and what is the actual danger is that the Monarchy is a blight to large American corporations. Even as Brexit went wrong, the yanks think that blanket advertisement could have prevented this. There is a truth, it might have been, but at that point the people would have unknowingly taken the path of the wealthy industrialists, and glossy newspapers and some newspapers are all about that, are they not?

When we see “allow politicians to speak directly to the public in ad breaks during Coronation Street” we see the docile approach and when we are told “government ministers should avoid appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme” we see a different level of subterfuge, lets face it, people can ALWAY decide not to appear anywhere, yet at times that leaves a larger question mark and in this it is not the BBC where that question mark is. If a politician is not prepared to answer hard questions, we need to see why not and it seems that BBC 4 Today asks the right questions, or so it seems.

And as we see: “The suggestions were made in a series of long blogposts in 2004 and 2005 by the New Frontiers Foundation, which was a short-lived free market thinktank that aimed to emulate rightwing US organisations such as the Heritage Foundation” we see a larger truth, this is about stating the right wing agenda, not the conservative agenda and you better believe that there is a difference. As such we see the steps of change, and you better believe that “decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee as a first step” is not a first step, it is an advanced step into the undermining of the BBC, I get it, most people do not want to pay it because there is a budget issue, we all see it and we all face it, yet there is a truth behind the existence of the BBC too, it is not shading or colouring, but the option to give a direct view of what is. So when we see “The prime minister first called the licence fee into question during the election campaign and Nicky Morgan, the culture secretary, has suggested a move to a Netflix-style subscription system could be considered for the BBC” you better believe that it is a direct assault on public broadcasting and its disappearance will have far reaching consequences. 

It is enahnced by Ben Bradshaw, a labour MP who gives us “they would like nothing more than to replace the BBC with a rightwing propaganda channel like Fox“, it is the stage for replacing information for advertisement and it would not change immediate, it would be a gradual chance and it can be that way because those who want propaganda have money, they have serious money and partially becasue both sids of the ile were cowards in the past. They refused to properly tax corporations who like the idea of £30 million, instead of the accounted part of £4,600,000,000 which ends up being a lot more than £30 million and there are 5 players already on that line, and more will want that situation but that is not possible in a monarchy and there is every chance, especially after the media debacle of HRH Prince Harry and his wife Meghan that too many people have had enough of that and as such these parties require a propaganda channel sooner rather than later, the BBC is too dangerous for them, as such they need that credibility gone. 

The second truth, the obvious one is also give to us by Ben Bradshaw “The BBC belongs to the British public, not the government, and the public value the public service ethos of the BBC, objective and accurate information and news and the broad range of much-loved radio and TV programmes and would not take kindly to them being sacrificed to Rupert Murdoch“, the immediate issues here are ‘the British public‘, the BBC to a larger degree works for them and as such political players cannot use that channel for ‘their’ message, the get asked serious questions and if they cannot answer, they are smeared with custard (pie in the face routine). In addition, any thinktank that is setting the stage where the people are sacrificed to Rupert Murdoch, or Roger Ailes. Now, they are both good at what they are involved in, yet the news is a larger stage. Even as we need to credit Ailes for a lot, his stage was set to “If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, “I have a solution to the Middle East problem,” and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?“, it is a fair assessment of our own needs, but at times we do not need a pretty picture, we need to get a real setting of where we are. And even if we do not like it, when it personally hits us we wanted and needed to know what was real and to a larger extent the solution that Cummings is attacking is a really bad thing. There is some level of acceptance as the US is a large place and WE do not watch the local news, but there tends to be local news, in the UK it is a much larger setting where that impact will hurt all the people in the UK. 

Now, I made an accusation earlier on and it is time to set the right frame there. When we consider the ludicrous attacks on the royal family, like the ones on HRH Prince Harry and is wife, most get a little angry, yet the larger population who was tainted by glossy news was not and that is the setting the UK is going to, as the real news is more and more presented in a breakfast and glossy way, we get mixed and opinionated news and it is not the same as actual (read: factual) news, but it is the first step in diminishing the monarchy. We seem to ignore (some successfully) on the news out there, when we look at late last year we see headlines like ‘Meghan Markle In New Documentary Said She Was Warned UK Tabloid Press Would “Destroy” Her Life But Was Unprepared For How Bad It Would Be‘, or perhaps even better Newsweek with ‘FOX NEWS HOST SAYS HE’S ‘SICK’ OF PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE: ‘BRITAIN SHOULD…BECOME A REAL REPUBLIC’‘ and there we see another example of what America needs, it does not need a monarchy where we look out for the wellbeing of EVERY citizen, it is about a republic where big business rules and the media (as I personally see it) as a well paid prostitute only adheres to their needs 

  1. their shareholders
  2. their stakeholders
  3. their advertisers
  4. their circulation

In this the British royal family does not add to the circulation and is an opponent to the first three who wants that juicy collection of consumers that add up to 55 million, they will not care about the well being of the 13 million they end up casually ignoring, and destroying what little degree of freedom they have in their life, they want a population with 100% enablers. That is the danger and it is time for the people in the UK to wake up to that danger, because the 55,000,000 will not care initially, but as they move from being a consumer/enabler, they will care a great deal as they become the target, and that will happen.

This is why I see the message from people like Dominic Cummings as a very dangerous one, and I feel it is important to speak out against such dangers. Yes, we all see the BBC, a lot of us see and hear the boring (and a real classic) music by Eric Spear of Coronation Street, and the Manchester setting, but the larger truth is that the people in the UK own the BBC, not the politicians. If there is one truth then it is the one where we need to remain aware that what is not owned by politicians could end up giving us the actual facts, not the ones that will make money for the rich industrialists, they have plenty of options, they merely want zero opposition so that they can wield us more comfortably.

As I see it, they need it all done, because too many people are shouting about tax changes, tax changes that properly tax large corporations to a fair degree. I have no problems with corporations having a profit, yet the stage where there is a tax bill of £30 million against £4,600,000,000 which leaves them with an optional 99.992% of their profits, it does not add up and that should not ever be allowed, more important, when that Cummings foundation gets their way, you will not even be informed on those events, unless the evidence gets spread to a much larger degree in a much wider setting, when that is no longer possible, we will be told and most will accept whatever the industrial driven media gives us and you better believe that this is not a good idea.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 17, 2020 · 12:04

As the house comes down

There are two articles in the Guardian, both are mere hours old and it shows the impact that bully tactics have. In the first it is the EU who starts with ‘EU trade commissioner ‘will call Trump’s bluff’ over Huawei security‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/16/eu-trade-commissioner-will-call-trumps-bluff-over-huawei-security), where we also see ‘Phil Hogan convinced US president will not withdraw intelligence cooperation with UK and EU‘, it appears that Mr. Andrew Parker was right as I expected him to be. The text “The EU trade commissioner has said he will call Donald Trump’s “bluff” on threats to withdraw the US’s cooperation with the UK and the rest of the bloc on intelligence and security over Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant” and it is important to note that the US has still not shown one lick of evidence that Huawei is under the intrusion thumb of the Chinese government. It was an odd situation, do you think that the Chinese government would interfere with such a large setting of income, whilst the data will be coming to them already through the direct means of applied usage of social media? However, we need to recognise that the US is n a worse state now, even as direct numbers are not given, the political hounding of Facebook and Google, could see a much larger jump of people to Harmony OS and as such these companies could lose a large stage of data coming their way. I personally believe that this is the direct impact of electing into the oval office a man who is known for the one-liner ‘You’re Fired!‘, but that is just me.

There is also the given part of “Phil Hogan has also risked the wrath of the US president by declaring that the EU is not, in principle, opposed to giving the Chinese tech group access to 5G plans. At a press conference in London he said the US did not have exclusivity on safety and security of its citizens, and predicted Trump would come round to the EU view that they had shared interests in that regard“, I believe that Phil Hogan is right, the foundations of the threats were not based on evidence (as I see it), in addition as the US is losing more and more ground in intel gathering in the Middle East, they will become more and more dependant on the EU and UK sources out there and not sharing is really disadvantageous for the US, it will take well over a decade to regrow the size and quality of sources they had. 

The second issue is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/16/iran-says-it-is-enriching-more-uranium-than-before-nuclear-deal) in the article ‘Germany confirms Trump made trade threat to Europe over Iran policy‘, as we are introduced to ‘Defence minister says Trump threatened to impose 25% tariff on European cars‘, here the stage is different, it is not Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, it is the larger EU political community that is the danger. Iran is a clear and present danger, it was so before America offed Qassam Soleimani and Iran will remain a threat after. The media on a global scale has been all about minimising the impact on Iran, even as there was no way that some nuclear deal would ever make it, but the political hacks in the EU had the arrogance to think that they could (a valid option), yet even now, well over a year later, there is still nothing there. Even now as we get from various sources in the media that Iran is presently enriching more Uranium than ever before, we are given the raw dangers. Even as the EU members are in denial through “In invoking the dispute mechanism for the Iran nuclear agreement or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in other words, in deciding to hold Tehran to account for its breaches of the deal – the UK, France and Germany insist that they are still firmly behind the deal” we see a dangerous escalation delusion from the EU side. the problem is that if Iran makes a false move on willing to talk, we get the same situation that America faced when Japan stated that they were willing to talk in the months before Pearl Harbour, the problem now is that the target is Israel and optionally a scare tactic towards Saudi Arabia and for some reason people are oblivious to the fact that if the ground of one nation is radioactive, that dust is likely to spread to neighbouring nations. As I see it, Iran will not care about what happens to Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, optionally it will cross the mediteranian and impacts Italy, Spain, Turkey and Greece for generations. If the radioactive matter hits the sea that will happen for certain. Yet the arrogance of the EU politicians that a place like Iran will talk whilst their Uranium enrichment is running at full force is a dangerous precedence. I do believe that America is doing the wrong thing for the right reason and when (not if) that first missile mysteriously makes it into Hezbollah hands, the denials from Iran will be as loud as possible as it will ‘hide’ behind the military power of Russia, I am just not certain if Russia will be willing to be part of that mess.

So even as we see: “Iran initially denied responsibility for the crash, but three days later admitted that it had downed the plane believing it was an incoming US missile. An Iranian national security commission is investigating the episode“, it does not mention that the person releasing the video is now arrested for matters of Iranian national security. Still the EU politicians think that they can weave some kind of deal and the months of delay is working into the Iranian hands as well and those politicians need to be woken up as soon as possible, because once it is too late, the costs will be beyond comprehension and at that point the EU politician will hide behind ‘fair play’ and ‘unforeseen complications’ all whilst history has seen these issues all before. And in all this, the one part that matters is not addressed. Even as we see and are told that Uranium enrichment is at an all time high, the method of how they are doing it is ignored. Thousands of centrifuges were under critical eyes disposed of, so how were they replaced so easily? With the response as to the killing of January 3rd, we now see that there are Iranian claims that enrichment is back, yet how was this done in under two weeks? It could only have been done if the hardware was already there and if enrichment was the main agenda point from before July 2019, and that means that Iran intended to break the Nuclear accords long before they lost one general, is no one seeing that part?

The media is certainly not making any mention in that direction. The fact that one part of the deal was the reduction of centrifuges from 19,000 to 6,104 (at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/16/middleeast/rouhani-iran-uranium-enrichment-intl/index.html). So how can they be back to enriching so quickly? The second part is that enrichment would stop at 3.67%, there is no clear word on how rich their uranium is (at present), but there is also the locations, only Natanz was supposed to be active, but the implied amount stated gives rise to the importance of the fact that there is no way that Natanz can produce that much, implying that Arak, Ishafan, or Bushehr is either back online, or that the EU missed a few places (not entirely improbable).

The second part is that the only registered mine is Bandar Abbas, to continue on the track they are now, the traffic there would have increased massively and no one noticed? An optional issue is that there is MORE than one Uranium mine in Iran, this has two distinct issues. In the first it would mean that Iran has a much larger Uranium consideration, the second is that another mine has been largely unnoticed. It all adds up that in the first the EU dropped the ball to a much larger extent, in the second that the EU was unaware and therefor unable and unwilling to be a true investigator. Now we see the bully threat that America wrongfully made for the right reasons. My small speculation becomes, what is happening to the South, South West and West of Tabas (South Khorasan Province)? And in addition, why is there no open awareness in the EU in these matters? 

It gets to be worse, but I will spare you that part (for now). 

There is another side to all this, it is the financial side. All these actions are costing a boatload of money, money that Iran should not have and that implies that it is getting fueled to some extent from somewhere. Even as we are treated to ‘Defying U.S. sanctions, Iran boosts gas oil sales to neighbours‘ (source: Reuters), we are looking at a larger Iranian infrastructure need, and as far as I can tell, gasoil sales will not fuel that need, and even as we are given “more than 80% higher than the previous quarter and nearly four times higher than the first quarter, data from consultancy FGE showed“, the math doesn’t add up.

So either Iran had the means hidden, or there is a larger play going on. Consider that Iran had to replace well over 5,000 centrifuges to make their setting truthful, these things each costs a bundle, the mining operations needed to be ‘upgraded’ through manpower and that is another infusement of funds, last we see the missile and drone programs, it all adds up to the costs that they cannot afford, someone has handed Iran a credit card, or made funds in other ways available and I cannot see where it comes from (which makes sense as I do not walk in those lanes), yet the media is also not reporting on any of that and finding this would be a massive scoop for any paper, so why is there nothing? Is there nothing? If that is so then the nuclear threat from President Rouhani is hollow and empty, but I do not believe that to be true (personal conviction). 

The main problem for all nations is that Iran has an advanced weapons program, one that does NOT include nuclear weapons, yet the technological knowhow is largely there, as we see enrichment continue, the setting for a dirty bomb is merely months away, so Iran could use a dirty bomb in 2020 if it chose so, an actual nuclear weapon is less likely, yet not impossible. The problem that a weapon like that would be developed in unknown (read: unvisited Iranian) locations and the trigger would be part of a non-nuclear bomb, even if there was nuclear fission, they need the bare minimum to test that, hence hiding a 1Kg bomb in 3 tonnes of TNT would be easily hidden. 

When we go by “The total radioactivity of the fission products is extremely large at first, but it falls off at a fairly rapid rate as a result of radioactive decay. Seven hours after a nuclear explosion, residual radioactivity will have decreased to about 10 percent of its amount at 1 hour, and after another 48 hours it will have decreased to 1 percent. (The rule of thumb is that for every sevenfold increase in time after the explosion, the radiation dose rate decreases by a factor of 10.)” (source: Britannica) and a weapon with less than one Kg would be acceptable for testing, Iran has plenty of places where this would happen unobserved and within hours the larger extend would not be registered, the only path is the EMP, as long as there is no measurement around, it will go unnoticed if the bomb is small enough, so as Iran tests its nuclear detonation options, it can go a long way in staying undetected end the nuclear trigger is pretty much the same for a 400Gr and a 10KT bomb, so that is the danger and we have no idea where Iran is at at this point. Yet the latest info is still that Iran has NO nuclear weapons technology. However, if it can create the amounts of fission that Iran is claiming to be making, they might not be far off, in the most positive scenario they are at best a year away from that.

And in that environment the EU politicians rely on ego and arrogance that Iran will play ball, I might not agree with the bully tactic, but in this case the US and all others have very little to go on. My issue is that I personally believe that anyone (including Iran) is innocent until proven guilty, yet as we witness the statements by president Rouhani and the actions by Iran, can we afford to take that path? Can we actively set the stage of endangering the State of Israel (the most likely first target) to this level of danger? And when that happens, what are the levels of danger that Saudi Arabia faces? More importantly, depending of the first blast, what are the dangers of the surrounding nations of the target? Lets not forget that the Suez Canal goes straight through that area, not only destroying an economy, but endangering the economy of the entire EU. 

When we are in a house as it is coming down on top of us, we need to see what our options are and that part is in no way clear, all whilst we know that running out of the house will bring new and other dangers.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 15, 2020 · 12:08

Devil in the details

We all make mistakes at time, the issue is not that we make mistakes, the issue is on how to clear the error in question, that is always how I saw work, we (without question) try to work without error, the people that tell you that they never made a mistake are usually lying to you. Some hide it, some clean it up before it is noticed, these are merely two types, but in honesty, who would you prefer to be working for your company (or the company you work in)? So when I got wind of ‘UK concealed failure to alert EU over 75,000 criminal convictions‘, I had to take a step back, you see, this is not some failure, this is not some sall bungle, the quote we are give is “The police national computer error, revealed in the minutes of a meeting at the criminal records office, went undetected for five years, during which one in three alerts on offenders – potentially including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states” and as I see it it is not some small mistake, a stem like this does not work sometimes, it does not work or it works always. This leaves me to think that issues were filtered, optionally on purpose giving out a larger concern when we see “It’s an ongoing glitch that we need to fix. We are working towards getting that done“, I personally refuse to believe that this was a glitch, this was orchestration set to pass as a glitch, the question is why and when we see “There is still uncertainty whether historical DAFs [daily activity file], received from the Home Office, are going to be sent out to counties (sic) as there is a reputational risk to the UK.“

In this the Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott gives us “It is bad enough to have made serious errors in relation to sharing information on criminals, but it seems that there was also an attempt at a cover-up. Ministers need to come clean. When did they know about these failures, why did they not make them public, and how are they going to prevent any repetition? A full, urgent investigation is needed.” In this situations she is almost right, I believe that there was a ‘cover-up‘, I merely think it ended up on a ministers plate and that person reacted poorly to the situation. And with ‘how are they going to prevent any repetition‘ we see a much larger failing. From my point of view the system was designed or was set up to optionally hide certain elements, yet the reason behind this is unclear. For some reason I believe that at least part of the reason is ‘fear of damaging Britain’s reputation‘, yet not in the way that this is shown in the article. When you look at the statistical numbers all over the field, consider that the crime numbers were supposed to be 30% (the one in three) higher (if every conviction based on merely one crime), what then? 

The Labour party would blame it all on austerity, yet the truth is (as I personally see it) much more refined. We have been in denial of what any government needs to do and we in turn do not try the criminal path, and let’s face it, we saw other news that allows to take care of the shortage of police officers. 

As issues like we see with Netflix are not resolved, and as another article gives us “This research shows that Netflix is ripping off our public services by channelling profits through tax havens even though it appears to have employees, property, and a substantial customer base in the UK,” yet linked to this is “the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts will make just £30m each from the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Google and Netflix“, so basically 5 companies see the light of optional international passing their revenue, avoiding well over £1,000,000,000 in tax payments, do you not think that this would have lowered austerity (and improved police visibility)? So when we see a group of losers wrongfully blame a tennis player for the environment, what if we ask the people in the UK all to renounce their Netflix subscription? Let’s not forget we have Disney Plus now (as well as Stan and a few others), I wonder how that massive hit will go over with Netflix. After that we start taking care of Amazon, Facebook and Google, the other four will actually be much harder to deal with, but Netflix is not, there are alternatives and the people protecting Netflix (and others) better realise that we are all about redistributing that one billions and taking their £ 350,000,000 profit away from them without any hesitation. 

Yet I digress, it is the crime statistics that might go out of whack, optionally impacting tourism if they had been released. Now we need to consider that not all crimes are alike, yet the article gives us: “including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states” and that statement surprised me, not because of those two, but because the number of armed robbery convictions would more than likely be much higher. We also do not know what happened to these people after their sentence, so there is the immigration and deportation part to consider as well. 

Yes, the article gives a certain lack (not judging), mainly because the start gives us ‘the Guardian can reveal‘, implying that this article had a pushed deadline to be first, as such the follow up in this matter would be interesting to read, I reckon that in the near future the Guardian would have a full page (or two) on this matter. So even if we had last may “There is a nervousness from Home Office around sending the historical notifications out dating back to 2012 due to the reputational impact this could have“, I personally believe that the Office for National Statistics (GOV.UK) has a much bigger problem in their near future, when the numbers going back to 2012, the interpretation of these numbers will suddenly get a very different story to content with. You might remember the sort of researchers that make a nice story when they get statistics and top line results. Their “when we look at these numbers, we can clearly see” and likeminded responses. When the results are a part of the 30% of convictions off, ‘we can clearly see‘ becomes an entirely different matter in this situation. 

It is the setting of “historical backlog of 75,000 notifications” and we see that, but not before we consider the National Crime Statistics site, which gave us a few parts we need to consider “4% decrease in police recorded homicide offences (from 728 to 701 offences)” for Homicide, “11% increase in police recorded robbery offences (to 85,736 offences)” for Robbery, and “According to the CSEW, there was no change in the proportion of adults who experienced sexual assaults in the year ending March 2019 (2.9%)” for sexual assaults which is up to March 2019. Now consider the fact that (optionally) there was no decrease in homicide, optionally a small increase, that the robbery numbers are higher than now and that sexual assaults did not stay the same, they went up. This would change the story for the Police department to some degree (not their fault) and the stage we see now that the investments required would change a whole lot because of the non registered foreigner effort. You see, I believe that the situation is less positive. I believe that “UK has failed to pass on the details of 75,000 convictions of foreign criminals to their home EU countries” has a much larger impact. In my mind there is no way that people will avoid looking at the statistics when 75,000 conviction cases are missing. I believe that there is a larger (speculated) play and it is not merely my point of view. When we look (at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/focusonpropertycrime/yearendingmarch2016), we see again and again “theft from the person offences along with cash or foreign currency and mobile phones“, when we consider ‘foreign currency‘, yet why are these merely crimes by Brits? and why is it ‘cash or foreign currency‘? I believe that there has been a trend and even as 75,000 convictions do not add up against some of the numbers, but when we see “Crimes recorded by the police show a 7% rise (539,767 offences) in criminal damage and arson offences“, we see that 75,000 convicted criminals are more likely than not to be a much larger impact on the numbers and now we see correlation and optional co-variant impacts on some of the crime, yet even as a co-variant is not always a good thing, we optionally now see a larger impact and in this instance can the government give clear answers on whether these 75,000 criminal convictions are part of these numbers? I have reason to believe (I have no evidence) that this might not be the case. It is a larger setting and I personally believe that it was not merely a play to make the foreign governments not aware, it was merely a side effect. 

You see, if that was not the case, the issue of ‘foreigners and crime‘ would have had a much larger hit and a lot sooner, a total of 75,000 might force the Home office to take a different stance, one that costs money. It is my personal believe that there are elements missing. Not due to the Guardian of course, because that would take a lot longer to investigate and it is more likely that not that the Guardian and the Independent will be all over this when the impact of damage is seen to a larger degree (the size of larger remains debatable). 

Consider these statements:

  • In contrast a much lower number of adults had been a victim of theft from the person (only 7 in 1,000 adults) or robbery (3 in 1,000 adults)
  • Around 3 in 50 children aged 10 to 15 had been a victim of personal theft and around 1 in 50 had been a victim of criminal damage to personal property

Now consider the (optional and speculated) impact of the statements after the 75,000 convictions are considered

  • In contrast a lower number of adults had been a victim of theft from the person (only 9 in 1,000 adults) or robbery (5 in 1,000 adults)
  • Around 4 in 50 children aged 10 to 15 had been a victim of personal theft and around 3 in 50 had been a victim of criminal damage to personal property

The shift seems small, yet still visible, the fact that the damage to children is now (mind you speculated) approaching 10% is an actual much larger setting then before, its impact would constitute the need for the government to change its position on crime and support a different stance on crime related issues from police to prison it would impact the government budget to a much larger degree. Now, we need to remember that this is speculated and the impact of data is not clear at present, yet I remain that ‘one in three alerts on offenders – potentially including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states‘ feels wrong, a system fails or works, it does not filter, this all feels like orchestration, yet the stage is not clearly set. The Daily Mail was off course a little more colourful with “More than 2,000 foreign killers, paedophiles and rapists are waved into the UK without criminal records checks as police arrest TWO every day” yet there is still no (clear) information on how the numbers impact, as I am personally not convinced that this was merely one system, as the shift in the department of corrections would unbalance the system with numbers that did not match the Home office and as such the issue would have been seen well within the 5 years it took now.

Could I be wrong?

Of course, the issue of data is largely unseen which give optional strength to my speculation, and we need to be clear, I am speculating on the matter, yet the issue is based on a larger issue, a clear IT issue, until there is a clear open presentation on WHY one in three did not make it into the register, I feel that I am correct. However, when we consider the sources that the UK has, I truly believe that this could not be contained to merely one segment, and that is my personal view on the matter. As such I believe the 75,000 will have impacted numbers all over the stage, the foreign policy part being the one that (finally) exposed it finally after 5 years.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

January 13, 2020 · 16:02

Let’s kill all the idiots

The headline was the first thought I had when I saw ‘Roger Federer responds to climate crisis criticism from Greta Thunberg‘, my conviction became even stronger when I saw the bylines ‘Credit Suisse closely linked with fossil fuel industry‘ and ‘#RogerWakeUpNow has been trending on Twitter‘, you see, the simplest of all views is that the dumbheads calling themselves ‘climate activists’ were already low on my IQ agenda, but now they have hit rock bottom (below fascists and extreme right knuckleheads). 

I have no issue with those being stupid because they are ignorant, that happens. I know nothing of agrarian farming, I know nothing about managing herds of cows and I am fine with that, I will not offer you any advice in those directions. I am also not a firefighter, so I am at a loss as to how to best treat the shrubberies in Australia, but I know we have experts on all these matters around and when I get to it, I will ask them. 

So lets get some reality in the game, Credit Suisse Group AG is an investment bank, it has shareholders and it needs to get accounts that offer the best return on investment. There will always be firms that offer a 95% or better certainty that their investment will pay off and that is the reason a firm like Credit Suisse Group AG will entertain an appointment. Now Credit Suisse Group AG is not alone, there are hundreds of these firms and even as there are plenty of them not with the capital that runs into the trillions, it also means that they can make larger investment, investments a lot cannot make. So how is it that Credit Suisse Group AG has an optional portfolio of petrochemical industries (fossil fuel industry), well that is simple, 100% of America relies on fuel, from the 50’s onwards they set the stage where every person had a house and a car. I do not have a car, I do not need one, yet anyone living outside of a large city in America directly sees how important a car is to get around, in some cases if you do not have a car, you cannot see the neighbours, you cannot get groceries and so forth. That lifestyle was never attacked, that lifestyle was never opposed outright to the degree that it was needed. In other directions, let’s take a look at Arlanda Airport (because Greta Thunberg is Swedish), can anyone explain why 27 million passengers travel to Stockholm by plane every year? Well, that is easy, most are on vacation, and this includes 325 thousand people from the US, which was interesting as this is pretty much the population of the US, and I know for a fact that they do not all go to Sweden, so there is a lot of business travel, as well as 1 million people travelling from Luleå Airport (far north of Sweden), so we see a mingle of business people of tourists and those with all kinds of reasons and this is merely one of a thousand airports in Europe, all those planes need fuel. Even when we consider that planes and cars are only two of well over a dozen facets that require crude oil, we see a much larger setting of petrochemical needs, especially when we consider that on one route (Amsterdam – Stockholm) we see that 8 airlines setting the stage for 64 flights per week and consider that these flights should not continue when the passenger well dries up. 

We all set the stage for fossil fuel, we do it all ourselves, so when I look at the picture (at https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jan/12/roger-federer-responds-to-climate-change-criticism-from-greta-thunberg) where I see the text of “People demonstrate in support outside the trial of 12 activists who stormed and played tennis inside a Credit Suisse office“, how many (of those) own a car? How many will give the answer: “But I need my car!“, so in that setting how many of you all are part of this? I am all for changing the climate, but the first setting is not some BS approach that involves some tennis player, as such when we come to the BS tweet by 350.org Europe, giving us “Since 2016 @CreditSuisse has provided $57 BILLION to companies looking for new fossil fuel deposits – something that is utterly incompatible with #ClimateAction @RogerFederer do you endorse this? #RogerWakeUpNow pic.twitter.com/ED1fIvb4Cr“, why ask him? more importantly when we consider “Since 2016 @CreditSuisse has provided $57 BILLION to companies looking for new fossil fuel deposits“, consider that the local governments allowed for this and when we consider ‘fossil fuel deposits‘, consider that these people cannot be in business if no one needs deposits, which means that when we get car usage down by 50% in one nation alone they go off the map, and at that point the  Credit Suisse Group AG will give their loans to other interested and needy parties. 

That is the central point that these BS people do not get, it is the fulfilling of need and there is a large need for fossil fuels (whether valid or not). More importantly you go after the one group of people where a healthy lifestyle is important (the swiss), as such the twitter hashtag #RogerWakeUpNow is mostly bullshit, that person seems more awake than the stupid masses carrying the hashtag in their tweets. From my point of view, if 50% of the US Twitter users drop their car for at least a month (so from today until the end of February 2020) that means that there will be from today until the end of February 2020 34 million cars less on the Road in the US, anyone using their car in this timeframe should not now, not ever use the #RogerWakeUpNow hashtag, shall we agree on that? I do not want to hear any BS on ‘I needed it’, ‘my mum was sick’ or ‘the dog ate my car keys and I had to drive it to the doctor’ idiocy, if you needed your car, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution, it is a simple as that.

If we do that country by country we can get a handle of fossil fuel consumption and the need for that expansion goes away. And as we take notice of “Credit Suisse recently stated it is “seeking to align its loan portfolios with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and has recently announced in the context of its global climate strategy that it will no longer invest in new coal-fired power plants”“, we also need to consider that the Paris agreement is a watered down goal and that the US withdrew from the Paris agreements in 2017, when you realise the old lyrics ‘Money makes the world go round‘ we soon see that there are markets where that is certainly so and that there is a larger need, a need most people (especially some self revered eco warriors), they all need their car to get to places. In that move I reckon that others might not leave, but there is every indication that more than a handful of the 188 nations in that agreement are unable to keep that promise, they will not be in the group that makes it, they will merely be the signatories of an empty agreement, because an agreement that is not kept is merely an empty one. I know I will win that part because last year the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/353d0cac-ca52-11e8-9fe5-24ad351828ab) gave us “The world is on track to overshoot the targets of the Paris climate agreement and warm by 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, a level that would disrupt life around the planet“. On the 5th of November, the National Geographic (at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/nations-miss-paris-targets-climate-driven-weather-events-cost-billions/) reported that MOST countries will not be able to make the 2030 climate goals, MOST, not some, not merely the US, but MOST, and it is not merely because of fossil fuels (but it is the larger contributing factor), so those nagging dweeps all out for Roger Federer and Credit Suisse Group AG I say ‘Go home and play with yourself, if you cannot get your government to keep a promise that they went out again and again, a target that they watered down, whilst ignoring the question on “specifying what “well below” meant”, you have no right to harass a firm and a tennis player who are not part of the problem‘, Yes that is my personal view, you see if there was no need for fossil fuels, do you think an investment firm will be putting their heads on the chopping block for 58 billion? No they offered it because there was a need, you all created that need!

So let’s kill all the idiots, and as I see it; from my speculated numbers, it takes away 10%-35% of this planet’s population and that too will help stop the need of fossil fuel consumption, will it not?

So we strike two tweeters with one stone. Life can be so simple at times, why did these ‘whistleblowers’ (another hilarious title) not see that? In that regard to their lawyers I give ‘Credit Suisse never hid these numbers, so a whistleblower would not be needed, more importantly, as many nations are in denial that there is an actual climate emergency you need to prove that they are wrong in court, do you not? So good luck on the hundreds of hours you need to settle this case and good luck on getting that fee paid!‘ I feel frisky! I settled two matters with one article whilst initially ignoring that there was a second issue in play. 

Yes, I agree that there is a climate issue, I agree that much more needs to be done, but one investment bank and one tennis player are not the actual (and factual) targets that will make an actual impact that matters. From all this, we could come to the conclusion that they are all ‘grasping for visibility’ through these two parties, but is that the way to go when there is every indication that the government players are all about remaining in denial? We now see ‘Government to commit $50m for wildlife affected by bushfires as green groups call for action‘, as such you want to be positive about the actions of the Australian government, yet when you put this next to Celeste Barber (a comedian I had never heard of), we see that her appeal to Facebook raised the same amount as a donation to those hurt in the fires, one person (West Australian iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest) is committing $70 million to this cause, two people made the Australian government dwarf on the needs of a nation, now I am a realist, I get it, the national accounting books show that Australia still has a huge debt and $50 million is not nothing, yet when two persons dwarf you by well over 2:1, you have a problem and that is also the case for the larger group of 180 nations pledging to something that they cannot achieve. This was not an issue hiden, this was out in the open, as such we see my response to such people as the carriers of BS.
Yes I believe that the Australian fire was fueled by climate change, the high temperature allowed for fires to spread fast, the temperature and drought turned wood into immediate fuel and Australia lost 15,000,000 acres to fire, a lot of it with trees. One fire was the size of Manhattan, can you imagine it, one piece of land that holds 1.6 million people, all in flames. The amount of firefighters needed, whilst there are 135 other fires as well, some of them are actually large. firefighters and army reservists are totalling towards 6,000 and still no resolution is achieved, fire is a dangerous adversary and it goes where the wind takes it. In the end, the Australian bushfires will spark more conversation on climate change, yet when we consider that a truckload of the 180 nations are not making the goals of the Paris accords and a fair amount of them are seemingly in denial of the matter, what business do we have blaming an investment firm and a tennis player for issues that we all ourselves started?

Consider that when you consider yourself tweeting #RogerWakeUpNow whilst driving your car to the next meeting you could have walked to in 15 minutes. If you claim to be too busy, then you should not have had any time to tweet, should you?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 9, 2020 · 11:34

Travel by Ransomware

On Tuesday an interesting article was given by the guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/07/travelex-being-held-ransom-hackers-said-demanding-3m#maincontent), the title ‘Travelex ‘being held to ransom’ by hackers said to be demanding $3m‘ almost said it all and then I noticed something. First we get “Criminals are thought to be demanding about $3m (£2.3m) – to give the firm access to its computer systems after they attacked using the Sodinokibi ransomware on 31 December“, the price is not set without quarter, this we get from “They are reportedly threatening to release 5GB of customers’ personal data – including social security numbers, dates of birth and payment card information – into the public domain unless the company pays up” as well as “banks who use Travelex’s foreign exchange services to stop taking online orders for currency, affecting Sainsbury’s Bank, Tesco Bank, Virgin Money and First Direct.” You see Travelex, based in London, has a presence in more than 70 countries with more than 1,200 branches and 1,000 ATMs worldwide. It processes more than 5,000 currency transactions every hour yet, even as we see that it is on the London Stock Exchange, however the group is based in the United Arab Emirates. As for the actions we see “On Thursday 2 January, the Met’s cyber crime team were contacted with regards to a reported ransomware attack involving a foreign currency exchange. Inquiries into the circumstances are ongoing” here is the snag, what are the chances that US actions are impeded as it impacts 70 countries? Is there a reason why the FBI is not equally involved? You see, Sodinokibi is a spin off from Gandcrab and as we see (at https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-releases-master-decryption-keys-for-gandcrab-ransomware/) the FBI got those keys. Now the keys will not be compatible, but if they get one solution, they might get another solution. The fact that corporations are hit and we see “the developers behind the wildly successful GandCrab Ransomware announced that they were closing shop after allegedly amassing $2 billion in ransom payments and personally earning $150 million“, we would want to think that the FBI is on top of this and get some pay-back (I had to use that pun).

We also learn from Acronis “Sodinokibi ransomware exploits an Oracle WebLogic vulnerability (CVE-2019-2725) to gain access to the victim’s machine“, and when we go to the Oracle page we see that there had been a solution from last May onwards. there is also the part “Product releases that are not under Premier Support or Extended Support are not tested for the presence of vulnerabilities addressed by this Security Alert. However, it is likely that earlier versions of affected releases are also affected by these vulnerabilities. As a result, Oracle recommends that customers upgrade to supported versions” the question becomes did Travelex forget to do a few things? the article does not pan out on that.

Yet in all this IT News (at https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ransomware-shuts-down-travelex-systems-536191) gives us ‘Unpatched systems could be attack vector, say researchers‘, and they also give us “No evidence has surfaced so far that structured personal customer data has been encrypted, or exfiltrated. This is in contrast with a report in Computer Weekly that alleged the criminals deploying the Revil/Sodinokibi ransomware had attacked servers storing sensitive, confidential information that included customer names and their bank account and transaction details” and it does not stop there. They also give us “Troy Mursch, chief research officer at security vendor Bad Packets said it notified the forex multinational in September of a serious vulnerability in its Pulse Virtual Private Networking servers. The vulnerability went unpatched until November” which sets a much larger question mark on the entire issue as the news give us that the attack came almost a month after that. They curtiously also give us “Prior to that, security researcher Kevin Beaumont noted that Travelex was operating cloud instances of Windows Server on Amazon Web Services that had Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) enabled and exposed to the internet, but with Network Level Access (NLA) control disabled. An RDP flaw, known as BlueKeep, allows for full remote compromise of Windows without user interaction” and these issues are not asked about? At least the Guardian article does not stop on them. 

The most hilarious response is seen at the very end of the IT News article with “Despite the attack closing down online systems, Travelex said it does not currently anticipate any material financial impact for its parent Finablr” Travelex might have numerous issues to consider, but the customer does not make the high point of that, or as I would mildly put it, who cares about Finablr? Well I reckon that the London Stock Exchange cares as the value of Finablr made a crashing 17% loss, that is almost one in five pounds that is lost too those bright young lads (ladies also). They advertise (on their website) ‘Finablr is a global platform for Payments and Foreign Exchange solutions underpinned by modern and proprietary technology‘ instead of ‘Finablr is a global platform for Payments and Foreign Exchange solutions underpinned by modern and proprietary hackable technology‘. It is a small difference, but a distinct one, especially as Oracle had placed a solution for months and the second message by Kevion Beaumont does not help any I reckon. In support a source gave the BBC that they feel let down, complaining that their travel money is “in limbo”, which is interesting, as the Guardian article gives us “Travelex first revealed the New Year’s Eve attack on 2 January, when it sought to assure that no customer data had yet been compromised” and as the article came 5 days after, the absence of victim mentioning is an interesting one, it seems that Travelex is not handling this situation well on a few levels, optionally also in arrear of making mantion towards the customers, all in opposition to the text on Travelex.com, which gives (among more data) “Tony D’Souza, Chief Executive of Travelex, said “Our focus is on communicating directly with our partners and customers to protect them and their information from any further compromise. We take very seriously our responsibility to protect the privacy and security of our partner and customer’s data as well as provide an excellent service to our customers and we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused. Travelex continues to offer services to its customers on a manual basis and is continuing to provide alternative customer solutions in the interim. We are working tirelessly to bring our systems back online.”” 

As such we get Travelex giving us one part and the BBC giving quite the opposite, and at this point my question becomes, exactly how much money is ‘in limbo‘?

That and a few more parts all rise to the surface when I look into this matter, the entire time gap on the side of Travelex being the most prevalent one. The one part that Acronis made me wonder about was the exemption list, the fact that It will try not to infect computers from countries based on the locale setting of the computer, which gives us “Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian, Tajikistan, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan“, the reason is unknown to me, perhaps they fear those countries and their ‘justice system’?

By the way, the entire Finablr website mention was essential, they are so for the ‘future’ yet security is seemingly not among it. That part is seen when we consider “In April 2019, the Cybereason Nocturnus team analyzed a new type of evasive ransomware dubbed Sodinokibi“, as such it took the Oracle team months to get a solution made (which makes perfect sense) yet the lack of implementation by Travelex is less normal. From all information it seems to me that Travelex should have made larger steps to be secure no later than Halloween, so the issue is a little larger than we consider, and the fact that Sodinokibi is a much larger field that goes back a few billion dollars. This is a contemplated speculation when we look at CSO Online where we get “While Sodinokibi is not necessarily a direct continuation of GandCrab, researchers have found code and other similarities between the two, indicating a likely connection” implying that for at least one person $150 million was not enough. 

As such, the entire Travelex issue will be around much longer than the ransomware will be, there will need to be a larger amount of questions to its mother organisation Finablr as well. From my speculative side it seems that some players are lacking certain IT skills, or/and a larger shortage of it, that is the initial feeling I got when I saw the information that Troy Mursch and Kevin Beaumont handed over to the press, and so far the information as seen supports a larger failing in Travelex and optionally Finablr as well. There is support for my way of thinking, no matter who is on the board of directors, none of them are IT experts and that is fine, yet by not having a visionary IT expert leading the charge we see a larger failing coming their way. It is not merely having an IT department and a security department, someone needs to spearhead and protect IT issues in the Board of Directors and there is no evidence that this is happening, actually the Travelex issue gives rise that it is not happening at all. More important, the issue with the website is that it is highly sales oriented, and when I had a look there (I reckon the Sodinokibi members as well), I wondered how secure are Unimoni, Xpress Money, Remit2India, Ditto and Swych? When one of these points get attacked, will the board of directors act appropriately? It is optionally a little ironic that they are hit whilst they advertised a paper on their site on November 20th (a month before the attack) ‘Why data protection is your new strategic priority‘, my initial thought? ‘Sarcasm, when it backfires it becomes irony!‘ Yes it seems like a cheap ride from my side, but we forget that Common Cyber Sense is a real thing and corporations need a much larger vested interest in being safe than ever before, GandCrab showed that part months before this event took place and I reckon that Financial corporations need to take a much larger vested interest in that matter, or so I am led to believe, I could (of course) be wrong.

What do you think?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 7, 2020 · 11:11

Inheritance for the weak

Things happened and things needed to be done, this has been a long standing issue and America took that stance. Yes, we agree that we do not want a war, but Iran made it almost unattainable and something had to be done. So when I see (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/06/nato-chief-holds-back-from-endorsing-us-killing-of-suleimani) the words “Jens Stoltenberg condemns Iran but stresses drone attack decision was not made by Nato” we see a truth, yet the words given are that of a weakling. It gets support from “His intervention came as the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, also warned Iran that “it is imperative that it return to the nuclear deal”, remarks that could presage a European decision to abandon the deal if Iran does not recommit itself to its terms“, another weakling on the European front. They are all about ego and not about realism, for months Iran has ignored the deal, it has traversed transgression point after transgression point and the EU is about ‘Let’s talk a little more’, it is like we are watching the police agree with drug dealers who have brought in 8 containers filled with drugs that they should come in so that an arrangement can be made for container number 9. They are drug dealers, deal with it!

America did the one thing that had to be done and now we see media article after media article on why we should not do it, that same media that has decided not to report on Iranian actions in Yemen, we now see more on ‘Iranian backed Houthis’ and that is as much as we can get from the media. So as we get ‘US allies distance themselves from Trump decision to assassinate Suleimani‘, we see more. I get it, Israel is too close to Iran and they cannot get dragged into it, they are dealing with Hezbollah and that is good. We also see ‘Saudi minister urges restraint in Washington‘, which is slightly less good, but the reasoning is clear, they are close to Iran and in close striking distance, they need to take a cautious stance here, yet Iran had to be dealt with and the killing of Qassam Soleimani is the point of no return, it has been done and now we need to make sure that Tehran realises that the gig is up, we will act and we will come for them, so having weaklings like Stoltenberg and van der Leyen in the EU, who have no issue making strong language when it suits them and their ego’s is a bit of a waste.

So as I read “Mike Pompeo, has already expressed disappointment in the lukewarm reaction of Washington’s European allies” I can only agree with Mike Pompeo. I see the issue that Saudi deputy defence minister, Khalid bin Salman faces and he needs to do what is best for Saudi Arabia, yet most experts are in agreement that the attack on Aramco could only have come through the acts of Iran and via the acts of Iran. The Guardian article also mentioned “There is mounting concern that the more cautious stance by the US-led coalition would make it much less effective and allow Isis to regenerate“, this is the larger issue and Iran has been playing a seesaw card for the longest of times, they have played that card well and that is the pivoting point, now with Soleimani away they will make mistakes, and that is what we needed for the longest of times, there is also the concern that the media is now in another bind. The Washington Post gave us 4 days ago “Soleimani took control of the Quds Force, the external wing of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in the late 1990s and went on to expand its regional presence. He was widely known for his high-profile links to paramilitary groups from Syria to Yemen that are now in the spotlight“, yet the larger newspapers have been shunning reports on Iran action in Yemen for well over a year, so I think that there is a larger play to consider. The spotlights are now illuminating the Iranian acts in Yemen and that is good, there is a larger setting where the media was so on the ‘Nuclear Pact’ deal that they ignored a larger setting, even as Iran ignored certain limits several times over. 

Yet the act of killing also opens up a larger can of worms on the allied side, Luke Hartig (former senior director for counter-terrorism on the national security council) wrote about it he gives us “Trump’s counter-terrorism legacy in Iraq and Syria may be a series of dead bodies but nothing that addresses the core of the problem and no partners willing to help us root it out“, ever since the US has its spats in Iraq we have seen a shifting of CIA staff all over the place, too many were looking for one old man in a cave and they found him (in the end) in Abbottabad, Pakistan but not until a serious amount of time had passed, in the mean time a lot of CIA operatives are useless (known to too many players) and the options for counter intelligence was further impeded by the acts of Julian Assange and ‎Bradley Edward Manning the latter one thought that 3 years of active service was enough to put well over 700,000 classified pieces on Wikileaks. These actions had a lasting effect and will have an effect for close to a decade. Quality Intelligence from the Middle East is only coming from allies (or so it seems). The US has limited action available to them and even whilst we sneer at espionage, we need to realise that it is the importance of it that sets the stage, Sun Tsu was very clear about it in chapter 13 (the Art of War) ‘the importance of developing good information sources‘ is essential and that part is currently missing for the US in the Middle East.

Luke Hartig (at https://www.justsecurity.org/67927/trumps-fatal-mistake-killing-suleimani-vs-countering-isis/) voices it as ‘Trump’s Fatal Mistake: Killing Suleimani vs. Countering ISIS‘, he is not wrong, yet the issue is depending on point of view. I feel that QS was too effective in the Middle East, his meetings tend to voice that part and the fact that two high value targets were taken out with QS was icing on the cake. For the most we ignore the effectiveness of Qassam, yet the truth is that his effectiveness made the Iranian proxy war in Yemen work, I believe that removing him is an essential win for the US, not immediately, but as the Iranian army faces the challenges that they need to find someone as good as QS, they will see that they are merely failing at whatever they try. The Washington Post gives us 5 hours ago “I have more than 4 million followers on various social media networks, and I have received thousands of messages, voice mails and videos from Iranians in cities such as Shiraz, Isfahan, Tehran and even Ahvaz, who are happy about Soleimani’s death. Some complain of the pressure to attend services for him” the Iranian presentation goes on, yet without QS in the mix, it will go a lot less smooth and issues will be overlooked giving s a much larger view on what is happening, optionally the others will get a lot more out of Iran for their trouble and that too aids the effort against Iran. Soleimani was that effective in life. Hartig gives more and it is there that we see his point of view, with “Effective counterterrorism policy is about much more than conducting drone strikes and deploying commandos; it’s about setting the diplomatic and geopolitical conditions for counterterrorism to succeed” he is correct, with the killing of Qassam Soleimani diplomatic and geopolitical options are out of the window, yet in the long run I believe it was the better position to play, the Iranian chess player lost its queen and as such, its chess play will be limited until an equal can be found, or the opposition loses its queen as well. I also agree with Hartig view “President Trump and the true believers in his inner circle have no sense of the strategy it will take to defeat ISIS (or Iran-linked terrorist groups, for that matter). Counterterrorism requires careful, methodical work, undertaken with our closest allies, that builds up local partners, patiently targets key vulnerabilities in the terrorist network over time, and ultimately addresses the long-term drivers of violent extremism“, there is no real tactic to deal with ISIS, it was less clear in the Obama administration, yet they too should have added weights to dealing with ISIS, but the costs were spiralling out of control, and as we consider his words on Africa through “The gains made against al-Shabaab are a result of diplomatic efforts and military assistance designed to stiffen the spine of African Union partners shouldering most of the fight in Somalia. Terrorists in the Sahel have been contained because of rigorous collaboration and modest assistance to the French combined with patient work to bolster regional partners“, we see the larger play, yet in all this QS had the phone number of all those leaders at hand, any of them with a beef against America got a nice weapons deal, now we see another play, without QS these deals will stop and optional larger wins could be made, yet it is not a given. What is a given is the fact that Iran has been out of control for a much longer time and it is high time that some of the egotistical and self wealth concerned players that that under consideration. so when we see ‘Blowback: Iran abandons nuclear limits after US killing‘, we see the wrong message, Iran had already abandoned those limits for a long time, they are merely outspoken about it now and if those in EU charge cannot see them, they should not be in these positions of power. The game and the message changed, but also the lies we see from Iran, it was never ‘Iran drives another stake into the heart of the nuclear deal‘ (source: CNN), it was that there was never going to be a nuclear deal, they ended it when they started the proxy war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, they needed a large bat to threaten with and they are continuing building that bat, they are however no longer willing to hide their actions to some degree and that works for us (as well).

So even as the Washington Post is all about ‘Iran announces it is suspending its commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal‘ (18 hours ago), let there be no mistake, they had done this in the beginning of 2019 they were merely pussyfooting in diplomatic steps, and now that the failure is out, others will blame this on the US, yet the direct information that I gave months ago was a direct sign that Iran had no intentions to ge back to the table unless they could get 200% out of a deal for them, and that was just not realistic. Qassam Soleimani was very adept in this and now we’ll see a different game, first out of anger, then denial, soon we will get them in a stage of bargaining and some fainted national depression, then the push buttons towards reconstruction and acceptance, yet they will move the table with those two buttons again and again, yet now it will be less expertly managed, which again works for everyone else. 

Iran played the game for too long and for the longest time, no one was willing to hold them to account for their actions. We never wanted to control Iran, we merely needed them to play the game like all the other nations, East and West, North and South, they merely thought they were better than everyone else and now that there is a realistic sense towards war they will have to push through and face several nations in combat, or they will actually sit at a table and negotiate some kind of solution. It is what most wanted all along, it merely never went that way, too much ego and that was always the problem on both sides of the isle.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 3, 2020 · 12:30

Car Ghost

Yes, the news is full of him, the news is all about the great escape now, but what set it all in motion? You see, the numbers do not add up, not to the degree that we see at present.

Some might see it as a setting where it all comes from a strategic partnership among those automotive manufacturers through a complex cross-shareholding agreement where the alliance of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi has set a 10% market share ownership for the last 10 years and to comprehend this, consider the amount of car brands you know on a global scale, whilst we see that three brands have a 10% market share. As such in 2003 Fortune identified him as one of the 10 most powerful people in business outside the U.S. that is not a small matter, to get on such a short list a person needs to have pull on several levels. So when I see that he was arrested at Tokyo International Airport on 19 November 2018, on allegations of under-reporting his earnings and misuse of company assets. I was not surprised, I did not blink and more important, I shrugged it all off with the flair of ‘whatever’. The fact that Renault an French officials at some point cut ties and made him surrender his CEO and Chairman position of Renault was the first moment I took notice, this is a rather large setting, as the man was part Lebanese I wondered if Hezbollah ties were involved, knowing the DGSE does not tend to show the hand it holds and would not surrender such knowledge until it was common knowledge. 

Ghosn was re-arrested in Tokyo on 4 April 2019 over new charges of misappropriations of Nissan funds. This time around, I had a few more runs on his name and more importantly a run on a finance hub on the dark web, my searches went dark (almost literally) and whatever exists, there was no way to get a handle on it (for me at least). Now, I already had access to the NY Times who gave us “Nissan said it was cooperating with Japanese prosecutors and that its investigation into Mr. Ghosn began after a whistle-blower said he had been misrepresenting his salary and using company assets for personal purposes“, all whilst France.24 gave us “Renault uncovered 11 million euros in questionable expenses by him, leading to a French investigation and raids“, so this is not his income, or his bonus, these are two places where multi million expenses were found and whilst some might digress on the fact that it came from a whistleblower, it seems that two places have in he first an incapable CFO, in the second the fact that this was not raising alerts on where that money was and more important there is an optional Hezbollah link with close to €16 million missing. All this whilst we see no explanation to ‘donations to nonprofit organizations‘, isn’t that how Hezbollah gets loads of its revenue? So whatever Carlos Ghosn states as to ‘political enemies’ might have a ring of truth, they would be anyone opposing the terrorist actions of Hezbollah. So when I see ‘Renault says an internal audit with partner Nissan found 11 million euros in questionable expenses at their Dutch-based holding‘, I merely wonder how this could have been going on for so long, this is not something that happened overnight, there is a trail and some players never woke up (apparently). So whilst I have absolutely no feelings on some CEO, I am actively hostile to anyone supporting and financing the actions of Hezbollah. 

Here is where I need to make sure that you realise that the Hezbollah link is assumed and implied, yet there was a lack of intelligence that is until Ghosn escaped to Lebanon, eve now as the Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/31/carlos-ghosns-escape-from-japan-was-aided-by-lebanese-officials), we see “Carlos Ghosn’s flight from criminal charges in Japan to Lebanon was aided by Lebanese state officials who were instructed by political leaders to smooth his arrival“, it is one way of stating that Hezbollah OK’d it all. And whilst another Guardian article gives us “A private plane was waiting to whisk the former corporate titan to Istanbul, Turkey. From there he appears to have boarded a Bombardier Challenger private jet for a flight to Lebanon, where he arrived before dawn on Monday“, All whilst no one asks the questions how a person apparently handing over his passports as part of his bail condition got out of the country, and I have less faith in “News of the escape came as surprise to the Japanese authorities – who have charged Ghosn with falsifying records about his personal pay in order to enrich himself“, when state players (Lebanon) goes out on a limb to this degree, and as he was able to get not on one, but two jets one in Japan (who has decent security) and then in Turkey (an Iranian puppet, and they love their Hezbollah HVA’s) we see a shifted picture and it is not merely an executive with too much money, you see, he is still a registered Brazilian as well, and there we see: “Article 77(I) determines that extradition must not be permitted when it involves Brazilians, unless the acquisition of nationality takes place after the fact that motivates the extradition request“, as such the extradition to Lebanon was about more than just moving house. Yet the Washington Post adds fuel to the fire, there we get “In an interview with the Associated Press published Thursday, Lebanon’s justice minister, Albert Serhan, said that Ghosn had entered the country legally on a French passport. “Lebanese authorities have no security or judiciary charges against him, he entered the border like any other Lebanese using a legal passport,” Serhan said.” (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/02/accused-serious-crimes-he-smuggled-himself-out-japan-carlos-ghosn-may-escape-extradition-lebanon-too/), in addition, France would not extradite to Japan, implying the mess is a lot larger and there the DGSE and Hezbollah situation makes sense, if there was something, fleeing to France would be hazardous, not only does he have a DGSE marker, there is every chance the CIA would want him as well, and they have ways to get to braziliams, getting to Lebanese HVA’s is a lot less likely, a person like Ghosn would be protected to the highest political level possible. We also see “If Mr. Ghosn comes in France, we will not extradite Mr. Ghosn, because France never extradites its nationals. So we will apply to Mr. Ghosn, like everyone, the same rules of the game,” French junior economy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher told TV station BFM on Thursday“, and this is from Junior economy minister, not from a senior justice member, they would ‘no comment‘ the issue for two distinctive reasons. 

Even now as the case escalates in Turkey, the BBC reports “According to Turkish media, seven arrests have been made in connection with the case – four pilots, a cargo company manager and two airport workers” (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50972149), the given information is open as arrests do merely imply, but give no specific intelligence, merely an implied issue, when these people get convicted it is a larger issue, yet Hezbollah will see this as the cost of living, an HVA like Carlos Ghosn bringing in millions, with what he knows of the car industry trumps those lives and the fact that that the Guardian gives us “A policeman leaves the Beirut residence of former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn on 31 December” whilst the image is a person with three stars, that is not a policeman, that is someone in authority. In the meantime, we forget that he has surrendered his passports as part of the deal so when we see that his lawyer gives us that “he still had all three of his client’s passports in his possession” implies a larger set of contributing people in a larger time frame, this was orchestrated and this was planned. Even as his lawyer gives us: “I wanted to prove he was innocent,” said Hironaka, who last saw Ghosn on Christmas Day. “But when I saw his statement in the press, I thought he doesn’t trust Japan’s courts“, my take on it is that someone found something and Ghosn knew the gig was up and Japan will cooperate with the USA on the drop of a hat (especially when it is terrorist linked), as such Ghosn needed to get away and from all we see he did not go to Brazil, there is a larger play (but that is my take on the matter). Then we get two parts that optionally bear links to one another, there is “A Lebanese foreign ministry official told Reuters that Ghosn entered the country legally on a French passport and using his Lebanese ID with normal security procedures. The French foreign ministry press office said it had no immediate comment“, as well as “a person resembling Ghosn was recorded by Lebanese officials as entering the country at Beirut airport under a different name“, this now implies a fake passport, whilst that is partially a problem for Ghosn, we also see ‘using his Lebanese ID‘, not his passport (according to the quote) so now we see a planned move from Japan from a person who claims “I have escaped injustice and political persecution“, all whilst he has broken fiscal and financial laws (according to the whistle blower) and all whilst his actions are one that a person does seeking to escape justice, all whilst this is in a state of so described “discrimination is rampant and basic human rights are denied“, all whilst we have seen that in Japan the standard of life for a convicted criminal is better than most european countries give their unemployed and homeless people, as for the evidence on that see the Abashiri Prison Museum, where the prison meals can actually be bought (two meal optons each less than $9) and they outdo most average restaurtants, interesting is it not?

There are still a lot of unknowns and some dark web sources are not that reliable, but one thing is certain, to arrange two jets, a fake passport and the trip takes doing, there will be a trail, I merely wonder what the press (is allowed) get to print and state on the larger screens, and that is where we get to Le Parisien where we see “he had not hesitated to impose a new head for the group’s intelligence unit, in the person of Rémi Pagnie, formerly of the DGSE (Directorate General for Security) indoor)” (Le Parisien, Nov 2019). An act from 2005, yet I believe that such an act requires scrutiny, not in regards to the DGSE, but in regards to the stage in France, there is a much larger setting (maybe why Ghosn did not go to France), it is seen in Le Journal Du Dimanche (a French source that I do not know, as my French is really really bad), the source (at https://www.lejdd.fr/Economie/Les-nouveaux-secrets-dans-la-pseudo-affaire-d-espionnage-chez-Renault-293909-3109724) give several question marks that go back to 2011 and also include: “Even if he denies it today, Carlos Ghosn would then have given instructions “complete silence” on this aspect while ordering “to continue the investigations”. A special financing network, via a company in Dubai, was then set up” calls for a much larger level of scrutiny, this was going on since 2011 and I wonder why no action had taken place and why Carlos Ghosn was allowed to roam free to this degree, I do not know the French source, but I found several sources raising questions regarding the inactivity and lack of investigation regarding Carlos Ghosn from at least two sources and as Dubai is validated the inactions of the CIA are also in question, especially as there is an optional implied money link towards Hezbollah, and in that regard, if Carlos Ghosn was acquitted from that, the lack of reporting on that is equally an issue as this would show a larger support to the statements of Carlos Ghosn, not merely on Japanese grounds , but almost global. That is not supported, but it leads to questions if the French source could be vetted for “It was still Carlos Ghosn who gave the green light in mid-December to dismiss the three suspected French executives. Another revelation, the offices where the layoffs took place were “soundproofed”“, soundproofing requires plausible deniability on a few levels, the issues if true gives rise to an optional persecution of Carlos Ghosn, the opposite opens Renault for almost titanic settlement with the three allegedly guilty executives, this mess keeps on growing and growing and the inactions are almost unbelievable, especially when you consider that his positions at Renault would not be given up until early 2019, almost 8 years later, and we see a lack of questions on several fronts and close to no reporting other then the absolute minimum. It took me two hours (delays as Google Translate needed to help me with French) to find this and I still see the seven hour old report from the BBC stating “Mr Ghosn, who was also boss of French car-maker Renault, has been under investigation in France but no charges have been laid“, all whilst there is a larger play in all this and it is not money. And there is one more part that flagged me. When we consider “He had been under house arrest in Tokyo awaiting trial but managed to evade police surveillance” whilst the BBC gives us “According to Turkish media, Mr Ghosn’s private jet landed at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport at 05:30 (02:30 GMT) on Monday, having flown from Japan’s Kansai airport in Osaka“, and when we consider that Osaka and Tokyo are a little over 500Km apart, he went unnoticed for such a long time? The more I see, the more questions I have and I am only in my second hour looking at the presented evidence. 

As I personally see it this Car Ghost is trying to evade a lot more than is so called look on injustice. When we see stories like “At a halfway house in Hiroshima – for criminals who are being released from jail back into the community – 69-year-old Toshio Takata tells me he broke the law because he was poor. He wanted somewhere to live free of charge, even if it was behind bars” we see more than a setting of persecution, we see an implied solution for poor people and they accept and prefer jail? That is uncanny, even in the west on a few lines, so in all there is a larger setting and even as a happy go unlucky Carlos Ghosn is setting out to be, his lifestyle might be a lot higher than what the other end gets, still his response and the actions connected to it should raise more questions, and they are speculated on by many, yet I see a lack of questions that go all the way back to 2011, interesting, is it not?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 2, 2020 · 10:52

Twenty twenty is visual

Yes, we are in the new year, yet this year (according to Forbes at https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/12/29/us-and-china-technology-conflict-heres-why-2020-is-so-critical/amp/) will be a lot more critical than anyone thinks. Yes it is about Huawei, however not in the same lame way that the US administration brings it. Here we see: “Huawei has 42% of the huge Chinese market and more than 25% of the Russian market to get it started. Then on December 28, China’s state media announced that its “Beidou” alternative to America’s GPS satellite navigation system will be completed“, now this is a different kettle of fish. It is not about government intel (in a way it is), it is about who gets the data and the lies that seemingly originated at the oval office are now no longer about ‘the chinese government connections’ it is more about how the US government is not getting the free data that they have had for so long, moreover as we take notice of “But Beidou—“Big Dipper” in Chinese—will not stop at China. It will focus on converting markets in South East Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, price- and investment-sensitive markets” we see a much larger concern for the yanks, they are at risk of gaining access to a little over 50% of all given data by the end of 2020, that is something to notice, and in my view they had it coming. They make one accusation after another and never show any data to support it. Even now (yesterday) as we see the number of links of TikTok and data, I was able to find well over a dozen US sites where the advertisement of the TikTok app continues, one is called seemingly hypocritical national security (I actually do not know the Tik Tok situation), the other is money and money trumps Trump.

I am baffled why the US would think that this free reaping would continue, I am actually amazed that Russia did not have its own version of software ready. We even see “Russian President Putin described the U.S. campaign against Chinese technology as “the first technological war of the coming digital era.” His point was that this is the start of something much greater and more significant“, he is right in more than one way. Do you think that I would offer my IP to the US when I know that I am getting lied to? I wonder how large the failing list is actually hitting Google and Facebook, the fact that people are intentionally getting misinformed should show up in their numbers as well. For those who have no real affiliation to Social media, China is becoming more and more interesting, the moment that it has a real Facebook equivalent, we will see a much larger jump. For Google the mess is not that big, YouTube is an engine that people cannot live without (pretty much the medical condition is ‘acute VideoitisfromYoutube failure‘) so as we cannot get treated on that, we will continue in the YouTube realm. I personally believe that if the news was a year ago that China was launching its own services the news would have been accepted differently, the entire ‘China is all about spying through Huawei‘ got us on the wrong foot, just like Iraq, just like two other events afterwards the US have been handling billions of free voices and the free voices are through with a lying party like America.

So whilst we take notice of “For China, it will increase its independence and influence. For the U.S., its grip on key standards will loosen and for some of its key players there are risks they could loose material market share“, that is the ballgame, the ‘loose material market share‘, until the beginning of the internet, the US has never had an equal in this fight and in the economic place they are now they are scared. Consider the interest on $23,000,000,000,000 all whilst they are facing a technology user setback of 10%-25% in the first year, and as Asia, Russia and Europe start folding away from the US solutions the interest is impacted and can no longer be paid, for example try the Apple solution for $1749 (down from $2365) and as things ‘suddenly’ become affordable for the people, think of how the population reacts to the coin grab of 2010-2019 when they were trying to make ends meet. This technology wave will follow an anger wave that the US is unable to stop, and beyond that, Huawei has a much larger base soon enough. In Saudi Arabia Huawei was able to set the stage of a strategic memorandum of understanding, healthcare is only the first step and as it shows the progress it will entice Egypt and India, at that point Huawei will achieve two paths that the US only hinted at and sneered (their version of enticement) for well over 10 years whilst never delivering. The people who decide things saw no eager listing to pursue, now that the numbers are getting called in 2020 and 2021 the game changes and there have been too many lies (oops, I meant ‘intentional misrepresentation’) coming from the US players.

And as the EU gives us: ‘European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen voiced skepticism Friday over involving Chinese tech giant Huawei in the rollout of Europe’s 5G networks amid concerns its equipment could be used for spying by Beijing‘, we see that optionally the career of Ursula von der Leyen will be cut short too. She might be the President of the European Commission for a month now, but I am certain that her history lessons included the time when we hung those who hid behind ‘befehl ist befehl‘ and even now, as we traverse that time, the US will not have any dimes to sit on, those spreading the US message without evidence could be demanded to be called on, even now as Germany (and India) are moving against the warnings of the US, warning that have never seen any real evidence since the beginning, will now have a coin marker, people like Ursula von der Leyen will see that as other European nations demand evidence, their place in the hierarchie will seem unholdable, held together by US promises that they will fall back on and fold on when the moment is nigh. That is the ball game for the US and the Europeans will not have alternatives, especially as Nokia is showing several cracks in their veneer, as their 5G outlook changes and as the backlash of bribery scandals, the US will find themself in a stage that is not holdable, and they are not alone, Ericsson is right there next to Nokia when it comes to scandals and the US was not ready for that. The impact will be larger than they expect and that part will bite too. When the EC members will look towards alternatives and there is only Huawei, they will shift gears and give the boot to whomever supported the US and stopped them to get their bonus, people are easy to anticipate in that regard.

If only there was direct evidence of the US claims. There was a reason why I used the Colin Powell and silver briefcase example in the past, there was no way around it, the game that was being played was short for whomever was counting the cards and too many were out in the open, the US had two plays left and they chose the wrong one. That becomes more and more clear when we look at the actions of Sony last October, that setting changed the anger levels of Third Point to some degree, and as I cannot tell who was right, the fact that Daniel Loeb lost out against the Sony view ”no concrete proposals to improve the business“, who is eagerly spending a billion to get on the market is a larger issue than you can imagine, the Japanese government has a larger stake in all this then even I can surmise. Japan will have to take on a few players and they are behind (really behind), yet they are all in it to win it and their ego’s will collide, the US will have to find new areas to push against and as we see that this is being fought, we also see the American dream is under pressure of failing and that is one concrete version why the american corporate views are not what they are surmised to be, it will be a stronger difference as the year progresses, but I reckon that half way, when that American super villain Taxman has to give documentation as to the values it holds dear (numbers on a spreadsheet) we will see additional cracks, there is only so much that people will live for and the US has no reserves, it lost those a little over three years ago as the debt kept rising. In this as we saw one month ago that “Dan Loeb sharply boosted its net long position in equities,’‘ we will see managed bad news over the next 6 months that will reduce that position (as I personally see and anticipate), that will be the first (of many) cracks in all this and China is not merely a crack in their armor, it is a flaming hole the size of the Grand Canyon. And still my IP is outlasting theirs as they have no idea what they should have been looking at, it is becoming more than a spreadsheet user versus a visionary, the US status is becoming a spreadsheet user to someone who does not comprehend a cross tabulation, and that is not a situation that the US can hold up. 

In this all these solutions give China an advantage, because as we see more and more dubious statements from people who caress the limelight, we also see that the chinks in their armour are lighting up and that is where Russia and China only have to ask: ‘what is that?‘ (pointing at the chinks) and those people will not have the setting to answer. 

It is a stage we have not seen before and will not see again any day soon, but in 2020 it will matter, it will drive the global population away from any American solution. They will only have themselves to blame soon enough, they vied for it but will do anything to make anyone else pay and the people are taking notice, they are no longer willing to take the idiocy and the current American administration made it happen, at least that part has no push towards previous administrations. When that happens, the loss of revenue will increase faster and faster and all others are ready to step in wherever they can, I am happy I have no stake in any of the American hedges, their national product is about to lose value and a lot, I merely wonder how long it will take, as we saw in several situations in 2008, the $1.1B bill to Moody’s was paid without hesitation, I wonder what and who will delay the news this time around and those who got out late, will they have any recourse? I reckon not, at some point we will see certain academics make a statement that the technology sector was too complex and too covariant to clearly see any pattern emerge, at that point whatever rating existed will be thrown out and as we see that, the people will run to any technology that has proven themselves and at present that is Huawei (and Huawei only), that is the part the US is unwilling to see, even as we see the Verge (only three weeks ago) give us both “T-Mobile has been saying it’s got a smarter, sounder 5G strategy than both Verizon and AT&T” and “They also won’t support 5G on other networks, so if you switch carriers, you’re hosed” implying that there is no real 5G standard in the US and they are all merely marketing 5G whilst not having any real 5G (my personal view) and the Verge supports that view I have (at https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/16/20997594/tmobile-5g-600mhz-low-band-speed-tests-oneplus-samsung) when we see “you’ll never get the speed thrill of downloading an entire movie from Netflix or Prime Video in seconds“, all whilst the 5G advertisement is about that part alone, we see the hose job in the making and in 2020 that will not be tolerated by the people, in the US there is no alternative, yet Europe, Africa and Asia have other options which enables Huawei and that is the short play that the US is not ready for and the EU people are about to get a dose of reality soon enough, when the MoU that Huawei has signed show actual progress, Europe will run towards whatever shelter they can whilst ignoring the pleas from the USA, it will be that simple, people like Ursula von der Leyen will run towards what pays them and what keeps them safe, warm and dry, they will soon see that ‘befehl ist befehl‘ fell short the second time around too and at that point they will enable whomever has the technology and America is about three years late.  

It is the biting reality that 2020 brings, whilst the vision of twenty twenty is negated at every turn whenever possible and it is the ‘whenever possible’ part that will fall short soon enough (sooner rather than later).

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 24, 2019 · 12:26

The age of Christmas

I have been on the verge of many things, this, my last blog for a week (I expect) is also a path towards my goals, my delusional goal is to spend time on a really large yacht with half a dozen maiden vixens of 23-27 all roaring to try the lawlordtobe engine (whatever these girls mean with that), the reality of life is that I will be doing a truckload of chores that I left until this very last moment, so not much excitement there. 

For the blog, the end of the year tends to be a shallow ground for news, yet there was the Khashoggi convictions in Saudi Arabia, an event that the Guardian labelled ‘‘Mockery of justice’ after Saudis convict eight over Khashoggi killing‘, we all seem upset by “crown prince’s inner circle of involvement in murder of dissident journalist“. Yet the reality is that there was never any evidence, in some cases I have a few question marks with the evidence that Turkey gave, the UN Essay by Agnes Callamard read (for me) like a joke and in the end, we just do not know what happened, so it seems that the Saudi Courts, just like most other courts can only convict a person on evidence and that person needs to be sentenced when a person is found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt and that was never ever going to be the case. Consider hat the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/23/saudi-arabia-accused-of-mockery-of-justice-over-jamal-khashoggi-trial) gives us “The findings contradict the conclusion of the CIA and other western intelligence agencies that Prince Mohammed directly ordered Khashoggi’s assassination“, yet the UN Essay states the CIA, yet no evidence is added, merely their point of view and ‘high reliability‘, which in light of their weapons of mass destruction claim is not that reliable. As for the claim ‘and other western intelligence agencies‘ is also a bit weird as I saw no mention of MI-5, MI-6, DGSE, or GCHQ, so what was it? Merely FBI and CIA? That is basically one source as such I rejected the UN Essay for what it was, a joke (to the largest degree)!

Yet, that is as good a the news is going to get, other actual (and factual) great news is that Robert Downey Junior is back in the news, and now not as an Avenger, talking to animals or another role, no this is a series that you can watch on Youtube premium, it is called the Age of A.I.. Now, the weird feeling is there, RDJ playing RDJ and being serious about it is part of the appeal, the other part is that this is not a sales rap, it is explanation and the series via RDJ does that swimmingly (read: pretty brilliantly). 

I need to be careful, because I do not want any spoilers here, apart from the fact that the series is well beyond informative, it shows the A.I. world as it is (well kinda), we see examples most have never seen before, these examples are often not sexy enough for glamour shows, but they are great as the underlying example in this system. If there is one small part that is criticism than it is the use of AI when (as far as I personally saw was no more than deeper learning) yet for the learning part that does not matter, the person watching it gets a much better grasp on AI and this series shines as such. The fact that really outshines the entire series is not RDJ, he is there but often enough we see celebrities that are a lot more than the media exposes (Will.I.Am for example), people in the movie making and we learn that some movie celebrities behind the screen are seemingly merely doing it to fund their real dream and we get to see a truckload of that, especially the truckload of examples the media thought to keep from us. That education is worth a lot more than you are grasping when you see it and you can see it (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwsrzCVZAb8), and the series bring out an interesting fear “This is new, we need to know what is real and what is not“, this is an interesting issue, it is almost never discussed, but it is within us all. And as RDJ narrates we take a trip all over the world visiting the places that are involved in the evolution of NAI (Near Artificial Intelligence) and we get the proper approach towards machine learning, I was pretty blown away after episode one and there are several more to go through, The age of A.I. is a homerun, a bullseye in a world of gratification small enhancements and publications. In the movie world RDJ has had its large shares of successes, the fact that he is part of a documentary like this will make him only a larger success and as such he will push this series to greater heights (the fact that you can watch episode one for free on Youtube does not hurt either), Matt Damon eat your heart out. 

As I personally see it, the Age of A.I. is the first series on A.I. that is actually informative to a much larger degree (than many of the other series). It is such a pleasant surprise to be confronted with a series like The Age of A.I. at the end of the year. I personally feel like a whole new person, for me this series was that much actual fun to watch. 

I hope to see and inform you all again in about a week, have a great holiday series.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,