Puppet Masters

Priming the public? 'There are a lot of parallels': FBI Director Wray compares ransomware threat to 9/11

Emily Jacobs
New York Post
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 12:56 UTC

© Getty Images
FBI Director Christopher Wray compared the security challenges posed by cyberthreats to the terror threat of 9/11.

The FBI is investigating about 100 different types of ransomware, Director Christopher Wray revealed in a new interview, in which he compared the security challenges posed by cyberthreats to the terror threat of 9/11.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Thursday, the FBI director made the comments in the wake of two recent ransomware attacks that sent meat and gas prices skyrocketing as suppliers were left unable to move their products.

"There are a lot of parallels, there's a lot of importance, and a lot of focus by us on disruption and prevention," Wray explained, referring to this month's hack against JBS Foods, the world's largest meat supplier, and the similar attack on Colonial Pipeline in May.

"There's a shared responsibility, not just across government agencies but across the private sector and even the average American."

Ransomware is a malicious software that locks up a user's data. Hackers typically demand money, most frequently in cryptocurrency, to unlock or return the affected data.

The War Over Genetic Privacy

John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 02:25 UTC

"When you upload your DNA, you're potentially becoming a genetic informant on the rest of your family." — Law professor Elizabeth Joh

"Guilt by association" has taken on new connotations in the technological age.

All of those fascinating, genealogical searches that allow you to trace your family tree by way of a DNA sample can now be used against you and those you love.

As of 2019, more than 26 million people had added their DNA to ancestry databases. It's estimated those databases could top 100 million profiles within the year, thanks to the aggressive marketing of companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe.

It's a tempting proposition: provide some mega-corporation with a spit sample or a cheek swab, and in return, you get to learn everything about who you are, where you came from, and who is part of your extended your family.

The possibilities are endless.

You could be the fourth cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II of England. Or the illegitimate grandchild of an oil tycoon. Or the sibling of a serial killer.

Without even realizing it, by submitting your DNA to an ancestry database, you're giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of every relative — past, present and future — in your family, whether or not they ever agreed to be part of such a database.

After all, a DNA print reveals everything about "who we are, where we come from, and who we will be."

It's what police like to refer to a "modern fingerprint."

Whereas fingerprint technology created a watershed moment for police in their ability to "crack" a case, DNA technology is now being hailed by law enforcement agencies as the magic bullet in crime solving.

Indeed, police have begun using ancestry databases to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

Biden to issue order over 'data collection' on Chinese-owned apps like WeChat, TikTok

Karen Freifeld
Reuters
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 14:10 UTC

President Joe Biden is close to issuing a new executive order targeting personal data collection by apps like Chinese-owned WeChat and TikTok, according to people familiar with the matter.

The order would replace bans issued last year under then-President Donald Trump on Tencent's WeChat, a messaging app, and Bytedance's video-sharing app Tiktok that have been blocked by U.S. courts, one of the people said.

The new order, which could be issued as early as Wednesday, is expected to address concerns about sensitive personal data without targeting any specific company, the person said.

US military claims Afghanistan withdrawal is '50% complete', then says it will no longer update on progress

Erin Doherty
Yahoo
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 17:03 UTC

© REUTERS/Stine Jacobsen
FILE PHOTO: A specialist works onboard the Allseas' deep sea pipe laying ship Solitaire to prepare a pipe for Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea September 13, 2019. Picture taken September 13, 2019.

The U.S. has withdrawn more than 50% of its forces and equipment from Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command estimated in an update Tuesday.

Why it matters: President Biden announced in April that the U.S. would begin the process of withdrawing all forces from Afghanistan starting May 1, with the goal of finishing by Sept. 11. CENTCOM said Tuesday that it would no longer be updating the specific percentage of its withdrawal, citing security reasons.

Details: As of June 8, the U.S. Department of Defense has retrograded about 500 C-17 loads of material out of Afghanistan.

Nord Stream 2 sanctions could have 'poisoned' US ties with Germany & failed anyway - US Sec Blinken

RT
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 13:43 UTC

America's long-standing opposition to the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline could have destroyed its relations with Berlin, Washington's top envoy has said, insisting it will find ways to ensure it doesn't undermine Ukraine.

Facing questioning before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that "the worst possible outcome" of persisting with sanctions against the nearly completed energy link would have seen Germany alienated and the construction finished regardless.

That scenario, he said, would have meant "physical construction of the pipeline [was] completed, the relationship with Germany poisoned and no incentive for Germany to come to the table to make good on working to mitigate the serious negative consequences."

Comment: See also:

China refuses diplomatic access to trial of Australian national citing national security concerns

The China Collection
Tue, 08 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC

Once again clearly breaching its obligations under a consular relations treaty, China has refused to allow Australian diplomatic representatives to attend the trial of Yang Hengjun, an Australian national, in China. (Excuse the tardy post; this happened on May 27th but I've had other things to do.) Fortunately, the Chinese government has spared me the task of explaining why this is a breach, since they already gave me the opportunity to do so back in 2010 with the trial of Stern Hu, another Australian national — please check out that blog post for the reasoning.

The government is not just picking on Australia, however; as I discussed last March, it also breached the same obligation in the trials of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the Canada-China consular relations agreement being the same as the Australia-China agreement in all relevant respects.

Comment: The Kovrig case came amidst Canada's targeting of a Huawei executive, seemingly on behalf of the US:

Comment: As reported by F. William Engdahl Michael Kovrig had a rather suspect background, and was officially listed as "North East Asia adviser" for an outfit called the International Crisis Group:

The International Crisis Group is an NGO with a knack for being involved in key conflict zones such as Myanmar. The magazine Third World Quarterly in a peer-reviewed article in 2014 accused the ICG of "manufacturing" crises.

So it would appear that, in Kovrig and Spavor's case, there's reason to believe China's claims of National Security concerns.

As for Yang Hengjun, Australia's own ABC describes him as 'a spy and a democracy peddler'.

See also:

Galloway to run in Labour by-election: 'If I'm the man who ends Starmer's reign as leader, so be it. I'm happy to give the people of Britain their wish'

George Galloway
RT
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 13:26 UTC

British Labour Party Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Brexit), Keir Starmer, delivers a speech on Labours priorities for Brexit negotiations in the city of London on December 13, 2016. BEN STANSALL / AFP; (inset) George Galloway REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

The beleaguered Labour leader is way behind in the polls, disliked by most voters, and even half of his party's supporters want him to go. I'm hopeful my performance in a crucial looming by-election will deliver the coup de grace.

Sir Keir Starmer, the former director of public prosecutions who played a key role in the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, may turn out to be the shortest-lived leader of the Labour Party and the least successful. And it falls to me to make that happen on July 1.

Batley and Spen, a constituency which will cease to exist under new parliamentary boundaries just announced, has a chance to write its name in history - before it disappears - in an unexpected by-election which has turned into a last chance saloon for the Labour leader.

What if the 'Big Lie' is the BIG LIE?

James Howard Kunsler
kunstler.com
Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC

Maybe now that Dr. Tony Fauci has begun to spill the beans on his doings in service to the Wuhan virology lab, the phrase "conspiracy theory," flogged by the media as jauntily and incessantly as by the soviet kommissars of yore, will have worn out its welcome.

In a sane polity, Dr. Fauci would be cooked. He looks circumstantially like an epic villain of history, who promoted and funded dangerous research activities knowingly, which led to an international disaster that killed millions of people and destroyed countless livelihoods and households, perhaps even the whole global economy, when all is said and done — and he appears to have lied at every step along the way.

As a practical matter, what is the "Joe Biden" admin going to do about him? Throw him under the bus? I don't think they can at this point. Dr. Fauci has come to represent not just the falsehoods employed around the Covid-19 fiasco but more generally the long campaign against truth itself by a grossly illiberal Jacobin Democratic Party seemingly out to punish and destroy Western Civ.

Comment: We can hope Kunstler is really wrong...but sensibility tells us otherwise.

CPSO to Ontario Doctors: 'Shut up or lose your license'

Karen Selick
LewRockwell.com
Mon, 07 Jun 2021 00:00 UTC

On April 30, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) announced explicitly a controversial policy that many Ontario doctors had intuitively feared it would adopt. Its Twitter feed, @cpso_ca, contained the framed statement shown below.

CPSO commands Ontario's doctors not to make any statements that might be considered anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing, or anti-lockdown. It forbids them to promote "unsupported, unproven" treatments for COVID-19. (Unproven by what standards? CPSO doesn't say.) Doctors are further forbidden to make comments that might encourage people to act contrary to public health orders.

Finally, there's a naked threat: say the wrong thing and you'll face "disciplinary action". This translates into, "We'll suspend your licence, cut off your income stream and impoverish you." This is a horrifying statement from both a medical and a legal perspective.

A courageous group of doctors calling themselves Canadian Physicians for Science and Truth quickly pushed back with this online Declaration. As I write this, 548 doctors and 14,487 concerned citizens have already signed it.

Sorry Ukraine, Uncle Sam won't be riding to your rescue: Biden delivers essential wake-up call to Kiev, ending years of delusion

Paul Robinson
RT
Wed, 09 Jun 2021 11:56 UTC

Since 2014, the US has encouraged Kiev's leaders to believe that it has their back, come what may. Now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline nears completion, the Ukrainian president is screaming betrayal as he realizes he was misled.

A while back, it used to be popular in some circles to play up talk of the "Putinsliv" - the impending sell-out in which Russian President Vladimir Putin was apparently destined to throw the rebels of Donbass under the bus and surrender them to the tender mercies of the Ukrainian government. The irony is that, while Putinsliv never happened, the fury coming out of Kiev this week suggests that Ukraine itself has suffered a dramatic and unexpected "Bidensliv," being sold out by US President Joe Biden.

Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, had a troubled relationship with the country, which he accused of trying to undermine his election campaign in 2016. Republicans also used the business dealings of Biden's son, Hunter, in Ukraine to paint Trump's Democratic opponent as corrupt. Consequently, Ukrainians generally welcomed Biden's election as president and have viewed him as a much more reliable ally.

Until this week, that is. Now, things are looking a little different.

Comment: Trump didn't have to 'paint' either of the Bidens as corrupt. They proved it themselves.

Comment: Along with naivety comes trust - two unfortunate and unrequited qualities for today's political arena.

See also:
Zelensky accuses America of paying for NS2 pipeline with Ukrainian lives; blasts Biden for not meeting him before Putin summit

LOL fake White house...as some one posted ....A fake President, in a Fake White House, getting a fake injection for a fake pandemic by a fake...

dean

CDC also wants to take your guns, apparently the CDC is involved in Gun confiscation too now...But hey you can't become an Australia with an armed...

dean

Well, I didn't read the article, I read some comments though. And it occurred to me, "Holy shit, there's likely going to be yet more large...

sir_isO

And this is why you should just get a lockbox and bury it in your yard ;) Seriously. But also what the FBI is doing is totally despicable and they...

slbeaudry

LOL, this pope is so freakin ridiculous...The Vatican may as well just make Lord Rothschild pope and be done with it...

dean

Puppet Masters

Priming the public? 'There are a lot of parallels': FBI Director Wray compares ransomware threat to 9/11

The War Over Genetic Privacy

Biden to issue order over 'data collection' on Chinese-owned apps like WeChat, TikTok

US military claims Afghanistan withdrawal is '50% complete', then says it will no longer update on progress

Nord Stream 2 sanctions could have 'poisoned' US ties with Germany & failed anyway - US Sec Blinken

China refuses diplomatic access to trial of Australian national citing national security concerns

Galloway to run in Labour by-election: 'If I'm the man who ends Starmer's reign as leader, so be it. I'm happy to give the people of Britain their wish'

What if the 'Big Lie' is the BIG LIE?

CPSO to Ontario Doctors: 'Shut up or lose your license'

Sorry Ukraine, Uncle Sam won't be riding to your rescue: Biden delivers essential wake-up call to Kiev, ending years of delusion

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