In early January 2020, the RAND Corporation published its latest research report on Russia entitled “Russia’s Hostile Measures. Combating Russian Gray Zone Aggression Against NATO in the Contact, Blunt, and Surge Layers of Competition”.
The report is made up of four chapters:
1. Russian hostile measures in every context;
2. The evolution and limits of Russian hostile measures;
3. Gray zone cases and actions during high-order war; and
4. Deterring, preventing, and countering hostile measures.
There are also two appendices:
1) An evolutionary history of Russia’s hostile measures; and
2) Detailed case studies of Russia’s use of hostile measures.
By the headings alone, it is possible to gauge the kind of psychological effect that the authors of the monograph wanted it to have. They clearly wanted to say that Russia as a political entity is aggressive – it has been that way throughout history and it will continue to be so in the future – and it is therefore vital to prevent such aggression in a variety of ways.
It is also stated that the report was sponsored by the US Army as part of the project “Russia, European Security, and ‘Measures Short of War’” and that the research and analysis was conducted between 2015 and 2019. The purpose of the project was “to provide recommendations to inform the options that the Army presents to the National Command Authorities to leverage, improve upon, and develop new capabilities and address the threat of Russian aggression in the form of measures short of war.” In addition, the report was reviewed by the US Department of Defense between January and August 2019, and the RAND Corporation conducted seminars in European NATO member countries as part of the project. Notably, one of the first events was held in February 2016 at Cambridge University, which has become a kind of hub for visiting experts from other countries.
From a scientific perspective, the report’s authors adhere to the classical American school – Kremlinologist George Kennan and his concepts are mentioned, as is Jack Snyder, who coined the term “strategic culture” on the basis of nuclear deterrence. The sources referred to in the footnotes are also mostly American, with the exception of a few translated texts by Russian authors (both patriots and liberal pro-Westerners) and official government bodies. But, on the whole, the report is of rather poor scientific value.
Two interrelated topics are discussed in the first chapter that, over the last five years, the West’s military and political communities have steadfastly associated with Russia – the grey zone and hybrid warfare. It is clear that these phrases are being used intentionally, as is the term “measures”, since Western centres are trying to use the terminological baggage of the Soviet past alongside their own modern concepts, especially when it refers to military or security agencies (the term “active measures” was used by the USSR’s KGB from the 1970s onwards). It is noted that NATO officially began to use the term “hybrid warfare” with regard to Russia following the events in Crimea in 2014.
Examples given of active measures during the Cold War include: assassination (the murder of Stepan Bandera); destabilisation (training Central and South American insurgents with Cuba in the 1980s); disinformation (spreading rumours through the German media that the US developed AIDS as a biological weapon; disseminating information about CIA sabotage efforts); proxy wars (Vietnam, Angola); and sabotage (creating panic in Yugoslavia in 1949).
Although America’s involvement in such techniques was more sophisticated and widespread (from establishing death squads in Latin America and supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan by way of Pakistan to the Voice of America radio programmes and governing remotely during riots in Hungary and Czechoslovakia) and certain facts about the work of Soviet intelligence agencies are well known, the examples cited of measures taken by the USSR are not backed up by authoritative sources.
Russia’s hostile measures in Europe
Other methods for influencing the report’s target audience are noticeable, and these have been used before to create a negative image of Russia. These include a comparison with the actions of terrorist organisations: “the shock and awe generated by the blitzkrieg-like success of Russia in Crimea and the Islamic State in Iraq generated considerable analytic excitement. A few early accounts suggested that Russia had invented a new way of war” (p. 6).
According to the authors, the West had already clearly decided what to call Russia’s actions in 2016. With that in mind:
“– Gray zone hostilities are nothing new, particularly for Russia.
– Russia will continue to apply these tactics, but its goals and means are limited.
– Deterring, preventing, or countering so-called gray zone behavior is difficult” (p. 7).
The report also states that many articles on the subject written in 2014 and 2015 contained overly exaggerated value judgements, but, in 2017, analyses of the grey zone and hybrid warfare shifted towards a balanced and objective view of Russian power.
This should also be queried, because a relatively large number of reports and papers on similar topics have been published since 2017. Even the US national defence and security strategies had a blatantly distorted view of both Russia and other countries.
The only thing one can possibly agree with is the coining of the new term “hybrid un-war”, which emerged from debates in recent years. It’s true that Russia is employing certain countermeasures, from modernising its armed forces to imposing counter sanctions, but many of these are in response to provocative actions by the West or are linked to planned reforms. Evidently, the authors understand that it will be difficult to make unfounded accusations, so they are covering themselves in advance by choosing a more suitable word. Against the general backdrop, however, the reference to an “un-war” seems rather vague.
It should be noted that the first appendix contains a list of academic literature on Soviet and Russian foreign policy that supposedly backs up the authors’ opinions on the methods of political warfare being carried out by Russia (and the USSR before it). Among the most important sources are declassified CIA reports and assessments, along with similar files from the US National Security Archive that were posted online by staff at George Washington University. Needless to say, the objectivity of documents like these is rather specific.
The section on the institutionalisation and nature of Russian hostile measures is interesting. The authors point out that Russia has an existential fear of NATO and the West as a whole because it has been threatened by external invasion for centuries. The timeline begins in the 13th century with the Mongol invasion that ended with the destruction of Moscow, and it finishes with Germany’s invasion of the USSR and the deaths of 20 million Russians. Interestingly, the 20th century also includes the North Russia intervention by the US and its allies. Such selectivity is surprising, as if there had been no aggression from the Teutonic Order or other wars prior to the 13th century. The 18th century is excluded from the list entirely, yet it was a pivotal era for the Russian state (the Great Northern War, the wars with the Persian and Ottoman empires, the Russo-Swedish War and so on), when numerous external challenges had to be met.
But the report then mentions NATO’s expansion to the East and America’s use of soft-power methods, including the organisation of colour revolutions in the post-Soviet space, where there were Russian client governments. Although it says in justification that NATO never threatened Russia, it emphasises that NATO’s physical infrastructure and military capabilities forced Moscow to include it on its list of national security threats.
In addition to this, the RAND experts point out Russia’s worry over internal revolt. The report once again provides a selective timeline that includes the Decembrist revolt, colour revolutions in the post-Soviet space, and even the war in Syria, which is described as “a long-standing Russian client state” (p. 15).
It then goes on to paraphrase Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, who said that the Kremlin fears US intervention and the Russian General Staff fears NATO intervention. It therefore follows that “[t]he perception of a threat influences behavior, even if the perceived threat is overblown or nonexistent. Whether or not one believes that worry, or even paranoia, is the primary driver behind current Russian actions in the gray zone and its preparations for high-order war, this essential element of Russian culture demands an objective and thoughtful accounting” (p. 16).
Following this is a description of the security apparatus that carries out hostile measures. A line is drawn between the NKVD, KGB and FSB, and these are also joined by the SVR, for some reason. The armed forces are considered separately, with a focus on the GRU and special forces. And that’s it. There is no mention of the police, the public prosecutor’s office and the investigative committee or even the FSO. It is even a bit strange not to see “Russian hackers” and private military companies, which are a regular feature of such reports. It is also noted that current actions are nothing other than a “continuity of the Brezhnev Doctrine” (p. 21), which only exists in the imaginations of Western experts. The authors themselves acknowledge further on that this is how speeches by Brezhnev and Gromyko, quoted in Pravda in 1968, were interpreted by Western observers.
On the next page, it claims that neo-nationalism is an ideological tool for Russian foreign policy! And there is another rather interesting passage further on, when the authors of the report confuse former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov with former Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov. Although they mention Igor Ivanov’s name in the context of grand strategy, foreign policy and neo-nationalism in Russia, they then refer to “Ivanov’s own 2003 military doctrine and reform plan” (p. 23). And this is given as confirmation of the aggressive neo-nationalist strategy that, according to the authors, is associated with Igor Ivanov! If the authors had been more attentive, they would have discovered that, at that time, Igor Ivanov was serving as the head of the foreign ministry, while the defence minister was Sergey Ivanov. Especially as they make reference to an article by a Western author, who, in 2004, analysed the Russian defence ministry’s reform and uses the right name (Matthew Bouldin, “The Ivanov Doctrine and Military Reform: Reasserting Stability in Russia,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2004). It seems that, when compiling the report, they simply copied an additional footnote to lend extra weight, but it was the wrong one.
It goes without saying that such a large number of errors undermines the entire content of the report. And this raises a logical question: what was the authors’ intention? To earn their money by throwing a bunch of quotes together or to try and understand the issues that exist in relations between Russia and the West?
Judging by the number of mistakes and biased assessments, it was most probably the former. There are also traces of a clear strategic intent, however.
This can be seen in the description of the grey zone where Russia is actively operating, because the case studies provided as examples of Russia’s activities in the grey zone are its bilateral relations with Moldova (1990–2016), Georgia (2003–2012), Estonia (2006–2007), Ukraine (2014–2016), and Turkey (2015–2016). According to the authors, then, the grey zone is independent sovereign states, including NATO members! And virtually all of them, with the exception of Turkey, are former post-Soviet countries that are in the sphere of Russia’s natural interests.
As for the methods that Russia allegedly employs, these are all heaped together in a big pile: economic embargoes, which have been imposed by Moscow for various reasons (the ban on wine imports from Moldova and Georgia, for example), support of certain political parties, compatriot policies, and diplomatic statements and sanctions (in relation to Turkey, for example, when a Russian plane was shot down over Syria).
Eventually, the report states: “Our five cases may not stand alone as empirical evidence, but they are broadly exemplary of historical trends. […] Russia applies hostile measures successfully but typically fails to leverage tactical success for long-term strategic gain” (p. 49).
From this, the report concludes that:
Russia consistently reacts with hostile measures when it perceives threats.
Both opportunism and reactionism drive Russian behavior.
Russian leaders often issue a public warning before employing hostile measures.
Short- and long-term measures are applied in mutually supporting combination.
Diplomatic, information, military, and economic means are used collectively.
Russia emphasizes information, economic, and diplomatic measures, in that order.
All arms of the government are used to apply hostile measures, often in concert.
In their description of Russia’s actions, the RAND experts even go so far as to include resistance to the Wehrmacht in occupied Soviet territories during the Second World War, including the partisan underground, as an example of “Soviet hostile measures”, when “Soviet agents aggressively undermined the German economic program […] in the western occupied zone”! (p. 53). The report then goes on to say: “By the time the Soviets shifted to the counteroffensive, they had generated a massive, multilayered hostile-measures apparatus tailored to complement conventional military operations” (p. 53) and “[f]ull-scale sabotage, propaganda, and intelligence operations continued apace throughout the war” (p. 54). Immediately after this ludicrous statement is a paragraph on the actions of the KGB and GRU against insurgents in Afghanistan. This is then followed by an attempt to predict what Russia will do in the future.
So, from the report we can draw the following conclusions.
First, it is unclear why the “hostile measures” described in the report include fairly standard practices from international experience that are also used in the West as democratic norms.
Second, the report contains a number of distorted facts, errors, incorrect assessments and conclusions that undoubtedly undermine its content.
Third, such specific content with attempts to manipulate history is clearly intended to further tarnish Russia’s image, since it will be quoted by other researchers and academics in the future, including by way of mutual citation to reinforce credibility.
Fourth, if the US command and NATO are going to perceive this mix of speculation, phobias and value judgements as basic knowledge, then it really could lead to a further escalation, although the hostile measures will be employed by the US and NATO.
Fifth, the report clearly adheres to the methodology of the liberal interventionist school, which is somewhat strange for a study that claims to be a guide to action for the military, since the US military usually adheres to the school of political realism, in accordance with which the interests of other states must be respected. And since Russia’s sphere of interests is included in the grey zone, this suggests attempts to deny Russia its geopolitical interests.
Japan Set To Release 1.2 Million Tons Of Radioactive Fukushima Water Into Ocean, Causing “Immeasurable Damage”
Just in case a global viral pandemic, whose sources are still unclear and apparently now include human feces, wasn’t enough, the global outrage meter is about to go “up to eleven” with Japan now set to flood the world’s oceans with radioactive water.
In a move that will surely prompt a furious response from Greta Thunberg’s ghost writers (unless of course it doesn’t fit a very narrow agenda), a panel of experts advising Japan’s government on a disposal method for the millions of tons of radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant on Friday recommended releasing it into the ocean. And, as Reuters notes, based on past practice it is likely the government will accept the recommendation.
Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has collected nearly 1.2 million tonnes of contaminated water from the cooling pipes used to keep fuel cores from melting since the plant was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The water is stored in huge tanks that crowd the site.
Tepco expects the wastewater storage tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to run out of capacity around 2022
The panel under the industry ministry came to the conclusion after narrowing the choice to either releasing the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean or letting it evaporate – and opted for the former, even though it means that Japan’s neihgbors will now have to suffer the consequences of the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Previously the committee had ruled out other possibilities, such as underground storage, that lack track records of success. At the meeting, members stressed the importance of selecting proven methods and said “the government should make clear that releasing the water would have a significant social impact.”
Japan’s neighbor, South Korea, has for much of the past decade retained a ban on imports of seafood from Japan’s Fukushima region imposed after the nuclear disaster and summoned a senior Japanese embassy official last year to explain how the Fukushima water would be dealt with. They will soon have a very unsatisfactory answer.
The build-up of contaminated water at Fukushima has been a major sticking point in the clean-up, which is likely to last decades, especially as the Olympics are due to be held in Tokyo this summer with some events less than 60 km from the wreck plant and the Fukushima seclusion zone which will remain uninhabitable for centuries. According to Reuters, athletes are planning to bring their own radiation detectors and food to the Games.
In 2018, the plant operator, TEPCO, apologized after admitting it lied about the cleanup efforts and that its filtration systems had not removed all dangerous material from the water – and the site was running out of room for storage tanks. Among the ludicrous proposals concocted to contain the radioactive water was an idea straight out of Game of Thrones – an underground ice wall. It did not work.
As a result, having given up on any containment approaches, Tokyo will now literally flood the world with radioactive water. Perhaps in an attempt to mitigate the angry outcry from a world that is suddenly obsessed with a clean environment, Japan said it plans to remove all radioactive particles from the water except tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that cannot be effectively removed with current technology. While it is unclear just how Japan plans on “filtering” out radiation, we with them the best of luck with that particular PR campaign.
Radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture. Picture taken January 15, 2020/Reuters
“Compared to evaporation, ocean release can be done more securely,” the committee said, pointing to common practice around the world where normally operating nuclear stations release water that contains tritium into the sea.
Needless to say, even the locals disagree: releasing treated water into the ocean would do “immeasurable damage” to a fishing sector that has tried hard to get back to work, an industry source in the Fukushima Prefecture city of Iwaki said. The evaporation proposal has fueled similar worries in farming and ranching circles, according to a source in the rice-growing business.
“The central government should understand the situation on the ground” and thoroughly consider its response, the source said. Even so, it appears that despite “considereding the situation on the ground”, the government is still set to go ahead with the discharge anyway.
Why? The reason may also be the simplest one – money. According to the Nikkei, discharging the water into the Pacific is generally seen by experts as the most logical option. Evaporation was successfully used for cleanup after the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster in the U.S. But releasing water into the sea would cost less and, by ministry estimates, cut radiation exposure by more than half compared with evaporation. Of course, this is the same ministry which for months lied about the full extent of the fallout caused by the Fukushima disaster. Surely this time they are telling the truth.
The recommendation needs to be confirmed by the head of the panel, Nagoya University Professor Emeritus Ichiro Yamamoto, and submitted to the government at a later date, which has not been set, but a hard deadline looms as the government is running out of time to make a decision. The roughly 1,000 tanks on the Fukushima Daiichi site held 1.18 million tons of water as of Dec. 12, not far from the total capacity of 1.37 million. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings expects to run out of space around 2022.
Even before then, the most important task in decommissioning the plant – removing spent nuclear fuel – is set to begin in 2021 at reactor No. 2. The tanks take up space that will be needed for this work.
As World War II drew to a close in Europe, British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that “neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
Though numerous examples in the post-World War II era have proven Russell’s point, perhaps one of the best examples was the U.S. public’s willingness to swallow lie after lie about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq due to the climate of fear that followed the September 11 attacks. Those lies, propagated by dubious intelligence, government officials and a compliant media, resulted in catastrophes – large and small, both abroad and at home.
Today, an analogous narrative is being crafted by many of the same players – both in media and government – yet it has avoided scrutiny, even from independent media.
Over the past several months and with a renewed zeal in just the last few weeks, anonymous intelligence officials, dubious “experts” and establishment media outlets have crafted a narrative about the coming “chaos” of the 2020 election, months before it takes place. Per that narrative, certain state actors will use specific technologies to target the “American mind” in order to undermine the coming presidential election. The narrative holds that those efforts will be so successful that the U.S. will never recover as a democracy.
Though these anonymous government sources and their stenographers have already named the countries who will be responsible and the technologies they will use, they also admit that no evidence yet exists to back up these claims, meaning they are — at best — pure speculation.
Historically, the goal of such fear-inducing narratives has been the trading of civil liberties for increased security, or rather, the appearance of increased security. Yet, when the need for security is felt due to a fear that is based on government-driven speculation and not on evidence, the goal of that narrative is not about protecting the public from a real, tangible threat but instead about the consolidation of power by the very groups responsible for crafting it — in this case, the intelligence community and other key players in the national security state.
However, what is particularly odd about this narrative surrounding imminent “chaos” and meddling in the upcoming 2020 election is the fact that, not only have the instruments of said meddling been named and described in detail, but their use in the election was recently simulated by a company with deep ties to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence. That simulation, organized and run by the Israeli-American company Cybereason, ended with scores of Americans dead, the cancellation of the 2020 election, the imposition of martial law and a spike in fear among the American populace.
Many of the technologies used to create that chaotic and horrific scenario in the Cybereason simulation are the very same technologies that U.S. federal officials and corporate media outlets have promoted as the core of the very toolkit that they claim will be used to undermine the coming election, such as deep fakes and hacks of critical infrastructure, consumer devices and even vehicles.
While the narrative in place has already laid the blame at the feet of U.S. rival states China, Russia and Iran, these very technologies are instead dominated by companies that are tied to the very same intelligence agencies as Cybereason, specifically Israeli military intelligence.
With intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Israel not only crafting the narrative about 2020 foreign meddling, but also dominating these technologies and simulating their use to upend the coming election, it becomes crucial to consider the motivations behind this narrative and if these intelligence agencies have ulterior motives in promoting and simulating such outcomes that would effectively end American democracy and hand almost total power to the national security state.
Media, intelligence foreshadow tech-powered doom for 2020
Even though the 2020 U.S. election is still months away, a plethora of media reports over the past six months (and even before then) have been raising concern after concern about how the U.S. election is still so vulnerable to foreign meddling that such meddling is essentially an inevitability.
Part of the reason for the recent pick-up in fear mongering appears to have been the release of a joint statement issued by key members of the Trump administration last November. That statement, authored by Attorney General Bill Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, FBI Director Christopher Wray, NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs, claimed that foreign interference in 2020 was imminent despite admitting that there is no evidence of interference having taken place:
Our adversaries want to undermine our democratic institutions, influence public sentiment and affect government policies. Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign malicious actorsall will seek to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions. Adversaries may try to accomplish their goals through a variety of means, including social media campaigns, directing disinformation operations or conducting disruptive or destructive cyber-attacks on state and local infrastructure.
While at this time we have no evidence of a compromise or disruption to election infrastructure that would enable adversaries to prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt the ability to tally votes, we continue to vigilantly monitor any threats to U.S. elections (emphasis added).”
Despite the key caveat of there being no evidence at the time the statement was issued, media reports used the statement to claim that foreign interference in 2020 was imminent, such as in these reports fromBuzzFeed, ABC News, and Newsweek.
In addition to the reports that have cast the involvement of state actors — namely Russia, Iran and China — as assured despite no evidence, other reports have made the claim that this allegedly imminent interference will inevitably be successful, largely due to claims that the tactics used will rely heavily on technology that the U.S. can’t hope to successfully counter. CSO Online, an online news outlets that provides news, analysis and research on security and risk management, recently warned that “fixing America’s voting and election infrastructure problems is a long-term proposition, one that won’t be fixed in time for the election in November” while the New York Times warned of imminent chaos and that “stealthier” malevolent foreign actors had already created the foundation for “an ugly campaign season marred by hacking and disinformation.”Wired claimed last year that U.S. election security “is still hurting at every level.”
A trainer holds a booklet during an exercise for local election officials to simulate 2020 election scenarios in Springfield, Va. Dec. 16, 2019. Alex Brandon | AP
In another example, Rolling Stone published an article earlier this month with the headline “Hackers Are Coming for the 2020 Election — And We’re Not Ready,” which claims that “the reality is that: “We’ve made progress since the last election — but we’re much less secure than we should be.” The article goes on to say that claim that the goal isn’t necessarily to hack voting machines or change results, but “to merely create the impression of an attack as a way to undermine our faith in the electoral process.”
It continues:
The target is the minds of the American people,” says Joshua Geltzer, a former counterterrorism director on the National Security Council. “In some ways, we’re less vulnerable than we were in 2016. In other ways, it’s more.” Nearly every expert agrees on this: The worst-case scenario, the one we need to prepare for, is a situation that causes Americans to question the bedrock of our democracy — free and fair elections.”
Well before this type of rhetoric made its way into the U.S. media, Israeli intelligence-linked tech firm Cybereason claiming in a release on its website that “messing with a voter’s mind” would have a bigger impact than changing vote totals, even before the 2016 election. That release, published by Cybereason prior to the last presidential election, was authored by the company’s CEO, Lior Div, who used to lead offensive hacking operations against nation-states for Israeli military intelligence.
Notably, of all of these media reports, there is a clear consensus that one of the main tactics that will soon be used to meddle in the coming U.S. election will be the use of so-called “deep fakes.” Deriving its name from a combination of “deep learning” and “fake,” deep fakes involve video and audio that has been manipulated using artificial intelligence (AI) to create media that appears to be authentic, but is not. Concern about its use in the upcoming election has spurred not only a wealth of media reports on the matter but has prompted both the U.S. military and Congress to take action to limit its potential misuse.
One thing that stands out about the media narrative regarding election meddling and deep fakes is that several news organizations have published articles that state that deep fakes will be used to undermine the 2020 election, as opposed to stating that they could be used or that they are a phenomenon worthy of attention (though some reportshave taken this more measured approach).
The reason for this level of confidence may owe to statements made by prominent U.S. intelligence officials last year, including those made by Dan Coats, the former Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who claimed in the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment for the U.S. Intelligence Community that deep fakes and other hi-tech forms of fake media would be used to disrupt the 2020 election. Coats specifically stated:
Adversaries and strategic competitors probably will attempt to use deep fakes or similar machine-learning technologies to create convincing—but false—image, audio, and video files to augment influence campaigns directed against the United States and our allies and partners.”
Since Coats made the warning, numerous media reports have promoted the concern with little scrutiny, representing just one of the numerous times in U.S. history where narratives first authored by U.S. intelligence are subsequently promoted heavily by U.S. media, even when the claim made by intelligence officials is speculative, as it is in this case. Indeed, the narratives being promoted with respect to the 2020 election involve many of the same intelligence agencies (American and Israeli) and media outlets who promoted claims that were later proven false about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion, among other pertinent examples.
Notably, deep fakes figured prominently and was the tool most used by malevolent hackers in Cybereason’s 2020 election simulation, which saw both video and audio-only deep fakes used to spread misinformation on national and local TV channels in order to impersonate police officers and election officials and to create fake bomb threats by posing as the terror group Daesh (ISIS). Cybereason also happens to be a partner of the organization funding the most well-known creator and producer of deep fakes in the world, an organization that — much like Cybereason itself — is openly tied to Israeli intelligence.
Aside from deep fakes, other technologies weaponized in Cybereason’s election simulation have also been the subject of several media reports, such as the hacking of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and appliances and even the hacking of vehicles that have some form of internet connectivity. In the Cybereason simulation, IoT hacks were used to cut power to polling stations and disseminate disinformation while vehicles were hacked to conduct terror attacks against civilians waiting in line to vote, killing several and injuring hundreds.
Most media reports have claimed that these technologies will be part of the coming “explosion” in cyber warfare in 2020 and do not specifically link them to imminent election meddling. Others, however, have made the link to the election explicit.
Naming the culprits in advance
In addition to the apparent consensus on how foreign meddling will occur during the 2020 election, there is also agreement regarding which countries will be responsible. Again, this is largely based on statements made by U.S. national security officials. For instance, the joint statement issued last November by the DOJ, DOD, DHS, DNI, FBI, NSA, and CISA regarding 2020 election security, states that “Russia, China, Iran, and other foreign malicious actors all will seek to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions” before adding “at this time we have no evidence.”
Similarly, the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment for the U.S. Intelligence Community, written by then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, names these same three countries in relation to imminent 2020 election interference and states that their interference in the 2020 election is “almost certain.” The assessment adds the following about each nation:
Russia: “Russia’s social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities, and criticizing perceived anti-Russia politicians.”
China: “China will continue to use legal, political, and economic levers—such as the lure of Chinese markets—to shape the information environment. It is also capable of using cyber attacks against systems in the United States to censor or suppress viewpoints it deems politically sensitive.”
Iran: “Iran, which has used social media campaigns to target audiences in both the United States and allied nations with messages aligned with Iranian interests, will continue to use online influence operations to try to advance its interests.”
The vast majority of warnings regarding future election interference have come from U.S. intelligence officials with a dubious record of trustworthiness and a history of using the media to spread propaganda and disinformation, most famously through Operation Mockingbird. Most — if not all — of the recent and numerous articles on imminent interference rely heavily on claims made by the two aforementioned government documents, documents crafted by U.S. intelligence agencies for public consumption, as well as claims made by anonymous U.S. officials.
A screenshot from the 2019 National Threat Assessment lists Russia, China and Iran as primary threats to the United States
A recent New York Times article, for example, titled “Chaos Is the Point’: Russian Hackers and Trolls Grow Stealthier in 2020,” is based almost entirely on “interviews with dozens of officials and experts,” though the only government official named in the article is Shelby Pierson, the intelligence community’s election threats executive. The most quoted experts named in the article are Ben Nimmo, formerly of the hawkish, NATO-funded Atlantic Council and now with Graphika, and Laura Rosenberger, director of the neoconservative-created Alliance for Securing Democracy. The article nonetheless cites “American officials” and “current and former officials” several times to make claims about imminent election interference that paint a bleak picture of the current election season.
A recent article from The Hill relies on the acting head of DHS, Chad Wolf, as its only source, citing Wolf’s claim that “we fully expect Russia to attempt to interfere in the 2020 elections to sow public discord and undermine our democratic institutions” amid other warnings that Wolf gave about Chinese and Iranian cyber threats to U.S. elections. Other articles, including one titled “Russia, China plan to adjust their tactics to hack, influence 2020 elections” cite only Shelby Pierson of the U.S. intelligence community as its source for that headline’s claim. Another titled “Russia isn’t the only threat to 2020 elections, says U.S. intel” cites only anonymous U.S. intelligence officials, as the headline suggests.
Though Russia and China have consistently been named as the most likely election meddlers, reports have also been drumming up the likelihood that Iran will emerge as 2020’s foreign meddler of choice, especially in the months prior to and weeks after the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by the Trump administration. A recent “informal poll” conducted by the Washington Post asked hawkish think tank fellows, employees at companies like Raytheon and current and former federal officials if Iran would likely retaliate against the U.S. via cyberattack. The Post ran the results of the poll under the headline “Get ready for serious cyberattacks from Iran, experts say.”
Despite the media’s numerous warnings of imminent and “serious” cyber-retaliation from Iran, the only cyberattack attributed to the country after Soleimani’s death was the vandalism of the Federal Depository Library Program website, a rather benign act that was nevertheless blasted across headlines such as “US government website hacked with pro-Iranian messages, image of bloodied Trump.” The U.S. government is quoted in that article as saying that “At this time, there is no confirmation that this was the action of Iranian state-sponsored actors.”
Also notably absent from media reports is the fact that WikiLeaks revealed in 2017 that the CIA had stockpiled a library of “stolen” cyberattack techniques produced in other nations, including Russia and Iran. Those revelations, part of the Vault 7 release, revealed that the CIA’s UMBRAGE group was capable of “misdirect[ing] attribution [for cyberattacks actually done by the CIA] by leaving behind the ‘fingerprints’ of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.” In other words, the CIA was more than capable of conducting “false flag” cyber attacks and blaming them on foreign actors.
Conflict of interest-ridden Microsoft “defends democracy”
Last year saw the tech behemoth Microsoft join the effort to blame foreign state actors, specifically Iran, for cyberattacks against the U.S. This helped to bolster assertions that had largely originated with a handful of U.S. intelligence officials and hawkish, neoconservative-aligned think tanks as media reports on Microsoft’s related claims treated the company as an independent private sector observer.
Yet, as MintPress investigations have revealed, Microsoft has clear conflicts of interest with respect to election interference. Its “Defending Democracy” program has spawned tools like “NewsGuard” and “ElectionGuard” that it claims will help protect U.S. democracy, but — upon closer examination — instead have the opposite effect.
Last January, MintPress exposed NewsGuard’s neoconservative backers and how special interest groups were backing the program in an effort to censor independent journalism under the guise of the fight against “fake news.” Subsequent investigations revealed the risk that Microsoft’s ElectionGuard poses to U.S. voting machines, which it claims to make more secure and how the platform was developed by companies closely tied to the Pentagon’s infamous research branch DARPA and Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200.
ElecionGuard software has since been adopted by numerous voting machine manufacturers and is slated to be used in some Democratic Primary votes. Notably, the push for the adoption of ElectionGuard software has been spearheaded by the recently created Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is the federal agency tasked with overseeing election security and is headed by Christopher Krebs, a former high level Microsoft executive.
In recent months, Microsoft has also been at the center of claims that Iran attempted to hack U.S. presidential campaigns ahead of 2020 as well as claims that Iran plans to target the U.S. power grid and other critical infrastructure with cyberattacks.
Last October, Microsoft penned a blog post discussing a “threat group” it named Phosphorus that they “believe originates from Iran and is linked to the Iranian government.” The post went on to claim that Phosphorus attempted to target a U.S. presidential campaign, which later media reports claimed was President Trump’s re-election campaign. Microsoft concluded that the attempt was “not technically sophisticated” and ultimately unsuccessful, but felt compelled to disclose it and link it to Iran’s government.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discusses 740 alleged infiltration attempts by nation-state actors at a conference in Seattle, May 6, 2019. Elaine Thompson | AP
Media reports also left out the fact that Microsoft is a major government contractor for the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon. Notably, the Trump campaign, which Microsoft said was the target of this attack, was later identified as the only major presidential campaign using Microsoft’s “AccountGuard” software, part of its dubious “Defending Democracy” program that also spawned NewsGuard and ElectionGuard. AccountGuard claims to protect campaign-linked emails and data from hackers.
Microsoft surfaced not long after, again claiming that Iran was maliciously targeting the United States’ civilian infrastructure. This subsequent claim was first published by Wired and later covered by other outlets. Those reports cite a single person, Microsoft security researcher Ned Moran, who claimed that an Iran-backed hacking group called APT33 was targeting the U.S. “physical control systems used in electric utilities, manufacturing, and oil refineries.”
“They’re trying to deliver messages to their adversaries and trying to compel and change their adversaries’ behavior,” Moran told Wired. Moran also stated that “Microsoft hasn’t seen direct evidence of APT33 carrying out a disruptive cyberattack rather than mere espionage or reconnaissance, it’s seen incidents where the group has at least laid the groundwork for those attacks (emphasis added).”
Cybereason helps craft the narrative
While U.S. intelligence officials and media outlets alike have been largely responsible for setting the narrative that imminent meddling will be conducted by Russia, China and Iran, key components of that narrative, particularly with respect to China and Iran, have been laid by Cybereason, a company that recently ran 2020 doomsday election simulations and that has close ties to the intelligence communities of both the U.S. and Israel.
We’re three days into 2020, and the world is already on high alert from last night’s airstrike in #Baghdad. Read our latest blog to learn more about their history of #cyber retaliation and what could be in store. https://t.co/GktqUa4iaf
Shortly after the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani earlier this month, an operation conducted in concert with Israeli intelligence, Cybereason warned that Iran could imminently retaliate with a cyber threat and quoted its own employees who explained what and how Iran would likely target in retaliation. Cybereason’s CSO Sam Curry, who actively participated in the firm’s 2020 doomsday election simulations, stated:
This means that Iran’s “forceful revenge” response is likely to be less about the flash and all about the bang. If you have connected systems that are responsible for kinetic world effects, like ICS systems and critical infrastructure around water, energy or vital services, it’s time to pay attention. Iran and the US are engaged in Cyber brinksmanship, which means that the gloves are off as Iran picks it’s targets (emphasis added).”
Cybereason also quoted visiting fellow for the National Security Institute and former advisor to the U.S. Secret Service (which participated in Cyberaeson’s election simulations), Anne Marie Zettlemoyer, who claimed that Iran could soon target Wall Street and critical U.S. infrastructure like the power grid:
An attack against the financial systems can be devastating economically and weaken the confidence and viability of markets. However, we cannot ignore the physical consequences and manifestations that can come from a cyberattack, particularly against critical infrastructure like energy and industry control systems.”
Cybereason’s claims regarding Iran’s interest in “critical infrastructure” systems likely originated with Microsoft, the claims were then parroted by the media in several reports, many of which quoted Cybereason’s Sam Curry. Curry is also a contributor to major news outlets like Forbes where he writes about Iran’s cyber warfare capabilities.
The Iranian hacking group, APT33, has been targeting industrial control systems used by power grids, manufacturing and oil refineries. Read CSO, @samjcurry‘s take on the group’s focus in @ForbesTech. https://t.co/gAl3abUvlg
Notably, in Cybereason’s recent allegations against Iran, it states that “it’s clear that Iran has been preparing for future geopolitical conflict by gaining access to critical infrastructure and other important operations in the United States.” It backs these claims by citing an article authored by Curry for Forbes. Following Soleimani’s death, numerous media reports, including in the UK’s The Independent and ABC News, have cited Curry as an “expert” source in claiming that Iran would retaliate with cyberattacks.
Microsoft’s claims about foreign hackers and meddling — the evidence for which have never been made public but has been parroted as fact nonetheless — are frequently supported by Cybereason.
Last August, Microsoft claimed to have foiled Russian attempts at hacking two Republican-affiliated think tanks and, despite providing no evidence, Cybereason’s then-senior director of intelligence services Ross Rustici was quoted as an expert in several media reports as saying that such behavior was to be expected from Russia. In one such report, Rustici stated:
We’re very good at fighting the last war, but the Russians are very good at evolving their game. I suspect if they’re going to do a psychological operation around the elections, the way they do it will be different than what they did in 2016. How effective the defenses we’ve built for what they did in 2016 will be for those attacks is yet to be seen.”
None of the media reports quoting Rustici mentioned Cybereason’s ties to Israeli intelligence, referring to tech firms only a “Boston-based cybersecurity company” and similar variants. Cybereason’s Intelligence Group is stuffed with former and active members of U.S. and Israeli intelligence services and has released several reports about nation-state hacking with a focus on Russia and China.
Cybereason has also been at the forefront of claims that China has been engaged in aggressive cyberattacks against multinational companies that have also seen widespread coverage in U.S. media, despite the untransparent nature of the evidence for Cybereason’s claims.
In a story that received major coverage from outlets such as Fox News, Reuters, CNBC and others, Cybereason unveiled what it called “Operation Soft Cell,” an operation that stole mass troves of data from several global telecommunications companies. In each story, Cybereason is the sole source of the claim and declined to provide the name or location of any of the affected companies. The firm also claimed to have determined that the attack was likely perpetrated by someone “backed by a nation state, and is affiliated with China.” It further claimed to have debriefed and coordinated responses with U.S. intelligence.
In an article for Reuters, Cybereason stated that “this time as opposed to in the past we are sure enough to say that the attack originated in China” while Cybereason separately told CyberScoop that it had “found hacking tools such as a modified web shell and a remote access trojan that are commonly associated with, but not unique to, Chinese hackers.” Despite the incongruity, media reports laid the blame squarely on China, as seen in headlines such as “Chinese spies have been sucking up call records at multinational telecoms, researchers say.”
Prior to uncovering Operation Soft Cell, Cybereason had warned on its blogs in the months and years prior that China would imminently targetU.S. companies. The revelation of Operation Soft Cell — which originated exclusively with Cybereason — has been used to build the case that China is openly engaged in cyberwarfare against its rival states, like the United States, and targeting “democracy itself.”
Best Known Deep Fake Creator is Funded by Israeli Intelligence
While the media, and even Cybereason itself, have helped lay the foundation to blame specific state actors for 2020 election meddling well ahead of the fact, it is worth revisiting Cybereason’s “Operation Blackout” election simulation and the tactics used by the “bad actors” in that scenario.
That simulation, discussed in detail in the first installment of this series, saw the weaponization of specific technologies, namely deep fakes, hacks of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and hacks of vehicles, in order to target the 2020 U.S. election, resulting in the cancellation of the election and the imposition of martial law.
Given the current narrative regarding what state actors are likely to meddle in the 2020 election — namely Russia, China and Iran — and the tactics they will allegedly use, it is important to explore the sources of the technologies weaponized per that narrative as well as in “Operation Blackout.”
Indeed, if there is any clear overlap between the creators of those technologies and the state actors being blamed in advance for their imminent use, it would certainly lend credibility to the claims promoted by U.S. intelligence, the media and companies like Microsoft and Cybereason.
Yet, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the companies and state actors most involved in developing these technologies are the very ones claiming that Russia, China and Iran will use them to undermine the 2020 election.
Take for instance the use of deep fakes. Not only have numerous media reports focused on how deep fakeswill be used to meddle in the 2020 elections, but Cybereason’s doomsday election simulation saw “bad actors” rely heavily on their use to spread disinformation and even make fake bomb threats. While much has been said of the coming election and deep fakes, remarkably few reports have bothered to look at the company best known for creating viral deep fakes.
Canny AI has garnered considerable media attention over the past few years for its persuasive deep fake videos that have frequently gone viral. In the last year alone, the tech firm’s viral deep fakes have included a controversial video of Mark Zuckerberg where the Facebook co-founder appears to be saying “Imagine this for a second: One man, with total control of billions of people’s stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures,” as well as a video showing Richard Nixon giving a speech he never actually gave. More recently, Canny AI was behind the viral videos immediately prior to the 2019 U.K. general election that appeared to show Jeremy Corbyn and his rival Boris Johnson endorsing each other and another video that showed world leaders singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”:
Oddly, many of the media reports that discuss these viral videos fail to mention the role of Canny AI in creating these viral deep fakes and instead only mention the organization or artists with whom Canny AI partnered to create them. For instance, the Corbyn-Johnson videos were reported to have been producedby the group Future Advocacy and artist Bill Posters, but it was actually Canny AI that created those videos for that group. Similarly, the Nixon Speech deep fake was reported by several outlets as having been solely created by MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality. However, the Boston Globe noted that “the [MIT] team worked with Canny AI, an Israeli company that does Video Dialogue Replacement, and Respeecher, a Ukrainian startup specializing in speech-to-speech synthetic voice production” to create the video.
The Zuckerberg deep fake that Canny AI created led to lots of positive press for the company, with several media reports dubbing them as the company using “deep fakes for good” and that uses the controversial technology “responsibly.”The Zuckerberg deep fake has been cited as one of the main drivers behind Facebook’s new “deep fake” policy, which only bans some deep fake videos and has been criticized by U.S. lawmakers as insufficient. Notably, neither Facebook nor Facebook-owned Instagram ever took down Canny AI’s deep fake of Zuckerburg.
Given the concern over deep fakes in relation to the coming election and Canny AI standing out as the main producer of deep fakes that have gone viral over the past year, it is important to point out that Canny AI has ties to a state actor with a history of election meddling: the state of Israel.
Indeed, Canny AI is 100 percent funded by an Israeli start-up accelerator called Xcelerator, a joint venture between Tel Aviv University and Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet (sometimes called Shabak). According to Start Up Nation Central, the Paul Singer-created organization that promotes Israeli technology start ups, Xcelerator-funded “start-ups participating in the program benefit from close mentoring from content and technology experts from the Shabak, experts from Tel Aviv University, and industry leaders. The connection to the Shabak also provides the entrepreneurs with ways to test the capabilities of their technologies and cooperation opportunities (emphasis added).”
It is also worth noting that Xcelerator also backs an “anti-fake news” start-up called Cyabra, which has direct ties to Israel’s Mossad and offers its AI-driven “disinformation protection” to government agencies as well as politicians, particularly during election seasons. Two of Cyabra’s co-founders previously co-founded Psy-Group, which attempted to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election by weaponizing “fake news” and social media and later closed down its operations after U.S. government scrutiny into its activities began as part of the Mueller investigation.
Psy-Group also engaged in doxxing campaigns targeting Palesintian rights activists in the U.S. which were planned in conjunction with Ram Ben-Barak, the former deputy director of the Mossad who now advises Cyabra. Given that much of the concern ahead of the next election is related not only to deep fakes but also “fake news,” Cyabra’s rise and its clear ties to Mossad and the now defunct Psy-Group are important to note.
Furthermore, in examining the other technologies weaponized during Cybereason’s 2020 election simulation and cited in the aforementioned media narrative regarding 2020 meddling, a pattern similar to that of Canny AI emerges.
Indeed, the other technologies linked to these “bad actors” and foreign meddlers — namely hacking IoT devices and hacking vehicles — are also pioneered by companies with deep ties to Israeli military intelligence, specifically Unit 8200, and Israeli tech companies that have aggressively spied on U.S. government institutions in collusion with Israeli intelligence in the past, namely Comverse (now Verint) and Amdocs.
Hacking the Internet of Things
In Cybereason’s doomsday election simulation, another of the tactics used was the hacking of devices and appliances connected to the internet, often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT) and which includes everything from smartphones to power grid infrastructure to city traffic lights.
While most reports on IoT hacks to date have focused on “lone wolf” or non-state-aligned actors, one company has stood out for its efforts to create a tool that would allow governments and intelligence agencies to hack these devices with ease. That company, called Toka, announced in 2018 that it planned to offer “a one-stop hacking shop for governments that require extra capability to fight terrorists and other threats to national security in the digital domain,” with “a special focus on [hacking] the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), covering tech like Amazon Echo, Nest connected home products, as well as connected fridges, thermostats and alarms.”
The Israel-based company, which raised $12.5 million within months of launching, has since been busy marketing its services to governments around the world, most recently France where it described its product portfolio as “empower[ing] governments, Intelligence, and law enforcement agencies to enhance Homeland Security with groundbreaking cyber-intelligence and operational capabilities” during an exposition in Paris last November.
Even though Toka openly markets the ability to hack private consumer devices to governments and law enforcement agencies around the world, the clear threat to privacy has gone ignored by media outlets as the company has garnered nearly no media attention since it launched nearly two years ago.
Yet, Toka is not only notable for what it offers but also for its founders and investors. Indeed, the co-founders of Toka have been described as an “all-star” team, largely because of the role of former Israeli Prime Minister and former head of Israeli military intelligence, Ehud Barak. Barak, in addition to co-founding the company, serves as its director and is also the chairman of the board of the controversial Israeli company Carbyne911, which markets software to emergency call centers in the United States. Interestingly, Cybereason’s 2020 doomsday election simulation also dealt with the hacking and weaponization of 911 call centers. Also of note is the fact that another of Carbyne911’s leadership team, former Unit 8200 commander Pinchas Buchris, is an adviser to Cybereason.
Toka’s top brass is a who’s who of former Israeli military and intelligence officials
In addition to Barak, Toka was co-founded by retired Brigadier General Yaron Rosen, former Chief of the IDF’s cyber staff, where he was “the lead architect of all [IDF] cyber activities” including those executed by Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200. Rosen, who now serves as Toka’s CEO, has stated that Toka’s technology will only be sold to countries allied with the U.S. and Israel, telling Forbes that “Russia, China and ‘other enemy countries’ would never be customers.”
Toka’s leadership and software architects are similarly tied into Israel’s national security state. Several — including the “architect” of its hacking software — previously worked for Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office and developed “offensive technologies” for Israel’s head of state and other top Toka employees and executives share numerous connections to Unit 8200, other divisions of Israeli military intelligence and Unit 8200-connected tech companies like Check Point Technologies.
Though Toka’s leadership team makes its ties to Israeli military intelligence abundantly clear, important connections also appear in examining Toka’s investors. One of the major investors in Toka is Dell technologies, one of the world’s largest technology companies that was founded by Michael Dell, a well-known pro-Israel partisan who has donated millions of dollars to the Friends of the IDF and one of the top supporters of the so-called “anti-BDS” bills that prevent publicly employed individuals or public institutions from supporting non-violent boycotts of Israel, even on humanitarian grounds. It goes without saying that a major technology company investing in a company that markets the hacking of that very technology (computers, IoT, smartphones, etc.) should be a red flag.
With a major foot in the door through its connections to Dell, whose products are used by the private and public sectors around the world, other investors in Toka again reveal its ties to Israel’s military intelligence and the same controversial Israeli tech companies that have aggressively spied on the U.S. government in the past — Amdocs and Comverse. For instance, Entrèe Capital, a venture capital fund that is one of Toka’s main investors, is managed by Aviad Eyal and Ran Achituv. The latter, who manages Entrée’s investment in Toka and sits on Toka’s board of directors, is the founder of the IDF’s satellite-based signals intelligence unit and also a former senior Vice President at both Amdocs and Comverse Infosys (Verint).
Another notable investor in Toka is the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, which is advised by former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, a close friend of the infamous pedophile Jeffery Epstein, whose own ties to Israeli military intelligence have been discussed in several MintPress reports. Epstein was also a close friend of Ehud Barak, co-founder and director of Toka, and invested at least $1 million in another company with close ties to Barak, Carbyne911. The remaining investors in Toka are Launch Capital, which is deeply tied to the Pritzker family — one of the wealthiest families in the U.S. with close ties to the Clintons and Obamas as well as the U.S.’ pro-Israel lobby, and Ray Rothrock, a venture capitalist who spent nearly three decades at VenRock, the Rockefeller family venture capital fund.
Unit 8200 – From Hacking Cars to Protecting Them?
Arguably the most disturbing aspect of Cybereason’s “Operation Blackout” election simulation was the hacking of vehicles that were then rammed into civilians waiting in line to vote at polling stations. In the simulation, this led to scores of dead Americans and hundreds of injuries.
As was the case with other technologies used to undermine the 2020 election in the simulation, this technology — the hacking of vehicles — is the bread and butter of an Israeli cybersecurity firm called Upstream Security that specializes in automobiles and boasts deep ties to the country’s military intelligence service.
Though vehicle hacking seemed out of left field when the 2020 election simulation took place last November, media reports about the imminent dangers of “car hacking” began to emerge just a month after the exercise took place, most of which cited a December 2019 report created by Upstream. Some of those reports have warned that car hacking could be used to undermine the coming U.S. election.
One report titled “Car Hacking Hits the Streets,” cites only Upstream’s report to claim that “In 2020, the connected-car market will reach a tipping point, with the majority of vehicles already connected to the Internet when sold in the United States, representing a large base of potential targets for attacks.” Another report, titled “New study shows just how bad vehicle hacking has gotten,” uses Upstream’s report (i.e. study) to claim that hacks of regular vehicles have exploded since 2016 and that most of the cars on U.S. roads today are vulnerable to hackers and that over 80 percent of those hacks occur remotely.
Neither report noted Upstream’s ties to Israeli military intelligence. Equally notable is the fact that both reports that covered the Upstream-written study say that only manufacturers can address the problem by partnering with a company like Upstream.
A screenshot from an Upstream promotional video
Lucky for Upstream, they have already partnered with a slew of auto manufacturers, including Hyundai, Volvo, Renault and even U.S. auto insurance giants like Nationwide, who now number among Upstream’s most important investors. The company’s original investors are Charles River Ventures, one of Cybereason’s first investors, and Israeli venture capital firm Glilot Capital.
Glilot Capital’s interest in Upstream is telling given the firm’s deep ties to Israel’s Unit 8200. Glilot was founded by two former Israeli military intelligence officers and has “a heavy focus on the cyber sector and the entrepreneurs who emerge from the elite Unit 8200,” according to the Jerusalem Post. Even the name of the firm is an homage to Unit 8200, as the unit’s main base is located in Glilot, near Herzliya.
“It’s as if Americans called a VC Fort Meade Capital [the US Army base in Maryland where the National Security Agency and the United States Cyber Command are headquartered], some VC names are meant to be symbolic, as in our case. Glilot is the home of several of the best intelligence and technology units in the IDF, it’s where we came from and it is where we find our best entrepreneurs,” Glilot Capital co-founder Arik Kleinstein told the Jerusalem Post in 2016.
Upstream is certainly the type of company that Glilot Capital is used to investing in. It was founded by two Israelis who both served in the IDF, with one of them serving in an elite intelligence unit. Upstream’s co-founders, Yoav Levy and Yonathan Appel, met while working at Check Point Technologies, the Unit 8200 alumni-founded company with deep ties to Israel’s military intelligence and military-industrial complex as well as the IoT hacking company Toka. Notably, Upstream recently partnered with the Japanese company Fujitsu, a longtime partnerwith Softbank — Cybereason’s main investor.
Softbank has also invested heavily in another Unit 8200-founded vehicle security start-up called Argus Cyber Security, a firm known for its numerous demonstrations showing how easy it is to hack vehicles. Argus is also backed by Nadav Zafrir, the former Unit 8200 commander who now runs Team8. Argus’ CEO Ofer Ben-Noon, a former captain in Unit 8200, told Forbes in 2014 that “Everything will be hacked in every single [car] brand. It will take time, it might be weeks, months, or a couple of years, but eventually it will happen.”
Since then, Unit 8200 alumni from Argus, Upstream and other Israeli automobile cybersecurity firms have shown media outlets around the world how much easier hacking vehicles has become in the years since Ben-Noon first made the claim. One such report from VICE includes a vehicle hacking demonstration, courtesy of a Unit 8200 alumni, and notes that “most cars today are susceptible to hacker attacks.”
Of course, Unit 8200 isn’t the only intelligence agency known to be experts at hacking vehicles. Indeed, in 2017, WikiLeaks revealed that the CIA was capable of hacking vehicles and exploring their use in committing “undetectable assassinations.”
“Bring down nations to their knees”
At the Tel Aviv Cybertech Conference in 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated the following:
Today warfare has changed dramatically…With a click of a button, you can bring down nations to their knees very rapidly if you so desire and if you’re willing to take the risks, because every system can be hacked. Our hospitals, our airplanes, our cars, our banks. The most important word here is our data banks, they can be hacked.”
Media reports and even members of the Israeli public and private sector have openly acknowledged that Israel’s intelligence apparatus — from Unit 8200 to the Mossad — remains directly linked to many of the private technology companies founded by its former members, especially in the field of cybersecurity. Though reports on the matter often praise this merging of Israel’s public and private spheres, they rarely acknowledge the documented corruption within Unit 8200, the unit’s dark past in recruiting felons and even pedophiles to join its ranks, or the danger posed by having companies directly linked to foreign intelligence being given access to the U.S. government’s most classified and sensitive systems and data.
As was mentioned in the first installment of this series, Cybereason’s CEO Lior Div offers a clear example of this worrisome bridge between Israel’s public and private sector, as Div has openly stated that he views his work at Cybereason as a “continuation” of his service to Israeli military intelligence, where he led offensive cyberattacks against other nations.
Given Div’s past statements and his company’s clear ties to both Israeli and U.S. intelligence, Cybereason’s simulation of the 2020 U.S. election — which involved terrorist attacks and led to the election’s cancellation and the imposition of martial law — is highly concerning. This is particularly so considering that Cybereason’s investors have direct ties to individuals who would benefit from the election’s cancellation and also considering the clear narrative that has emerged in recent months regarding how the coming election will inevitably fall victim to tech-driven “chaos” in coming months.
The clear overlap between Cybereason’s simulation and the intelligence-driven media narrative is clear cause for concern, especially considering that the technologies that they highlight as ultimately upending the election are dominated by the very same intelligence agencies simulating and crafting that narrative.
The keyword that has been used to describe the end result of both Cybereason’s simulation and the prevailing media narrative regarding the 2020 election is “chaos,” chaos so imminent, widespread and unruly that it will shake American democracy to its core.
What has been left unsaid, however, is that a government’s solution to “chaos” is always the imposition of “order.” This means that — whatever “chaos” ultimately ensues prior to or on election day — will result in a government response that will do much more to crush freedom and undermine democracy than any act of foreign meddling has, be it real or imagined.
Mayor Of City With 6 Million People Next To Wuhan Warns Of “Significant Increase” In Coronavirus Cases This Weekend
One month into the worst viral pandemic in decades, China appears woefully unprepared to respond appropriately and decisively to a disease that has infected over 12,000 around the globe. This became obvious after several Chinese officials recently had media interview mishaps, in which their lack of knowledge about measures to contain the coronavirus were on full display, The Epoch Times reported.
On Jan. 29, the Beijing government sent a working team to Huanggang, a city with over 6.3 million people located just 30 miles east of the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan in the Hubei province.
The team held a meeting with Tang Zhihong, chief of the city’s health commission, and Chen Mingxing, director of the city’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) accompanied the working team and recorded the meeting. When prompted with questions by the experts from Beijing, Tang couldn’t answer.
In the CCTV video, the Beijing experts asked the current capacity of hospitals in the city. Tang kept silent. When pressed again, Tang answered: “We have an official who is in charge of this issue.”
The experts asked what was the current number of confirmed cases in Huanggang. Tang first said it was “more than 200,” but Chen chimed in and said: “118.”
It quickly went downhill from there: the team also asked, “How many patients are being treated in the hospitals?” Both Tang and Chen didn’t answer. This angered Chinese netizens, who commented on the news segment on social media.
The next day, the Huanggang government announced that Tang has been dismissed from her position.
Then, in response to the rising wave of public outrage, on January 30 the Huanggang government announced new lockdown measures.
According to the new rule, all roads in the Huanggang municipal area would be closed at midnight Jan. 31, with physical barriers and checkpoints. No vehicles can use the roads except “those for outbreak prevention and control, medical rescue, basic needs, and emergency rescue,” while taxis will only be allowed for expectant mothers, patients of severe illness, with only a certain number of taxis are allocated to each neighborhood.
Unfortunately, these long-overdue measures are coming too late, especially in light of recent news that up to 5 million potential carriers had already left Wuhan before the city was put under quarantine.
This was confirmed by Hubei governor Wang, who said at a Jan. 29 press conference that the number of confirmed cases are quickly increasing in Huanggang and three other nearby cities—Xiaogang, Jingmen, and Xianning. He added that he was worried “Huanggang could become another Wuhan.”
Echoing this dire warning, on Friday the mayor of Huanggang said that there will be a significant increase in confirmed novelcoronavirus infection cases on Saturday and Sunday in the city, as some 600-700k people returned from Wuhan to Huanggang before the Wuhan lockdown.
And at a Jan. 30 press conference, Zhang Wenhong, leader of the outbreak response team in Shanghai, said: “Based on the current situation, this coronavirus will spread more broadly. I’m responsible for my words here and I can tell you the estimation of overseas experts are correct,” he said, without naming which experts he was referring to.
Chinese authorities only began updating the outbreak death toll since Jan. 22. But experts from the UK and Hong Kong have estimated that the true figure of infections could reach 250,000 people in Wuhan alone by Feb. 4.
All of this could have been prevented if it wasn’t for China’s notorious desire to preserve secrecy – as it did during the 2003 SARS epidemic – and avoid disclosing the facts of any adverse situation to avoid alarming the population.
The outbreak was first reported by Chinese authorities on Dec. 31, 2019, but the disease first emerged in the city of Wuhan in early December. It has since spread to all Chinese provinces and regions, as well as more than 20 countries around the world. And with over 12,000 confirmed infections as of Saturday morning, Liu Yingzi, director of the Hubei health commission, said on Jan. 29 that there were more than 170,000 medical staff working on the frontlines treating coronavirus patients.
Meanwhile, doctors from Hubei hospitals told state-run media that they lack the human resources to treat patients. Some of them have worked for more than 24 hours straight. On Jan. 22, state-run Jiangsu Television reported that an Wuhan doctor was infected with the coronavirus after treating patients for 11 days. He was under self-quarantine and told his family members that he had worked 26 hours straight, as there were too many patients at the hospital.
On Jan. 29, Zeng Guang, the chief scientist of epidemiology at China’s CDC, made a rare candid admission about why Chinese officials cannot tell people the truth, in an interview with the state-run tabloid Global Times.
And then there’s this, from SixthTone’s David Paulk: “The 8 people detained in Wuhan for “spreading rumors” — who we wrote about in a Jan. 2 article that was censored — were doctors trying to raise the alarm about a new SARS-like virus.”
This is one of the more infuriating sentences I’ve written on Twitter:
The 8 people detained in Wuhan for “spreading rumors” — who we wrote about in a Jan. 2 article that was censored — were doctors trying to raise the alarm about a new SARS-like virus. https://t.co/CAb1Z6YMRUhttps://t.co/qleiKpWlMU
We leave the last word to Zeng, the chief scientist at China’s CDC: “The officials need to think about the political angle and social stability in order to keep their positions,” he said, which is all one needs to know about any “facts” coming out of China.
The Super Bowl is like prom for the 1 percent. When the big game comes to town, it’s accompanied by private jets, parties, and nonstop bottle service. That should be enough, but it never is. The bacchanalia also comes festooned with public funds for the NFL, an overwhelming police presence, and the removal of the poor. It’s a world of fun on our TVs, but it’s a wrecking ball for local communities.
This year the game is in Miami, and the scams are starting to seep into public consciousness. As the Miami Heraldis reporting, the NFL booked 1 million dollars’ worth of rooms at the J.W. Marriott Marquis hotel and Aventura’s Turnberry resort for the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers players and coaches—and sent the city the bill.
Even though the NFL is a gargantuan corporate operation and both teams are owned by billionaires, Miami (where 27 percent of children live below the poverty line) is on the hook for the hotel accommodations. This is just part of a $4 million welfare package with which the city has gifted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who makes 10 times that amount in yearly salary. That $4 million does not include the costs of the police and security presence required to host the game. Rodney Barreto, the chairman of Miami’s Host Committee, said to the Herald, “These are basically things we have to do to get them to come. If we’re not doing it, another city is.”
The police presence will be “an extraordinary deployment of law enforcement assets, even by recent standards, in keeping with heightened global tensions and fears of home-grown violence.” According to Reuters, Super Bowl LIV “is a so-called SEAR 1 event, affording it the highest level of federal resources, including explosive detection canine teams, cyber risk assessments and air security. Coordinated by the U.S. Secret Service, the security force includes operations by the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security.”
In addition, Miami police will lead “lead a massive ground operation with thousands of officers… on foot, horseback, in boats, and in the air.”
While the police roam the city and public dollars flow into the NFL’s coffers, the league is engaging in Kabuki theater charity: its spoonful of sugar to help the poison go down, showy presentations so it won’t look like a parasite. The league donated $100,000 to a homeless shelter that will house those displaced from Bayfront Park by the Super Bowl. This sounds nice, but the donation will actually help facilitate their removal from the streets so they’re not an eyesore, or worse, a reminder of the human costs of economic inequality. In addition, Dak Prescott, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, is being praised for donating 100,000 bowls of Campbell’s Chunky Soup (Prescott’s sponsor) to local homeless shelters. This is the synthesis of commercialism and philanthropy that the NFL adores.
Yet there won’t only be police and soup. There will also be protest. Residents of the historic Miami Gardens neighborhood along with the Miami-Dade NAACP will be protesting on game day at the site of the Super Bowl, HardRock Stadium, in a fight to stop Formula 1 racing on public streets. The racing circuit has been invited to Miami Gardens by HardRock Stadium and Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. F1 racing has been rejected by numerous communities because of environmental impact and traffic concerns. Ross doesn’t have such concerns about the residents in Miami Gardens, so they will be using the platform of the Super Bowl to fight back.
They won’t be alone. While private planes will be incoming in great numbers, airport workers in Miami will be protesting low wages and expensive health insurance costs with a Super Bowl week hunger strike. They are demonstrating against their employer, the airline catering subcontractor Sky Chefs. Sky Chefs works with, among other entities, American Airlines. Their Union, Unite Here, is currently in negotiations with Sky Chefs for a living wage. One worker, Ibis Boggiano, said to the Herald, “We are sacrificing our health so that they will hear us.”
The demonstration is called “Fast for Our Families.” On Monday, the workers were joined at a press conference by NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, who said, “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that all labor has dignity. Let’s remember, as hundreds of thousands of people descend onto Miami this week, that behind every Super Bowl party and celebration, there are men and women doing the work behind the scenes to be able to feed their families. The NFLPA is proud to stand in solidarity with airline catering this week, and shame on American Airlines for not taking action to make sure they are provided a living wage.”
The Super Bowl more than ever is a microcosm of this country. The super-wealthy will be oozing from one heavily guarded party to the next, while the hungry hope to be seen amid the flashing lights and heard above the ceaseless din.
2016 Redux: Kremlin Warns ‘Chemical Provocation’ Coming As New Fighting Erupts In Aleppo
Amid the ongoing Russian-Syrian military offensive to liberate Idlib province from the al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, suburbs near Aleppo have been scene of intense fighting in recent days, despite government forces liberating the major northern city in December 2016, which marked a turning point in the war.
Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have in recent days and weeks mounted new insurgent attacks on the outskirts of the provincial capital city at a moment the Syrian Army has made huge gains into neighboring Idlib. A key reason Damascus has vowed to retake every inch of Idlib is that for years al-Qaeda has launched terrorist attacks on suburbs of Aleppo from there as civilians and the government attempt to rebuild the largely destroyed urban center.
Aleppo, AFP file image.
This latest renewed fighting in Aleppo appears a concerted effort by Turkey to use its proxy forces to repel and distract the brunt of the Syrian Army offensive on Idlib, considering on Friday President Erdogan warned he’s ready to use military force if Assad doesn’t halt Idlib operations.
Syrian insurgents carried out at least three car bomb attacks against government forces west of Aleppo on Saturday and opened a new front northeast of the city, an attempted fight back after territorial advances by Damascus. — Jerusalem Post
“We will not allow the regime’s cruelty towards its own people, with attacks and causing bloodshed,” Erdogan said. Ankara has been alarmed that hundreds of thousands of civilians are now trying to flee the embattled province toward the Turkish border.
“Turkey with complete sincerity wants Syria’s stability and security, and to this end, we will not shy away from doing whatever is necessary, including using military force.”
Erdogan has also accused Russia of violating key agreements for a reduction in fighting in Idlib, while Moscow has cited ongoing attacks against its nearby Hmeimim airbase launched by HTS insurgents based in Idlib. Over the past years HTS and affiliate jihadist groups have also attacked civilian areas of western Aleppo.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Erdogan’s charge by pointing out Idlib is a haven for terrorists who launch attacks on civilians as well as Russian and Syrian forces.
Turkey has lately said it is hosting over 3 million Syrian refugees and has demanded that Europe provide more support in the form of backing Erdogan’s ‘safe zone’ plan which seeks to establish a ‘refugee city’ using annexed northern Syrian territory (which the Turkish army has recently wrested from Syrian Kurdish forces backed by the US).
Erdogan has also recently threatened to “open the gates” of millions of refugees on Europe if it doesn’t received political support. Needless to say, we are headed toward the final Syrian war showdown over Idlib.
Just this week the Kremlin warned that anti-government militants in Idlib are planning a major alarming new ‘chemical provocation’ in order to draw in support from external powers like the United States.
Russia’s TASS reported not for the first time that “Terrorists are plotting new chemical attacks to claim once again that chemical weapons are being used on the Syrian territory, Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.”
“We would also like to draw attention to diplomatic notes by the Syrian Arab Republic’s permanent mission to the UN and to media reports about terrorists plotting to organize more provocations and staged chemical incidents in Syria,” the Russian diplomat said.
A United States senator is casting major doubt on the Chinese government’s official story on the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, instead hinting that a biosafety laboratory working with the deadliest pathogens in the world could be the true source.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas dismantled a claim from China’s communist regime Thursday that pinned the coronavirus outbreak on a market selling dead and live animals.
“China claimed — for almost two months — that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market,” Cotton wrote on Twitter.
“That is not the case.”
In a video accompanying his post, Cotton explained that the Wuhan wet market (which Cotton incorrectly referred to as a seafood market) has been shown by experts to not be the source of the deadly contagion.
Cotton referenced a Lancet study which showed that many of the first cases of the novel coronavirus, including patient zero, had no connection to the wet market — devastatingly undermining China’s claim.
“As one epidemiologist said: ‘That virus went into the seafood market before it came out of the seafood market.’ We still don’t know where it originated,” Cotton said.
“I would note that Wuhan also has China’s only bio-safety level four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.”
Watch Cotton’s full comments below.
China claimed—for almost two months—that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market. That is not the case. @TheLancet published a study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the seafood market, including Patient Zero. pic.twitter.com/PdgqgHjkGy
Cotton appears to be referring to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the country’s foremost virus research facility.
The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, which is part of the institute, is located only 20 miles from the Wuhan wet market, the “official” source of the outbreak according to China.
Snakes, bats and other animals were identified as possible originators for the coronavirus in early investigations.
The rapid spread of the virus, which makes previous contagions like SARS and swine flu look benign by comparison, seems to lend weight to the theory that the novel coronavirus is a tailored bioweapon.
Ten days ago, China reported less than 300 had the virus. The country’s latest update now numbers the infected at over 11,000.
An additional 15,000 in China are suspected of having the virus, but a reported lack of test kits prevents the government from giving an accurate number.
When the number of infected was still low, China instituted a wide-reaching quarantine, sealing over 40 million inside cities.
Now, the world appears to be sealing China in.
Russia, Nepal, Mongolia and North Korea have all closed their borders with China. Even more countries are refusing Chinese nationals, including an unprecedented announcement from the administration of President Donald Trump barring entry into America for foreign nationals who have traveled to China.
While the virus has been found in several countries around the world including America, all eyes are now on China as the outbreak there shows no signs of slowing.
Last week, Hillary Clinton dispelled rumors that she might toss her hat in the ring in a “brokered convention” to run against President Trump – telling Varietythat while she has the “urge” to run, she’s “going to support the people who are running now and do everything I can to help elect the Democratic nominee.”
According to The Hill‘s Douglas MacKinnon, however, Clinton may be in negotiations with former Vice President (and current frontrunner) Joe Biden, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or she may try to team up with whoever gets the Democratic nomination.
MacKinnon writes in a Saturday Op-Ed that Clinton “would add the gravitas, delegates and, eventually, millions of votes needed to get them over the finish line on Nov. 5. I am assured that Clinton is on every shortlist for that position,” adding “If I were in Trump’s world, this scenario would send chills down my spine.“
There is no doubt that the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of State once again is raising her profile and stepping back into the spotlight to reengage in political discussions.
One such spotlight was provided by the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. There, aside from commenting on her presidential “urge,” Clinton not only promoted the incredibly flattering four-part Hulu documentary about her, titled “Hillary” — which premiered, coincidently, just 10 days before the Iowa caucus — but she also attended the debut of a documentary about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. –The Hill
Also noted is Clinton’s recent attacks on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), calling him “not a team player” and claiming that people ‘don’t like him’ (for which she was booed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) at a Sanders rally on Friday). Clinton also went after Facebook in lockstep with George Soros, who said that the Silicon Valley giant was conspiring with the Trump reelection campaign to win in November.
Speaking with The Atlantic from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Clinton said that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is an “authoritarian” who “intend[s] to reelect Trump.”
MacKinnon continues:
Beyond that, there is an ultra-positive X factor that Clinton would bring to the 2020 presidential election equation: Bill Clinton. Like him or not, approve of him or not, the former president retains one of the best political minds in the nation and would be a formidable tactician.
The obvious question in all this is: Given her ego, would Hillary Clinton settle for being vice president when she twice was within striking distance of being president? The answer, I’m told, is an emphatic yes. The main reason are as follows.
First, and most pressing, she wants to avenge her embarrassing loss to Trump in 2016. Becoming the running mate of the Democratic nominee would give her carte blanche to hammer the president from one corner of the nation to the other. It’s an assignment she clearly would relish.
Second, she still has a burning desire to make history by attaining a political “first.” If she were the nation’s first female vice president, then she could check that box — and it’s a title no one could ever take from her.
Third, I’m told that Clinton simply is not ready to “ride off into the sunset” and believes she still can make a positive difference, especially for women.
But most of all, her reasons are personal — with the wounds of 2016 still open. –The Hill
Will Clinton team up with Biden, or Bloomberg, or literally anyone to take one more bite at the apple? Only time will tell.
Yesterday, social media giants like Facebook and Twitter, and search engine Google announced their intentions to censor – um, crack down on – so-called “misinformation” about the coronavirus that is spreading across the globe.
Before we get started here, admittedly, there’s some absolutely terrible advice out there about preventing or curing coronavirus. There are some really wild stories about the origin of the virus which may or may not be true. But the issue here is that social media networks are setting themselves up as the arbiters of truth, making it seem as though the rest of us are incapable of separating good information from bad information.
Facebook is taking action.
Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook’s head of health, wrote:
Our global network of third-party fact-checkers are continuing their work reviewing content and debunking false claims that are spreading related to the coronavirus. When they rate information as false, we limit its spread on Facebook and Instagram and show people accurate information from these partners. We also send notifications to people who already shared or are trying to share this content to alert them that it’s been fact-checked.
We will also start to remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations and local health authorities that could cause harm to people who believe them. We are doing this as an extension of our existing policies to remove content that could cause physical harm. We’re focusing on claims that are designed to discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions. This includes claims related to false cures or prevention methods — like drinking bleach cures the coronavirus — or claims that create confusion about health resources that are available. We will also block or restrict hashtags used to spread misinformation on Instagram, and are conducting proactive sweeps to find and remove as much of this content as we can. (source)
So, don’t worry, friends. “Independent fact-checkers” from the Ministry of Truth will protect you from conspiracy theories and false claims.
Maarten Schenk from Lead Stories, a fact-checking organization working with Facebook, scoffed at some of the “conspiracy theories” he’s seen in a comment to CNN.
“It always has to be something sinister,” Schenk said of the conspiracy theorists’ misinformation, which includes false claims that the virus was the creation of a government.
Some people, Schenk said, are “not trusting the narrative about the numbers of deaths and infections.” (source)
To be perfectly honest, whenever someone refers to a particular view as “the narrative” I’m even less likely to trust it than I was before. And I haven’t trusted the numbers coming out of China from the very beginning, as I wrote here.
Google is pushing back “misinformation” in search results.
Google is bumping any site providing perceived “misinformation” back in the search results and putting “authoritative” sources on page one.
A Google (GOOGL) spokesperson pointed CNN Business to policy changes in recent years for Google and its video platform YouTube, which are designed to surface information from authoritative sources at the top of search results. Like Facebook, the company doesn’t wipe false claims from its platforms entirely. (source)
Having been bumped back by Google numerous times in the past, I can tell you, it’s a real blow to inbound traffic when this occurs. While you personally may not use Google, keep in mind that it is the most widely used search engine in the world, with 81.5% of the market share. If they are pushing back information – oh, of course, I mean misinformation – then most folks will never see it.
Twitter is showing people “official channels” first.
According to CNN, Twitter is providing people with the best possible information when they search the coronvirus hashtag.
On Twitter, users searching for “coronavirus”in the US and other countries, including Hong Kong, Brazil, and Australia, are first prompted to visit official channels of information about the virus. In the US, Twitter directs users to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, beneath a bold headline that reads: “Know the facts.”
A Twitter (TWTR) spokesperson told CNN Business on Tuesday that the company has not seen a coordinated increase in disinformation related to the coronavirus. In a blog post Tuesday, the company said it had seen over 15 million tweets about the coronavirus in four weeks. (source)
But of course, as always, it goes further than that.
Last night, Zero Hedge was quickly suspended by Twitter.
I’ve written repeatedly that the best coverage I have seen of the coronavirus has been on Zero Hedge. They’ve done a lot of no-holds-barred reporting and broken numerous stories about the virus and its possible origins. They’ve been careful to be extremely clear about whether something is a question or a statement, and they cite numerous sources for their work.
They’re also not afraid to be controversial.
And this got their account suspended from Twitter last evening.
Shortly after they posted an article about the extremely unusual makeup of this particular coronavirus (based on a scientific study that called the makeup “unlikely to be fortuitous,” their account was suspended. I immediately thought it was because of the article that suggested we could be dealing with a bioweapon, but according to Zero Hedge, it was something else entirely.
Twitter accused them of harassing a guy by posting his (already publicly posted) phone number and workplace. ZH reports:
What appears to have happened is that twitter received a complaint from the website best known for publishing the discredited Steele dossier when no other media outlet would touch it, and making cat slideshows of course, Buzzfeed, in which someone called Ryan Broderick writes that Zero Hedge “has released the personal information of a scientist from Wuhan, China, falsely accusing them of creating the coronavirus as a bioweapon, in a plot it said is the real-life version of the video game Resident Evil.” (source)
By all means, Twitter should certainly take the word of someone who works for a site best known for quizzes to help you figure out what kind of potato you really are to delete a news organization’s account.
It’s also important to note that ZH didn’t post anything personal that wasn’t already publicly made available by the subject of the article himself.
…we did not release any “personal information”: Peng Zhou (周鹏) is a public figure, and all the contact information that we presented was pulled from his publicly posted bio found on a website at the Wuhan Institute of Virology which anyone with access to the internet can pull from the following URL: http://sourcedb.whiov.cas.cn/zw/rck/201705/t20170505_4783973.html, which is also the information we used. (source)
So who do you want filtering information for you?
While I have seen a lot of terrible advice – drink bleach or a bottle of vinegar to “cure” coronavirus, use this essential oil and you’ll never get coronavirus, simply cut an onion in half and leave it in the room and it will absorb the coronavirus cooties, and much more quackery – I still don’t believe that social media networks and search engines should be able to filter what people see. We are (allegedly) free individuals who can think for ourselves.
Shouldn’t we be able to decide what we believe and what we don’t without information being engineered to fit a narrative? Shouldn’t we be able to base our pandemic preparedness plan on all the information out there?
Instead, we’re provided with “narratives” and biased information. That’s something we here at The Organic Prepper have warned about repeatedly. If you can’t trust your intel, it makes it difficult to make informed decisions.
This just makes it seem like there’s something to hide.
If anything, this crackdown on any alternative views, treatments, or theories makes me even more suspicious because it’s a clearcut case of Propaganda 101.
Propaganda is information that is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented.
Propaganda is often associated with material prepared by governments, but activist groups, companies, religious organizations, the media, and individuals can also produce propaganda. (source)
Whenever you see some pop-up or some “correction of misinformation” the first thing you should do is ask yourself, is what are they trying to hide? It may legitimately be bad advice (like that whole drinking bleach thing) but it may also be something more sinister.
I don’t know about you, but now I’m even more curious and doubtful about the “narrative” than I was before. What is it, really, that they don’t want the rest of us to know?
Super (Inflation) Bowl: Ticket Prices Soar To Highest In 5 Years
Tickets for this year’s installment of the Super Bowl played on Sunday in Miami are reselling at higher prices than last year. Still, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, tickets purchased on the secondary market for any Super Bowl Game come at a high premium, as data from vendor TicketIQ shows.
The average price of a ticket is currently at US$8,264, up from “only” US$4,972 last year. Secondary ticket prices are expected to rise in price until game day.
Another year on record when resold tickets were especially pricey was 2015. According to TicketIQ, prices may vary depending on how many tickets are released to the public each year, whether competing teams come from wealthier cities and even on how easy it is for fans to reach the Super Bowl from their respective home towns. While 3,000 tickets were available on the market on Jan 29, those numbers were significantly lower in 2018, driving up prices.
But while ticket prices are soaring, we are reminded that last year’s Super Bowl had the lowest viewership since 2008…
