Posts by Voland's right hand

Nothing to see here folks, sorry that the curtain got lifted a little,

Indeed.

Also, while we know how much did Facebook "Shared and Cared", how much did UK Department of Defence, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ share. After all this lovely, moral and proper company called Cambridge Analytica had List X access courtesy of its parent company being List X cleared:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/mod-cambridge-analytica-parent-company-scl-group-list-x

It is so improper and unfair. Such persecution of the tool we use to f*** up the democratic process elsewhere. No, we never ever rig other country's elections. Spare the thought...

Re: Hmm...

Both regimes have ALLWAYS been evil bastards, this however has never stopped us accepting their money, nor taking their help to win political power (and some extra cash)

Err.. Let me fix it for you: ALL regimes have ALLWAYS been evil bastards, this however has never stopped us accepting their money, nor taking their help to win political power (and some extra cash)

If you think that the other participants like the Al Qaeda offshoots on Qatari and Sauid payroll, Turks and their arab puppets, our own puppets from the Iraqi side, Hezbollah, Iran, etc are any better you are very wrong.

The only sympathy we should have in the whole conflict should be with the YPG - the Kurds. They are the ONLY ones that have a value system which is even remotely comparable to ours. Yeah, I know, bad for inter-NATO member relations. Even worse to naso-rectal orientation to our primary gas and oil suppliers and primary Eurofighter shoppers.

Re: What about WhatsApp et. al?

Whether they gave up keys or not is unknown.

Two different cases. A request for keys prior to Yarova law has to go through court and be accompanied by a court order. The law which says you have to give you keys to FSB directly without a court order will be fully on the books on the 1st of July..

The request by FSB is dated 19th of July 2016. It was done right after the law which entitles them to the keys (similar to UK RIPA) was voted for, but before the law came into force. It actually came into force on the 20th. So actually, as the law is not retrospective Durov has an excellent case. Once this gets to the constitutional court he will win hands down (only to get a fresh request with which he will have to comply or fight again in court).

The law in question is the so called Yarova(*) law - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD_%D0%AF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B9

It is literally what Amber Rudd is advocating for to the letter. Someone has copied someone's else homework and is not confessing to being a plagiarist.

Coming back to unknown - it is known. Everyone who is not shut down has complied with requests after the 20th of July 2016. To put it simply FSB f***ed up this one. They were too busy celebrating their win.

There is an even more interesting twist here. The FSB asks for the keys, but DOES NOT ASK for the content of the messages. That is subject to a separate request based on mandatory data retention requirements (similar to the ones which are in force in UK and most of the Eu) and has to be specific to messages/subjects/etc. So this is not even a blanket decryption request. From that perspective, Amber is asking for much more - she has improved while copying Yarova's homework.

(*)_{This bimbo is quite a character. She went from one of the long legged Nemtsov opposition cheerleaders to something that will give Paul Dacre a boner - way right of Atilla the Hun and to the right of most of Putin's party. Did she beyond simply cheerleading and looking pretty next to Nemtsov we will never know, but IMHO it carries all the tell tale signs of " Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned" (I know, not Shakespear, Congreve)}

Re: Can you stop repeating Boris shite

If you ask any Mol Biol graduate

Final addition - if you wanted Po it was used in material sciences. A couple of blocks down the road from where I did my MSc. They had a selection of alpha emitters. We were envious - they did not have our issue of the isotopes being good only for a week or two after they are out of the reactor as we did with Phosphorus. You are right - Po is useful for a few years.

Not sure what they would have traded it for, but there is a very good saying in an Emil Costurica film about those days: "As our Bulgarian friends say, what cannot be bought with money can be bought with a lot of money".

In any case - it is a moot question now as all of the labs which suffered from the great Eastern European recession are either closed or properly funded. So the trade in "stuff I need to get my work done" is dead and has been dead for nearly a decade.

So I will repeat - Steele statement about Litvinenko and state only capabilities is full of shit. So full that even the Victorian wonders of shit transportation will fail to transport it.

Re: Can you stop repeating Boris shite

Polonium 210

Oh cut the crap. I worked for 4 years in molecular biology in the days when the only marking technologies were radioactive phosphorus (which has significantly shorter half-life than Po) and radioactive tritium. I have personally couriered traded phosphorus between labs in those days. Yes - I am happy to produce a written statement that it was not uncommon to transport enough radioactive phosphorus to snuff a small city on public transport in Eastern Europe. I am also happy to produce a similar statement on the trading in reagents and isotopes. If you ask any Mol Biol graduate from those parts and those days they will tell you the same. I wonder why... Steele never bothered to ask any of us - probably because it was not fitting his pre-determined conclusion.

So as someone who has actually worked with isotopes THERE, I can sign under a written testimony that Steele's conjecture is utterly full of shit. Please do some work to the same extent then talk rubbish (I know - difficult now as most of these have been replaced by chemical markers, the tech is now obsolete).

As far as Novichok - for reasons outside my control I did not finish my SECOND MSc in mol biol, but I did finish the FIRST which was chemistry and included phosphoroorganics in my MSc work. If you would have said this about VX, Sarin, Soman, Tabun - yes. I would have countersigned this.

Those need state resources to synthesise because they will get through any crack in the apparatus and some of the reagents do not get along with glass very well.

The key idea of Novichok is to make that unnecessary. It is specifically designed so that the reagents are relatively safe to synthesize, handle and can be made in any moderately advanced lab. Any of the mob labs in Russia which work on Spice, especially the ones which work on circumvention of their rather draft drug law and try new compounds can synthesize the compounds.

Re: Can you stop repeating Boris shite

A couple of more things - I found a couple of transcripts of the interview which I did not see in full. Sorry not in English and most of them are way too abridged: Like this one

The summary including bits I did not see as I was in/out of meetings:

1. The discovery date is not what the professor we cart out claims - it is back to the early 1970-es. The politically persecuted media darling we cart out when we need an expert opinion improved stuff around the synthesis and binary compound generation. He did not invent it (interesting...).

2. Samples were available in the Eastern block way before the dates floated so far (!?!). I did not see this bit so I cannot tell if this includes the synthesis improvements produced by the media darling emigre or just the raw compound.

3. There is a correction to the Brigo Asparuhov poisonining - he used that as an example of toxicology doing its job. It is not 100% proven what was in the cocktail he got besides the "carrier" which was CCl₄. He did get deep-sixed pretty bad though - it is 1992 so pre-internet.

Re: Can you stop repeating Boris shite

Maybe he meant Litvinenko?

1. Anon will not help you if the denizens of Kensington and Chelsea decide you are in the way.

2. Litvinenko's day job was preparing dossier (wtf is the plural) similar to the one about the Orange Baboon pissing on Russian hookers produced by Steele. The difference was that these were tied up to investment opportunities in Russia. He did the due diligence on these and most of them were in the 500M+ range. If you have spoiled something like this by producing graphic depictions of a boardroom orgy, being anonymous will not help you - I would not sell you life insurance. While there is some (not much) legit money in Russia now, 10+ years ago it was a mob state. Mob does not like being crossed. Did the mob work with the state or without is an open question. The inquiry never produced any public evidence besides the conjecture that only a state has access to radioactive materials (which is bulshit).

Re: What about WhatsApp et. al?

If it is at the moment it is not the the law discussed on el reg - it is a legal intercept court order.

The one referred to by el reg in the article is different. It was drafted by the Nemtcov ex-cheerleeder bimbo who went all patriotic the moment she "stopped being fresh enough" to grace Nemtcov's presence (Shakespeare is right, there is no wrath as woman scorned). So she has now swallowed Stalin and is located in the political spectrum somewhere right of Atilla the Hun.

THAT LAW goes into force 1st of July 2018. We are not there yet. Once it is in force, it will have to be contested separately as it is against their constitution. And it will.

Can you stop repeating Boris shite

Your comment is deliberately off topic and deliberately bringing the un-related Skripal case, but I will bite.

Can you stop repeating Boris shite and tying the two cases together. Your comment is a good example how the UK press is following the propaganda line and brain washing everyone to think that Vlad cooks children on a neurotoxic gas burner and eats them for breakfast. I suggest perusing some sources alternative to the daily fail for both cases.

There was an excellent interview with the ex-head of Toxicology at the Bulgarian Central Military Teaching Hospital on Bulgarian prime TV yesterday, I could not see all of it as I was in/out of conference calls but here is the summary order by the scale of "interesting" (not chronological). The guy interviewed has held the highest chemical weapon related clearance possible in both Warsaw pact and NATO. He knew what he was talking about (something none of the idiots we cart out does).

1. It is not the first use of Novichok on NATO territory for an attempted assassination. This lovely character nearly got snuffed (sorry, in Bulgarian, there is no English version - the summary is Mob connected ex-security forces from soviet days politician of supposedly reddish persuasion). They got him in time and he is alive and kicking and still appearing on the BG political scene from time to time. The case was more than 10 years ago.

2. The darling "inventor" (the one BBC, Faux, etc keep carting out) claims should be taken with a large pinch of salt (exactly as I said looking at the leaked formula a few days back). It is just yet another agricultural poison and:

2.1. It was being tested in Uzbekistan exactly because that region gets at least 2-3 Biblical scale Locust outbreaks per year. It was also developed for that specific purpose.

2.2. It is nowhere as dangerous as claimed, antidotes are known and Bulgaria's SoPharma was both manufacturing and exporting them in both Warsaw Pact days and later during NATO times.

2.3. The "inventor" got his ticket abroad he can calm down now

3. The whole thing smells fishy - they should be either out of coma or dead by now - this is based on him treating a case of attempted murder using this more than a decade ago.

I am going to leave the fact that Julia has left a trail of Novichok at least 24 prior to the incident out of it as well as what does that potentially mean.

So going back from off topic to the case at hand.

A. There will be NO other decision until the case reaches the constitutional court. The law is actually against RF constitution which has an extension to their equivalent of the 4th amendment. The sanctity of communication privacy is an unalienable constitutional right over there. However, it is napoleonic law. Law says, court does. No interpretation of constitutionality as it is outside their remit.

B. Durov is taking it all the way there and the results will be interesting.

C. This is not the first time a similar case has been in the courts. Multiple previous cases of search orders against VK, mail.ru, etc have been contested, appealed and in all cases FSB has lost. All of the people to contest the order are pretty much alive which is not surprising. You do not get radioactive or neurotoxic tea if you piss off the FSB. You do get that (for sure too) if you double cross the mob including the one that lives in Kensington and Chelsea borough of Londongrad.

D. If it was UK, Durov would be in jail already as there is no way to contest a RIPA warrant. Viva la democracy (as defined and exemplified by Josephina Vissarionovna May and Amber Yezhova).

Re: Warrants

That legislation already exists. The police can do a proper data freeze raid already. What is needed is a search warrant.

The issue here is different. The powers that be deliberately turned a blind eye on the activities of a company because it has been repeatedly useful to "us" in influencing public opinion in various places where we would like to interfere in the democratic process. They conveniently forgot that CA are a private company and will tout for and get business in addition to the government approved election interference contracts.

While the US and UK governments were turning a blind eye (they could have found a reason for a search warrant ten times by now), the journalists did their job. They actually did some proper investigative journalism of value to the society as a whole. Hallelujah, the profession and the idea of free press are not fully dead yet. There is some twitching observed in the rotting corpse and let's hope it is not the putrification gas escaping from it.

As a result the CPS, the Data Protection commissioner and everyone else got caught bang in the middle of turning a blind eye on CA activities. This is the reason for all the panicky motions by each and every one of them. They are pretending to do something while ensuring that CA has enough time to get rid of any incriminating evidence.

There is a lesson in this - there is sh*t which you do not outsource. Ever. If you do it is guaranteed to hit the fan later on. Similarly, an information "soldier of fortune" is a soldier of fortune none the less. We have been through this during the "private run" wars in Africa and Latin America in the 70-es and 80-es. We should have learned the lesson (and applied it).

Re: Back slap

Been following this for a very long time and nice to see it come to fruition.

Same here. I was one of the first ones to post references to CA on El reg. At the time I got downvoted into oblivion.

Oh well, it is nice to see chickens flying home to roost while having diarrhea.

Re: Should be interesting to hear their excuses

My gut feeling: I hope Nix and his pals like porridge.

Maybe. Served on a silver plate on a superyacht in the Mediterranean. There is no way in hell they will get any punishment for this. The amount of kompromat they hold on the powers that be will prevent it.

Re: Should be interesting to hear their excuses

The one caught red handed?

No. Red Headed. And nose pierced.

Re: Too Late

state actor's equivalent State Security organisation

They are the ultimate pinnacle of outsourcing government contracts. Even State Security jobs are now outsourced.

Re: Is this Cambirdge Analyitca a Russian Company?

Properly speaking, the cold war was won by Reagan starting so many absurdly expensive weapons programmes(*)

You are mistaking the DEFEAT of the Soviet Union with the WIN when it fell. These two events while coinciding in time were not exactly the same.

When the USSR fell over, its economic state was on par with Germany post-WW1. As a result we could have seen an unbridled dictatorship emerge there and then and it came very very close twice:

Once in 1991 and 1993. If you think Putin is bad you really need to read up on Yanaev, Rutskoi and Lebedev.

However, on the overall the LIBERAL values won. Today's Russia after all of our work to push it as far to the right as possible as a blowback is a result of that. It is significantly more liberal than a Yanayev USSR v2.0 or Rutskoi or Lebedev Russian empire v2 would have been.

(*)_{You are describing the symptom, not the root cause. The root cause was Suslov or someone at his level in Politburo (if memory serves me right) noticing circa 1975 that the central banks around the Warsaw pact are borrowing based on actual economical metrics and ignoring the sanctity of the 5 year economic plans. From there on the banks were mandated to borrow based on the planned economic metrics in the plans (mostly sucked out of a finger). The results of this could be seen across the Warsaw pact. Russian 20% GDP weapon spend, Bulgaria paving the pedestrianized areas of all regional centers with marble and building a "culture palace" monstrousity in each, etc. The symptoms differed, but the root cause was the same - borrowing based on predicted (aka planned) economic metrics not actual. I am not going to make any comparisons between that and certain western countries today by the way}

Re: Meh - CA is an advertising agency

What would be the real disaster is if the manipulators create such a climate of distrust that international co-operation stops.

I am pretty sure we are no longer at the stage of "would". We are at the stage were it IS the case.

For example - what was Boris and May fucking problem to give the Russians a sample from Salisbury. We can still drive the same line if we wish, but we are not perceived as someone who has insufficient evidence or is trying to conceal or doctor evidence to fit a specific agenda.

In fact, giving it to the Russians put them into a lose-lose situation: An answer of "no, it is not ours, our signature is different" would have been an immediate: "What signature, you claimed you destroyed all of it". The biggest mistake they made was asking for it.

As I have said before - there is no bigger and scarier weapon than the truth. People should learn to use it. Yeah, I know, it is a difficult thing for pathological liars like Boris or GoveNoccio.

Re: Is this Cambirdge Analyitca a Russian Company?

Reading such nonsense removes you ability to reason.

Reading neocon nonsense instead of reading Santayana leads to the same results.

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

It was the LIBERAL values which won the cold war. If the East had the choice of Cambridge Analytica 1984 + Treasonous May surveillance state versus Brezhnev + Suslov 1984 and Honeker surveillance state they would have stayed with the old familiar.

I do remember those time pretty well too - I observed them from a close vantage point on the other side of the wall. Sure, we were young and idealistic then, but that does not change the core motive forces behind what happend.

Re: Meh - CA is an advertising agency

Also, why can the Russian Ad agencies throw an election, but not the US ones?

Because they are the all-powerful enemy that eats children, cooks using neural toxic gas and sets what the election should be in their free time.

BOLLOCKS... The Hypocritical nature of the debate has no limits and we have become THEM. Of old. Of the Suslov and Brezhnev times. We are now no different.

People forget what really screwed the Eastern Block and delivered the fall of the wall. Sure, the superweapon race, the war in Afghanistan, the ridiculous economic mismanagement, etc had their role. They, however were not the key winners. The key winners were the truth versus fake news and propaganda.

When Chernobyl blew up, it was only the western media which delivered some resemblance of truth. The media in the Eastern block lied like mad for weeks. That was not one off - it was a daily thing. As a result people stopped believing anything the rulers told them. It was the total mistrust of everyone (regardless of their political views) which made the Eastern Block fold so easily. The west HAD the high moral ground. The Soviets were perceived as a bunch of lousy liars. We have forgotten that. We have forgotten that there is no more powerful weapon, but the truth.

Instead of that we now cook fake news to our heart's content and paint the opponent in "they eat children" colors. Our signature today is Boris the Bollocker.

I bet that they have to call an exorcist to the Kremlin wall internment and Novodevichie semetery on a regular basis because the like of Suslov and Brezhnev are giggling in their graves so loudly that you can hear them from a mile away.

They giggle at the way we bend and hide truth. They giggle at the way we erode the rights which we claimed as fundamental (and which was one of the main arguments which won the Cold War). While they giggle, Comrade Eric Honeker gravestone keeps on cracking all over from him having a boner while observing how Treasonous May is implementing his dream surveillance state (he never had a sense of humor so expecting him to just giggle is a tall order)

Re: Fake News!!

they would have managed to make a big matrix

That would have dropped their advertising revenues considerably. It is difficult to judge by how much, but an educated guesstimate of 50% would not be that far off.

Re: Intel? Embedded?

The other thing is, the entertainment system is outdated in a couple of years,

Not so sure about that. They more or less settled on Android of sorts which ties them up to the obsolescence curve of a handset. The obsolescence of these has slowed down dramatically - you are looking to a 4+ years run on the current 6-8 core mid-range crop.

The ECU, brakes, etc will not run under a hypervisor to start with - way too realtime to allow even the slightest chance of someone else hogging a resource. The cost savings from running it on a single SoC instead of having dedicated controllers strung up by cambus as we do today does not recoup the additional testing, verification, development and risk costs.

As far as the infotainment - you do not need a hypervisor. At all. All infotainment, navigation and even some comfort level car related tasks like the climate control display can run in containers - they do not need hypervisor level separation. The only thing you get from a hypervisor are overheads.

So I do not see exactly what is the purpose for that in automotive in the first place. Other applications like industrial... Maybe. But that is so niche that throwing more CPU at it to run it in KVM is less costly than keeping a dedicated embedded hypervisor up to date.

This sort of stuff makes

No it does not. Us going into full sanctions mode without providing a shred of evidence - 100% does. It supports the "victimization complex" he has been building there for the last 20 years.

Re: Meh

Give me money! I want money! More money! Money money money! Who is going to piss more money on meeeeee? How about no.

Money is like manure. You have to spread it make beautiful new things grow.

This is especially valid as far as education, science and R&D.