dChan
Anonymous ID: 7df923 Aug. 3, 2023, 5:05 p.m. No.19293946   🗄️.is 🔗kun

This makes me happy

3 Aug, 2023 21:20

FBI exposes its own agents in contract probe – NYT

The FBI used code names in its dealings with the offending contractor, suggesting it knew the rules had been broken

 

The FBI has acknowledged it was responsible for a widely-reported violation of US federal policy prohibiting the use of spyware tools manufactured by Israeli vendor NSO Group, best known for thePegasus spyware used to snoop on journalists, human rights activists and other innocent civilians in dozens of countries, the New York Times reported on Monday.

 

After being ordered by the White House in April to investigate which US federal agency violated its executive orders by doing business with the banned vendor, the agency found it was to blame – or rather its contractor, Riva Networks, was.

 

A senior FBI official told the Times the agency had merely given Riva a handful of Mexican phone numbers to track, claiming they were wanted fugitives and that the agency believed Riva was using a geolocation tool of its own devising. Riva, several US officials claimed, had the ability to exploit vulnerabilities in Mexican cellular networks in order to covertly track users.

 

Riva was instead using an NSO spyware tool called Landmark, which tracks the location of individuals based on the cell phone towers their phones are communicating with. Riva had renewed its contract with the Israeli spyware purveyor in 2021 without informing the FBI, the official claimed, explaining the agency had informed all of its contractors that same year that they were forbidden from using NSO products, in keeping with the Biden administration's declaration.

 

The official claimed the FBI only became aware Riva was using Landmark earlier this year, and that no data from Landmark was ever passed back to the agency – based on Riva’s own reports to the FBI, which would presumably not have included any mention of using an illegal spyware tool.

 

Despite the FBI’s pleas of ignorance, the agency had authorized Riva to acquire NSO’s most infamous product, Pegasus, just a few years before. Further throwing the agency’s claims into question, the cover name used for Riva in the Pegasus purchase, Cleopatra Holdings, was used again when Riva purchased Landmark from NSO. Riva CEO Robin Gamble even used the same pseudonym, William Malone, to sign both contracts, two people familiar with the deals told the Times.

 

The FBI is not the only US government agency contracting with Riva; the company has been paid by the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Department of Defense, and several others.The White House did not seem particularly energized to punish the federal contractorfor violating its much-hyped crackdown on zero-click spyware, declining to comment when asked by the Times whether any penalties would be forthcoming.

 

While NSO’s Pegasus was initially prohibited from hacking US numbers, it later developed a workaround called Phantom, which the FBI eagerly snapped up in 2019 but claims to have never used.

 

https://www.rt.com/news/580797-fbi-investigation-contractor-nso-spyware/

Anonymous ID: 7df923 Aug. 3, 2023, 5:09 p.m. No.19293963   🗄️.is 🔗kun

3 Aug, 2023 20:38

Germany repeats objection to long-range missiles for Ukraine

Delivering such weapons to Kiev is not Berlin’s “top priority,” the country’s defense minister has said

 

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Thursday again ruled out delivering sophisticated long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, citing “obvious” concerns over such a move.

 

“We continue to believe that this is not our top priority right now,” Pistorius said while speaking to reporters during a visit to a mountain infantry brigade in Bavaria. Berlin’s concerns over supplying such “special range”weaponry were “obvious,” he said, pointing out Washington’s own reluctance to provide Kiev with longer-range systems.

 

“Our American allies are not delivering these cruise missiles either,” Pistorius stated.

Swedish-German Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missiles are air-launched munitions that boast a massive 500kg warhead and can travel a distance of over 500km (310 miles), according to official data.

 

Berlin has been reluctant to supply Kiev with long-range weaponry despite the repeated demands by top Ukrainian officials. Last month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained that Kiev might use such munitions to strike deep into Russian territory, which would result in a major escalation.

 

“We carefully check all the requests we receive. But for us there is a principle that I share with the US president –we do not want the weapons we supply to be used to attack Russian territories,” Scholz stated.

 

Over the course of the ongoing conflict, which broke out in February 2022, Germany has been among the few Western nations reluctant to meet all of the ever-growing Ukrainian demands for increasingly sophisticated weaponry. Early this year, however, Berlin gave in to mounting pressure and allowed re-exports of German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and also delivered a number of them from its own stocks.

 

Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with assorted weaponry, arguing that doing so will only prolong the conflict and inflict more damage on the country rather than change its ultimate outcome. A significant amount of Western-supplied hardware, including Leopard 2 tanks and US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, has been destroyed in recent weeks after Kiev launched its much-heralded counteroffensive, which has thus failed to yield any tangible result.

 

(Remember Ukraine said they were dumping the NATO war strategy and going back to long range missile warfare?)

 

https://www.rt.com/news/580789-germany-ukraine-missiles-priority/

Anonymous ID: 7df923 Aug. 3, 2023, 5:29 p.m. No.19294055   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4380 >>4465 >>4500

3 Aug, 2023 20:29

Russia points to ICC ‘murder mystery’

The Foreign Ministry in Moscow has pulled back the curtain on British involvement in politicized indictments

 

The UK has destroyed the reputation of the International Criminal Court by outright buying its “war crimes charges” against Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

 

“I love random coincidences in geopolitics. They have a certain kind of flair, just like Agatha Christie [mysteries],” Zakharova wroteon Telegram. The author of the plot with the “politicized and legally null and void” ICC indictments against Putin and children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova is also British, she argued, but “judging by everything, a rookie one.”

 

The Hague-based tribunal issued warrants for the arrest of Putin and Lvova-Belova in March, accusing them of “unlawful deportation of population (children)” from Ukraine.

 

Zakharova offered a sequence of events that, according to her,demonstrate that the government in London was behind the indictments and the warrants. First, the “Anglo lobby” took control of the court, by replacingthe Congolese judge Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua with Oxford graduate Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez of Costa Rica, on February 21.

 

To secure “total control,” however, on the same day the British authorities released from prison Imran Ahmad Khan, a disgraced former member of Parliament convicted of pedophilia, after serving less than half his sentence. He also happens to be the brother of Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the ICC.

 

Khan filed his motion for “arrest warrants” on the following day, February 22. According to Zakharova, “One gets the impression that Khan himself did not believe London and was waiting for confirmation of their promise to release his pedophile brother from prison.”

 

When the judges hesitated, on March 13 London announced a donor conference for the ICC, scheduled for March 20, “transparently hinting to the ICC that if they wanted to see UK funds, they had to show results by that deadline.”

 

“Judges are easy to buy,”quipped Zakharova, noting that the ‘indictments’ were made public four days later. “Decisions by the ICC are a cheap show, entirely bought and paid for with British money.”

 

Moscow has dismissed the ICC warrants as null and void, pointing out that it has no jurisdiction in Russia. Russian authorities have since filed criminal charges against both Khan and the three judges involved in signing the warrants – Godinez, Tomoko Akane of Japan, and Sergio Rosario Salvatore Aitala of Italy.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/580794-zakharova-putin-british-plot/

Anonymous ID: 7df923 Aug. 3, 2023, 5:42 p.m. No.19294132   🗄️.is 🔗kun

3 Aug, 2023 16:39

Apple fined for first time over prohibited content in Russia

The US tech giant has been hit with a $4,200 penalty by a Moscow court

Apple fined for first time over prohibited content in Russia

 

The Tagansky Magistrate’s Court in Moscow has for the first time decided to issue an administrative fine to Apple for failing to delete information prohibited in the Russian Federation, TASS news agency reported on Thursday.

 

According to a verdict delivered by Judge Timur Vakhrameev, Apple Distribution International has been found guilty of committing an administrative offense and has been sentenced to pay a fine of 400,000 rubles ($4,200).

 

The judge noted that the amount the American corporation has been ordered to pay was lowered below the minimum fine for such a violation after taking into account the arguments presented in court by Apple’s legal team.

 

According to court documents presented during the hearing, Apple was accused of failing to remove applications and podcasts that contained incorrect information about Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, as well as information that was “aimed at involving minors in illegal activities in order to destabilize the political situation in the Russian Federation.”

 

While the verdict marks the first time Apple has been held accountable for failing to delete prohibited information in Russia, the American corporation had previously also lost several legal cases related to antitrust violations and been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of rubles in fines.

 

In February, Apple paid a fine of 906 million rubles ($9.6 million) in a lawsuit that was initiated by Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), accusing the tech giant of restricting competition in its AppStore after it “unfairly” rejected Kaspersky Lab’s parental control program.

 

In January, the monopoly watchdog also ordered the tech giant to pay over 1.17 billion rubles ($12.4 million) for muscling developers into removing links to their personal websites and exclusively using payment systems provided by Apple itself.

 

The FAS made similar rulings on Google last year, which was also accused of violating antitrust laws with its Google Play payment rules. However, the tech giant ultimately adhered to the watchdog’s demands and tweaked its policies to be in line with Russian legislation.

 

 

(Seriously the fines in Russia courts are a pittance. I’ve noticed in comparison to EU and US courts, they are a 1,000 to 10,000 times the amount in Russia)

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/580779-russia-fines-apple-prohibited-content/

Anonymous ID: 7df923 Aug. 3, 2023, 5:53 p.m. No.19294220   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4380 >>4465 >>4500

Russia First Policy

3 Aug, 2023 14:31

State officials should use Russian-made cars – Putin

Developing domestic brands must be of the utmost importance, the president has said

 

Russian officials should swap their internationally produced cars for domestic brands to give the country’s industry a boost, President Vladimir Putin has proposed.

 

Speaking at a meeting with leaders of Russia’s manufacturing industries on Thursday, Putin revealed several ministries and other government agencies had asked him to continue procuring foreign cars for administrative use.

 

“I told them that this is absolutely out of the question. All officials in the country should use domestically produced cars,” the president insisted.

 

While recognizing that, in some respects, Russian cars might be “more modest” than their international competitors, Putin noted that this was “not a big deal, on the contrary, it is even better this way.”

 

“All of our magnificent officials must understand that we must strive for the development of domestic brands and cars,” he added.

 

According to Putin, Russia should not reject imports entirely, but the country should be able to produce some basic items on its own.

 

Russia has been on a campaign to phase out foreign imports since 2014, when Western countries first imposed sweeping sanctions after the Crimean peninsula overwhelmingly voted to join Russia following a coup in Kiev. Moscow ramped up its efforts in the sector after being hit with additional Western restrictions over the Ukraine conflict, with Putin claiming in May 2022 that Russia had achieved success in key industry spheres.

 

The new Western restrictions also triggered a mass exodus of foreign carmakers from Russia, with domestic producers also experiencing difficulties due to disruptions in the supply chain. However, according to the Autostat agency, foreign-made cars still dominate the Russian market, with Toyota, Hyundai, and Kia remaining the most popular.

 

That being said, Russian business outlet RBK on Thursday reported that AvtoVaz – the country’s biggest car producer – doubled its sales this year compared to 2022. In June, a senior Russiancustoms official also pointed out that imports of Chinese cars had tripled from January to Maycompared to the same period last year.

 

https://www.rt.com/russia/580771-russian-officials-domestic-cars-putin/