Surveillance

Do you ever talk to yourself when alone? Mutter “good God” when you read a stunning twist of plot in a book or shout “holy shit!” when you open a bill? Do you swear aloud after an argument on the phone? Have you ever threatened a telemarketer after hanging up? Do you struggle with your private thoughts and discuss them with your loved ones at night as is considered healthy? Do you have friends that you discuss your private thoughts and ideas in your home? Does your subconscious cause you to talk in your sleep? Everyone does one or more of these things.

Avid long term readers may remember our last examination of an internet aware sex toy and how it could be used by the NSA to really really invade your privacy. Indeed one avid reader remembered so vividly that they tipped us of to this latest entry of a sex toy into the internet of things, or as we are calling this growing technology sector, the internet of bad bad dirty things. This one is an internet aware, blue tooth enabled buttplug.

When I say word balloon, it evokes birthdays and celebrations or clowns and clever animal like sculptures. For people that are grouped into the marketing bracket called “generation x” it summons memories of a song about love and loss and nuclear war. If one is a student of the history of aviation, one will recall how it was the only way to fly for almost 200 years. If one is a complete whack job that believes in little green men from outer space, one believes that balloons are a hoax to cover up the Roswell incident. In reality, balloons are high technology devices for military use.

On Wednesday February 6th the Vice media machine, through their Motherboard tech news website, released a bombshell report after months of leaks, interviews and documents. The basics were that over 200 different bounty hunters were accessing supposedly 911-only real-time location data on phones of people they were hunting for about $1000 a pop.

A Washington Post Journalist, a dismemberment murder, multiple audio and visual devices in a consulate, a wiretap into the journalist's watch, now lead to a mainstream press narrative that ends with “Who actually cares?” The authoritarian regime of Turkey, equiped with the best placed devices could not or more likely did not intervene to save the life of Jamal Khashoggi. The recordings have been seen by people from multiple intelligence agencies in multiple countries.

Yesterday, October 15th, Google announced a new partnership with privately run and partially state owned French telecom giant Orange to build a new transatlantic cable. Far from being a snub to the Brexit befuddled United Kingdom, the partnership creates a host of new surveillance opportunities in Eastern Europe, Africa, Spain and France itself. This will greatly expand Google's usefulness to global surveillance by the five eyes nations (US, UK, Australia Canada and New Zealand) through their already developing infrastructure level projects.

Republican conspiracy fetishists love to talk about a deep state family without talking about all the corporate cousins. If someone were to discuss the deep state with any level of rigor they would come away with the impression of an interlocking network that includes a vast seas of corporate power within it's globe. When the military industrial complex is mentioned, the focus of overlap examination is on the revolving door between the floors at the top. What is left out when this is considered are the connections between various entities in the banking intelligence complex.

Bloomberg Businessweek broke a major story today, which they split up into three articles so far, about a long term Chinese military intelligence operation that compromised the security of 30 American companies including Apple and Amazon, DoD data centers, and some CIA drone operations. The People's liberation army had somehow managed to sneak a chip with security back doors into the manufacture of servers for large data farms.

Senate Democrats, powerless against a 51 to 49 margin in with Mike Pence ready to be a plus one, have been leaking what documents they think help them discredit Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh's views on contraception and abortion are at the forefront of the narrative they feel is most likely to win the uphill partisan fight they are in.

On Tuesday August 14th, Amy Hess was appointed as the new head of the FBI's Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch.capabilities She previously Executive Assistant Director of Science and Technology. Prior to that she was Special Agent in Charge of the Louisville Office and the head of the FBI's “Citizens Academy” which teaches business leaders about the role of federal law enforcement in society.