Fake News, At The End Of The Golden Trail

[LaurieAG]

Earlier on today I did an hour or so of research on Google and I followed the golden trail as far as I could and came across a global data mining exercise and fake news operation that puts Facebook and Cambridge Analytica well and truly in the shade. As it turns out I went around full circle to come to the end of the trail and further reinforce my initial concerns. I have posted this in Political Sciences as it is a good example of what political analysts will have to look out for in future if they just don't want to swallow everything that seems to suit their purposes.

 

I was looking at the details available for the Australian AWACS aircraft (Boeing 737 AEW&C) as Australia is providing these aircraft to surveil North Korean ship movements from a US air base in Japan and I discovered that Turkey and South Korea also had taken delivery of the exact same AWAC aircraft. While I have no doubts with regards to the integrity, competence and honesty of the RAAF pilots and operators involved I was more concerned over any weak links in the chain i.e. the communications links as all the equipment and the links were US designed or under US control and the market owners of the US Industrial Military complex have the most to lose in a real declared peace between North and South Korea, or other countries for that matter. 

 

While looking into Turkish involvement during the Syrian Civil War, after it was supplied with it's first Boeing 737 AEW&C, I read that a Turkish reconnaissance (US) F-4 Phantom jet was shot down over Syria by what could have been either a Russian ship based system, a Syrian Anti aircraft battery or by a Syrian militia with an air to ground MANPADS system depending on what you read. One interesting thing is that the flight paths supplied by the Syrian government and Turkey varied wildly, Syria claimed they had given numerous warnings which were not heeded by the pilot while the Turkish military said their jet had received no communications. There were also various endings for the two pilots from being killed outright to being captured and tortured by the Russians/Syrians depending on what you read. This jet was not included in the Wikipedia page on the Syrian civil War when I looked. 

 

Later, after Russia openly joined the war on the Syrian side, a Russian jet was shot down by Turkey and another was shot down by anti Syrian government militia, HTS or al Qaeda in Syria, using a MANPADS system depending on what you read. The Washington Post reported that HTS, a non government rebel group, either captured and killed or were killed and blown up by the pilot, once again depending on what you read in other articles. The US military said it was concerned that any of the other parties would obtain such weapons in Syria even though there are many references available for US covert operations supplying 1000 US stinger MANPADS to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan to fight the Russian forces there in the past.  

 

While these incidents are an unusual and a perplexing baptism of fire, for the Turkish Boeing 737 AEW&C aircraft in actual combat operations, the MANPADS systems have a long history from the original Panzerfaust in WW2 as there are many different countries making them from the US to North Korea. The Netherlands based Oryx Blog by Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans (both nom de plumes) appears to be the worlds foremost experts on Islamic State, Estonia and North Korea among others and their armaments and sources, from all around the world. They even have inside information on North Korean MANPADS in Syria, allegedly captured by the Free Syria Army, previously associated with Jaish al Islam who were photographed with South Korean MANPADS at their Ksesh airbase in 2014, and the White Hats organisation who were set up by an ex UK intelligence/mercenary and who have been accused for a long time of faking the results of gas attacks in Syria. 

 

If you look up the Urban dictionary you will find that ORYX is, a demon like creature that commands an army of minions of the shadows that consumes them and takes their form, which is a reference to the Taken King in the online MMORPG game called Destiny. If you look up the nom de plumes of the authors of this blog you will find out that Stijn is a form of Niklas and Mitzer has a meaning to abuse other peoples kindness or a mean grasping person. If you look up Oliemans you will find it is Dutch based Afrikaans for worker or follower of petroleum and Joost was a failed P2P internet television station set up by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis in 2007 to 2008 that failed in 2009. 

 

Now the failure of Joost didn't hurt Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis because, while their Kazaa music file sharing program also failed in the late 2000's, they were the original developers of Skype and had sold their program to eBay in 2003 for billions and Friis retained a share in the company that sold it to Microsoft later on. They are both billionaires in their own right and they split from their long term partnership in 2012. While Zennstrom is Swedish and Friis is Danish, Friis started up a partnership with one of the other developers of Skype, an Estonian called Ahti Heinla, in a later automated delivery robot project, and the UK intelligent services have fears of a Russian nerve gas attack in Estonia similar to what was alleged in Salisbury by UK intelligence and in Syria by the White Hats. While the 3 people mentioned above, who were involved in the development of Skype, would have no knowledge of these events or participate in the ORYX Blog, the methodology used has been studied and the similarities are intended to lead a false trail away from the real criminal(s).

 

It was later discovered that both Kazaa and Skype contained backdoors (even MS missed it for a while) that could allow unauthorised program installation and access to information collection/fabrication and subsequent fake news distribution of a scale only envisioned by Facebook or Cambridge Analytica and many others in the present day. The Oryx blog, with its quite impeccably detailed understanding of all the dirty goings on in the dark web, must have access to some sort of backdoor data consolidator tool that enables it to behave like a 'demon like creature that commands an army of minions of the shadows that consumes them and takes their form' that could be used to fraudulently take the form of others and, while probably formed to initially gather information for legitimate purposes, it has been twisted to fabricate further information that is patently not true i.e. the source of the fake news epidemic flowing to intelligence/news agencies around the world today. The Netherlands, home to the International Court of Justice, is the perfect place for this duplicitous piece of filth to hide as all the real internet criminals these days hang around the legitimate intelligence services as they subcontract to foreign nations and behave like rats leaving a trail of filth around the doors while trying to get into the pantry. 

 

So finally, coming around full circle on the golden trail, and as the US has employed criminals to do their legitimate work at home and around the globe, I have no confidence that the brave, competent and honourable pilots and system operators in the RAAF or the Canadian Air Force, will not be used to put a legitimate front on a concocted 'in transit and before/after the real event' fabrication, in their communications links, of an incident that will be intended to derail the Korean peace process, as other similar exercises around the world have been similarly derailed. I hope they verify everything visually, identify their location and any infringing coordinants via third party equipment and record their observations manually before taking any action just to be doubly certain and providing a reliable audit trail. I don't blame the US military either as they are being taken advantage of just like everybody else in this whole sordid worldwide affair.

 

As Maxwell Smart always said, if only they could have used their genius for niceness instead of evil.

Edited April 28, 2018 by LaurieAG

[LaurieAG]

Today my states Sunday newspaper has revealed that Australia will be sending P-8A Poseidon aircraft to help stop North Korean ships evading international economic sanctions. Wikipedia says that the first P-8A was ordered in September and delivered to Australia in November 2016 but I am certain I saw one around February 2016.

 

I was working on a QA job at Ipswich that morning and I had another QA job due to start at 2:00pm in Wulkuraka, near a large RAAF base, so I found a shady tree near the jobsite and had my lunch. I noticed a very similar large grey painted aeroplane (without a large radar array and unlike the white colour shown at delivery) flying by without any markings whatsoever so it certainly attracted my attention, especially as it seemed to be doing flight testing, and I could hear the roar of its engines being put into reverse several times over the hours as I waited for my second QA job. 

 

As a result the RAAF will use another Boeing 737 variant which can work in conjunction with other Boeing 737 variants and utilises a HQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV that succeeds the Global Hawk) to extend the Poseidons surveillance range. While Wikipedia says that UAV is still under development and the RAAF is awaiting delivery, this information may be out of date or the drone will to be supplied by the US in Japan. If it was to be supplied the US airbase in Japan would most likely control the drone as the extended flight time means that any airplane based control would have to land before the drone had completed extended missions of this nature and any Australian QA is unlikely to have occurred. 

 

This RAAF mission will be part of a peacekeeping exercise so it is highly unlikely that the aeroplane, which is primarily a sub/surface vessel hunter, will carry any AGM-84D Harpoon missiles even though they have been around for many years and have a history of hitting unintended targets. That doesn't mean that other linked in systems cannot use the information supplied by the drone to the P-8A Poseidon aircraft or any other Boeing 737 variants in the vicinity, US, South Korean or otherwise. I am not sure if any of the increment 1 or 2 upgrades such as an persistent anti-submarine warfare capabilities, integrated sensor suite, automatic identification system or high altitude anti-submarine weapons etc have been added or tested. 

 

So sending a P-8A Poseidon is probably worse than sending a Boeing 737 AEW&C as the HQ-4C Triton UAV has not undergone any Australian QA, it will effectively be controlled by other parties, there is no real way to verify the intelligence/results it produces independently, and Australia does not have complete control over the command chain or the communications links (and probably not even the US has complete control). Effectively any vessel within range of the UAV, that has the right equipment, can exercise control over the UAV in autonomous mode when the RAAF P-8A is absent due to the drones limited range. If there were any Harpoon missiles on other aeroplanes/ships/submarines linked to this drone they could be deliberately directed to hit unintended targets without anybody being the wiser. The whole thing seems to be more of an open ended political exercise than any quality assured military activity.