Mossad chief Yossi Cohen may become the first top Israeli official to meet new US president Joe Biden amid concerns in Tel Aviv that his administration is set to revive the Obama-era international nuclear pact with Iran.
The head of Israeli secret service and one of PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s most trusted allies, Cohen, is heading to Washington sometime next month to brief the Biden administration on a set of terms regarding any potential nuclear deal with Tehran, Channel 12 reported on Saturday, citing “communications” between Israel and the new US administration.
Cohen is also expected to meet with the CIA chief and once again present an intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, which according to Israelis is secretly aimed at obtaining nukes.
Cohen’s team is reportedly set to demand a “radical overhaul” of the agreement, far more strict for Tehran, including a full halt of uranium enrichment and production of advanced centrifuges. On top of that, Israel wants Iran to stop “supporting terror groups” and “end its military presence in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.”
Iran’s president this week reiterated his country’s willingness to return to the terms of deal, but said it’s up to the Biden administration to make the necessary concessions. Cohen’s team is reportedly set to demand a “radical overhaul” of the agreement, with far more strict commitments from Tehran.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran and the six major global powers in 2015 and put constraints on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions [the Western signatories never honored their commitments since 2015]. Israel lobbied the Obama administration hard against joining the JCPOA, and once Donald Trump took office, continued this effort, this time succeeding in getting Trump to withdraw and reintroduce crippling sanctions against Iran.
Since then, amid ever-escalating tensions with the US while criticizing other JCPOA signatories for their failure to bring Washington to its senses, Tehran chose to gradually renege on their side of the deal too.
In January, Iran began enriching uranium to 20 percent, drifting further away from the parameters of the deal. While higher than the 3.67 percent level agreed in the 2015 pact, the new figure is still below the 90 percent level that is considered weapons-grade.
Iran has also issued a symbolic ultimatum, with an Iranian spokesperson stating that the Biden administration will have one month, until February 21 to reverse sanctions. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is tasked with monitoring Iran’s compliance, warned that time is running out with “only weeks left” to save JCPOA.
January 23, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | CIA, Iran, Israel, United States, Zionism |
3 Comments
The devastating hack on SolarWinds was quickly pinned on Russia by US intelligence. A more likely culprit, Samanage, a company whose software was integrated into SolarWinds’ software just as the “back door” was inserted, is deeply tied to Israeli intelligence and intelligence-linked families such as the Maxwells.
In mid-December of 2020, a massive hack compromised the networks of numerous US federal agencies, major corporations, the top five accounting firms in the country, and the military, among others. Despite most US media attention now focusing on election-related chaos, the fallout from the hack continues to make headlines day after day.
The hack, which affected Texas-based software provider SolarWinds, was blamed on Russia on January 5 by the US government’s Cyber Unified Coordination Group. Their statement asserted that the attackers were “likely Russian in origin,” but they failed to provide evidence to back up that claim.
Since then, numerous developments in the official investigation have been reported, but no actual evidence pointing to Russia has yet to be released. Rather, mainstream media outlets began reporting the intelligence community’s “likely” conclusion as fact right away, with the New York Times subsequently reporting that US investigators were examining a product used by SolarWinds that was sold by a Czech Republic–based company, as the possible entry point for the “Russian hackers.” Interest in that company, however, comes from the fact that the attackers most likely had access to the systems of a contractor or subsidiary of SolarWinds. This, combined with the evidence-free report from US intelligence on “likely” Russian involvement, is said to be the reason investigators are focusing on the Czech company, though any of SolarWinds’ contractors/subsidiaries could have been the entry point.
Such narratives clearly echo those that became prominent in the wake of the 2016 election, when now-debunked claims were made that Russian hackers were responsible for leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Parallels are obvious when one considers that SolarWinds quickly brought on the discredited firm CrowdStrike to aid them in securing their networks and investigating the hack. CrowdStrike had also been brought on by the DNC after the 2016 WikiLeaks publication, and subsequently it was central in developing the false declarations regarding the involvement of “Russian hackers” in that event.
There are also other parallels. As Russiagate played out, it became apparent that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and a foreign power, but the nation was Israel, not Russia. Indeed, many of the reports that came out of Russiagate revealed collusion with Israel, yet those instances received little coverage and generated little media outrage. This has led some to suggest that Russiagate may have been a cover for what was in fact Israelgate.
Similarly, in the case of the SolarWinds hack, there is the odd case and timing of SolarWinds’ acquisition of a company called Samanage in 2019. As this report will explore, Samanage’s deep ties to Israeli intelligence, venture-capital firms connected to both intelligence and Isabel Maxwell, as well as Samange’s integration with the Orion software at the time of the back door’s insertion warrant investigation every bit as much as SolarWinds’ Czech-based contractor.
Orion’s Fall
In the month since the hack, evidence has emerged detailing the extent of the damage, with the Justice Department quietly announcing, the same day as the Capitol riots (January 6), that their email system had been breached in the hack—a “major incident” according to the department. This terminology means that the attack “is likely to result in demonstrable harm to the national security interests, foreign relations, or the economy of the United States or to the public confidence, civil liberties, or public health and safety of the American people,” per NextGov.
The Justice Department was the fourth US government agency to publicly acknowledge a breach in connection to the hack, with the others being the Departments of Commerce and Energy and the Treasury. Yet, while only four agencies have publicly acknowledged fallout from the hack, SolarWinds software is also used by the Department of Defense, the State Department, NASA, the NSA, and the Executive Office. Given that the Cyber Unified Coordination Group stated that “fewer than ten” US government agencies had been affected, it’s likely that some of these agencies were compromised, and some press reports have asserted that the State Department and Pentagon were affected.
In addition to government agencies, SolarWinds Orion software was in use by the top ten US telecommunications corporations, the top five US accounting firms, the New York Power Authority, and numerous US government contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, and the Federal Reserve. Other notable SolarWinds clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, Credit Suisse, and several mainstream news outlets including the Economist and the New York Times.
Based on what is officially known so far, the hackers appeared to have been highly sophisticated, with FireEye, the cybersecurity company that first discovered the implanted code used to conduct the hack, stating that the hackers “routinely removed their tools, including the backdoors, once legitimate remote access was achieved—implying a high degree of technical sophistication and attention to operational security.” In addition, top security experts have noted that the hack was “very very carefully orchestrated,” leading to a consensus that the hack was state sponsored.
FireEye stated that they first identified the compromise of SolarWinds after the version of the Orion software they were using contained a back door that was used to gain access to its “red team” suite of hacking tools. Not long after the disclosure of the SolarWinds hack, on December 31, the hackers were able to partially access Microsoft’s source code, raising concerns that the act was preparation for future and equally devastating attacks.
FireEye’s account can be taken with a grain of salt, however, as the CIA is one of FireEye’s clients, and FireEye was launched with funding from the CIA’s venture capital arm In-Q-tel. It is also worth being skeptical of the “free tool” FireEye has made available in the hack’s aftermath for “spotting and keeping suspected Russians out of systems.”
In addition, Microsoft, another key source in the SolarWinds story, is a military contractor with close ties to Israel’s intelligence apparatus, especially Unit 8200, and their reports of events also deserve scrutiny. Notably, it was Unit 8200 alumnus and executive at Israeli cybersecurity firm Cycode, Ronen Slavin, who told Reuters in a widely quoted article that he “was worried by the possibility that the SolarWinds hackers were poring over Microsoft’s source code as prelude to a much more ambitious offensive.” “To me the biggest question is, ‘Was this recon for the next big operation?’” Slavin stated.
Also odd about the actors involved in the response to the hack is the decision to bring on not only the discredited firm CrowdStrike but also the new consultancy firm of Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos, former chief information security officer of Facebook and Yahoo, to investigate the hack. Chris Krebs is the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and was previously a top Microsoft executive. Krebs was fired by Donald Trump after repeatedly and publicly challenging Trump on the issue of election fraud in the 2020 election.
As head of CISA, Krebs gave access to networks of critical infrastructure throughout the US, with a focus on the health-care industry, to the CTI League, a suspicious outfit of anonymous volunteers working “for free” and led by a former Unit 8200 officer. “We have brought in the expertise of Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos to assist in this review and provide best-in-class guidance on our journey to evolve into an industry leading secure software development company,” a SolarWinds spokesperson said in an email cited by Reuters.
It is also worth noting that the SolarWinds hack did benefit a few actors aside from the attackers themselves. For instance, Israeli cybersecurity firms CheckPoint and CyberArk, which have close ties to Israeli intelligence Unit 8200, have seen their stocks soar in the weeks since the SolarWinds compromise was announced. Notably, in 2017, CyberArk was the company that “discovered” one of the main tactics used in an attack, a form of SAML token manipulation called GoldenSAML. CyberArk does not specify how they discovered this method of attack and, at the time they announced the tactic’s existence, released a free tool to identify systems vulnerable to GoldenSAML manipulation.
In addition, the other main mode of attack, a back door program nicknamed Sunburst, was found by Kaspersky researchers to be similar to a piece of malware called Kazuar that was also first discovered by another Unit 8200-linked company, Palo Alto Networks, also in 2017. The similarities only suggest that those who developed the Sunburst backdoor may have been inspired by Kazuar and “they may have common members between them or a shared software developer building their malware.” Kaspersky stressed that Sunburst and Kazuar are not likely to be one and the same. It is worth noting, as an aside, that Unit 8200 is known to have previously hacked Kaspersky and attempted to insert a back door into their products, per Kaspersky employees.
Crowdstrike claimed that this finding confirmed “the attribution at least to Russian intelligence,” only because an allegedly Russian hacking group is believed to have used Kazuar before. No technical evidence linking Russia to the SolarWinds hacking has yet been presented.
Samanage and Sabotage
The implanted code used to execute the hack was directly injected into the source code of SolarWinds Orion. Then, the modified and bugged version of the software was “compiled, signed and delivered through the existing software patch release management system,” per reports. This has led US investigators and observers to conclude that the perpetrators had direct access to SolarWinds code as they had “a high degree of familiarity with the software.” While the way the attackers gained access to Orion’s code base has yet to be determined, one possibility being pursued by investigators is that the attackers were working with employee(s) of a SolarWinds contractor or subsidiary.
US investigators have been focusing on offices of SolarWinds that are based abroad, suggesting that—in addition to the above—the attackers were likely working for SolarWinds or were given access by someone working for the company. That investigation has focused on offices in eastern Europe, allegedly because “Russian intelligence operatives are deeply rooted” in those countries.
It is worth pointing out, however, that Israeli intelligence is similarly “deeply rooted” in eastern European states both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union, ties well illustrated by Israeli superspy and media tycoon Robert Maxwell’s frequent and close associations with Eastern European and Russian intelligence agencies as well as the leaders of many of those countries. Israeli intelligence operatives like Maxwell also had cozy ties with Russian organized crime. For instance, Maxwell enabled the access of the Russian organized crime network headed by Semion Mogilevich into the US financial system and was also Mogilevich’s business partner. In addition, the cross-pollination between Israeli and Russian organized crime networks (networks which also share ties to their respective intelligence agencies) and such links should be considered if the cybercriminals do prove to be Russian in origin, as US intelligence has claimed.
Though some contractors and subsidiaries of SolarWinds are now being investigated, one that has yet to be investigated, but should be, is Samanage. Samanage, acquired by SolarWinds in 2019, not only gained automatic access to Orion just as the malicious code was first inserted, but it has deep ties to Israeli intelligence and a web of venture-capital firms associated with numerous Israeli espionage scandals that have targeted the US government. Israel is deemed by the NSA to be one of the top spy threats facing US government agencies and Israel’s list of espionage scandals in the US is arguably the longest, and includes the Jonathan Pollard and PROMIS software scandals of the 1980s to the Larry Franklin/AIPAC espionage scandal in 2009.
Though much reporting has since been done on the recent compromise of SolarWinds Orion software, little attention has been paid to Samanage. Samanage offers what it describes as “an IT Service Desk solution.” It was acquired by SolarWinds so Samanage’s products could be added to SolarWinds’ IT Operations Management portfolio. Though US reporting and SolarWinds press releases state that Samanage is based in Cary, North Carolina, implying that it is an American company, Samanage is actually an Israeli firm. It was founded in 2007 by Doron Gordon, who previously worked for several years at MAMRAM, the Israeli military’s central computing unit.
Samanage was SolarWinds’ first acquisition of an Israeli company, and, at the time, Israeli media reported that SolarWinds was expected to set up its first development center in Israel. It appears, however, that SolarWinds, rather than setting up a new center, merely began using Samanage’s research and development center located in Netanya, Israel.
Several months after the acquisition was announced, in November 2019, Samanage, renamed SolarWinds Service Desk, became listed as a standard feature of SolarWinds Orion software, whereas the integration of Samanage and Orion had previously been optional since the acquisition’s announcement in April of that year. This means that complete integration was likely made standard in either October or November. It has since been reported that the perpetrators of the recent hack gained access to the networks of US federal agencies and major corporations at around the same time. Samanage’s automatic integration into Orion was a major modification made to the now-compromised software during that period.
Samanage appears to have had access to Orion following the announcement of the acquisition in April 2019. Integration first began with Orion version 2019.4, the earliest version believed to contain the malicious code that enabled the hack. In addition, the integrated Samanage component of Orion was responsible for “ensuring the appropriate teams are quickly notified when critical events or performance issues [with Orion] are detected,” which was meant to allow “service agents to react faster and resolve issues before . . . employees are impacted.”
In other words, the Samanage component that was integrated into Orion at the same time the compromise took place was also responsible for Orion’s alert system for critical events or performance issues. The code that was inserted into Orion by hackers in late 2019 nevertheless went undetected by this Samanage-made component for over a year, giving the “hackers” access to millions of devices critical to both US government and corporate networks. Furthermore, it is this Samanage-produced component of the affected Orion software that advises end users to exempt the software from antivirus scans and group policy object (GPO) restrictions by providing a warning that Orion may not work properly unless those exemptions are granted.
Samanage, Salesforce, and the World Economic Forum
Around the time of Samange’s acquisition by SolarWinds, it was reported that one of Samanage’s top backers was the company Salesforce, with Salesforce being both a major investor in Samanage as well as a partner of the company.
Salesforce is run by Marc Benioff, a billionaire who got his start at the tech giant Oracle. Oracle was originally created as a CIA spin-off and has deep ties to Israel’s government and the outgoing Trump administration. Salesforce also has a large presence in Israel, with much of its global research and development based there. Salesforce also recently partnered with the Unit 8200-linked Israeli firm Diagnostic Robotics to “predictively” diagnose COVID-19 cases using Artificial Intelligence.
Aside from leading Salesforce, Benioff is a member of the Vatican’s Council for Inclusive Capitalism alongside Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein and the Clintons, and members of the Lauder family, who have deep ties to the Mega Group and Israeli politics.
Benioff is also a prominent member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum and the inaugural chair of the WEF’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), making him one of the most critical players in the unfolding of the WEF-backed Great Reset. Other WEF leaders, including the organization’s founder Klaus Schwab, have openly discussed how massive cyberattacks such as befell SolarWinds will soon result in “even more significant economic and social implications than COVID-19.”
Last year, the WEF’s Centre for Cybersecurity, of which Salesforce is part, simulated a “digital pandemic” cyberattack in an exercise entitled Cyber Polygon. Cyber Polygon’s speakers in 2020 included former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin, WEF founder Klaus Schwab, and IBM executive Wendi Whitmore, who previously held top posts at both Crowdstrike and a FireEye subsidiary. Notably, just months before the COVID-19 crisis, the WEF had held Event 201, which simulated a global coronavirus pandemic that crippled the world’s economy.
In addition to Samanage’s ties to WEF big shots such as Marc Benioff, the other main investors behind Samanage’s rise have ties to major Israeli espionage scandals, including the Jonathan Pollard affair and the PROMIS software scandal. There are also ties to one of the WEF’s founding “technology pioneers,” Isabel Maxwell (the daughter of Robert Maxwell and sister of Ghislaine), who has long-standing ties to Israel’s intelligence apparatus and the country’s hi-tech sector.
The Bronfmans, the Maxwells, and Viola Ventures
At the time of its acquisition by SolarWinds, Samanage’s top investor was Viola Ventures, a major Israeli venture-capital firm. Viola’s investment in Samanage, until its acquisition, was managed by Ronen Nir, who was also on Samanage’s board before it became part of SolarWinds.
Prior to working at Viola, Ronen Nir was a vice president at Verint, formerly Converse Infosys. Verint, whose other alumni have gone on to found Israeli intelligence-front companies such as Cybereason. Verint has a history of aggressively spying on US government facilities, including the White House, and created the backdoors into all US telecommunications systems and major tech companies, including Microsoft, Google and Facebook, on behalf of the US’ NSA.
In addition to his background at Verint, Ronen Nir is an Israeli spy, having served for thirteen years in an elite IDF intelligence unit, and he remains a lieutenant colonel on reserve duty. His biography also notes that he worked for two years at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, which is fitting given his background in espionage and the major role that Israeli embassy has played in several major espionage scandals.
As an aside, Nir has stated that “thought leader” Henry Kissinger is his “favorite historical character.” Notably, Kissinger was instrumental in allowing Robert Maxwell, Israeli superspy and father of Ghislaine and Isabel Maxwell, to sell software with a back door for Israeli intelligence to US national laboratories, where it was used to spy on the US nuclear program. Kissinger had told Maxwell to connect with Senator John Tower in order to gain access to US national laboratories, which directly enabled this action, part of the larger PROMIS software scandal.
In addition, Viola’s stake was managed through a firm known as Carmel Ventures, which is part of the Viola Group. At the time, Carmel Ventures was advised by Isabel Maxwell, whose father had previously been directly involved in the operation of the front company used to sell bugged software to US national laboratories. As noted in a previous article at Unlimited Hangout, Isabel “inherited” her father’s circle of Israeli government and intelligence contacts after his death and has been instrumental in building the “bridge” between Israel’s intelligence and military-linked hi-tech sector to Silicon Valley.
Isabel also has ties to the Viola Group itself through Jonathan Kolber, a general partner at Viola. Kolber previously cofounded and led the Bronfman family’s private-equity fund, Claridge Israel (based in Israel). Kolber then led Koor Industries, which he had acquired alongside the Bronfmans via Claridge. Kolber is closely associated with Stephen Bronfman, the son of Charles Bronfman who created Claridge and also cofounded the Mega Group with Leslie Wexner in the early 1990s.
Kolber, like Isabel Maxwell, is a founding director of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation. Maxwell, who used to chair the center’s board, stepped down following the Epstein scandal, though it’s not exactly clear when. Other directors of the center include Tamir Pardo, former head of Mossad. Kolber’s area of expertise, like that of Isabel Maxwell, is “structuring complex, cross-border and cross industry business and financial transactions,” that is, arranging acquisitions and partnerships of Israeli firms by US companies. Incidentally, this is also a major focus of the Peres Center.
Other connections to Isabel Maxwell, aside from her espionage ties, are worth noting, given that she is a “technology pioneer” of the World Economic Forum. As previously mentioned, Salesforce—a major investor in Samanage—is deeply involved with the WEF and its Great Reset.
The links of Israeli intelligence and Salesforce to Samanage, and thus to SolarWinds, is particularly relevant given the WEF’s “prediction” of a coming “pandemic” of cyberattacks and the early hints from former Unit 8200 officers that the SolarWinds hack is just the beginning. It is also worth mentioning the Israeli government’s considerable ties to the WEF over the years, particularly last year when it joined the Benioff-chaired C4IR and participated in the October 2020 WEF panel entitled “The Great Reset: Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
Start Up Nation Central, an organization aimed at integrating Israeli start-ups with US firms set up by Netanyahu’s longtime economic adviser Eugene Kandel and American Zionist billionaire Paul Singer, have asserted that Israel will serve a “key role” globally in the 4th Industrial Revolution following the implementation of the Great Reset.
Gemini, the BIRD Foundation, and Jonathan Pollard
In addition to Viola, another of Samange’s leading investors is Gemini Israel Ventures. Gemini is one of Israel’s oldest venture-capital firms, dating back to the Israeli government’s 1993 Yozma program.
The first firm created by Yozma, Gemini was put under the control of Ed Mlavsky, who Israel’s government had chosen specifically for this position. As previously reported by Unlimited Hangout, Mlavsky was then serving as the executive director of the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation, where “he was responsible for investments of $100 million in more than 300 joint projects between US and Israeli high-tech companies.”
A few years before Gemini was created, while Mlavsky still headed BIRD, the foundation became embroiled in one of the worst espionage scandals in US history, the Jonathan Pollard affair.
In the indictment of US citizen Pollard for espionage on Israel’s behalf, it was noted that Pollard delivered the documents he stole to agents of Israel at two locations, one of which was an apartment owned by Harold Katz, the then legal counsel of the BIRD Foundation and an adviser to Israel’s military, which oversaw Israel’s scientific intelligence-gathering agency, Lekem. US officials told the New York Times at the time that they believed Katz “has detailed knowledge about the [Pollard] spy ring and could implicate senior Israeli officials.”
Subsequent reporting by journalist Claudia Wright pointed the finger at the Mlavsky-run BIRD Foundation as one of the ways Israeli intelligence funneled money to Pollard before his capture by US authorities.
One of the first companies Gemini invested in was CommTouch (now Cyren), which was founded by ex-IDF officers and later led by Isabel Maxwell. Under Maxwell’s leadership, CommTouch developed close ties to Microsoft, partially due to Maxwell’s relationship with its cofounder Bill Gates.
A Coming “Hack” of Microsoft?
If the SolarWinds hack is as serious as has been reported, it’s difficult to understand why a company like Samanage would not be looked into as part of a legitimate investigation into the attack. The timing of Samanage employees gaining access to the Orion software and the company’s investors including Israeli spies and those with ties to past espionage scandals where Israel used back doors to spy on the US and beyond raises obvious red flags. Yet, any meaningful investigation of the incident is unlikely to take place, especially given the considerable involvement of discredited firms like CrowdStrike, CIA fronts like FireEye and a consultancy firm led by former Silicon Valley executives with their own government/intelligence ties.
There is also the added fact that both of the main methods used in the attack were analogous or bore similarities to hacking tools that were both discovered by Unit 8200-linked companies in 2017. Unit 8200-founded cybersecurity firms are among the few “winners” from the SolarWinds hack, as their stocks have skyrocketed and demand for their services has increased globally.
While some may argue that Unit 8200 alumni are not necessarily connected to the Israeli intelligence apparatus, numerous reports have pointed out the admitted fusion of Israeli military intelligence with Israel’s hi-tech sector and its tech-focused venture capital networks, with Israeli military and intelligence officials themselves noting that the line between the private cybersecurity sector and Israel’s intelligence apparatus is so blurred, it’s difficult to know where one begins and the other ends. There is also the Israeli government policy, formally launched in 2012, whereby Israel’s intelligence and military intelligence agencies began outsourcing “activities that were previously managed in-house, with a focus on software and cyber technologies.”
Samanage certainly appears to be such a company, not only because it was founded by a former IDF officer in the military’s central computing unit, but because its main investors include spies on “reserve duty” and venture capital firms linked to the Pollard scandal as well as the Bronfman and Maxwell families, both of whom have been tied to espionage and sexual blackmail scandals over the years.
Yet, as the Epstein scandal has recently indicated, major espionage scandals involving Israel receive little coverage and investigations into these events rarely lead anywhere. PROMIS was covered up largely thanks to Bill Barr during his first term as Attorney General and even the Pollard affair has all been swept under the rug with Donald Trump allowing Pollard to move to Israel and, more recently, pardoning the Israeli spy who recruited Pollard during his final day as President. Also under Trump, there was the discovery of “stingray” surveillance devices placed by Israel’s government throughout Washington DC, including next to the White House, which were quickly memory holed and oddly not investigated by authorities. Israel had previously wiretapped the White House’s phone lines during the Clinton years.
Another cover up is likely in the case of SolarWinds, particularly if the entry point was in fact Samanage. Though a cover up would certainly be more of the same, the SolarWinds case is different as major tech companies and cybersecurity firms with ties to US and Israeli intelligence now insist that Microsoft is soon to be targeted in what would clearly be a much more devastating event than SolarWinds due to the ubiquity of Microsoft’s products.
On Tuesday, CIA-linked firm FireEye, which apparently has a leadership role in investigating the hack, claimed that the perpetrators are still gathering data from US government agencies and that “the hackers are moving into Microsoft 365 cloud applications from physical, on-premises servers,” meaning that changes to fix Orion’s vulnerabilities will not necessarily deny hacker access to previously compromised systems as they allegedly maintain access to those systems via Microsoft cloud applications. In addition to Microsoft’s own claims that some of its source code was accessed by the hackers, this builds the narrative that Microsoft products are poised to be targeted in the next high-profile hack.
Microsoft’s cloud security infrastructure, set to be the next target of the SolarWinds hackers, was largely developed and later managed by Assaf Rappaport, a former Unit 8200 officer who was most recently the head of Microsoft’s Research and Development and Security teams at its massive Israel branch. Rappaport left Microsoft right before the COVID-19 crisis began last year to found a new cybersecurity company called Wiz.
Microsoft, like some of Samanage’s main backers, is part of the World Economic Forum and is an enthusiastic supporter of and participant in the Great Reset agenda, so much so that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote the foreword to Klaus Schwab’s book “Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” With the WEF simulating a cyber “pandemic” and both the WEF and Israel’s head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate warning of an imminent “cyber winter”, SolarWinds does indeed appear to be just the beginning, though perhaps a scripted one to create the foundation for something much more severe. A cyberattack on Microsoft products globally would certainly upend most of the global economy and likely have economic effects more severe than the COVID-19 crisis, just as the WEF has been warning. Yet, if such a hack does occur, it will inevitably serve the aims of the Great Reset to “reset” and then rebuild electronic infrastructure.
January 23, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | CIA, CyberArk, Israel, NSA, Unit 8200, United States, WEF |
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SARS-CoV-2, better known simply as the ‘new coronavirus’, is just one of a handful of related RNA viruses that cause respiratory illnesses of varying severity among humans and some animals.
Past infections by other coronaviruses help the human immune system fights SARS CoV-2. That’s the conclusion reached by a group of researchers from Northern Arizona University (NAU) and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), local non-profit.
In their research, scientists used a custom-made tool created by NAU and TGen called ‘PepSeq’ to “finely map antibody responses to all human-infecting coronaviruses,” ranging from simple ones which cause symptoms no more serious than those of a common cold, to more severe and potentially deadly ones.
What they found was that exposure to previous coronaviruses appears to improve the human immune system’s ability to battle the new one, with the new virus’s introduction into the body summoning antibodies originally created to fight the other viruses.
“Our results suggest that the COVID-19 virus may awaken an antibody response that existed in humans prior to our current pandemic, meaning that we might already have some degree of preexisting immunity to this virus,” study co-author Dr. John Altin explained in a press release regarding the study, which was published in Cell Reports Medicine, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Before the new coronavirus, humanity is known to have become introduced to at least half-a-dozen other types of coronaviruses.
Therefore, together with SARS-CoV-2, the scientists studied coronavirus antibody responses to two other dangerous coronavirus which have threatened the world recently – MERS-CoV, which led to a localized outbreak in Saudi Arabia in 2012, and SARS-CoV-1 – which saw an outbreak in Asia in 2003.
Four older, less dangerous and far more prevalent coronaviruses – alphacoronavirus 229E, alphacoronavirus NL63, betacoronavirus OC43 and betacoronavirus HKU1 were also studied. Humanity has developed high levels of immunity to these viruses, with their symptoms usually no more serious than those of the common cold, causing mild upper respiratory infections.
The findings may prove hugely important in giving scientists the knowledge to create new diagnostics tools, study the impact of using convalescent plasma as a therapy for Covid-19, and even designing new vaccines and antibody therapies that can fight mutations of the new coronavirus.
“Our findings highlight sites at which SARS-CoV-2 response appears to be shaped by previous coronavirus exposures, and which have potential to raise broadly-neutralizing antibodies. We further demonstrate that these cross-reactive antibodies preferentially bind to endemic coronavirus peptides [short chains of amino acids], suggesting that the response to SARS-CoV-2 at these regions may be constrained by previous coronavirus exposure,” Altin said.
The scientists say further studies will be needed. Research could, for example, help to explain the broad way in which Covid-19 manifests itself, with some people experiencing only mild symptoms or even getting through the virus entirely asymptomatically, while others face severe symptoms or even succumb to complications associated with the disease.
“Our findings raise the possibility that the nature of an individual’s antibody response to prior endemic coronavirus infection may impact the course of COVID-19 disease,” Dr. Jason Ladner, the study’s lead author, said.
The research also included participation from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and a number of other hospitals and research institutions.
January 23, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19 |
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There’s plenty of domestic and geopolitical wrongdoing to hold Trump accountable for.
Instead, Senate trial proceedings against him — to begin on February 9 — focus on the phony charge of inciting insurrection.
Innocence isn’t a permitted defense under US law of the jungle rules.
Nor do establishment media like the NYT recognize the rule of law over the other way around.
The self-styled newspaper of record is in the vanguard of wanting Trump crucified for the wrong reasons, ignoring justifiable ones.
New Senate Majority Leader Schumer long ago showed his contempt for the rule of law he disdains, the same true for most elected and appointed US officials.
Schumer’s notion of “healing… unity… truth and (justifiable) accountability” is none of the above.
Like many others from both right wings of the one-party state, he’s unfit for any public office.
Yet he’s playing a key role in Trump’s upcoming show trial— what only tyrannical ruling authorities could love.
Hanging trials move quickly. If begins on Wednesday, February 9, as scheduled, it could wrap up by Friday.
Former Trump supporter/now turncoat antagonist Minority Leader McConnell defied reality saying:
“(W)e need a full and fair process where the former president can mount a defense and the Senate can properly consider the factual, legal and constitutional questions at stake (sic).”
What’s upcoming is polar opposite what the rule of law is supposed to be all about.
Instead of being charged with legitimate wrongdoing, Trump faces a phony politicized accusation.
It remains to be seen how many Republicans side with undemocratic Dem unity against him — whether a super-majority can be cobbled together for crucifixion.
If so, it’ll be for the wrong reason, not justifiable ones.
The Times has been screaming for his head since defeating media darling Hillary in 2016.
Since election 2016, its editorial board, correspondents and columnists waged all-out war against him — largely for invented reasons, ignoring most important legitimate ones.
Times editors called him “the greatest threat to American democracy” — ignoring that it exists in fantasy version alone, the real thing tolerated nowhere by its ruling class.
Above all else in its daily editions, Trump bashing was prioritized, making up stuff against him while ignoring the criminality of undemocratic Dems who comprise a far greater menace.
Now empowered, everyone should be terrified about how they’ll grievously abuse the rule of law ahead — a process already begun.
Biden/Harris and their undemocratic Dem co-conspirators want everyone mass-vaxxed with hazardous to health vaccines for seasonal flu-renamed covid.
The newly empowered regime may mandate mask wearing that’s harmful to health when worn longterm.
They may mandate vaccine passports for access to employment, education, air travel, and other public places.
They’ll likely wage preemptive war against one or more invented enemies — along with waging it by other means against nations unwilling to sell their souls to a higher power in Washington.
They already sold their own to Wall Street, the military, industrial, security, Big Media complex, and other favored corporate predators.
Together with Dem controlled congressional members, they’re virtually certain to enact legislation that benefits privileged interests at the expense of most others.
There’s nothing remotely democratic about both right wings of the one-party state.
The next four years may cause more harm to more people at home and abroad than any previous regime in US history.
Mind manipulated Americans who believe that Biden/Harris will deliver for them don’t know that whenever a change of power occurs in Washington, dirty business as usual doesn’t miss a beat.
This time will not be different than before.
It’s just a matter of how bad things will get ahead.
Notably what’s coming is at a time of the Greatest Main Street Depression in US history that will likely worsen and be protracted, perhaps for years.
Times rubbish about the “end of Trump (being) the beginning of America” is defied by the worst of times for ordinary Americans with scant relief in prospect for help when most needed.
January 23, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | New York Times, United States |
1 Comment
The day after President Joe Biden’s inauguration this week the White House announced that it was seeking a five-year extension of the New START treaty with Russia. The treaty was set to expire on February 4 after a 10-year run. Russia in recent months repeatedly urged the United States to renew the accord, which the former Trump administration had ignored.
Therefore, the new administration’s willingness to save New START is welcome. (But it is not clear cut, as explained below.) If the treaty had expired, there was a grave risk of relapse into a nuclear arms race. Given that the U.S. has already pulled out of several arms controls treaties, it is of paramount importance to maintain the last remaining pact, which specifically limits the bilateral arsenal of intercontinental warheads.
In announcing the Biden administration’s decision on extending New START, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby stated: “Just as we engage Russia in ways that advance American interests, we in the Department will remain clear-eyed about the challenges Russia poses and committed to defending the nation against their reckless and adversarial actions.” (Our emphasis.)
White House spokeswoman Jan Psaki articulated a similar testy rationale, saying that despite the extension proposal the Biden administration would hold Russia to “account for reckless and adversarial actions”. (Our emphasis.)
Please note the casual assertion of provocative claims as if they are proven facts. And this, ironically, from a new administration that has piously proclaimed to bring “facts” to public announcements in place of the Trumpian habit of peddling falsehoods and “alternate facts”.
It was then announced that President Biden has ordered his top intelligence officers to carry out a review into allegations of Russian malign conduct. In particular, allegations of a massive cyber attack – the so-called SolarWinds hack – on American government departments and commerce; the alleged poison assassination of Russian dissident figure Alexei Navalny; allegations of Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election; and, lastly, the allegations of Russian military intelligence running bounty-hunter plots in Afghanistan to murder U.S. soldiers. (We can be sure the conclusions are already foregone, only awaiting new media spin.)
Curiously though, the allegation of Russian interference in the 2020 election seems to be a new one for the archive of outlandish anti-Russian accusations. It is not clear what it refers to specifically. Earlier this week, Biden’s Democratic allies House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made ludicrous assertions that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have helped Donald Trump in trying to overthrow the electoral process with the violent assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6.
In any case, Russia has refuted all these absurd allegations as “baseless” and without evidence. This charade of accusing Russia has been intensifying since the 2016 election when Trump was elected. It now looks set to continue under the Biden presidency. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says such fables betray a Cold War mentality of Russophobia which seems to be endemic in the American political establishment.
So Biden’s proposed extension of New START is not the offer of an olive branch to Russia, as it may first appear. It is being done with a cold hand of raw self-interest and in a wider context of continuing and intensifying antagonism towards Russia.
Indeed, in reporting the move on the nuclear pact, the New York Times quoted Biden aides saying that the new administration had no interest in establishing a “reset” in American relations with Russia.
This week also revealed other indications of aggressive mindset in the new administration. During confirmation hearings in the Senate for Biden’s Cabinet and national security team, the recurring theme was how the United States would stand up to purported adversaries. Russia, China and Iran were chief among the targets for American power interest, all described in pejorative terms as enemies.
Avril Haines was confirmed as Director of National Intelligence. Ridiculously, she declared that she would “speak truth to power” and ensure that “intelligence would not be politicized”. This is the same Avril Haines who helped mastermind drone assassinations while formerly serving as deputy director of the CIA and who this week vowed to take a more aggressive stance towards China. Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin are set to become Secretaries of State and Defense. Other members of the Biden team, Victoria Nuland, Wendy Sherman and William Burns (who is to head the CIA) are also alumni of the past Obama administrations (2008-2016) in which Biden himself served as vice president.
All of them are indelibly complicit in propagating illegal wars, regime-change operations and the disastrous 2014 coup d’état in the Ukraine. In fact, Blinken during his Senate hearings this week affirmed that he is in favor of increasing lethal U.S. military supplies to Ukraine.
Joe Biden has a long and sordid record as a former Senator of supporting dozens of U.S. wars and aggressions, going back to the bloody invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989 and the bombing of former Yugoslavia in 1999, among others. But it was his pivotal support for the U.S. war on Iraq in 2003 which marks his most vile act as a warmonger and surrogate for American imperialism.
Biden has indulged the Russophobic fantasies of “Russiagate”, alleging collusion between the Kremlin and former president Trump, which have poisoned U.S.-Russia relations. Biden has even resorted to cheap ad hominem attacks on Putin calling the Russian leader a “thug”. How rich is that for someone who caused over one million deaths in his sponsorship of one war alone in Iraq, never mind dozens of others.
Alas, unfortunately, what we are seeing in Washington is a new administration with old aggression.
The cognitive dissonance afflicting America is something to behold. U.S. media this week were swooning over the inauguration of Democrat President Joe Biden as a “return to normal” after four years of turmoil under Donald Trump. The “adults have returned” goes the saying among pundits. More accurately, that should be the adult psychopaths and imperialist warmongers have returned.
In other matters, Biden announced a “war-time effort” to control the coronavirus pandemic which has devastated the United States. The American death toll from the disease [allegedly] stands at over 400,000 as of this week and is set to reach half a million by next month. The U.S. has the biggest [contrived] death toll in the world, accounting for 20 per cent of all Covid-19 deaths. Concurrent with the U.S. public health crisis is an economic crisis of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and inequality. It makes you wonder how it is that the Biden administration can devote so much interest on “foreign enemies” amid such catastrophe at home.
One dubious blessing perhaps is that United States will be so preoccupied with salvaging its own domestic woes that its warmongering politicians might not have the stomach nor nerve for overseas adventurism and wars. Although, don’t bet on it.
January 23, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia, War Crimes | CIA, United States |
1 Comment
January 20 was a day of mourning for countless numbers of people harmed by Biden that went on for nearly half a century in public office.
The same holds for misery he’ll inflict on countless more ahead —ordinary people exploited so privileged ones can benefit, including himself and family members.
He built a dishonorable career on a foundation of shilling for powerful interests that included waging wars on humanity at home and abroad.
His record as US senator and vice president reflects virtually everything disturbing about dirty politics as usual in Washington.
It includes endless examples of breaching the rule of law and betraying the public trust.
In 2002, then-Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren slammed him, saying:
“His energetic work on behalf of the credit card companies has earned him the affection of the banking industry and protected him from any well-funded challengers for his Senate seat.”
Even the NYT criticized him in 2005 for “vot(ing) against a proposal to require credit card companies to provide more effective warnings to consumers about the consequences of paying only the minimum amount due each month.”
Throughout his public life, he backed predatory corporate interests and the military, industrial, security complex at the expense of peace, equity, justice and the rule of law — notions he always disdained.
He’s one of the ugliest ugly Americans in Washington — past and present, a figure to be despised, never trusted.
Along with his political record of shame, he was accused many times of acting inappropriately toward women and girls.
At least eight women accused him of inappropriate touching and/or violating their personal space — then refusing to apologize for his unacceptable behavior.
He was criticized for offensive remarks about the physical appearance of young girls when campaigning.
Former staffer in Biden’s Senate office Tara Reade accused him of inappropriate touching and more, saying the following:
He “used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck.”
In 1993, she accused him of pressing her up against a wall, kissing her neck, prying her legs open with his knees, and penetrating her digitally — a serious charge.
She filed a police report in Washington, accusing him of sexual assault.
She also filed a Senate complaint. Around half a dozen former Biden staffers said they were told about the assault incident.
Other women accused Biden of sexual assault and harassment.
Reade’s former neighbor in the 1990s Lynda LaCasse said Biden’s assault “happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it.”
Last May, Biden denied the accusation, claiming it “never happened.”
Around the same time, Reade called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, adding:
“(I)f Joe Biden takes” a polygraph test, so will she.
Describing the alleged incident, Reade said:
“He’s talking to me and his hands are everywhere and everything is happening very quickly.”
“He was kissing me and he said, very low, ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ ”
“He said, ‘Come on, man. I heard you liked me.’ ”
When Biden entered the presidential race last year, eight women publicly accused him of sexual harassment, including unwanted kissing, hugging and inappropriate touching.
Former Nevada state assemblywoman Lucy Flores earlier accused Biden of making her feel uncomfortable by inappropriate touching and kissing.
He’s “not just a hugger,” she said. He “very clearly was invading women’s spaces without their consent in a way that made them feel uncomfortable.”
“Does he potentially have the capacity to go beyond that? That’s the answer everyone is trying to get at.”
On inauguration day January 20, Reade commented on his ascension to power, saying the following:
Viewing the inauguration was “unspeakably hard to watch.”
“Coming forward about being sexually harassed and assaulted in 1993 when I was Joe Biden’s staffer was excruciating on so many levels.”
“Biden used his power and resources with certain media to erase me and silence me.”
“I stand in solidarity with all survivors coming up against such power.”
“I will not be silenced. Instead of talking about saving the country’s soul he should be held accountable for his actions.”
“The hard part is I believe in many policies that will move forward as I am a progressive independent, but it is unspeakably hard to watch the man who assaulted me go to the most powerful position in the land.”
“I’m sorry that I’m politically inconvenient but my perpetrator was Joe Biden. And people need to deal with it.”
Separately, Reade tweeted:
“Today is yet again another difficult day for survivors of sexual violence.”
“While I’m thankful Trump was defeated, the idea of the man who assaulted me as our president is still terribly painful.”
“I will be sharing resources for survivors today for #Inauguration2021.
“Instead of talking about saving the country’s soul he should be held accountable for his actions.”
“The hard part is I believe in many policies that will move forward as I am a progressive independent, but it is unspeakably hard to watch the man who assaulted me go to the most powerful position in the land.”
Trump once bragged about being able to do whatever he wanted with women with remarks like:
“When you’re a star, they let you do it.”
Draw your own conclusions about the duo.
A Final Comment
Psychology Today earlier called sexual assault “any sexual activity that occurs without consent,” adding:
It’s “a pervasive problem. In America, one in three women and one in four men experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, according to the National Institutes of Health.”
“And those numbers are likely an underestimate due to the shame and fear that prevent many survivors from reporting abuse.”
“Sex and violence are closely linked,” notably by “dominant men forcing themselves on women.”
“(S)exual assault is more about power than…sex…motivation stem(ming) from the perpetrator’s need for dominance and control.”
Children and adolescents are affected like adults.
Biden is a political predator many times over, his long record of shame well documented.
Now in the nation’s highest office.
He got there the old-fashioned way — by stealing it.
January 23, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | United States |
3 Comments
Tens of thousands of Pakistanis have held an anti-Israel march in the country’s major city of Karachi, rejecting the possibility of normalizing ties with the occupying Israeli regime.
The “million-man march” organized by opposition Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) was held with participants donning the colors of the JUI-F and raising tall black and white striped flags.
“Israel is involved in the genocide of Muslims in Palestine and we would never allow the federal government to establish diplomatic relations with it,” JUI-F leader Maulana Saleemullah Alwazi told Pakistani daily The News International.
In recent months, the news of deals signed by a few Arab dictatorships to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel under intense US pressure has sparked widespread anger among Pakistani people, who hold strong feelings for the Palestinian cause.
In December, top Pakistani officials fiercely denied rumors publicized by Israeli news outlets that Islamabad was moving towards a similar deal.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan rejected as “baseless” reports of his government officials visiting Israel, insisting why would any of his ministers visit Tel Aviv when Islamabad does not even recognize Israel.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said later in December that he had informed the UAE — one of the US-backed kingdoms that recently normalized ties with Israel — of Islamabad’s “steadfast” policy towards Tel Aviv, insisting that the country will refuse to recognize it until the issue of Palestine is resolved.
The top Pakistani diplomat said he had explained to his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan the “depth of emotions and feelings Pakistanis have about Palestine and Kashmir.”
The normalization trend has drawn widespread condemnation from Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital. They say the deals are “a stab in the back” of the Palestinians.
January 23, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Middle East, Pakistan, Palestine, UAE, Zionism |
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