We Saw 'The Interview' Weeks Ago, And It's
Clear Why North Korea Hates It
Serco allegedly uses JABS and tags image tracking – Joint Automated Booking System and Offender's Tag Association – to position snuff-film crews and crisis actors for the delivery of real-time 'money shots' to zero clients.
McConnell claims that Amazon director Jamie Gorelick tested JABS and tags tracking services on Christmas Day 1996 by back-hauling snuff-film images of the torture killing of JonBenet Ramsey who appears to have been the victim of a foreign faction team of "personalities" in the IMDb database and pedophiles released 'on the tag' from the Boulder County Jail.
McConnell claims Serco recruited a Barry Soetoro through its foreign-faction National Visa Center and now uses the Obama identity as a zero client for its hack of the National Command Authority's Defense Red Switch Network through the 24th Air Force Cyber Operations Support.
McConnell notes that Serco now controls the Air Force's Defense Red Switch Network and has equipped its dirty banker HSBC at Canada Square with the JABS and tags tracking tools needed to build a snuff-film archive – cf. East Africa Embassy bombing, USS Cole, 9/11, Pat Tillman, Extortion 17, MH 37,17 – which, quoting John le Carré, has become "a currency that advances the group that possesses it. They tend it jealously, keeping it from others and creating their own little aristocracy. And through that, new people of power come to the top of the service."
McConnell invites readers to check Serco's hack of the Air Force Red Switch Network and its use of JABS and tags to deliver real-time images to the "zero clients" who appear to have watched the Benghazi torture killing of Christopher Stevens from the safety of the White House.
Prequel 1: #2208: Marine Links JonBenét's Serco Tags and Jamie JABS to Sony Obama Boeing Foreign-Faction Hackers
Sony Interview scandal: Rogen, Franco and
Kim Jong-un set the whole thing up
"Sony Pictures made it official this week to everyone, it has no balls whatsoever. Sony Pictures totally chickened out and decided to pull its release of The Interview next week after hackers threatened to blow up movie theaters and moviegoers.
Sony Pictures has officially canned its release plans for the comedy film that stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as they are called upon by the CIA to take out North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, played by Randall Park.
Apparently the original film was changed by Sony executives because the original death scene with Kim's head exploding was too much. The writers had to settle for a watered down death scene with Kim’s exploding head covered mostly by fire.
Paranoia has also caused New Regency to shelve a North Korean-based thriller starring Steve Carell (thank you North Korea) and Paramount to pull substitute showings of Team America.
So all of a sudden, a movie that probably wasn't the greatest is now the most talked about film of the year and it's nothing but North Korea in the news. Wouldn’t it be funny if it was all just a set up?”
"Zero client, also known as ultrathin client, is a server-based computing model in which the end user's computing device has no local storage. A zero client can be contrasted with a thin client, which retains the operating system and each device's specific configuration settings in flash memory."
"Art and War: What we've learned from The Interview
Scott Gilmore: 'Someone just taught the world a valuable lesson'
By Scott Gilmore | Maclean's – 22 hours ago
It is important we understand what just happened. While details are vague, the broad strokes are clear. In order to suppress The Interview, a film that mocked the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, someone launched a cyberattack against an American company and then threatened to kill moviegoers. As a result, movie chains balked at screening the film and Sony Pictures cancelled its release.
U.S. intelligence agencies tell us the North Korean government is directly involved, but at this point if they told us the sky is blue we should remain skeptical. Others are convinced it is merely hackers sowing chaos for sheer amusement. Some pundits point out that the threats are serious; North Korea is crazy enough and weak enough to try something desperate. More informed observers argue that the "nuclear madman" shtick is a calibrated strategy with definite limits, and a physical attack is almost impossible.
These details are not especially significant. The few reliable facts are enough: Someone illegally attacked the United States, and the United States immediately yielded.
Granted, the terms of surrender were not punitive. Seth Rogen and James Franco will still get to star in other movies. Sony Pictures may lose some money, $100 million by some estimates. But it is only the subsidiary of a Japanese corporation, not the United States Army. Another film studio cancelled an upcoming thriller starring Steve Carrell because it was going to be set in North Korea, too. All together, this was not the Treaty of Versailles. Nonetheless, it was still a defeat.
This has happened before. In 1939, Charlie Chaplin began to film The Great Dictator to mock Adolf Hitler and his anti-Semitic views. Before it was even finished the British government prohibited its release in accordance with its policy of appeasement. Hollywood has also been criticized for kowtowing to the Germans in the 1930s. Studios avoided productions that were "detrimental to German prestige" and even allowed Nazi diplomats to vet scripts.
But in those cases we decided to prostrate ourselves. This week, someone else decided for us. Who it was does not matter. It may have been Kim Jong Un, one of his generals, a sympathetic arm of the Chinese army, organized criminals, or a disgruntled teen in his parents' basement. Regardless, it was not us. This was not our choice. We were bent to someone else’s will. And that matters.
It is easy to shrug at the stakes and say, "It's a bad comedy, who cares?" If this were a poignant film about a young woman surviving in a North Korean prison camp, we would likely feel differently. If this were a book about a child living and dying in Aleppo, we would not let Islamic State stop it from being printed. If this were a speech about the oil sands, we would not allow Exxon to cancel it. It’s easy to defend art and ideas that are important to us. It is harder to see the value in movies like The Interview. We think we are defending the idea, but in reality we are defending the act of expressing them. America was created with the notion that free speech is critical to a free society. Other nations, like ours, have agreed. Over two centuries the Western world has built democracies upon the belief being able to write, or paint or film what we want is so important we are even willing to go to war to defend it. So, as we debate this over the kitchen table, in Congress, or on Twitter, it is important we acknowledge this for what it is. Someone just taught the world a valuable lesson. You can successfully attack the United States and force it to betray its most hallowed founding principles. You just have to know what buttons to push, who to attack, and what to demand. You could even say there is an art to it."
"CASE STUDY
24th Air Force Cyber Operations Support
The 24th Air Force (24 AF) is the operational warfighting organization that establishes, operates, maintains and defends Air Force networks and conducts full-spectrum operations in cyberspace. It establishes, operates and defends Air Force networks to ensure warfighters can maintain the information advantage as they fulfill military operations. The unit is responsible to conduct a full range of cyber operations.
The new 24 AF Headquarters (HQ) facility in San Antonio was outfitted to provide the infrastructure and technological resources needed to continue operating this important mission. Serco developed a comprehensive IT solution guided by three points:
Develop a holistic solution to integrate and standardize the IT architecture across multiple networks and functions, Utilize the latest technology in virtualization and remote desktops to reduce clutter, maintenance requirements and power/cooling requirements, Ensure the technology provides the performance and mobility needed to perform the 24 AF mission and facilitate reliable collaboration among mission critical planning cells and throughout the wider enterprise.
Serco designed and implemented server-based computing systems that utilize Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to deliver a major advancement in remote desktop performance over what had previously been possible with standard thin client systems. The architecture consists of zero client devices at the desktop that employ Personal Computer over Internet Protocol (PCoIP), which is capable of delivering high volume data or real time audio and video without jitter or delay. Zero client refers to ultrathin clients that deliver services with no software and minimal hardware requirements.
The zero clients connect to virtual desktops on a server for excellent performance meeting 99% of the 24 AF mission needs. For the remaining 1%, those users needing graphics-intensive computing [for real time snuff film images], the same zero client can also connect to a blade-based graphics workstation via login options derived from user credentials and permissions.
Serco also integrated voice, video teleconferencing capabilities and situational awareness displays, along with the VDI, into the facility’s network distribution system across multiple networks. The result is an integrated IP-based total capability that is centrally managed and consistent across all platforms. Serco also implemented Defense Red Switch Network (DRSN), completed a structured fiber optic and Category 6 cabling system, and participated in the construction design working group to ensure supporting systems (e.g. Power and HVAC) were able to support the 24 AF's IT needs.
As a result of Serco's support, 24th Air Force enjoys a true state-of-the-art environment that has delivers the high level of performance and security requires to continue fulfilling the important missions protecting the nation’s security."
"February 4, 2012
Does Obama really lack cool phones?
In April last year, US president Obama told some fundraisers that he was disappointed by the communications equipment he found in the White House: "I always thought I was gonna have like really cool phones and stuff," he said during a Q&A session with contributors at a fund-raising meeting in Chicago on April 14, 2011.
"We can't get our phones to work." Acting out his exasperation, he said: "Come on, guys. I'm the president of the United States! Where's the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn't happen."
Obama made these remarks after the press pool had left and may not have realized some reporters back at the White House could still hear his comments. The president was probably responding to a question about bottlenecks in technological innovation and he used his White House experience as an example.
A lot of people would probably like to believe these remarks of the president, symbolizing the outdated state of the federal government. But in fact, what Obama said, isn't quite true.
In 2006-2007 president George W. Bush had the White House Situation Room completely renovated, providing it with state-of-the-art communications facilities. Since then the real Situation Room has all the phones and videoscreens and other stuff, which was before only seen in movies.
Also, when Obama took over the office in January 2009, he found quite a cool phone on the presidential desk in the Oval Office: an Integrated Services Telephone 2, or IST-2. This is a so called red phone (I'll explain that term in a later blog post) capable of making both secure and non-secure calls from one single instrument:
Not a cool phone? An IST-2 telephone on Obama's desk, March 29, 2009 (White House photo by Pete Souza)
The IST-2 was installed in the White House in 2007. It's a phone specially designed for the US Defense Red Switch Network (DRSN), which connects the president and the Pentagon with all major military command centers. These new phones were part of an upgrade of the communications system, which became necessary after some serious communication problems occurred during the 9/11 attacks.
Therefore, the problems caused by outdated equipment should have been solved under president Bush. This would leave nothing to complain about for Obama anymore.
But there's another interesting fact. Only a few weeks before Obama made his aforementioned remarks in April 2011, the rather rare IST-phone had just been replaced by two more ordinary sets:
The Cisco 7975 and the Lucent 8520 on Obama's desk, July 31, 2011 Also on the desk appears to be the iPad Obama got from Steve Jobs in May 2011 (White House photo by Pete Souza)
Now we see a Cisco 7975G Unified IP Phone (with expansion module 7916) behind a Avaya/Lucent 8520T on Obama's desk. This Lucent phone is from the most widely used business phone series worldwide, but is dating back to the mid-nineties. The Cisco 7975G is a VoIP (Voice over IP) telephone, and as such also one of the most widely used.
Both are high-end multiline models, with many functions and large displays, with the Cisco one even having a full colour touchscreen. This phone is also "cool", not because of having the military grade specifications or the exclusiveness like the IST-2, but because the phone (and its ringtone in particular) became an almost iconic item from the highly popular tv-series 24:
A Cisco 7970 IP Phone used in the CTU operations center in the tv-series 24
(screen cap by www.24tv.de)
This series, which was broadcasted between 2001 and 2010, shaped people's imagination of the presidency and was in many ways a forerunner of reality. For example there was a popular black president (David Palmer) years before Obama was elected, and much of the fancy communications equipment from the series, like video teleconferencing, was implemented in the real White House Situation Room in 2007. And now the real president also has the same cool Cisco phone as the heroes used in the tv-series.
So, as we have seen, Obama didn't really tell the truth. The story he told the fundraisers was true during the beginning of the Bush administration, but not during his. Obama actually has some quite cool phones at his disposal, but maybe the only thing is that he just doesn't realize that."
"Is this speck in the Indian Ocean Britain's Guantanamo?
Chilling questions raised over secretive island as more disturbing allegations emerge over UK's role in CIA torture
Journalists are banned from Diego Garcia - the 'Guantanamo of the east'
Even natives are only allowed to make one 'heritage visit' there each year
Island has been linked to U.S's shocking rendition and torture programme
But it was not mentioned once in the 500-page report into CIA torture
Blair government accused of allowing detainees to be transferred through island
Also accused of allowing prisoners to be detained and interrogated there
Jack Straw previously dismissed notion as stuff of 'conspiracy theories'
Officials says flight logs for period of rendition were damaged by water
By SPECIAL REPORT BY DAVID JONES
PUBLISHED: 01:03 GMT, 20 December 2014 | UPDATED: 09:45 GMT, 20 December 2014 Lost in the vastness of the Indian Ocean, midway between East Africa and the southern tip of Asia, there is a footprint-shaped coral atoll where orange and blue coconut crabs scuttle across pristine white beaches and turtles wallow in the powder-blue lagoon.
Though it is called Diego Garcia, after the 16th-century Portuguese mariner who supposedly discovered it, it was ceded to Britain following the Napoleonic Wars and has belonged to us ever since, proudly flying a palm tree-embossed Union flag and retaining its old-fashioned Post Office pillar-box.
By rights, I ought to be sending this report to you from this remote and beautiful island, but regrettably that isn’t possible.
For in 1966 it was leased by Britain to the United States, which has turned it into a vast military base — 'the Guantanamo of the East' — and in the 48 years since then, journalists have been banned from going there.
Such is the cloak of secrecy surrounding Diego Garcia that a Time magazine executive once offered 'a crate of the finest Bordeaux' to the writer who filed the first despatch carrying the island's dateline.
Though one landed there very briefly, when the presidential plane on which he was travelling with George W. Bush made a refuelling stop, the wine has not been claimed.
Even the native population, who were forcibly evicted during the late Sixties and early Seventies to make way for the American takeover — a shameful episode to which we’ll return — are allowed to make only one brief, strictly controlled 'heritage visit' each year.
Ever eager to demonstrate their openness and commitment to free speech — values enshrined in their constitution — the U.S. still periodically admits reporters and photographers to Guantanamo, even though draconian censorship seriously restricts what they see. But the only publicly available pictures of Diego Garcia are distant aerial shots.
So what are they so desperate to hide on this achingly beautiful outcrop — which the U.S. Navy, seemingly blind to the irony, has renamed 'The Footprint to Freedom'? It is a question that has acquired fresh urgency with the release last week of the U.S Senate’s bombshell report on the CIA’s use of torture against suspected terrorists.
Given the weight of evidence proving that Diego Garcia was — at the very least — a key staging post in the U.S. rendition and torture programme, it had been widely expected to feature in the dossier, thus exposing Britain’s involvement beyond doubt.
That the island was not mentioned once in almost 500 heavily redacted pages has merely heightened suspicion of an MI6-orchestrated cover-up. It throws the spotlight back on the Blair government, which stands accused of tacitly allowing detainees either to be transferred through this far-flung British overseas territory during the early years of the War on Terror, or to be detained and interrogated there (or both) and covering up our involvement with a farrago of lies and deceit.
The possibility that Britain might have allowed their home to become a secret torture site is deeply distressing to the displaced people of Diego Garcia — the majority of whom have now resettled in the West Sussex town of Crawley, for reasons I shall explain.
'Our homeland should only be used for good purposes, not as a second Guantanamo Bay with no set of rules or laws like other countries,' Allen Vincatassin, exiled president of the Chagos Islands, which include Diego Garcia, told me yesterday.
It should indeed. In 2005, the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dismissed the notion that we might have been in league with the Americans over rendition — the secret transfer of terrorist prisoners to remote spots for interrogation — as the stuff of 'conspiracy theories'.
For that to be true, he told the Commons, both he and his U.S. counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, would need to have lied through their teeth.
Two years later, during the dying days of his premiership, Tony Blair also declared himself 'satisfied’ that the U.S. had never transferred detainees through any British territories. Rather inconveniently, after Blair left office, human rights groups uncovered incontrovertible proof that aircraft linked to the rendition — terrorist prisoner transfer — had indeed landed at Diego Garcia, forcing David Miliband, who had taken over at the Foreign Office, to admit that his predecessors had seriously misled us.
According to Miliband, two planes, each carrying a single detainee, had stopped off there, in 2002. Straw's mistake, he said, had been down to an 'administrative error'. And Blair's? We are still waiting for that one to be explained away. Meanwhile, discomforting new information has continued to emerge, strongly indicating that there is considerably more to concern us than a couple of rogue aircraft.
The former UN expert on torture, Manfred Nowak, for example, claims to have 'credible evidence' that detainees were imprisoned in one of more than 650 featureless concrete buildings that have turned the base at Diego Garcia into a maze-like mini-city, with cinemas and restaurants, much like Guantanamo Bay. And Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who led a Council of Europe investigation into the CIA's encroachment into European territory and airspace during the War on Terror, says a CIA source told him the British island had been used.
In 2005, then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dismissed notion that UK might have been involved with the secret transfer of detainess to remote spots for interrogation as the stuff of 'conspiracy theories.'
Then there are the stories of the detainees themselves.
Since they were blindfolded and forced to wear sound-proof earmuffs when being flown to the notorious 'dark sites' where they were brutally quizzed, they cannot be sure where they were.
But some are now known to have been held below deck on sinister prison ships, and there is mounting evidence that these were anchored somewhere off Diego Garcia.
Evidence has emerged that the so-called 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh — a U.S. Muslim convert captured in Afghanistan in 2001 — was held on the USS Bataan, which has been serviced from the island’s naval base. Also, the USS Stockholm, deployed to Diego Garcia shortly before the War on Terror began, underwent extensive 'modifications' in 2004. Did they include a dungeon?
Then there is the disquieting case of Abdelhakim Belhadj, the exiled Libyan dissident who was arrested and handed back to Colonel Gaddafi soon after the dictator’s notorious 'deal in the desert' with Blair.
That the island was not mentioned once in almost 500 heavily redacted pages has merely heightened suspicion of an MI6-orchestrated cover-up Belhadj also believes he may have been tortured on the island, and the embarrassing truth could yet emerge in his long-running civil action against the British government.
Of course, the flight arrival and departure logs kept on Diego Garcia would go a long way to proving all this one way or the other.
Yet the latest excuse trotted out by the Foreign Office is that the key documents, covering the period when the rendition programme was at its height, were badly damaged by water — presumably from rain leaking into the building where they are kept — in June this year.
Smelling a rat, the London-based human rights organisation Reprieve scoured weather reports for that period and found it to have been unusually dry. The group's legal director, Cori Crider, says the explanation is of 'the dog ate my homework' variety.
For both Britain and America, all this could hardly come at a worse time. In 2016, the 50-year lease on Diego Garcia — which the U.S acquired in return for a $13 million discount on the Polaris nuclear missile system they sold to Britain — is due to expire.
But the deal allows for a two-year window, during which the two countries can either agree to renegotiate the lease for a further 20 years or end it, and this month marks the start of that period. The Tories are reportedly keen for the Americans to stay.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2881451/Is-speck-Indian-Ocean-Britain-s-Guantanamo-Chilling-questions-raised-secretive-island-disturbing-allegations-emerge-UK-s-role-CIA-torture.html#ixzz3MYHzoaVS
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Yours sincerely,
Field McConnell, United States Naval Academy, 1971; Forensic Economist; 30 year airline and 22 year military pilot; 23,000 hours of safety; Tel: 715 307 8222
David Hawkins Tel: 604 542-0891 Forensic Economist; former leader of oil-well blow-out teams; now sponsors Grand Juries in CSI Crime and Safety Investigation
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