The background story behind Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop takes an interesting twist today, as a whistleblower deep inside the Twitter technology side of the platform begins to outline what CNN calls, “a threat to its own users’ personal information, to company shareholders, to national security, and to democracy.”
This discussion is where it becomes critical to remember the nature of stakeholders in media.
CNN is the national media firm protecting the interests of the U.S. State Dept. The Washington Post is the national media firm protecting the interests of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The latest Twitter whistleblower information originates in,.. wait for it… “an explosive whistleblower disclosure obtained exclusively by CNN and The Washington Post.”
The whistleblower is a former technology expert who came from within the research farm of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, is a well-known cybersecurity expert who left government work, entered the public world, and eventually became the head of Twitter security, reporting directly to the CEO.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko is now saying the background technology of Twitter is vulnerable to manipulation. I’m not going to go into the granules of what Mudge is outlining, instead I prefer to focus on the bigger picture, a scenario we have been outlining for quite a while that could, emphasize *could*, become very explosive, especially considering the legal challenges between the social media platform and Elon Musk.
The nub of the bigger story is essentially that the database of Twitter, and likely other social media platforms, is integrated with the U.S. intelligence system. The database of Twitter is not necessarily vulnerable to hacking by outside entities, although that is the framework used by media reporting this whistleblower issue.
The bigger risk to the surveillance state is discovery that Twitter and the U.S. intelligence community are in a public-private partnership. The Dept of Homeland Security has access by design, not flaw. How the stakeholder media are reporting on the issue shows the nature of the risk, (emphasis mine):
[…] The scathing disclosure, which totals around 200 pages, including supporting exhibits — was sent last month to a number of US government agencies and congressional committees, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. The existence and details of the disclosure have not previously been reported. CNN obtained a copy of the disclosure from a senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill. The SEC, DOJ and FTC declined to comment; the Senate Intelligence Committee, which received a copy of the report, is taking the disclosure seriously and is setting a meeting to discuss the allegations, according to Rachel Cohen, a committee spokesperson. (link)
How would it damage the U.S. government if previous claims about the Chinese government having access to all user data on TikTok, are shown to be exactly identical to the U.S. government having access to all user data on Twitter?
Let that question settle in for a few moments, because that is exactly what I have been alleging since, well, 2011, when the U.S. State Dept first collaborated with Twitter in a joint public-private partnership to use the platform as a communication tool exploiting the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, Libya and beyond.
The issue of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop is an issue of financial viability. The business model of Twitter just doesn’t exist as a free social media discussion platform while running the ultra-expensive data processing system needed for millions of simultaneous users. A global chat that requires exponential database responses as an outcome of simultaneous users is just ridiculously expensive. {Go Deep} However, if the computing system and massive database were being subsidized by the U.S. government, then the viability of the ‘free coffee‘ business model makes sense.
“Cloud computing is one of the core components of the strategy to help the IC discover, access and share critical information in an era of seemingly infinite data.” … “A test scenario described by GAO in its June 2013 bid protest opinion suggests the CIA sought to compare how the solutions presented by IBM and Amazon Web Services (AWS) could crunch massive data sets, commonly referred to as big data.” … “Solutions had to provide a “hosting environment for applications which process vast amounts of information in parallel on large clusters (thousands of nodes) of commodity hardware” using a platform called MapReduce. Through MapReduce, clusters were provisioned for computation and segmentation. Test runs assumed clusters were large enough to process 100 terabytes of raw input data. AWS’ solution received superior marks from CIA procurement officials”… (MORE)
♦ Legal Stuff – The issue of American citizen privacy and U.S. constitutional limits against the government listening in on communication is functionally obsolescent. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) prohibits communication intercepts on U.S. citizens without a valid search warrant. However, if a U.S. citizen is engaged in a conversation with a foreign person, all privacy restrictions are essentially gone. [Insert example of Michael Flynn taking to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak here]
Your phone calls can be intercepted by the government from the foreign side of the call. The govt can freely monitor the calls that involve foreign actors. The only rule is that your privacy must be maintained. If the foreign actor is in communication with a U.S. citizen, the U.S. citizen must be “minimized” or not identified in any intercept.
However, what happens when the phone call is on a community line that is connected, and visible, to the entire world? That’s the benefit of social media monitoring from a surveillance perspective. It is from that opaque and unresolved archaic legal perspective that surveillance authority of social media platforms, by the U.S. intelligence community, exists. Now you see why the SSCI is taking an interest in the Twitter whistleblower, classic risk mitigation.
Hopefully, you can also see why the 200-page whistleblower document was leaked, by a Democrat staffer, to the Washington Post and CNN.
CNN defends the equity interests of the U.S. State Dept., and WaPo defend the Intelligence Community (CIA, DHS, etc).
Within the narrative as constructed you will note, “Zatko further alleges that Twitter’s leadership has misled its own board and government regulators about its security vulnerabilities, including some that could allegedly open the door to foreign spying or manipulation, hacking and disinformation campaigns.”
If the relationship between Twitter and the U.S. intelligence community is a public-private partnership, why would Twitter want to shut down the portals given to the Dept of Homeland Security?
Answer, they wouldn’t… Ergo the response from Twitter to the whistleblower complaint is (emphasis mine), “What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.”
Put another way, the “lacks important context” is the nature of the security risk, which is structural to the relationship between the intelligence community and the platform. See how that works?
The integration between Twitter and the United States Intelligence Community has been hiding in plain sight:
July 26, 2021, (Reuters) – A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters.
Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos – often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence – and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.
The firms, which include Twitter (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube, share “hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove it. (more)
A shared hashing protocol is a form of data system integration. The databases of the identified social media platforms are integrated with the U.S. intelligence system.
So, what is the angle here? Peiter/CNN’s objective is to support Musk‘s part of the legal argument. That support helps Elon Musk exit from Twitter deal. That exit allows Twitter/IC to return to surveillance operations and intel gathering with exposure risk removed. That’s Peiter’s objective.
I shall leave on a happy note, which highlights the nature of the risk:
After this article was initially published, Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, told CNN, “We have already issued a subpoena for Mr. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding.” (LINK)
Hello, fellas…
.
Now, for the pantomime, and to showcase the need for extreme control by the narrative engineers. Notice how the directors of the CNN segment use alternative actors to shape the context of what Mr. Peiter “Mudge” Zatko is saying. This is classic intelligence community media tradecraft.
Notice what is expressly attributed to Mudge in his own words, versus what is implied toward Mudge from alternative voices and faces that appear. Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never return to that moment in the performance when you did not see them. WATCH:
This would lend credence to the notion that Musk’s forensic accountants have unraveled the funding mechanisms used to bankroll Twitter (note the first agency cited being the Sec). Thus now their belated “public admission”..
Which frankly is what surprised me when the Twits sued Musk to make him go through with his buyout in the first place.. Not only were they risking exposure, but it would seem he’d be the last man in America they’d want in charge of this “time bomb!”
As per SD, this entire scheme was to extricate Musk from the Twitter offer. Seems like choreography to me.
If that is the case, who or what is Musk?
And if Musk leaves the deal, what was this all about anyway? Jus trying to create a smoke screen for the public?
I remember President Trump telling Musk he should buy Twitter…
Do you think Musk knew of the setup before he put in his offer? He might not have known what the deal was with Twitter and the Intelligence community, and when he found out, he decided to bail?
Trump might have wanted Musk to find out exactly what he is finding out.
No idea here, just “thinking” out loud.
I think he knew the set up.
I agree. I think Musk is a grifter at the highest level- I sort of admire him for it. He uses other people’s funds to not only fund his ventures, but gets wealthy off of it. Perhaps he overplayed this one and got trapped in the rabbit hole?
Agree except for “admiring” him. He is juT another of our mortal enemies like the others in the big tech wing of globalist oligarchs so many “patriots” keep strangely supporting here and elsewhere.
Nowadays, after you’ve donned your “conspiracy hat” and adjusted it to fit comfortably, you’ll be surprised at how many of your ‘spit-balls’ successfully stick to the wall!!
Ditto. Just imo, Musk suspected but didn’t know until afterward… There’s no way the Musk/Twitter buyout was some sort of choreographed show put on by BigTech or the Surveilance State. Musk ripped the curtain back, catching them unawares, and they’ve been flailing around ever since.
Indeed, what was this all about? I’ve read SD’s take and a lot of comments from people who seem to understand why Twit would sue Musk to make him take the company if doing so would put their illegal surveillance schemes at risk. But also if once Musk is gone their intent is to continue with their surveillance schemes?? ?? Head spins a bit. Maybe I need to go run a few miles and clear all this out.
It seems naïve to under estimate Musk, the world’s richest and surely one of the most brilliant men on the planet. So…why did he get into this? Well, if any of this adds up, I can surely see why he wants out. I wonder if he’s already hired Mudge.
WSB … do you have a link for this?
“I remember President Trump telling Musk he should buy Twitter…”
Musk is Thiel. Peter Thiel.
Shaken not stirred.
Zim:
would you elaborate what you mean saying this?
“Musk is Thiel. Peter Thiel.”
Sundance has this nailed. When he began to outline the nature of IC involvement in social media, so many things “clicked”. I was aware of the bidding process for the cloud services that SD speaks of, and at the time, the government need for certain parts of the services did not make sense. The government documents connected to the RFPs went through many revisions (a dozen or more in a couple of cases), and I’m convinced that some of the early revisions contained descriptions of needs that were pretty much copy-pasted blog articles from Twitter (and other big tech) engineering teams.
At the time (10+ years for some of these RFPs), I didn’t put the pieces together, but now, thanks to Sundance, it makes complete sense. It’s chilling to me, the extent that the IC has taken control of the levers of power in the country — mainstream media, big tech/social media/search engines/so-called “authoritative” information sources (like Wikipedia), to say nothing of their control over key politicians, key judges, key career government officials, etc.
I’m beginning to come to terms with the likelihood that the battle to save the country is over. It was taken while we were looking the other way — the battle was won by default.
It seems that the true nature of the challenge currently before us is to retake the country. A country firmly controlled by the IC.
“I’m beginning to come to terms with the likelihood that the battle to save the country is over. It was taken while we were looking the other way — the battle was won by default.“
Allow government to know when and where resistance groups organize.
Sundance always manages to put together a LOT of pieces on a LOT of subjects a LOT of the time
That’s why I keep coming here and leave nodding my head and smiling like Jack Nicholson in Anger Management (I think it was any way)
Musk was one of the attendees at the 2016 Sea Island gathering…
“At Secretive Meeting, Tech CEOs And Top Republicans Commiserate, Plot To Stop Trump
Karl Rove shared focus group findings that give hope to the GOP establishment.
By
Ryan Grim, Nick Baumann, and Matt Fuller
Mar 7, 2016, 07:22 PM EST”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_n_56ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d
And yet, just look here at how many self-described patriots regard him as some sort of “hero” on “our “ side.
We need a MAGA mole on Sea Island to provide an attendee list.
Like all the other oligarchs Elon Musk is an oligarch, too. The oligarchs interface with the governments of the nations where they are is part of the WEF’s plans for global government. Here’s a pretty good take on how it works
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-death-of-free-speech/
FTA:
Elon Musk buying Twitter in order to restore it as a free-speech platform will most likely break the glass on this democracy business. Google, Apple, and Amazon will reimpose censorship on Twitter, if Musk even bothers to lift it. He did not become the richest man on earth by not understanding the nature of power. It is his exploitation of power relations that has allowed him to become an oligarch.
Even if he has taken a blow to the head and tries to challenge his fellow oligarchs on the issue, he will be crushed. Maybe someone should tweet the obituaries of Leonid Shulman, Alexander Tyulakov, Mikhail Watford, Vladislav Avayev, and Sergey Protosenya to Musk on Twitter. Oligarchical systems will always defend the system against oligarchs who threaten the system.
Which is why the argument: “So, what is the angle here? Peiter/CNN’s objective is to support Musk‘s part of the legal argument. That support helps Elon Musk exit from Twitter deal. That exit allows Twitter/IC to return to surveillance operations and intel gathering with exposure risk removed. That’s Peiter’s objective.” really doesn’t make sense. If Twitter wanted to continue business as usual, they: 1. Would never have given up the poison pill so easily and 2., they would have found an easier way to let Musk out of the deal (they certainly wouldn’t sue him to complete the transaction). So, there’s something else going on and no doubt it involves all the players SD highlights above. Maybe there’s a civil war going on internally in the DS and this is one of the battles?
Is there any doubt that Musk is a deep state front man?
He is without any doubt a transhumanist in the mode of the WEF’s geekish crowd as he once opined, in a deeply thoughtful manner, that the AI his crowd was creating would be so much superior to humankind, and “if we can’t beat it (AI), why not join it-become an AI”. What a geekish clown.
it is also important to understand the regulatory agency that has previously been involved directly into twitters security over user data. The FTC could, if these whistleblower evidence is strong and provable, fine twitter for MANY BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
read this for some background:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2011/03/ftc-accepts-final-settlement-twitter-failure-safeguard-personal-information-0
“The FTC’s complaint alleged that between January and May of 2009, hackers were able to gain administrative control of Twitter on two occasions.
Under the terms of the settlement, Twitter will be barred for 20 years from misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers. The company also must establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program, which will be assessed by an independent auditor every other year for 10 years.
The Commission vote to accept the settlement as final was 5-0.”
God Bless America
Wow. Sooooooo, after 20 years twatter can then start misleading consumers again?
they never stopped the flim flam. The FTC wrote strong letters…nobody bothered to follow up and see they were in compliance with the order. Don’t be surprised…that’s mostly how USG agencies operate. Somebody got paid to ignore the task of checking..count on it.
Elon Musk to push for Twitter geolocation data after whistleblower’s bombshell: sources
https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/elon-musk-to-push-for-more-internal-twitter-data-after-whistleblower/
Twitter whistleblower won’t bolster Elon Musk’s case, experts say
https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/twitter-whistleblower-wont-bolster-elon-musks-case-experts-say/
Citing experts is a tell, 99% chance of deceptive manipulative bullcrap.
I swear if I met anyone claiming to be an expert I might consider punching them just for the good of humanity.
‘Expert’ = A drip under extreme pressure.
A former “spurt”, and ain’t we all?
Anyone 50 miles from home, Twain said, causevif you are where no one “knows you” you can claim to be an ‘expert’.
Merci Beaucoup, Maquis!
PS Maquis, I posted a tweet to SD up top. Do you have any inkling as to what is really happening here? Is Musk a white hat, grey or black, in your opinion?
Few “experts” self-identify as such … it’s always the Press enhancing the legitimacy of their sources.
Maquis wins comment of the year!!!
So sick of hearing the “experts, the experts”. These experts couldn’t change a lightbulb without soliciting other “experts” first.
I had a teacher in high school who used to say that an expert was anyone who was 30 miles from home.
Throw a punch for me too!
I am at the point where if someone calls themself an expert, I call them a crook!!
Well, that IS The Post.
and the author of that article would be perfect WRONG.
while it is true that Elon’s arguments are separate.
this revelation falls into a very real business acquisition area, known as
MATERIAL ADVERSE EFFECT
noting: it would appear that Twitter is NOT in compliance with a 2011 FTC order. That is a very big deal. (no pun intended)
it literally means that even though the current elon argument is unlikely to get him out of the deal, this new revelation, if true, presents an entirely different legal argument. MAE!
while this IS a separate legal line of argument than the “bot and spam” argument made by Elon against Twitter, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that this favors Elon takeover twitter in two areas:
This is definitely going to be a very interesting legal battle. This new revelation is not going away.
What Elon does with this new information and how he handles it, will also be interesting.
in my opinion, he should file motion to suspend the acquisition until this matter is resolved. The last thing he should do is get in the middle of this fiasco and take on a company that very well may be facing MANY BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF FINES from the FTC. That would collapse any possibility of making a sensible investment into a company with such a huge cloud handing over it. It would destroy private investor confidence and I am sure many of them are right now, suspending financial capitol to the effort. (stating the obvious to make it clear my opinion)
God Bless America
Since Twitter is a front for most things evil and illegal with the US Government spying on citizens, controlling politics and stuffing opposition, why would any kind of fine be enforced
You can be sure that, if Musk buys the platform, the fines will be enforced.
So let me get this straight: The Intelligence Community, aka US gubmint, brings to light their own malfeasance on their own public/private partnership platform, with a looming threat to fine (themselves) billions of dollars for transgressions that are, essentially, permitted by the Intelligence Community due to the sensitivity of the matter. (Wink wink)
It’s all about their latest top secret so-called “national security threat,” aka US: Me and you and a dog named Boo.
What a farkin mess. Smh
Better yet—why do any “patriots” keep using it?
DING, DING, DING!!!
I have been asking that for YEARS!
People complain about it and then support it!! How is that logical?
Same goes for fakebook! Why are people supporting the dnc aka suckabucks?
Addiction my dear correspondent, addiction.
We are largely a spoiled people wholly unwilling to even consider any change to our “lifestyles,” especially if it might go so far as to—-gasp—-inconvenience any of us.
I was on Twitter from way back when. My handle was my first and last name. I had over 300 followers and I followed even more. I got fed up with them stifling free speech and deleted my account. I did the same with a YouTube subscription. Unfortunately, I remain on FB due to business on marketplace. And so far I get to take a swipe at liberals and the corrupt media.
I wince when I see patriots refer to all their “followers” as did most of those who wisely though tardily fled that cesspool (as Rush eloquently described it) and moved to the short-lived Parler. It tells me we are in desperate need of real interaction with real, not cyber, humans, relying increasingly on “online relationships” with others—all part of the isolate and destroy strategy of our mortal enemies.
The other blatant thing when the Titter-to-Parler migration occurred was the sharp increase in snarkiness and needless gratuitous profanity of the worst kind.
Yet more evidence of the corrosive effect on our moral compasses from continued exposure to the atheistic filth of our mortal enemies in particular and post-modern “culture” in general.
it is going to be very difficult for the FTC to do the potomac two step on this one.
why?
twitter is being accused of not working to make this company profitable. 300 plus millions user base and you can make a buck?
ouch.
shareholders, and major shareholders are not happy about that.
what does twitter look like when elon takes the reigns and it goes private?
profitable!
and to be clear, the same major shareholders of twitter RIGHT NOW are VERY ANXIOUS TO BECOME PRIVATE SHAREHOLDERS WITH ELON IN A PRIVATE HOLDING.
that really needs to be understood here.
the FTC is answerable to MAJOR STOCKHOLDERS WHO WILL BE STEERING THE MOTHER OF ALL LEGAL ACTION AGAINST TWITTER IF THE FTC DOES NOT GET INVOLVED AND DROP A NUKE ON TWITTER.
It’s really the only way for twitter to transfer at a reasonable discount (a fair price) to elon and the private investors who can then recoup a lot of lost time and money.
jmho
God Bless America
No. Musk should be allowed to complete the purchase for pennies on the dollar. The company valuation and stock price is completely bogus.
Hear, Hear!!!
Is the govt taking down Twitter on purpose??
it depends..
I will remind: elon musk has stated ON NUMEROUS OCCASSIONS “this is not about economics”.
think about WHY he might say that and what that might mean.
It is quite possible that Elon initiated this entire acquisition to expose the sordid corruption…
would be be satisfied with watching twitter go down in flames and implode after these legal revelations really sink in with shareholders?
maybe.
maybe not.
what this “new’ material adverse effect issue presents is an inflection point. nothing more…nothing less.
If elon decides to exit and the courts agree and he is left unharmed with the 1 billion dollar exit fee for failure to complete, I suspect the stock price at twitter will crash…and in a huge and big way.
Also reminder: as a major shareholder elon can short sell his shares. There is nothing that prevents him from doing so. He just can’t shout it over a loudspeaker and insinuate the deal is kaput and that was his intention. The SEC would have a field day with him.
this is a very complicated and complex set of circumstances. I would love to be a fly on the wall on the board room of twitter about right now and listen to the crying.
as well, I would love to drop on and hear what elon is designing to both protect his major position in twitter and also how he might be able to profit from the failures of this deal.
exciting times. We are literally watching one of the most dramatic acquisitions in a very long time.
popcorn time.
God Bless America
I feel like SD’s point was that Zatko is actually an insider pretending to expose a deep dark secret that will get Musk out of the picture quickly so Twitter and the IC can get back to business as usual.
Also, they know Musk already discovered that Twitter and the IC are in cahoots. Rather than wait for him to expose it in his own way, they assigned an insider to release the info with their desired spin thru their media allies. They have now taken the wind out of the sails of anyone who really wants to expose the corruption because “that’s old news”.
And they get to alter the conversation to focus on vulnerability instead of collusion with the IC. 👍
The old “getting out ahead of the story” play.
How can the gov’t get back to business as usual if it was predicated on secret relationships/funding between the gov’t and Twitter?
at this point, there is good reason to believe this whistleblower in legit.
and he has an axe to grind too.
he exposed several MAJOR security issues as a hired contractor. He reported this to executives and pointed out that their own managers were intentionaly misleading executives and this shareholders.
he was summarily fired!
there is also the fact that the FTC is having a very difficult time adjusting to the sunlight that it failed to force twitter into compliance from a 2011 order! opps.
and then there is this: and let this sink in fully so we can appreciate a larger part of the issues – elon asked questions that were assumed. This shook twitter and made shareholders nervous. How can a 300 million user base social media company not be making money?
now ask youtself, put yourself into the position of a shareholder…: what does your investment look like with someone like elon in charge versus a public company and management and executives that appear to be doing everything possible TO NOT MAKE MONEY????
Let’s not forget…Elon is a genius. You don’t have to like him to appreciate the intelligence. Money does not buy that kind of talent. I am not a fan boy, but I can appreciate intelligence. And he has it.
Elon has committed to taking this company private and turning it into a money powerhouse.
he can do that. And it appears it would not be that damned difficult.
as shareholders have learned with the sunlight on the twitter embeciles who were too busy playing state narratives and censorship games.
never undersestimate the power of a shareholder and major stock owner.
most of the same public major stock holders are in fact going to become or already have announced they will invest as private investors with elon.
these are not small chumps. It’s the billionaire’s club. About 8 to be specific.
it’s kind of ironic that the IC can be a controlled partner but just ONE GUY STANDS UP IN THE ROOM AND SAY…UMM…I have some questions..and I would like to buy this company.
that should be a lesson: it just takes one person to effect changes. A person who is willing to be bold and not back down. Money or not, these characteristics define success.
God Bless America
I was not posting to critique Sundance. Simply to add to the conversation with some details I have been following also.
for instance: Elon OWNS a major stake in twitter…RIGHT NOW. As well, do 5 out of the 9 major shareholders who have chimed publicly and with capitol that they will be going with elon in this public to private acquisition.
now lets think that through: FTC is going to intentionally sabotage twitter and ruin the holdings of these major investors?
this would effectively cause the entire twitter stock to collapse…and the reason for that is very shocking and surprising…the twitter board and ceo’s (former and current) own peanuts of twitter stock. This was one of the big nasty reveals in this entire mess.
OF COURSE the board was not motivated to make twitter profitable. They didn’t have a freaking dog in the fight…nothing on the line.
but back to point:
if FTC does NOT prosecute: Elon and fellow major shareholders WILL FILE SUIT WITH MAJOR CLAIMS.
If FTC does prosecute: Elon and fellow major shareholders have the opportunity to negotiate some NEW TERMS that include compliance with FTC.
it’s is definitely going to be a very interesting contest…So many moving parts this.
God Bless America
That reminds me of the magazines pulling stats out of their backsides (62% of women cheat) or some other garbage.
Now there’s a powerful legal analysis for you!
I watched that CNN clip. They are all actors with a script. It is all fake. Got to love the Chuck Yeager worrying about the plane scripted line. Got to love the whistleblower who worked at DARPA and has a neat name like Mudge.
Why would the whistleblower go on CNN?
These psychopaths lie so much. Was the supposed whistleblower even employed by Twitter? Is there even a report floating around congress?
The biggest question I am asking is why exactly are the pathological lying psychopaths putting this information out there. Some false flag? Who exactly are they trying to sucker? Musk?
I don’t believe a word of anything on CNN.
This is a tactical move to keep the real underpinnings of Twitster hidden.
It “proves” Elon’s contention that there are more bots than Twitster claimed, so they can now “concede” the point to Elon and use it as an excuse to release him from the deal.
Thus, no court, no genuine discovery, Elon does his thing and the Derp State does theirs.
and if Elon is not interested in getting out of the deal?
meaning: there is a reason why Elon wanted twitter. It has over 300 million users (we can concede that number is likely far lower, but still if it is even just 50 million, that’s a huge user base). He was amused and curious that
I think we can all assume what he has in mind when acquiring the company
a. turn it around and make it profitable like gang busters
b. use the platform to present his tesla and space x and solar city businesses as favorable as possible. (what business person would pass at owning on of the most widely distributed social media companies to produce great news content for your interests?)
noting: elon has been the target of several ongoing SEC/FTC cases. Owning twitter gives him control over a platform and also a massive amount of political leverage. Once the investors are pleased with the twitter returns, you can be sure they will be lobbying hard in congress to make the SEC/FTC back off.
jmho
Maybe the answer is Musk isn’t just fighting Twitter, he’s also fighting their backers in the US government
Well … he Did Say that he believes in Free Speech … so that puts him at odds with The Deep State
I agree that this is the case. However, why?
To me, it seems that most of his major endeavors are dependent on the government. SpaceX sells its product to NASA (and leases launch and other facilities from the government). Tesla benefits from tax subsidies on green manufacturing and EV subsidies. Even the future Starlink service seems to be positioned to get a lot of the rural broadband funds that were enacted in the infrastructure framework that passed last year.
I’d think that Musk wouldn’t want to risk anything that could sour the relations between his ventures and the Federal government.
He would never have gotten his incredible wealth if there had been no subsidies from our tax dollars.
Very few Americans who lionize him seem to understand that.
He is a huckster and reprobate.
I am interested in what he actually meant ” this is not about economics” that leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
I couldn’t say one way or another if this includes exposing IC “partners”….
but regardless if this was what he meant, it appears to be a windfall anyway.
we shall see.
it is definitely a very interesting case.
Screw releasing him from the deal … Twitter will have to be sold to him for a stock price of $4.00/share. Hopefully bankrupting all the rabid, anti-Trump, censor Twitter employees paid in c9mpany stock.
Agree, there is no such thing as a ‘whistleblower’ anymore.
They know that if they blow the whistle and make public what they know, they will be destroyed.
I agree with you, very suspicious at best …
I’m usually useless on this Tech stuff, but I can see what I think is one of sundance’s points, that anything said on twitter, being available all over the world, makes it a legitimate Target for the intelligence Community to spy on, even when the communication is by an American citizen, and intended for other American citizens.
I had picked up on Google being possibly an intelligence Community project almost immediately when it came to exist. And I was alerted to the hidden history of Facebook as a DARPA project called lifelog by some poster somewhere, but I had never known what utility Twitter had for the IC until now.
Is this the main thing Sundance is getting at?
I did see in the video, as Sundance hints that we will see, that CNN concentrated on foreign powers or hackers using Twitter to spy on Americans and others, and thereby distracted from what we would believe is the important point.
What I actually have never seen anywhere is it real recounting of what technical connections exist between the IC and Twitter. I did not see that elucidated in sundance’s article today. Did I miss it? Or has it been explained another time?
It’s been explained and isn’t hard to find, look for Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.
It’s more than the Derps having access to spy. They own the hardware, see and manipulate traffic, and run influence operations. Most of the bots are theirs.
They make TikToc look benign.
I would also include that by injecting bot and spam to make these criminal operations possible, the derps have artificially and illegally made twitter “more valuable” as a stock. This manipulation provides built in sustainability of the operationS (this and many others I would presume)
so there is also a massive financial fraud (and possible money laundering and racketeering aspect) ?
which isn’t a surprise…I’ve never read out a CIA operation that never failed to also produce amazing, astonishing returns. Mission Impossible money.
If we still have any laws left, Twitter doesn’t even have legal stock.
Funny, again proving that they are guilty of exactly what they project onto President Trump.
LOL TikTok is the PRC version of Twitter with FAR more technical assistance overtly provided
Drawing the viewers attention to scary FOREIGN governments ability to spy on us.
Its a basic deceivers trick used by magicians: “look over HERE” rather than where the real action is happening.
Very well educated people I met in Russia right after the Wall came down, told me how they used understanding of this “trick” you glean truth from their totally fake news outlets.
Their lessons, to my fascinated horror, are now very handy here in America.
Exciting times.
Nothing much is done anymore by big players that doesn’t involve public-private partnerships, i.e, fascism.
As is all laid out in the UN/WEF playbooks—Agendas 2021 and 2030 that use the cover of “sustainability” to hide its totalitarian end-state.
Yup, they are the ghosts in the machine.. always have been. The old phone systems were setup to let them listen. Windows and even the physical CPU chips had purposefully built back doors for decades. Same as the new phones and tablets of today. It’s all part of that matrix thingy that doesn’t really exist..
The nature of the public/private partnership reveals that the surveillance state knows “right wing extremists” and “white nationalists” do not represent a terrorist threat but rather a political threat.
If MAGA et al was truly a terror threat they would want us on Twitter and other social media so they could monitor us. They don’t, because the real threat is our voice.
Bingo!
..Good point! And most, if not all of the “terror”activities they attribute to “extremists,” is fomented by our own IC black ops, in order to target and smear their political opposition. Then their tag team mop-up crew, the lying FAKE NEWS ENEmedia, tidies up their messes using pure propaganda and psy-ops.
Twitter is only the tip of the iceberg.
Once again they’re claiming, “We didn’t censor enough!”
They did not build a 1 million sq.ft. computer in Utah on 200 acres for nothing. Lots of room for expansion too.
Along with an entire “lake” for the cooling …
With a dam.
It’s always interesting to me when some story or other touches on something I actually know about at the ground level because of the work I do or have done in the past. In this case, my current line of work has me doing the job in a LOT of data centers around the country. These are massive complexes filled with electrical/HVAC equipment to keep power and cooling to row upon row of server racks…the physical “Internet”.
Several of these that I have and continue to work in host such server space for Facebook/Twitter,etc. None of it is “classified”, security is pretty normal, and there is no “government fingerprint” on any of them. If you want an example of a place I work at that does have that “government fingerprint”, it’s a data center in which half of it was taken up by Microsoft. We are no longer allowed on that side of the building since they moved in, and it does require a security clearance to enter…which is really interesting.
I’m not saying Sundance is wrong here…although I’ve not seen Twitter’s presence in data centers treated like the Microsoft ones…but I am saying that there is absolutely some sort of incestuous relationship between the “shady” classified world of government and major tech companies. It’s possible there are some private/government COLO data centers out there that Twitter is in, but I’ve just not seen it. It also wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Edit: I kept saying Facebook instead of Twitter…both apply, but the article is about Twitter so had to change that.
Wouldn’t the difference be that MSFT provides cloud or hosting services for the govt with classified info on it and Twitter is just something being monitored and manipulated with no govt secrets on it?
Could be. I really don’t know. But I can say without a doubt that nothing classified is connected to the internet. I don’t know if that “other side of the building” is connected to the fiber cables of the internet, but if it is a classified server, that means a direct cable connection on the classified network, which is physically separate from the internet system. Anything actually on the internet will not be classified…but there’s an awful lot of government COLOs in data centers out there, which is curious. I know of several in northern Virginia (I could literally point them out passing by on the street…run by Amazon) and some in Columbus, OH.
A lot of intermingling of government and tech in these places. Yet these locations were chosen due to proximity of regular internet “trunks”…so why would the government bring in a separate line for the classified side?
When it comes to actual classified networks, the government has its own “cloud”. Even on the internet side of things, it has it’s own servers…tons of them. A few places I work at are completely government owned and operated facilities. So where the connections are, and how much of Big Tech is connected to government is really hazy.
I just re-read what I wrote above and I see where it sounds like I’m making an off-handed argument against Sundance’s suspicions, when in reality what I am saying is, I’ve stumbled over the roots of a very large forest of trees and there is absolutely something underground we don’t know about. I’m not arguing against, I’m tossing in a tiny bit of evidence I’ve found.
Ultimately I’m wondering if these COLO sites aren’t connected to the classified network at all, but are data farms on the regular internet for the government. Just because the servers are totally unclassified doesn’t mean what they are using them for isn’t.
At any rate, I think Sundance is onto something here.
I use to work in D.C. not directly for the governement, but as a civilian contractor.
I also had a friend that had a TSC with polygraph that did work on a government project.
Some of the most secure networks in the government are not connected to the internet. The system my friend worked on said that data to be used by the application was hand delivered by courier every morning, signed for, loaded from tape onto the system, and then used for the day. There was no IP connection.
You had to leave your phone outside the work area, all the terminals ( PC’s ) had the optical and USB drives removed, no printers attached, nothing. When the cleaning lady would come around, everyone had to turn off their monitor’s and wait for the person to leave.
I asked the person person one day what was so secret that was on the system and the person said, if you saw what I was looking at your jaw would hit the ground.
I can confirm most of what you say having worked in both a SCIF and a VTR. Other than the cleaning lady bit (she was cleared, so no reason to turn anything off) and the hand-delivering of information. I think they used to do that, but things have changed.
The phone part makes me chuckle a bit, I basically only started carrying around a smartphone in my pocket at all times like 4 years ago because we could never take them into the site so I didn’t have that habit like most people do. Which makes me notoriously difficult to get a hold of by friends and family since I’ll leave my phone sitting somewhere so long the battery dies.
As far as “jaw dropping”…well in the work I was doing for the DOE, it was nothing like that. A Q clearance doesn’t give you access to real world events and what the government is up to. Perhaps it would be “jaw-dropping” to a scientist or engineer in a certain field. I know for me, I was really enthralled with the work we were doing…it was SO COOL.
When I worked in Army Intel and was in the SCIF and seeing realtime reports from places like Iraq, it was definitely jaw-dropping. Not to the point I felt any inclination to run out on the street and yell “It’s People!” ala Soilient Green, but still incredible what really goes on in war. I’m sure your friend had a completely different type of access and maybe he saw things that made him go “hm”.
The funny thing about the classified world is, it’s strictly business and there is this air of “how can we make this NOT classified so our jobs are easier”. That’s where I came in many times as a Derivative Classifier. Because once something is classified it makes it harder to deal with. And the classified system should never, ever be used to protect your ass.
But oh boy is it…by people who are corrupt and have no business in government. And that is the tough thing that will need to be sorted through eventually. By us regular slobs, we were always trying to find a way to justify something ISN’T classified. Because it’s such a bother.
Yes you are correct, this was back around 2008 and several years onward …
Army and Navy intel not much different.
We had stuff classified that you could find on the internet or come to the conclusion on through critical thinking, not hard to figure out.
Working in Army intel, you must know first hand the hardest part of the job, is figuring out what every 3 – 5 letter acronym stands for ( because EVERYTHING is a 3- 5 letter acronym ) and remembering it. That was the part that use to drive me crazy.
My girlfriend in D.C., her ex-husband was head of personal security for the DOE. I think he worked out of Germantown, MD.
LOL…oh yes the acronyms. It’s worse than the memes give it credit for. Even when I was in the Navy when we had missions, some poor petty officer somewhere had to come up with a name that was both an acronym for something and also meant something in a dead language or referred to some mythological creature or god. We had one mission, which I cannot say the name of, that everyone, and I MEAN EVERYONE, on the boat knew immediately was a sexual innuendo.
I bet that petty officer was really proud of himself that day. And we were proud of him.
When I worked for the DOD ( Navy and some Army ), we did our work out of a Navy/Coast Guard facility called the Concord Naval Weapons Station in the Bay Area California.
All the .gov people working there, use to work at another Naval facility called Mare Island in the Bay Area Delta.
The Naval Weapons Station is where it was “suspected”, the Navy at one time use to store their nuclear munitions. I can’t attest to whether this is true or not.
When we were there, the base was all but closed down. They still had the armed security, but operations at that point had ceased. There were also some Marines still there as well if I remember right.
Being former Navy, didn’t know if you knew of this place or not.
( None of this is classified )
I know about it but never visited it. My understanding is nuclear weapons aren’t usually stored there but can be. Best answer I can give. Usually you’ll know if they’re there because you’ll have Marines running around all over looking for reasons to hit people. They get really punchy around nuclear weapons. If you’ve ever been up to Bremerton in Washington State, you know what I mean. Those guys are really ridiculous about it.
But Marines are always a little ridiculous, that’s why we love them.
“But Marines are always a little ridiculous, that’s why we love them.”
Agree 100% …
Marines are a different animal….not sure if they create them or they are born off like that
Erm…the current woke USMC? Not so much. They are aggressively rooting out patriots as “Christians, extremists and anti-vaxxers.”
Retired with 33 yrs in infantry/reconnaissance.
They’re just men like you and me. My father was a Corpsman. A Field Corpsman if any Marines know what that is. I grew up around Marines and guys turning into Marines.
They’re good people, just are turned into something else by the realities of war. Even the laziest Marine is turned into that. I truly love love them and I would put my life in their hands without question.
We always loved and protected our “Docs!”
when we did our load-outs for overseas deployments we had SOC security on the pier and in Zodiacs around the ship……..”I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on board the USS —-.”……the only system we had capable of carrying a nuclear warhead was our ASROC and our total for those were 8 in the boxes and 4 in the magazine…..it was just a Mk 46 torpedo with a rocket extender on the end to give it a possible 12 nm range
I was CO of a Marine Detachment on a (real) cruiser (CLG class with Terrier missiles) with nukes aboard. Our main mission was security of the warheads.
We too k that VERY seriously.
Assholes.
Still love you jarheads. I mean, someone has got to be the asshole. You guys just embraced it.
Ok so you know why I can only say what I can say.
I spent many years working for our now-enemy, the feds. Most of that time I had a Top Secret/SCI clearance.
Merely having a clearance however does not mean I could just flit around DC or in a SCIF looking at any classified material I wanted. This is where most Americans are clueless.
To actually (and legally—I realize that is no longer applicable) look at something classified, 3 conditions had to be met:
1. I had sufficiently high security clearance for the material.
2. I was given “access” officially by someone with the required authority and/ or my current job requirements
AND
3. A “need to know” the information. This meant there was an official reason for me to have that information at that time.
ALL of these 3 had to coincide for me to actually see the information. Very few seem to understand that and focus solely on a clearance.
Wouldn’t a company like Twatter/Facebook have the resources to host their own data centers that were not shared with anyone ?
I use to work for several large corporations in the later part of my US career, mostly banks, and they would always host their own, multiple ones.
I can’t attest to private/government relationship in the data centers themselves since I didn’t work in that area of tech, but in the break rooms, I would notice OSHA postings on specifically what a DHS contractor should do if they need to file a complaint about their work conditions.
Saw those postings on several occasions.
Data centers are insanely expensive. Generally speaking, they need to be close to the fiber cables that cross Atlantic to reduce latency (I know speed of light shouldn’t have much latency, but it exists). So land has become an absolute premium in Northern Virginia, where the biggest trunk is located. Some companies have built data centers in Columbus, OH and Denver, CO, Chicago, and of course the whole Silicon Valley area (Santa Clara and San Jose mostly) as well as Seattle…but those mostly are there because they are close to certain companies or industries.
It’s vastly cheaper for even a big company like Facebook to just buy server space in a Virginia data center than to run their own. Amazon is an exception (disclaimer, I used to work for them in a data center). Amazon requires an incredible amount of server space but also Dr. Evil wanted to basically own the internet and Amazon data centers basically control something like 65% of internet traffic at this point. Something like half of every building hosts Amazon’s ridiculous internet footprint…the rest host a lot of big names like Netflix.
That’s what I mentioned in an earlier post. I relocated to Thailand to be with my family, mainly because the DOS would not issue my wife even a tourist visa, despite the fact she is a Sr. Nurse at a govt hospital, 5 years away from retirement with full benefits and pension, kids, house, land, money, everything and they still denied her a visa.
So I live in Thailand now and do freelance work for companies, I mentioned in that earlier post that almost all of the small and mid-sized companies I do work for, even in SE Asia, out of curiousity, I ping the IP’s for either a server or database, and all of them so far using AWS, always originate out of Northern Virginia for some reason.
Latency always seems to be an issue with AWS. Sometimes I need to go into the database, show the client how the database is accessing the data on disk, and show them that the 3 second delay in getting the results is not due to a bad app or query, but it’s a latency issue because the statistics are showing it’s taking .01 seconds to retrieve the data from disk, but it’s taking 3 – 5 seconds to get the results to screen.
Having worked in several Amazon data centers, even invloved in building two of them from the ground, and understanding their philosophy…yes AWS is garbage. The want the cheapest way to do things possible. “Cardboard servers” is what some of us called them. They pump data through just fine, but any inkling of a problem and they can’t hack it.
If I were to advise someone to choose a company for servers it would either be Digital Realty or Raging Wire. And yes, I have worked at all of these places.
Outstanding insight Keln ( on all your posts ) ! I’m going to research and use those suggestions as an alternative to AWS going forward.
Appreciate it very much !
My pleasure. I really, really like Digital Realty and their people who I’ve been working face to face with for years. Good people. Raging Wire is a little weird but totally customer-centered as far as I can tell. Both companies just really want their customers to never have a reason to ever call them lol.
I think that’s a great mark of an internet company.
Thanks for the knowledgeable recommendations.
Keln, We’re always talking about how we need to build/use alternatives to the left’s options, like GiveSendGo in lieu of GoFundMe.
Your last paragraph explains why this is so rarely done in the tech world. But eventually it will have to happen if we are ever to wrest ourselves out of Big Gov control.
I really don’t want to come off as some sort of Tech expert, because I am not. But yes, you’re correct. It’s really hard and very expensive to actually create alternatives to the existing data center architecture.
Maybe Elon Musk will go that route. He’s babbled about it a few times. But without someone like that, it’s entirely possible that the existing internet can be locked down by people that hate us.
speed of light in copper is reduced to 1/3 of its speed in air….this must be taken into account in the speeds in the hardware and designs
That explains why all the networks started promoting Twitter relentlessly as soon as it started up.
How come leaking twitter data is bad, but leaking PDJT’s communications is good? Rhetorical question…
You are attempting to use a traditionally rational line of reasoning to determine good vs. bad. Those who use the “rule” you cited are not using that, but instead are using their own fabricated rationale to justify it.
So what this really amount to is that NSA gave Twitter the use of NSA’s ginormous server farm in Utah in exchange for total access to Twitter users/accounts.
Sundance,
You’re the light that penetrates the fog. Every day. And thanks for teaching us how to see.
This gives a whole new gravitas to the government asking Twitter to censor, block, or remove a user or post.
My feeling is that this will either cause twitter to go under OR Musk will get a much better deal than the $44 billion asking price. Given the Judge’s propensity to try and get a deal done, I think it’ll be the latter.
The CNN on-air “talent” express fear that teenagers and Putin can manipulate FaceTweet for evil purposes. Yet, it never occurs to them that “The One” (BHO), or “Science” (Fauci), or countless other Deep State actors could and would do the same.
Reading between the lines of that CNN piece (thanks Leprechaun for your winsome charm, tilted head interview style. Maybe you can be the next Brian stelter!), it looks to me that Twitter and the intel community are looking for an off ramp exit strategy to the Musk hostile takeover attempt.
It looks like they just may just shut it all down. And then claim they cannot release documents responsible to discovery requests bc somehow it all falls under ‘National security’- Ie we found evidence of foreign country hacking Twitter and we need to pursue that so can’t reveal. blah blah blah.
I’ll guess that Twitter is gone in a year.
Btw Graff, the writer at the end, is an excellent useful idiot. He just came out wi th a pretty well written and well researched book on watergate that in itself qualifies as a limited hangout.
Knowing all of this and yet people still jumped all over using ZOOM, and never gave privacy a single thought. I think ZOOM was created to spy on citizens/groups.
Right there with NextDoor.
Always creating new public squares to move our interactions and associations to a monitorable box.
Did he spill the beans on who gave the order to cancel President TRUMP?
How about all of the pre-cancellation harassment of President TRUMP on twatter?
So is that why all these telemarketing and service center calls are almost exclusively with accents thicker than a London fog? Answer just one foreign telemarketing call, even though it deceptively shows a local number, and now the IC can spy on you at will? Is this why the FCC refuses to do anything about the annoying spam calls from spoofed phone numbers and the lewd texts which come from email addresses and therefore cannot be blocked?
Reading Treehouse and Politico is the extent of my social media. The family has harassed , kindly, me to expand my social media. I have steadfastly resisted. They are starting to understand why I chose to stay under the radar and not dispense my private life in a public venue controlled by the intelligence community. Reading “Atlas Shrugged” was a seminal time in my life, as producers, my wife and I have not decided where to relocate, the shine is off of Florida.
Politico? Know your enemy I assume.
Shin Tzu
Whew!
I wonder if this is why Nellie Ohr was using a short wave radio?
Another observation… the number of comments on this article are rather small, I use the article of the Miller family and the extensive comments from the other day. People are not good at facing truths, it’s a hardboiled fact. This article pokes you right in the eye if you are a social media presence, hence the small amount of comments. You are the problem because you consume/embrace social media. Social media is all about controlling you in the future. Think of the red haired girl and the ATM that denies you. Start today and divorce yourself, you will thank yourself next time you look in the mirror. Just my thought of the day, I’m a bit close to violating grandmas rules to our community. Happy hump day, toss sand if presents itself.
Excellent—my posts of a similar vein also usually get a “crickets” reception or at best some offended poster’s lame reason why he or she cannot just stop playing in the devil’s playground.
I am interested in this statement: “Zatko further alleges that Twitter’s leadership has misled its own board and government regulators about its security vulnerabilities, including some that could allegedly open the door to foreign spying or manipulation, hacking and disinformation campaigns.”
This seems to absolve the “board and government regulators” in the event that it is revealed that Twitter is a joint project of the world government expressed in the Five eyes communities. Perhaps implicitly these parties are already acting as the board of world governance together. Should this “hacking” by outside members of the Twitter surveillance network, the board and government are innocently surprised…
I think this is probably irrelevant in the big picture. Google, Facebook and dozens upon dozens of smaller companies were built on the backbone of intelligence collection.
Prior decades it was sprint, ATT, Southern Bell…
This has been going on since WWII and regardless of what information is put into the public that will not change. The intelligence community protects the government from it’s people and in turn protects the parties involved in it’s ongoings.
You’ve got no one to complain to.
CNN, WAPO et al can spin their as… off with this but a now very distrustful, skeptical and angry public ain’t gonna buy it the way they used to. This entire macabre spider web of deceit and illegality needs to be simplified… and it is not that hard… unbeknownst to you John Q Public your government is funding Twitter, Facebook and many others… why??????
OF COURSE THE IC IS BEHIND BIG TECH! They’ve been involved for a long time; they’ve been involved from the start, actually. There’s a CIA front venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, that funded the tech startups in the 1990s. They selected the entrepreneurs (e.g. Zuckerberg), then let ’em compete to find the winners. These winners were then beholden to Uncle Sam. You didn’t believe fairy tales like Mark Zuckerberg started Fakebook in his dorm room, did you?
Oh and BTW, the relationship is even MORE incestuous now! IC heads (i.e. brass from NSA, CIA, et al) are on the boards of the Big Tech companies. If anything, the relationship, i.e. the “public/private partnership”, between Uncle Sam and Big Tech is even cozier today.
So, WHY would Uncle Sam want to get cozy with Big Tech? It’s not just for intelligence gathering and spying on the American people, though that’s part of it. With Big Tech acting on behalf of the US government, they can go after our First Amendment, Second Amendment, and other rights. Uncle Sam is still somewhat constrained by the Constitution, so it can’t go after our rights directly. Ah, but if Big Tech wants to silence us, that’s okay! They’re a private company, after all, so they don’t have to give lip service to the COTUS.
Actually, since the Big Tech companies are corporations, they’re not really private companies. Corporations only exist thanks to the special legal framework provided by the gov’t; without that legal framework, a corporation as we know it cannot exist. Since they exist in that special, legal framework, how private are they? Even so, they’re not US gov’t agencies, so they’re less constrained by the COTUS.
Where did I learn this? From The David Knight Show! David Knight is a retired engineer and business owner who brings a unique blend of intelligence, insight, wisdom, analysis, logic, and common sense to today’s events. He’s been all over the incestuous relationship between Uncle Sam and Big Tech. You can find out how to listen or watch his show here: http://thedavidknightshow.com/
Thanks for the tip on the David Knight show. Never heard of it till now.
Watch or listen to it; you’ll be GLAD you did!
200 pages?
That’s a lot of detail from a security head. Almost as if he knew partial info would be disinformationized (yep, new word) by many.
Why a security head would wish to furnish the public with such detail?
There’s much harm in this.
Wapo reported yesterday that the board had a different bot report they did not share in their sec filings. Let the lawsuits begin. 90% of twitter is bots
Among other things, this article illuminates why you and I should think really, really hard before we synchronize our “devices” via the cloud … and about backing up all our data to the cloud “for security”. The price of such convenience may prove to be very high indeed.
Remember: The cloud is just someone else’s computer.
I’ve reached a point where I no longer believe that most people care about their rights. The vast majority of the Democrats/Left 100% supports using the IC to target their political enemies. That’s what this “domestic terrorist” stuff is all about. It allows Democrat voters to support the Stasi because white people are evil or something.
When the Allies liberated a concentration camp in Germany, the locals who lived nearby pretended they didn’t know what was going on inside the prison.
There are ALWAYS people willing to play along as long as the weapons of war are targeted at their enemies.
If it was revealed tomorrow that Twitter is basically owned and operated by the CIA, FBI, etc, most of the idiots still using it would continue to do so. Many who leave would just go to another platform that is also run by the Stasi.
Well spotted. Just look at the scamdemic where most Americans (and citizens of other “western” nations) eagerly surrendered their God-given (“natural”) rights, preserved by the blood sacrifice of their countrymen over the last 250 years.
Amazingly and quite telling, they did this out of abject and irrational fear of things purposely created for just that purpose by our illegitimate masters. It showed me that for those who paid nothing for these rights, it then follows they see no issue in surrendering them so easily.
As a people, we failed the test of our character and courage. This was of course carefully noted by our globalist enemies.
Edward Snowden revealed the cia had the ability to create massive numbers of fake social media profiles. This was back in 2014.
Every last one of these people suck ass, including Musk.
Zatko’s initial statement in that CNN interview says it all, imo:
Zatko: “All my life I’ve been about finding places where I can go and make a difference.”
And, out of all the places he chooses to go, he chooses CNN – the king of Fake News.
So it is exactly what we were told it was all along. Twitter, Facebook and eventually moving into the ‘Metaverse’ as a single universal virtual augmented reality prison for the slaves of their emerging world order. But let us not be deceived into believing that any and every other form of social media that uses the interconnected internet isn’t being used for the same purpose. I write ‘let us not be deceived’ here knowing that it’s obvious that most will quite willingly open themselves up to that deception because hey, in their eyes it will be only the untermenschen who reject it and will therefore be left ‘behind’. Except that . . .
“These however speak evil of those things which they do not know. But rather in everything they do naturally as wild animals without reason that which they are familiar with in destroying themselves.” ~ Jude 1.10
The interesting thing about this article is the observation of IBM vs AWS. I haven’t watched Jeopardy in a while, but recall them hyping IBM’s Watson big time and it seemed to suddenly go away (almost as if the funding dried up and went somewhere else??). Makes you wonder if Watson was IBM’s big data parsing engine as they touted how it would change medicine, businesses, etc.
After the last 6 years, I am 100% sure that the Intelligence mafia collects and has access to every single electronic communication in the country. I am also sure they access this information at will, without cause or warrant. Social media is a brain washing/spying/intelligence gathering operation on a world wide scale.
It almost sounds like they are making the argument for US government (IC) control over Twitter as a matter of national security concern.
If they are making this argument, I would argue that the DoD would be the proper entity, not the CIA or FBI.
Two things to keep in mind about Elon:
Several more things to keep in mind:
3. He has no moral compass and is an atheist.
4 he has played us all like a fiddle in getting his wealth and power off the backs of hard-working Americans whose taxes pay for the subsidies he continues to get and from the money of so many Americans (including many many “patriots”) who just have to have one of his expensive save the planet cars.
Yep. That’s my take, too.
Maybe the CIA is smashing its toys, like Twitter?
When the CIA doesn’t have to earn a dime of its budget, it can smash what it builds and move along without worry.
That is, old toys that are now compromised, toxic, and no longer useful.
Might explain why this “exclusive” came via CNN, which only does the bidding of its masters.
I’m “suspicious cat-faced” that this revelation came through CNN, which appears to be restructuring to shed the perception it is as biased as it is (and always will be) in reality. On a related note, Newsweek (yes, that old rag) appears to be pushing out more right-leaning content to lure conservatives.
I was totally mistaken thinking Musk was “a good guy”. My apologies to you all.
Reading the post and the comments, he is not for freedom. What he is for , like most of them, is money and power.
I’ll have to see the world next via clear glasses and skip the rose colored ones.
These people are brutally evil.
Welcome to the club.
I will have to read all this at least 3 or 4 more times before I can follow it. Lots of smart folks seem to understand it. Not I.
I thought Mudge was killed by an alien years ago.
independence-day_480_poster.jpg (480×237) (mediaite.com)
Musk is obviously well aware of this situation long before he made his “offer”.
No one else in business is so well adept at using Federal money to bankroll a non-solvent business. Every business Musk is in – electric cars, space rockets, solar rooftops, energy storage batteries – exists solely based on massive government intervention in the market, either direct “incentives” to buyers, direct government payments as vendors, or regulatory intervention to force people to adopt new, unsustainable behavior.
I believe Musk intentionally wants to own Twitter so he can personally take advantage of this organic connection between the “business” and the surveillance state apparatus.