Generational Dynamics World View

Generational Dynamics World View - Printable Version

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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-16-2020

*** 17-Aug-20 World View -- Microsoft's monopolistic practices leave Windows 10 vulnerable to massive hacking attack

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Microsoft's monopolistic practices leave Windows 10 vulnerable to massive hacking attack
Example #1: Apple's iPhone forced slowdown using 'throttling'
Example #2: Microsoft forcing an upgrade to Enterprise edition
Example #3: Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10
Example #4: Microsoft's crapware (games, ads, trials) downloads
Crapware downloads risk global hacking attack
The political power of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft
The 'Hate Speech', 'Fake Speech' censorship monopoly
The power of monopoly -- and the danger
Sources
Previous articles about China
Previous articles about financial fraud
Previous articles about the financial crisis
Previous articles about Healthcare.gov disaster

****
**** Microsoft's monopolistic practices leave Windows 10 vulnerable to massive hacking attack
****

[Image: g200816b.jpg]

Windows 10 task manager screen showing when Microsoft is downloading crapware (games, ads, trials, teasers) to your computer without asking you. Notice that the C: drive is 100% active, and this can go on for hours, at high priority, sometimes crippling the computer

There was a major news story recently that you may have missed about
an extremely serious hacking breach.

Last month, hackers took control of dozens of Twitter accounts, and
used them to try to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from
millions of Twitter users. The hackers used a very simple "low tech"
technique to gain control: they bribed or extorted or tricked a
Twitter employee to giving them control. There are undoubtedly
hundreds or even thousands of people in Twitter's IT department with
full access to the user databases who could have satisfied the
hackers, although Twitter is now thought to be reducing that number.

When this happened, most people were shocked that this could even
happen. Most thought that it was impossible. In this article, we're
going to show that this and a lot worse can happen to Microsoft and
other online services.

According to Twitter:

<QUOTE>"The attackers successfully manipulated a small number
of employees and used their credentials to access Twitter’s
internal systems, including getting through our two-factor
protections. As of now, we know that they accessed tools only
available to our internal support teams to target 130 Twitter
accounts. For 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to
initiate a password reset, login to the account, and send
Tweets. We are continuing our forensic review of all of the
accounts to confirm all actions that may have been taken. In
addition, we believe they may have attempted to sell some of the
usernames."<END QUOTE>

News reports at the time speculated that the Twitter attack was just a
rehearsal for a much larger attack by Russia or China to be launched
just prior to the November 3 election, to influence the election.

According to press reports, all the hackers wanted was money, but
press reports speculate that they could have been a lot more
malicious, and the recent attack could have been a practice test for a
more extensive attack to manipulate the November 3 elections.

According to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.):

<QUOTE>"This hack bodes ill for November balloting. Count
this incident as a near miss or shot across the bow. It could
have been much worse with different targets. So many security red
flags are raised by this criminal attack that the culprits should
be tracked down as quickly as possible."<END QUOTE>

Blumenthal is right about the large number of security red flags. But
he's wrong that the problem can be solved by tracking down the
culprits. The reason he's wrong is that this is a simple, low-tech
attack. There's no super-complex hacking software involved. It's
done the old fashioned way, with bribery and extortion or tricking of
Twitter employees.

And the same low-tech attack could be used on any of the online giants
-- Google, Amazon, Facebook, or Microsoft or indeed on any large
online service. A malicious actor, including a country like China or
Russia, could use bribery or extortion to "manipulate" one or more IT
employees to gain access to or control of dozens or hundreds or even
thousands of user accounts or computers. This is what happened at
Twitter, and it can happen at any of the online giants. How the
malicious actor uses that access or control varies from one online
giant to another, but the core technique of using bribery or extortion
to gain control is the same in all cases.

In this article, we're going to focus on Microsoft. According to
Microsoft, there are almost one billion desktop computers running
Windows 10. Microsoft is a monopolist with complete control of
Windows 10 on those one billion computers. Microsoft can update or
modify the Windows 10 software at any time, and there's nothing that
any user can do to stop it because, for almost all users, there's no
other choice but to use Windows 10. Microsoft is the quintessential
monopolist, with total control of a product that one billion people
are forced to use.

We're going to show how Microsoft illegally uses its monopoly power to
extort money from users. The method is obvious from the numbers: If
Microsoft can update or modify the Windows 10 software on computers in
order to "coerce" a million users to pay $100 each for Microsoft apps
or services or upgrades, then Microsoft makes $100 million for doing
essentially nothing. This is the essense of monopoly power.

We're going to show how Microsoft is already doing that, and we're
going to show how a malicious actor, like Russia or China, could use
an attack similar to the Twitter hack to extort money or even to start
a war.

Let's begin by giving three examples of how this has already occurred
in other ways.

****
**** Example #1: Apple's iPhone forced slowdown using 'throttling'
****

It's estimated that some 3 billion iPhones have been sold, and Apple has
the kind of monopolistic control over them that Microsoft has over Windows.
Apple has already used criminal monopolistic behavior to force users
of older iPhones to upgrade.

You may recall from March that Apple was forced to pay up to $500
million to settle a US lawsuit. Apple had used its monopolistic
control over iPhones to slow down old iPhones, in order to coerce
users into upgrading. This is criminal behavior under the antitrust
laws, and that's why Apple was forced to settle, and was anxious to
settle. They were lucky that it cost them only $500 million.

Here are some excerpts from a Reuters news story from March:

<QUOTE>"Apple to pay up to $500 million to settle
U.S. lawsuit over slow iPhones

(Reuters) - Apple Inc has agreed to pay up to $500 million to
settle litigation accusing it of quietly slowing down older
iPhones as it launched new models, to induce owners to buy
replacement phones or batteries.

Consumers contended that their phones’ performance suffered after
they installed Apple software updates. They said this misled them
into believing their phones were near the end of their lifecycles,
requiring replacements or new batteries.

Apple attributed the problems mainly to temperature changes, high
usage and other issues, and said its engineers worked quickly and
successfully to address them. Analysts sometimes refer to the
slowing of iPhones as “throttling.”

Following an initial outcry over slow iPhones, Apple apologized
and lowered the price for replacement batteries to $29 from
$79."<END QUOTE>

Apple was committing a crime by using its monopoly control of iPhones
to force iPhones to run more slowly, in order to coerce the user to
upgrade to a new iPhone. That's why Apple was desperate to settle as
quickly as possible.

An important part of Apple's behavior is that it must be as obscure as
possible to the user. If the user knew that Apple was purposely
throttling his iPhone, he might trade it in for an Android. Instead,
slowing the iPhone down is made as obscure and invisible as possible
so that the user doesn't know what's going on, and just buys a new
iPhone.

I realize that many people idolize Tim Cook and Apple, but this is
incredibly sleazy behavior. Apple managers are screwing their own
customers to essentially extort their customers to buy new iPhones.
It's absolutely incredible, but it shows the state of corporate
management these days. Apple managers like Tim Cook and Craig
Federighi are criminals who are totally lacking in morality and
ethics. And this criminal behavior actually happened.

But with 3 billion iPhones under their control, morality and ethics go
out the window, as Cook and Federighi look for ways to extort more
cash from users. The chance to extort billions of dollars from users
is just too tempting.

If anyone reading this wants to argue that Microsoft managers are less
unethical and immoral than Apple managers, then I'd like to hear that
argument.

****
**** Example #2: Microsoft forcing an upgrade to Enterprise edition
****

Example #1 was Apple's illegal throttling hack on iPhones to slow them
down, forcing users to upgrade.

Example #2 is an illegal action in 2016 by Microsoft to force Windows
Pro users to upgrade to Windows Enterprise, costing as much as $200
for each user.

In July 2016, Microsoft updated Windows 10 on its customers' desktop
to make it impossible for Windows Pro users to eliminate Windows
crapware like games, ads, trials and teasers. Users already have to
pay a big premium to run Windows Professional, but they do so because,
well, they're professionals like me, and want a professional version
of Windows, so they want the option of removing things like games.
But that's not good enough for Microsoft. Microsoft wants to force
Pro users to pay $100-200 more per computer to get the professional
features they thought they already had.

Here is a July 28, 2016, post by Russian blogger Sergey Tkachenko on
his Winaero blog:

<QUOTE>"Microsoft locks some Group Policy options to
Enterprise editions in Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Today, we surprisingly discovered that Microsoft has secretly
changed the availability of some Group Policy options in Windows
10 version 1607. Windows 10 version 1607 "Anniversary Update" has
reduced the control via Group Policy that you have in Pro
edition. Pro edition users have lesser options available compared
to version 1511, so many behaviors of the OS cannot be controlled.

If you open the Group Policy management console and read the
description of certain policy settings in Windows 10 build
14393, you will find out that the options mentioned below are NO
LONGER AVAILABLE for Windows 10 Pro users. They are locked down to
Enterprise and Education editions only: ...

[i]Turn off Microsoft consumer experiences. Using this option,
you could prevent Windows 10 from automatically downloading and
installing promoted apps like Candy Crush Soda Saga, Flipper,
Twitter, NetFlix, Pandora, MSN News and many other potentially
unwanted apps and games. Now you can't prevent these apps from
being automatically downloaded and installed if you are using
Windows 10 Pro or Home editions. The policy setting (or Registry
setting) has no effect in these editions. consumer
experience Starting with Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you
can only control unwanted apps in Enterprise and Educations
editions of Windows 10. This behavior was confirmed when I
upgraded my Windows 7 Professional to Windows 10 Pro and many
unwanted apps installed automatically from the Store."<END QUOTE>[/i]

A Zdnet article by Mary Jo Foley at that same time explains why
Microsoft did this:

<QUOTE>"Why did Microsoft remove the ability for admins to
change and shut off these apps and settings? I asked and didn't
hear back from company officials.

Some of us cynics believe the change was because Microsoft wants
to get more users to upgrade to the more expensive Enterprise
SKU. ...

Microsoft officials have been very up front about looking for ways
to make money indirectly from Windows 10 in various ways,
including promotional/sponsored app suggestions. ... The Softies
are trying to push more people to go to the Store and download
new/more apps. Microsoft gets a cut of third-party apps
downloaded from the Store."<END QUOTE>

This is pretty much a smoking gun. Microsoft wants to prevent Pro
users from stopping the crapware attacks, so the option to stop them
is disabled in the Pro edition. Foley call the Microsoft execs
"softies," but I would call them hardcore monopolistic criminals.

This is clearly extortionary behavior by Microsoft that's illegal.
There is absolutely no reason to remove these options from the Pro
version, except to extort money from users who are trapped by
Microsoft's monopoly, and have already paid a premium for the
"Professional" version of Windows 10.

****
**** Example #3: Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10
****

Like many sophisticated users, I used to love my Windows-7 system. It
worked great, with none of the Microsoft crap that you have to put up
with in Windows-10.

In mid-January 2019, on a Tuesday afternoon, all of a sudden my
Windows 7 computer started getting incredibly slow. Firefox was
brought to its knees, and Chrome was working intermittently.

I spent many days trying to figure out which process was causing the
problem, and then I realized that it was far more sinister: Whenever I
started using Firefox, or a Youtube video on Chrome, or Windows Media
Player, or any of several other programs, then the problem would
occur. What would happen is that that particular program would only
use 15-20% of the cpu, but Windows would magically jack up the CPU
usage of other normally innocuous processes.

So for example, when the system was mostly idling, process explorer
might show the top cpu users as omnipage 1.3%, firefox 0.9%, sidebar
0.9%, emacs 0.1%, acro rd32 0.3%, and so forth, totalling around 10%.

But when I started up a youtube video on chrome, that process would
use 23% of the cpu, which wouldn't be a problem. But all of those
numbers in the last paragraph were now jacked up to 13.1%, 8.4%, 5.6%,
and so forth, totaling 100%, bringing the system to its knees.

In other words, starting up something on Chrome or Media Player or any
of numerous other programs would affect every other process on the
system. For example, I open Media Player, and suddenly Emacs would go
from using 0.1% of the cpu to 13.1% of the cpu, which makes no sense
at all.

So I started searching the internet, and I found that it's happening
to other people. Apparently it was triggered by a particular windows
update. Being a paranoid individual, I took note of the fact that
this problem started occurring the same week that Microsoft reminded
everyone that Windows 7 support would expire in a year, and I wondered
if this was a Microsoft plot to force people to install Windows 10.

What was going on was purposely obscure to 99.9% of the Windows-7
users. I'm one of the few users who could figure out what was going
on, since I spent many years of my career developing operating
systems. I developed three embedded operating systems, and two
mainframe operating systems, so I'm very capable of diagnosing these
situations.

So after a great deal of analysis, I knew that the only way this
problem could be occurring would be is if someone (Microsoft) changed
the operating system in a certain way. There's a process queue in the
core of any timesharing operating system, and there's a core o/s
function that takes the top process off the queue and gives it a time
slice -- let's it execute for a few milliseconds. When the time slice
expires, then that process goes on the bottom of the process queue,
and the new top of queue is allowed to run for a time slice. That's
how the operating system makes it appear that multiple programs are
all running simultaneously when, in fact, they are running in turn, a
few milliseconds at a time.

So the problem I was having could happen only one way: Microsoft had
modified the operating system on my computer to add several
milliseconds of time in a do-nothing loop to each time slice for each
process. This might have been simply a bug, and that's why I was
hoping that it would be corrected in the next Windows update. But it
wasn't corrected in the next update or the one after. It was clear to
me that that Microsoft was doing this on purpose, to force me to
upgrade to Windows 10.

By the way, the only reason I could figure this out was because of my
years of operating system experience. Ordinary users would have no
clue what was going on, and that's how Microsoft wanted it. And if
they called anyone for support, they would simply be told that their
computer was getting too old, and they should upgrade to Windows 10.

I knew what was going on, but it didn't matter. Microsoft is a
powerful monopolist that can screw me or any of its users at any time
of its choosing, to extract money or whatever. After a few weeks of
despair, I bought a new Dell Windows-10 computer. Then, of course,
Microsoft started with crapware downloads on my new computer, which
caused the same kind of performance problem as on my old computer.

****
**** Example #4: Microsoft's crapware (games, ads, trials) downloads
****

I've now given three examples of illegal monopolistic behavior --
Apple throttling iPhones, Microsoft forcing upgrade to Enterprise
edition, and Microsoft forcing upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10.
All of these are examples are of a monopolistic company illegally
using its monopoly power to extort money from users.

We'll now turn to the particular subject of this article, Microsoft's
illegal monopolistic behavior downloading crapware. However, this
example is much worse because unlike the recent Twitter hack, it's
about more than money.

At any time of the day or night, Microsoft downloads several gigabytes
of data to my computer, essentially crippling my computer. If I'm
trying to get some work done, then I'm screwed. Response time to a
simple command becomes 15-30 seconds, and saving a file in an Emacs
editor can sometimes take as much as 5 minutes.

The crapware downloads are different from the regular Windows Updates
downloads. Those updates occur at scheduled times, and they're
carefully controlled by Microsoft procedures that have been developed
for years.

However, with Windows 10, that hasn't been enough for Microsoft.
Every week, Microsoft downloads several gigabytes of ads, games,
videos and other crapware to your computer in a completely
uncontrolled fashion. These downloads go on for hours, often completely
crippling the desktop computer being targeted.

My experience for the last year is that Microsoft cripples my computer
at any time of the day or night, for any number of hours at a time, to
store more crapware on my computer. To say that this infuriates me
would be a big understatement.

Let me make it clear that I don't care about the ads. I'm used to
seeing ads on tv, on web sites, in magazines, and so forth. That's
not the problem. The problem is that Microsoft is purposely crippling
my computer at any time, for hours at a time, to download their
crapware, preventing me from getting my work done. This is criminal
behavior by a monopolist, designed to force users to upgrade or to
purchase additional Microsoft services.

As a Senior Software Engineer of many decades, I can spot bad software
and sloppy implementations. Here's a list of the characteristics of
these crapware downloads that reveal the intent:

There's no advance warning notification, since that would
allow the user to plan for some other activity while the download was
going on.
Similarly, there's no notification during the download, telling
the user what's going on and how long it will last since, once again,
the user could plan for something else.
And of course there's no way to cancel or reschedule or slow a
crapware download.
There's no way to identify what process is doing the download,
since would allow a user to lower its priority or cancel it.
The download runs at maximum priority, crippling the computer.
Clearly, it could run at a lower priority and accomplish the same
thing over a longer period of time without crippling the computer, so
running at high priority is an intentional choice by Microsoft to harm
the user unnecessarily.

As a software engineer of many decades, I see the above list as proof
that Microsoft is purposely screwing its users for financial gain,
just as Apple did in throttling iPhones. Some of the items in the
above list could be fixed trivially, such as displaying advance
notifications, and allowing the user to reschedule, or lowering the
priority of the process, so that the computer isn't crippled. The
fact that Microsoft designed these downloads to do the greatest
possible harm to its own users in the most chaotic way is proof, in my
opinion, of extreme malice and criminal behavior on the part of
Microsoft.

For most users, it's almost impossible to see what's going on, except
that your computer slows down. The only way that I know of to see
what's happening during a crapware download is to open the Task
Manager, go to the performance tab, and click on the "Disk 0 (C Smile

".
You'll see that disk activity is solid 100% without variation,
sometimes for hours. (By the way, I've gotten into the habit of
leaving the Task Manager window open all the time to that tab. If I'm
suddenly having problems, I can click on that window, and usually I
can see that a new Microsoft crapware attack is just beginning.)

The graphic at the beginning of this article shows what Task Manager
looks like during a crapware attack. Note that the Drive C: activity
is at 100%, and this can go on for minutes or hours. That's on the
Performance tab. If you try to switch back to the Process tab, you'll
see that there's nothing going on -- Microsoft has purposely hidden
the crapware download activity so that you can't plan for it or modify
it, or even know it's going on. Microsoft can do this because it's a
monopoly and it has control of your computer, and can do whatever it
wants to you.

As a Software Engineer, I've always had a very high opinion of
Windows, and Microsoft technology. I started playing around with
Windows version 1 in 1985. Since then, I haven't always agreed with
some of the directions that Windows took, but I always felt that they
were intended to be in the best interest of the users. Until a year
or two ago, Windows was always a gold star product, in my opinion.

I also met Bill Gates two or three times in the 1990s. I thought he
was a really decent, competent guy who, once again, believed in doing
what was in the best interest of the users.

But Bill Gates is gone now, having left Microsoft years ago to save
the world from malaria and coronavirus. The company that he left
behind has turned into a sewer with a corporate culture of young
people who happily sacrifice the best interest of their users for
their own agendas and money.

****
**** Crapware downloads risk global hacking attack
****

I'm now ready to show how Microsoft's policies risk a global hacking
attack on Microsoft that can have much more serious consequences than
the similar attack that's already occurred on Twitter.

I've now shown the following:

The Twitter hack is extremely dangerous, and could happen to
any of the big online services -- Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft.
A malicious actor, like Russia or China, could gain access or
control of millions of accounts or desktops by using bribery and
extortion or trickery to "manipulate" (Twitter's word) any of their
many employees with access to the company database.
In the case of Microsoft, a malicious actor has an additional path
to taking control. The crapware being downloaded is full of third
party games and ads. A malicious actor could plant malware in one of
those games and ads, or could "manipulate" an employee of the company
providing the game to do so.
How the actor makes use of that control depends on the online
service (Google, Microsoft, Twitter, etc.) and the actor's intention.
It could be to extort money, it could be to gather intelligence, it
could be to destroy competitive businesses, it could be to affect the
November 3 election, or it could be some major political objective,
even starting a war.

With regard to "manipulating" any of the employees of these services,
let's recall that there are hundreds of thousands of Chinese living in
America. Under Chinese law, the Chinese military tracks them and
requires them to provide intelligence or perform other duties as
described by the military. China's 2017 National Intelligence Law
requires all Chinese citizens and businesses to perform such duties,
even when doing so is illegal. I don't blame the Chinese citizens for
this. I blame the Chinese Communist thugs who treat their own
citizens like dirt, as contrast to ethnic Chinese citizens who live in
Taiwan and have much higher standards of living, much more freedom,
and aren't persecuted by a paranoid, desperate government.

The major online services are mostly headquartered in the west, and so
have many Chinese employees. These people are all subject to China's
National Intelligence Law, and so they can be directly "manipulated"
by China's military. If one of these employees has access to the
company's user database -- and I have no doubt that many do -- then
those employees can be "manipulated" into stealing data, stealing
accounts, or taking control of millions of users' accounts, as has
already happened in the case of the Twitter hack.

I have a personal anecdote related to this subject. A few months ago,
I started receiving robocall phone messages in Chinese on my home
phone. So I recorded one of them and asked someone to translate. It
went: "Hello, this is the Chinese embassy. You have a very important
notification. For details please press xxx." So I don't know why my
phone number was called, or what sort of "important notification" was
intended, but this shows one of the ways that the Chinese Commuists
keep Chinese people in America on a short leash, ready to do as
they're told.

****
**** The political power of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft
****

On July 29, 2020, the House Judiciary committee held a hearing on
examining the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The
CEOs of all four companies came and testified, and were questioned by
the politicians on the committee.

The hearing began in full-scale farce. The opening statement of
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, began as follows:

<QUOTE>"My mom, Jackie, had me when she was a 17-year-old
high school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Being pregnant in
high school was not popular in Albuquerque in 1964. It was
difficult for her. When they tried to kick her out of school, my
grandfather went to bat for her. After some negotiation, the
principal said, “OK, she can stay and finish high school, but she
can’t do any extracurricular activities, and she can’t have a
locker.” My grandfather took the deal, and my mother finished
high school, though she wasn’t allowed to walk across the stage
with her classmates to get her diploma."<END QUOTE>

Listening to this, I was soooooooo touched that I almost had tears
streaming down my face. It was just so sad.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Google, took a slightly different
approach:

<QUOTE>"Expanding access to opportunity through technology is
deeply personal to me. I didn’t have much access to a computer
growing up in India. So you can imagine my amazement when I
arrived in the U.S. for graduate school and saw an entire lab of
computers I could use whenever I wanted. Accessing the internet
for the first time in that computer lab set me on a path to bring
technology to as many people as possible. It’s what inspired me to
join Google 16 years ago."<END QUOTE>

Once again, very touching.

So what's going on here? These ridiculous statements are carefully
planned and carefully rehearsed well in advance, in both content and
demeanor, to show that these huge online service monopolies are really
just innocent little businesses, bringing the American dream to
millions of others.

It's as if to say, "We're not like other wicked monopolists -- John
D. Rockefeller in oil, Andrew Carnegie in steel, Cornelius Venderbilt
in railroads. Those are nasty, mean, old, ancient, out-of-date
monopolies. Not like us. We're sweet, happy, modern, hip, cool
monopolies, and we're different."

The CEOs were playing on the politicians' ignorance and stupidity,
which is trivially easy. The objective of the CEOs was to avoid
answering any real questions from the posturing politicians, who are
too dumb to know what was going on anyway, since they barely know how
to turn on a computer. And it worked.

So what are the questions that the CEOs were afraid to answer?

One of them was the one we've been discussing. This hearing occurred
shortly after the Twitter hack, and the CEOs were undoubtedly all
dreading the question: "Could the same thing happen to you?" They
were dreading that question because the answer would have to have been
"Yes," although they would have buried that answer in multiple
paragraphs of self-excusing verbiage.

****
**** The 'Hate Speech', 'Fake Speech' censorship monopoly
****

The second question the CEOs are afraid to answer is about their
censorship monopoly.

This article has been about illegal abuse of monopoly power and
exposure to data breaches, by the large online services, especially
Microsoft.

However, with the November 3 presidential election approaching, we're
seeing abuse of a different kind of monopoly power. We're seeing
Google, Facebook and Twitter abuse their monopoly power over
censorship to influence the election toward the Democrats by censoring
anything from Trump's 63 million supporters as "hate speech" or "fake
speech." There are many examples of this that are extremely
ridiculous, such as approving support for left-wing protests and
violent riots by antifa, while condemning street protests against
Democratic governors as racist or dangerous.

Ironically, this didn't start with Trump's presidency and actually has
nothing to do with Trump. It was already going on early in the Obama
administration with the vitriolic attacks by Democrats on members of
the conservative Tea Party, referring to Teapartiers with the hate
term "teabaggers," which is as bad as the N-word. In my almost 20
years of developing Generational Dynamics, I've seen many similar
examples of one group hating another group for no reason at all. I
don't know what chromosome or hormone causes this, but I do know that
that chromosome or hormone causing Democrats to hate 63 million
Teapartiers and Trump supporters is exactly the same as the one that
caused the Nazis to hate the Jews, the Hutus to hate the Tutsis, or
the Chinese Communists to hate the Uighurs and Tibetans. This is a
constant of human nature, and we're seeing it played out in America
today in the Democrats' vitriolic hatred of 63 million Teapartiers and
Trump supporters.

So today we have the major online services -- Google, Facebook and
Twitter -- supporting this hatred by classifying anything by
Teapartiers or Trump supporters as "hate speech" or "fake speech."

When confronted with evidence of this, a standard answer is to appeal
to the magic of artificial intelligence. "The decision whether
something is hate speech is made by impersonal AI algorithms in
computers that are non-partisan and not political. Haha."

Politicians who barely know how to turn on a computer just accept this
argument, as if there were some magic involved. Actually, there's no
magic involved. AI algorithms like that are rules-driven, and
programmers would write the rules.

The rules used by Google and others are confidential, of course, but
we can speculate on how some of them work. Let's suppose a tweet
contains the text, "Make America great." That alone wouldn't be
enough to classify it as hate speech, but it would add points in some
sort of point system. If a tweet contains another "racist" phrase
like that, then there might be enough points for the "non-partisan"
algorithms to decide that the tweet is hate speech.

Who decides what these rules are? The deciders are Google employees.
Among the Google employees making the rules there will be women as
well as men, to prevent anti-female bias in the rule-making. And
there will be blacks as well as whites, in order to prevent anti-black
bias in the rule-making. But what do they do about anti-conservative
bias? The answer is NOTHING. We know from various statements and
blogs and leaked meeting videos that all the employees at Google are
far left, and if there are any politically moderate employees at
Google (such as James Damore), they will be fired or marginalized by
the others, and their suggestions for rules will ignored in group code
reviews.

So we have a situation where Google is fully on-board to target 63
million tea partiers and Trump supporters in order to affect the
November 3 election. As I said, for one demographic group to hate
another demographic group is common throughout history and the world,
as in the Nazi hatred of Jews and the Hutu hatred of Tutsis or any of
a million other examples that anyone who studies history can name.
The one good thing we can say about the current situation is that the
hate campaign has not yet degenerated into genocide, although genocide
is the stated objective of the fascist organization antifa.

****
**** The power of monopoly -- and the danger
****

I can't end this article without looping back to the beginning.

There are some important points to be made about the power of
monopoly. I've shown how companies like Apple and Microsoft use their
monopoly power to coerce millions of users to purchase additional
unnecessary services, products and upgrades, making hundreds of
million or billions of dollars for the companies involved, or how
Google, Twitter and Facebook are using their monopoly power over
censorship rules to control the November 3 elections.

But I've also shown the danger of monopoly -- to the companies, to the
country, and even globally. Think of a monopoly as an enormous source
of power that the company can use in many ways to make money. But now
suppose a malicious actor, like Russia or China, finds a way to gain
control of that enormous power, as has already happened in the case of
the Twitter hack. That power then becomes a weapon that can destroy
the company, destroy million of lives or businesses, or destroy a
country.

Right now that monopoly power is being used to make money and to
affect the November 3 election. But we can also be certain that
hackers around the world have learned from the Twitter hack, and are
working 24 hours a day to gain control of an online system for their
own financial or political benefit. It's possible that they've
already succeeded without our knowing it.

In the middle of an election season, it's too late to even think about
fixing this problem this year. But fixing this problem should be
among the highest government priorities next year, no matter who wins
the election.

****
**** Sources
****

****
**** Previous articles about China
****

****
**** Previous articles about financial fraud
****

****
**** Previous articles about the financial crisis
****

****
**** Previous articles about Healthcare.gov disaster
****

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Microsoft, Windows 10, Twitter,
Richard Blumenthal, Apple iPhone, Tim Cook,
Sergey Tkachenko, Mary Jo Foley, Task Manager,
Windows Pro, Windows Enterprise, Windows 7, Bill Gates,
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, James Damore,
antifa, hate speech, fake speech,
China, National Intelligence Law, Russia, Healthcare.gov,
House Judiciary Committe, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai,
John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Venderbilt

Permanent web link to this article
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John J. Xenakis
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E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 08-16-2020

(08-16-2020, 07:06 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: So we have a situation where Google is fully on-board to target 63 million tea partiers and Trump supporters in order to affect the November 3 election. As I said, for one demographic group to hate another demographic group is common throughout history and the world, as in the Nazi hatred of Jews and the Hutu hatred of Tutsis or any of a million other examples that anyone who studies history can name. The one good thing we can say about the current situation is that the hate campaign has not yet degenerated into genocide, although genocide is the stated objective of the fascist organization antifa.

Overall a good article against monopolies. Don't have a lot to add.

It is just that antifa stands for anti fascist yet you call them fascist. They typically show up to counter demonstrate against the KKK and Nazi. Not my cup of tea. They deserve each other. But you shouldn't confuse Antifa with the Boogaloo Bois. The two groups have very different motivations.

Can you provide a link confirming Antifa are fascist? It seems more of an example of your ideological bias leading you to have false ideas of motivations. Even a link would not prove a lot as a good number of conservatives share your habit of assigning bogus irrational motivations.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - David Horn - 08-17-2020

(08-16-2020, 10:09 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(08-16-2020, 07:06 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: So we have a situation where Google is fully on-board to target 63 million tea partiers and Trump supporters in order to affect the November 3 election. As I said, for one demographic group to hate another demographic group is common throughout history and the world, as in the Nazi hatred of Jews and the Hutu hatred of Tutsis or any of a million other examples that anyone who studies history can name. The one good thing we can say about the current situation is that the hate campaign has not yet degenerated into genocide, although genocide is the stated objective of the fascist organization antifa.

Overall a good article against monopolies. Don't have a lot to add.

It is just that antifa stands for anti fascist yet you call them fascist. They typically show up to counter demonstrate against the KKK and Nazi. Not my cup of tea. They deserve each other. But you shouldn't confuse Antifa with the Boogaloo Bois. The two groups have very different motivations.

Can you provide a link confirming Antifa are fascist? It seems more of an example of your ideological bias leading you to have false ideas of motivations. Even a link would not prove a lot as a good number of conservatives share your habit of assigning bogus irrational motivations.

I appreciate the thought, but you've sent our intrepid blogger on a fool's mission. From what I've read, neither the Boogaloo Bois nor Antifa are groups in the formal sense. If seems they are both disparate aggregations of individuals who are only tied together through the Internet. They are both leaderless, and may not even have the less formal structure of "cells" used by radicals in the past. The only thing undetermined is external funding. If there is a money conduit, that may be the most important part of who they are. So far, I haven't seen anyone make that case, but the Feds may be on it. If so, will we ever know?

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-17-2020

** 17-Aug-2020 World View: Bravery

JCP Wrote:> John, you are one of the bravest men in the world.
> -JCP

Thanks for the compliment.

But bravery and stupidity are two sides of the same coin.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-17-2020

** 17-Aug-2020 World View: Malware

Guest Wrote:> Hi John. I read your article on Microsoft and Apple and then
> decided to use the local virus scan (AhnLAb) and Google Chrome
> popped up with 1156 bits of spyware. Usually when I run a scan it
> numbers 7-8 bits. I scan my computer several times a day. I don't
> pretend to be an expert at computers, but my laptop now seems to
> be under some kind of surveillance attack. I am in South
> Korea.

It sounds like your computer has a virus or some other malware.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-17-2020

** 17-Aug-2020 World View: Big Tech

Trevor Wrote:> I've watched parts of those hearings and it was clear to me none
> of the Congressmen had a clue about tech companies. Most of them
> have been in power for decades, long before computers and the
> internet were even a thing. They didn't grow up with him and many
> don't even use them, nor do they care, except for the campaign
> contributions they get. We're still thinking about oil and gas
> companies, big coal, titans of industry, but the world has
> changed. Big Tech has far more influence and they're not far from
> SJWs.

The amount of power these online services have is absolutely staggering.

Sitting in Redmond, the execs can look out over the world and imagine
one billion desktop computers in every country and every region of the
world, and the execs have control over all of those billion desktops.
This is an absolutely staggering amount of power. John D. Rockefeller
could never have dreamed of that much power. In fact, it may be that
Donald Trump doesn't have that much power.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-17-2020

** 17-Aug-2020 World View: Antifa

(08-16-2020, 10:09 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Can you provide a link confirming Antifa are fascist?

Most people are content to call antifa a violent terror group, and
leave it at that.

I call it a fascist group to be ironic, and because they act like
fascists.

(08-17-2020, 09:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: > From what I've read, neither the Boogaloo Bois nor Antifa are
> groups in the formal sense. If seems they are both disparate
> aggregations of individuals who are only tied together through the
> Internet.

What difference does that make? Just because a fascist terrorist
group doesn't form a legal corporation and declare itself an official
organization makes no difference at all when they're smashing and
looting and destroying hundreds of small businesses, or beating the
crap out of people they don't like. Fascism is fascism.

Antifa – Black Lives Matter Mob Brutally Attacks Man in Portland;
Knocks Him Out Cold with Kick to the Head (17-August-2020)
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/antifa-black-lives-matter-mob-brutally-attacks-man-portland-knocks-cold-kick-head-video/

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - David Horn - 08-17-2020

(08-17-2020, 10:20 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 17-Aug-2020 World View: Antifa

(08-17-2020, 09:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: From what I've read, neither the Boogaloo Bois nor Antifa are groups in the formal sense. It seems they are both disparate aggregations of individuals who are only tied together through the Internet.

What difference does that make? Just because a fascist terrorist group doesn't form a legal corporation and declare itself an official organization makes no difference at all when they're smashing and looting and destroying hundreds of small businesses, or beating the crap out of people they don't like. Fascism is fascism.

How can you consider any of these as "groups" if they are not in fact groups? A bunch of disgruntled web surfers with the means to travel and the desire to create havoc is actually a bunch of criminals looking for self justification. At most, BLM should be responsible to actively police their own demonstrations, and most do.

There is always an element that piggybacks on legitimate protest to do whatever the hell they seem fully intent on doing.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 08-17-2020

(08-17-2020, 09:49 AM)David Horn Wrote: I appreciate the thought, but you've sent our intrepid blogger on a fool's mission.

Is that supposed to be a straight line? As far as I can tell, I'm supposed to ask who better to send on a fool's mission than Xenakis? Wink

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 08-17-2020

(08-17-2020, 10:20 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
(08-16-2020, 10:09 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Can you provide a link confirming Antifa are fascist?

Most people are content to call antifa a violent terror group, and leave it at that.

I call it a fascist group to be ironic, and because they act like fascists.

They are willing to use violence against those they disagree with, but a lot of folks use violence against people they disagree with. I hardly believe the KKK or the Nazi are terrorized. That also doesn't make them fascist. They are a pre trigger movement become a dated afterthought these days, but many conservatives use the name as boogie men. They get blamed for a bunch of stuff that they didn't do and are quite in conflict with the motives they proclaim.

I don't know why. The Boogaloo Bois have a real motive which is quite reprehensible enough and are actually active these days. If supposedly non violent protest goes violent I would blame them first, not Antifa.

This is example of your using ideological bias to assign motive poorly. When in doubt, you might assume groups have the motives they state in their recruiting.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 08-17-2020

The Antifa people seem clever enough to take a dive when someone throws a punch and let the cops sort it out.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-20-2020

** 19-Aug-2020 World View: Microsoft Crapware downloads [Updated]

I'm going to respond to several comments on my article on Microsoft's
illegal monopolistic behavior.

** 17-Aug-20 World View -- Microsoft's monopolistic practices leave Windows 10 vulnerable to massive hacking attack
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e200817.htm#e200817

Let me start with some general statements:

This isn't about Windows Update. Windows Update downloads
occur at various times, and apparently run in processes at normal
or low priority. Thus, the updates are downloaded without crippling
the machine.
This isn't about the crapware itself. I really don't mind that
Microsoft (or Dell) has placed some games or trials on my computer.
In fact, I occasionally play some of the free games. And while ads
are annoying, I can live with those, just as I live with ads on tv
or magazines.
I haven't said that it's illegal for Apple and Microsoft to have
monopolies on their respective products. They do have monopolies, but
it's not illegal. What I said was that they've used their monopoly
power to illegally screw their users.
What this is about is that the crapware downloads occur at random
times and run at very high priority, thus crippling the computer for
hours at a time.

I was confused for a long time about what was going on, since the high
priority doesn't make sense. The crapware downloads could run at
normal or low priority, and take maybe 10-20% longer, but they
wouldn't cripple the machine and getting work done.

The thing that brought everything together was the admission by Apple
that it had intentionally and illegally throttled old iPhones to force
users to pay for expensive upgrades. In other words, the sleazy
Gen-X/Millennial corporate culture at Apple considers it perfectly all
right for Apple to screw its own customers to make a profit.

Suddenly it made sense why the crapware downloads were running at a
high priority. Microsoft has the same sleazy Gen-X/Millennial
corporate culture that's willing to screw their own users to make a
profit. The result was the article that I wrote.

If the crapware downloads ran at normal or lower priority, I'd have no
problem with them at all.

Even worse, the sleazy Microsoft behavior has made Windows 10
vulnerable to a massive hacking attack, as I described in the article.

Matt Wrote:> I appreciated your recent post on MFST Win 7 & 10 issues. One of
> our IT folk was having same problems but couldn't figure it out as
> you did. I am getting tired of playing with OS issues. Used to
> enjoy it but now is just a headache.

vincecate Wrote:> The problem was a security flaw in Intel CPUs was discovered and
> the workaround slowed down the OS plenty. Same for Linux as
> Windows. Windows on AMD did not slow down.

> https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/03/a-major-kernel-vulnerability-is-going-to-slow-down-all-intel-processors-2/

None of the system slowdown examples that I gave in my article is
related to the Intel chip issue.

Russ Wrote:> Windows 10 may be evil, but usually it is a necessary evil. For
> example, much of the new hardware will not operate properly
> without Windows 10 as Intel, for example, does not even write
> drivers for Windows 7 anymore.

> One way I have found to overcome the Windows 10 bloat and
> annoyances is to get and install the LTSB/LTSC variants of Windows
> 10. Generally, a single license (or a multi-pack) is not too
> expensive, but it is still very galling to have to pay for the
> same thing twice to make things be as they should be to start
> with. I suppose it's just the cost of having a Windows PC,
> keeping your sanity and staying productive.

> As for your old PC (or even a newer one) - have you tried any of
> the Linux OS distributions as an alternative to Microsoft?

I know that I would have had to move from Windows 7 to Windows 10
at some point, but I planned to postpone it as long as possible.
Microsoft still doesn't have the right to screw its own users.

As a Senior Software Engineer, I want the "latest stuff," so the
LTSB/LTSC version wouldn't work for me. The only thing I could do is
upgrade to the Enterprise version, which costs a lot of money and is
what the assholes at Microsoft are trying to force me to do.

As for Linux, I really need a Windows system.

The following was from e-mail:

Quote:> When I purchased my Win 10 laptop last year, I was dismayed by
> Microsoft's arrogance at daring to mess with my personal property.
> I did some research and have killed all windows updates. I have
> never had an update since purchasing my computer, I'll happily
> take the risk of being hacked over the certainty of being screwed
> over by Microsoft. I don't know if this will work for you or not
> but thought I'd pass it along.

> I did the following changes to my Win 10 Home system:

> Kill win 10 updates

> 1. Search services.msc
> 2. Find windows update service
> 3. Right click, properties, set to disable

> "WIN+X" keys, open powershell as admin
> "Net stop wuauserv"
> "Net stop bits"
> "Net stop dosvc"

> I haven't had an update since. I should also mention that two
> weeks ago my parents' Win 10 computer started behaving as you are
> describing yours, choked with adds that bogged down their
> computer. It took me an hour to figure out that Chrome was
> continuously downloading ads, as soon as I uninstalled it the
> problem disappeared.

> I'm not sure if these ideas would be of any help to you but wanted
> to offer them in case they might work for you too.

That's an interesting idea, and I've considered it, but I still want
the Windows Update downloads. It's the crapware downloads that are
causing the problem, and even those only because Microsoft runs
them at super-high priority, crippling the computer.

Xeraphim1 Wrote:> I'm going to argue against you on some of these. Not the Apple
> throttling, but the Microsoft ones I don't agree with.

> With Windows XX Pro the draw is Active Directory, Remote desktop
> and Hyper V. While moving some group controls to Enterprise could
> be annoying, that isn't why people buy it. Note that I have NO
> promoted apps on my computer and I'm not doing anything special. I
> also don't experience large downloads.

It doesn't really matter why people buy Windows Pro. It is a
violation of antitrust laws to use their monopoly power to force users
to purchase unnecessary products, services, or upgrades.

Xeraphim1 Wrote:> As for the slowdowns, are you referring to the April 2019 update?
> There were reported issues with that one which affected both Win 7
> and 10. Those seem to have been related to contention with third
> party antivirus programs. Updates can be rolled back. Or if it was
> in January it most likely was Meltdown/Spectre patches. That was a
> huge problem and needed to be addressed. Win 8 and older were
> known to suffer performance problems since they are old. No
> avoiding it. You can also avoid Intel chips since AMD didn't have
> the same vulnerabilities.

As I explained in the article, I went to a lot of trouble to analyze
what what going on -- the Microsoft Windows scheduler was adding
milliseconds of time to otherwise idle processes under certain
circumstances. The cpu was not slowing down. Based on my many years
of operating system development experience, there is no other possible
explanation.

Xeraphim1 Wrote:> If you bought a new Dell that's where some of your problems may
> lie. Manufacturers have contracts with third parties to preload
> software and other annoyances. I build my own and use an OEM
> license so I never have to worry. You can buy a Pro key on Kinguin
> for $30.

Once again, my problem is not with the crapware itself. It's with the
crapware downloads running at high priority, crippling the computer.
The only way to tell what's going on is to look at the performance tab
of the task manager, as I described in the article.

***** UPDATE: I should have included the following:

I hope I made it clear in my article how FURIOUS I am. Once or twice
a week while I'm working, all of a sudden the computer freezes, and I
have to wait for hours to get back to work. It took me a few months
to put it all together what's going on, and the result is the article
that I wrote. What's going on is that, at any time, Microsoft starts
downloading several gigabytes of crapware to my computer -- without
asking me, or warning me, or anything -- at high priority, so that the
computer is crippled. I hope the fucking bastards responsible for
this at Microsoft rot in hell.

In the meantime, the amount of power that these online services and
Microsoft have is absolutely staggering. Sitting in Redmond, the
execs can look out over the world and imagine one billion desktop
computers in every country and every region of the world, and the
execs have control over all of those billion desktops. John
D. Rockefeller could never have dreamed of that much power. In fact,
it may be that Donald Trump doesn't have that much power. And the
Twitter hack has revealed just how vulnerable the world is to misuse
of that power by a malicious actor.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-20-2020

** 20-Aug-2020 World View: Steve Bannon arrested

Given the way I was treated by Breitbart, this doesn't surprise me.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/20/former-trump-advisor-steve-bannon-arrested-on-charges-of-defrauding-donors-in-fundraising-scheme.html

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon arrested on charges of defrauding
donors in fundraising scheme

Published Thu, Aug 20 20209:38 AM EDT

Steve Bannon, the former chief executive of Donald Trump's 2016
presidential campaign, speaks to members of the media outside federal
court after testifying in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Nov. 8,
2019.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been arrested
after being charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors
through their campaign "We Build the Wall."

Bannon, along with three of his associates were indicted by
investigators at the U.S. Southern District of New York on Thursday.
They allege that the group of conservative leaders defrauded donors
and that led to raising "more than $25 million to build a wall along
the southern border of the United States," according to the press
release.

The United States Postal Inspection Service assisted in the
investigation.

The others mentioned in the indictment are Timothy Shea, who in May
was announced as the Acting Administrator of Drug Enforcement
Administration, Brian Kolfage, a Iraq war veteran, and Andrew
Badolato.

The campaign was intended to raise money to help President Donald
Trump fulfill a campaign promise of building a border wall along the
border. Instead, prosecutors allege, that Bannon and his team profited
off of the arrangement.

Prosecutors claim that the defendants "collectively received hundreds
of thousands of dollars in donor funds from 'We Build the Wall,' which
they each used in a manner inconsistent with the organization's public
representations," according to the indictment.

"The defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors,
capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise
millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money
would be spent on construction," Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss,
said in a statement. "While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian
Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not
be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of
thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish
lifestyle. We thank the USPIS for their partnership in investigating
this case, and we remain dedicated to rooting out and prosecuting
fraud wherever we find it."

Kolfage, 37, a veteran and triple amputee, in late 2018 launched a
crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe to build a wall along the
U.S.-Mexico border. His effort came amid a stalemate over government
funding on Capitol Hill, where Trump demanded that any spending
package include billions of dollars to go toward his proposed border
wall. The deadlock culminated in the longest partial government
shutdown in U.S. history.

Kolfage's effort quickly went viral and raised millions of dollars
from hundreds of thousands of donors – but GoFundMe threatened to
suspend the wall-building campaign unless Kolfage "identified a
legitimate non-profit organization into which those funds could be
transferred," according to the indictment

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 08-21-2020

On Steve Bannon -- he took the money, but he did nothing to build a wall. It's effectively a solicitation for a fraudulent charity. Try setting up "St. Julia's Children's Hospital*", take the money, and run... and the Postal Inspectors might catch you as you enjoy a margarita on some tropical beach. You will be separated from the margarita and the beach and be hauled off. The Postal Inspectors are charged with enforcing federal statures on mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and computer fraud. Practically every swindle involves mail fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, or computer fraud. Soliciting the fraudulent business or depositing the proceeds is one of those frauds. This applies to Ponzi schemes, pump-and-dump stock frauds, insider trading, numerous forms of embezzlement, and fake charities alike -- among others. Cheats often fail to recognize that the mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and computer fraud statutes apply to what they do... but these offenses leave an extensive money trail whose documentation is easy evidence for a smart federal juror to attach the deed to the statute.

A defendant on such charges would probably not want me on the jury. Figure that a federal jury full of such people as teachers, librarians, computer people, and accountants accustomed to dealing in documents would be a defendant's nightmare.

As befits a scene out of The Wolf of Wall Street... he was caught on a yacht!

* The legitimate charity is of course the admirable St. Jude's Children's Hospital, founded by Danny Thomas.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-21-2020

*** 22-Aug-20 World View -- Hezbollah implicated in catastrophic Beirut Lebanon explosion

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Media investigations reveal new facts about the Beirut Lebanon explosion
Investigation implicates Hezbollah in explosion

****
**** Media investigations reveal new facts about the Beirut Lebanon explosion
****

[Image: g200821b.jpg]

A man stands near the Beirut blast site on August 11. Graffiti reads 'My government did this' (Reuters)

Ever since the catastrophic explosion in the Beirut, Lebanon, seaport
on Tuesday, August 4, leveled thousands of homes, killed and injured
thousands of people, and left 300,000 people homeless, Sayyed Hasan
Nasrallah, the Iranian puppet leader of the Lebanese terror group
Hezbollah, has been running as fast as he can in the other direction,
to avoid being blamed. ( "9-Aug-20 World View -- Beirut Lebanon police clash with furious protesters following Tuesday's catastrophic explosion"
)

At first, Nasrallah insisted he knew nothing about the 2,750 tonnes of
ammonium nitrate that exploded, after being stored in the port
unprotected since 2013, in a warehouse next door to a fireworks
factory. Then he tried to blame Israel. Then, when a furious public
demanded an international investigation, he insisted that any
investigation could only be done locally -- that is, controlled by
Hezbollah.

Nasrallah is still doing everything possible to prevent an official
international investigation by the United Nations or by the European
Union, but unfortunately for him, he has no way to stop unofficial
investigations by media or other private parties.

An investigation conducted by the German magazine Der Spiegel and the
journalism network called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project (OCCRP) has revealed that Hezbollah fingerprints are all over
the explosion, and that the storage of the ammonium nitrate in the
first place was under Hezbollah control.

****
**** Investigation implicates Hezbollah in explosion
****

As I detailed in my August 9 article, the "official" narrative has
been that a Moldovan-flagged, Russian-owned cargo ship, the MV Rhosus,
carrying 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, left Georgia in 2013 heading
for Mozambique, but stopped in Beirut because of technical problems,
and because the owner could not afford the fees to pass through the
Suez Canal. The ship was impounded in Beirut, but despite repeated
requests and warnings of danger from customs officials, the Beirut
courts refused to permit the ammonium nitrate to be removed or sold.

The investigation by Spiegel and OCCRP revealed numerous flaws and
problems with the official narrative:

The Rhosus was actually owned by the Cypriot businessman
Charalambos Manoli, not by a Russian.
Manoli used a variety of subterfuges to hide his ownership of the
Rhosus from the Lebanese authorities.
Manoli had a major relationship with a bank known to launder money
for Hezbollah, and Manoli owed millions of dollars to this bank.
The Rhosus stopped in Beirut because Manoli ordered the crew
to stop in Beirut.
An investigation in Mozambique failed to find any evidence that
the Rhosus ever had Mozambique as a destination. It appears that
Beirut was always the intended final destination.
An inspection of the ammonium nitrate in spring 2020 raised doubts
that all 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were still there. Based on
the size of the explosion, European intelligence officials believe it
was between 700 and 1,000 tonnes. So what happened to the
rest?

The Hezbollah militia has an iron grip on Beirut, especially on
the Beirut seaport. So one possibility is that in 2013 Hezbollah
ordered the delivery of the ammonium nitrate, and has been using
it for weapons and explosives in Syria and elsewhere since then.

There are other possibilities as well. That's why it's most important
for an international investigation to determine what actually
happened. Even though Hezbollah will do everything possible to block
any such investigation, it's only a matter of time before all the
facts come out.

In any case, this crisis isn't over, and won't be for years.

Sources:

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, Beirut, ammonium nitrate, fertilizer,
Iran, Hezbollah, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Charalambos Manoli,
Mozambique, Georgia

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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-27-2020

** 26-Aug-2020 World View: Civil war again

Guest Wrote:> With violence, looting, and general lawlessness becoming the new
> normal in America, do you still doubt a civil war is
> possible?

There is fascist violence by organized antifa-blm groups going on in
some urban areas, and it will undoubtedly grow worse, but it's not
organic, and this is by no means a civil war, or headed that way.
General lawlessness is not becoming the new normal today, any more
than it did in the 60s.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-27-2020

** 26-Aug-2020 World View: November

Guest Wrote:> Do you think Trump can win in November?

That question is outside my skill set. The Democrats are pointing to
polls that put Biden ahead. The Republicans are pointing to polls
that say that a lot of Trump supporters are afraid to say, even to
pollsters, that they favor Trump. So yes, Trump can win, and Biden
can win.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 08-27-2020

(08-27-2020, 09:29 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 26-Aug-2020 World View: November

Guest Wrote:> Do you think Trump can win in November?

That question is outside my skill set. The Democrats are pointing to
polls that put Biden ahead. The Republicans are pointing to polls
that say that a lot of Trump supporters are afraid to say, even to
pollsters, that they favor Trump. So yes, Trump can win, and Biden
can win.

The strongest win that Trump had a chance of getting in 2020 as seen from 2016 was likely a win like Carter in 1980 (or Trump in 2016). Demographics favored Democrats enough, as the young voters strongly D in orientation were numerous enough to offset the usual deaths of older voters (Silent, Boom, and early-wave X over 55) within the electorate. That alone would require an offset.

He made promises of infrastructure, but most of it was to get infusions of small investments of capital in return for huge payoffs for investors -- basically privatizing on the cheap. His solution to the transportation sounded like "build anew and reconstruct", but it boiled down to "just add tolls". Iron miners heard allusions to new construction and rebuilding which imply more use of iron ore, more jobs, and easy overtime. The only iron that was to be used in such projects (and it would not be new concrete highways that devour iron as reinforcing bars) would go into toll gantries to collect money from travelers accustomed to driving the roads without paying tolls. Promises may sound like one thing and end as a different and not-so-popular alternative. Such happens. All politicians cherry-pick the likely results to fit the electorate of the time.

Polling in recent months has been relatively stable. Trump has kept his base intact, which every candidate does. It is worth remembering that voters for Goldwater in 1964 and McGovern in 1972 were as enthusiastic as any voters that you would have ever met. Winning an election, except in a super-safe bailiwick practically engineered to fit the pol, depends upon picking up enough not-so-enthusiastic voters. I see Biden and Harris casting Trump as a dangerous and capricious extremist, not only much for off-the-cuff remarks in a campaign that focused on making the base excited but also on erratic and objectionable deeds and language while President. Trump is trying to cast Biden as a dangerous radical much as Carter tried to cast Reagan in 1980. Such will resonate strongly with overt supporters of Donald Trump. It obviously did not work for Carter and it probably will not work for Trump.

Quote:Polling has been surprisingly stable, but at such a level that Donald Trump needs so many things going for him that are now unlikely in so little time. Three months is far too little for defeating a Biden lead that is about 7% more nationally than is necessary for a win, and we have now past the line of two and a half months away from the election. To be in a good position to close the gap, and he will need to close that gap by almost 2.3% per month for the next three months. I am not going to pretend that such is impossible. Just very unlikely.

Time to election |1 point|5 points||10 points|20 points|
one day............. |...64%|....95%|.....99.7%|.99.999%|
one week........... |...60%|....89%|.......98%|...99.97%|
one month......... |...57%|....81%|.......95%|.....99.7%|
three months...|.55%|..72%|....87%|.....98%|
six months..........|...53%|....66%|.......79%|.......93%|
one year.............|....52%|...59%|.......67%|.......81%|

The model is Senatorial elections (Nate Silver, The Sound and the Noise). Nate Silver has made his money doing sports probabilities, and perhaps using his knowledge in placing bets -- he does not say. I'm guessing that the bookies, the antithesis of gamblers, got tired of losing money to his betting and no longer want anything to do with him. Don't argue with this fellow on statistical models. Argue with me on trying to apply them to reality.
OK, it is Senate races between 1998 and 2008, and those may not be perfect analogues to Presidential races... but there is far more data on those. Winning the Presidency is like winning a certain share of Senatorial or Gubernatorial races. There are far fewer Presidential elections, and a Senator like Russ Feingold cannot seek help from voters in other states if he is running against a well-heeled heel with lavish funding behind that heel, as was so in 2010 and 2016. What the late oil billionaire H.L. Hunt said of politics and management often applies:
"I believe the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules".
Donald Trump well reflects capitalism at its worst, feudal entitlement with the irresponsibility that one associates with the old nomenklatura of the Soviet bureaucracy that became plutocrats after the end of the Soviet Union. Marx was wrong about associating ownership with exploitation; bureaucratic power is just as capable of egregious exploitation as one associates with absolute monarchs, feudal lords, and tycoons. Unlike a Gilded tycoon like John D Rockefeller, J P Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Milton Hershey, Andrew Carnegie, or E F Harriman he did not innovate, connect existing cash to industrial investment, or establish a new market. He isn't Henry Ford, Roy Kroc, Sam Walton, T. Boone Pickens, or Bill Gates, either. When things go perfectly for tycoons, the tycoons buy the politicians to look away from their rapacious greed.
To win, Trump must cut sharply into the high disapproval numbers against him. To be sure, he can inspire people -- but not enough people. He has been in campaign mood from 2016... and that is inadequate.
Politics is a timed contest, as much than almost all sports (in theory a baseball team down 17-1 with two out and the bases empty can get seventeen consecutive hitters reaching base safely, the last one hitting a home run). It is possible for an opposing team to beat an American football team up 24-0 or a basketball team up 30 points after one quarter.  But late in a game, a deficit that may have been within reach of undoing if everything goes right becomes overwhelming. Teams adopt strategies to allow the opposing team to chip away at the lead but not win... maybe to look good losing, which might even be interesting play. A team whose leadership (the Dallas Cowboys under Tom Landry as head coach -- twenty consecutive winning seasons) -- gets that down well keeps its wins. Landry was not known for running up the score; if he ended up with a blow-out win it was often the result of scores by his defense or special teams on returns of fumbles and interceptions. Landry forced the opposing team to play the sort of game of his choosing if it sought to keep some dignity.
OK. A presidential election is decided on fifty statewide elections (OK, only about a third of them are typically decided by 10% or less) as if a Gubernatorial or Senate race, five congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska (only two of those have gone both ways, and the other three are predictable in all elections), and one city-wide race, as if for Mayor (that is the District of Columbia, and it is even more predictable than anything else).
A Senator up 20 a year before the election has some chance of losing. Waves not then foreseen may form against that politician's Party, scandals are theoretically possible, and one does not know who the opponent will be. As an example, Blanche Lincoln was up by a huge margin over any imaginable opposition in November 2009... and lost Arkansas big in 2010. Still, being up 20 a year before the election is about as good as one can hope, as it gives one about an 81% chance of winning. In a Presidential race... Democrats must have thought that West Virginia was locked up fairly well in 1999 and Republicans must have thought that Virginia was a reasonable lock in 2007, a year before electoral results that shocked those who assumed around then that West Virginia was going to vote for any Democrat in a close race and that Virginia was going to a Democrat only in a monumental landslide. Such happens.
Any edge is an advantage, but the closer that one is to the election, the edge becomes increasingly decisive. A ten-point edge a week before the election is worth as much as a 20-point edge three months before the election. A Senator up 10% wisely (which is a huge assumption) typically wins by keeping that edge intact. A five-point lead on Election Day is worth as much as a ten-point lead three months before the election -- and even a 20-point lead some time between six and three months before the election.
Political backers of the conservative type are astute gamblers. They cut off the spigots for their favored pols when those pols' chances of winning become negligible.  Liberals might keep throwing money away on quixotic campaigns. But the model smooths that out.
Another of my posts from Leip's Election Atlas:

Quote:I am ready to redo my seat-of-the-pants estimates of Biden and Trump chances based on match-ups alone. I would need to do some interpolations, and at this I take the dangers of interpolation (much less dangerous than interpolation. Obviously 50-50 is 50% for both.

State data is from here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-donald-trump-opinion-poll-08-16-2020/

August 10.

three months..... |...55%|....72%|.......87%|........98%|

lead likelihood

0 50 10 87
1 55 11 88
2 59 12 89
3 64 13 90
4 69 14 91
5 72 15 92
6 76 16 93
7 80 17 94
8 83 18 95
9 85 19 96

The interpolation is nearly linear, and that may be inadequate for small leads. This model suggests that even a 3-point edge for Biden at this point (late August) is far from trivial.

Here is a map of the probabilities of a Biden win based upon the edge that one or the other has. Numbers are not electoral votes this time: Data is from August 10, so convention bumps do not appear:

Biden likelihood 0 to 9 (saturation 8 )
Biden likelihood 10 to 19 (saturation 6)
Biden likelihood 20 to 29 (saturation 4)
Biden likelihood 30 to 39 (saturation 4)
Biden likelihood 41 to 49 (saturation 2)
white -- tie, exactly even

Biden likelihood 51 to 59 (saturation 2)
Biden likelihood 60 to 69 (saturation 4)
Biden likelihood 70 to 79 (saturation 5)
Biden likelihood 80 to 89 (saturation 6)
Biden likelihood 90 or higher (saturation 8 )

It is already two weeks obsolete, because the numbers are based on Senators winning elections based upon their leads at three months (I have done linear interpolation). This is also the last polling data that both

(1) comes from all 50 states,
(2) from the same time, and
(3) from the same source.

Senatorial and gubernatorial elections for statewide contests for electoral votes by Presidential campaigns. This may be far from a perfect model. Biden has an 80% chance of winning Wisconsin, which this map shows as the most likely tipping-point state. He also has a 69% chance of winning North Carolina and Florida (each), a 64% chance of winning Arizona, a 50% chance of winning Ohio, and a 41% chance of winning Texas . These six states are dissimilar enough that they could as well be considered independent events. Trump has about seven chances in 1000 to win all six states in question. (I am not considering Iowa, as Biden is not winning Iowa while losing Wisconsin).

At this point, Biden is trying to consolidate the states that he needs or might need. Trump is trying to keep his hope alive in states in which he has as little as a 20% chance of winning.

Pennsulvania is the most likely state to be the difference between Trump barely winning and barely losing. Things are rough for Trump. At this point (it was August 10, so it is obsolete), the 5% edge for Biden in Pennsylvania, the same (tellingly) as the 7% edge that Trump has in Kansas) is good for an 72% chance of winning Pennsylvania. The model is symmetric (I love symmetry!) suggests that Trump has about as much chance of winning 270 electoral votes as losing South Carolina and ending up with about 115 electoral votes.
This is what one needs, and it is far better than "But Trump is so horrible that no non-evil person with an IQ above 90 will vote for him this time", "the only poll that counts is the vote recorded", "nobody would vote for an extremist radical like Biden", or "but Trump has such solid support". Look beyond what you love and loathe, and you will find out who will win and who won't. You may not predict by such for whom you will vote. On the other hand, Biden also has a 69% chance of winning Florida, Georgia, or North Carolina. If Pennsylvania does not go for Biden, maybe some other state almost as likely to go to Biden based on this model will seal the deal against Trump.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 08-28-2020

** 28-Aug-2020 World View: Result of Biden victory

Guest Wrote:> There is no law and order or safety in America anymore. If Biden
> wins, it will be the end of America as we have known it
> forever. And we won't even be allowed to say that openly without
> being imprisoned. Trump or the death of liberty.

Xeraphim1 Wrote:> Actually, it is entirely possible that if Biden won the
> rioting/looting/arson would stop immediately. The people/groups
> funding and organizing it would have accomplished their
> mission.

If that's true, then it has a very important corollary.

According to their own rhetoric, the antifa-blm fascists are trying to
use violence to provoke a revolution. This would be a tribal
revolution against the 63 million Tea Partiers and Trump supporters.
If Biden wins and if, as you say, the violence ends, then the
antifa-blm fascists will have failed to provoke a tribal war.

The corollary, then, is that the antifa-blm fascists want Trump to win
the election, so that they can continue as before. Indeed, their
leaders may reason that a Trump victory would so inflame the
population, that their revolution would grow. So they would conclude
that a Trump victory is to the benefit of the antifa-blm.

There's another corollary: A Biden victory would not necessarily end
the violence, since the antifa-blm goal would not be accomplished with
a Biden victory.

RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 08-28-2020

(08-28-2020, 11:54 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
Guest Wrote:There is no law and order or safety in America anymore. If Biden wins, it will be the end of America as we have known it forever. And we won't even be allowed to say that openly without being imprisoned. Trump or the death of liberty.

Xeraphim1 Wrote:Actually, it is entirely possible that if Biden won the rioting/looting/arson would stop immediately. The people/groups funding and organizing it would have accomplished their mission.

If that's true, then it has a very important corollary.

According to their own rhetoric, the antifa-blm fascists are trying to use violence to provoke a revolution. This would be a tribal revolution against the 63 million Tea Partiers and Trump supporters. If Biden wins and if, as you say, the violence ends, then the antifa-blm fascists will have failed to provoke a tribal war.

The corollary, then, is that the antifa-blm fascists want Trump to win the election, so that they can continue as before. Indeed, their leaders may reason that a Trump victory would so inflame the population, that their revolution would grow. So they would conclude that a Trump victory is to the benefit of the antifa-blm.

There's another corollary: A Biden victory would not necessarily end the violence, since the antifa-blm goal would not be accomplished with a Biden victory.

I would suggest you refer to the Boogaloo Bois rather than Antifa. Antifa existed primarily as anti fascists, counter demonstrating against the KKK and the Neo Nazi. All three groups became much less relevant when George Floyd was murdered, when the Black Lives Matter movement went critical. It is the Boogaloo Bois who see the capitalist / democratic institutions as having failed, and see no peaceful way of correcting the failure, and thus are seeking to start a violent solution.

I’m not arguing that the Boogaloo Bois don’t exist or the motivation is not real, or that the looting isn’t a problem. It is just that you are misrepresenting and failing to understand the motives of the various groups. It is a good an example of how your failure to understand motivations leads to problems with folks trying to take you seriously.

At a very high level there is a difference between Industrial Age and Information Age thinking. Humans are instinctively violent. They divide themselves into groups instinctively, and are ready to employ violence to acquire resources. This corresponds roughly to the xenophobia motivation so prevalent in the Industrial Age.. Groups like the Boogaloo Bois and Trump followers fall into this pattern. In sending the secret police into Democratic cities, or in hiding among protests to instigate violence, they divide and incite violence as a tool to achieve their aims.

In the Industrial Age the emphasis is much more on using non violence to solve problems. At the very least, you exhaust non violent means before devolving to one’s crude violent instincts. Things like nukes and insurgent wars teach the futility of counting on violence to solve problems. Violence isn’t as cost effective as it was in the days before machine guns. Thus, you try listening to the people and solving the problem through legislation first. You might have to fall back to violence if the conservative faction insists on continuing to commit past injustices, on clinging to older cultural aspects which exploit privilege and the us against them instincts. But in many cases, listening to the victims of injustice and responding with proper legislation works.

But some are addicted to the old privileged injustices and locked into a culture which divides between us and them as if by right.

Anyway, the Trump vs Biden difference is in many ways one of the ages.