NSA Spies Can Hack Any Computer in ‘A Few Mouse Clicks’

NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden to the Guardian in 2013 described a covert program called XKEYSCORE (XKS) and showed how the US government can see almost everything one does on the internet; the new portion of the classified files published by The Intercept now reveals how easily it can be done: “as easy as typing a few words in Google.”

XKEYSCORE was one of the first covert programs that the Guardian wrote about when Snowden began leaking NSA documents two years ago, in 2013.

US neither ally nor friend of France — Marine Le Pen

Just like Germany knew about the spying against them, so did France. Ironically, Germany helped America spy on France. This begs the question, if they knew about it for so long, why all the fuss now? Answer: Because they want America out of Europe.

This is only one propaganda tool of many used on their citizens to form public opinion, cause a rift and get closer to that goal. If they get the people upset enough, the citizens will call for action and all the politicians have to do is say they’re fulfilling the will of their constituents. Devise a plan, create the problem and have the pre-determined solution ready at the right time… corrupt social engineering at its finest.

 

PARIS, June 24. /TASS/. The United States is “neither an ally nor a friend of France,” member of the European Parliament, leader of France’s National Front political party Marine Le Pen said, commenting on reports on eavesdropping on mobile phones of the last three French presidents.

“The revelations made by the WikiLeaks website seem to be very serious,” she said. “This eavesdropping poses a direct threat to our national independence, sovereignty and security.”

Russia Will Have an Answer Ready if US Supplies Arms to Ukraine

The original article is in German but for translation purposes a rough version courtesy of Google will remain here in its entirety.

What the Russians have in response is yet to be seen. But one thing is clear, the Russians do not warn, they act, which can make things quite dangerous when poking a big bear in the eye with a tiny stick.

Ankündigung: Wenn Sie Lust auf eine deutschen Version haben, bitte auf den originales Quelle klicken. Schön Dank.

 

The US Senate has passed a law that sanctions against Russia should be tightened. At the same time, the US government is to supply Ukraine with military equipment worth 350 million dollars. Russia summarizes the law as a provocation and has announced a reaction if the law comes into force. President Obama has for the time being denied the law his signature.

All signs point to confrontation when the diplomacy can not prevail: US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov will meet on 15 December in Rome. One of the Agenda items will form the Ukraine conflict.

Between the US and Russia worsened again the sound: The US Senate has decided arms supplies and sanctions against Gazprom. Even US President Barack Obama denied the law his signature. But it should come, Russia will show a reaction, notify the State channel Russia Today.

‘Plunge protection’ behind market’s sudden recovery

Mysterious forces were trying their best, but they couldn’t keep the stock market from swooning Wednesday.

They failed in the morning, despite massive purchases of stock index futures contracts. Within minutes of the market’s opening, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 350 points. Later in the day — after a lot of shocking ebb and flow — the Dow bottomed out with a decline of 460 points.

It was only in the last hour of trading that the market saviors managed to trim the Dow loss to just 173 points. And they succeeded only after Janet Yellen’s private, upbeat remarks about the economy were leaked.

Welcome to a new kind of stock market — one that the average investor should refuse to be invested in.

Wall Street concerned over China’s gold hoarding

Leung Hai-ming told the portal that China’s central bank took advantage of the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program in 2013, when the price of gold fell by 27%. The bank bought in over 1,000 tonnes of gold, representing almost one third of the world’s 3,756 tonnes last year.

There is reportedly less than 180,000 tonnes of gold reserves left, and only 20% of that remaining gold is tradable. This means that the People’s Bank of China will likely keep hold of the gold, limiting the gold trading volume — a concern for both the US government and Wall Street traders.

Sparks fly over US plan to shift Internet role

It could be a difficult breakup between the US government and the Internet.

A plan unveiled last month would see the US relinquish its key oversight role for the Internet, handing that over to “the global multistakeholder community.”

US officials say the move is part of a longstanding effort to privatize the technical oversight of the Internet.

Russia ‘planned Wall Street bear raid’

For anyone who, or knows someone who, naively thinks Russia doesn’t have both the capability and the guts to pull the trigger, this is a must-read. It also goes to show you that the Cold War had never died, but had simply gone into a new phase. The phase of which America is going through, and is almost finalized. The US is now stuck with a leader who draws a new line in the sand, or makes a concession, every time another is breached. The Russians smell blood and they, along with the Chinese, won’t stop capitalizing on the opportunities until America is reduced to a third world country. They, who know America lives by an honor system, do not, which makes it even more easier to keep hammering away.

There is a cynicism in the relationship between Russia and the US, being played out in the Crimean crisis, which is deep, rooted in history and shows that the triumph of capitalism over communism wasn’t the end of the power game between these two nations.

The depth of mistrust between the two was highlighted in the interview given by Hank Paulson, the former US treasury secretary, for my recent BBC Two documentary, How China Fooled The World.

The excerpts I am about to quote never made it into the film, because they weren’t relevant to it. But they give a fascinating understanding of the complex relationship between Washington and Moscow.

China Looking To Reposition Renminbi As Global Currency

China has already made its aim to establish the renminbi as a global currency, possibly even replacing the American dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Recent moves to ramp up the gradual liberalization of the renminbi, which is currently allowed to trade only within a narrow trading band, and other actions suggest that China may be preparing for a major push to establish its currency as a major global reserve currency.

…

Traditionally speaking, the American dollar has acted as this reserve currency. The dollar is the most widely used currency in the world, and most commodities, such as oil, are priced in dollars. Many countries keep huge dollar reserves on hand to facilitate trade. China, for example, is believed to have some 3.2 trillion dollars worth of reserves. Even the tiny city-state Singapore has over 250 billion dollars in reserves.

Michael Savage: ‘We’re seeing the beginning of Soviet-style repression here in the U.S.’

Savage was outraged when he learned that Marine veteran Brandon J. Raub had been detained for psychiatric evaluation after posting anti-Obama messages on his Facebook page.

“Are we living in the USA or in the USSR?” Savage wondered, warning that these sorts of arrests were commonplace in the former Soviet Union.

“Ask any Russian who lived in the Soviet Union,” he continued, “and you’ll find that President Obama is doing exactly what occurred in the early days of Stalinism.”

Those people lived behind an iron curtain. Everything they knew, all the information they received about the world, came to them from the government.

The average Soviet had no idea what kind of lives people were leading outside the USSR. They didn’t even know there were tomatoes in Western grocery stores; such “luxuries” weren’t available to them.

They were living with very little but were told they were living with a lot, and their lives were wonderful thanks to socialism.

Soviet people had no idea what reality actually was.

Meanwhile, here in America through the late 1950s, liberal newspapers ignored and buried stories about work camps and prison camps in the USSR.

The truth is, more than 20 million people who were accused of opposing centralized government were worked to death or executed in the Soviet Union.

Now we are seeing the beginning of this in the United States of America.

If the U.S. government can snatch a Marine off the streets simply for posting anti-government feelings on Facebook, then we’re living in the old Soviet Union.

Full article: Michael Savage: ‘We’re seeing the beginning of Soviet-style repression here in the U.S.’ (Michael Savage)

French defense contractor flouting export rules

Thales Alenia Space selling sensitive technology to Chinese…

The U.S. government cut off exports of satellites to China in the 1990s after U.S. aerospace companies helped make China’s strategic nuclear missiles more reliable by improperly assisting China’s space launchers.

According to the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military, the Chinese are developing an array of space warfare capabilities, including anti-satellite missiles and lasers. The report said China’s military has stated that it plans on “destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance … and communications satellites” in a future conflict. The report also said such systems and navigation and early warning satellites are targets in an initial phase of attack that would “blind and deafen the enemy.”

China’s development of space warfare capabilities is a major concern of U.S. national security officials opposed to loosening export controls on commercial space technology.

Thales built the Chinasat 6B satellite in 2007 and in 2008 began advertising Spacebus 4000 satellites for sale as “ITAR-free.” It then exported several of the satellites, including some to China, a country limited from such sales by under the International Traffic in Arms (ITAR) regulations.

Full article: French defense contractor flouting export rules (Free Beacon)