My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
The situation in the Middle East remains very tense, with the two major points of speculation being 1) whether the war will resume at all, or if the US is bluffing to try and get Iran to concede on their demands, and 2) assuming the war will resume, whether the US will conduct strikes on Iran before or after the elections within the Zionist entity; the point being to try and further delay the elections by citing the war they started as an emergency and therefore keep Netanyahu in power. Quite frankly, if Netanyahu wants to risk destroying the whole Zionist project just to save his own skin, then I have no objections - aside from the part where he might do immense damage to the world economy in the process by prompting Iran’s promise of regional retaliation, of course. Meanwhile, the Saudis keep getting pummelled, with Ansarallah landing missile after missile on pipeline pumping stations, airbases, military officials, and troop accumulations. Even the Western media is becoming dour about MBS’s prospects. Attempts to isolate Iran economically are becoming rather spotty. Pakistan briefly halted their border exchange with Iran, but once Iran splashed cold water on their face by restricting their fossil fuel exports into Pakistan - which is already in a politically unstable situation - they wised up quickly and reopened them.
Next up, we have the surprising victory of Lula in the second round of the Brazilian elections. A loss in the first round into a victory in the second round hasn’t happened in Brazilian history since 1989, and the president winning a fourth term via a democratic vote is unprecedented - and I fully confess that I went into this thinking Bolsonaro was gonna scrape by with a ~0.5% lead, so I will publicly and gladly admit to being wrong. The regular suite of electoral irregularities and not-quite-illegal tactics took place to try and prevent Lula from gaining the requisite votes, including a swathe of widespread interruptions to public transportation in cities that typically vote for Lula, as well as Meta putting a thumb on the scale by apparently reducing the visibility of Lula’s online campaign. However, countering that was an upsurge of people who were otherwise unengaged who presumably went “oh shit” when they saw the first round results, as well as an emergency two hour extension to voting in order to counter the aforementioned public transportation interruptions. The next year or two will determine if Lula’s victory is a curious aberration or instead a breakwater to the rising tide of conservatism in Latin America, fueled somewhat by explicit American intervention but mostly by the populace themselves finding little hope in lukewarm social democrats and instead finding community in, among other places, right-wing evangelical religious groups. I recommend RedSails 2023 piece, Reformists, Revolutionaries, and Social Liberals, which delves into the broad contours of the Latin American and particularly Brazilian political landscape, and how even reformism has been essentially abandoned in many countries in the region (and, therefore, why ground has been ceded to the right-wing lately).
It remains difficult to keep track of global events as the crisis worsens. The Hormuz oil glut prophesized by the US military and its quislings is still yet to show signs of being founded in reality, with Brent oil prices now reaching highs resembling those in the period of outright war in April, and emergency fuel supplies in the US being increasingly dipped into. While the biggest cause of this price increase is obviously the literal scarcity of oil, some of this trend is due to comically high tanker rates (which are that high due to a number of factors but which all still ultimately stem from Iranian strikes on tankers trying to slip through the strait), and some of it is due to China amping up their oil imports just in time for the US midterms, which puts further stress on world supplies. All of this pressure continues to feed protests and riots, of which those in Europe have received the most attention. The pressure on populations is coming at the exact same time that broader financial conditions reach points that usually prompt austerity measures, creating a pressure cooker of contradictions which governments will have to attempt to survive. Some have already failed to do so, such as Serbia’s - however, as I said last week, the root cause of the dissatisfaction is typically another factor that the economic problems are merely fueling (i.e. in Serbia’s case, a student movement).
As a more positive final note, Kim Jong-un visited the Chinese border city of Dandong to commemorate the 76th anniversary of Chinese troops marching to help northern Korea during the Korean War, with both countries reportedly seeking to deepen their industrial and trade cooperation. The New Yalu River Bridge between the two has finally formally opened after a 12 year delay, shortly after a bridge between the DPRK and Russia was completed last month.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Senator fled the country while under investigation for crimes such as money laundering and corruption.
Lula addressed the situation comparatively while eating his birthday cake, recalling occasions when he himself was defeated in presidential elections in Brazil. “I lost an election to Collor and stayed in Brazil. I lost to Fernando Henrique Cardoso twice and stayed in Brazil. When my Vice President, Alckmin, lost to me and stayed in Brazil, Serra lost to me and stayed in Brazil.” He then commented on another important episode in his political career, when his arrest was ordered in the Lava Jato corruption investigation. “I had many invitations to leave Brazil, to go to embassies, but I decided to stay in Brazil and turn myself in to the Federal Police to unmask my accusers and prove my innocence.”
Article
Today is Lula da Silva’s birthday. The president turns 81 just days after securing re-election. The party, however, was not just a celebration of life, but also the place chosen by the head of state to publicly comment for the first time on the escape of Flávio Bolsonaro , who arrived in the United States on Tuesday night, calling the act “shameful.” “Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. A citizen who leaves their country secretly does so because they owe something,” said the leader of the Workers’ Party.
The senator fled Brazil this Tuesday, a day after being summoned to hand over his passports to the Federal Police. The far-right politician was defeated in the democratic process last Sunday and is being investigated for alleged crimes such as money laundering and corruption.
According to the president, the willingness to respond to the accusations in court “is called respect for democracy.” “I regret that he left Brazil because he could have stayed and proven that the accusations are not true. I tried to get him to prove his honesty by handing over all my paperwork to the Electoral Court. He didn’t.”
Once again, the head of state claimed that Flávio Bolsonaro is “the most deceitful figure he has ever seen on planet Earth.” “He has no commitment to the truth,” as he had already stated in his speech hours after his election victory. “Unfortunately, that’s what the Bolsonaro family is like. Brazil is their second homeland. Their first homeland is licking the boots of the United States, as they are accustomed to doing.”
Flávio Bolsonaro is already in the United States, according to CNN Brazil. Reuters reported that the senator and his family will receive visas to remain in the country, indicating the Trump administration’s support for the Brazilian far-right.
He is not the first name linked to the family to flee the country. Eduardo Bolsonaro, his brother, is a fugitive in Texas; Jair Bolsonaro hid in the Hungarian embassy in 2024 to avoid possible arrest and had an asylum request in Argentina on his cell phone; Alexandre Ramagem was convicted of attempted coup d’état, but also lives in the US; and Willer Tomaz, a lawyer accused of committing crimes with Flávio, is also in the United States.
The binance “hack” is looking extremely fishy
Initially they blamed a single devops engineer losing his laptop, this is now acknowledged to not be the case.
But let’s start there.
That means the system is so insecure that a single developer has the ability to just transfer $6 billion of crypto. Because if it’s plausible that their credentials being stolen can do that, this means even the most basic cybersecurity and access control principles are not being employed and in fact they’re just giving root access to devops to simplify operations. Insane.
Oh but that wasn’t actually true.
Now they say “multiple breaches” occurred.
The fact this wasn’t immediately clear, the fact they initially thought “well I guess it was someone stealing a system-wide root access credential”… this means besides the fact that system-wide root access credentials even exist in the first place…
It means they don’t have the observability in place to immediately see if it was in fact those credentials that were used to perform the hack.
So that’s now two basic concepts of cybersecurity obviously not being used despite $20 billion in assets:
- Root credentials exist and are given to devops.
And
- They don’t have audit logging in place to see what actions are performed, audit logging which should record “identity X performed Y”.
They also say that the hackers carefully covered their tracks.
Fucking bullshit. They just weren’t recording anything. It’s obvious.
Now another thing.
Why was their instinct to immediately put public blame on this engineer?
Now they put the blame on “North Korean hackers.” What is the evidence for these being North Korean hackers?
It’s actually extremely thin. Basically the “pattern of transfers” to launder the crypto through different exchanges and transfers is being treated as a fingerprint.
Which is also fucking bullshit. Because it would be some kind of algorithmic scramble to try to make the traceability as difficult as possible and to create plausible deniability about the source of funds.
That’s the fingerprint of any crypto scam.
Anyway they say this pattern of transfers is a fingerprint that matches a previous hack that was linked to North Koreans.
So even if you accept the fingerprint claim, the claim this hack is North Koreans entirely rests on the previous hack being North Koreans.
What is the evidence of these previous hack being North Koreans? Fucking zero. The FBI said that was a leading theory at one point, without citing their reasons why or even being conclusive about it.
Now that previous hack… it used Trojans with names like MANYUSCRIPT, Lazarus, other biblical names from the Old Testament. Talmudic names. The first hack really sounds more like it was Israel given their naming conventions.
Now, I think it’s actually pretty weak to claim this is linked to the previous hack anyway. Using AI-driven analysis (yep) to determine a fingerprint of algorithmic crypto cycling is a fucking weak premise to link these two hacks together.
So whatever it’s a red herring imo.
We return to the facts of this case
(1) Management is eager to put the blame at easy targets. The careless devops engineer who was so irresponsible as to have his system wide root access credentials stolen, rather than the leadership team who allow that in the first place when tens of billions are accessible to those credentials.
(2) The absolutely shocking lack of observability in this system to even hold that theory in the first place, when it should have been immediately obvious who was doing what inside the system.
(3) Which means a leadership team who have actively chosen to build a crypto fund with less security and observability than the mini pc I use to stream movies from.
(4) These are active choices. Active choices to make it extremely easy to steal crypto from Binance in an untraceable manner.
(5) And then after the theft, multiple attempts to put the blame and attention onto targets that seem obvious on the surface level and only become implausible when you actually look at what the specifics of the finger pointing claims are.
(6) ….and Binance has been gradually losing markets as they fail to achieve regulatory compliance in multiple jurisdictions around the world.
This, my friends, is looking like a good old-fashioned crypto exchange “accidentally losing your money” rug pull.
It simply is not plausible you’d be running a banking system with $20 billion of assets under management with such insanely extremely poor cybersecurity practices.
System wide root access given to devops to just have on their laptop.
An obvious lack of audit and access logging to even maintain that theory in the first place.
An obvious lack of observability to not realize there were multiple intrusions occurring in multiple systems simultaneously.
This is a designed failure. An intentionally, laughably, ridiculously low level of cybersecurity.
It’s an intentional design choice. It’s an inside job by people with very high levels of authority within the company.
https://t.me/mintpress_news/16089An Israeli Zionazi Has A Mental Breakdown Over Arabs Showing Up To Vote
Israelis are crashing out on social media because of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel voting in historic numbers, which has prompted Israelis to go into a meltdown & claim that “our country is being stolen from us”.
Hey everyone we pushed Mamdani left! After public backlash over his NYPD doing a no-bid contract with an Israeli spy-firm for stingrays to spy on New Yorkers, he has seen you and heard you (quite literally).
Bids are now open for “similar technology”. The Israeli firm still gets to bid, they just don’t automatically get the contract anymore.
Look at what you can achieve via Democratic Socialism! Cops get a better deal on their Israeli spy-tech as they get competing bids! Workers of the world, you have nothing to lose but your no-bid contracts with Israel.
Patrick Stewart, ‘Star Trek’ Captain and ‘X-Men’ Superhero, Dies at 86 - Hollywood Reporter
He’s forever known for playing Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier, whom he “admired for their morality, for their kindness, for their sensitivity, for their compassion.”
The arab political block is large enough in Israel for them to be the kingmaker. No other party can form a government without them.
This is the funniest possible outcome.
High speed train crash in Spain kills at least 30.
Unions have been raising concerns about excessive vibrations and a lack of maintenance on high speed lines.
It’s the second major high speed train crash in Spain this year. 40 died in the first and at least 30 died now.
I had no idea than an “endless cruise” was an actual thing. How horrible.
Binance’s initial investigation suggests that the security incident may involve a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop, which allowed an attacker to gain access to a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions.
Assuming Binance isn’t just covering their ass here (very possible), holy shit you can really just get access to one dev’s laptop and steal a billion dollars
apparently mr. reddit ate shit at mrs. stock market diner
Reddit, $RDDT, is now down -42% in 8 trading days.
AI has disrupted search, and the internet more broadly, forever.
https://nitter.xitter.cc/KobeissiLetter/status/2116191185677246814
tfw you couldn’t copyright user generated info, so won’t even get pity money like publishers.
NEW: Vladimir Putin spent most of his call with the leaders of Finland and Norway ranting about Slavic history, underscoring Europe’s tough task backing Ukraine in peace talks.
The planned 20-minute call dragged on for 90. A ceasefire barely came up:
Jajaja, he keeps doing it
Evo Morales: “Lula! My dear brother and comrade in arms, congratulations on this beautiful and heroic victory! Your triumph renews the hope of the people who fight for social justice, dignity, and sovereignty. From Bolivia, we send you a revolutionary and fraternal embrace, with the conviction that a united Latin America is fundamental to building a world with peace, equality, and social justice. Long live the Brazilian people! Long live the Patria Grande!”
Obamdani strikes again
NYPD in negotiations to use new AI-driven technology that will make it easier to track cell phones
The NYPD wants to adopt a new AI-driven technology that will act like a roving cell phone tower and help investigators quickly find suspects they are searching for — but critics worry it will help police track the whereabouts of innocent New Yorkers.
The new mobile surveillance system, known as FalcoNet, is a cell-site simulator that can be mounted on police vehicles or drones and can even be hidden in a backpack.
It’s run by Cognyte, an Israeli technology firm. The NYPD is poised to sign a three-year, $750,500 sole-source contract with Cognyte to use its tech.
A portable cell-site simulator mimics a real cell tower. As it rolls through a neighborhood, any nearby cell phone links up with the simulator, which captures each phone’s unique identification number, which can then be traced to its user.
Important Brazil Lore to understand its current geopolitical reality
10 years ago, Flavio Bolsonaro ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro. In the debate, he passed out & shit his pants (yes, really). One of the candidates was a doctor & tried to help. His dad, Jair, yelled “communist, get your hands off my son!” & “01, did you turn yellow? Do pushups!”
Good point by Branko Milanovic
The entire Western (or should we say, British?) insistence on Serbia’s new (yet unformed) govt introducing sanctions against Russia --to which 80% of the population is opposed-- has a purely ritualistic character.
Serbian sanctions mean nothing for Russia economically.
Serbian sanctions harm Serbian population.
Serbian sanctions bring nothing to the West,
But Serbian sanctions show who is the boss.
So their meaning is entirely in the area of power and colonial-like obeisance.
I think whether sanctions are actually applied, either on the part of Serbia to Russia or from the EU on Serbia, will be a decent test for what this government actually is.
