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Ministry of State Security: Russia-China-North Korea-Iran and Beyond

Published

1 year ago

June 19, 2023

The Average North American, EU, UK, and Caribbean Citizen: Beware if you speak your mind or work for a security-sensitive Employer.

A couple works for an aggressive well known pharmaceutical firm or perhaps the CDC in Colorado or an innovative electronics-communications firm. All are developing top-notch uniquely proprietary concepts, designs, and products. This would be a perfect target for foreign agents hoping to acquire said private and public secrets. But how can this be done?

1. Have a direct agent or friendly join the firm. Direct infiltration would be best as, as it usually does not have all the baggage of an amateur or someone forced to spy for the foreign intelligence service.

2. Co-op someone already employed at these firms. Easily done, since all of us are not saints, and have some sort of personal secret we would like to keep secret. Perhaps the employee is a gambler, addict, womanizer while married, someone who steals from the firm they work for or they are simply still a closed member of the LGBT+ community within a security-sensitive agency. Secrets of others are the basis of all intelligence work throughout history. Acquiring information on someone gives the opposition power to manipulate, threaten and force compliance.

Sources of information in a Digital World:
*. Online…TikTok, Facebook, and other social media tools. Someone puts something online that provides information on their employer, location, activities, family, and social group membership. Say you’re going to Florida for a week, and say so on Facebook, saying how, where, and timing of travel. This provides criminals the ability to case your house and rob it. Pictures of the front lobby alone can provide the type and make of your security system, or if you have one.

Word of Mouth: Your family in China speaks freely and proudly of your promotion, place of business, and what your do, or perhaps personal information that allows the security services in China to locate you, your employer, and what it is you do. If it is of importance, the security system jumps into action to investigate you. Members of Government can face such challenges, as they do throughout the world.

Actions of Provocateur Nations:

a. Acquiring a target, say a member of parliament in Canada who has an extended family in Hong Kong.
The MP also does business with the government and personal needs in Asia.

b. Pin Point means of co-opting MP such as simply telling the MP bad things could happen to his family in Hong Kong without actually doing so. The threat may be enough to get the MP’s attention. Personal contact in Canada through phone calls, emails and even meeting MP at events can follow. A few keywords can let him know he is being watched with interest. Cyber Hacks of the MP’s office and a personal computer can follow. Acquiring all personal information on the target will allow agents to move swiftly within the shadows.

Is the subject financially insecure? Does he gamble or has he roving sexual interests? Can the subject be manipulated in any way?

c. Should the subject not respond visibly, actions against his family in China could happen. Loss of employment or citizen rights such as medical care. Threatening to leak Hurtful information or photos can initiate the manipulation and capture process. Once a subject falls into the intelligence service’s hands, they will be at their complete command. Some go to the authorities, while others commit suicide. Intelligence services can act much like organized crime syndicates, applying fraud, threats, victimization, and harm to their targets.

d. In the case of superpowers such as Russia and China, financial pressures can be used to get what these foreign intelligence services want. The subject’s firm or personal finances are in a mess where an infusion of cash is needed. An agency appears willing to provide a loan. Foreign Banks suddenly show interest in the subject’s financial needs. Say the subject has a business in construction. A group of firms provides profitable work, building up the subject firm’s debt significantly, then holding off paying for work done. Blackmail, fraud, and misrepresentation all are the bailiwick of spy craft. Lack of payment can threaten bankruptcy until someone comes by, offering payment so long as a favor is asked of the subject, for information both corporate, private, or security-based.

e. Intelligence services will look at both short and long-term commitments from the subject. Acquiring a project’s code, or a particular virus can be a short-term investment, but the longer a subject can secretively serve the better. Subjects can be assisted in their professional journeys towards more vital security vital targets. Starting as a doctor, promoted to head the hospital they serve in, the information provided on the subject of medical, pharmaceutical, and governmental, patents can be useful for a foreign government.

f. Like a virus, intelligence gathering and recruitment are unending. Co-opting others can also be a useful procedure for the subject. A list of candidates could be given to the subject of those in their organization most useful to intelligence needs. Acquiring personal, possibly secretive information about these individuals by the subject starts the whole procedure once again.

Methods of maintaining the security and well-being of vital organizations and their employees are kept to keep the tentacles of foreign intrigue away. Investigations into employees’ backgrounds and present-day financial-personal activities are essential. If someone begins placement in a firm with a personal worth of $250,000 and three years later they are worth $2.2 million questions need to be asked. It is simple as that. Security of the population, government, or private concerns demands honesty. Without secrets, intelligence agencies are S.O.L.

Steven Kaszab
438 Simcoe road
Bradford, Ontario L3Z3A1
skaszab@yahoo.ca

News

Langford, Heim lead Rangers to wild 13-8 win over Blue Jays

Published

3 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Rookie Wyatt Langford homered, doubled twice and became the first Texas player this season to reach base five times, struggling Jonah Heim delivered a two-run single to break a sixth-inning tie and the Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 13-8 on Tuesday night.

Leody Taveras also had a homer among his three hits for the Rangers.

Langford, who also walked twice, has 12 homers and 25 doubles this season. He is hitting .345 in September.

“I think it’s really important to finish on a strong note,” Langford said. “I’m just going to keep trying to do that.”

Heim was 1-for-34 in September before he lined a single to right field off Tommy Nance (0-2) to score Adolis García and Nathaniel Lowe, giving Texas a 9-7 lead. Heim went to the plate hitting .212 with 53 RBIs after being voted an All-Star starter last season with a career-best 95 RBIs. He added a double in the eighth ahead of Taveras’ homer during a three-run inning.

Texas had 13 hits and left 13 men on. It was the Rangers’ highest-scoring game since a 15-8 win at Oakland on May 7.

Matt Festa (5-1) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the win, giving him a 5-0 record in 13 appearances with the Rangers after being granted free agency by the New York Mets on July 7.

Nathan Eovaldi, a star of Texas’ 2023 run to the franchise’s first World Series championship, had his worst start of the year in what could have been his final home start with the Rangers. Eovaldi, who will be a free agent next season, allowed 11 hits (the most of his two seasons with Texas) and seven runs (tied for the most).

“I felt like early in the game they just had a few hits that found the holes, a few first-pitch base hits,” said Eovaldi, who is vested for a $20 million player option with Texas for 2025. “I think at the end of the day I just need to do a better job of executing my pitches.”

Eovaldi took a 7-3 lead into the fifth inning after the Rangers scored five unearned runs in the fourth. The Jays then scored four runs to knock out Eovaldi after 4 2/3 innings.

Six of the seven runs scored against Toronto starter Chris Bassitt in 3 2/3 innings were unearned. Bassitt had a throwing error during Texas’ two-run third inning.

“We didn’t help ourselves defensively, taking care of the ball to secure some outs,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.

The Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a double and two singles, his most hits in a game since having four on Sept. 3. Guerrero is hitting .384 since the All-Star break.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Blue Jays: SS Bo Bichette (calf) was activated and played for the first time since July 19, going 2 for 5 with an RBI. … OF Daulton Varsho (shoulder) was placed on the 10-day injured list and will have rotator cuff surgery … INF Will Wagner (knee inflammation) was placed on the 60-day list.

UP NEXT

Rangers: LHP Chad Bradford (5-3, 3.97 ERA) will pitch Wednesday night’s game on extended five days’ rest after allowing career highs in hits (nine), runs (eight) and home runs (three) in 3 2/3 innings losing at Arizona on Sept. 14.

Blue Jays: RHP Bowden Francis (8-4, 3.50) has had two no-hitters get away in the ninth inning this season, including in his previous start against the New York Mets on Sept. 11. Francis is the first major-leaguer to have that happen since Rangers Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan in 1989.

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AP MLB:

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Billie Jean King set to earn another honor with the Congressional Gold Medal

Published

4 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

WASHINGTON (AP) — Billie Jean King will become the first individual female athlete to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey announced Tuesday that their bipartisan legislation had passed the House of Representatives and would be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.

The bill to honor King, the tennis Hall of Famer and activist, had already passed unanimously in the Senate.

Sherrill, a Democrat, said in a statement that King’s “lifetime of advocacy and hard work changed the landscape for women and girls on the court, in the classroom, and the workplace.”

The bill was introduced last September on the 50th anniversary of King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” still the most-watched tennis match of all-time. The medal, awarded by Congress for distinguished achievements and contributions to society, has previously been given to athletes including baseball players Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, and golfers Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer.

King had already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, says she has “broken barriers, led uncharted paths, and inspired countless people to stand proudly with courage and conviction in the fight for what is right.”

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Account tweaks for young Instagram users ‘minimum’ expected by B.C., David Eby says

Published

4 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

SURREY, B.C. – Premier David Eby says new account control measures for young Instagram users introduced Tuesday by social media giant Meta are the “minimum” expected of tech companies to keep kids safe online.

The parent company of Instagram says users in Canada and elsewhere under 18 will have their accounts set to private by default starting Tuesday, restricting who can send messages, among other parental controls and settings.

Speaking at an unrelated event Tuesday, Eby says the province began talks with social media companies after threatening legislation that would put big tech companies on the hook for “significant potential damages” if they were found negligent in failing to keep kids safe from online predators.

Eby says the case of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old from Prince George, B.C., who took his own life last year after being targeted by a predator on Snapchat, was “horrific and totally preventable.”

He says social media apps are “nothing special,” and should be held to the same child safety standards as anyone who operates a place that invites young people, whether it’s an amusement park, a playground or an online platform.

In a progress report released Tuesday about the province’s engagement with big tech companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, Spapchat and X, formerly known as Twitter, the provincial government says the companies are implementing changes, including a “trusted flagger” option to quickly remove intimate images.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024

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