Bellingcat…

I just made a small donation and signed up for reminders to new comments on the Alexander Mishkin story.

The automated message that I received back was 50pc Russian. Is that a veiled threat from Russia? Or has Bellingcat been hacked?

I’m gonna play it safe and wear gloves when I touch my door handle from now on. 🙂

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I just assumed it was some offshoot of M16. But your country thanks you for your donation. 🙂

I’d love to work for a company like that, or a properly evil company like Cambridge Analytica …just to be at the center of all the hilarity.

I’m gonna play it safe and wear gloves when I touch my door handle from now on.

and don’t except tea from strangers with a Russian accent….

scary times, according to R4 interview today.

Clearly the Salisbury and now OPCW attempted hack stuff is fairly squarely landed at the door of the GRU. Was Vlad involved in these operations, surely he would have known of them. But they appear to have been royally screwed up.

Which leads to the scary bit; is it just a screw up, and heads will roll in the aftermath like in the old days? Or does the ‘humiliation’ (which we know he doesn’t like) then lead to threat of ‘laugh at me, I’ll show you’ and an escalation of effort.

Alternatively – there are a a few RF secret service organisations, and is this an internal power struggle with them for Vlad’s approval? Who wants to host the 2019 Olympics of Secret Service ‘who can **** the West over best’

and don’t except tea from strangers with a Russian accent….

I’m hoping they’ll use a honey trap. (I assume you do actually get some honey before they kill you?)

I just assumed it was some offshoot of M16. But your country thanks you for your donation.

I’ve always assumed that but on reflection I think a slightly Autistic guy with a Google in his bedsit is probably more capable of working this stuff out than a few upper class Civil Servants in MI6.

Bellingcat was started by a guy who frequents (and used to mod) another internet forum I visit. It’s definitely not an MI6 thing! Just a dude who realised you can find out a lot of stuff from youtube etc because people are dumb enough to upload all kinds of footage.

For a bit of balance of the type the BBC seems to lack;

Omidyar’s Intercept Teams Up with War-Propaganda Firm Bellingcat

In addition, Bellingcat’s founder Elliott Higgins is employed by the Atlantic Council, which is partially funded by the U.S. State Department, NATO and U.S. weapons manufacturers. It should come as little surprise then that the results of Bellingcat’s “findings” often fit neatly with narratives promoted by NATO and the U.S. government despite their poor track record in terms of accuracy.

Bellingcat’s funding is even more telling than its professional associations. Indeed, despite promoting itself as an “independent” and open-source investigation site, Bellingcat has received a significant portion of its funding from Google, which is also one of the most powerful U.S. military contractors and whose rise to prominence was directly aided by the CIA.

Google has also been actively promoting regime change in countries like Syria, a policy that Bellingcat also promotes. As one example, leaked emails between Jared Cohen, former director of Google Ideas (now Jigsaw), and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that Google developed software aimed at assisting al-Qaeda and other Syrian opposition groups in boosting their ranks.

Didn’t think it would take Jivebunny long to pop up, interesting he’s posting an article from Mint News, a quick look at their Wiki article shows they don’t appear to be as unbiased as Jivebunny might like us to believe, there are accusations about be pro-Assad and anti-Semitic:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintPress_News.

For a bit of balance of the type that JHJ seems to lack

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-alphabet-google-pentagon/google-drops-out-of-bidding-for-10-billion-pentagon-data-deal-idUKKCN1MI2C3

But thousands of Google employees this year protested use of Google’s technology in warfare or in ways that could lead to human rights violations. The company responded by releasing principles for use of its artificial intelligence tools.

Didn’t think it would take Jivebunny long to pop up, interesting he’s posting an article from Mint News, a quick look at their Wiki article shows they don’t appear to be as unbiased as Jivebunny might like us to believe, there are accusations about be pro-Assad and anti-Semitic:

I think the take-home message is that very few of these ‘independent’ news sources can be taken at face value. Even ones purporting to be ‘citizen journalists’ working out of their spare rooms. Bellingcat may have been launched with the best of intentions, but you cannot look at their present output and not detect a strong whiff of the security services.

I always assumed Jivebunny was a russian troll anyway….

For what it’s worth, there’s every chance the mint press article is as biased as Bellingcat, but in the other direction; perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle; could we have a situation where what Bellingcat says is true, but the mint press article is equally true?

After all, it’d be foolish to pretend Russia doesn’t have intelligence services that do dark deeds (or has a clean human rights record), but as the ties between the likes of Paul Manafort and Oleg Deripaska have shown, there are many overlaps when it comes to the darker arts of ‘democracy’.

Not forgetting the Trump Pee tape… but surely that couldn’t link to the Salisbury poisonings, could it?

Depends. Does he have an impressive spire?

Bellingcat was started by a guy who frequents (and used to mod) another internet forum I visit. It’s definitely not an MI6 thing! Just a dude who realised you can find out a lot of stuff from youtube etc because people are dumb enough to upload all kinds of footage.

If they didn’t used to, they are now or will soon be getting lucrative government security contracts! They have articles on how to analyse satellite footage like an RAF Intelligence Officer ffs lol.

I think the take-home message is that very few of these ‘independent’ news sources can be taken at face value.

Yup, but the story we’re talking about is very easy to debunk if untrue so we should know very soon if it’s not true.

They have articles on how to analyse satellite footage like an RAF Intelligence Officer ffs lol.

…and then there’s this:

Stunt Geolocation – Verifying the Unverifiable

It’s not rocket science, but it seems to work.

Was expecting a cat thread. Am disappoint.

It’s not rocket science

No, all rocket science requires is a sealed tube full of propellant, and that you light the blue touch paper and stand well back. The only real science is Newtonian physics, chemistry and ballistics. The Chinese were using rockets several centuries ago.

ll rocket science requires is a sealed tube full of propellant,

No, that is pipe bomb science. Rocket science prefers a tube that is open at one end.

The Bellingcat is alive and well ..it’s just had a shit in my garden and the rock I threw at it missed .

Neil Hodgson.

Bellingham resident .

Mention of this site always makes me think of the smelly cat song from Friends,,,

No, that is pipe bomb science. Rocket science prefers a tube that is open at one end.

Yeah, I realised I’d missed the bit about sealed at one end too late to edit it. I knew what I meant, just didn’t write it!

In the age of populists being able to dismiss anything they disagree with as project fear or fake nees & the DMonline being the nation’s most popular news source, I think it’s good that people are digging a bit deeper.

I like the way he shows his ‘workings out’ as in the Russian missiles etc.

There was a similar excellent piece of journalism by the BBC , investigating the horrific killing of women & children in Cameroon a few weeks ago.

Plenty of commentators spent time labelingl Carole cadwaller (sp?)  a crazy cat lady before the Facebook /Cambridge analytics scandal was exposed & gov still refuse to investigate russian interference in ref.

Whether governments are unwilling or unable to fully expose wrongdoing it takes some dedicated journalism.

As for bellingcat, he better make sure that he doesn’t accept tea, perfume or offer directions to his local cathedral to anyone he doesn’t know.

As for bellingcat, he better make sure that he doesn’t accept tea, perfume or offer directions to his local cathedral to anyone he doesn’t know.

Just point them in the opposite direction…

I’m trying to catch the neighbourhood cats that come into my garden so I can tie bells onto them. Partly to warn the birds, partly to enable me to locate the bastards and soak them.