TBR News July 3, 2016

Jul 03 2016

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. July 3, 2016: “I have also learned from a source in the Chase Manhattan bank that his people are scared literally shitless over the news, gleaned from a very competent German intelligence service, that a group, totally off the screen, not Muslim and probably American-based, have managed to crack the entrance information into the electronic, international banking wire and transfer system. These are:

 

  • SWIFT (Bruxelles)

Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions

 

  • CHAPS (London)

Clearing House Automated Payments System

 

  • CHIPS (New York) – Private Sector

Clearing House Interbank Payments System

 

  • FEDWIRE (New York) – US Government

Fedwire Funds Service

 

If, as the German reports have rumored, someone or some group successfully sabotages these systems, the world of international banking and the entire country would suffer a terrible blow that would take months, if not years, to recover from. Billions of dollars in bank transfers would vanish instantly and replicating the data, if the attackers know what they are doing, would take eons to try to replace. For instance, the BofA transfers $200.000,000 to a bank in Germany and in a nano second, the transfer vanishes. No money is sent and none received. I do not know if this operation is connected with other very disruptive activities that our Brave Defenders of Liberty are trying to track but the Germans seem to feel that the elements involved are not Arabs or Russians but Americans because of the idiomatic English in the messages they have decoded.”

 

The Müller Washington Journals   1948-1951

At the beginning of December, 1948, a German national arrived in Washington, D.C. to take up an important position with the newly-formed CIA. He was a specialist on almost every aspect of Soviet intelligence and had actively fought them, both in his native Bavaria where he was head of the political police in Munich and later in Berlin as head of Amt IV of the State Security Office, also known as the Gestapo.

His name was Heinrich Müller.

Even as a young man, Heini Müller had kept daily journals of his activities, journals that covered his military service as a pilot in the Imperial German air arm and an apprentice policeman in Munich. He continued these journals throughout the war and while employed by the top CIA leadership in Washington, continued his daily notations.

This work is a translation of his complete journals from December of 1948 through September of 1951.

When Heinrich Müller was hired by the CIA¹s station chief in Bern, Switzerland, James Kronthal in 1948, he had misgivings about working for his former enemies but pragmatism and the lure of large amounts of money won him over to what he considered to be merely an extension of his life-work against the agents of the Comintern. What he discovered after living and working in official Washington for four years was that the nation¹s capital was, in truth, what he once humorously claimed sounded like a cross between a zoo and a lunatic asylum. His journals, in addition to personal letters, various reports and other personal material, give a very clear, but not particularly flattering, view of the inmates of both the zoo and the asylum.

Müller moved, albeit very carefully, in the rarefied atmosphere of senior policy personnel, military leaders, heads of various intelligence agencies and the White House itself. He was a very observant, quick-witted person who took copious notes of what he saw. This was not a departure from his earlier habits because Heinrich Müller had always kept a journal, even when he was a lowly Bavarian police officer, and his comments about personalities and events in the Third Reich are just as pungent and entertaining as the ones he made while in America.

The reason for publishing this phase of his eventful life is that so many agencies in the United States and their supporters do not want to believe that a man of Müller¹s position could ever have been employed by their country in general or their agency in specific.

 

Sunday, 15. April, 1951.

Heard from Philby about his dear friend Burgess. The latter was caught by the police speeding. He was taking a trip with a young homosexual, we know what for, and got caught. P. tells me, with great happiness, that Burgess will be sent home at once.

He must have bitten someone in the Embassy but at least Philby doesn’t have to put up with him. I will mention this to Harvey who apparently doesn’t know about his frantic wife and her assignations with me. I have had to be nice to her to keep her quiet. I would have written “to keep her mouth shut” but that would spoil so much fun.

We have agreed that there would be no more love bites and certainly no more scratching or she would have to find solace with a Negro handyman.

Tuesday, 17. April, 1951

Very interesting reading today! My friend who is responsible for distributing the highest level secret documents to the bonzen (bosses, ed.) has given me, and I have made a complete copy of, a secret file about using the Chinese under Chaing to invade the mainland territory! This is called “Operation Paper” and has been in effect since February of this year. My copy was one of two, one for the files and the other for Smith.

When Chaing was being chased out of China, one of his top men, General Li Mi, moved south and managed to keep his command intact and moved south into Indo China and from there into Burma, where he assembled a force of three to four thousand men from the former Nationalist Army, the 97th and 193rd divisions. Here, they are enlarging their units, training them with guns supplied by both the CIA and the French. We are sending weapons through Sea Supply in Florida. The French are supplying them Japanese weapons captured at the end of the war. Also, several units of the Japanese Kempetai (the dreaded Japanese Secret Military Police, ed.) have joined these people and one of their colonels has come over here to act as liaison with Washington. I have met this man, a Colonel Saito (which I do not believe is his real name) and as he was with their army in Manchuria and is considered to be their top expert on the Soviets in Siberia, we had a most interesting series of conversations. More on him later.

The plan is to use these men to physically invade China in large-scale commando raids, destroying as much infrastructure as possible, taking hostages (which will be killed after being tortured) and generally spreading terror in the countryside.

It is also planned to use CAT (Civil Air Transport, an airline wholly owned by the CIA, ed.) to move troops from Taiwan if these incursions prove to be useful. There is also a plan to develop bacteria that will attack and destroy the rice crops of China and thereby devastate both her faltering economy and cause starvation amongst her population. This is called Operation Kuan-Yin which is rather grotesque because it is the name of the Chinese goddess of mercy!

Saito, a real samurai type, is a first-class military man with a genuinely incredible knowledge of the Soviet Union and is fascinating to talk with. He knew General Ishii and spoke to me of the bacteriology factories in Manchuria. We both know that the U.S. is working frantically on developing various poisons and diseases to use on the Russians and Chinese if they should launch attacks on this country. Now that MacArthur is out, the plan is to proceed with these very deadly and clandestine operations, operations that MacArthur had blocked. Most conventional military men do not think along these lines.

It is interesting to note that M. wanted to use Chaing’s men in Korea but was strictly forbidden to do so for fear of starting a major war in Asia. Now that he is out of control, the CIA is promoting this.

I mentioned the drugs to Saito who laughed and said that now the Chinese plan to make opium growing official so that they can raise capital by selling their products in the United States. Wars were fought over opium in the last century; the British to import it into China (for their usual profit of course) and the Chinese to keep it out because of the terrible damage it can do. The Chinese lost that war and eventually became a nation of dope addicts for which they can thank England.

Saito is very fond of a Japanese game called go that he plays endlessly with one of his staff that accompanied him here. Also, he in an avid practicer of kendo which is old-fashioned Japanese sword fighting, performed with armor and dummy swords made out of bamboo. He wants me to attend a small exhibition next week and kept telling me that I ought to study Zen, a Japanese religious regimen that is designed to allow its practitioner to perform physical acts, such as archery or sword craft, in a natural way and without thinking about it. Reflexive and spontaneous, under control. He has given me a book that I will read over the weekend.

Amazing when one thinks of it. I was the head of the terrible Gestapo and Saito was a senior leader of the Japanese equivalent and now we are both in Washington being very well paid by our former enemies to plan savage attacks on America’s former warmest ally, Josef Stalin!

We both see the irony in this concept but others do not so we will permit them their self-delusions and take the money to the bank.

The British are in for more economic trouble. Because they insist on maintaining the trappings of a great power, they are insisting that it is better to spend billions of pounds on a stupid rearmament program than on public services so their people will still have rationed food (if that’s what they call the swill in England). The government has pushed up taxes on almost everything and the public will suffer accordingly.

This is utter stupidity because what would England do with a new army? Invade America (which she would love to do but she tried it twice and was thrashed for her pains) or her old enemy, France? There is nothing to invade in Germany and Russia is far too powerful. Perhaps she can invade Norway and seize all the sardine factories or Denmark and terrify the cows. Their once magnificent Navy is either at the bottom of the sea or has been melted down to make piss pots so they can concentrate on their army and hope to terrify Ireland or Iceland. Such idiots!

Friday, 20. April, 1951

Another Führer birthday to be celebrated (in private). Bunny is busy being pregnant and so the staff and I got together for a nice lunch followed by a round of toasts. I broke my rule and had a very fine champagne to honor the occasion.

Much satiric comment here and at the White House about MacArthur’s big speech to Congress yesterday. Thank God he is out of the way. If he was planning to take advantage of the upsurge of public interest in him, he is far too early. When the convention assembles, he will be very cold coffee indeed. All in all, however, a very good speaker and he makes a good presence.

The anti-communist activities have spread to Hollywood, a cesspit of left-wing activity and many are being exposed and attacked. I told McCarthy the other day that he and MacArthur ought to run for the Presidency. They could draw cards to see who was going to lead the ticket. He actually believed me and began to preen like a parrot, an alcoholic one. He insulted Truman and then blamed it on the alcohol. Drunks blame everything on the alcohol including their inadequacies, impotence, chronic flatulence and skin rashes. McCarthy looks like the kind of man you would hire to clean your furnace or put down fertilizer on the lawn. Still, worse have gotten into the White House and there may be worse to come.

Congressman Nixon from California ran into me the other day in the lobby of the University Club. A friendly chat and I commented on the proximity of the Soviet Embassy to the building. He is obviously a very ambitions young man so I have invited him and his wife to come down to visit. His wife is a very attractive blonde woman who, according to Nixon, is of German background. We also talked about Hiss and Chambers and will no doubt continue the conversation later under less crowded conditions.

An entertaining thought: I might invite Viktor down when the Nixons come. It might be an entertaining day…at least for me!

 

https://www.amazon.com/DC-Diaries-Translated-Heinrich-Chronicals-ebook/dp/B00SQDU3GE?ie=UTF8&keywords=The%20DC%20Diaries&qid=1462467839&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Home-grown radicals a weak spot in Turkey’s fight against Islamic State

July 1, 2016

by Humeyra Pamuk

Reuters

ISTANBUL-A few months after he started attending meetings of a hardline Islamic community group in a poor Istanbul suburb, 25-year-old Murat Kipcak stopped reading the Koran and going to the mosque.

He accused his conservative Kurdish family of being infidels and said their murder would get the killer to heaven.

Soon after, he sent word that he, his young child, and his wife had traveled to Iraq to join Islamic State, his father Tahir told Reuters at his home in Sultanbeyli, a district on the eastern outskirts of Turkey’s largest city.

“We gave the police phone numbers, names, car plates, we gave them everything. But nothing happened,” Tahir said, saying he had reported his son’s departure to Iraq after the family grew increasingly concerned about his activities.

Murat’s story – a working class high school graduate turned radical Sunni militant within months – highlights Turkey’s vulnerability as it tries to prevent Islamic State from carrying out further attacks like this week’s at Istanbul airport.

Three suicide bombers opened fire at the international terminal late on Tuesday before blowing themselves up, killing 44 people and wounding more than 200 in one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs – a symbol of Turkey’s global standing.

The attackers are believed to have been Islamic State militants from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Turkish officials have said, but they appear to have relied on logistical support from Islamic State cells in Turkey.

Police have detained 24 people in two days of raids across Istanbul on suspicion of involvement in planning the bombing, some of them in Sultanbeyli. In Fatih, another district near the city’s historic heart, a resident was cleaning graffiti off a home thought to have been used by the bombers.

“We don’t want a mukhtar sheltering Islamic State,” the graffiti said, referring to the local elected official responsible for administration in the neighborhood.

POWERFUL IDEOLOGY

Turkey, part of the NATO military alliance and a member of the U.S.-led coalition which has been bombing Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, has been hit by at least half a dozen suicide attacks blamed on the group over the past year.

The deadliest was in the capital Ankara last October, a double suicide bombing at a rally of pro-Kurdish activists that killed more than 100 people. Prior to the airport attack, two in Istanbul this year have targeted foreign tourists, killing a total of 16 people, most of them German and Israeli.

Security forces have tightened controls on the Syrian border and deported or detained thousands of suspects in recent years, but intelligence experts say Turkey, like many European countries, is struggling to counter radicalization at home and to adapt to the group’s new tactics.

“Are we prepared for the next attack? Unfortunately not,” said Hilmi Demir, a researcher at Ankara-based think-tank TEPAV who specializes in extremist groups.

“A new set of strategies and tactics are needed and we need to understand why these people are radicalized … Islamic State has very powerful ideological tools. You can’t fight such groups with military and counter-terrorism measures alone.”

Turkey’s experience in countering militancy has been shaped by its fight against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which took up arms in 1984 demanding Kurdish autonomy in the southeast. Until the launch in 2012 of a peace process, which has since collapsed, it was a largely military campaign.

With Islamic State, the challenge is more complex. A minority of people in Turkey, whose population is largely Sunni Muslim, have sympathy for the group’s ideology, if not its methods, several polls have shown.

Eight percent of Turks viewed Islamic State favorably, a study by U.S.-based company Pew in 11 countries with significant Muslim populations showed last November, with 19 percent saying they had no opinion. Turkey ranked fifth in terms of the highest levels of sympathy towards the group.

“A considerable part of the population in Turkey does not see groups like Islamic State or Al Nusra as terror groups. This shows how they can potentially find support,” said Suleyman Ozeren, a terrorism expert and head of the Ankara-based Global Policy and Strategy Institute.

FREEDOM TO TRAVEL

Murat Kipcak made no secret of his plans to go to Syria and join Islamic State, his father said, openly praising the group and socializing with others sympathetic to it. Like several other families contacted by Reuters, he said his warnings to the authorities went unheeded.

“The police say these people are going willingly and they have the freedom to travel, so it can’t stop them,” said a 25-year old resident of Bayrampasa, another working class Istanbul suburb, giving his name as Mehmet. He said his brother left to join Islamic State in Syria in 2013.

The brother had since returned twice and last time left for Iraq, Mehmet said, declining to give his full name because his family is part of a police investigation.

Turkey was initially a reluctant partner in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, arguing there could be no end to a war threatening regional stability without the departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and advocating for his ouster.

Critics say Ankara was too ready to back hardline Islamist groups fighting Assad, contributing to the conditions which enabled Islamic State to take hold. Ankara denies such charges, saying it was quick to declare Islamic State a terrorist group and that Turkey has the most to lose from its rise.

Turkish police have been monitoring the activities of suspected low-level Islamic State militants since as early as 2013, prosecution documents seen by Reuters show.

Aaron Stein, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the authorities appeared not to intervene as part of a surveillance strategy to map out the network and target its leaders.

“The lessons suggest counter-terror officials need to be far more aggressive in disrupting mid-level recruiters, working within different Turkish communities,” Stein said.

Turkish officials declined to comment on intelligence operations.

In the wake of Tuesday night’s attack, police have stepped up their raids on suspected safe houses. But for Mehmet, whose brother has been incommunicado since 2015, it comes too late.

“These people who become militants in Syria are the boys of our neighborhood. The police know them, where they hang out. But they say ‘gathering and talking about Islam is not a crime’,” Mehmet said. “And so it goes on.”

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Susan Thomas)

File 17: Fresh documents hint at possible Saudi ties to 9/11 hijackers

July 3, 201

RT

The US government has declassified a report that lists more than three dozen people that investigators looking into the 9/11 terrorist attacks wanted to probe for possible links from Saudi Arabia to the hijackers.

The document, known as “File 17,” was compiled by Dana Lesemann and Michael Jacobson. It offers clues as to what may be hidden in the secret 28 pages of the congressional report on the 9/11 attacks, which is rumored to implicate the Saudis.

“Much of the information upon which File 17 was written was based on what’s in the 28 pages,” former Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida told the AP.

Graham, who was the co-chairman of the congressional inquiry, believes that the hijackers had access to an extensive Saudi support system while they were in the US prior to the attacks.

“File 17 said, ‘Here are some additional unanswered questions and here is how we think the 9/11 Commission, the FBI and the CIA should go about finding the answers,’” Graham added, according to the AP.

Among the three-dozen names listed in File 17 are Fahad Al-Thumairy and Omar Al-Bayoumi

Al-Thumairy, an imam at the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California accredited with the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, is suspected of helping two of the hijackers after they arrived in the city.

The commission also states that Al-Thumairy and Al-Bayoumi knew each other and had regular phone conversations.

Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, is also reported to have provided hijackers Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar with considerable assistance after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000.

“Al-Bayoumi has extensive ties to the Saudi government and many in the local Muslim community in San Diego believed that he was a Saudi intelligence officer,” the report stated. Al-Bayoumi left the US weeks before the 9/11 attacks.

In June, John Brennan, the head of the CIA, said that the missing 28 pages would be published, but that they contain no evidence implicating the Saudis in aiding the terrorists.

“I think the 28 pages will be published and I support their publication and everyone will see the evidence that the Saudi government had nothing to do with it,” Brennan said in an interview with Saudi-owned Arabiya TV last month.

President Barack Obama ordered the declassification of the 28 pages back in 2014. It had initially been blocked by former President George W. Bush, as he did not want America’s relations with Saudi Arabia to suffer.

In May, the US Senate passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows victims of terror attacks or surviving family members to bring lawsuits against nation-states for activities supporting terrorism.

However, President Obama has threatened to veto the bill, while Saudi Arabia has spoken out strongly against the legislation, threatening to sell $750 billion in US treasury securities and other assets if it is signed into law. Riyadh has also repeatedly denied supporting the 19 terrorists involved in the attack, 15 of whom were Saudi citizens

New Zealand police uncover cocaine in bejeweled horse-head

New Zealand police have seized a record-breaking amount of cocaine from a diamante-encrusted horse head sculpture. The shipment worth millions had been air-freighted from Mexico.

July 3, 2016

DW

Police discovered 35 kilograms (77 pounds) of cocaine in a horse-head sculpture covered in glittering diamante rhinestones, New Zealand authorities said on Sunday.

The uncovered cocaine was worth an estimated NZ$14 million (US$10 million, 9 million euros).

“This is a significant win for New Zealand,” Detective Superintendent Virginia Le Bas said. “This is a great success, we should be proud to have detected it at the earliest of stages.”

Le Bas added that they are still trying to establish the drug haul’s final destination. The horse-head sculpture had been air-freighted from Mexico to Auckland before being detected in May.

So far, three people have been arrested in connection with the shipment. A Mexican and a US-American were detained over the weekend as they prepared to fly to Hawaii, while another Mexican was detained in Christchurch.

On Sunday, authorities asked for help from the public to identify a fourth, Spanish-speaking man who they say may be a witness or a suspect.

Police believe some of the drugs were en route to the city of Christchurch, which is being rebuilt after the devastating earthquake in 2011. The rebuild has attracted workers from all over the world and, according to Le Bas, has created a new demand for some illegal substances.

The record-breaking drug bust was the largest-ever haul in New Zealand. Prior to the bust, police uncovered an average of 250 grams of cocaine per year.

 Auschwitz Survivor Claims Elie Wiesel Was an Impostor

by Harry von Johnston, PhD

Elie Wiesel is dead at 87.

Was the man who personified the fictive Holocaust a fraud?

Auschwitz inmate Miklos Gruner, 87, says the real “Elie Wiesel” doesn’t exist. The imposter assumed authorship of a novel by Lazar Wiesel whom Miklos knew personally.    The novel, “Night” gained Wiesel the Nobel Prize.

In May 1944 , when Miklos Gruner was 15, he was deported from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau with his mother and father as well as a younger and an elder brother. He says that his mother and his younger brother were immediately gassed after their arrival in the camp.

Then he, his elder brother and their father had an inmate number tattooed on their arms and were sent to perform hard work in a synthetic fuel factory linked to IG Farben where his father died six months later.

After that, the elder brother was sent to Mauthausen and, as the young Miklos was then alone, two elder Jewish inmates who were also Hungarians and friends with his late father took him under their protection. These two protectors of the young Miklos were the Lazar and Abraham Wiesel brothers.

In the following months, Miklos Gruner and the Wiesel brothers became good friends. Lazar Wiesel was 31 years old in 1944. Miklos never forgot the number Lazar was tattooed with by the Nazis: A-7713.

In January 1945, as the Russian army was coming, the inmates were transferred to Buchenwald. During the ten days this transfer took, partly by foot, partly by train, more than half of the inmates died. Amongst them was Abraham, the elder brother of Lazar Wiesel.

In April 8, 1945, the US army liberated Buchenwald. Miklos and Lazar were amongst the survivors of the camp. As Miklos had tuberculosis, he was sent to a Swiss clinic and therefore was separated from Lazar. After recovering, Miklos emigrated to Australia while his elder brother, who also survived the war, established himself in Sweden.

Years later, in 1986, Miklos was contacted by the Swedish journal Sydsvenska Dagbladet in Malmo and invited to meet “an old friend” named Elie Wiesel… As Miklos answered that he doesn`t know anyone with this name, he was told Elie Wiesel was the same person Miklos knew in the Nazi camps under the name Lazar Wiesel and with the inmate number A-7713…

Miklos still remembered that number and he was therefore convinced at that point that he was going to meet his old friend Lazar. He happily accepted the invitation to meet him at the Savoj Hotel in Stockholm on December 14, 1986. Miklos recalls:

” I was very happy at the idea of meeting Lazar but when I confronted the so-called “Eli Wiesel”, I was stunned to see a man I didn`t recognize at all, who didn`t even speak Hungarian or Yiddish and instead he was speaking English in a strong French accent. Therefore our meeting was over in about ten minutes. As a goodbye gift, the man gave me his book entitled “Night”  of which he claimed to be the author. I accepted the book I didn`t know at that time but told everyone there that this man was not the person he pretended to be!”

Miklos recalls that during this strange meeting, Elie Wiesel refused to show him the tattooed number on his arm, saying he didn`t want to exhibit his body. Miklos adds that Elie Wiesel showed his tattooed number afterward to an Israeli journalist who Miklos met and this journalist told Miklos that he didn`t have time to identify the number but… was certain it wasn`t a tattoo. Miklos says:

“After that meeting with Elie Wiesel, I spent twenty years of research and found out that the man calling himself Elie Wiesel has never been in a Nazi concentration camp since he was not included in any official list of detainees.”

Miklos also found out that the book Elie Wiesel gave him in 1986 as something he has written himself was in fact written in Hungarian in 1955 by Miklos’ old friend Lazar Wiesel and published in Paris under the title “Un di Velt hot Gesvigen”, meaning approximately “The World Kept Silent”.

The book was then shortened and rewritten in French as well as in English in order to be published under the author`s name Elie Wiesel in 1958, under the french title “La Nuit” and the English title “Night”. Ten million copies of the book were sold in the world by Elie Wiesel who even received a Nobel Peace prize for it in 1986 while -says Miklos- the real author Lazar Wiesel was mysteriously missing…

“Elie Wiesel never wanted to meet me again,” says Miklos. “He became very successful; he takes 25 thousand dollars for a 45 minutes speech on the Holocaust. I have officially reported to the FBI in Los Angeles.I have also complained to governments and media, in the US and Sweden with no result.

I have received anonymous calls telling me I could be shot if I don`t shut up but I am not afraid of death any more. I have deposited the whole dossier in four different countries and, if I died suddenly, they would be made public. The world must know that Elie Wiesel is an impostor and I am going to tell it, I am going to publish the truth in a book called ‘Stolen Identity A7713’”.

Security Tips Every Signal User Should Know

July 2, 2016

by Micah Lee

The Intercept

There are dozens of messaging apps for iPhone and Android, but one in particular continues to stand out in the crowd. Signal is easy to use, works on both iOS and Android, and encrypts communications so that only the sender and recipient can decipher them.

It also has open source code, meaning it can be inspected to verify security. You can download Signal from the Android Play Store and the iPhone App Store.

Although Signal is well-designed, there are extra steps you must take if you want to maximize the security for your most sensitive conversations — the ones that could be misinterpreted by an employer, client, or airport security screener; might be of interest to a snooping government, whether at home or abroad; or could allow a thief or hacker to blackmail you or steal your identity.

I discuss these steps at length below, in order of importance. If you wish to jump ahead to a specific section, you can click the appropriate link:

  • Lock down your phone
  • Hide Signal messages on your lock screen
  • Verify that you’re talking to the right person ◦via Phone

◦via Tex

  • Archive and delete messages

Lock Down Your PhoneSignal uses strong end-to-end encryption, which, when properly used, ensures that no one involved in facilitating your conversation can see what you’re saying — not the makers of Signal, not your cellphone or broadband provider, and not the NSA or another spy agency that collects internet traffic in bulk.

But Signal’s encryption scheme can’t stop someone from picking up your phone and opening the app to read through your conversations. You have to take additional precautions.

If you’re using Android:

  • Set up screen lock, which requires you to draw a pattern, type a numeric PIN, or type a password to unlock your phone. You can do this from the Settings app under Security > “Screen lock.” Try to make it random, and avoid using anything obvious such as birthdates. Don’t tell anyone how to unlock your phone unless you’re OK with them reading all of your encrypted messages.
  • Encrypt your phone’s storage. A screen lock is not much use if a thief can copy your phone’s data to a different device. Encrypting the flash memory on your phone blocks such an attack by scrambling your data so that it can only be unlocked using the same pattern, PIN, or password used to unlock your phone. You can do this from the Settings app under Security > “Encrypt phone.” Note that you need to have a full battery before Android lets you encrypt your phone, and you may have to wait up to an hour while your phone is encrypting.
  • Install all updates promptly. Updates fix security bugs, so every day you haven’t installed them is a day you’re vulnerable to attack. You can check for Android updates by opening the Settings app, and under System tap “About phone” > “System updates.” You should also update all of your apps from the Play Store promptly.

If you’re using an iPhone:

  • Set a strong passcode. iPhones automatically have encrypted storage, but this encryption only protects your data if you lock your device with a passcode. Everyone should use at least a six-digit passcode, and you should up that to 11 digits if you’re concerned that your phone might fall into the hands of a powerful attacker like a government. Avoid using anything obvious such as birthdates. I wrote about this in detail in February — skip to the bottom of that article for instructions on changing your passcode, and for considerations about using Touch ID.
  • Install updates promptly. Updates fix security bugs, so every day you haven’t installed them is a day you’re vulnerable to attack. You can check for iPhone updates in the Settings app under General > Software Update. You should also update all of your apps in the App Store app under the Updates tab.

Hide Signal Messages on Your Lock Screen

Signal’s powerful encryption won’t necessarily help you if other people can see incoming Signal messages displayed on your lock screen. Displaying messages on the lock screen is Signal’s default behavior, but you should change this if your phone is frequently in physical proximity to people who shouldn’t see your Signal messages — roommates, coworkers, or airport screeners.

Here’s how to lock down your Signal notifications.

If you’re using Android:

  • Open the Settings app, and under “Device” > “Sound & notification” select “When device is locked.”
  • The options are “Show all notification content,” “Hide sensitive notification content,” or “Don’t show notifications at all.” I recommend you choose “Hide sensitive information content” — this way you’ll still be notified when you get a Signal message, but you’ll have to unlock your phone to see who it’s from and what it says.

If you’re using an iPhone:

  • Open the Signal app and click the gear icon in the top-left to get to Signal’s settings. Under “Notifications” > “Background Notifications,” tap “Show.”
  • The options are “Sender name & message,” “Sender name only,” or “No name or message.” I recommend you choose “No name or message” — this way you’ll still be notified when you get a Signal message, but you’ll have to unlock your phone to see who it’s from and what it says.
  • To completely remove Signal notifications from your iPhone’s lock screen, open the Settings app, tap “Notifications,” scroll down to the list of apps, and tap Signal. From here you can turn off “Show on Lock Screen.”

Verify That You’re Talking to the Right Person

I said earlier that Signal ensures your communications stay private when it is properly used. Using Signal properly involves verifying that your communications are not subject to a “man-in-the-middle attack.”

A man-in-the-middle attack is where two parties (Romeo and Juliet, for example) think they’re speaking directly to each other, but instead, Romeo is speaking to an attacker, Juliet is speaking to the same attacker, and the attacker is connecting the two, spying on everything along the way. In order to fully safeguard your communications, you have to take extra steps to verify that you’re encrypting directly to your friends and not to impostors.

Most messaging apps don’t provide any way to do this sort of verification. Signal provides two: one for verifying voice calls and one for verifying text conversations.

Verify Your Phone Contacts

It’s easy to verify the security of phone calls on Signal, but you have to verify every call.

For each call, the Signal app displays two words on the callers’ phone screens. In the screen shot below, for example, each screen shows the words “shamrock paragon.” Juliet and Romeo read these words to one another; if the words are the same, and they recognize one another’s voices, the call is secure. If the words are different, someone is attacking the encryption in the call and you should hang up and try calling again, but this time from a different internet connection.

It’s not required, but a popular convention is for the receiver to answer the phone by reading the first word, as in, “Shamrock?” And the caller to respond with the second word, as in, “Paragon.”

I admit that this sounds like magic, but I assure you that it’s only mathematics. Here’s how it works: When Juliet calls Romeo using Signal, her app communicates with his app and comes up with a shared secret that no one else can possibly learn, even if they’re spying on this exchange — watch this five-minute video if you want to get some information about how this works. The Signal app on each phone takes this shared secret and converts it into the two-word authentication string. As long as the shared secret is exactly the same, the authentication string will be exactly the same as well.

Verify Your Text Contacts

It’s more complicated to verify the security of Signal text chats, but once you’ve verified a text chat correspondent, you won’t have to re-verify them again until they get a new phone or re-install Signal.

Each person you text with in Signal has something called an identity key. When Juliet sends Romeo a message for the first time, her Signal app downloads a copy of his identity key and stores it on her phone and visa versa. So long as these identity keys are valid — the key that Juliet has stored for Romeo is actually Romeo’s real key and not some attacker’s key — then the messages they send to each other are secure.

Because it’s unlikely that anyone is trying to attack your encrypted messages the very first time you send a contact a message, Signal automatically trusts the identity key that it downloads. This makes Signal easy to use: All you need to do to have an encrypted conversation is send someone a message, and that’s it. But if you discuss anything sensitive, you still might want to confirm.

To verify the identity key, you first navigate to the verification screen.

If you’re using Android:

  • Open the Signal app and tap on a conversation to open it
  • Tap the contact’s name and phone number at the top of the screen
  • Tap “Verify identity”

If you’re using an iPhone:

  • Open the Signal app and tap on a conversation to open it
  • Long-press the contact’s name at the top of the screen until the verification screen appears

Next, you want to confirm you have the correct identity key for your contact. You can do this either by scanning “QR codes,” which work similarly to the bar codes used to ring up groceries, or by comparing “fingerprints,” which are 66-character blocks of text.

Verifying a Text Contact in Person

If you’re able to meet up in person, here’s how you verify identity keys using QR codes:

If you’re using Android:

  • To be verified, tap the barcode icon in the top-right of the verification screen and select “Display your QR code” (you may be prompted to install the Barcode Scanner app the first time you do this; it is safe to install).
  • To verify someone else, tap the barcode icon on the verification screen and choose “Scan contact’s QR code,” and then point your camera at the contact’s QR code.

If you’re using an iPhone:

  • To be verified, tap the QR code icon on the verification screen.
  • To verify someone else, tap the camera icon on the verification screen, and then point the iPhone camera at the person’s QR code.

When you successfully verify a contact, Signal should pop up a message that says, “Verified!”

Verifying a Text Contact Remotely

If you can’t meet up in person, you can still verify that you have the right identity key by comparing fingerprints — however, it’s kind of annoying.

You need to share your fingerprint with your contact using some out-of-band communication channel — that is, don’t share it in a Signal message. Instead, share it in a Facebook message, Twitter direct message, email, or phone call. You could also choose to share it using some other encrypted messaging app, such as WhatsApp or iMessage. (If you’re feeling paranoid, a phone call is a good option; it would be challenging for an attacker to pretend to be your contact if you recognize their voice.)

Once your contact gets your fingerprint, they need to navigate to the verification screen and compare, character by character, what you sent them with what they see. If they match, your conversation is secure.

Your contact should share their fingerprint with you in the same way, and you should confirm that what they sent you matches what’s on your verification screen as well.

If you’re using Android, unfortunately there’s no way to copy your own fingerprint to your phone’s clipboard to paste into another app. If you want to share it using another app on your phone, you’ll have to manually type it.

If you’re using an iPhone, you can copy your own fingerprint to your phone’s clipboard like this: Open the Signal app and click the gear icon in the top-left to get to Signal’s settings. Tap Privacy, then tap Fingerprint.

Verifying a Text Contact Who Gets a New Phone

From time to time, you might see a warning in a Signal conversation that says “Identity key changed. Tap to verify new key.” This can only mean one of two things:

1.Your Signal contact switched to a new installation of Signal, most likely because they bought a new phone, or,

2.An attacker is trying to insert themselves into your Signal conversations.

The latter is less likely, but the only way to rule it out completely is to again go through one of the verification processes for text contacts described above.

Archive and Delete Messages

After Juliet sends a message to Romeo using Signal, copies of this message exist in only two locations: on Juliet’s phone and on Romeo’s phone. Unlike other messaging apps, Signal doesn’t store a copy of your messages on internet servers (“in the cloud”). Still, if you have a sensitive conversation, it may be a good idea to delete it when you no longer need it.

You can also archive conversations that you want to keep around but don’t want cluttering your Signal app. Here’s how to delete and archive Signal conversations.

When you open the Signal app, you will see a list of your conversations — your inbox, essentially. You can swipe a conversation to the right to archive it, which moves it out of your inbox and into an “archived conversations” list. Deleting a message or conversation varies depending emplon your phone’s operating system:

If you’re using Android:

To delete a message, open the conversation, pick the message you’d like to delete, and long-touch it. This will select the message and give you the option to delete it. Similarly, to delete a conversation, pick a conversation from your inbox and long-touch it. This will select the conversation and give you the option to delete it.

If you’re using an iPhone:

To delete a message, open the conversation, pick the message you’d like to delete, long-touch it, and choose “Delete.” To delete a conversation, pick the conversation you’d like to delete from your inbox and swipe to the left to delete it.

Deleting messages is permanent. If you delete a message from your Signal app, and the person you’re talking to deletes it from their Signal app, the message will be completely gone.

Controversial exports in German arms report: newspaper

Qatar and Saudi Arabia received controversial German arms exports worth several billion euros last year, according to a major Sunday newspaper. Germany’s military sales as a whole nearly doubled compared with 2014.

July 3, 2016

DW

According to the “Welt am Sonntag” (WamS) newspaper, a 180-page Economy Ministry report to be submitted to the cabinet on Wednesday itemized 7.8 billion euros ($8.7 billion) in German arms exports.

Broken down, those sales comprised 12,687 individual approvals given by the ministry under export rules.

That was almost double the 4 billion euros in German arms exported in 2014 and somewhat more than a 7.5 billion-euro estimate given in February.

Qatar, a Gulf Arab state panned by German opposition parties as an alleged source of funding for the “Islamic State” (IS) terror militia, received combat tanks and heavy artillery, as well as ammunition and accompanying vehicles worth 1.6 billion euros.

Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who heads the Social Democrats, had tried to stop the delivery to Qatar but was outvoted by other ministers on Germany’s Federal Security Council.

Disclosure prompts outcry

That deal had already been cleared in 2013 by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s previous coalition, which then comprised her conservatives and the pro-business liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

Disclosure in February of that sale prompted renewed outcries from church-based lobby groups and charities such as Pax Christi and Misereor.

Germany’s sales to Saudi Arabia, which such groups also criticized, was to a large extent funneled through joint delivery programs run with other nations, especially France, according to the report cited by WamS.

Last October, an interim ministry report – for the first half of 2015 – said arms exports to Saudi Arabia spanned 66 approvals worth 179 million euros in total.

WamS reported that the Economy Ministry had attributed the sharp overall overall increase in German arms exports last year to special factors such as the 1.1 billion-euro sale to Britain of four aerial refueling aircraft assembled back in 2008.

The export to Britain was not problematic, the ministry argued, because it represented a “strengthening” of European defense policy and was in Germany’s own security interests.

ISIS Has Lost Many of the Key Places It Once Controlled

July 3, 2016

by Sarah Almukhtar, Tim Wallace and Derek Watkins

New York Times

The Islamic State was able to carve out a sprawling territory across Iraq and Syria through military dominance over 126 key places. But the group’s momentum has slowed over the past year, and it has lost its hold on nearly half of those locations.

As the militant group has been squeezed in Iraq and Syria, there are signs that it has been shifting its focus from controlling territory to executing terror attacks in Iraq and abroad.

Out of 10 Cities, the Islamic State Remains in Five

The group has been forced out of about 56 places where it once had control, including five major cities, since it made rapid advances across the two countries in 2014.

In June 2014, the Islamic State stunned the world when it seized Mosul, by far the largest city it controls, from Iraqi soldiers who dropped their weapons and fled.

But the group’s momentum has shifted. “The caliphate has been crumbling at the edges,” said Columb Strack, a senior analyst at IHS Conflict Monitor, an organization that has been tracking which cities and towns make up the militant group’s territory.

Iraqi security forces regained control of Ramadi in January after months of battling Islamic State fighters there. Many homes in the city were destroyed or rigged with explosives during the fighting, and most residents have yet to return.

The Syrian government is fighting to remove the Islamic State from parts of Deir al-Zour. If the government succeeds, the militants will lose a crucial connection between their strongholds in Raqqa and Mosul, making it more difficult for them to move quickly to defend territory, Mr. Strack said.

The Militants Capture Infrastructure and Resources to Generate Revenue

As they seized cities, Islamic State militants also captured valuable resources like oil fields and hydroelectric dams, which have helped them generate income. The group’s oil and gas revenue is down 26 percent since last year but still adds up to about $23 million a month, according to IHS.

The Islamic State’s three largest oil fields — Omar, Tanak and Al Taim — are all in Syria and together produce an estimated 13,500 barrels of oil per day.

The militants captured Mosul Dam in August 2014. American officials had expressed fears that the militants might intentionally damage the structure, flooding several cities and endangering more than a million people. But Iraqi and Kurdish forces retook the dam after two weeks.

The Group Has Maintained a Nearly Continuous Hold Along the Euphrates River

The Islamic State has contested or controlled many towns along the Euphrates River since as early as January 2014, giving them access to important roads and infrastructure that connect their territory across Syria and Iraq.

The town of Mayadin, which in 2004 had a population of about 44,000, is important to the Islamic State as an uncontested administrative center that is close to one of its major oil fields.

The Islamic State Is Fighting toKeep a Key Corridor to Turkey

After losing a monthslong battle with Kurdish forces for control of Kobani, a key Syrian town on the border with Turkey, the Islamic State was quickly pushed out of a large stretch of northern Syria.

Now, the Islamic State is fighting to hold onto a strategic corridor at the Turkish border that allows their people and goods to move between the two countries.

The Militants Often Capture Weapons Along With Military Bases

Many of the weapons used by Islamic State fighters have come from military facilities that the group has seized from the Iraqi and Syrian governments.

In January, the Islamic State had its largest weapons windfall when it took control of the Ayyash Arms Depot in Syria, capturing an estimated two million rounds of ammunition, 9,000 grenades and 100 antitank missiles.

But the group has not always taken full advantage of military seizures. Despite capturing a number of air bases, there is no evidence that they have flown any planes.

Territorial Losses Mean that the Islamic State Is Making Less Money

The Islamic State has lost about 45 percent of its territory in Syria and 20 percent in Iraq since the peak of its control in August 2014, according to estimates by American officials. With every town and village that is lost, the group also loses income that comes from taxes and fines.

After years of conflict, there are no current population figures for these places. But based on preconflict census data and government estimates, the places that the group has contested or controlled once had a combined population of at least 3.7 million people.

Additional work by Jeremy White.

Iraq violence: IS bombing kills 125 Ramadan shoppers in Baghdad

July 3, 2016

BBC

At least 125 people have been killed and about 150 injured in an explosion claimed by the so-called Islamic State group in Baghdad, Iraqi police say.

A car bomb exploded on a busy street in the Karrada district late on Saturday.

The mainly Shia area was busy with shoppers late at night because it is the holy month of Ramadan.

Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi was met by angry crowds while visiting the scene on Sunday. He later declared three days of national mourning.

A second bomb also exploded at about midnight in a predominantly Shia area north of the capital, killing another five people.

The bombing in Karrada is the deadliest in Iraq this year and comes a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured the city of Falluja from Islamic State (IS) militants.

Police said the dead included at least 15 children and six policemen. At least 12 other people were missing, feared dead.

One senior Iraqi official warned that the death toll could rise still further.

The US said on Sunday that the latest attack strengthened its resolve to support Iraqi forces in their fight against IS.

“We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our combined efforts to destroy Isil,” the White House statement said, using another term for the group.

Deadly message from IS: Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor, Baghdad

The destruction and death adds up to a clear message from the jihadists of so-called Islamic State. They are saying that even if they are defeated on the battlefield, they can still hit back where it really hurts – killing civilians in the centre of the Iraqi capital, and other capital cities, too.

IS have just suffered a serious defeat at the hands of Iraqi forces in Falluja. The town, less than an hour’s drive from Baghdad, has been in their hands since early 2014. IS are showing their supporters, and their enemies, that they are not beaten.

So many were killed and wounded because the streets are crowded at night at the end of a day’s fasting during Ramadan, with thousands in a mood to celebrate.

It is only realistic to fear that there will be more attacks like this, as IS comes under more military pressure.

IS, which follows its own extreme version of Sunni Islam, said in an online statement that it had carried out the attack.

Iraq’s highest Sunni religious body, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, called the bombing a “bloody crime, regardless of who carried it out or what their motivations were”.

The blast, which struck close to midnight, came from a refrigerator van packed with explosives, reports said.

Many of those killed were children, Associated Press reported. Families gathered on the street on Sunday for news of missing loved ones.

The explosion caused a huge fire on the main street. Several buildings, including the popular al-Hadi Centre, were badly damaged.

Hussein Ali, a former Iraqi soldier, told AFP news agency that six workers at his family’s shop had been killed and their bodies so badly burned that they could not be identified.

The blast, which struck close to midnight, came from a refrigerator van packed with explosives, reports said.

Many of those killed were children, Associated Press reported. Families gathered on the street on Sunday for news of missing loved ones.

The explosion caused a huge fire on the main street. Several buildings, including the popular al-Hadi Centre, were badly damaged.

Hussein Ali, a former Iraqi soldier, told AFP news agency that six workers at his family’s shop had been killed and their bodies so badly burned that they could not be identified.

Deadly IS attacks in 2016

9 June 2016: At least 30 people killed in and around Baghdad in two suicide attacks claimed by IS

17 May 2016: Four bomb blasts kill 69 people in Baghdad; three of the targets were Shia areas

11 May 2016: Car bombs in Baghdad kill 93 people, including 64 in market in Shia district of Sadr City

1 May 2016: Two car bombs kill at least 33 people in southern city of Samawa

26 March 2016: Suicide attack targets football match in central city of Iskandariya, killing at least 32

6 March 2016: Fuel tanker blown up at checkpoint near central city of Hilla, killing 47

28 February 2016: Twin suicide bomb attacks hit market in Sadr City, killing 70.

Zika in Florida: 10 new cases confirmed amid concern over US response

Figure marks largest number of infections found on single day, with nearly 1,000 people infected with virus across country

July 2, 2016

by Alan Yuhas

The Guardian

Florida health officials confirmed 10 new Zika infections on Friday, the largest number of infections found on a single day and a sign of the United States’ faltering response to a looming crisis.

There are now nearly 1,000 people infected with the virus in Washington DC and the 50 states, 246 of them in Florida, and 2,026 infections in American territories, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Those totals include 537 pregnant women, 43 of whom live in Florida. The state has also seen its first case of an infant born with microcephaly, the fifth case of the birth defect related to the virus in the US.

The US has not recorded any cases of transmission by mosquito in the 50 states, though the insects are spreading the virus in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. People on the mainland have instead become infected while traveling abroad, through sexual transmission and in one case in a laboratory.

Even without mosquitoes, the virus has steadily drifted north through the spring and summer. All but five states – Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming and North and South Dakota – has reported an infection. It has also started to appear in northern cities: Cincinnati reported its first case this week, New York City health officials reported 233 cases, mostly in people who had travelled to the Dominican Republic, and Washington state reached double digits.

“This is not the time to play politics,” Barack Obama said on Friday in a speech addressing the virus, referring to the Senate’s inability to pass funding to combat Zika.

“When there are emergencies, when there are public health emergencies, when we know that we have the chance to prevent serious tragedies in the lives of families and protect the health and safety of our populations, and particularly our children, then those politics need to be set aside.”

The president and the CDC have requested $1.9bn to prevent, study and combat the virus, but have been blocked by the Republican-controlled Congress.

“We can issue precautions for travel to areas that have Zika,” Obama said. “We can give people guidelines in terms of how to deal with it if they get infected. But this is actually something that we could reduce the risks if Congress does the right thing and allocates the dollars.”

Obama urged calm in his warning to Congress and the public, saying: “The good news is that for the most part, Zika is not a type of disease like Ebola, where it’s life-threatening.”

The CDC has confirmed that the virus causes birth defects such as abnormally small heads and brain damage, but much about it remains unknown. Health officials have warned pregnant women should not to travel to Puerto Rico or other regions where mosquito transmission is high, and that men who have travelled to such areas should use condoms or abstain from sex for six months.

“To tell people not to have sex until we get back to you is not a very satisfying recommendation,” Anne Schuchat, a CDC deputy director, told Reuters. “We would like to have some more understanding of the sexual risk.”

Zika generally causes no symptoms in 80% of healthy adults, and mild symptoms – fever, joint pain, red eyes and rash, lasting a week to 10 days – in the remaining 20%. But it appears to devastate a growing fetus, with a confirmed link to microcephaly, and suspected links to eye problems, hearing loss and other brain disorders.

Newly presented research suggests that some symptoms, including seizures and serious joint problems, do not appear for months after birth.

Scientists are struggling to track the virus, which resembles yellow fever and dengue and can be found in regions where the latter is common. They believe it lasts about a week in blood and two weeks in urine. Some studies have shown it can last for months in semen.

States have had motley responses to the virus, largely based on internal politics and what the CDC is able to grant them. Gulf states with dense, poor neighborhoods, such as Texas and Mississippi, are particularly at risk, rife with stagnant water pooling in abandoned homes, landfills and potholed roads. On a tour through Houston, Dr Peter Hotez showed the Associated Press what he called a “Zika heaven” of mosquito breeding grounds.

In Florida, governor Rick Scott used emergency powers to authorize $26.2m in funding to combat mosquitos and prevent the spread of the virus. Officials there and around the US hope to use larvicide, traps and nets to prevent the insects from surging with the warm weather. Officials in states like Illinois are bracing for budget fights after cuts to state services and school programs.

In Maryland and Ohio, officials have urged people to take care over the holiday weekend by wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants, emptying out any standing water and applying insect repellent after sunscreen. In Hawaii, officials are preparing to spray homes as they did to combat a recent outbreak of dengue fever.

The CDC has started research despite its lack of funding.

“We are going out on a limb, but we have to,” the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, Anthony Fauci, said earlier this week. “We can’t say we’re going to wait until we get all the money.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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