Government Corruption

In a post a while back, I asked people for help in determining which political party was the most corrupt, using AI and news articles from ‘trustworthy’ news sites. Thanks to the efforts of Donald Trump, it would seem that the questions are becoming answered. I watched his statement regarding the election process, and was appalled at how quickly news agencies showed their bias:

Even if half of what has been said is true, then the voting system needs an overhaul. It’s funny how the same voting system we were told when the Democrats were voted out was so defective and connected to the Russia, suddenly works great and has little issues.

New Way To Kill Viruses? Shake Them To Death

Back in 2008 an article was published advising that viruses can be killed using resonate frequencies. I would hope, therefore, that there is research moving forward towards curing #covid19 using this technology?

https://www.livescience.com/7472-kill-viruses-shake-death.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep18030

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100113983A1/en

Unless I am misunderstanding something, this approach can be aligned with Dr. Royal Raymond Rife, who discovered this back in the 1930’s. I wonder why this is not being more seriously investigated?

Using The Government Spy Systems To Detect Criminal Activities

As we are all aware, Canada is part of the “Five Eyes” intelligence community and thus has access to all of the monitored communications. As I understand, this collective information is being used to monitor communications that could be related to #terrorist activity, and uses #ai to assist (and also bypass #privacy concerns). Unless I am mistaken, I had read an article stating that this information was used to detect the communications prior to an attack and was used to help identify those responsible.

Therefore I wonder why, with Organized Crime’s penetration into the Canadian and US economies having become such a serious #threat to our economies and their grip on our political system, why this same approach is not being used to help #detect their activities (drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, etc.).

I am aware that criminals use the same language evasion techniques as terrorists, so an adaptive system would need to be employed. I wonder as to if it would be easier to detect organized crime’s communications, as there is less terrorist communication activity per event (less events) compared to that of organized crime’s activity.

Thoughts?

Using AI To Detect Government Corruption

People talk about US government corruption, and news agencies taking political sides and promoting news for aligned political parties / interests. Individuals such as Liz Wheeler promote legit news that the news agencies will not / do not publish or promote as it goes against their political interests / objectives.

This makes me wonder as to if there is a political party that is more corrupt than the rest? Or if there is a type of corruption that is more rampant between them.

I would be very interested if anyone knows of a website that lists news articles about government corruption, and the affiliated party.

If not, then would anyone be interested in making one? I would suspect this could be accomplished using a machine learning system, combined with AI – after all the news has already been published by someone – it just may not have been published by one of the major news agencies. News providers are ranked for accuracy, thus the sources could be qualified based on the agencies ranking.

Thoughts?

Weaponizing Fantastic Technologies

“We” are able to do some pretty fantastic things!  I say “we” – but it’s the really wealthy that can do a lot of pretty fantastic things…  The US Government seems to agree – back in 2001 US Congress reviewed a bill which would ensure that technologies would not;

“Inflicting death or injury on, or damaging or destroying, a person (or the biological life, bodily health, mental health, or physical and economic well-being of a person) through the use of land-based, sea-based, or space-based systems using radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations”.  And that it would include such weapons as, “electronic, psychotronic, or information weapons; high altitude ultra low frequency weapon systems; plasma, electromagnetic, sonic, or ultrasonic weapons; laser weapon systems; chemical, biological, environmental, climate, or tectonic weapons.”

Now let’s admit to some facts – like we can control the weather.

Let’s enlarge this picture.  In a transcript of a US Department of Defense news briefing by Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen on April of 1997 it is noted that research is being performed by nations, such as:

  • something like an Ebola Virus, certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races
  • designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops
  • engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves

In a report released under the US Freedom of Information Act, titled “Bioeffects Of Selected Nonlethal Weapons””, available here (pdf), the US Army toyed with a “Telepathic Gun” that could cause artificial fevers or beam voices into people’s heads.  Impossible?  Not at all.  The ability to force sounds into someone’s head has been possible since 1974.

Here is another surprising weapon that I am pretty sure you’ve never heard of, the CIA’s Secret Heart Attack Gun, which fires a dart fully made of a poison that causes an heart attack, is undetectable during a autopsy, can penetrate clothing, and only leaves a tiny red dot on the skin [Sources: Military.com, CIA].

What about sonic weapons – weapons that induce illness, make it difficult to concentrate, cause a loss of hearing, difficulty to speak, and eventually mild brain damage?  These effects have been linked to some sonic attacks that are starting to become public knowledge, such as those performed on diplomats in Cuba and China [Source: Independant, CNN, Newscientist, The Times, Popular Mechanics].  Here are a few published articles covering recent news of least 21 American Diplomats stationed in Cuba that were diagnosed with these actual symptoms [Sources: DR DK News, {translated}, Business Insider, South China Morning Post, The Guardian, NewsWeek, CNN, Associated Press, Daily Caller, Fox 13, Foreign Policy].  But this is not the first time Diplomats have been attacked abroad, with the last publically identified incident being on Russian soil, back in the 1970’s [Sources: Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, CIA Archives, US National Library of Medicine, LA Times, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Policy].

Most people do not realize just what can be done – and who has access to these weapons!

Internet Volatility – The Never Ending Security Breach

The Internet is not as secure as we would like to believe.   1,378,509,261 records were breached in 2016 alone, with 1,792 reported incidences.  This is not surprising, considering you can take online courses to learn how to hack.

Basically everything on the Internet is, and will forever be, at risk of being hacked by Organized Crime, other States / Nations, Hacktivists, Script Kiddies, and the like, for various reasons and for some without restraint.  So I am encouraging the removal of our government, military, commercial, financial, social services, education, and economic backbones from the Internet.  My reasoning is that the Internet is forever being hacked / exploited.  Zero day exploits rule the day, with serious hackers coming and going without any notice what-so-ever.

Everyone likes the ease in on-line banking and bill payments, and the distribution of instant teller machines, yet all of this technology is based on systems that are growing impossible to secure.  Our economic engines are becoming quite dependent on the Internet.

It’s not hard to imagine what a well timed attack on their economic engine via the Internet could do.  In May 2016 the already weakened Egyptian economy took yet another hit from a second terrorist attack (airplane), negatively impacting their tourist based economic engine.

And we know that terrorists and organized crime both use the Internet and are combining forces towards common goals [Sources: NBC News, Security Intelligence].

In 2015, the Director of National Intelligence identified cyber-attacks as the biggest threat to the economy and national security of the United States, despite the threats of extremist terrorist groups and the growing nuclear ambitions of countries such as Iran, China, and North Korea.

Security is an illusion. Internet usage and reliance is increasing. Organized crime groups are becoming global, and are penetrating local interests. Organized Crime is using the Internet to store and launder their monies, while working to hack into sensitive locations for illegal gain. Even other countries hack our systems. All to a negative effect on our economy including loss of revenue, customer trust, availability / reliability, and costs to investigate, remedy, and rebuild trust.

With small scale intrusions and attacks continuously underway, I wonder as to how long it will be before a large, focused attack takes place? When this happens, depending on what is attacked and duration, I wonder as to how much damage will be ensued? And I wonder if we might start thinking then about creating a separate network – off the Internet – thus allowing greater security to our financial, government, and economic systems.

The number of articles published about our governments, research agencies, companies, and our infrastructure being hacked keep coming – and do not appear to be slowing.  Here are a random handful:

Why we continue to put our economy in risk is beyond me. A serious attack could cripple the nation’s finance and trading systems. One single attack could take out the top industry players, crippling them for a long time while another economy advances – or succeeds them through a legit business transfer.

As a country, to reduce our exposure to uncontrolled risk I believe we should:

  1. improve data and physical securities on our communication infrastructures (Bell, AT&T, etc)
  2. move systems off the Internet over to these dedicated networks
  3. implement hardened communications – like fiber connections that count the number of photons used in communications and examine latency times

With this move trust would be restored and issues reduced. This would require more serious attempts as physical access would become more of a requirement than today.  And it would seem that former CIA Director Michael Hayden and General Keith Alexander are also on-board, as they also called for a separate, secure Internet to shield vital systems (like the power grid).

So why do we delay?

Future Implications of the Inaction Against the Manipulation of the US Election Process by the Russians

Russia has tampered with the elections of many governments – including the 2016 US election [Source: Wikipaedia, Bloomberg, Wired].  Prior to this past US Election, Internet voting was deemed “too hackable” to trust [Sources: USA Today, The New Yorker], and Russia had hacked voting software [Source: VOX, NY Mag, France 24, Wired, Gobal News, The Guardian].

Prior to the election I read that Obama had called Russian President Putin and advised him that there would be an armed conflict if Russia meddled with the US election [Source CNN, NBC News, Washington Post].  As per the Tallinn Manual on the “International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare” created by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence, the tampering of the election should be treated as an act of war that should be retaliated against [Source: NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense of Excellence].

It is known that Organized Crime is penetrating our economy deeply, that Organized Crime groups often lend support to one another, and will work together and with Governments to a common advantage [Source: GeneralFox.com].  Prior to the election, Trump’s agenda was to reduce military power available to NATO and reduce US Military presence globally [Sources: CNN, Euractiv, Politico]. Did Russia and Organized Crime use the US Election to help Trump gain power to further their cause?

This poses very important questions that I would love to hear intelligent answers to, such as;

  • Why was voting reform not introduced prior to the election?
  • Who directly benefited from this inaction? Who helped? And why is nothing being done?
  • Why have there been no repercussions for this nation shaping action?
  • What will be the future repercussions to be suffered by the United States and other Allied Nation States due to this inaction?

Giving Our Economy Away To Organized Crime and Terrorists

Why are we giving our economy away? Under-developed countries and states would love to have what we have – yet we treat it with such disregard.

We have allowed criminal organizations to penetrate every layer of government, the military, and policing / protection services available. Our inaction is alarming, and threatens our health, our safety, our way of life, our economy, our future, and our children’s future.

Just as the United States National Security Council has recognized, we should be viewing organized crime’s penetration into our economy as a threat to our National Security [source: USNSC]. Organized crime is rampant in Canada – over 900 groups – and it seems Ontario has become the place for them to ‘convert’ to legitimate business [sources: CBC News, Toronto Sun, National Post].

Organized criminals have long invested in legitimate business as both a base of operations and a means of laundering money from illegal activities such as drug trafficking, weapons dealing, prostitution, smuggling, counterfeiting and robbery [source: DailyMail, NY Times, Herald News, International Business Times]. It also helps them explain their wealth.

A national risk assessment by the RCMP recently identified the ’Ndrangheta (also known as Calabrian) Mafia in Canada as a priority threat [source: The Star]. The ’Ndrangheta is built on a confederacy of like-minded clans, each relying on family bonds. It is similar, but separate from the better-known Mafia of Sicily, called Cosa Nostra. Police around the world say the ’Ndrangheta has become the most dangerous and powerful Italian crime group.

As reported by the Post in 2010, Italian authorities said there were at least seven primary ’Ndrangheta clans in the Toronto area and that the organization had climbed “to the top of the criminal world,” by establishing a “continuous flow of cocaine.” [source: The Post].

Along with the ‘Ndrangheta, there are several other groups currently active in the United States. Combined, it is estimated that these groups have approximately 25,000 members total, with 250,000 affiliates worldwide. Beyond drug running, these groups are also involved in banking, illegal gambling, political corruption, extortion, murder, kidnapping, fraud, arson, loan sharking, racketeering, counterfeiting, prostitution, pornography, infiltration of legitimate businesses, stock manipulation schemes, bombings, and weapons trafficking. Industry experts in Italy estimate that their worldwide criminal activity is worth more than $100 billion annually. 

Organized crime’s penetration into our government (intelligence agencies, military, and officials) and its operation represents a significant threat to economic growth and democratic institutions, and is accomplished through direct bribery (but also by having members run for office); setting up shadow economies; infiltrating financial and security sectors through coercion or corruption; and positioning themselves as alternate providers of governance, security, services, and livelihoods.

Economic Penetration

Organized crime has many forays into legitimate business, with perhaps the most known being their trash-hauling businesses [sources: Telegraph, NYTimes]. To prevent competition from driving down prices, they fix prices, rig bids, and allocate territories in such a way that customers can’t choose who picks up their garbage. One well established organized crime gang has controlled the industry in Naples for about 25 years [source: The Slate].

Their disregard for public safety and the environment is obvious with their having illegally dumped toxic, industrial waste in Naples and other parts of the country [source: Independent, BBC]. In parts of Taiwan, gangs dig into the riverbank for gravel and sell it to construction companies. Then, they fill up the holes with waste they’ve collected [source: How Stuff Works].

They harass legit competition and extort their money; while their own companies do a shoddy job. They work their way into the Teamsters union, allowing them to dictate which companies drivers could work for, effectively pushing out non-Mafia operations. This concept was also employed in other unions, allowing their control of the construction sector [source: CBC News, The Star].

During the housing boom of 2002 to 2007 several organized crime gangs got in on the action through corrupt construction companies and unions. In New York City, organized crime linked companies have been subcontractors on most of the major projects of the last few years, including highway repair, the midtown office tower boom, the massive water treatment plant in the Bronx, even the rebuilding of the World Trade Center [source: CNBC].

Organized crime run construction companies are known to include union rates in the bids and win the contracts — then pay far less to their workers. Inside the union, organized crime cronies get top jobs, shake down the legitimate crews and sell jobs to the highest bidders, and there are even threats of physical violence. They also invest in and own companies that provide materials like steel or cement to other construction crews. These companies pile on the costs, making the price of building expensive.

But organized crime is not restricted to just garbage collection and the construction business. I offer a few examples of the thousands available below:

– theft of credit card numbers via Internet sites, money laundering through an energy drink company called American Blast, and ownership of a bottled water company [source: NY Daily], with profits feeding investments in a phone company, a bank, and more than 64 shell companies and foreign bank accounts [source: Guardian, The Times, NBC News].

– the forming of a fake hedge fund which conned hundreds of wealthy investors into putting their money in bundled mortgage securities (one of the major causes of the economy’s collapse), the cashing in on the wave of foreclosures through house-flipping schemes when the housing bubble burst [source: NY Daily News].

– the running of a publically traded Texas-based financial company, “FirstPlus Financial Group” (FPFX), which was a one-time subprime lender that boasted former Vice President Dan Quayle as a board member and used NFL Hall of Famer Dan Marino in its advertisements. Thirteen people participated in the use of physical and financial threats to take control of the company in order to plunder the company for their own financial gain. The board of directors was replaced, and a lawyer helped them funnel millions back to the mobsters [source: US Department of Justice]. FirstPlus Financial Group and its shareholders lost at least $12 million due to the criminal activity [source: AOL, US Justice Department].

And their future is green, as around Europe organized crime invests in wind farms and other types of green energy as a way to launder dirty money, and take advantage of the environmental grants offered by governments. They take advantage of regulation in the industry, high prices for the product, and complicated financing [source: Telegraph].

In Rome, anti-crime units seized 27 restaurants and cafes, plus assets, worth $250 Million Euros. An estimated 70% of restaurants and bars in downtime Rome are controlled, or owned by, organized crime, producing more than $1.35 Billion Euro’s each year [Source: Daily Mail]. According to sources, organized crime controls one in five businesses [source: Explainer].

In looking at the bigger picture, organized crime is also heavily involved in the banking industry with ties to HSBC being widely known and publicized [source: Mafia Today, Rolling Stone, Le Monde, 60 Minutes]. From ties to the Mexican Drug Cartel [source: Thailand Business News, This is Money, HSBC Whistleblower, RT], to arms dealers [source: ICIJ], infringing Iranian sanctions [source: DailyMail], funnelling cash to terrorists [source: DailyMail], providing accounts to international criminals and corrupt businessmen [source: The Guardian], they are even being sued by families of Americans that were murdered by the Mexican Drug Cartels that they were laundering money for [source: Forbes]. Of course, while HSBC takes the focus at this time, it is known that other banks are also affected, Citigroup, Wachovia, and Western Union [source: Guardian].

Global Penetration

Even penetration into other countries or states offers organized crime a tactical advantage in that through time they build legitimacy and create ties to other economies through political means. As they expand, their networks threaten stability and undermine free markets as alliances with political leaders, financial institutions, law enforcement, foreign intelligence, and security agencies are built.

Organized crime’s existence exacerbates corruption, which undermines free governance, rule of law, judicial systems, free press, democratic institution building, and transparency, and is a movement towards the elimination of our freedoms. With this in mind they position themselves able to threaten legitimate government and free society’s economic interests and cause significant damage to the world financial system through its subversion, exploi­tation, and distortion of legitimate markets and economic activity.

Organized crime has become internationalized, with branches of organized crime establishing themselves in other countries and taking over, or amalgamating, with existing organized crime gangs (including Biker Gangs)[source: Vice News, Globe and MailFrontline]. In most amalgamating, territories are respected, with minor changes to reporting as per levels of support being offered. Criminal gangs are also diversifying, resulting in the convergence of threats having an explosive and destabilizing effect on our own, and the global, economy.

United States business leaders have advised that companies are being put at a competitive disadvantage by organized crime and corruption, particularly in emerging markets where many perceive that rule of law is less reliable. The World Bank estimates that $1 trillion is spent each year to bribe public officials, causing economic distortions and damage to legitimate economic activity.

Globally business costs are increasing as companies budget for additional security costs, having a negative impact on the global economy and foreign investments. Organized crime activities can lead to disruption of the global supply chain, diminishing economic competitiveness and the ability of legitimate industry and transportation sectors to remain resilient.

Organized crime groups leverage relationships with state owned entities and industries to gain influence over key commodities (such as gas, oil, aluminum, and precious metals), along with exploitation of the transportation sector.

Members of the American Mafia have been brought up on sex trafficking and prostitution charges, while the Russian Mafia is said to favor the high profit margins found in trafficking sex slaves from economically poor areas in the Ukraine and Romania [source: In Public Safety, How Stuff Works]. In all cases, all of the families use the Web to enhance their multi-million dollar illegal gambling empires through offshore betting shell corporations.

Other governments are also trying to infiltrate our governing bodies and influence them. A CBC National News segment discloses that governments are recruiting students from our schools. If aligned with a properly motivated organized crime gang, this would allow deeper penetration into our economy and greater steering capability [source: CBC National].

Joining with Terrorists

Organized crime has joined forces with terrorism – leveraging each others strengths. Organized crime is currently taking advantage of the threats posed by terrorist groups, which are being played up by the media, allowing them to continue to silently take a firm foothold into our economy [source: Security Intelligence, AWD News, Daily Beast].

Just as we are seeing with ISIS, developing countries with weak rules of law are susceptible to penetration, or even conquering by terrorists and organized crime. Reviewing the events in Somalia show how criminal control of territory and piracy ransoms generate significant sums of illicit revenue and promote the spread of government instability [source: US National Security Council, CNN]. This same happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, when rebels turned to organized crime for supporting in acquiring weapons, ammunition, communications devices, and shifting money.

In reviewing the trends of terrorist acts versus organized crime business penetration, I wonder as to whether there is a greater connection than has prior been discussed. Italy reports that the Mafia’s murder rate has fallen by 80 percent between 1992 and 2012 [source: Telegraph]. The rate has also fallen in the US. Yet terrorist activities have been increasing significantly since 2001 [source: WikiPedia]. With organized crime willingly doing business with terrorist groups, this makes me wonder if organized crime is funding terrorism and using them as a way to deflect attention away from them? [source: NYTimes, National Post].

Giving Our Economies Away

Our allowing this to happen is likened to giving away our economy and also silently sentences innocent individuals to harsh lives or even death – and this includes children [source: Mirror, Independent, International Business Times, I am Syria].

By allowing organized crime to flourish, knowing that they are connected to terrorist activities, we are therefore sentencing individuals to be ruled by terrorist groups or corrupt governments, with their ways of life being forced upon them; forcing them to leave their country for better lives and in the process leaving everything behind and often facing death in the process [source: World News, Spiegel, Guardian, International Business Times].

We turn a blind eye to those economies being strangled by organized crime groups, and even to our own slow, quiet absorption.

And it seems that the governments make it worse. Understandably investigations are kept secret in the hopes that the crime groups will be brought to justice and not become aware of their being monitored. However, due to the difficulty in bringing them to justice, and the time spent along the way, these organizations only continue to strengthen, making it even more difficult to be exposed.

I do not wish to support companies run by organized crime. I want to stop purchasing from companies in Canada and abroad that have been penetrated by, or are owned by, organized crime. I want to stop buying oil from those companies supporting the terrorist groups by not impeding its introduction into their supplies [source: CNBC, International Business Times, Observer, Financial Times]. But without any advise as to whom these companies are, I purchase products blindly.

I also want to stop selling known state sponsors of terrorism our airplanes [source: US Department of State, Bloomburg]. Why and how this could be legitimized is beyond my understanding, but clearly outlines the allegiance of those in favor of the deal.

Research and Development – for Criminals

Financial means

Just like our government, organized crime groups generate large amounts of revenue, using sophisticated methods of generating revenue. To the general public they seem to be portrayed as being uneducated, approaching opposition using physical force, or lacking a focused plan and long-term vision. In fact, it seems now to have become the opposite – here is an instance where they wrote a software application to help them [Source: Security Intelligence].  And they have been in silence and without announcement, growing their power and wealth, in Canada for years now.

Most people are unaware that organized crime takes Billions of dollars from our economies; and therefore has an “unlimited” amount of money to spend on research and development into any types of weapons and technologies that can be used to their advantage [Source: Fortune.com]. While true that governments also collect revenue, they do have to pay for the supporting of the infrastructure provided to their citizens – organized crime does not. Therefore, organized crime has more money to spend on Research and Development than governments do!

Organized crime can also gain details of any government research (including classified) through acts of espionage and bribery.  They can also steal it (perhaps via the Internet), or purchase it from other organized crime groups or Nation States. And we must remember that organized crime partners with terrorists, leveraging each others capabilities in revenue generating activities, and thus sharing in the profits of their activities [Source: AWD News].  They can also obtain funding from a competing Nation State that, for varying reasons, is sympathetic to them – in fact Qatar and Saudi Arabia have both been accused of funding terrorists [Source: MSNBC, MSNBC 911 Lawsuit, MSNBC Qatar].

Ethics

While our governments are generally tied to ethical boundaries and human rights, organized crime is not – enabling them to perform research bringing physical or mental harm to individuals.  Test subjects need not be difficult to source – in India they found a hospital where babies were being bought, sold, and swapped [Source: Metro, RT, News.Com.AU].  And in more public places, such as a tourist town in Southern Mexico, where twenty-three children were rescued after being abducted and forced to sell handicrafts. According to official statements, the children’s age ranged between three months and 15 years, had been abducted from their families and were forced to work selling handicrafts under threat of “physical and psychological violence”. Unrestricted and unethical experimentation could occur leading to advancements at rates faster than an ethically challenged setting could ever achieve.

So then what are they researching?

Well, our military and governments are making weapons like this:

  • the CIA’s Secret Heart Attack Gun, which fires a dart fully made of a poison that causes an heart attack.  It cannot be detected during a autopsy, can penetrate clothing, and only leaves a tiny red dot on the skin [Source: Military.com, CIA]
  • The US Military is currently researching “Silent Talk” for the battlefield [Source: Wired, Army Technology]
  • Directed Energy Weapons, which were used in the Iraq war [Source: Wikipedia]
  • CNN Report back in 1985 on Directed Energy Weapons

Recent news articles point to “sonic weapons” that induce illness, make it difficult to concentrate, cause a loss of hearing, difficult to speak, and even cause mild brain damage – with the most publicly mentioned were the 21 American Diplomats in Cuba and China [Source: 60 Minutes, Independent, CNN, New Scientist, The Times, Popular Mechanics, DR DK News, {translated}, Business Insider, South China Morning Post, The Guardian, News Week, CNN, Associated Press, Daily Caller, Fox 13, Foreign Policy, Miami Herald].  And notice that this technology goes back to 1953, where it was found that the Russians subjected Diplomats to Microwave attacks for over 20 years [Source: Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, CIA Archives, US National Library of Medicine, LA Times, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Policy].

So, if this is what ‘we’ are making – then what type of research could ‘they’ be making?  While smaller picture things come to my mind, like hacking ATM’s to push out money for money mules to pickup at 3am at various branches, I like to think of larger, more intelligent things that would help them to quietly penetrate more lucrative markets, such as technologies enabling them to have greater influence over people, eavesdrop, and have the ability to communicate ‘silently’.

How they use the Internet

On June 15, 2016 NATO officially declared cyber-space a war zone [Source: New Scientist].  The cyber-security landscape is heading in the wrong direction, criminals are becoming more aggressive, more sophisticated, and effective [Source: CIO Magazine]. We all are aware that other countries also hack our systems to steal our Intellectual Property, having a negative effect on our economic health (loss of revenue, customer trust, policing, monitoring, availability / reliability, and costs to investigate / remedy / rebuild trust). Organized crime is also using the Internet to store and launder money, and hack into sensitive locations for illegal gains. 

Organized Crime is using the “Dark Web” (Deep Web), for profit, co-ordination efforts, propaganda, recruitment, providing of cell phone applications, and communications.  Here is a good article, published by Europol, describing overall usage (here). Europol published a document in 2014 and 2015 advising of the threats posed by organized crime groups on the Internet, with some of their activities being: crime as a service, malware, online child sexual exploitation, payment fraud, online criminal finances, crimes relating to social engineering, data breaches, and network intrusions [Source: Europol 2014, Europol 2015]. With organized crime partnering with terrorists, we should not be surprised to learn that terrorist are also using the Internet for those same reasons, and also for: intimidation, coordination, secure communications, remote drone piloting, reassurance, choreographed video’s and mass executions, civic forum boards and battlefield drones, documentaries, press releases, propaganda, online magazines, and targeted enlistment [Source: Aljezeera, Twitter, Defense News].

Some of the Internet technologies used are: [Source: Gizmodo, Popsci, Huffington Post]

  • TOR and Opera (Internet browsing).
  • Hushmail (encrypted e-mail communications).
  • CyberGhost VPN (access VPNs).
  • Locker (deletes files on mobile device after pass code retry count exceeded).
  • FAKE GPS, (users can choose a false location).
  • Telegram, Skype, Silent Circle, Kik, and WhatsApp (for communications and selling slaves).
  • ISIS uses Hashtags and Hashtag hijacking.
  • Twitter bot armies.
  • Radio station apps (created by people inside ISIS to spread propaganda).

Some solutions were made to be available on Android devices [Source: Security Affairs, PC Mag, CTV News]. Oddly, only for combating terrorist activities, a US Military research institution called, “Darpa“, modified their Memex application to help in the fight [Source: Defense Tech]. I wonder why this can not be used against organized crime?

Vulnerability

How vulnerable are we? Well, it is super easy to hack nowadays – it is taught on-line [Source: Academy E-Hacking Net].  Cyber crime is behind the greatest illicit transfer of wealth in history [Source: Reuters]. Meanwhile, both the Canadian and Indian governments have fallen far behind the rest of the world in their fight against cyber crimes [Source: CBC News, Times of India].

Our economic, government, military, and education infrastructures are subject to attack from Organized Crime, Nation States, and Terrorists on a daily basis.  For years, the US National Security Administration had been branded as having superior hacking skill sets and having access to tons of hacking tools.  But in 2016 their website was hacked, exposing vulnerabilities in their public facing architecture [Source: Fox News]. Here are, what I would believe, to be some of the more vulnerable targets that could be exploited:

  • It is suspected that the US Nuclear Submarine Fleet could be subject to attacks [Source: Homeland Security Newswire].
  • ISIS had hacked security cameras around the globe and was able to watch live footage [Source: Security Affairs].
  • Our public protection systems are vulnerable – a 911 Call Center was taken down by zombied cell phones calling 911 [Source: Broader Perspectives].
  • The hacking group Anonymous hacked into the Greece central bank and announced that they would hack into banks around the globe [Source: The Economist].
  • The US FDA recalled nearly half a million pacemakers for fear of their being hacked [Source: The Hacker News].
  • ‘Unpatchable’ vulnerabilities have been discovered in an industrial control system (ICS) that is used in many power plants.  The bad news is that the flaw has been publicly disclosed and the exploit code has been already released [Source: Security Affairs].
  • The Qatar National Bank was hacked with their taking a 1.4 GB trove of internal documents, files and sensitive financial data. The massive data dump appears to contain hundreds of thousands of records including customer transaction logs, personal identification numbers and credit card data [Source: International Business Times].
  • Hackers infiltrated a water utility’s control system and changed the levels of chemicals being used to treat tap water [Source: The Register].
  • The American public utility Lansing Board of Water & Light (BWL) announced that the company became a victim of Ransomware attack knocking the utility’s internal computer systems offline.  BWL quickly shut down its networks – and suspended power and water shut-offs [Source: The Hacker News].
  • Hackers stole 2 Million dollars from Taiwan bank machines without even having a bank card [Source: Money CNN].
  • Hackers took 13 Million dollars from a South African bank using credit cards [Source: Money CNN].
  • 50 Russian hackers were arrested using the Lurk Trojan in Russia [Source: Cyber News Group].
  • A payment terminal botnet comprising of over 100 infected systems collected over 1.2 million card details [Source: Null TX].
  • The US Pentagon was also found to have weak network security that allowed access to internal US government systems for at least eight months [Source: ZDNet].
  • Holes in US computer network security enabled North Koreans to steal some US defense plans [Source: Endpoint Security Solutions Review].
  • The Military has been slow to adopt appropriate security measures in securing their networks and computerized battle systems.  Some microchips used in the majority of military hardware was purchased from a supplier in China that had a ‘backdoor’ encoded on the chip [source: Scribd.com] – easy to read article here.
  • Other articles: Ukraine Power Plant Hack, US Power Plant Hack, German Power Plant Hack, Israeli Power Plant Hack.

It seems that criminal activity is always one step ahead of any policing activity, and from what I see there are not enough deterrents in place to impede their growth – so I am curious as to just what it will take before serious actions are taken and meaningful deterrents put in place.

Using Software or AI to Detect the Penetration of Organized Crime into a Legit Business

Organized Crime is a threat to our National Security

In 2010 the United States National Security Council advised that organized crime is becoming a threat to their National Security. In 2013, Europol concluded that the Italian Mafia has the capability of manipulating elections and exploiting loopholes in legislation. They further stated that the Mafia is a clear and present threat to the European Union. In 2012, the RCMP’s top Mafia-hunter in Canada advised that the Mafia organization called the ‘Ndrangheta had been raised to a “Tier 1” National Threat.

It has also been reported that organized crime (Mafia) have become aligned with terrorist groups – working together for a common benefit. And finally, organized crime is known to be supported by Nation States that would like to see our nations crippled and weakened – and worse yet it is known that they have worked to penetrate our every level of government and to have connections with our military.

There has been a significant increase in the amount of organized crime infiltration into legit business. In 2016 just one single mafia group, the ‘Ndrangheta, was reported as having a portfolio involving billions of euro’s, thousands of companies, and tens of thousands of properties. Policing this is almost impossible, as there is limited insight into the workings of each company at the Government level. As well, the number of people, and the time it would take to detect and catch every single instance of illegitimate penetration into legal businesses, would be astronomical.

Tactics to infiltrate a small to medium business

  • offering support to the companies when they become in financial need
  • bribing or otherwise influencing high ranking people into ‘joining’
  • using businesses already influenced by organized crime to absorb competitors
  • choking legit businesses ill-favored by organized crime (eliminate the competition)
  • weaken the competition so that they can be merged or acquired

Financial Support / Loans

When cash strapped, both publicly traded and privately run companies run risk of becoming infiltrated or controlled by organized crime. Companies can become cash strapped when other companies already controlled by organized crime ‘chokes’ them, or by their taking advantage of an economic downturn. Financial support can also be shown through the actions of a companies purchasing department – by their favoring other organized crime controlled companies. Or by ensuring that those having controlling shares of a company are influenced by organized crime.

Infiltration

Individuals are hired in, or individuals are bribed, or coerced into joining. Once a business has been infiltrated by a person sympathetic to organized crime, that person will then use political means inside that company to ‘out’ individuals in key departments to ensure loyalty, with their intention of steering the company. This will continue until the business has either: become weakened and is requiring financial assistance, or has grown stronger providing more political power to those new ‘members’. Of course, organized crime will favour organized crime; therefore company contracts and suppliers will be changed accordingly but not made obvious.

Companies that grow tend to expand their business and will grow their geographical footprint as opportunities arise. This includes absorbing already established competitors. Of course, once a company is absorbed, key players are usually replaced or are absorbed into the new ‘culture’, with politics taking care of the remaining – and those remaining often not having any idea as to what is going on. Of course, companies hope those being hired bring a capacity to increase profits and applaud their efforts when this happens – they would have no knowledge that the newly hired person has illegal motives, connections, or loyalties.

Choking ill-favored legitimate businesses

By far the easiest tactic to hide from watchful radar, as companies are free to change suppliers as they deem fit. But the economy changes quite negatively when companies sympathetic to organized crime favour other companies with those same sympathy’s, as it starts to eliminate competition by reducing the number of legit companies. Volumes will increase at those companies, prices will be reduced, making everything look well run – but all at the expense of legit business who would be viewed as incapable of competing in that market.

Detection

Is there any way of monitoring business transactions, or the way that they are reported, to detect suspect illegal transactions? Or perhaps things such as sudden or significant changes in profitability? Financial institutions use software that monitors transactions to check for fraudulent transactions – could elements be transposed to other business models? If so, then is a possibility of policing this via the introduction of a data monitoring system (AI) built right into the business software used by companies – or by monitoring the transactions as they are committed to the database. If this data was gathered and analyzed across all of the companies operating inside our borders, then we could obtain a good footprint of criminal activities.

Perhaps this software could produce some sort of a report advising of the likeliness of suspect transactions – along with some pertinent details – for review. It would also be of benefit to know whom in the company performed the transactions. Criminal records and current suspects could also be drawn into this analysis – allowing a better footprint to be generated.

It is known that a significant number of communications are recorded, and transcribed into text for review by artificial intelligence or simple text searches. Perhaps this technology could be tied into this analysis? Privacy would not be a factor, as the software would only report suspicious data occurrences.

I believe the use of a software solution would reduce on the number of false positives generated using standard tactics employed today. This would reduce the cost of investigations and reduce manpower requirements.

Brazilian Anti-corruption Law – Should we also enact one?

It takes more than our simply talking about the threat that organized crime offers us and throwing a small task force at it – it takes significant action. We are competing with organized crime groups that have annual turnovers higher than some small nation states. On January 29, 2014, Brazil implemented the Anti-corruption Law, which mandates that legal entities will be held liable for illegal acts committed by any of its employees or by third parties, without the need to evidence intent or that the company’s management had actual knowledge or approved the specific improper acts. The authorities only need to evidence that the illegal acts were committed in the benefit or interest of the company. This could be considered one of the Brazilian Government’s biggest steps in its efforts to combat corruption and bribery. Companies are required to have a compliance officer, who is charged with the monitoring of the decisions of officers and directors, from an anti-corruption perspective, to ensure that decisions are in line with the company’s Code of Conduct and other policies.

Here, in Canada and the United States, I am curious as to just how far we would be willing to go to stop Organized Crime’s penetration into our legitimate businesses? Will we take a strong stand to protect our economy like Brazil has, or will we become another Italy where it was reported back in 2000 that the Mafia controlled approximately 20% of all businesses and had an annual turnover of about 15% of the GNP. Or Rome, where it is estimated 70% of all restaurants and bars are controlled or owned by organized crime.

As we pass the torch over to the next generation, how much of it will we actually own? How bright of a future will they have?