8kun chan chat

===

see comms via games

encrypted? pvt

// alt rt see gamer-gate

https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/twitchs-rival-new-streaming-platform-kick-features-white-nationalist-and

https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-gives-passionate-defense-man-arrested-leaking-top-secret-defense

an 121

...

Anon extremists, the NBC News reporters point out, have "harassed Freeman and her daughter."

"Last month, a false rumor was pushed by QAnon accounts that Freeman had been arrested," Collins, Zadrozny and Timm recall. "Though nothing of the kind happened, the rumor spread quickly through far-right fringe communities, and Trump brought it up in the call with Raffensperger."

The reporters add that during his conversation with Raffensperger, Trump also "falsely claimed that Fulton County, (Georgia) had destroyed ballots and inaccurately characterized a consent decree between the state and national Democrats that standardized the process of verifying a voter's identity through signature matching…. There's no evidence of ballots being shredded or burned in Fulton County."

Another debunked claim that Trump promoted while speaking to Raffensperger involves Democratic activist Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost to Republican Brian Kemp in Georgia's 2018 gubernatorial race. Kemp, now governor of Georgia, has rejected Trump's voter fraud claims and acknowledged that Biden won the Peach State.

"Trump also falsely claimed that Georgia officials had signed a 'totally unconstitutional agreement' with Democrat Stacey Abrams that barred election officials from checking signature matches and allowed people who aren't election officials to collect ballots," the NBC News reporters observe. "This is inaccurate on all fronts: Georgia, in a settlement agreement with the state and national Democrats, agreed to standardize signature matching across the state ahead of the 2020 election. Signatures are still checked twice: first on absentee ballot applications when voters request a ballot, and then again on the envelope of received ballots."

Former Virginia Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Republican who has libertarian leanings and has been warning about QAnon's dangerous influence in the GOP, said of Trump's conversation with Raffensperger, "The ideas are all very specific to QAnon and other conspiracy theories. This sounded like an argument between a teenager caught on 8Chan and the parent who finds him in the basement. You can hear a lot of silence and sighs from the Georgia team."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

#OPQANON / CONSPIRACY THEORIES / CONSPIRACY THEORISTS / DOXXING / MAGA MADNESS / QANON / THE TRUMP CULT / TRUMP CULTISTS

ref

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/who-is-qanon-jim-watkins-rumors/

Did an IP address accidentally reveal QAnon’s identity?

It's more complex than it sounds.

Aug 31, 2020

Tech

Mike Rothschild

Over the weekend, a rumor started to make the rounds on Twitter and among QAnon watchers, which seemed to blow a lid on a long-simmering mystery.

It said that the mysterious poster who makes the Q drops, the cryptic messages posted on message board 8kun that give the movement its direction, had been unmasked and revealed to all. And the poster was none other than 8kun’s owner, Jim Watkins. Previously the owner of 8kun forerunner 8chan, Watkins had already given congressional testimony wearing a QAnon pin and started a political SuperPAC devoted to boosting QAnon-friendly candidates.

There was already speculation that Q and Watkins were linked, as when 8chan went down in August 2019, the Q poster didn’t make their drops somewhere else, instead waiting around for months while 8chan found a new service provider and rebranded as 8kun.

We need for it to be verified by reputable sources, but there is compelling evidence it there that Jim Watkins, the owner of 8chan, is #qanon.

Which would mean, functionally, the man that runs the Gamergate birthplace has a cult of millions.

I hope media will investigate.

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu)August 25, 2020

But while it would make sense for Watkins to be responsible for Q’s posts, there’s been no conclusive proof of it, and both Jim Watkins and his son Ron, who writes the code for 8kun, deny having any link or knowledge of who Q is, even as speculation has persisted for years they were behind it.

So what was it that changed to spark this newest rumor?

Anti-Q activists discovered that 8kun.top has the same IP address as QMap.pub, the most popular aggregator of QAnon’s drops, along with the home of the “QAnon Prayer Wall.”The term “QMap” dates to an early Q drop from November 2017 that states “QMAP 1/2 confirmed. This is the key.” Q drop aggregators are critical in the movement, since Q promoters generally don’t want followers navigating a racist and difficult-to-read site like 8chan for Q content. So these sites serve as a way to let followers know that a Q drop was made and confirm that it’s real by linking back to the drop on 8kun.

And with tens of thousands of people using it at any given moment, QMap is the most popular of the aggregator sites. It was originally hosted by Amazon Web Services, but for whatever reason, at some point in the last few months (it’s not clear when), it switched to internet security firm VanwaTech. If this name is familiar to Q watchers, it’s because it’s the same firm that was revealed in October to be the new security provider for 8kun.

Apparently the transfer from Amazon Web Services to OrcaTech (VanwaNet, Jim Watkins' ISP) happened 30 days ago.@travis_view @nezumi_ningen

Jim Watkins owns QMAP_PUB. He bought it. His crony is the one hosting it. He has a complete lock over QAnon now.https://t.co/tquDuNwzjC https://t.co/kaCEFnm39a pic.twitter.com/wWVJNFpST6

— Fredrick Brennan (@HW_BEAT_THAT)August 23, 2020

While Q has never explicitly endorsed one of the aggregator sites, he did link to a tweet where someone is holding up a sign with QMap’s name on it. So essentially, both the only place that Q drops are made and the most popular place where Q drops are disseminated and confirmed as have the same internet service provider.

But why does it matter? And how does it prove or not prove that Jim Watkins (who blocked the writer of this story on Twitter) runs both sites, and has been making Q drops?

The short answer is it doesn’t prove Jim Watkins is Q, despite people shouting that online all week.

saw fr*derick br*nnan's tweet and tried it myself and yeah, jim watkins is definitely Q which means that Qanon is verifiably led by a dude running a site that was originally made as a haven for child pornographers. pic.twitter.com/3nNMRJ9ax2

— # ℍ (@lumpenfreude)August 25, 2020

And nobody still knows for sure who Q is other than the actual Q poster. But getting to the bottom of what the link between 8kun and QMap actually means for the Q movement touches on so many of the most salient points about the QAnon phenomenon: mystery, blind belief, complex technical facets, and grift.

At heart is the connection between the QAnon conspiracy itself and the aggregator sites like QMap.pub that get the word out to the faithful.

#HuntingtonBeach#ReOpenAmerica #ReOpenCalifornia #Qanon #WWG1WGA

@PatriotDancing @pappyG45 pic.twitter.com/SUSX6dodxL

— Will Winagain (@WWinagain)May 9, 2020

Leading the charge in pointing out the connection between 8kun and QMap is former 8chan founder turned Watkins foe, Fredrick Brennan. Since selling the site to Watkins in 2016, Brennan has been embroiled in a bitter feud with Watkins, culminating in Watkins attempting to use “cyberlibel” laws in the Philippines (where both were based) to put Brennan in prison for insulting him on Twitter. Since then, Brennan was forced to return to the U.S. to avoid prosecution.

Speaking with the Daily Dot, Brennan claims that the importance behind the QMap and 8kun link is not that it proves Watkins is Q, but that Watkins “could become Q whenever he wants.” Therefore, Q isn’t quite the military intelligence team it’s claimed to be.

Playing on what Brennan deems confusion among less tech-inclined members of the public, Watkins having a link to QMap muddies the waters of verifying if a Q post is real. “How does a Q person know a post is from Q,” he asked, without the check of an aggregator site proving it’s from the “real” QAnon, the one that uses Q’s unique tripcode on 8kun.

QMap, and the many other Q post aggregator sites, work by being coded to upload the text of drops made by Q on 8kun’s qresearch forum. Because Q created that forum, Q is the only person who can post on that board, confirming that the drop is genuine.

Essentially, Brennan claims Watkins could hack the tripcode and use it to make new Q posts on 8kun, while affirming their veracity on the trusted aggregator QMap, “and nobody will know.”

But another explanation of the ties is just as plausible. Because 8kun is so intrinsically tied to Q (it gets little traffic otherwise), it’s not out of the question that Watkins might try to enhance his involvement by getting involved with the most popular site that helps legitimize the posts that make his board famous.

For his part, Brennan believes that while Watkins has been making the Q posts for quite some time, this revelation isn’t the end of the movement. “I never claimed that Q has been doxed,” he said, throwing at least a little cold water on the idea that Jim Watkins has been definitely proven to be Q. The shared IP address merely establishes a solid link between where the Q poster makes drops and a site that disseminates them.

That shared IP address belongs to VanwaTech, a Vancouver-based content delivery and security firm that Brennan believes was established a few months after 8chan went down, specifically to provide a cheaper and more ideologically agreeable host for 8kun than the Chinese and Russian ISPs Watkins was attempting to use. Moreover, Brennan claims, but can’t prove, that Watkins had a hand in founding the firm and might own it through a shell company.

Q may have just been doxxed…

Jim Watkins – current owner of 8chan

A man with a shopping list enabling white nationalists propagate hate speech and possible pedophilia pic.twitter.com/dOy02SjW8H

— The Serfs (@theserfstv)August 25, 2020

It’s a claim that VanwaTech’s founder, Nick Lim, denies. Reached over email by the Daily Dot, Lim said that “we don’t own or host QMap.pub in any way,” though he does “provide them with a CDN (content delivery network) and cybersecurity service that protects them from [denial of service] attacks.”

Further, Lim told Daily Dot that VanwaTech “is owned by me only” and that all of its customers use the same IP address—including 8kun.

So who does own QMap?

QMap is a hugely popular site in the QAnon sphere, as evidenced by it routinely drawing over one hundred thousand visitors in a 24-hour period, and tens of thousands at any one moment. There’s no indication on the site of who started it or currently owns it, and a search on who.is for the site’s data brings back only that it’s unavailable. But the QMap site has also strayed into QAnon-related app development, with a QMap app that Google removed from its service.

That app then relaunched on Amazon, only to be banned from there as well. A Twitter account that shares the name of the QMap app blocked this reporter after an inquiry, and neither Amazon Web Services or the developer of another app touted on QMap’s Patreon page, called Armor of God, responded to a request for comment.

And what about that Patreon page? It’s collecting over $2,100 a month to pay for web hosting, but has no identifying information denoting who started the page or who is getting the money, and no way to contact the owner. Patreon didn’t respond to questions about who started the page and who is profiting from it.

Ultimately, the link between 8kun and QMap comes down to what people claim, not what can be conclusively proven. And through it all, there’s still no conclusive proof that Jim Watkins is making the Q drops, or that he’s taken control of QMap—only the possibility that both are true, and the equal possibility that both are false.

So the answer to the question of who is making the Q drops has the same answer that it’s had since Q’s first posts in 2017: only Q knows. And they aren’t talking.

Update 4:51pm CT:In a statement to Daily Dot, the Twitter account listed on QMap’s Patreon page confirms they established the QMap site, claims they are “not associated with Watkins” and that they moved to VanwaTech because “Qmap suffers denial of service attacks regularly, hence the need for a content delivery network that could stop it.

Did an IP address accidentally reveal QAnon’s identity?
Right-wing militias have adopted QAnon with frightening ease
We asked AOC for her thoughts on QAnon
QAnon isn’t newly anti-Semitic—it’s always been that way

Trying to go “Bulletproof”

After 8chan lost its hosting in August in the wake of the El Paso mass shooting, much of 8chan's content—especially the "pol" channel—had shifted to the social media platform Telegram (known for its anti-censorship policies, which have made it a haven for all flavors of extremism). Telegrampol, for instance, was set up in July. But the fragmented nature of the Telegram channels (and the Telegram architecture) likely kept away many 8chan users; Telegrampol has a total of 633 subscribers.

8kun was an effort to restore a central location for all of 8chan's communities, but it faced the same challenges in hosting that brought down 8chan in the first place—its radioactivity to hosting providers and domain registrars. This is what apparently drove Watkins and company to a rather unusual hosting option: a Russian company known mostly for hosting crimeware.

Media Land is operated by Alexander Volosovyk, known as "Yahlishanda" on criminal underground Internet marketplaces. According to a report by Brian Krebs, Volosovyk is the world's biggest "bulletproof" hosting operator. He has, according to Krebs, avoided takedowns and prosecution by operating carefully within the lines of the law in Russia and other former Soviet states.

Servers hosted by Media Land infrastructure have been tied to the Dridex and Zeus banking trojans in the past, as well as to the command and control networks for other sophisticated malware. Media Land-hosted virtual private servers using legitimately assigned IP addresses have been repeatedly reported for malicious traffic, including hundreds of brute-force Remote Desktop Protocol login attacks.

Media Land used the fake BGP advertisements for more than just 8kun.According to historical DNS records from SecurityTrails, Media Land had been maintaining an advertisement for a block of addresses starting at 185.254.121.200 for over a month, with the records for 8kun.net addresses popping up about two days ago. The hosts tied to the address block hosted a variety of short-lived malware, phishing, and online pharmacy scam sites, among others, with some dating back to September—all of them hosted by Media Land.

Using this sort of fishy routing advertisement is not an uncommon tactic when trying to prevent potential attackers from gathering intelligence on a site's or network's infrastructure. It means that Whois requests and other network tools return no useful information to casual inquiries. That makes targeting the hosting provider somewhat more difficult. Other blocks of unassigned addresses have been used by Media Land repeatedly over the past three years.

Going dim

The Media Land hosting may have been a temporary move by the operators of 8chan/8kun. The site remains live on Tor as a "hidden service." And the site's domain name service provider VanwaNet has advertised itself in the past as a Cloudflare alternative—giving customers the capability (at some point in the future) to create their own content-delivery networks to fight DDoS attacks.

Ron Watkins, the administrator for 8kun, said in a Twitter post that VanwaTech "has built a fantastic new deepnet CDN that can deliver Tor hidden services at nearly clearnet speed." In addition, the 8kun team has apparently been looking at another Tor-like service called Lokinet, an onion-routing based anonymizing network that is still in development.

Those services may be crucial for the continued operation of the site, considering that the open Internet version of the site was under attack from almost the instant it went live. "We have been under sustained attacks the past few days and doing everything we can to get things stable again," Ron Watkins reported on Twitter earlier today. "The site is still online—albeit limping along—as we reorganize and restructure to deflect attacks coming from many angles."

atl mo

...Late last summer, Q himself lost his platform. He had migrated from 4chan (fearing that the site had been “infiltrated”) to the image board 8chan, and then 8chan went dark. Three days before I stood on Patten’s doorstep, 22 people had been killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and police revealed that the alleged killer had posted a manifesto on 8chan just before carrying out the attack. The episode had eerie similarities to two other shootings. Four months earlier, in April 2019, the suspected shooter in a murderous rampage at a synagogue in Poway, California, had posted an anti-Semitic letter on 8chan. Weeks before that, the man who killed 51 worshippers at two New Zealand mosques had posted a white-supremacist manifesto on 8chan.

After El Paso, 8chan’s owner, Jim Watkins, was ordered to testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Watkins had bought the site four years earlier from its founder, Fredrick Brennan, now 26, who eventually cut all ties to 8chan. “Regrettably, this is at least the third act of white supremacist extremist violence linked to your website this year,” wrote Representatives Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, and Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama, when they summoned Watkins to Capitol Hill. “Americans deserve to know what, if anything, you, as the owner and operator, are doing to address the proliferation of extremist content on 8chan.”

8chan had already lost crucial services, which had forced it to shut down.The CEO of Cloudflare, which had helped protect the site from cyberattacks, explained his decision to drop 8chan in an open letter after the El Paso shooting: “The rationale is simple: They have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths.” Watkins promised to keep the site off the internet until after his congressional appearance. He is a former U.S. Army helicopter repairman who got into the business of websites while he was still in the military.

Among other things, in 1997, he launched a successful porn site called Asian Bikini Bar. On his YouTube channel, where he posts under the username Watkins Xerxes, he frequently sings hymns, reads verses from the Bible, praises Trump, and touches on themes underlying QAnon—warning against the deep state and reminding his audience members that they are now “the actual reporting mechanism of the news.” He also shows off his fountain-pen collection and practices yoga.

When he arrived on Capitol Hill, in September 2019, Watkins wore a bulbous silver Q pinned to his collar. His testimony was behind closed doors. In November, 8chan flickered back to life as 8kun.It was sporadically accessible, limping along through a series of cyberattacks.It received assistance from a Russian hosting service that is typically associated with spreading malware. When Q reappeared on 8kun, he used the same tripcode that he had used on 8chan. He posted other hints meant to verify the continuity of his identity, including an image of a notebook and a pen that had appeared in earlier posts.

Renée DiResta: The conspiracies are coming from inside the house]

Fredrick Brennan’s theory is that Jim and his son Ron, who is the site’s administrator, knew 8kun needed Q to attract users.“I definitely, definitely, 100 percent believe that Q either knows Jim or Ron Watkins, or was hired by Jim or Ron Watkins,” Brennan told me. Jim and Ron have both denied knowing Q’s identity. “I don’t know who Q is,” Ron told me in a direct message on Twitter. Jim told an interviewer on One America News Network in September 2019: “I don’t know who QAnon is. Really, we run an anonymous website.”Both insist that they care about maintaining 8kun only because it is a platform for unfettered free speech. “8kun is like a piece of paper, and the users decide what is written on it,” Ron told me. “There are many different topics and users from many different backgrounds.” But their interest in Q is well documented. In February, Jim started a super PAC called Disarm the Deep State, which echoes Q’s messages and which is running paid ads on 8kun.

Brennan has long been feuding with the Watkinses. Jim is suing Brennan for libel in the Philippines, where they both lived until recently, and Brennan is actively fighting Jim’s attempts to become a naturalized citizen there. “They kept Q alive,” Brennan told me. “We wouldn’t be talking about this right now if Q didn’t go on the new 8kun. The entire reason we’re talking about this is they’re directly related to Q. And, you know, I worry constantly that there is going to be, as early as November 2020, some kind of shooting or something related to Q if Trump loses. Or parents killing their children to save them from the hell-world that is to come because the deep state has won. These are real possibilities. I just feel like what they have done is totally irresponsible to keep Q going.”

The story of Q is premised on the need for Q to remain anonymous. It’s why Q originally picked 4chan, one of the last places built for anonymity on the social web. “I’ve often related Q to previous figures like John Titor or Satoshi Nakamoto,” Brennan told me, referring to two legends of internet anonymity. Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the unknown creator of bitcoin. John Titor is the name used on several message boards in 2000 and 2001 by someone claiming to be a military time traveler from the year 2036.

QAnon adherents see Q’s anonymity as proof of Q’s credibility—despite their deep mistrust of unnamed sources in the media. Every faction of QAnon has its own hunches, alliances, and interpersonal dramas related to the question of Q’s identity. The theories fit into three broad groups. In the first group are theories that assume Q is a single individual who has been posting all alone this entire time. This is where you’ll find the people who say that Trump himself is Q, or even that PrayingMedic is Q. (This category also includes the possibility, raised by people outside of QAnon, that Q is a lone Trump supporter who started posting as a form of fan fiction, not realizing it would take off; and the idea that Q began posting in order to parody Trump and his supporters, not anticipating that people would take him seriously.)

The second group of theories holds that the original Q posted continuously for a while, but then something changed. This second category includes Brennan’s idea that the Watkinses are now paying Q, or are paying someone to carry on as Q, or are even acting as Q themselves. The third group of theories holds that Q is a collective, with a small number of people sharing access to the account. This third category includes the notion that Q is a new kind of open-source military-intelligence agency....

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/how-qanon-conspiracists-and-coronavirus-truthers-make-a-dangerous-combination/

no lnx

How QAnon conspiracists and coronavirus truthers make a dangerous combination

Written by Marc-André Argentino, The Conversation April 9, 2020

by Marc-André Argentino, Concordia University

First there was the pandemic, then came the “infodemic” — a term the head of the World Health Organization defines as the spread of false information about COVID-19.

The most dangerous conspiracy theories about the coronavirus are now part of the QAnon phenomenon. For months now, actors in QAnon have downplayed the severity of the crisis, amplified medical disinformation and have been originators of hoaxes.

The QAnon movement started in 2017 after someone using an anonymous account known only as Q posted wild conspiracy theories about U.S. President Donald Trump on the internet forum 4chan.

QAnon conspiracy theorists believe a deep state cabal of global elites is responsible for all the evil in the world. They also believe those same elites are seeking to bring down Trump, whom they see as the world’s only hope to defeat the deep state. QAnon has now brought the same conspiracy mentality to the coronavirus crisis.

As a researcher of online movements like QAnon, I use a combination of data science and digital ethnography to research how extremist movements use technology to create propaganda, recruit members to ideological causes, inspire acts of violence or impact democratic institutions.

Bottom-up approach

A central component of QAnon is the crowdsourcing of narratives.This bottom-up approach provides a fluid and ever changing ideology. My analysis of Twitter shows from January to March, there was a 21 per cent increase (a total of 7,683,414 posts) in hashtags used by the QAnon community. This means the misinformation they spread has the capacity to reach a wider audience.

For instance, QAnon community influencers on Twitter promoted Miracle Mineral Supplement as a way of preventing COVID-19. The toxic product was sold by theTexas-based Genesis II Church of Health and Healing for US$45. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had previously issued a warning about the dangerous and potentially life threatening side effects of the supplement.

In January, QAnon was amplifying narratives on 8kun (the internet forum formally known as 8chan), Facebook and Telegram (an encrypted instant messaging plaform) about a false theory that Asians were more susceptible to the coronavirus and that white people were immune to COVID-19. Not only are there racist undertones associated with this disinformation, it minimizes the threat posed by the virus.

Downplayed threat

From February until the second week of March, QAnon followed the lead of Trump in downplaying the threat of the virus and calling it a hoax. They believed the virus was adeep state plot to damage the president’s chance at re-election. The QAnon community said those warning about the pandemic threat were trying to detract from U.S. domestic politics, stop Trump rallies and remove all the economic gains they contended had occurred during the Trump presidency.

After the WHO upgraded COVID-19 to pandemic status and the U.S. announced it was closing its borders to most people from Europe for 30 days, QAnon changed the narrative again. Suddenly, QAnon thought the pandemic was something to celebrate because it was a cover for the Trump administration’s secret plan to arrest deep state agents.

Evangelicals within the the QAnon movement viewed the pandemic as the promised coming of the Kingdom of God on Earth. David Hayes, who is better known as the Praying Medic and an influencer in the QAnon community with 300,000 YouTube subscribers, said in a March 14 livestream that there was no reason to be concerned about COVID-19. Hayes reassured his viewers that they may not be affected by the disease because this was “spiritual warfare” — only those who have not been chosen by God will be affected by the disease.

The person known as Q, who spawned the QAnon movement, didn’t post anything online about COVID-19 until March 23. Up until then, all of the medical disinformation, hoaxes and downplaying of the pandemic had been sourced from QAnon influencers and community.

Public health threat

In his first post on the topic of COVID-19, Q pushed a conspiracy theory with racial undertones about COVID-19 being a Chinese bioweapon and that the virus release was a joint venture between China and the Democrats to stop Trump’s re-election by destroying the economy.

The QAnon conspiracies have created an environment of complacency among its followers who aren’t taking the risks posed by the virus seriously.

Florida pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, who has given credence to QAnon in the past and has preached that the coronavirus was planned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was arrested after holding Sunday services and disregarding federal, state and county orders to limit gatherings to less than 10 people. His conspiratorial beliefs led to his negligent actions, which put hundreds of people from his congregation at risk.

In another instance, right-wing media figures were spreading an “empty hospital” conspiracy, downplaying the pandemic and its death toll.

A QAnon account originally launched the #FilmYourHospital hashtag. This was amplified by QAnon influencers such as former California congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero and QAnon influencer Liz Crokin. This hoax was then picked up by mainstream right-wing media figures promoting COVID trutherism to a wider audience.

The FBI once called conspiracy theories spread by QAnon and others a “potential domestic terrorism threat.” It’s time to call the infodemic a public health threat.

The Conversation

Marc-André Argentino, PhD candidate Individualized Program, 2020-2021 Public Scholar, Concordia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/pro-trump-media-claim-cdc-overhyping-coronavirus-because-nancy-messonnier

Dr. Nancy Messonnier is the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Her impressive bio lists a number of top positions that she has held in the CDC, and it also notes that she has received multiple awards.

In recent days, Messonnier has taken a leading role in warning the public about the threat that the novel coronavirus strain known as COVID-19 poses to the United States. The Wall Street Journal noted that Messonnier said it was just a question of when coronavirus will circulate in the U.S. The Daily Beast quoted her as saying, “We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread among close contacts. ... The goal here is to slow entry of this virus into the United States.” CNBC quoted her calling for schools to divide students into smaller groups or to close entirely and conduct courses online. Many other outlets have quoted her as well.

But right-wing media have begun to coalesce around a conspiracy theory that Messonnier’s warning should be disregarded because she is the sister of former Trump appointee Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein was a frequent target of pro-Trump propagandists for appointing Robert Mueller as a special counsel in the Russia investigation.

From a QAnon Twitter account to Rush Limbaugh's show

The conspiracy theory about Messonnier and Rosenstein goes back at least to a QAnon Twitter account noting their connection in early January.

It really started to pick up speed this week.

On February 25, Rush Limbaugh ranted about Messonnier, suggesting an anti-Trump conspiracy after he learned she’s related to Rosenstein. It was also picked up by a poster on white nationalist message board 8kun. Soon thereafter, it jumped to 4chan's “/pol/,” a slightly less extreme white nationalist message board. The Conservative Treehouse, a right-wing blog featured on Lou Dobbs' Fox Business show before, also posted about the conspiracy theory.

Others followed suit:

On the morning of the February 26, Joe Hoft (the brother of Jim Hoft, proprietor of the Gateway Pundit) posted about it. Hoft wrote that Messonnier’s remarks while President Donald Trump was in India were “a startling rebuke” and that it was “eerily similar to past Presidential trips when former and corrupt DAG Rod Rosenstein and the corrupt and criminal Mueller gang would drop shocking news as the President was overseas.”

Later on the 26th, Rush Limbaugh returned to the conspiracy theory, with the transcript of his show hyperlinking to Hoft’s post. After suggesting that Messonnier was not to be trusted, Limbaugh quickly changed the subject to suggest that the virus may just disappear once the weather warms up. Scientists have cast doubt on that theory as well.

Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly furious at Messonnier:

no lnx pix twt

JIM WATKINS IS Q AND THE RUSSIANS ARE HELPING HIM

Jim Stewartson

Aug 16 ·

The man behind Qanon is a vile hate-merchant coordinating with OANN, Flynn and Russian intelligence.

If you or someone you care about is under the influence of Qanon, please visit this link.

EDIT: More background on this article can be found here:

Qanon is an Enormous Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Run by Malevolent Puppetmasters

What follows is a summary of my findings, how I came to these conclusions and important background. Hi! I was one of…

link.medium.com

Hello

This document is split into two parts, for different audiences.

PART I is the high-level story of the origins of Qanon intended for people directly involved.

PART II is a more analytical view of the confluence of Russian and domestic enemy actors and how they represent a major threat to the 2020 elections. There are receipts. Also less cursing.

NOTE:

This document was inspired by the spectacle of Chanel Rion of OANN puppeting a Russian operation (the antifa.com DNS hack) first seen in the bowels of Qanon, in the actual White House briefing room.

'Antifa' website cited in conservative media attack on Biden is linked to - wait for it - Russia

WASHINGTON - At his press briefing Wednesday, President Trump, as he usually does, called for a question from Chanel…

news.yahoo.com

What follows is a theory of how that happened based on publicly available material and experience. I am not a journalist and I have no access to non-public or classified material. This document gets updated as new information arrives.

PART I

Jim Watkins is a grifter, a literal traitor, and ‘Q’

Dear people directly affected by the cult / alternate reality game known as QAnon:

You are being exploited by Jim Watkins and Russian intelligence, in conjunction with a pack of traitors, grifters, amoral politicians, and plutocrats who do not care about any of you.

Jim Watkins runs 8kun and has been ‘Q’ since at least the Great Blackout of 2019.

For the uninitiated, this was a THREE MONTH period of time when 8chan went down, and the ”government intelligence operative” you pretend to believe in could not figure out how to use Twitter or whatever.

This “insider” had to wait for Jim Watkins, a washed-up, racist pig farmer and [NSFW] t-shirt merchant hiding in the Philipines, to strap his shitty bulletin board back together with smoke signals and Russian money.

Before that it was both Jim AND the venal grifters at Patriot Soapbox running Q, but Jim seems to have figured out how to cut them out when he got yanked off the internet for allowing mass murders to be broadcast on his website.

Because of that, he was questioned by Congress about his connections to Russian intelligence and the weaponization of disinformation from his website, which is precisely what is currently happening to you.

Currently, the Soapbox crew are probably just guessing along with the rest of you what the fuck Q has in mind when he suddenly wants you to take up yoga. Jim Watkins is a big fan of yoga.

Also, during that time, Jim was doing a deal with the Russians to provide them with information about ALL OF YOU so they could target you on social media. Every time you look at a Drop, it’s running on shady Russian infrastructure, which means they have eyes on you. https://news.yahoo.com/atifa-website-one-america-chanel-rion-russia-004727528.html

How do you guys think this is all coordinated? Why do you get bombarded with this shit that not very ago you wouldn’t have believed if you were more wasted than you’ve ever been in your life?

Also, the Russians are helping Jim package up his bullshit into perfectly snackable pieces, and shove them Drop by Drop down all of your throats. Why do you think he relocated to the Philippines? https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/13/russia-to-share-intelligence-with-ph-train-duterte-guards/

They’ve been amplifying this garbage since they ran into Coleman Rogers at Patriot Soapbox who wanted to “brand and monetize the anon movement” in 2017–8 which sounded good to the Russians because it comprised some of the most poisonous shit on the internet, which could be subsequently weaponized AGAINST YOU.

[The QAnon Conspiracy Theory Has Had Some Mysterious Online Boosters From Nearly the Moment That It…https://slate.com/technology/2018/09/bots-have-been-boosting-qanon-since-almost-the-moment-it-started.html ]

The most notable thing about the QAnon conspiracy theory might be how close it keeps treading into the orbit of the man…

slate.com

OANN, Chanel Rion, and Jack ‘Literal Nazi’ Pobosiec are all extreme grifters who have sold out to Russia in order to FUNNEL THEIR TERRIBLE BULLSHIT into the public consciousness, the White House briefing room and Donald Trump’s increasingly enfeebled mind FOR MONEY.

BTW, he is not a God-King, people. He’s a sociopath with extreme psychological issues that render him incapable of empathy or shame.

Why do you think the country is such a shitshow? Who’s in charge here? The only storm coming is this fucking virus and a global depression. Vote for Trump if you want, but please do not worship him.

Most of you are well-meaning and non-violent. All of you support the military. Well, please read this from WEST POINT explaining how violence has and can continue to happen in Qanon:

[The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making? - Combating Terrorism Center at West…

Abstract: The QAnon conspiracy theory, which emerged in 2017, has quickly risen to prominence in the United States. A…

ctc.usma.edu]

Listen, I know you have all been chanting about how peaceful you are lately, but that is actually not a good sign. What are you instinctively distancing yourself from, if you are?

We all have issues, right? But everyone loves someone. Perhaps someone you would prefer not to live in an authoritarian hellscape?

Seriously, the people running this game are just fine if you die from a virus, or poverty, or a hurricane or anything else, AS LONG AS THEY RETAIN POWER.

This is a game that plays YOU.

Stop letting it.

OK, if you’ve made it this far, please take a moment and think about this. Does what I’ve said ring a least a little bit true, or will you continue to insist that every single prediction Q has gotten dead wrong is 52-dimensional chess?

It’s always ok to change your mind.

PART II

Russian Intelligence is Currently Using Qanon to Interfere with the 2020 Elections

**THIS IS A POTENTIALLY SERIOUS NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT THAT IS IN THE OPEN AND NOT BEING REPORTED**

TL;DR: There are long-standing and well documented links between Qanon, 8kun/Jim Watkins, OANN/Chanel Rion/Pobosiec, Michael Flynn, and POTUS, all of whom are being enabled and amplified by Russian intelligence. The recent antifa.com hack which was promoted by Qanon insiders three hours in advance of showing up at the White House briefing room, proves these connections have been operationalized.

ACTION REQUIRED

Jim Watkins MUST BE EXPOSED widely and loudly enough to take him and his website down by law enforcement.

Michael Flynn MUST BE EXPOSED. There is currently critical litigation happening regarding his case.

OANN MUST BE EXPOSED as a front for Russian propaganda.

The American public and the people brainwashed by this cult MUST BE INFORMED.

Those responsible for election security MUST TAKE THIS THREAT SERIOUSLY.

NOTE:

For brevity, I am stating what I believe to be true without caveats and doublespeak. I am not a journalist and there are likely factual errors. Please, by all means, correct them in the comments.

Background

2016 Russian election interference was real and serious. It employed botnets and hacks and Facebook ad targeting and many other forms of social media manipulation. It certainly had enough influence to swing the electoral college to Trump.

However, 2020 is a whole new ballgame. Russian intel has been working to establish a pipeline from the darkest right-wing reaches of the internet directly to the American people.

Russia Continues Interfering in Election to Try to Help Trump, U.S. Intelligence Says

But a new assessment says China would prefer to see the president defeated, though it is not clear Beijing is doing much…

www.nytimes.com

They have been WILDLY successful. They have infiltrated the Qanon cult and are minimally influencing/informed by, if not outright directing/coordinating with, ‘Q’.

NOTE: The Gang of 8 was recently informed of “serious, specific threats” to the election from the Russian government that they have been muzzled from describing.

Lawmakers plead with Trump admin to declassify more about 2020 meddling

WASHINGTON - Sounding the alarm from behind a curtain of classification, lawmakers briefed on U.S. intelligence have…

www.nbcnews.com]

It is likely that some or all of these connections were part of that briefing.

THREATS

JIM WATKINS(‘Q’)

Jim Watkins (@RQueenInc)is an international criminal threat and must be arrested immediately. He is a virulent racist and a theocratic fascist who has promoted and enabled extremism for many years.

Jim is currently both running the dangerous website that Q posts on, 8kun, AND ACTUALLY POSTING AS Q. He is working with Russian intelligence to help influence the 2020 election.

Let me be clear, since at least November 2019, Jim Watkins IS Q. He was likely involved from the start with the criminal grifters who run Patriot Soapbox, but after 8chan got nuked in August 2019, Patriots Soapbox were at least marginalized, if not completely cut out.

There are many reasons for this, both direct and circumstantial. This TikTok is a good and hilarious starting place.

Russian intelligence has been pushing Qanon for years using bots and other forms of manipulation.

Russian troll accounts purged by Twitter pushed Qanon, other conspiracies

A new batch of troll accounts identified by Twitter as having ties to Russia's propaganda operation revealed an emphasis…

www.nbcnews.com]

After failing to stand up his website THROUGH THE CHINESE, Watkins finally managed get back online with the help of Russians, likely in exchange for influence and information about Qanon and all of its participants.

Here is a deeply technical article explaining the Russian services used to prop up 8chan:

Breaking the law: How 8chan (or "8kun") got (briefly) back online

The successor to 8chan, 8kun, made a somewhat brief appearance on the public Internet thanks to what amounts to an…

arstechnica.com

Jim Watkins was grilled after Poway, one of three mass murders broadcast live on 8chan, by Congress ABOUT connections to Russian intelligence, which he described during a video interview with Pobosiec of OANN in August 2019.

https://www.facebook.com/FollowTheWhiteRabbit1776/videos/1247405142110724/

Jim’s Twitter feed is riddled with Russophilic posts, videos and retweets. He is on a constant campaign to “Free Julian Assange.” Several accounts that he nearly always retweets are almost exclusively focused on Russia-friendly content and public health disinformation.

Also, there has not been enough attention paid to Frederick Brennan who has recently said that he believes Jim Watkins is Q. Frederick built 8chan. He has deep knowledge of Jim and his activities, but Jim has had the Philipine Government issue a warrant for his arrest.

Founder of 8chan Faces Arrest on 'Cyberlibel' Charge

Fredrick Brennan, who founded but later distanced himself from the 8chan message board that has given encouragement and…

www.nytimes.com

There is a reason that Jim has this level of influence over an authoritarian government with deep ties to Russia.

Duterte's Pivot to Russia | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

While Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's controversial China policy has understandably attracted considerable…

amti.csis.org

Jim Watkins is the central figure behind Qanon. He is working with the Russians to destroy American democracy. He is a traitor and a national security threat. He MUST be taken down.

OANN

OANN is a front for Russian propaganda.

Analysis | The frequent overlap between Trump's conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda

President Trump on Tuesday morning passed along a bizarre conspiracy theory suggesting the protester who bled from his…

www.washingtonpost.com

This could not be more clear from their behavior.

Is OAN the Leading Edge of Russian Misinformation?

What is most remarkable here is that none of this is particularly surprising. Russian interference in the 2016 election…

www.theatlantic.com

@ChanelRion was born into a shady family and has followed her father’s example to be one of the most active chaos agents in the media. And just to square the circle on what’s going on here.In June 2020, Chanel Rion went on PATRIOTS SOAPBOXand said this:

I have no comment on Q or Q’s identity. But, you know, this is something that, you know, Q?— Q is Q anonymous for a reason, for a very good reason, and I think that people need to respect that and if, you know, that’s something that needs to be brought up by Q if he wants us?— if they want to stay anonymous, they should stay anonymous, and if they want to reveal themselves, they should reveal themselves.

—?Chanel Rion, OANN

OAN's Chanel Rion made pro-QAnon remarks on a QAnon program

DERIK VANCE (CO-HOST): I don't know how closely you follow this but I have a lot of people who were asking me to ask you…

www.mediamatters.org

To be very clear here, Chanel Rion is claiming to know Q’s identity ON THE SHOW WHERE Q USED TO LIVE. She is putting HERSELF in the game. And, mark my words, she will play a big part in it.

@Pobosiec is a vile nazi and OANN ‘reporter’ who has his own well-established connections to Russian intelligence.

Also, it should be noted that Qanon’s content strategy was largely modeled on “Pizzagate”, the dumbest of all conspiracies, which Qanon subsequently incorporated in its entirety. Jack Pobosiec was the primary promoter of Pizzagate.

Jack Posobiec, Pizzagate and Seth Rich Conspiracy Theorist, Has Top Secret Security Clearance

Jack Posobiec is one of the right's leading agitators and conspiracy theorists. He implied there may be a child-sex ring…

www.thedailybeast.com

A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out

WASHINGTON - For some of President Trump's loudest cheerleaders, it was a story too good to check out: Black Lives…

www.nytimes.com

Jack Posobiec: the link connecting France, Trump and Russia

The internal documents of the electoral campaign of Emmanuel Macron, president-elect of France, were the subject of a…

aldianews.com

The relationship between OANN and Jim Watkins is obvious and long-standing as seen in the interview with Pobosiec. However, they also interact on Twitter, including this one where Watkins directs Qanon participants: “This needs to be turned into @OANN”

QDrop #2123 9/9/2018 includes “THINK OANN”

Image for post

This drop was in the thick of drama between Infowars and Patriot Soapbox, in which InfoWars was deemed not quite grifty enough. They subsequently got into a public fight because Coleman Rogers aka “Pamphlet Anon” said he wanted to “brand and monetize” Qanon which was not to InfoWar’s liking.

WikileaksInfowars

QANON #Q Exposed Q Anon IDENTITY - 100% SOLVED - Patriots SoapBox 24/7 by UNIRocK

www.bitchute.com

Apparently, OANN was already waiting in the wings to TAKE OVER for InfoWars as the media mouthpiece for Q in 2018.

MICHAEL FLYNN

Michael Flynn is a racist lunatic whose deep, long-lasting connections to Russia are extremely well reported. Despite CONFESSING to participating in Russian interference, he is being protected AT ALL COSTS by Trump.

Government lawyer suggests Attorney General Barr had secret reasons for dropping Michael Flynn…

Attorney General William Barr may have had secret information that led the Justice Department to seek to drop its…

www.cnbc.com

Michael Flynn has deeply permeated the Qanon cult. Any casual stroll through Qwitter reveals a very large percentage of bios and handles with THREE STARS. This represents loyalty to Michael Flynn, a retired 3-star General. He is regarded as a hero and a demi-god, second only to Trump.

Michael Flynn has jumped into his role with both feet. He appears in numerous Drops, taken the Qanon “Oath” on VIDEO.

To celebrate the Fourth, Michael Flynn posts a pledge to conspiracy group QAnon.

[For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones' newsletters. Donald Trump's…

www.motherjones.com]

More recently, has written a truly batshit screed that is deeply connected to both his theocratic fascist beliefs and Qanon. The letter includes this call to his followers:

“We do not and should not ever allow anarchy and the evil forces behind it to operate on any street in our nation.”?—?Michael Flynn

Exclusive from Gen. Flynn: Prayer Alone Won't Do It This Time; It's Time To Act

We are witnessing a vicious assault by enemies of all that is good, and our president is having to act in ways…

www.westernjournal.com]

This raises the frightening possibility that Flynn is going to ascend, either AS Q, or associated with him, and INSTRUCT HIS FOLLOWERS to do god-knows-what.

Given that this twisted belief system incorporates guns, extreme religious views, obsession with pedophiles, and every other call to intense emotion imaginable, this is a powder keg. At a minimum, I expect Flynn will instruct his followers to interfere with voting on Election Day.

TRUMP

Donald Trump is not only aware of Qanon but has winked, nodded and ACTIVELY PROMOTED Qanon on Twitter.

On 8/14/20, he was asked whether he denounces Qanon, AND HE POINTEDLY AND REPEATEDLY REFUSED TO DO SO which was celebrated in the Qniverse despite the prior prediction that he would confirm their beliefs.

Trump refuses to answer question about QAnon while backing candidate who promotes its baseless…

President Donald Trump on Friday declined to answer whether he believes in the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, instead…

www.cnn.com

He has retweeted HUNDREDS of Q-related accounts. He is the ultimate God-King of Qanon and Qwitter may be the one place in the world other than a Cabinet meeting where he receives the adoration he requires in order to stay psychologically functional. This is in no way an exaggeration.

As he gets more desperate, Trump will make more direct calls to the Qanon cult, which is increasingly BECOMING HIS BASE. Pause here, and take that in.

Analysis | Nearly 600,000 people have voted for candidates who support QAnon

The Republican Party's candidate for the House in Colorado's 3rd District will be Lauren Boebert, who won Tuesday's…

www.washingtonpost.com]

Trump’s connections to Russia… well, you already know about those.

ANTIFA.COM HACK SHOWS THE PIPELINE IN ACTION

At 12:47PST on 8/12/20 @PrayingActress posted that the antifa.com website shows joebiden.com, with a declaration that this proves that “Joe Biden is using enemy combatants”.

To my knowledge, this is the first time that this crude DNS hack hosted FROM RUSSIAN SERVERS was seen on the internet.

@PrayingActress is almost certainly an alt of @PrayingMedic, a huge and notorious Qwitter account. In addition, this account appears to be on the inner circle of Q retweeters, a well coordinated network whose topology can be seen using public Twitter data collection and network visualizations.

This article clearly shows that this was a Russian intel operation.

'Antifa' website cited in conservative media attack on Biden is linked to - wait for it - Russia

WASHINGTON - At his press briefing Wednesday, President Trump, as he usually does, called for a question from Chanel…

news.yahoo.com

THREE HOURS LATER, Chanel Rion, the Russia-employed “reporter” from OANN in the WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING ROOM asked a leading question about the hack, including asking whether Biden should “renounce Antifa”. This was the second day in a row Rion was granted a question.

Here is a Q account celebrating the OANN question with a clip to the video. Chanel Rion has always been a promoter of Q, but this has elevated her to elite status in the Qommunity:

CONCLUSION

The above is a SMALL SUBSET of the available publicly available evidence that there is a serious and ongoing link between Jim Watkins, Russian intelligence, Michael Flynn, OANN, and the president of the United States.

This pipeline of disinformation will continue and may soon lead to escalating physical confrontation and violence.

Please pay attention and do your part.

ACTION REQUIRED

Jim Watkins MUST BE EXPOSED widely and loudly enough to take him and his website down by law enforcement.

Michael Flynn MUST BE EXPOSED. There is currently critical litigation happening regarding his case.

OANN MUST BE EXPOSED as a front for Russian propaganda.

The American public and the people brainwashed by this cult MUST BE INFORMED.

Those responsible for election security MUST TAKE THIS THREAT SERIOUSLY.

Q Anon

Cult

Jim Watkins

Russia

246 claps

3 responses

Well, it appears the pool of talent still accepting cash assignments from the rapidly disintegrating `establishment elites' must be drying up. Why? No-one in their right mind would author such a multi part pile of steaming guano in such a breathless,...

Jim Stewartson

WRref

slate

no lnx twt pix

THE INDUSTRY

Who Amplified Q?

Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory are now showing up at Trump rallies and in the Oval Office. On Twitter, they’ve been getting a mysterious boost for months.

By APRIL GLASER

SEPT 07, 2018

A man wearing a QAnon T-shirt stands amid the crowd at a Trump rally.]

The most notable thing about the QAnon conspiracy theory might be how close it keeps treading into the orbit of the man it is about: Donald Trump. Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory were all over a Trump campaign rally last month in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, sporting T-shirts and signs and apparently unworried that anyone consuming coverage of the event would know they believe in a revisionist version of current events—narrated by “Q,” a mysterious online figure claiming to be a high-clearance government official—in which special counsel Robert Mueller is in fact working with the president to arrest a vast conspiracy (and pedophile ring) of global elites. If their presence at the rally seemed strange, however, it was nothing next to the appearance in the Oval Office two weeks ago of one of QAnon’s biggest promoters, radio host and YouTuber Lionel Lebron, posing for a photo with President Trump.

Q has been dropping clues, which he or she or they call “breadcrumbs,” for followers of the conspiracy theory to puzzle together via the /pol/ (for “politically incorrect”) channel on 4chan, the anything-goes message board where many of the most insidious far-right memes and misdeeds are hatched. These breadcrumbs are now feeding what looks like a not-exactly-minuscule audience of Americans: One of the larger Facebook pages has more than 23,000 followers, while comedian Roseanne Barr, known for her affinity for fringe-right thinking, has tweeted about Q at least four times. A recent Q post alleged that the late Sen. John McCain actually took his own life to avoid a trial by military tribunal.

Q has laid out this narrative over several months, posting curious missives that often read like incomplete thoughts. “Priority to clean out the bad actors to unite people behind the America First agenda. Many in our govt worship Satan,” reads one of Q’s stanzas. While some portion of the expanding universe of Q followers, who call themselves QAnons, have been wading through the difficult-to-navigate world of 4chan as well as 8chan, an even shadier message board where Q has been spotted, the bulk of them seem to be learning about Q through the internet most of us occupy—in YouTube videos, in Facebook groups, and from Twitter accounts dedicated to republishing and analyzing new breadcrumbs from Q and highlighting details in the news that they claim support Q’s legitimacy.

What explains the migration and growth of the Q phenomenon? For one thing, perhaps the desire of this group of Trump supporters to live in a reality in which an unpopular president mired in self-made controversies is actually winning. And thanks to a report last month from NBC News, we now know that the theory can be traced back to two 4chan moderators and one YouTube personality who worked with each other in order to port the Q posts onto more mainstream channels. Their effort does not appear to be the only coordinated attempt to boost Q to a bigger audience. Q’s journey from the cobwebby corners of 4chan into the mainstream likely wasn’t entirely organic. Rather, it appears to have been amplified along the way by automated Twitter accounts—that is, bots. And they seem to have gotten their start very early in the life of the conspiracy theory.

Using the tools Botcheck.me and Bot Sentinel, combined with data pulled and analyzed by Slate about how many tweets each account sent in a single day, I was able to determine whether many of the accounts tweeting about QAnon displayed behavior that’s indicative of automated activity.One of the surest signs of bot activity is volume, according to Philip Howard, an Oxford University professor and director of the Oxford Internet Institute, where he studies automation in social media. If an account tweets more than 50 times a day about politics or an election, that usually denotes some level of automated activity, says Howard. Botcheck.me and Bot Sentinel—both of which were created by independent researchers—use machine learning to look for botlike activity, which, according to Botcheck.me, includes tweeting extremely frequently, gaining a large following in a short amount of time, retweeting other bots, being followed by other bots, and sticking to highly polarizing political messages. (The creators of Bot Sentinel and Botcheck.me report that their tools are able to identify bot accounts with about 94 percent accuracy.)

Our analysis revealed a pattern that began very soon after Q started posting. The first breadcrumb on 4chan, which was posted on Oct. 28, alleged that an “HRC extradition” had begun the day before and the effort was being coordinated with multiple countries. The author, who wasn’t yet going by Q, implored readers to keep a close watch onlongtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin. On Nov. 4, a week after the first Q post surfaced on 4chan, Q appears to have posted a call to actionto followers to arrange the crumbs into a single graphic in order to “collect and post to spread the information appropriately.” The same day, Q’s posts started appearing on Pastebin, a text-only storage site for sharing.Until then, most tweets about Q with the #QAnon hashtag were from sharing a YouTube video or a few questions from early followers tweeted here and there. But on Nov. 5, the number of tweets with the #QAnon hashtag jumped from around three a day to about 20, with at least three accounts that appear to be either partially or entirely automated accounting for about half of those tweets. (The analysis was done this summer, months after the tweets were first sent, so some tweets could have been deleted and some accounts suspended or deleted.)

A QAnon-related tweet.

Twitter

By Nov. 6, there were at least seven more accounts that exhibited botlike or highly automated behavior tweeting about QAnon, according to our analysis.Some also used the #Pizzagate hashtag and others included #TheStorm, an allusion to the countercoup that’s a main subject of Q’s messages. While it’s hard to know if this effort was coordinated, either one individual or several individuals appear to have programed numerous bots to help seed the conspiracy theory on Twitter.

A QAnon-related tweet.

Twitter]

Researchers who study the political activity of bots on Twitter say that automation has been in the arsenal of people trying to propagate conspiratorial news beyond their community of fringe adherents since before the 2016 election. “In the wake of the 2016 Pizzagate disinformation narrative, the use of coordinated amplification, automated or semi-automated, has been used more often than not to push these stories into the mainstream,” said Benjamin T. Decker, a research fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University. “With an understanding of platform algorithms, automation can be used to impersonate organic social engagement, in turn tricking users into believing a claim to be more popular than it actually is.” Twitter has been particularly susceptible to this kind of activity. Since the platform allows for account automation, it’s relatively easy to buy puppet Twitter accounts that someone hoping to seed a conspiracy theory can fire up to send a hashtag or news topic to the site’s trending topics. Whichever person or people decided it was time to amplify Q appears to have used this playbook. (Twitter announced new caps on heavy tweeting that will impact those who use Twitter’s developer tools to automate accounts, but those rate limits don’t go into effect until later this month.)

As the Q conspiracy continued to snowball and collect followers, the amount of automated activity on Twitter about Q increased as well.A Twitter search for the hashtag #QAnon on Nov. 15 revealed more than 400 tweets about the conspiracy with the hashtag on that day alone—a huge jump from earlier in the month, despite the fact that the bizarre conspiracy had not garnered the attention of the mainstream media at that point. Two of the likely bot accounts each tweeted with #QAnon more than 50 times on Nov. 15. At least 15 of the accounts tweeting with the hashtag that day displayed strong signs of automation, and none of those 15 were the same as the accounts I found that were tweeting at the start of the month.[rotate bots to throw off trail, like hanging up phone before trace?]

Fast forward to March 31, 2018—the day Barr tweeted about Q for the first time, when the conspiracy theory began to attract its first major wave of headlines. That day, thousands of tweets surfaced about the conspiracy theory, largely thanks to dozens of accounts that showed strong signs of automated activity. Journalists and real Q researchers were there too, but a look at the Twitter activity from that day shows an overwhelming deluge of accounts exhibiting signs of automation using the hashtag #QAnon. These days, #QAnon has become such a popular theme among bots and troll accounts that it has become a regular trending hashtag among the 600 bot and troll accounts monitored by the Alliance for Securing Democracy that are known to have ties to Kremlin disinformation campaigns. On the day after Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania at the start of August, the network of highly likely bot accounts that Bot Sentinel monitors sent 3,490 tweets with hashtags about QAnon in one day alone.

Automation on social media can make an issue or a person appear more popular than they actually are. During the third debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016, bots sharing pro-Trump-related content outnumbered pro-Clinton bots by 7 to 1, according to research from Oxford University’s Project on Computational Propaganda. When a tweet gets hundreds of likes or retweets, it can suggest a groundswell of grassroots support, even if many of those interactions come from bots. It’s also worth keeping in mind that not all accounts that display signs of automation are completely automated; sometimes a person may take back control of the account or decide to fire it up during a particularly heated political moment. A good bot-maker’s automation on Twitter can be particularly difficult to spot, especially if their timing is nuanced and their language isn’t repetitive.

And bots, obviously, aren’t the only boosters of QAnon. Whoever is behind the Q posts, there are signs that there has always been an effort to take the theory off the chans and onto more mainstream platforms. Q ostensibly didn’t get its name until Nov. 1, when the 4chan user posting the message started calling itself Q Clearance Patriot, in reference to “Q-level” security clearance. Yet on Oct. 28—the same day as the first post from the user who would soon be Q went up on 4chan—a WordPress blog titled “QAnon News” went live. The blog includes the text of Q’s 4chan posts, links to tweets from President Trump, and detailed explanations attempting to break down the meaning of Q’s posts line by line with citations. Either the person who made this blog is somehow connected to Q or knew enough about what was to come that they decided to start a blog with the same name. Whoever made this blog was a fast researcher, too—unless they had the posts first.

What does all of this tell us? We don’t know if the flood of botlike Q tweets now has anything to do with the early attempts to amplify QAnon or what, if any, kind of coordination between bot accounts and any other efforts was happening then or now. But we do know that this kind of automated account—the kind that was a menace during the 2016 campaign, thanks to a Russian disinformation effort—often tweets about issues, such as gun control and racial justice, that divide Americans and stoke sociopolitical tensions. Apparently, belief in QAnon is now one of those partisan issues—and it looks like some parties may have recognized its potential to rile up and divide Americans very, very quickly.

ref 2 no twt/pix

no lnx

wapo

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The Fix

Analysis

The frequent overlap between Trump’s conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump meet in Osaka, Japan, in June 2019. ]

Aaron Blake

June 9, 2020

President Trump on Tuesday morning passed along a bizarre conspiracy theory suggesting the protester who bled from his head after being pushed by Buffalo police and falling to the ground might have been involved in some kind of antifa plot.

The theory is all the more ugly considering its origins: In the tweet, Trump tagged the pro-Trump One America News Network. The OANN journalist behind the dubious conspiracy theory is Kristian Rouz, who has moonlighted as a reporter for the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik News.

Here's the absolutely insane OAN report that Trump is referencing: "The latest tensions in the Buffalo police department could be the result of a false flag provocation by far left group antifa" pic.twitter.com/d709XfSj8U

— Lis Power (@LisPower1) June 9, 2020

As the Daily Beast’s Kevin Poulsen reported in November, Rouz has a history spouting such bizarre theories and of putting a pro-Russia slant on his OANN reporting:

Kremlin propaganda sometimes sneaks into Rouz’s segments on unrelated matters, dropped in as offhand background information. A segment on the Syrian rescue workers known as the White Helmets references “allegations of the White Helmets’ involvement in military activities, executions, and numerous war atrocities,” but doesn’t disclose that those “allegations” were hoaxes that originated with Vladimir Putin and his proxies.

In another report, Rouz cast [Hillary] Clinton’s criticism of Brexit as an extension of her “grievous insults and fake narratives against Russia” — an assertion that makes sense only in the context of Rouz’s multiple reports claiming Russia was framed for hacking Democrats.

Trump sharing such a specious theory is one thing — particularly given the unrest roiling the country during the protests over George Floyd’s death. But we now know the theory was shared based on reporting from someone who has been paid to promote the Kremlin’s party line. That’s an indirect through line, but the theory fits with what U.S. intelligence has said is Russia’s aim in the United States: To sow distrust, discord and division.

The theory also fits broadly with Russia’s efforts during the Floyd protests to portray these protesters, and protesters more generally, as dangerous and violent provocateurs.

But it’s hardly the first time Trump has passed along something that fits so neatly with Russian propaganda. Below are other examples.

It’s important to note that just because Trump aligns with a particular bit of Russian disinformation doesn’t mean he’s taking direction. But this is something that has happened over and over again over the years in some major ways — involving some far-flung theories, much like the one he promoted Tuesday.

Questioning Russia’s 2016 election interference

Trump’s claim: Trump has repeatedly sought to question the U.S. intelligence community’s overwhelming conclusion that Russia was responsible for interference in the 2016 U.S. election. He has also repeatedly promoted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denials and at one point after meeting with Putin in 2018 said: “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” (He later tried to walk that back.)

How it aligns with Russian propaganda: Russia has consistently denied it was responsible for the 2016 election interference, despite its being the firm conclusion of the intelligence community and congressional consensus and having been detailed in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigations.

Claiming Ukraine interfered in the election

Trump’s claims: Trump has also suggested, in multiple ways, that it was Ukraine rather than Russia that was responsible for the 2016 interference. He has elevated and sought to have Ukraine investigate the “CrowdStrike” conspiracy theory that Ukraine was holding an email server that might reveal the truth about the interference. He has also pointed to Ukrainian politicians allegedly interfering to elect Hillary Clinton. He said in November: “And don’t forget, Ukraine hated me. They were after me in the election. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win.” He added in October: “So when you look at what’s going on and then you see all of this horrible stuff, and then you hear about Ukraine — and you’ve been hearing about it. I heard Clinton was involved. I heard they got somebody who wrote the fake [Steele] dossier. Was it out of Ukraine?”

How it aligns with Russian propaganda: As has been reported, this theory about Ukraine’s alleged interference has been promoted by the Kremlin as far back as 2015 or 2016. At one point, Putin responded to Trump’s comments on this by saying suggestively: “Thank God nobody is accusing us anymore of interfering in U.S. elections. Now they’re accusing Ukraine.” Fiona Hill, the Trump White House’s former Russia adviser, called the Ukraine theories a “fictional narrative” and in her impeachment testimony tied them to Russian disinformation. “It suits the Russian government very much if we are also looking at Ukraine as somehow a perpetrator of malign acts against us,” Hill said, urging everyone to “please not promote politically derivative falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”

[LInX: **Trump’s claims:** Trump has also suggested, in multiple ways, that it was Ukraine rather than Russia that was responsible for the 2016 interference. He has elevated and sought to have Ukraine investigate [the “CrowdStrike” conspiracy theory that Ukraine was holding an email server that might reveal the truth about the interference. He has also pointed to Ukrainian politicians allegedly interfering to elect Hillary Clinton. He said in November: “And don’t forget, Ukraine hated me. They were after me in the election. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win.” He added in October: “So when you look at what’s going on and then you see all of this horrible stuff, and then you hear about Ukraine — and you’ve been hearing about it. I heard Clinton was involved. I heard they got somebody who wrote the fake [Steele] dossier. Was it out of Ukraine?”]]

Legitimizing the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan

Trump’s claim: Trump last year propped up a strange claim that the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was legitimate because of terrorism there. “The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia,” Trump said. “They were right to be there.” Historians agree that was not the reason for the invasion at all.

How it aligns with Russian propaganda: The Afghanistan invasion is viewed as a precursor to the fall of the Soviet Union, but Putin has sought to recast that ugly chapter in history in the service of rehabilitating the image of the U.S.S.R.

The poisoning of Sergei Skripal

Trump’s claim: According to multiple reports, Trump has sought to defend Russia over the poisoning of a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, on British soil. The New York Times reported that he suggested to CIA Director Gina Haspel that it was part of a legitimate spy game. The Washington Post has also reported that Trump privately disputed British intelligence’s conclusion that Russia was responsible. By October 2018, Trump seemed to align with the Western consensus that Putin was behind it, but he still didn’t fully commit. “Probably he is, yeah,” Trump said, before again emphasizing the “probably.”

How it aligns with Russian propaganda: Russia has denied involvement in Skripal’s poisoning. And it even promoted another outlet that reported on Trump expressing his doubts to then-British Prime Minister Theresa May. The Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom tweeted that revelation as the “best evidence that no evidence of Russian involvement exists.”

[twt: Best evidence that no evidence of Russian involvement exists.https://t.co/nvUojfCmLo

trump quote = evidence [also pix 2 guys?]

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) October 6, 2019

73 Comments

Aaron Blake

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.

ref 3

https://amti.csis.org/dutertes-pivot-to-russia/

by RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIAN | OCTOBER 17, 2019

AMTI UPDATE

While Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial China policy has understandably attracted considerable attention, few have taken his strategic pivot to Russia seriously enough. Instead, even some senior Filipino officials view burgeoning ties with Moscow as nothing but a reflection of Duterte’s personal fascination with Russia and his famed “bromance” with Vladimir Putin.

But reaching out to Moscow carries potentially huge geostrategic implications. In the spirit of his so-called “independent foreign policy,” Duterte has single-handedly shattered the profound stigma surrounding defense cooperation with Russia, with far reaching consequences. The Philippines is now seriously exploring large-scale purchases of advanced Russian military hardware as well as offshore energy investments to strengthen its hand in the South China Sea amid Beijing’s rising assertiveness.

Strategic Diversification

To put things into perspective, Duterte is the only Filipino leader in recent memory to have visited Russia for an official mission. Throughout the Cold War, the Philippines, host to the United States’ largest overseas naval and air bases, largely shunned relations with Moscow. Thereafter, post-Soviet Russia had minimal strategic presence in Southeast Asia, reduced at best to an afterthought among Filipino leaders who actively prioritized bilateral relations with the United States and China.

An element of personal diplomacy and ideological alignment has driven this surprising turn in the historically lukewarm Philippine-Russia relationship. As an authoritarian-leaning populist, Duterte has repeatedly praised Putin, calling the Russian leader his “favorite hero” and citing his supposed personal decisiveness, iron-fist rule, and brazen defiance of the West. Outraged by international criticism of his brutal drug war, the Filipino leader is naturally drawn to the Russian notion of “sovereign democracy” (*suverennaya demokratiya*), which emphasizes national insulation from external, especially Western, influence.

But beyond the personal dynamics, there is a deeper strategic argument for Duterte’s pivot to Russia. As the Filipino leader made it clear during his high-profile speech at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, with Putin and several Asian leaders in attendance, his goal is not to ditch the long-standing alliance with the United States, nor is he against liberal democratic values per se. Instead, he seeks to amend an “oversight of [huge] strategic proportion” in the Philippines’ traditional foreign policy, which relegated Russia to “the margins.” He clarified that he is primarily interested in “expand[ing] the horizon of Philippine diplomacy by deepening our engagement” with like-minded nations and non-western powers. In short, this is less about Putin and more about the need for the Philippines to find new partners.

Duterte’s recent five-day visit to Russia was not his first. In early-2017, the Filipino leader had to cut short his state visit to Moscow following the siege of Marawi by Islamic State-affiliated groups in the southern Philippines. Despite the disruption, the Philippine delegation, which included top defense and national security officials, signed a number of key agreements with the Eurasian power, including an Agreement on Defense Cooperation.

The upshot was the rapid emaciation of the U.S.-trained Philippine defense establishment’s stigma against cooperation with Russia. As the battle of Marawi raged on, Russia seized on the opportunity to become a key source of counter-terrorism assistance. With a defense agreement in place, Moscow offered direct military assistance, including assault rifles and armored vehicles, in addition to intelligence on foreign IS fighters operating in the region.

Russia’s South China Sea Foray

Counter-terrorism cooperation quickly became a springboard for closer defense relations that have the potential to strengthen the Philippines’ position in the South China Sea. In recent years, Russian warships have made regular port calls in Manila as both sides began discussing joint naval exercises in Philippine waters, especially the country’s porous borders with Malaysia and Indonesia, which have served as entry points for transnational terrorists.

The Philippines is now set to acquire 16 Mi-17 medium-lift helicopters (worth $14.7 million), a symbolic purchase that may pave the way for more advanced and large-scale acquisitions. Amid a multi-billion-dollar military modernization program, with a focus on developing maritime security capabilities, the Philippine military is actively seeking alternative and more affordable arms suppliers.

According to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, the Southeast Asian country is currently exploring the purchase of attack helicopters, multi-role fighter jets, and warships from Russia. He even hinted at a potential purchase of Kilo-class submarines, which could be deployed for defense of Philippine interests in the South China Sea. Like Vietnam and Malaysia, the Philippines is carefully examining large-scale purchases of (relatively affordable) advanced Russian weaponry to help keep external threats, particularly China, at bay.

Recognizing the vast potential in bilateral defense cooperation, Moscow recently deployed its first ever defense attaché to Manila, with one Russian diplomat boasting, “What we can assure you, if you are going to procure military equipment, for us, we are going to give you brand new ones and not second hand.” It was a thinly veiled reference to Duterte’s constant criticism of the United States for supposedly giving its Southeast Asian ally mostly hand-me-down military equipment.

During the Philippine-Russia Business Forum this month, Duterte also invited top Russian companies to invest in the country, particularly in the energy and infrastructure sector. He has reportedly sought offshore energy investments from Russian oil giant Rosneft.

The details are yet to be fully disclosed, but the two sides are likely exploring the possibility of Russian offshore investments in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea. After all, major Russian companies including Rosneft as well as Gazprom and Zarubezhneft are active in Vietnamese offshore oil and gas projects in the area.

The Philippines could take a page out of Vietnam’s playbook by leveraging Russian military technology and energy investments to ward off Chinese aggression in its waters. Despite its close relations with Beijing, Moscow has shown remarkable interest in expanding its strategic footprint in Southeast Asia, especially among China’s rivals in the South China Sea. Burgeoning Philippine-Russian relations represent, to use the tired Chinese diplomatic lexicon, a potential “win-win” cooperation for both sides.

About Richard Javad Heydarian

Richard Javad Heydarian is an Asia-based academic, currently a Research Fellow at National Chengchi University (Taiwan), and author of, among other works, The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy and The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Struggle for Global Mastery.

REF

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/biden-ukraine-recordings-oan/612454/

many lnx

Is OAN the Leading Edge of Russian Misinformation?

The Biden campaign says Trump’s favorite TV network is peddling the Kremlin’s lies.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE

JUNE 11, 2020

In what appears to be a signal of intensifying political warfare ahead of the November election, One America News Network, the Trump-supporting cable channel that has been promoting anti-Biden conspiracies for several months, says it has obtained several hours of secret recordings of then–Vice President Biden’s conversations with Ukrainian officials. If such recordings exist, they’re likely linked to pro-Russian interests in Ukraine and a Russian intelligence operation, two former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine and a former ambassador to Russia told me. The OAN employee who claims to have the tapes would not say what was on them, other than suggesting that they will be revelatory.

In the audio that has been released elsewhere so far, Biden is heard dangling the promise of financial aid to Ukraine if its government ousted a prosecutor who was seen as corrupt—which Biden has previously said publicly was his goal, as part of a push for widespread reforms. Conspiracists have alleged that this was intended to help his son Hunter escape charges of corruption, but an audit by Ukraine’s former top prosecutor released last week found no evidence of illegal activity by Hunter in his capacity as an energy-company board member.

[MORE STORIES

Donald Trump

Democracy Versus Kleptocracy

FRANKLIN FOER

The Press Is Embracing False Equivalence—Again

JAMES FALLOWS

Rudy Giuliani: ‘You Should Be Happy for Your Country That I Uncovered This’

ELAINA PLOTT]

What is most remarkable here is that none of this is particularly surprising. Russian interference in the 2016 election has been closely studied over the past four years, and America’s vulnerabilities have only worsened in that time. As my colleague Franklin Foer wrote recently, “Russia’s interference in 2016 might be remembered as the experimental prelude that foreshadowed the attack of 2020.” That OAN is now a player in such interference suggests an escalation that the Biden campaign has been bracing for.

Indeed, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul—who has recalled being secretly recorded himself, among other forms of harassment, when he was posted in Moscow—told me, "There’s never been a moment like this in American history.”

[Read Putin is well on his way to stealing the next election

That includes 2016. McFaul said what he’s seeing now reminds him of tactics the Kremlin has used against its domestic political opponents. “It’s not to convince you of a different point of view. It’s to convince you that there is no truth,” he said. “When it feels like nobody’s telling the truth and there is no truth, the reaction to that is despondency and demobilization.”

It’s hard not to feel some déjà vu here. In 2016, Russian intelligence agents hacked the emails of Democratic National Committee staffers and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and delivered them to WikiLeaks, as a way to get them into the American media. Some outlets learned a lesson from that episode, and have treated new Biden recordings out of Ukraine with care. Others have not. Andriy Derkach, who released the Biden tapes that have already come out, is a former member of a pro-Russian political party who graduated from a KGB-run academy in Moscow. OAN lends his efforts a veneer, however thin, of journalistic legitimacy.

The person now claiming to have more tapes is OAN’s Chanel Rion, the on-air personality who went with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, on his December trip to Ukraine in part to find information on Biden to help Trump. Rion, who has become famous for her conspiracy-inflected questions at White House briefings, emailed the Biden campaign May 29 claiming that she was working on an “in-depth report” about recordings that appear to be of Biden speaking with Petro Poroshenko, then the president of Ukraine. “We have over five hours of these recordings (beyond what has been posted online by Nabu Leaks),” she wrote, referencing a Ukrainian website suspected of Russian links.

Derkach, a politician known as the “Ukrainian Putin,” has been a proponent of the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was really behind the interference in the 2016 election instead of Russia. And he has previously been eager to provide damaging material about Biden for Trump’s sake. Derkach released a batch of recordings three weeks ago, claiming that they had been made by Poroshenko and given to him by “investigative journalists.” (Poroshenko has said the audio is “fabricated.”) Most mainstream-media outlets have decided that the recordings that have emerged so far offer “little new insight into Biden’s actions in Ukraine,” as The Washington Post’s Carol Morello wrote after the recordings were first released.

Giuliani, reached by text, did not comment on suspicions that the recordings have ties to Russian interests or intelligence, or on whether he was involved in getting any of them to OAN.

Rion was until recently an illustrator. She has said she joined members of the Trump family in 2016 for the New Hampshire primary’s victory party; she has also tweeted a drawing of Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein with the hashtag #spiritcooking, which is often associated with the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. On her website, she describes herself as “a fierce foe of anything Clinton, of everything Obama, and as a total and unrelenting enemy of academic left-liberalism and political correctness anywhere.”

In March, she cited a “monitored source” on air who’d said that the coronavirus had been linked to a lab in North Carolina; that source turned out to be a person who’d tweeted at her. She has asked wild questions at White House briefings, including one about whether Trump would pardon Barack Obama for unspecified crimes, and another about whether Trump’s lawyers would like to depose Joe Scarborough, after Trump floated a baseless accusation that he’d murdered an aide.

Rion’s email, which the Biden campaign forwarded to me, suggests that OAN is “producing an in-depth report on these recordings for OAN's Special Investigates series.” In a phone call on Sunday, she told me that she now expects to acquire much more than the five hours of recordings she mentioned in her email. Rion said that Derkach was just one of the people who have been giving her material. She said she has verified, with the help of “a couple of sources on the ground,” and with sources in the U.S. as well, that the recordings have no ties to Russian intelligence or interests. She would not explain her verification process, saying, “I don't want to tip off anybody.”

It was once unusual for the public to gain access to top-secret government documents, let alone private conversations between the American vice president and a foreign leader. But as countries around the world increase their cyberwar capabilities and their willingness to interfere in one another’s domestic politics, and as the democratization of publishing allows for the rapid spread of misinformation, media leaks of hard-to-verify and potentially doctored documents and recordings of government officials are becoming commonplace.

“It is common practice for Russian intelligence to help put out information in skewed forms in Ukraine, and forensic experts have seen that this information is doctored,” said John Herbst, a former career Foreign Service officer who served as the American ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006.“The Kremlin is a master at this sort of practice, and the sources in Ukraine providing this sort of information are known to be well connected in Moscow.”

Herbst was one of seven former ambassadors to Ukraine who wrote an open letter to Ukrainians two weeks ago, prompted by the already-public recordings. They said they are “disheartened by efforts to involve Ukraine in America’s domestic politics as the 2020 US presidential election approaches.”

“This all just confirms what we knew,” said Steven Pifer, another former ambassador to Ukraine, who signed the letter.

David A. Graham: What happened in Ukraine?

Russia would love to “somehow inject Ukraine back into American politics,” Pifer said. “There will be people on the American side who play into it—OAN is one.”

The Biden campaign says OAN’s willingness to play along is exactly why the network received the recordings. “In 2016 and ever since, hostile foreign actors have perpetrated insidious efforts to disfigure and poison American democracy. Yesterday’s hacked emails are today’s bugged phones and deepfakes,” Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesperson, told me.

An OAN spokesperson, Krista McClelland, did not respond to a request for comment about the suggestion that the recordings have links to Russian intelligence. Nor did she respond to the Biden campaign’s charges.

Other countries are stepping up their own efforts to get involved in this year’s elections; Iran and China, for example, have been linked to attempts to hack Biden and Trump campaign computers. But Russia continues to lead the misinformation game. The day after Rion reached out to Biden’s team, Sputnik—the Kremlin-owned propaganda service, which American intelligence has accused of being involved in the 2016 misinformation efforts—ran an interview with a former Poroshenko aide who claimed that he was the one who’d made the recordings, and that he’d given them to his lawyers to give the Trump administration. “Because of the coronavirus,” he said,” they are waiting. But in September, closer to elections, they will begin to use them more.”

There’s no evidence to support this. But the Trump campaign doesn’t seem to have much interest in dampening ideas like it: The communications director, Tim Murtaugh, didn’t respond to multiple emailsI sent about whether the campaign has more materials from Ukraine featuring Biden, and neither did White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley.

Election Day is in five months. And the people best positioned to knock down the Russian misinformation apparatus seem most interested instead in propping it up

===

jiM WATKINS IS Q AND THE RUSSIANS ARE HELPING HIM | by Jim ...

[](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=8kun%20russia%20server%20malware+site:medium.com&t=h_ "Search domain medium.com/@registrarproject17/jim-watkins-is-q-the-russians-are-helping-him-and-other-adventures-b457848e210b"):{https://medium.com:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline"):}::{/@registrarproject17/jim-watkins-is-q-the-russians-are-helping-him-and-other-adventures-b457848e210b:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;opacity:1;visibility:visible"):}:

Jim Watkins runs 8kun and has been 'Q' since at least the Great Blackout of 2019. ... this is the first time that this crude DNS hack hosted FROM RUSSIAN SERVERS was seen on the internet.

Breaking the law: How 8chan (or ":{8kun:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"):}:") got (briefly) back ...

[](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=8kun%20russia%20server%20malware+site:arstechnica.com&t=h_ "Search domain arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/11/breaking-the-law-how-8chan-or-8kun-got-briefly-back-online/"):{https://arstechnica.com:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline"):}::{/information-technology/2019/11/breaking-the-law-how-8chan-or-8kun-got-briefly-back-online/:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;opacity:1;visibility:visible"):}:

The successor to 8chan, 8kun, made a somewhat brief appearance on the public Internet thanks to what amounts to an attack on the Internet's routing infrastructure. The site's domain name server ...

...

8chan's Founder Is Fighting to Keep the Site Offline

[](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=8kun%20russia%20server%20malware+site:www.dailydot.com&t=h_ "Search domain www.dailydot.com/layer8/8chan-founder-site-fight/"):{https://www.dailydot.com:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline"):}::{/layer8/8chan-founder-site-fight/:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;opacity:1;visibility:visible"):}:

At first, 8chan found a new home with another security site, Bitmitigate. But in a long and complex chain of events, the new web service company turned out to be renting servers from a different ...

New claim that :{8kun:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"):}: is being rerouted though DoD severs ...

[](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=8kun%20russia%20server%20malware+site:www.reddit.com&t=h_ "Search domain www.reddit.com/r/Qult_Headquarters/comments/dviq13/new_claim_that_8kun_is_being_rerouted_though_dod/"):{https://www.reddit.com:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline"):}::{/r/Qult_Headquarters/comments/dviq13/new_claim_that_8kun_is_being_rerouted_though_dod/:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;opacity:1;visibility:visible"):}:

In fact, both the most recent address for 8kun(dot)net (that wasn't the result of a BGP hijack by a Russian bulletproof host) AND 8kun(dot)us have been squarely within 62.113.112./23 which is in AS48282 (which is very, very much in Russia, and the last time I checked, Russia was most definitely not a US territory and the Russian Armed Forces ...

QMAP: [#3585] :{8kun:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"):}: Routes Through DoD :{Server:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"):}:

[](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=8kun%20russia%20server%20malware+site:www.qmap.pub&t=h_ "Search domain www.qmap.pub/read/3585"):{https://www.qmap.pub:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline"):}::{/read/3585:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;opacity:1;visibility:visible"):}:

DNC Servers / Seth Rich Leaks ... Russia Hoax / Dossier / Spygate Satanic Cult Saudi Arabia Scaramucci Model Sealed Indictments Secret Service ... 8kun Routes Through DoD Server. Q!!mG7VJxZNCI Tue Nov 12 2019 00:49:10 GMT+0000 ...

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/07/meet-the-worlds-biggest-bulletproof-hoster/

JUL 19

Meet the World’s Biggest ‘Bulletproof’ Hoster

For at least the past decade, a computer crook variously known as “Yalishanda,” “Downlow” and “Stas_vl” has run one of the most popular “bulletproof” Web hosting services catering to a vast array of phishing sites, cybercrime forums and malware download servers. What follows are a series of clues that point to the likely real-life identity of a Russian man who appears responsible for enabling a ridiculous amount of cybercriminal activity on the Internet today.

KrebsOnSecurity began this research after reading a new academic paper on the challenges involved in dismantling or disrupting bulletproof hosting services, which are so called because they can be depended upon to ignore abuse complaints and subpoenas from law enforcement organizations. We’ll get to that paper in a moment, but for now I mention it because it prompted me to check and see if one of the more infamous bulletproof hosters from a decade ago was still in operation.

Sure enough, I found that Yalishanda was actively advertising on cybercrime forums, and that his infrastructure was being used to host hundreds of dodgy sites. Those include a large number of cybercrime forums and stolen credit card shops, ransomware download sites, Magecart-related infrastructure, and a metric boatload of phishing Web sites mimicking dozens of retailers, banks and various government Web site portals.

I first encountered Yalishanda back in 2010, after writing about “Fizot,” the nickname used by another miscreant who helped customers anonymize their cybercrime traffic by routing it through a global network of Microsoft Windows computers infected with a powerful malware strain called TDSS.

After that Fizot story got picked up internationally, KrebsOnSecurity heard from a source who suggested that Yalishanda and Fizot shared some of the same infrastructure.

In particular, the source pointed to a domain that was live at the time called mo0be-world[.]com, which was registered in 2010 to an Aleksandr Volosovyk at the email address stas_vl@mail.ru. Now, normally cybercriminals are not in the habit of using their real names in domain name registration records, particularly domains that are to be used for illegal or nefarious purposes. But for whatever reason, that is exactly what Mr. Volosovyk appears to have done.

WHO IS YALISHANDA?

The one or two domain names registered to Aleksandr Volosovyk and that mail.ru address state that he resides in Vladivostok, which is a major Pacific port city in Russia that is close to the borders with China and North Korea. The nickname Yalishanda means “Alexander” in Mandarin (亚历山大).

Here’s a snippet from one of Yalishanda’s advertisements to a cybercrime forum in 2011, when he was running a bulletproof service under the domain real-hosting[.]biz:

-Based in Asia and Europe.

-It is allowed to host: ordinary sites, doorway pages, satellites, codecs, adware, tds, warez, pharma, spyware, exploits, zeus, IRC, etc.

-Passive SPAM is allowed (you can spam sites that are hosted by us).

-Web spam is allowed (Hrumer, A-Poster ….)

-Forbidden: Any outgoing Email spam, DP, porn, phishing (exclude phishing email, social networks)

There is a server with instant activation under botnets (zeus) and so on. The prices will pleasantly please you! The price depends on the specific content!!!!

Yalishanda would re-brand and market his pricey bulletproof hosting services under a variety of nicknames and cybercrime forums over the years, including one particularly long-lived abuse-friendly project aptly named abushost[.]ru.

In, researchers from Cisco and cyber intelligence firm Intel 471 labeled Yalishanda as one the “top tier” bulletproof hosting providers worldwide, noting that in just one 90-day period in 2017 his infrastructure was seen hosting sites tied to some of the most advanced malware contagions at the time, including the Dridex and Zeus banking trojans, as well as a slew of ransomware operations

[vid]

Any of the actors that can afford his services are somewhat more sophisticated than say the bottom feeders that make up the majority of the actors in the underground,” said Jason Passwaters, Intel 471’s chief operating officer. “Bulletproof hosting is probably the biggest enabling service that you find in the underground. If there’s any one group operation or actor that touches more cybercriminals, it’s the bulletproof hosters.”

Passwaters told Black Hat attendees that Intel471 wasn’t convinced Alex was Yalishanda’s real name. I circled back with Intel 471 this week to ask about their ongoing research into this individual, and they confided that they knew at the time Yalishanda was in fact Alexander Volosovyk, but simply didn’t want to state his real name in a public setting.

KrebsOnSecurity uncovered strong evidence to support a similar conclusion. In 2010, this author received a massive data dump from a source that had hacked into or otherwise absconded with more than four years of email records from ChronoPay — at the time a major Russian online payment provider whose CEO and co-founders were the chief subjects of my 2014 book, *Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime*.

Querying those records on Yalishanda’s primary email address — stas_vl@mail.ru — reveal that this individual in 2010 sought payment processing services from ChronoPay for a business he was running which sold counterfeit designer watches.

As part of his application for service, the person using that email address forwarded six documents to ChronoPay managers, including business incorporation and banking records for companies he owned in China, as well as a full scan of his Russian passport.

That passport, pictured below, indicates that Yalishanda’s real name is Alexander Alexandrovich Volosovik. The document shows he was born in Ukraine and is approximately 36 years old.

[The passport for Alexander Volosovyk, a.k.a. “Yalishanda,” a major operator of bulletproof hosting services.

According to Intel 471, Yalishanda lived in Beijing prior to establishing a residence in Vladivostok (that passport above was issued by the Russian embassy in Beijing). The company says he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia approximately 18 months ago.

His current bulletproof hosting service is called Media Land LLC. This finding is supported by documents maintained by Rusprofile.ru, which states that an Alexander Volosovik is indeed the director of a St. Petersburg company by the same name.

ARMOR-PIERCING BULLETS?

Bulletproof hosting administrators operating from within Russia probably are not going to get taken down or arrested, provided they remain within that country (or perhaps within the confines of the former republics of the Soviet Union, known as the Commonwealth of Independent States).

That’s doubly so for bulletproof operators who are careful to follow the letter of the law in those regions — i.e., setting up official companies that are required to report semi-regularly on various aspects of their business, as Mr. Volosovik clearly has done.

However, occasionally big-time bulletproof hosters from those CIS countries do get disrupted and/or apprehended. On July 11, law enforcement officials in Ukraine announced they’d conducted 29 searches and detained two individuals in connection with a sprawling bulletproof hosting operation.

The press release from the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office doesn’t name the individuals arrested, but The Associated Press reports that one of them was Mikhail Rytikov, a man U.S. authorities say was a well-known bulletproof hoster who operated under the nickname “AbdAllah.”

In 2015, the U.S. Justice Department named Rytikov as a key infrastructure provider for two Russian hackers — Vladimir Drinkman and Alexandr Kalinin — in a cybercrime spree the government called the largest known data breach at the time.

According to the Justice Department, Drinkman and his co-defendants were responsible for hacks and digital intrusions against NASDAQ, 7-Eleven, Carrefour, JCP, Hannaford, Heartland, Wet Seal, Commidea, Dexia, JetBlue, Dow Jones, Euronet, Visa Jordan, Global Payment, Diners Singapore and Ingenicard.

Whether AbdAllah ever really faces justice for his alleged crimes remains to be seen. Ukraine does not extradite citizens, as the U.S. authorities have requested in this case. And we have seen time and again how major cybercriminals get raided and detained by local and federal authorities there, only to quickly re-emerge and resume operations shortly thereafter, while the prosecution against them goes nowhere.

Some examples of this include several Ukrainian men arrested in 2010 and accused of running an international crime and money laundering syndicate that used a custom version of the Zeus trojan to siphon tens of millions of dollars from hacked small businesses in the U.S. and Europe. To my knowledge, none of the Ukrainian men that formed the core of that operation were ever prosecuted, reportedly because they were connected to influential figures in the Ukrainian government and law enforcement.

Intel 471’s Passwaters said something similar happened in December 2016, when authorities in the U.S., U.K. and Europe dismantled Avalanche, a distributed, cloud-hosting network that was rented out as a bulletproof hosting enterprise for countless malware and phishing attacks.

Prior to that takedown, Passwaters said, somehow an individual using the nickname “Sosweet” who was connected to another bulletproof hoster that occurred around the same time as Avalanche got a tip about an impending raid.

“Sosweet was raided in December right before Avalanche was taken down, [and] we know that he was tipped off because of corruption [because] 24 hours later the guy was back in service and has all his stuff back up,” Passwaters said.

The same also appears to be true for several Ukrainian men arrested in 2011 on suspicion of building and disseminating Conficker, a malware strain that infected millions of computers worldwide and prompted an unprecedented global response from the security industry.

So if a majority of bulletproof hosting businesses operate primarily out of countries where the rule of law is not strong and/or where corruption is endemic, is there any hope for disrupting these dodgy businesses?

Here we come full circle to the academic report mentioned briefly at the top of this story: The answer seems to be — like most things related to cybercrime — “maybe,” provided the focus is on attempting to interfere with their ability to profit from such activities.

That paper, titled Platforms in Everything: Analyzing Ground-Truth Data on the Anatomy and Economics of Bulletproof Hosting, was authored by researchers at New York University, Delft University of Technology, King Saud University and the Dutch National High-Tech Crimes Unit. Unfortunately, it has not yet been released publicly, and KrebsOnSecurity does not have permission yet to publish it.

The study examined the day-to-day operations of MaxiDed, a bulletproof hosting operation based in The Netherlands that was dismantled last summer after authorities seized its servers. The paper’s core findings suggest that because profit margins for bulletproof hosting (BPH) operations are generally very thin, even tiny disruptions can quickly push these businesses into the red.

“We demonstrate the BPH landscape to have further shifted from agile resellers towards marketplace platforms with an oversupply of resources originating from hundreds of legitimate upstream hosting providers,” the researchers wrote. “We find the BPH provider to have few choke points in the supply chain amenable to intervention, though proﬁt margins are very slim, so even a marginal increase in operating costs might already have repercussions that render the business unsustainable.”

Tags: AbdAllah, Alexander Alexandrovich Volosovik, Alexander Volosovyk, bulletproof hosting providers, chronopay, Delft University of Technology, Downlow, Dutch National High-Tech Crimes Unit, Intel 471, King Saud University, MaxiDed, Media Land LLC, Mikhail Rytikov, New York University, sosweet, stas_vl@mail.ru, Yalishanda

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