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This story (that I've been talking about all day) came up this morning, about an unidentified Russian hacker "Alexander Zh.", arrested in Bulgaria on a U.S. warrant from the Eastern District of New York.
This story (that I've been talking about all day) came up this morning, about an unidentified Russian hacker "Alexander Zh.", arrested in Bulgaria on a U.S. warrant from the Eastern District of New York.
Subsequent regional reporting has identified him as Alexander Zhukov, hacker nickname "Nastra".
24chasa.bg/novini/article…
24chasa.bg/novini/article…
He's being charged with fraudulently manipulating video viewing statistics, using a set of computers (perhaps a botnet). The actual crime is defrauding advertisers to the tune of seven million dollars. The time period charged is September 2014 to December 2016.
According to the 24 chasa article above, the contracts for this operation came through "U.S. Intermediaries". And according to the CNN article, the network of computers used was located in Dallas, Texas.
My first piece of speculation is that this is a Mueller-linked arrest, and the charge, $7M fraud was merely a side-effect of the bot activity; the real goal could have been to promote content so it would come up higher in searches and be more likely to be offered to viewers.
One might immediately think of IRA-pushed news stories (for example), but the U.S. links suggest a different focus. If my speculation is on target, they could have been promoting right-wing outlet sources like Fox, Breitbart, and Info Wars.
vice.com/en_us/article/…
vice.com/en_us/article/…
The above 24chasa article states that Zhukov was arrested on Tuesday, November 6. It also reports that:
"We had meetings and talks with US and FBI officials, and the US Attorney-General"
"We had meetings and talks with US and FBI officials, and the US Attorney-General"
One has to wonder if they merely meant the US Attorney General's office, or if they literally meant Jeff Sessions. Especially since Sessions was fired the day after Zhukov was arrested.
Session's firing was a rush job, with Trump refusing to delay two days until Friday. Also, after appointing Whitaker, he went from Trump's guy to never-met-him guy in days. Perhaps this points to it being more of a snap judgement than many presumed.
The day after that, Rupert Murdoch had a mysterious meeting with Mitch McConnell, and since then, people have noted that Fox News and Wikileaks have gone silent. And Drudge Report deleted his tweets. Some of that may be otherwise explained, but all?
One more story may also be related to this mess:
justice.gov/opa/pr/justice…
justice.gov/opa/pr/justice…
While that story is about information sharing practices in advertising, and doesn't allege any improper manipulation of viewing statistics, one still has to wonder if there could be a connection in the timing of these things coming out at nearly the same time.
The buzz lately is that Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone are likely the next indictments we will see. But both Corsi and Stone have significant links to right-wing propaganda outlets, with Corsi coming from InfoWars and Stone having links to Wikileaks.
Could all these stories be linked, and coming to a head all at the same time? Is it possible that the facts behind their indictments will include a sweeping, complex, and sophisticated plan to manipulate U.S. media? Could there be a longer list of indictments coming?
Some people say they don't believe in coincidences. I do actually believe in them. They happen all the time.
But they still make me suspicious.
But they still make me suspicious.
If things do go this way, some other possible contenders for trouble here are True Pundit, Rudy Giuliani (perhaps linked to True Pundit), and General Michael Flynn, who made this infamous comment about a digital solders in November 2016.
