…who knows? [DOT 25/4/21]

…I figured I’d maybe skip the usual litany of links I cram into these on the basis that “a change is as good as a rest” & use up a few about the UK for today…but before I get to that…this is…something?

While the world was distracted with President Donald Trump leaving office on Jan. 20, an obscure Florida company discreetly announced to the world’s computer networks a startling development: It now was managing a huge unused swath of the Internet that, for several decades, had been owned by the U.S. military.
[…]
The company, Global Resource Systems LLC, kept adding to its zone of control. Soon it had claimed 56 million IP addresses owned by the Pentagon. Three months later, the total was nearly 175 million. That’s almost 6 percent of a coveted traditional section of Internet real estate — called IPv4 — where such large chunks are worth billions of dollars on the open market.

The entities controlling the largest swaths of the Internet generally are telecommunications giants whose names are familiar: AT&T, China Telecom, Verizon. But now at the top of the list was Global Resource Systems — a company founded only in September that has no publicly reported federal contracts and no obvious public-facing website.
[…]
The only announcement of Global Resources Systems’ management of Pentagon addresses happened in the obscure world of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) — the messaging system that tells Internet companies how to route traffic across the world. There, messages began to arrive telling network administrators that IP addresses assigned to the Pentagon but long dormant could now accept traffic — but it should be routed to Global Resource Systems.
[…]
“They are now announcing more address space than anything ever in the history of the Internet,” said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for Kentik, a network monitoring company, who was among those trying to figure out what was happening. He published a blog post on the mystery Saturday morning.
[…]
The change is the handiwork of an elite Pentagon unit known as the Defense Digital Service, which reports directly to the secretary of defense. The DDS bills itself as a “SWAT team of nerds” tasked with solving emergency problems for the department and conducting experimental work to make big technological leaps for the military.
[…]
The specifics of what the effort is trying to achieve remain unclear. The Defense Department declined to answer a number of questions about the project, and Pentagon officials declined to say why Goldstein’s unit had used a little-known Florida company to carry out the pilot effort rather than have the Defense Department itself “announce” the addresses through BGP messages — a far more routine approach.

What is clear, however, is the Global Resource Systems announcements directed a fire hose of Internet traffic toward the Defense Department addresses. Madory said his monitoring showed the broad movements of Internet traffic began immediately after the IP addresses were announced Jan. 20.
[…]
The data may provide information about how malicious actors operate online and could reveal exploitable weaknesses in computer systems. In addition, several Chinese companies use network numbering systems that resemble the U.S. military’s IP addresses in their internal systems, Madory said. By announcing the address space through Global Resource Systems, that could cause some of that information to be routed to systems controlled by the U.S. military.
[…]
“If you have a very large amount of traffic, and someone knows how to go through it, you’ll find stuff,” Madory added.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/04/24/pentagon-internet-address-mystery/

…so…that’s fun…or possibly games…but I’m sure it’s fine…it’s not as though in this day & age there’s a tendency to put excessive faith in what “the computer says”

Judges have quashed the convictions of 39 former postmasters after the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice.

They were convicted of stealing money, with some imprisoned, after the Post Office installed the Horizon computer system in branches.
[…]
The clearing of the names of 39 people follows the overturning of six other convictions in December, This means more people have been affected than in any other miscarriage of justice in the UK.
[…]
Neil Hudgell, who represented 29 of the former sub-postmasters, said the Post Office “has been found to have been an organisation that not only turned a blind eye to the failings in its hugely expensive IT system, but positively promoted a culture of cover-up and subterfuge in the pursuit of reputation and profit”.

“They readily accepted that loss of life, liberty and sanity for many ordinary people as a price worth paying in that pursuit,” he said.
[…]
Following the convictions – including theft, fraud and false accounting – some of these former postmasters went to prison, were shunned by their communities and struggled to secure work.

Some lost their homes and even failed to get insurance owing to their convictions. Three have since died.

They always said the fault was in the computer system, which had been used to manage post offices’ finances since 1999.

Convicted Post Office workers have names cleared [BBC]

The Post Office-Horizon scandal is one of the greatest injustices in British legal history [The Daily Telegraph]

A group of former sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have seen their names cleared at the Court of Appeal after the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice.
[…]
Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses – an average of one a week – based on information from a recently installed computer system called Horizon.
[…]
After 20 years, campaigners won a legal battle to have their cases reconsidered, after claiming that the computer system was flawed.
[…]
Horizon was introduced into the Post Office network from 1999. The system, developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, was used for tasks such as transactions, accounting and stocktaking.

Sub-postmasters complained about bugs in the system after it reported shortfalls, some of which amounted to many thousands of pounds.

Some sub-postmasters attempted to plug the gap with their own money, even remortgaging their homes, in an (often fruitless) attempt to correct an error.
[…]
So far, nobody at the Post Office or Fujitsu has been held accountable, although the High Court judge said he would refer Fujitsu to the Director of Public Prosecutions for possible further action because he had “grave concerns” about the evidence of the company’s employees.

Post Office scandal: What the Horizon saga is all about [BBC]

…if anyone’s interested the BBC’s Radio 4 is half-way through a series that goes into detail about the whole thing…it’s in 15min installments & I think the first one should be here…but I’m sure it could never happen in america…well…probably not…maybe…anyway…where was I?

The Cabinet Office is to launch an internal investigation into the leak of Boris Johnson’s text messages with the billionaire businessman James Dyson – while concerns grow about his routine use of a personal mobile in government.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said the decision had been made to launch a formal investigation into the leak, which showed that Johnson promised to change tax rules by saying: “I will fix it tomo!”

But the inquiry will not examine a string of other leaks, including a text to the prime minister from the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, or leaked emails about donations solicited to cover the renovations of the prime minister’s flat.
[…]
Labour argued a leak inquiry missed the point. The opposition is expected to step up the pressure on the government, and demand that all ministers disclose their text message correspondence relating to government contracts in the coming days.
[…]
But some ministers and special advisers fear any new rules obliging them to report every unsolicited text could “open the floodgates” and say “government by WhatsApp” is the norm across Westminster.

Others who have worked in Whitehall warned that Johnson has a “looser style” of government and may not always run all his communication through his private office. Number 10 has said the prime minister always abides by the rules.

“There is a loophole that none of this stuff has to be publicly declared, as long as you are telling your officials of any government business, but if these inquiries order that everything needs to be declared, it will be mountains,” one former official said.

Another former civil servant who was responsible for business liaison with Downing Street and other departments, said they believed that Johnson’s mobile phone use demonstrated that “he just doesn’t understand that there needs to be a level of transparency and accountability” in regards to his actions.

They argued that the danger with engaging in direct correspondence was that it implied that the prime minister believed that “his own judgment on something is sufficient and no further information or assessment is required”.
[…]
The row was sparked after the prime minister was revealed to have texted the pro-Brexit billionaire Dyson last year, promising that his staff would not have to pay extra tax if they came to the UK to make ventilators during the pandemic.

On Wednesday, Downing St had said that there would be no leak inquiry, only to change its mind 24 hours later.

“We have now decided to undertake this internal inquiry,” the spokesperson said. “As you would expect, we continually look at this and the position we decided today is that we want to make sure we have this internal inquiry into that.”

It will be an internal Cabinet Office inquiry and will not involve the police or the security services. It is understood the texts from Dyson were forwarded to a number of officials and aides in Whitehall.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/22/leak-inquiry-launched-amid-concerns-over-pms-mobile-phone-use

…this is of course a traditional approach known as “marking your own homework” so to suggest that it’ll come back saying everything’s fine & nothing dodgy happened is more or less a given…but…well…you might want some context

In a notable chronology, Downing Street officials announced an inquiry on Thursday into the leaking of text messages between Johnson and the billionaire vacuum cleaner magnate, James Dyson. Hours later, those “No 10 sources” re-emerged to identify the supposed culprit as [Dominic] Cummings.

The briefing was a curious mix of the deeply personal – Cummings was described as bitter that Johnson’s government had thrived since his departure – and the highly organised, with near-identical quotes released simultaneously, under a strict 10.15pm embargo, to three friendly newspapers.
[…]
Never one to go down without a fight, Cummings denied in a blog post published on Friday afternoon that he was the source of the Dyson leak. He also accused the Number 10 staffer Henry Newman and apparent friend of the prime minister’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds, of being the mole behind another leak last year concerning England’s second national lockdown.

Cummings recounted that Johnson was worried about having to sack Newman, so wanted to shut down the leak inquiry, and that he had proof in the form of “WhatsApp messages with very senior officials about this matter which are definitive”.

Cummings also confirmed Johnson had told him of plans to have “donors secretly pay” for renovations to the flat above No11 where he, Symonds and their son Wilf live, called for an urgent inquiry into the government’s conduct of the Covid crisis, and accused the prime minister and his office of falling “below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves”.

The row also highlights the fact that while the post-Cummings No 10 is arguably less fractious, it has not been notably less chaotic, shaken by a series of leaked private messages sent to and from the prime minister, and by a torrent of revelations about lobbying, not least connected to David Cameron.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/23/post-cummings-quiet-life-goes-to-pot-as-no-10-sources-leak-and-brief

…the cameron thing is a whole other ball of wax & I’ll get to it in a minute…but for those that don’t know…dominic cummings is the guy who was broadly in charge of the “vote leave” brexit campaign & later brought on board by boris to “get brexit done” from a non-elected but none the less highly influential position within government…someone who was apparently so vital to the mop-headed one that he burned no end of political capital in order to keep him in position even after cummings consistently managed to make it clear he’s a massive asshole…perhaps the best known example of which involved a trip to a place called barnard castle…which even has its own entry in wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Cummings_scandal

…eventually he did get the boot

…which many believe had much to do with the influence of boris’ fiancé…that would be carrie symonds…the lady he most recently got pregnant…not jennifer arcuri…that’s the lady he previously had an affair with for some years before he got divorced & who may as a result have had some improper advantages granted to her business…but not to worry…another of those self-administered inquiries declared it was totally fine & boris hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of

Maybe, as some have wearily suggested, only the very unsophisticated will still recoil from scenes like the one – detailed by Arcuri – that preceded Boris Johnson’s appearance between his wife and Princess Anne at an Olympics ceremony. “I couldn’t even find his sock.” These sort of things probably happen at the BBC the whole time. Same – yawn – with the panting mayoral requests (“Photo x”) when the lovers were apart. Given his long-advertised affectations, it’s admittedly no surprise the mayor recited Shakespeare with the much younger literature fan he was about to shag on the sofa, minutes before his wife arrived home. Though Macbeth is an unexpected choice. Which bit was it? “‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly’ – keep up Jennifer old girl, she’s due back any minute.”

But even if long exposure to Johnson has desensitised many to these horrors, the Sunday Mirror’s story made it unprecedentedly clear how unsparingly the prime minister applied himself, for years, to the pursuit of extramarital sex. When you appreciate, like this, the gruelling routine – from isolating the next target and furtively getting her number, finding meeting places, dodging security staff, downing the meals, reciting sonnet 29 (again), then dealing with the pregnancies, the discoveries, denials, domestic explosions, all of it, over and over, it’s not going to leave much time, is it, what with the Telegraph columns to knock off, plus a book, maybe even a child or six playing up? Factor in demanding histrionics of the kind Johnson reportedly enjoyed during the (denied) four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt and we’ve probably had it the wrong way round about his priorities. He’s not a top politician in thrall to priapism, but the reverse: a pound-shop libertine for whom public life is rewarding chiefly for its sexual opportunities, its wife-placating alibis and that most enticing of baits, high status.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/04/boris-johnson-man-of-principles-we-should-thank-jennifer-arcuri-for-exposing-them

…anyway…carrie doesn’t like dominic…& dominic didn’t like being used as a convenient scapegoat…so…well…a lot of toys have been thrown out of several prams in the last week or so

Dominic Cummings has launched an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on Boris Johnson, alleging that the prime minister tried to quash a leak inquiry as it implicated an ally, and hatched a “possibly illegal” plan for donors to pay to renovate his flat.

The outburst by Cummings, a day after anonymous No 10 sources claimed that he had leaked private text messages between Johnson and the billionaire James Dyson, prompted Labour to accuse the government of “fighting each other like rats in a sack”.

Cummings used a lengthy post on his personal blog to deny any leaking. Instead, he accused Johnson and his team of a series of wrongdoings. He said the prime minister had behaved in a way he considered “mad and totally unethical”, and warned that he would happily give evidence under oath to an inquiry.

“It is sad to see the PM and his office fall so far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves,” he wrote.

Such a damning intervention by the man who was Johnson’s key ally and ideological inspiration will deeply alarm the prime minister and his aides. Cummings is due to give evidence to MPs next month.
[…]
“I am happy to meet with the cabinet secretary and for him to search my phone for Dyson messages,” he wrote. “If the PM did send them to me, as he is claiming, then he will be able to show the cabinet secretary on his own phone when they were sent to me.

“I am also happy to publish or give to the cabinet secretary the PM/Dyson messages that I do have, which concerned ventilators, bureaucracy and Covid policy – not tax issues.”
[…]
In perhaps the most potentially devastating allegation in his blogpost, Cummings claimed that in a meeting after the leak, the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, told him and Johnson that “all the evidence” pointed to Henry Newman, then an adviser at the Cabinet Office, who has since moved to No 10. Newman is known to be close to Carrie Symonds, Johnson’s fiancee, seen as a key figure in Cummings’ removal from his job.

Cummings wrote: “The PM was very upset about this. He said to me afterwards: ‘If Newman is confirmed as the leaker, then I will have to fire him, and this will cause me very serious problems with Carrie as they’re best friends … [pause] Perhaps we could get the cabinet secretary to stop the leak inquiry?’

“I told him that this was ‘mad’ and totally unethical, that he had ordered the inquiry himself and authorised the cabinet secretary to use more invasive methods than are usually applied to leak inquiries because of the seriousness of the leak. I told him that he could not possibly cancel an inquiry about a leak that affected millions of people just because it might implicate his girlfriend’s friends.”
[…]
He said he had warned some officials about Johnson’s plans, and that they would give evidence under oath to an inquiry, adding: “I also have WhatsApp messages with very senior officials about this matter which are definitive.”

On Friday night, No 10 said: “The PM has never interfered in a government leak inquiry.”

Finally, Cummings said he had warned Johnson about renovations to his Downing Street flat costing a reported £58,000, for which the prime minister had allegedly sought outside funding from Conservative supporters.

He wrote: “I told him I thought his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended… I refused to help him organise these payments.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/23/dominic-cummings-launches-attack-on-boris-johnson

…downing street naturally assures anyone who’s interested that boris totally paid for those renovations himself…which may well even be true…provided you don’t want to know where the money was before it hit his account…but I’m sure that sort of question is impertinent…as opposed to…say…pertinent

The former attorney general, Dominic Grieve, has described Boris Johnson as a “vacuum of integrity” as the prime minister came under pressure to explain how the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat was paid for following an explosive attack by his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings.

The government has said Johnson paid for the refurbishment, reportedly costed at £58,000, but in an explosive blog post, Cummings claimed the prime minister had sought outside funding from Conservative supporters.

Grieve, a long-standing critic of the prime minister, joined Labour in calling on Johnson to explain how the revamp of the Downing Street property was funded.

The former attorney general told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he thought it has become “quite clear” that Johnson was given “a significant gift” towards the flat’s refurbishment, adding: “It is all smoke and mirrors. He hasn’t said when he decided to repay it or whether he has now repaid it.”

Comparing the alleged £58,000 plan to receiving a gift on a ministerial trip overseas, Grieve said: “If a minister goes abroad and gets given a gold watch by a foreign minister he has to hand it back to the government or he has to buy it back. He doesn’t end up with £58,000 – if that’s the figure – for refurbishing your private flat in Downing Street.

“My impression is there has been constant wriggling about the source of the money for this refurbishment.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/24/boris-johnson-a-vacuum-of-integrity-dominic-grieve-joins-downing-street-row

…I know the numbers seem pretty tame compared to the patented grift-o-matic approach of the impeachment² era…but honestly as far as the UK is concerned it’s kind of a big deal…which is strange since actually there are considerably bigger numbers involved in contracts that were/are awarded to the conservative party’s “chums”

The sums are so vast, the secrecy so shocking, that “chumocracy” doesn’t begin to capture what Britain has become – redolent as we are of banana republics, the Russian oligarchy and failed states. Lost is Britain’s self-image as the bowler-hatted beacon of civic rectitude, as our erstwhile Rolls-Royce civil service goes the way of, well, Rolls-Royce, no longer a British-owned car company.

The Good Law Project, the admirable not-for-profit public-cleanser, last week proved in the high court that the government had breached what the judge called the “vital public function” of transparency over “vast quantities” of taxpayers’ money. A VIP fast-lane for protective equipment contracts made the contacts of ministers, MPs, peers and officials 10 times more likely to win contracts. PPE prices sky-rocketed: even bodybags were being charged at 14 times their previous cost. The Good Law Project’s demands for publication of those favoured suppliers, their VIP sponsors and prices paid have been denied so far.

Why the secrecy? The Guardian has already revealed that the medical regulator is investigating Alex Bourne, health secretary Matt Hancock’s ex-neighbour, who won £30m of work producing medical vials, despite having no experience in the field.

In the panic over empty PPE shelves in hospitals and care homes, that dash to procure might be forgiven were it not that favours to friends is the everyday modus operandi for Boris Johnson. But before a litany of his civic shame, pause here to enjoy this, the foreword he wrote to the ministerial code: “There must be no bullying and no harassment; no leaking; no breach of collective responsibility. No misuse of taxpayer money and no actual or perceived conflicts of interest. The precious principles of public life enshrined in this document – integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest – must be honoured at all times; as must the political impartiality of our much admired civil service.” Ha!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/22/cronyism-britain-rampant-banana-republic-covid-contracts-government

…which brings me back to the cameron thing…because in a somewhat ironic twist…the thing that’s currently making the other eton & oxford university alum to head up a tory government recently look like a man on the take mostly has to do with trying & failing to secure some of that cushy government cash for a company he totally wasn’t lobbying for (on account of how he worked there…no, really…apparently that’s how the fine print works on that) & which has subsequently gone bust…which kinda sucks for davey boy

Greensill Capital was considering a £22bn stock market flotation – a figure that dwarfs previous estimates and implied a potential nine-figure windfall for its adviser David Cameron – only weeks before the former prime minister’s intensive government lobbying.

The new figure is revealed in a presentation for the company’s board in late January 2020 by its bankers Credit Suisse, which outlined plans to position “Greensill for a premium valuation”, described the lender as a “once in a generation” company that “any growth investor must own”.
[…]
Previous reports have suggested that Cameron was granted a stake of around 1% in Greensill for his advisory role, which implies the former prime minister could have been anticipating a windfall of around £200m at that time – assuming the Credit Suisse valuation was achieved.
[…]
The $30bn valuation represents a snapshot in early 2020, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, of Greensill’s ambitions for a future flotation. The lender however started to face “significant pressure” months later, as the spread of the coronavirus sent markets into turmoil.

When Greensill tried to raise more funds from new investors at lower valuation in late 2020 it was unsuccessful, with the company eventually collapsing in spring this year.

However the Credit Suisse presentation gives an indication of the vast sums Cameron may have anticipated earning from his work for Greensill when, in early 2020, he embarked on an intensive lobbying campaign across Whitehall on behalf of his employer.

Revelations about the way Cameron pressed ministers and civil servants to support Greensill’s business have prompted eight separate inquiries.

On Thursday it emerged that Cameron had repeatedly pushed the Bank of England and the Treasury to risk up to £20bn in taxpayer cash to help Greensill during March and April 2020, just weeks after the creation of the Credit Suisse document and as the lender started to face “significant” financial pressure at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cameron urged Bank officials at that time to support Greensill by providing it with access to the Covid corporate financing facility (CCFF), a government scheme that bought loans from financial services companies.

During the same period Cameron also sent multiple texts to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in an effort to gain access to the same 100% government-backed loan programme – an endeavour that ultimately proved unsuccessful as Greensill never gained access to the scheme.

However, the company was later accredited to the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme (CLBILS), handing it the ability to offer government-backed loans of up to £50m.
[…]
Cameron has previously rejected suggestions that he was motivated by the prospect of a huge payout, stating: “My remuneration was partly in the form of a grant of shares. Their value was nowhere near the amount speculated in the press [around £60m].”

He has added: “In my representations to government, I was breaking no codes of conduct and no government rules. The registrar of consultant lobbyists has found that my activities did not fall within the criteria that require registration.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/greensill-expected-22bn-flotation-that-could-have-meant-cameron-windfall

…so…I’ll no doubt be back to bitching about things stateside next week but I thought that might entertain folks on their day of rest?