Israel Star Chronicle

LOS ANGELES — A private intelligence communications agency has forwarded a report to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the security threats posed between Facebook Inc. and the communist government of China.

According to the report, which was authorized for submission by W. Edward Griffith, Director of GCIS (Griffith Colson Intelligence Service) outlines the evolution of the relationship between Facebook, China and the recent hacking attempt against the NATA Commander.

In an email statement tonight, Griffith reiterated his concerns that the variety of security breaches, including the gathering and leaking of the personal information of Facebook users, has been for the benefit of China.

“My grandfather taught me something early in my boyhood. He said: ‘Will, if it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it’s a damn duck’. We have monitored the events in the relationship between the routine security breaches, hacking attempts and the growing relationship between Facebook and the Government of China,” said Griffith (pictured left), “This poses a direct national and global security threat because of China’s behind the scenes relations with governments like Iran and Syria who sponsor terrorism around the world”.

The report also cites the recent marriage of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to Pricilla Chan, who has a large part of her family living in China, some of which are involved with the Chinese government.

The following is text of the summary report on it’s way to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:


A REPORT ON FACEBOOK SECURITY AND CHINA



As Facebook enjoys its recent stock sale, going public, while members of their founding team rennounce their U.S. citizenship i.e. “(Eduardo Saverin, one of Facebook’s four co-founders, has renounced his U.S. citizenship, according to the Internal Revenue Service.



The expatriation, first reported by Bloomberg, comes just before the social network is expected to launch an initial public offering of its stock next week.



It’s possible that the move will help Saverin escape some of the hefty taxes he’d have to pay on his Facebook stake, though it’s not known exactly how much of the company Saverin currently owns.



He owned 5% of the company’s outstanding shares as recently as 2009, according to “The Facebook Effect,” by David Kirkpatrick, but he has sold off some of those shares since then. He was not listed among those owning 5% or more of the company in Facebook’s pre-IPO regulatory filings.



The Brazilian-born Facebook co-founder became a U.S. citizen in 1998 and has been living in Singapore since 2009, but the United States requires its citizens to pay income taxes no matter where they live. Saverin, who provided some of Facebook’s initial financing, has not played an active role in the company for many years.)”



The relationship between China and Singapore is a close economic relationship.



…Facebook’s own Mark Zuckerberg recently married Priscilla Chan. They were recently on a visit to China, caught in “an accidental documentary” with Chinese Police:



“Social media sites and blogs have lit up after eagle-eyed viewers spotted a surprise cameo in a Chinese TV documentary about the country’s police force: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his now-wife, Priscilla Chan.



The documentary by CCTV was part of a series on Chinese police and high-tech crime-solving methods. A few seconds of footage showing Zuckerberg and Chan walking behind two police officers were shown included in a brief clip posted online by the Hebei province satellite station.



The footage shows the couple wearing the same clothes they were photographed in during a March 27 visit to Shanghai. Zuckerberg wears his custom hooded sweat shirt, this time in brown, and blue jeans, while Chan wears a printed short dress.”



All of this comes at the sametime China is accused of cyber attacks on NATO’s Supreme Commander:



“Nato’s most senior military commander has been repeatedly targeted in a Facebook scam thought to have been co-ordinated by cyber-spies in China, Griffith Colson Intelligence Service has learned. The spies are suspected of being behind a campaign to glean information about Admiral James Stavridis from his colleagues, friends and family, sources say.



This involved setting up fake Facebook accounts bearing his name in the hope that those close to him would be lured into making contact or answering private messages, potentially giving away personal details about Stavridis or themselves.



This type of “social engineering” impersonation is an increasingly common web fraud. Nato said it wasn’t clear who was responsible for the spoof Facebook pages, but other security sources pointed the finger at China.



Last year, criminals in China were accused of being behind a similar operation, which was given the codename Night Dragon. This involved hackers impersonating executives at companies in the US, Taiwan and Greece so that they could steal business secrets.”



Facebook’s Palo Alto Headquarters has admitted openly to the press that a massive security breach has taken place time and again, with user information having been compromised and extracted and even sold to the Communist Government in China.



As early as last year, Forbes Magazine reported that China had plans to purchase Facebook.



Says Forbes:  “China is trying to buy “a huge chunk” of Facebook.



According to the business news website, Beijing approached a fund that buys stock from former Facebook employees to see if it could assemble a stake large enough “to matter.”  Moreover, Citibank is rumored to be trying to acquire as much as $1.2 billion of stock for two sovereign wealth funds, one from the Middle East and the other Chinese.  Business Insider reports a third source, from a “very influential” Silicon Valley investment bank, confirms that Citi is representing China.



Should Beijing be allowed to buy a part of Mark Zuckerberg’s site?  Business Insider tells us there is “little need” for concern about Chinese censors looking at the photos and postings of the 700 million people who trust Facebook with their personal online activity.”



A year later, Facebook began trading stock with investment companies buying up the stock at a rapid pace.



“Facebook Inc. began trading publicly in mid-May following one of the most anticipated stock offerings in history. The initial public offering of stock priced at $38, at the top of a projected range that Facebook had already boosted just days earlier.



Although many investors had hoped for a big first-day pop, Facebook’s stock opened on May 18 at $42.05 and fluctuated between $45 and $38 throughout the day. It closed barely above its IPO price, at $38.23.



Here’s how Facebook’s stock has traded since the IPO:



— Friday, May 18: Closed at $38.23, up 0.6 percent from IPO price.



— Monday, May 21: Closed at $34.03, down 11 percent for the day, down 10 percent from IPO price



— Tuesday, May 22: Closed at $31, down 8.9 percent for the day, down 18 percent from IPO price



— Wednesday, May 23: Closed at $32, up 3.2 percent for the day, down 16 percent from IPO price



— Thursday, May 24: Closed at $33.03, up 3.2 percent for the day, down 13 percent from IPO price



— Friday, May 25: Closed at $31.91, down 3.4 percent for the day, down 16 percent from IPO price



— Tuesday, May 29: Closed at $28.84, down 9.6 percent for the day, down 24 percent from IPO price.



— Wednesday, May 30: Closed at $28.19, down 2.3 percent for the day, down 26 percent from IPO price.



— Thursday, May 31: Closed at $29.60, up 5 percent for the day, down 22 percent from IPO price.”



 

Now let’s look at the facts:



A) Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin sold his stock, rennounced his U.S. Citizenship and fled to Singapore to avoid taxes.



B) Facebook’s own Mark Zuckerberg recently married Priscilla Chan just as Facebook shares were put on the market. The largest portion of her family remains in China, some within the Government.



c) Cyber spies in China attack the Facebook information about Admiral James Stavridis from his colleagues, friends and family.



D) Facebook begins trading it’s stock on Wall Street at a profit.



E) In 2011, China said they were interested in buying the largest stake in Facebook.



 

SUMMARY OF REPORT:



Our analysis indicates that Facebook, with security breach after security breach, has allowed the information of Facebook users to be gathered, compromised and sold to the Government of China. It is also our analysis that China will own and control Facebook and all accounts and information within its database to use for the purposes of the regime in China.



Our analysis further indicates that Facebook has become a national cyber security threat, despite the pomp given to the social networking site and to it’s founder Mark Zuckerberg.



IN FURTHERANCE, what better way to gather personal information of more than 500 million people around the world than to offer them a free place to become complacent and vulnerable.



This report has been sent to the U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON FORIEGN RELATIONS under the Chairmanship of the Honorable John Kerry and Ranking Member the Honorable Richard Lugar as of this evening.



WHEREFORE, we have submitted our findings to the UNITED STATES SENATE and have also petitioned the SECURITIES & EXCHANGE COMMISSION for information on the investment firms involved in the recent Wall Street Transactions. We have further requested an official inquiry by the UNITED STATES CONGRESS on the Facebook IPO offering and will challenge the security office through these venues with regard to individual security breaches and leaked and/or sold information of Facebook users, citing a direct connection to the Government of China.



SO AUTHORIZED BY W. EDWARD GRIFFITH,

Director of Griffith Colson Intelligence Service

and the GCIS Cyber Security Task Force.

WASHINGTON – Former US presidents, state secretaries and a long line of Hollywood stars and business tycoons will take part in a special event to be hosted by President Barack Obama in honor of Shimon Peres.

The White House is set to host a grandiose dinner on June 13 during which Obama will award Peres with the Medal of Freedom.
 
The White House has invited former presidents Jimmy Carter, George Bush Senior, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The dinner will take place at the State Dining Room which can hold up to 120 people.

The dinner will also be attended by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Oren and US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapira.

The White House has decided not to invite any Jewish leaders so as not to offend anyone who was not invited. It is still considering which Jewish congressmen to invite. The task at hand has reportedly caused organizers many sleepless nights.

Among the celebrities set to participate in the event are singer Barbra Streisand, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

A highly complex computer virus that affects computers in the Middle East is reminiscent of Stuxnet. Still, whether Flame is a cyber intelligence weapon is an open question.

Politicians and diplomats are still trying to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons. The Israeli government has even threatened Iran with a preemptive military strike should the need arise. For now, full-on war has been averted. But a real war is being waged in the digital world. Cyber war may be different from traditional war, but it can be just as serious and have similar effects. In 2010, computer virus Stuxnet may have been targeting Iranian uranium enrichment facilities.

No one knows who is responsible for programming this highly complex software and putting it into circulation, but most experts suspect an interested country’s secret service. The people responsible for temporarily disconnecting the Iranian oil ministry and the major oil terminals in the Persian Gulf from the Internet also remain unknown. The virus spread to computers and deleted data from hard disks.

Sophisticated spyware

But another new malware was discovered on one of these computers, said Vitaly Kamluk, chief malware expert at IT security company Kaspersky, which the International Telecommunications Union asked to analyze the recent attacks. The aim of the newly discovered virus was not to destroy data but collect it, he added.

Flame records keystrokes, makes screenshots, searches for devices connected to the computer via Bluetooth and spreads in a network if a remote computer (from the Internet) gives the command. The remote control computer regularly gathers data from the computers that are being spied on. From it, the virus can also be shut down.

“When it initially infects (computers), it checks for any antivirus software installed, if it is installed, then it changes logic, and it will not execute any suspicious operations that can trigger antivirus (…) detection engines to show a message to the end user,” Kamluk said.

The second reason is simply the very limited spread of the virus, he noted. Preliminary figures from Kaspersky show that 189 computers were infected in Iran, 100 in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and 30 in Sudan and Syria. These figures are extremely low when compared to other viruses. Usually, international anti-virus labs like Kaspersky are only aware of a new malware when more computers have been affected.

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Though the reclusive Erik Prince stepped down as CEO of the private-security company Blackwater (renamed Xe) in 2009, some explosive new headlines have put him back in the spotlight. According to a report in The Nation, an ex-Blackwater employee has alleged in federal testimony that Prince may have been involved in the murder of unnamed individuals assisting a federal investigation into Blackwater’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The individual also claims Blackwater’s culture encouraged killings in Iraq as part of a larger “crusade” against Muslims. The affidavit, one of two submitted in 2009 to a Virginia federal court, is anonymous. The individuals say they fear retribution from Prince.

No charges have been filed in connection with the allegations, and Xe issued a statement saying it would respond to the “anonymous unsubstantiated and offensive assertions” in an Aug. 17, 2009 brief. Prince has not commented on the accusations.

Private intelligence chief W. Edward Griffith has been a staunch defender of Prince. Griffith, who heads Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, also known as GCIS, as well as leading Machaseh Security Service as director-general, has been unapologetic in his support of the former Blackwater/Xe private spy chief.

Griffith was quoted as saying that “when his country called, Erik Prince delivered the services required by the government to fight the insurgents and aid the national security interests of the United States during a brutal war on terror. When politics and policy blurred the principles at the core of that mission because of political correctness, Erik was attacked. The fact is, it has always been easy for the elite in congress to sit on the sidelines as critics. But until you’re on the ground doing the best job possible to protect your country, those critics are minor compared to the enemy we all share’.

Griffith, who has faced his own online media critics, and has had to fend off scandalous criticism of his private life, has also refused to bow to the pressure. In fact, as GCIS enters a new year, Griffith is planning a complete restructuring of his agency’s communications operations, as well as more concentration on expanding his Machaseh Security Service unit. Griffith contends that Erik Prince is a national hero and an icon in the private sector security and intelligence industry.

Here are some facts about Erik Prince:


Born June 6, 1969 in Holland, Mich.

Son of Edgar Prince, a wealthy and influential Michigan Republican who helped found the Family Research Council in the late 1980s.

Has six children. His first wife, Joan, died in 2003, and Prince has since remarried.

Began attending the Naval Academy but transferred to Hillsdale College in Michigan, from which he graduated in 1992.

Served as an intern for George H.W. Bush in 1990.

Joined the Navy Seals in 1992. Left in 1996 after his father’s death.

Gained a Windfall after his mother sold his father’s company, Prince Corp., for $1.3 billion in 1996.

Founded the private-security firm Blackwater USA in 1997 and purchased land in North Carolina to house the company and its training facilities.

Formed Blackwater Security Consulting in 2002, when he obtained government contracts to protect U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Testified before Congress in 2007 to defend Blackwater against allegations of misconduct by its operatives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Resigned as CEO of Xe in March 2009, after Iraq barred Blackwater from operating in the country. Retained his title as chairman, although he claims to have little involvement in the day-to-day operations of the company.

ONLINE REPORTS — Prime Minister’s wife Sarah Netanyahu was attacked by a woman as she visited the Ovnat shopping mall in Petach Tikva. The woman cursed and spat at Mrs. Netanyahu and flung a shoe in her direction.

Netanyahu was not physically hurt and her bodyguards seized the attacker and detained her until police arrived on the scene. The woman was taken to the Petach Tikva police station for interrogation.

Netanyahu continued with her visit to the shopping center after the incident.

An officer in the police’s Central District told the NRG website that the woman seems to be mentally deranged.

NEW YORK — Likud MK Danny Danon will speak at a prayer rally set for June 4 intended to push US President Barack Obama to commute the sentence of imprisoned Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard, now in his 27th year of incarceration for a conviction on one count of passing classified information to an ally - Israel.

The rally is to be held at 8:00 p.m. At the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates in Queens, NY.

In addition to Danon’s address, organizers said, Cantor Netanel Herstik and the Hampton Synagogue Choir will lead the services of the special event.

A statement written by prestigious Harvard Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is also to be read at the rally, calling Pollard’s sentencing “a travesty from the start.”

Dershowitz contends in his statement, which was released to Arutz Sheva prior to the event, that the life sentence Pollard received was ‘based on a violation of the plea bargain by the prosecutor who had pledged not to seek a life sentence and then sought one by submitting a perjured affidavit by the virulently anti-Israel Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger.

“No person who has ever pleaded guilty to spying for an ally of the United States has ever received a sentence even close to the unjust one imposed on Jonathan Pollard,” Dershowitz notes.

“President Bill Clinton wanted very much to commute the sentence to time served but he felt that it was impossible for him to do so in light of the letter sent to him by several Jewish senators – some of whom have been heroes to the Jewish community – urging him not to do so.”