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Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

thegrayzone.com

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Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#31

Post by miguelazo »

_kbh_ wrote: post #17
miguelazo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> “ Alignment with Kremlin and Beijing interests"? Care to provide some evidence? They hire a lot of people that used to work for Russian state sponsored propaganda outlets and have a harshly pro Russian view of the Ukraine war with literally 0 objective analysis.

Objective to who, exactly? Care to name these people who supposedly worked for RT? Someone like Chris Hedges? The guy who worked for NYT and won a Pulitzer, but left because he got tired of the lies they were printing for the security state?

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#32

Post by kingsfoil »

## Better Sources About Anomaly Six

- Official site: https://www.anomalysix.com/ (practically nothing here)

- (The Intercept) https://theintercept.com/2022/04/22/anomaly-six-phone-tracki...

- (Court Case Filed against Anomaly Six by Babel Street) https://techinquiry.org/docs/A6-Babel-MoFo.pdf

- (WSJ) https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-government-contractor-embed... (article hidden behind paywall, explainer video at top of page is not)

- (Vice) https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vjxj/anomaly-6-six-special... (credit to OP for posting this in a comment)

Vice:

> Anomaly Six software lets its customers browse all of this data in a convenient and intuitive Google Maps-style satellite view of Earth. Users need only find a location of interest and draw a box around it, and A6 fills that boundary with dots denoting smartphones that passed through that area. Clicking a dot will provide you with lines representing the device’s — and its owner’s — movements around a neighborhood, city, or indeed the entire world.

WSJ:

> Anomaly Six LLC a Virginia-based company founded by two U.S. military veterans with a background in intelligence, said in marketing material it is able to draw location data from more than 500 mobile applications, in part through its own software development kit, or SDK, that is embedded directly in some of the apps. An SDK allows the company to obtain the phone’s location if consumers have allowed the app containing the software to access the phone’s GPS coordinates.

## Why The Grayzone may not be the best source:

- (Axios) https://www.axios.com/2020/08/11/grayzone-max-blumenthal-chi...

- (.coda) https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/grayzone-xinjiang-d...

- (The Grayzone top 12 stories in 2020) https://web.archive.org/web/20210129111336/https:/thegrayzon...

- (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2021-03/Stra...

Quotes from above article by ASPI (page 8):

> The Grayzone is one fringe news source, and its reach has been amplified by Chinese and Russian state-affiliated entities. Between December 2019 and February 2021, The Grayzone was cited in English at least 252 times in Chinese state-owned news outlets (the Global Times, CGTN and Xinhua) and a further 61 times in People’s Daily Online articles. Before December 2019, we could find no mentions of The Grayzone by Chinese media outlets in either English or Chinese. Peak total shares of The Grayzone articles on Twitter and Facebook also coincided with their amplification by Chinese state media outlets (Figure 6).

> The Grayzone’s top 12 stories of 2020 include accusations that Xinjiang forced labour stories are falsified by the US Government and the military–intelligence complex to drive a new Cold War (note: this included criticism of ASPI and the Center for Strategic and International Studies). The founders of The Grayzone have been interviewed by Chinese state media outlets, including the Global Times and CGTN, and have been featured on Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik Radio.

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#33

Post by _kbh_ »

miguelazo wrote: post #31
_kbh_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “ Alignment with Kremlin and Beijing interests"? Care to provide some evidence? They hire a lot of people that used to work for Russian state sponsored propaganda outlets and have a harshly pro Russian view of the Ukraine war with literally 0 objective analysis.

Objective to who, exactly? Care to name these people who supposedly worked for RT? Someone like Chris Hedges? The guy who worked for NYT and won a Pulitzer, but left because he got tired of the lies they were printing for the security state?

Objective to the truth is who, go find a retraction from them for anything regarding the war, or go find a single article of them calling out Russian war crimes we have caught on camera.

Speaking on the credibility for Russian “news outlets”, are you telling you seriously believe these stories are true?.

Ukraine using black magic battalions - RIA - https://www.newsweek.com/russian-media-accuse-ukraine-using-...

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#34

Post by solarkraft »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #11
InTheArena wrote: post #8

Please bear in mind that the site this is on appears to be a Russian propaganda machine. This story may have some validity to it - I haven't investigated yet - but a quick browse of the front page consists primarily of anti-ukraine conspiracy pages.

Not sure why you were downvoted. From what I can tell, you aren't wrong. The site has a history of alignment with Kremlin and Beijing interests. (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone ) This particular story doesn't seem egregious however. Thinking the worst, I can speculate how it might support a western surveillance state narrative. A too often accurate narrative, unfortunately. addendum: The columnist se…

> Max Blumenthal (...) who is the editor of The Grayzone website (...) is a regular contributor to Russian state-owned Sputnik and RT

Oh well.

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#35

Post by 41tor »

titzer wrote: post #5

I love how understated (or frankly clueless) these articles are. You should just assume that every mobile phone is reporting high accuracy (< 10m) location information at all times of the day, from tens to thousands of times a day, to a variety of aggregators. Essentially they are little snitches and we are all rats in a maze to their panopticon.

Or I could assume a corporation that wants my business won't purposefully violate my boundaries and prove themselves untrustworthy.

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#36

Post by InTheArena »

miguelazo wrote: post #30
InTheArena wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello Margarita Simonyan.

So clever you have to resort to attacking the commenter instead of the substance. Nice. Exactly like the people who claim the Grazyzone is a front for the Kremlin/Beijing/etc with zero evidence.

Hmm. This poster uses the exact same arguments Margarita regularly makes on Russian "news" channels to justify the bombing of children, the rape and murder of women, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the other crimes against humanity that Russia is engaged with.

10/10 match.

As for the investigation, this is what it popped up with:

Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American journalist, author and blogger who is the editor of The Grayzone website, which is known for spreading conspiracy theories and engaging in denial of atrocities committed by dictatorial regimes.[2][3][4][5][6] He was a writer for The Nation, AlterNet,[7] The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America,[8][9] and has contributed to Al Jazeera English, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.[8] He has been a writing fellow of the Nation Institute.[10] He is a regular contributor to Russian state-owned Sputnik and RT, and has been accused of spreading Russian propaganda.[11][12][13]

You choose to interpret pointing that out as an attack.

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#37

Post by InTheArena »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #18
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you were downvoted. From what I can tell, you aren't wrong. The site has a history of alignment with Kremlin and Beijing interests. (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone ) This particular story doesn't seem egregious however. Thinking the worst, I can speculate how it might support a western surveillance state narrative. A too often accurate narrative, unfortunately. addendum: The columnist se…

This is such a bullshit take on the GrayZone, which does great work (that yes, goes often against the mainstream views as force-shoved down peoples mind-throats). The fact that you then link Muckrack tells me you are not an honest actor, or interested in the truth.

I'll stick with Wikipedia: Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American journalist, author and blogger who is the editor of The Grayzone website, which is known for spreading conspiracy theories and engaging in denial of atrocities committed by dictatorial regimes.[2][3][4][5][6] He was a writer for The Nation, AlterNet,[7] The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America,[8][9] and has contributed to Al Jazeera English, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.[8] He has been a writing fellow of the Nation Institute.[10] He is a regular contributor to Russian state-owned Sputnik and RT, and has been accused of spreading Russian propaganda.[11][12][13]

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#38

Post by miguelazo »

InTheArena wrote: post #36
miguelazo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So clever you have to resort to attacking the commenter instead of the substance. Nice. Exactly like the people who claim the Grazyzone is a front for the Kremlin/Beijing/etc with zero evidence.

Hmm. This poster uses the exact same arguments Margarita regularly makes on Russian "news" channels to justify the bombing of children, the rape and murder of women, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the other crimes against humanity that Russia is engaged with. 10/10 match. As for the investigation, this is what it popped up with: Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American journalist, autho…

Ooooh! He has contributed to Sputnik and RT! Must be a Kremlin spy, just like everyone who contributes to NPR and VoA is a CIA asset. Get a clue.

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#39

Post by uoaei »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #11
InTheArena wrote: post #8

Please bear in mind that the site this is on appears to be a Russian propaganda machine. This story may have some validity to it - I haven't investigated yet - but a quick browse of the front page consists primarily of anti-ukraine conspiracy pages.

Not sure why you were downvoted. From what I can tell, you aren't wrong. The site has a history of alignment with Kremlin and Beijing interests. (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone ) This particular story doesn't seem egregious however. Thinking the worst, I can speculate how it might support a western surveillance state narrative. A too often accurate narrative, unfortunately. addendum: The columnist se…

> The site has a history of alignment with Kremlin and Beijing interests.

Critiques of US policy do not imply support for Russian or Chinese policy. Explanations of Russian or Chinese rationale in responses to US actions are not the same as condoning those responses.

Sun Tzu says, know your enemy; how can you know your enemy if you don't even know how they think? This kind of analysis is important for understanding how geopolitics proceeds, and quickly illuminates the ways that state actors act to prolong profitable conflicts, since the responses to certain actions are obvious and inevitable in the grand scheme.

Discomfort in the face of critique is not proof that those critiques are invalid...

I, for one, as a US citizen, would rather the US address its own issues so that others don't have standing to criticize its policies and actions. Obviating propaganda is way more effective than censoring it, and for these kinds of critiques almost surely improves quality of life and GDP for its own citizens.

Re: Anomaly 6: Private spying firm targets global population with illegal spyware

#40

Post by uoaei »

InTheArena wrote: post #37
arminiusreturns wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a bullshit take on the GrayZone, which does great work (that yes, goes often against the mainstream views as force-shoved down peoples mind-throats). The fact that you then link Muckrack tells me you are not an honest actor, or interested in the truth.

I'll stick with Wikipedia: Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American journalist, author and blogger who is the editor of The Grayzone website, which is known for spreading conspiracy theories and engaging in denial of atrocities committed by dictatorial regimes.[2][3][4][5][6] He was a writer for The Nation, AlterNet,[7] The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America,[8][9] and has contributed…

Wikipedia is one of the main targets for astroturfing campaigns. You might as well be saying "I prefer to be propagandized"
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