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cinema-tv-etc · 2 years

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Five Fearless Female WWII Spies and Resistors

Operating behind enemy lines, women took on some of the war effort's most dangerous clandestine work.

April 2, 2021 By Erika Robuck

VIA BERKLEY BOOKS

“From the purely tactical point of view, women were able to move about without exciting so much suspicion as men and were therefore exceedingly useful to us…”

—Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone: The Story of British Agents in France

While researching my latest novel, The Invisible Woman, about Allied spy Virginia Hall, I made a surprising discovery. Nazis largely didn’t think women were as brave, intelligent, and even devious and vengeful as men. Because of this, women were often overlooked in the hunt for resistors and spies.

German propaganda at the time depicted a feminine ideal of woman as mother, preferably of four or more children, tending home quietly and with docility. How surprised Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, “The Butcher of Lyon,” was to discover one of the most troublesome resistors in his region was not only a woman, but a woman with a prosthetic leg.

Barbie christened Virginia Hall “La Dame qui Boite (The Lady who Limps), Most Dangerous of Allied Spies” and put her face on wanted posters. Little did he know she was just one of many women operating in the shadows to destroy the Nazis—women whose stories would be unbelievable if they weren’t true.

Noor Inayat Kahn

Born in 1914 in Moscow to an American mother and an Indian father, Noor grew up across the globe, but mostly in France. She was a pacifist, a writer of children’s books, and a descendent of an 18th century Muslim ruler. After the fall of France, her family escaped to London. As a bilingual member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, she was recruited for the British clandestine service, the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The first female wireless operator (WO) sent to Occupied France she went in spite of knowing WOs had a life expectancy of six weeks behind enemy lines.

After her network was compromised, HQ urged Noor to return to London, but she was the last WO left standing in her region and she refused to abandon her post. She managed to continue for four months before being betrayed by a Frenchwoman. Noor was deported to a German prison, was tortured, and was ultimately executed at Dachau Concentration Camp. She was posthumously awarded France’s Croix de Guerre and Britain’s George Cross.

Josephine Baker

Born in 1906 in Missouri, Josephine Baker joined a vaudeville act in her teens, but racism in the US sent her to France, where segregation didn’t exist on the same scale as it did at home. Her fearless, erotic performances in Paris propelled her to massive stardom, and she became one of the wealthiest and most celebrated performers in Europe. When war broke out, she hid refugees and resistors in her chateau, and helped procure false papers for their escapes.

Her job as a performer allowed her to travel, and she gathered intelligence at Axis functions for the Allies, recording what she learned on sheet music with invisible ink. When the Nazis heard rumors of her activity and started to close in, she was evacuated to London. For her service, General de Gaulle awarded Baker the Rosette de la Résistance, the Croix de Guerre, and named her a Chevalier de Légion d’honneur.

Micheline Dumon

Born in Brussels in 1921, Micheline Dumon and her family were in the Belgian Resistance. They started The Comet Line, an escape and evasion network for downed Allied aviators that ran from Belgium, through France, and into Spain. When her parents and younger sister, Andrée, were arrested due to a betrayer, Micheline took over leadership, even escorting and guiding pilots over the Pyrenees on many trips.

She was arrested and questioned on multiple occasions, but because she looked so young—she could pass for a thirteen-year-old—and could call forth the tears to support her alleged age, she was released. Throughout the war, Micheline searched for the betrayer, and eventually helped in his capture. She personally escorted 250 aviators, and nearly 800 in total were saved on The Comet Line. After the war, Dumon was decorated with the George Medal and the US Medal of Freedom.

Violette Szabo

Born in France in 1921 to a French mother and a British father, Violette grew up between the two countries, with France as her first love. After escaping France with her little brother as it fell to the Nazis, she joined the rest of her family in London. On Bastille Day, 1940, Violette’s mother asked Violette to find and invite an exiled French soldier to dinner. That man was French Legionnaire Etienne Szabo, and he and Violette fell in love. Married after a five-week courtship, Violette became pregnant while Etienne was on leave, and gave birth to her daughter, Tania, in July of 1942. In October of ’42, Etienne was killed in the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa, having never set eyes on his little girl.

Fueled by a wish to serve and a need for vengeance, and as a bilingual sharpshooter and member of both the Land Army and the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Violette was recruited to join the SOE. She parachuted into Occupied France on two missions but was arrested shortly into the second, just after D-Day, after a shootout resulted in the death of at least one Nazi. She was imprisoned in France before deportation to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany and was executed there in February of 1945.

In 1947, King George himself pinned little Tania with Violette’s posthumous George Cross award, and Tania received her mother’s Croix de Guerre from the French Ambassador two years later.

Virginia Hall

I don’t want to reveal too much about Virginia Hall, only that if I’d made up a story about a woman with a prosthetic leg, wanted by the Gestapo, who escaped Nazi Occupied France over the snow-covered Pyrenees, only to return weeks before D-Day as a wireless operator, arming and training guerrilla fighters while hunting her first network’s betrayer, you wouldn’t believe it.

If you’d like to learn more about Hall, perhaps you’ll pick up a copy of The Invisible Woman.

***

🔗 👉 https://crimereads.com/five-fearless-female-wwii-spies-and-resistors/

Berkley Books Erika Robuck espionage Josephine Baker Micheline Dumon Noor Inayat Kahn Resistance Women spies The Invisible Woman Violette Szabo Virginia Hall World War II WWII

#Women spies #Spies #Resistance #Women spie #World War II #espionage

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Upcoming Movies to Watch in 2022

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It’s been a bit of a funny couple of years for movies, in case you hadn’t noticed. But COVID be damned, there is every chance that 2022 could be the year in film we were all hoping 2021 was going to be. It’s a packed new release calendar which sees everything from heavy-hitter directors, promising-looking indies, action-drenched blockbusters, and a full roster of superhero movies to get buzzed about.

We’ve rounded up a master list of the films we’re most excited about with dates that were correct on the day of publication. We’ll try to keep these updated as things change. Let’s put 2021 behind us, and take a look at the cracking year of cinema ahead.

The 355

Release Date: Jan. 7

After the success of James Bond’s latest adventure in theaters this year, Universal Pictures is dishing its own spy thriller with The 355, which stars Jessica Chastain as a CIA agent who must form her own international super team of secret agents to recover a weapon that threatens the planet. Together, these spies form a new faction called “355” that includes British, Chinese, Colombian, and German agents.

Chastain came up with the idea for a female-led spy movie while working on X-Men flick Dark Phoenix with director Simon Kinberg, who is now helming this actioner. But this isn’t just a work of pure fantasy. The codename “355” is steeped in real-world history as it refers to the still-unidentified female spy who helped the Patriots during the American Revolution. She was a pivotal member of the Culper Ring, the spy network responsible for stealing information from the British Army’s NYC headquarters. Will The 355 all tie back to 1776 somehow? The movie’s star-studded cast also includes Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Bingbing Fan, and Penelope Cruz. Sebastian Stan and Edgar Ramirez also co-star.

Scream

Release Date: Jan. 14

Despite being simply titled Scream, this will actually be the fifth installment in the cult horror series created by the late, great Wes Craven. Fortunately, this series has aged like fine wine. Set 25 years after the initial Ghostface murders, a new killer has donned the mask to stalk the town of Woodsboro, and a brand new cast of teens played by Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding, Jenna Ortega, Mikey Madison, Dylan Minnette, Sonia Ammar, and Jasmin Savoy Brown. Fortunately, the kids have three Ghostface-hunting experts on their side this time around: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette return as Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, respectively.

As Sidney says in the movie’s trailer, the three heroes will stop at nothing to catch this new Ghostface, but not all of the kids will make it out alive.

While this is the first Scream film not helmed by Craven himself (the director passed in 2015), original Scream writer Kevin Williamson, who also penned I Know What You Did Last Summer, is on board as executive producer while Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are picking up directing duties. The two have plenty of street cred when it comes to horror. After all, they’re two of the filmmakers behind fan-favorite shockers V/H/S and Ready or Not. Judging from what we’ve seen so far, expect many of the classic franchise scares but also a few modern twists akin to the recent Halloween.

Moonfall

Release Date: Feb. 4

It’s a Roland Emmerich disaster movie about the moon hurtling towards Earth. It stars Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson. ‘Nuff said.

Death on the Nile

Release Date: Feb 11

Another starry cast, another impossibly opulent journey, and another murder to solve for superstar detective Hercule Poirot in Kenneth Branagh‘s COVID-delayed follow-up to 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express. This time the generously mustachioed Belgian is charged with tracking down a killer who has struck during a deluxe Egyptian cruise.

Potential suspects—and indeed victims—include Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Gal Gadot, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright, and Armie Hammer, who completed this film well before his recent troubles in the press.

Movies

Belfast: Kenneth Branagh Remembers a Childhood That’s a Million Miles from Shakespeare

By Don Kaye

Movies

The Batman May Have Confirmed Major Riddler Moment from the Comics

By John Saavedra

Branagh’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery, published in 1937, should provide plenty of twists and turns against some stunning backdrops—the movie was shot on locations in Aswan, Luxor, and Cairo—as Hercule attempts to unravel the killing of a newlywed during a luxury honeymoon vacation. Expect fabulous outfits, fancy accents, gorgeous cinematography, and Branagh acting his socks off.

The Batman

Release Date: March 4

Easily the most eagerly anticipated superhero film of 2022, Matt Reeves’ star-studded combination of grim superhero action and film noir severs all ties to the DCEU and tells a complex tale situated in a young Caped Crusader’s second year on the job. The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as a deeply haunted Bruce Wayne/Dark Knight, battling underworld kingpins like Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell) and Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) while tracking a macabre serial killer known as the Riddler (Paul Dano) and romancing a mysterious thief named Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz).

Reeves’ vision of the Bat and Gotham City looks even darker and more street-level than Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight at first glance, and it will be fascinating to see the underrated Pattinson inhabit such a mythic role for the first time. We’re also excited by the prospect of new big-screen interpretations of classic baddies like the Penguin and the Riddler for the first time since Danny DeVito and Jim Carrey chewed up the scenery in those parts decades ago. The third version of Batman in 10 years—following Christian Bale’s reluctant hero and Ben Affleck’s rage-fueled squad leader—may prove to be that most elusive creature of all: the definitive one.

Turning Red

Release Date: March 11

Pixar’s latest stars Rosalie Chiang as an angsty teen who not only has to navigate adolescence but also her transformation into a panda! It’s a nutty premise but one that promises one of the most beloved animation houses is going back to their roots by taking wild gambits into the unexpected and unusual. And, indeed, if you’ve seen the above teaser, a Pixar movie with Miyazaki influences is very strange, indeed.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Release Date: April 8

The Sonic the Hedgehog cinematic universe expands in this sequel which sees Sonic again facing off against Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik. But this time a lot more characters from the beloved Sega Genesis era of the franchise are making the jump to the big screen: the foxy Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey) with his trusty biplane is on hand, a is the rough and tumble Knuckles (getting a vocal upgrade courtesy of Idris Elba). With Chaos Emeralds and mysterious floating islands, things are about to get a lot more fan service-y.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Release Date: April 15

There might not be as many people clamoring for a third Fantastic Beasts movie as there would have been at the height of Harry Potter popularity, but it’s coming nonetheless. Following the world-shaking events of The Crimes of Grindelwald, The Secrets of Dumbledore is poised to center on Albus himself (Jude Law) as he moves to stop Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (a newly-arrived Mads Mikkelsen, replacing Johnny Depp) from securing control of the wizarding world.

Movies

There Are No Secrets of Dumbledore Worth Adding to the World of Harry Potter

By Audrey Fox

Movies

Is The Batman Adapting Hush?

By David Crow

For obligatory reasons, magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) will be there to help him, and someone (Dumbledore) has given him control of a team of witches and wizards to carry out an important mission. Look for more fantastical beasts to be shoehorned into the plot, which marks the halfway point of a prequel series with two more planned Fantastic Beasts installments on the way.

The Northman

Release Date: April 22

Horror master Robert Eggers sets out to 10th-century Iceland for his Viking revenge tale, The Northman. The film marks the third Eggers picture after the stunning one-two punch of The Witch and The Lighthouse. And yet, rather than being a straightforward chiller, the filmmaker is clearly reaching for something grander and more epic with a tale of vengeance and incestuous murder.

The Northman is based on the tales of Amleth–a medieval figure of Scandinavian legend who inspired William Shakespeare to write Hamlet. With that said, the blood soaked images we’ve glimpsed of Alexander Skarsgård tease a protagonist who is anything but dithering. The film also stars Eggers favorites Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe, as well as Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, and Claes Bang.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Release Date: May 6

It’s taken almost six years to finally get a Doctor Strange sequel. Now director Sam Raimi will fling the good doctor across multiple MCU-adjacent realities. WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olsen will also be on hand as the reality-bending Scarlet Witch, so anything is possible. Could we even get Raimi to revisit his own personal corner of the Spider-Verse? Stranger things have happened…

DC League of Super-Pets

Release Date: May 20

John Krasinski will voice Superman and Dwayne Johnson will voice Krypto the Superdog in this all-star CGI superhero comedy. The film also stars Kevin Hart as Ace the Bat-Hound alongside Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, Marc Maron (as Lex Luthor!), Kate McKinnon, Thomas Middletich, Keanu Reeves (!!!!), Ben Schwartz, and Jameela Jamil.

Top Gun: Maverick

Release Date: May 27

The long delayed sequel to the ’80s classic is finally taking off in 2022. Tom Cruise returns as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, who, decades after his fateful encounter with enemy MiGs, and Iceman and Goose, is still working as a flight instructor and test pilot at TOPGUN. No longer the young rebel at the academy, Maverick is now a relic of the past in the eyes of his superiors. But even if he’s on his way out, he still has a new generation of pilots to train, including Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), Goose’s son.

Other new recruits include Glen Powell, Danny Ramirez, and Jay Ellis. They are joined by Jennifer Connelly and Jon Hamm. Joseph Kosinski, who also helmed Tron: Legacy and Oblivion, directs.

Jurassic World: Dominion

Release Date: June 10

The gang’s really all here for this sixth entry in the dinosaur franchise, as stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum return alongside Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. The dinos are roaming free in human civilization and it seems that we’re all about to be living in a lost world.

Movies

Jurassic World: Dominion Prologue – Why Do the Dinosaurs Look Different?

By David Crow

Movies

Jurassic World: Dominion Could Open the Door for More Jurassic Park Movies

By Don Kaye

The film marks the end of the current cycle of Jurassic World films, acting as an end to the current trilogy as well as the overarching storyline that started in 1993 with the original film. It’s the film director Colin Trevorrow says he’s dreamed of making since reinvigorating the franchise in 2015, so let’s see if it can offer one more jolt of new (genetically manipulated) blood to the saga.

Lightyear

Release Date: June 17

Buzz Lightyear—the fictional human astronaut, not the toy based on him—gets an origin story. Chris Evans voices Buzz in Angus MacLane’s debut. Well, we imagine Tim Allen isn’t happy about that, but some fans might be curious to see the movie that first inspired Andy to buy the toy. Maybe.

Elvis

Release Date: June 24

This biopic from Baz Luhrmann chronicles the life of The King himself, from his Army days to music royalty. It stars Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as the manager who helped make The King’s career, “Colonel” Tom Parker. It’s Luhrmann’s first narrative film since the visually dazzling The Great Gatsby adaptation in 2013, so we’re game to see if he can shake up the doldrums of musical biopics.

The Black Phone

Release Date: June 24

Scott Derrickson’s return to horror after a sojourn in the MCU with Doctor Strange couldn’t come at a better time, especially since his new film is based on a short story by Joe Hill and features Ethan Ethan Hawke as a deranged child abductor. Word says this one’s as creepy as they come, and represents Hawke’s continually fascinating career reinvention as of late.

Thor: Love and Thunder

Release Date: July 8

Thor: Ragnarok is one of the most beloved entries in the MCU thanks to the style and wit of director Taika Waititi, who injected a welcome jolt of Jack Kirby-esque cosmic weirdness into the franchise. Waititi directs this sequel, which sees Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster become the Goddess of Thunder and Christian Bale as the terrifying Gorr, the God-Butcher.

It’s all wild enough, and Waititi enough, to immediately stand apart from the traditional MCU pack.

Nope

Release Date: July 22

Do we know much about Jordan Peele’s next horror movie? Nope. But are we excited anyway? Hell, yes!

Though Peele has a habit of keeping his horror projects close to his chest, we haven’t been disappointed yet after his Oscar-winning Get Out and highly creepy twist on the home invasion movie, Us. What we do know about Nope is that it’s got a cool title, and that it will feature his Get Out breakout star, Daniel Kaluuya, as well as Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Barbie Ferreira, Brandon Perea, and Michael Wincott.

Movies

Thor: Love and Thunder is a “Full-Blown Love Story”

By Kayti Burt

Movies

Last Night in Soho: Quentin Tarantino and Jordan Peele Got the James Bond Poster in the Movie

By David Crow

The film will be released by Universal under Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, and is written and directed by Peele. So far the only plot clues we have are a mysterious poster of a dodgy-looking cloud which appears to be trailing bunting, hovering above a mountain town, and the IMDb description saying it’s a “fantasy” as well as a horror and a thriller. Ominous.

Black Adam

Release Date: July 29

Dwayne Johnson finally joins the DCEU as Black Adam, an ancient champion imbued with the power of Shazam who became corrupted in ancient times before returning to our modern world. The film will bring the legendary Justice Society of America to the big screen for the first time with Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate.

Salem’s Lot

Release Date: Sept. 9

For many readers, Salem’s Lot remains the greatest Stephen King novel ever written. Which makes the fact there hasn’t been a great film adaptation of it all the stranger. Oh sure, there’s plenty of reason for horror fans of a certain age are nostalgic for Tobe Hooper’s loopy TV miniseries from 1979–it’s got some great moments. But this modernization of Dracula, in which ancient vampires descend upon a modern New England small town, and an author with a past is forced to face his demons as childhood friends fall beneath the thrall of the Undead, demands a classic cinematic interpretation.

Hopefully this year’s Salem’s Lot will be it. The new version is written and directed by Gary Dauberman, who penned both of New Line’s two-part It movies a few years ago. He also wrote and directed the best of the Annabelle movies, Annabelle Comes Home. With any luck, Dauberman will make a vampire movie that plays more like It: Chapter One than Chapter Two.

Don’t Worry Darling

Release Date: Sept. 23

Olivia Wilde proved herself to be an enormously talented director with her brilliant feature debut Booksmart in 2019, which makes her follow-up, Don’t Worry Darling, one of our most anticipated movies of 2022. It doesn’t hurt that the period piece stars Florence Pugh, one of the most interesting actors of her generation, opposite Chris Pine, Gemma Chan, and Harry Styles. It also has a killer premise: a 1950s housewife living in an experimental “utopian” community begins to suspect her husband’s company is hiding something nefarious. Intriguing.

Mission: Impossible 7

Release Date: Sept. 30

Did anyone watch 1996’s Mission: Impossible and guess that it would become one of Hollywood’s most durable action franchises? The plot and title of M:I 7 remain a secret for now, but Tom Cruise (of course), Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, and Ving Rhames are back, joined by Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, and—for the first time since the original film—Henry Czerny as former IMF director Eugene Kittridge. Fallout marked the first-time a writer/director returned to the series for more than one outing, and considering how much Christopher McQuarrie hit it out of the park (twice) we can’t wait to see the next installment of his quadrilogy!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Release Date: Oct. 7

2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wasn’t just an introduction to the Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) incarnation of Spider-Man or a big budget animated exploration of the Spidey mythos, it was a beautiful, emotional, psychedelic trip. Hopefully the sequel will reunite the multiversal Spideys from the first movie and introduce us to some new ones.

Halloween Ends

Release Date: Oct. 14

After the wide acclaim for 2018’s Halloween reboot, director David Gordon Green’s 2021 follow-up, Halloween Kills, met with a decidedly more polarized response while ending on a cliffhanger. Green has said that the final chapter in his trilogy, Halloween Ends, will be a “much more intimate” movie that celebrates Halloween creator John Carpenter’s “legendary body of work.” We hope, at least, that he can deliver the same kind of focused, character-driven horror that was sadly missing from his middle chapter.

The Flash

Release Date: Nov. 4

Five years after he first appeared as Barry Allen, Ezra Miller will finally headline a Flash solo movie. This flick will see Barry explore the DC multiverse, meeting an alternate version of himself, a mysterious Supergirl (Sasha Calle), and an older, wiser Batman played by classic Dark Knight actor Michael Keaton.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Release Date: Nov. 11

Director Ryan Coogler returns to the franchise that netted Marvel Studios a billion dollars, seven Oscar nominations, and was a genuine cultural phenomenon. Time will tell how the sequel will address the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman–or the many rumors swirling around what has allegedly been a troubled production–but millions are still chanting “Wakanda Forever.” Black Panther 2 should give them reason to keep the faith.

Creed III

Release Date: Nov. 23

Michael B. Jordan makes his directorial debut and returns as Adonis Creed, Apollo’s son and a heavyweight boxing champion. The film is significant in the franchise because it will be the first Rocky-adjacent movie to not actually star Rocky Balboa. But Jordan’s made Adonis plenty fascinating on his own, and Jordan clearly thinks it’s time to let the character stand on his own two feet as he slips into the director’s chair. Plus Tessa Thompson will be returning while one of the most fascinating leading men of the last five years, Jonathan Majors, joins the cast…

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Release Date: Dec. 16

The first Aquaman was a visually stunning, weird and wild rollercoaster of a film. Less superhero movie than adventure/quest film, its sequel also seems to be leaning even further into the latter. Jason Momoa is back as Arthur Curry, now the undisputed King of Atlantis. Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Temuera Morrison will all return.

Avatar 2

Release Date: Dec. 16

Years ago, visionary filmmaker James Cameron promised several sequels to Avatar. In 2022, we’ll finally get the first one. He promises. Sam Worthington returns, as does Zoe Saldana, and even a few familiar faces who died in the last one like Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang. Despite all the years that passed, details are still somewhat scarce other than we will be exploring the aquatic side of the planet Pandora, as well as meeting Jake Sully and Neytiri’s children. All grown up at this point, we’d assume.

Super Mario Bros.

Release Date: Dec. 21

Chris Pratt will voice Mario in this new animated movie. Fortunately, he won’t be attempting the Italian plumber’s heavy accent. The film also stars Jack Black as Bowser, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, and plenty of other celebrities as familiar characters.

Babylon

Release Date: Dec. 25

Damien Chazelle is back with another Hollywood-centric period drama set during the transition from silent film to synchronized sound. The premise sounds a bit like Singin’ in the Rain, but we expect a film that’s much more wistful than that with its cast of characters including Margot Robbie as Clara Bow–the original “It Girl” whose good time vibes dried out during the Depression–and Brad Pitt as a fictional character based on John Gilbert, the Hollywood silent star whose career imploded due to talkies, leading to alcoholism and an early death. Even the title alludes to one of the costliest (and ruinous) of ancient Hollywood sets…

Killers of the Flower Moon

Release Date: TBA

Martin Scorsese adapts one of the best books written in this century, David Grann’s chilling true crime study, Killers of the Flower Moon, into an AppleTV+ event with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro finally teaming in the same Scorsese joint.

Set in early 20th century Oklahoma, this Western deals with the haunting legacy of bigotry, racism, and anti-Indian prejudices lingering half-a-century on since “the West was won.” Audiences will no doubt be excited to see DiCaprio, De Niro, Jesse Plemons, and even Brendan Fraser in a Scorsese movie, but keep an eye out for Lily Gladstone. She plays Mollie Burkhart, a Native American woman and the richest person in town as all her relatives are slowly, methodically murdered.

Disappointment Blvd

Release Date: TBA

Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster teams up with Joaquin Phoenix for this decades-spanning portrait of an entrepreneur. An Aster epic? That’s something we could all lose our heads over.

The Whale

Release Date: TBA

Darren Aronofsky tackles the play about a 600-pound man who wants to reconnect with his teen daughter years after he abandoned her.

Crimes of the Future

Release Date: TBA

David Cronenberg is remaking his own 1970s sci-fi film about dermatology and skin care gone terribly wrong. As expected, this movie is not for the faint of heart.

Men

Release Date: TBA

Alex Garland is back for his latest work of horror. A young woman travels alone to the English countryside without knowing she’s in an A24 film.

The Killer

Release Date: TBA

David Fincher returns to Netflix for this noir thriller from Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker. Michael Fassbender plays the titular killer. We’d hesitate to call this a reunion made in Heaven, but we’re still intrigued to play along….

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nicklloydnow · 3 years

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"Sadism now defines nearly every cultural, social and political experience in the United States. It is expressed in the greed of an oligarchic elite that has seen its wealth increase during the pandemic by $1.1 trillion while the country has suffered the sharpest rise in its poverty rate in more than 50 years. It is expressed in extra-judicial killings by police in cities such as Minneapolis. It is expressed in our complicity in Israel’s wholesale killing of unarmed Palestinians, the humanitarian crisis engendered by the war in Yemen and our reigns of terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It is expressed in the torture in our prisons and black sites. It is expressed in the separation of children from their undocumented parents, where they are held as if they were dogs in a kennel.

The historian Johan Huizinga, writing about the twilight of the middle ages, argued that as things fall apart sadism is embraced as a way to cope with the hostility of an indifferent universe. No longer bound to a common purpose, a ruptured society retreats into the cult of the self. It celebrates, as do corporations on Wall Street or mass culture through reality television shows, the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt. Get what you can, as fast as you can, before someone else gets it. This is the state of nature, the “war of all against all,” Thomas Hobbes saw as the consequence of social collapse, a world in which life becomes “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” And this sadism, as Friedrich Nietzsche understood, fuels a perverted, sadistic pleasure.

The only way out for most Americans is to serve, as Biden does, the sadistic machine. The impoverishment of the working class has conditioned tens of millions of Americans to accept being recruited into the service of the militarized police that function as lethal armies of internal occupation; a military that carries out reigns of terror in foreign occupations; intelligence agencies that torture in global black sites; the government’s vast network of spying on the citizenry; the theft of personal information by credit agencies and digital media; the largest prison system in the world; an immigration service that hunts down people who have never committed a crime and separates children from their parents to pack them in warehouses; a court system that condemns the poor to decades of incarceration, often for nonviolent crimes, and denies them a jury trial; companies that carry out the dirty work of evictions, shutting off utilities, including water, collecting usurious debts that force people into bankruptcy and denying health services to those that cannot pay; banks and payday lenders that burden the destitute with predatory, high-interest loans; and a financial system designed to keep most of the country locked in a crippling debt peonage as the wealth of the oligarchic elite swells to levels unseen in American history.

(...)

We know what this sadism looks like. It looks like Derek Chauvin nonchalantly choking to death George Floyd as his police colleagues watch impassively. It looks like Andrew Brown Jr. shot five times by police in North Carolina, including once in the back of the head. It looks like Abner Louima, who had a broomstick pushed up his rectum by police in a bathroom at the 70th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, requiring three major operations to repair the internal injuries. It looks like Navy Seal Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher randomly shooting to death unarmed civilians and using a hunting knife to repeatedly stab to death an injured, sedated 17-year-old Iraqi prisoner and then photographing himself with the corpse. It looks like Iraqi civilians, few of whom had anything to do with the insurgency, naked, bound, beaten and sexually humiliated and raped, and at times murdered, by army guards and private contractors in Abu Ghraib. Prisoners in Abu Ghraib were routinely dragged across the prison floor by a rope tied to their penises and chemical lights were used to sodomize them or snapped open so the phosphoric liquid could be poured over their naked bodies. It looks like women who are tortured, beaten, degraded and sexually violated, often by numerous men, in porn films, who are then discarded after a few weeks or months with severe trauma, along with sexually transmitted diseases and vaginal and anal tears that must be repaired surgically.

Sadistic societies condemn segments of the population – in America these are poor Blacks, Muslims, the undocumented, the LGBTQ community, radical anti-capitalists, intellectuals – as human refuse. They are viewed as social contaminants. Laws, institutions and bureaucratic structures are built in sadistic societies that function, in the words of Max Weber, as an “inanimate machine.” The machine forces most people into the mass, but it allows some willing to do its dirty work to rise above the multitude. Those that carry out the sadism on behalf of the power elite fear being pushed back into the mass. For this reason, they energetically carry out the degradation, cruelty and sadism the machine demands. The more they insult, persecute, torture, humiliate and kill, the more they seem to magically widen the divide between themselves and their victims. This is why Black police and corrections officers can be as cruel, and sometimes crueler, than their white counterparts.

The sadism eradicates, at least momentarily, the sadist’s feelings of worthlessness, vulnerability and susceptibility to pain and death. It imparts pleasure. I was beaten by Saudi military police and later by Saddam Hussein’s secret police when I was taken prisoner after the first Gulf War. The goons carrying out my beatings clearly enjoyed them. Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians, the assaults of Muslims and girls and women in India and the denigration of Muslims in the countries we occupy are part of a global breakdown that extends beyond the United States. Wilhelm Reich in “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” and Klaus Theweleit in “Male Fantasies” argue that sadism, along with a grotesque hyper-masculinity, rather than any coherent belief system, is the core of fascism, although communist regimes in China and the Soviet Union could be as murderous and sadistic as their fascist counterparts.

Jean Amery, who was in the Belgian resistance in World War II and who was captured and tortured by the Gestapo in 1943, defines sadism “as the radical negation of the other, the simultaneous denial of both the social principle and the reality principle. In the sadist’s world, torture, destruction, and death are triumphant: and such a world clearly has no hope of survival. On the contrary, he desires to transcend the world, to achieve total sovereignty by negating fellow human beings – which he sees as representing a particular kind of ‘hell.’”

Amery’s point is important. A sadistic society is about collective self-destruction. It is the apotheosis of a society deformed by overwhelming experiences of loss, alienation and stasis. The only way left to affirm yourself in failed societies is to destroy. Johan Huizinga in his book “Waning of the Middle Ages” noted that that the dissolution of medieval society provoked “the violent tenor of life.” Today, this “violent tenor of life” drives people to carry out police murders, evictions of families, court-ordered bankruptcies, the denial of medical care to the sick, suicide bombings and mass shootings. As the sociologist Emil Durkheim understood, those who seek the annihilation of others are driven by desires for self-annihilation. Sadism imparts the rush and pleasure, often with heavy sexual overtones, which lures us towards what Sigmund Freud called the death instinct, the instinct to destroy all forms of life, including our own. When enveloped by a death-saturated world death, ironically, is embraced as the cure.”

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orbemnews · 4 years

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Inside a Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign LONDON — Edwin Vermulst, a trade lawyer in Brussels, did not think twice before he agreed to write an article for Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, that would criticize a Belgian policy that threatened to box the company out of lucrative contracts. He had worked with the company for years. After the article was published Dec. 17 on a Dutch-language website, he moved on to other work. “That was the beginning and end of my involvement,” he said. Little did he know that the article would take on a life of its own. It soon became part of a covert pro-Huawei influence campaign in Belgium about 5G networks, the high-speed wireless technology at the center of a geopolitical dispute between the United States and China. First, at least 14 Twitter accounts posing as telecommunications experts, writers and academics shared articles by Mr. Vermulst and many others attacking draft Belgium legislation that would limit “high risk” vendors like Huawei from building the country’s 5G system, according to Graphika, a research firm that studies misinformation and fake social media accounts. The pro-Huawei accounts used computer-generated profile pictures, a telltale sign of inauthentic activity. Next, Huawei officials retweeted the fake accounts, giving the articles even wider reach to policymakers, journalists and business leaders. Kevin Liu, Huawei’s president for public affairs and communications in Western Europe, who has a verified Twitter account with 1.1 million followers, shared 60 posts from the fake accounts over three weeks in December, according to Graphika. Huawei’s official account in Europe, with more than five million followers, did so 47 times. The effort suggests a new twist in social media manipulation, said Ben Nimmo, a Graphika investigator who helped identify the pro-Huawei campaign. Tactics once used mainly for government objectives — like Russia’s interference in the 2016 American presidential election — are being adapted to achieve corporate goals. “It’s business rather than politics,” Mr. Nimmo said. “It’s not one country targeting another country. It looks like an operation to promote a major multinational’s interests — and to do it against a European state.” Graphika, which provided research for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian disinformation, said there was not enough evidence to identify who was behind the pro-Huawei operation. Huawei said in a statement that it had started an internal investigation “to try to find out what exactly has happened and if there has been any inappropriate behavior.” “Huawei has clear social media policies based on international best practice, and we take any suggestion that they have not been followed very seriously,” the company said. “Some social media and online activity has been brought to our attention suggesting we may have fallen short of these policies and of our wider Huawei values of openness, honesty and transparency.” Twitter said it had removed the fake accounts after Graphika alerted it to the campaign on Dec. 30. “Platform manipulation is strictly prohibited under the Twitter rules,” the company said in a statement. “If and when we have clear evidence, we will take action on accounts associated with this practice, which may include permanent suspension.” Huawei, the crown jewel of China’s technology industry, has suffered from a sustained American campaign to keep its equipment from being used in new 5G networks around the world. The Trump administration said the company posed a national security threat, arguing that the Chinese government could use Huawei’s communications technology for spying. Huawei has strenuously denied those accusations. The Trump administration took several steps to hobble Huawei, including an effort to cut off its supply of critical semiconductors — policies that the Biden administration hasn’t committed itself to retaining. Britain announced a ban of Huawei products last year; Germany and other European countries are debating restrictions of their own. The 5G contracts are expected to be worth billions of dollars. Belgium, home to the headquarters of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, illustrates the risk Huawei faces across Europe, the company’s biggest market outside of China. Until now, Huawei and the Chinese company ZTE had dominated Belgium’s telecommunications-equipment market, according to Strand Consult, a research firm. But as the Belgian government considers new restrictions, wireless operators in the country are shifting 5G deals to rival companies. “They fear this could spread to other parts of the world,” said John Strand, the founder of Strand Consult, which works with many wireless companies. Mr. Nimmo said the pro-Huawei effort in Belgium had been clumsily executed and easy to identify. But it shows, he said, how underhanded internet campaigns try to launder seemingly legitimate material like Mr. Vermulst’s article through a mesh of websites and fake social media accounts to give it an air of impartiality and authenticity. Graphika discovered the pro-Huawei effort after spotting suspicious posts about Belgium’s 5G policy from Twitter accounts used in an earlier pro-China operation. The Belgian magazine Knack and Michiel van Hulten, director of Transparency International in Brussels, also identified suspicious efforts to spread pro-Huawei information. The 14 fake accounts amplified by Huawei officials spread positive articles about the company and negative views of Belgium’s 5G policy. The three-week campaign appeared to be tied to a Dec. 30 deadline in Belgium to review the country’s 5G policy. To the casual Twitter user, the fake accounts looked legitimate. They included bland profile pictures along with career information. Many had more than 1,000 followers. But on closer inspection, investigators identified problems with the accounts. Many of their followers appeared to be bots. And the pictures had the hallmarks of being created by artificial intelligence software, with perfectly centered photos but small imperfections, like asymmetrical glasses. Online businesses sell these kinds of photos of fake people, which can avoid the risk of detection that using pictures of real individuals can bring. The fake accounts shared articles and commentary from different online publications, including EU Reporter, which publishes government news to its own website and affiliates like London Globe and New York Globe. “If the Belgium government excludes specific suppliers, who will pay for it?” read the headline of one news story published on different EU Reporter websites. Colin Stevens, the publisher of EU Reporter, said in an email that he had “no knowledge of any fake Twitter accounts promoting our articles.” Mr. Stevens said that Huawei had paid EU Reporter to publish opinion articles in the past, but that those were always labeled with disclaimers. The Belgian 5G stories were independently assigned without Huawei involvement, he said. “EU Reporter would never knowingly be part of a disinformation campaign,” Mr. Stevens said. In a few instances, investigators found articles like Mr. Vermulst’s, which Huawei paid for and included disclaimers about the financial arrangement. Other articles critical of the 5G policy appeared on websites that accept user-generated content without review, alongside author pictures that were the same as the computer-generated images in the fake Twitter profiles. Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said operations like this would become more common as disinformation became increasingly commercialized. In a recent report, Oxford University researchers identified 63 instances in which public relations firms were involved in online disinformation operations in 2020. The work is typically on behalf of political figures or governments, he said, but can be applied to businesses. “The flow of money is increasingly there,” Mr. Howard said. “Large-scale social media influence operations are now part of the communications tool kit for any large global corporation.” In Belgium, the campaign appeared to have little effect beyond drawing unwanted attention to Huawei’s lobbying efforts. Policymakers have shown no signs of backing away from plans to limit Huawei’s access to the 5G networks. The draft legislation must now be considered by the country’s Parliament. Mr. Vermulst, the trade lawyer, said he hadn’t known about the fake social media campaign until being contacted for this article. And while he called the effort “silly” and “stupid,” he hoped to continue working for Huawei. “Lawyers get paid for legal opinions,” he said. “Once that article is in the public domain, anybody can do with it what they want.” Source link Orbem News #campaign #influence #ProHuawei

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sciencespies · 4 years

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Tintin Drawing Sold for €3.2 Million Is the World's Most Expensive Comic Book Art

https://sciencespies.com/history/tintin-drawing-sold-for-e3-2-million-is-the-worlds-most-expensive-comic-book-art/

Tintin Drawing Sold for €3.2 Million Is the World's Most Expensive Comic Book Art

A rare Tintin cover illustration set a new world record yesterday, becoming the most expensive comic book art in the world after selling at auction for a staggering €3,175,400 (about $3.84 million USD), according to a statement.

Tintin creator Hergé crafted the elaborate design—intended to grace the cover of his 1936 comic book The Blue Lotus—with ink, gouache and watercolors. In the tale, intrepid boy reporter Tintin and his dog Milou, or “Snowy” in English translations, travel to China, where they dismantle a Japanese spy network and bust an opium-smuggling ring. The proposed cover image shows Tintin and Snowy hiding in a large vase framed against a black background and peering out at an enormous, floating red dragon that looms overhead.

“Hergé was determined to make the reader shudder,” says comic book expert Eric Leroy in a video produced by the Artcurial auction house. “Tintin, facing this magnificent dragon, wears an anxious expression. What dangers might threaten him?”

Per the Associated Press, Hergé’s publisher told him that his original design would be too expensive to mass-produce. As a compromise, Hergé created a pared-down—and cheaper—version for the 1936 cover, removing the floating Chinese characters, swapping colors and changing the shading on the dragon, among other adjustments, according to the video.

Hergé gave the original design as a gift to Jean-Paul Casterman, his editor’s 7-year-old son. The paper was folded up and placed in a drawer, where it remained until 1981, reports Sian Cain for the Guardian.

“This painting is so rare because it has never been on the private market before,” Leroy tells CNN’s Christopher Johnson.

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As the Guardian notes, Hergé’s work had previously set the record for the most expensive comic book art in 2014, when original ink flyleaf drawings used in the Adventures of Tintin series sold to an American collector for €2.65 million.

Born Georges Remi in 1907, the Belgian illustrator adopted Hergé as a pen name in 1924, five years before he started publishing Tintin stories, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. The French-language comics, which featured Tintin embarking on voyages and swashbuckling adventures around the world, eventually became one of the the most popular European cartoon series of the 20th century.

According to the official Tintin website, The Blue Lotus—the fifth in Hergé’s Tintin series and a commercial success—marked a major transition in the author’s style, as he began to research the countries he would portray extensively in each book. Many believe that one character in this story, Chang Chong-Chen, a young Chinese orphan that Tintin saves from drowning, was inspired by Hergé’s real-life friendship with Chang Chong-jen (Zhang Chongren).

Chongren was a Chinese sculptor and art student who lived in Brussels. In the comic book, Tintin has conversations with Chang Chong-Chen in which he satirizes European misconceptions about Chinese people and criticizes Japanese military action in China—insights that were likely inspired by Chongren, as Tobias Grey reported for the Wall Street Journal last December.

In the decades since the illustrator’s death in 1983, the cartoon franchise has faced criticism for its portrayal of colonialist attitudes toward other countries. One frequently cited example appears in Tintin in the Congo, a 1931 comic that depicts African people as childish, lazy caricatures. European colonizers often employed these racist characterizations as justifications for the exploitation and colonization of parts of the African continent.

Casterman’s children put the Blue Lotus artwork up for sale on Thursday. Expected to sell for between €2 and €3 million, the art launched a “frenzied” bidding, surpassing the €2 million mark “within seconds,” according to the Guardian.

“Owing to its uniqueness, this masterpiece of comic art deserves its world record and confirms that the comic-strip market is in excellent health,” says Leroy in the statement, per a translation by Artnet News’ Sarah Cascone.

#History

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shirlleycoyle · 5 years

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After Facebook and Web Host Bans, Far-Right Extremists Are Encrypting and Going IRL

After Facebook and web hosts recently began banning white nationalist content, neo-Nazi extremist groups are urging members to meet offline and to use encrypted networks, Motherboard has learned.

The strategy mimics ISIS efforts as it faced a crackdown on its content by major online platforms in 2015, during the height of a migration into its ranks by western followers. At the time, a spate of ISIS attacks in Europe exposed how the terror group planned operations and recruited using social media networks, leading Silicon Valley giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft to ban ISIS content.

In response, ISIS members retreated to encrypted apps like Telegram and disseminated a counter-surveillance tool kit, in which they advised members to specifically use ProtonMail—a Swiss email provider that says it’s immune to spying from sophisticated intelligence agencies. (After the ISIS attack at the Bataclan in Paris, ProtonMail came under fire because its service was listed as being preferred by ISIS.)

Similarly, neo-Nazi extremist groups have, in recent weeks, begun advising their members to use the email provider to evade authorities and maintain reliable lines of communication to potential recruits.

One group illustrating the online evolution of right wing terror groups is a burgeoning extremist network called the Feuerkrieg Division (FKD), which is listed by several terrorism trackers, including the TRAC analysis consortium and the not-for-profit Counter Extremism Project (CEP).

Originating in Europe and taking direct inspiration from the American hate group Atomwaffen Division (AWD), FKD bills itself as a “paramilitary organization.” In the aftermath of the Christchurch attack in New Zealand, it has encouraged its members to commit terrorism and “take action.”

“The Feuerkrieg Division (FKD) is a Revolutionary National Socialist underground paramilitary organization,” reads an FKD message posted online, before encouraging potential members to join and contact its ProtonMail address.

The group’s official active Gab account, which advertises its encrypted contact address, recently displayed a picture of a copy of Siege—a neo-Nazi insurgency bible—and a pistol, along with a graphic image calling for the assassination of a Belgian politician.

Motherboard tracked how the group funnels potential recruits from its Gab account to its ProtonMail address. It also appeared to recruit an American based in New Jersey (who is particularly active in calling for shootings and bombings stateside) via Twitter and claims a number of American members.

In another exchange on Gab, a popular online neo-Nazi with links to another militant organization asks the FKD Gab account how to contact them. The account replies: “Send us a message on our protonmail account, we will continue from there.”

A YouTube comment by an online supporter and suspected member of FKD says he’s using mainstream social media sites as a first step in making contact with recruits to then “safely” network an IRL cell.

“Most members are scattered all over the western nations so we need some propaganda for recruitment first, then we can safely go off the grid knowing that at least each cell has more than one member ,” he wrote under a video warning of upcoming terror attacks by the group with the ominous title “Soon”.

Motherboard saw FKD and its related member accounts having connections to other far-right militant groups and AWD.

Among the FKD’s extensive propaganda trove is a video flagged by journalist Jake Hanrahan, showing homemade bombs exploding in a forest. Several of its videos on YouTube call for upcoming terror attacks and atrocities, but haven’t been taken down by the streaming giant.

FKD is linked online to other far-right extremist groups undertaking similar operational security measures. Motherboard has observed other neo-Nazi organizations using and promoting their ProtonMail accounts, while at least one militant network was using an encrypted chat app to convene more covertly and plan IRL activities.

When contacted by Motherboard, a spokesperson for ProtonMail said the company was “deeply concerned” that FKD and other groups were using its email services.

“We’re quite surprised to find that white supremacist groups are favoring ProtonMail given our very vocal position on diversity in tech, and our past blocking of accounts which are inciting violence,” they said, adding that the company thoroughly investigates any accounts accused of hate speech or promoting violence.

“We believe privacy is a human right, and encryption and anonymity are powerful safeguards for dissidents, whistleblowers, and journalists. However, we also have a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal activity of any kind. This includes discriminatory hate speech, which is illegal in Switzerland,” the company said.

Many far-right extremist groups operate completely unabated on Gab, a social media platform that considers itself a free speech champion and is widely used by neo-Nazis. These groups use Gab as a gathering point for contact with potential recruits in much the same way jihadist organizations once used Twitter as their chief recruitment point.

ProtonMail email accounts are advertised by militant groups on their Gab profiles; in 2014, ISIS used Twitter accounts connected to Kik messenger profiles to advertise to followers looking to contact a recruiter directly.

The CEP which keeps a close eye on far-right terrorism, has noticed the power of Gab among rightwing extremists.

“Using Gab as an introductory platform before going to secure email is one example of the danger of allowing extremist groups to widely use a platform unencumbered,” said CEP researcher Joshua Fisher-Birch, “especially when it comes to groups that have violent intentions, like the Feuerkrieg Division.”

These developments come at a time when Congress is holding hearings about the veracity of the neo-Nazi and white nationalist terror threat in America.

“We definitely saw jihadist groups of all stripes, but mostly ISIS, respond to being kicked off social media platforms by retreating to Telegram,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a terrorism expert and senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who carefully tracked the rise of ISIS online.

“The downside of this was that they became harder to watch and harder to track, but the upside of course is that they sat together in a little bubble and talked amongst themselves,” he said. “They were talking to people who were already radicalized to some extent, and had a harder time reaching new audiences. The same thing is likely to happen to far-right groups.”

Yet Amarasingam maintains that the difference falls in the IRL space, where ISIS supporters were heavily surveilled by intelligence and law enforcement agencies that took the threat seriously. When it comes to the far-right, authorities haven’t properly taken the threat of terrorism seriously, even in the face of ongoing attacks by white nationalists around the world.

“ISIS supporters had a much harder time doing this because they assumed that they were always under surveillance,” he said. “The far-right, though, doesn’t seem to be too concerned about this. As an activist friend of mine puts it, ‘there are no drones for these guys’—so they are able to meet in public and organize in a way that jihadist cells in the West never could.”

After Facebook and Web Host Bans, Far-Right Extremists Are Encrypting and Going IRL syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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jgfiles · 7 years

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Aaron Price’s character profile (Joker Game Universe)

(Very tentative version as no translation for ‘Tsuiseki’ novel version had been released.)

Surname: Price - プライス Name: Aaron - アーロン Full Name: Aaron Price - アーロン・プライス Nationality: English Lives in: Japan Job: English Spy (英国スパイ Igirisu Spy) (Anime) Disguised as: Reporter for the newspaper British Times of the Far East (英国タイムズ紙極東派遣員の記者 - Igirisu Taimuzu kami Kyokutō haken-in no kisha) Appearances: Novel: Vol. 3 Chapter 3 “Pursuit” (追跡- Tsuiseki) Anime: EP. 12 “Pursuit” (追跡- Tsuiseki) Joker Game The Animation Manga: Chap 18, 19 “Pursuit” (追跡- Tsuiseki) Voice Actor: Miyamoto Mitsuru - 宮本充（みやもとみつる）

Brief introduction

Aaron Price has been living in Japan for ten years, had married a Belgian woman, Ellen, whom he loves very much, and officially works as UK Times Far East Correspondent writing articles favourable to Japan and he’s known by the higher up in the Japanese government.

In truth he’s a SIS spy who’s currently trying to discover Yūki’s past. In order to do so he tries to use his contact with the Ministry of War, Machiyama, but he can’t really tell him much about Yūki, so he start to search for Yūki’s name in the Military School registries.

Aaron Price persuades himself that Yūki’s true identity is the one of Arisaki Akira and start questioning people who knew Arisaki Akira, ending up on meeting Satomura, the Arisaki’s sertant, that tells him Arisaki Akira’s story. Not much later Aaron Price is caught by the police while he’s trying to send a message in England, arrested and interrogated.

When he’s willing to confess everything he’s suddenly released. Figuring out that he was caught due to his meeting with Satomura he goes to him to ask for explanations and discover the story he was told was a cover up story the man was instructed to tell to everyone who were to ask about Arisaki Akira by Yūki himself. The true Arisaki Akira ended up comatose in WW2 and is currently in a sanatorium, Yūki paying for his expenses.

After discovering this Price discovers all the info about his spy network had been stolen from him so he realizes for him is time for retirement. In the anime Yūki sends his wife to him, in the novel he thinks that, once the war is over, he’d like to move in Belgium and live there with his wife.

Personality

Price seems a smart guy, good at dealing with Japanese people and very much in love with his wife.

He’s tenacious and does his best to hunt Yūki down.

Physical appearance

In the Anime Aaron Price is a man past his Prime with brown eyes and brown-greyish hair.

He wears pants and a jacket.

Relationships

Machiyama

Their interaction is business like. Machiyama sells information to Aaron Price and Aaron Price asks for info and pays for them. There’s nothing more apart the fact they pretend not to know each other and not to talk to each other when they interact so as not to be discovered.

Ellen Price

Ellen Price and Aaron Price are married and love each other very much. He however keeps her in the dark about his work as spy.

Satomura

Aaron Price contacts him with an excuse to have info about the live of Arisaki Akira. Satomura though tells him what Yūki taught him to tell to whoever were to come asking for info about Arisaki Akira. He harbours no ill feelings toward Price, he lies to him merely due to his agreement with Yūki who, in exchange was paying for the real Arisaki Akira’s medical expenses, although he feels some excitement in playing that mummery. In the end Satomura reveals the truth to Price.

Yūki

Aaron Price investigates on Yūki, trying to discover his past. However he ends up in a trap set up by Yūki and loses all the info he collected to him.

Arisaki Akira

Aaron Price thinks Arisaki Akira is Yūki’s true identity and therefore investigates on him. It’ll turn out not only he was wrong but he will end up on seeing the man is lying comatose in a sanatorium, unaware of what is going around him.

Abilities

He’s likely a good journalist and probably a good spy also, though not as good as Yūki.

Trivia

In the anime Aaron Price hid all the info about his spy network in his wedding ring but in the novel he kept them in the Holy Bible.

#Joker Game #Aaron Price #Joker Game Character Profile #JG Pursuit

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emilykatie · 4 years

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20 Dad Things to Do on Father's Day

Make this Father’s Day Gifts delivery a great one with these 20 pop-approved games, projects and activities. Getting messy is definitely required!

In her job as a physician's assistant, my wife has been required to work in the E.R., get ready for 6 a.m. surgeries, and be on call — all things that have led to a rewarding career but nothing close to what our parents called a “normal work schedule.”

As such, it’s often just our two sons and me, the three Vrabel men, waking up to a day full of endless possibility and promise. And these days tend to begin the same way: with me making breakfast and asking, “So what’s on the agenda today?” and the boys responding with…well, abject silence, since they’re upstairs furiously Minecrafting while I talk to a stack of speedily cooling Belgian waffles.

Given the opportunity, my sons would be pretty well satisfied devoting one to 48 hours of their day to Minecraft. In these cases, it falls to me to devise the plan for the day, an activity or outing that not only has enough appeal to peel them away from their 8-bit fantasyland but also accomplishes the following: 1) enriches their lives; 2) helps them grow into wise, fulfilled adults; 3) is mentally active; 4) is physically active; 5) falls within my state’s laws of personal safety; 6) doesn’t cost $20,000; 7) is something I wouldn’t mind doing either. So, you know, no pressure.

Every parent wants to fill his children’s hours with activities that will empower and enrich them; every parent has stared at a wall repeating, “Yeah, I have no idea what that is.” To that end—and to celebrate Happy Fathers Day Gift to India online delivery —here’s an incomplete list of DAD things to do with your kids, as written by actual dads, prominent bloggers, musicians, and me, a humble writer-slash-Belgian-waffle aficionado.

1. Play in the street.

Sam Weinman, a New York City editor and author of Win at Losing: How Our Biggest Setbacks Can Lead to Our Greatest Gains, approaches parenting with this idea: “Allow them to be the conduit to your younger self. I like to remind my boys that being a kid never gets old.” His go-to? Dragging out two goals, waiting for traffic to subside, and playing a little hockey in the street. He’s even turned it into an annual event: a round-robin tournament with four kids and a dad on each team. Winners take home a replica of the Stanley Cup trophy—which is actually a popcorn maker. “It’s arguably the highlight of the year.”

2. Introduce them to a record player. Now, granted, this isn’t for everybody: It doesn’t always work to have a 2-year old’s peanut butter–covered hands around a precision device that doesn’t play if you bump it. But some years ago, I ventured into the attic to retrieve my old and spider-infested collection of records, and on many nights since, we’ve been charmed by this relic from the past. We page through the massive art, make jokes about bizarre 1970s-era artist names (“Meat Loaf?” my eighth-grader said one night, shaking his head in bemused disbelief. “Why don’t people make any sense?”), and indulge in the novel idea of listening to something straight through, instead of fast-forwarding or commanding Alexa to play something different.

RELATED: How to Spend More Quality Time With Your Child

3. Invent new cereals. According to my 6-year-old, I have been eating Cocoa Pebbles incorrectly for decades. He told me this while retrieving two other boxes of cereal, from which he created an innovative new breakfast called CocoaLuckyTrix. For the week after, we started breakfast by engaging in some cereal alchemy, producing such inventions as Cinnamon Toast Flakes, Rice Krispiespuffs, and my personal favorite, Marshmallow Apple Pebbles.

4. Learn which colas can explode. Everybody knows that Diet Coke + Mentos = geysers of carbonated awesomeness. But though it’s the most famous reactive liquid, Diet Coke isn’t the only drink that will activate on contact with Mentos and make a mess of your kitchen! Head to the grocery store and grab a sample of other sodas. (This is for science, so the cheap bottles work just fine.) If you’re feeling especially MythBuster-y, tape several pieces of poster board together, mark off heights, and see which beverage creates the greatest geyser. (Hint: Don’t skimp on the diet root beer.)

5. Send screens back in time. If your kids are into video games anyway, bond with and/or horrify them by showing them the ancient video games you had to deal with as a child. There are a few ways to do this: You can get an Atari simulator at Walmart for about $40, and Nintendo has released new (and tiny) “Classic Edition” plug-and-play versions of its NES and Super Nintendo consoles. The NES Classic Edition comes preloaded with 30 games, including Super Mario Bros. 3, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Dr. Mario, and Castlevania.

The Super NES Classic has Street Fighter II, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, and Super Metroid. Best part: Both let you save points, so hitting the power button no longer means obliterating your progress! Bonus: If your kids are into Minecraft, the graphics and gameplay on a Super Nintendo will seem like some impossible magic from the future.

RELATED: Want to Feel Old? Watch This Little Girl Try to Run a Gameboy

6. Climb your city. Troy Carpenter, dad and Instagram star @redblueox, has an altitude-themed go-to for his oldest: visiting monuments and ascending to urban heights. He’ll take his kids to Indianapolis’s downtown Soldiers & Sailors monument or figure out which days of the week he can visit the top floor of other skyscrapers. If you’re in a city with older kids, finding the highest heights can be a perfect mix of urban adventuring and making sure they get enough exercise to sleep well that night.

7. Create a spy network. Few concepts capture a kid’s imagination more than secret messages, which is what compelled Coy Bowles, guitarist with the Zac Brown Band, to fashion a game out of a quirk in his house’s design. “We have a 4-inch tall pipe that connects one recording-studio room to another,” he says. “Its purpose is to pass cables through the wall, but my daughter and I now use it for fun.” Bowles and his budding spy swap messages and toys through it. “It’s cute to see her so curious about what’s happening on the other side of the wall.” No pipe? Hide messages anywhere: in drawers, behind bookshelves, in the vegetable crisper, inside a favorite book.

8. Invent stories (with a little help). Take a few sheets of paper, cut them into squares, and write a single and possibly hilarious word on each. Biscuits. Alien. Rhinoceros. Havarti cheese. Then ask your kids to make up a tale, occasionally flipping a square over and adding the word on it to the story. It’s 100 percent free, 102 percent imaginative, and customizable to you and your family. (Translated: “You can use whichever ridiculous words you want.”) It’s this strategy that once made my 6-year-old spin a fantastic yarn about a space pirate who uses lightning to fight a volcano inside an evil toilet. (Full disclosure: His stories always seem to include a toilet.)

9. Go playground shopping. If you live in an area with multiple playgrounds, turn your travels into a piratical expedition. Make a playground map, mark the spots you want to hit, and devise a plan with your kids for exploring each one. Make lists of the best parts of each—which one has the twistiest slide, the biggest fountains, the most imposing jungle gyms—and revisit as needed.

RELATED: 7 Unique Playgrounds for Kids

10. Bust the kids. Mike Spohr is the editor of BuzzFeed Parents, coauthor of The Toddler Survival Guide, and inventor of the Police Officer game. “My kids ride their bikes until I (the police officer) pull them over—for speeding, to ask if they’ve seen an on-the-run thief, or any of a thousand other scenarios. They want me to differentiate it every time, which gets really hard!” His son is usually apologetic; his daughter sometimes gets sassy. But all parties go home happy.

11. Fail to walk a straight line. Block out your senses by closing your eyes and plugging your ears, and try to walk 100 steps in a straight line. It will not work. You will end up 50 yards to the left, or back where you started, or in the middle of a mud puddle—but never ever straight ahead.

https://www.parents.com/holiday/fathers-day/traditions/fathers-day-activity-ideas/

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verisau · 5 years

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Surveyors in the Great War

We have just commemorated the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. This was war on a scale that the world had never before seen; the first time strong, resilient nation states came up against each other with all the technology of the industrial revolution. It was the war that changed forever the way that wars are fought. When war began in August 1914, the armies used tactics that would have been familiar to Napoleon or even Alexander the Great. They marched forward in perfect lines of infantry or charged forward on their horses. The French officers even stood in one place on the battlefield, swords held high, wearing Napoleonic plumed hats. They faced machine guns and artillery. The result was terrifying to contemplate. There were one million casualties in the first month. One day alone saw more casualties than all of the European wars combined over the previous century. Both sides soon worked out that the only way to survive against this new weaponry without losing ground was to burrow. The middle years of the Great War in Europe were marked by trenches stretching from the Swiss border to the Belgian coast. These trench structures became incredibly complex, using sophisticated geometry to deflect shell blasts and provide safe means of communication. Sometimes they stretched back many miles from front, so that if the first line of defence was overcome, there would be a second or third line behind. Railways, roads and bridges were built behind the lines to bring supplies up to the front. Both sides engaged in massive infrastructure projects just to keep their front line soldiers supplied. The Germans once built five new railway lines in preparation for one assault. The trenches were a hell on earth for those who occupied them. They were damp and stank of excrement and decomposing bodies. The only place worse than the trenches was no-man’s land; the strip of land that separated the opposing sides. In some places this was miles wide and in others only few hundred yards. It was covered by another newly deployed weapon of war, barbed wire, and pock marked with shell craters. It was across this hellish landscape that the infantry would charge, into the teeth of machine guns and mortars, to try to capture the enemy’s trenches. This became a war of attrition. Whichever side had men alive when the enemy’s armies were all spent, would win. By 1918 both sides were exhausted. The Germans were hungry, literally, both at home and at the front, and the French and British were losing appetite for the wholesale slaughter needed to gain a few yards of ground. New tactics emerged. The British introduced tanks and armoured personnel carriers and started using aircraft for ground attacks. Perhaps most significantly, the USA joined the war, sending a quarter of a million fresh soldiers every month to France. The German armies were outnumbered, outgunned and out nourished. When peace finally came in November 2018, it came with a treaty that so punished and humiliated Germany, that another world war was almost inevitable. One the features of the first World War was the way that it stimulated technological innovation, most notably aviation, but also surveying. Surveying became integral to making and implementing a battle plan. Initially the British did not send any surveyors to the front. They thought that the war would be over before surveyors had time to do anything useful. When they did finally send a surveyor, he was arrested by his own side as a spy. Who else but a spy would be roaming the front with a theodolite? That surveyor later became known as ‘The Astrologer’ due to his uncanny ability to pinpoint enemy targets for artillery fire. Surveyors mapped the trenches – one surveyor mapped a whole trench network on Gallipoli using a compass and a 20 foot length of string. Others used plane tables- some even had theodolites. They developed formulae to be able to calculate the distance to an enemy gun by measuring the time difference between the flash and the bang. Eventually they used aeroplanes to take photographs of enemy trenches and developed the mathematics to project those images onto their ground maps. Surveyors played a critical role in directing tunnelling operations. Both sides tried to tunnel underneath no-man’s-land. They would plant explosives beneath the other side’s trenches in the hope of forcing the enemy to give some ground. There are reports of some awkward encounters when opposing tunnel teams accidentally met in the middle. By the time the war was ending, both sides were adopting new blitzkrieg style tactics more familiar to the Second World War, heavily reliant on the accuracy of maps made by surveyors. The surveyors of the First World War were not back-room boffins. Their skills were needed at the front line and sometimes beyond. In a period of human history where madness seemed to be everywhere, the surveyors went about their business: telling the digger where to dig his hole, the gunner where to point his gun, the ambulance driver where to find the field hospital, or the general where to find the enemy’s flank. He was finding order in the chaos, as is his nature. In this time of remembrance, we should spare a thought for him too.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves

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“NOW WE’RE SUCKING DIESEL! If you don’t get it, you missed a great series.” Stephen King’s recent discovery of British police thriller Line of Duty – as relayed via a series of highly enthusiastic Tweets – was a delight to witness. King’s zeal is enough to make UK fans wish that he hadn’t binge-watched the BBC series from his home inside the sewers of Derry, Maine, but instead watched it at broadcast pace in the UK, where he would no doubt have made a sizeable contribution to the show’s Twitter larks. (King proved himself happy to join in with online TV show speculation when he correctly predicted the killer in HBO/Sky’s Mare of Easttown. You can bet he’d have had a take on the mystery identity of Line of Duty baddie ‘H’.)

Line of Duty isn’t alone in attracting King’s online praise; when the horror author watches a TV show he loves from inside the creepy Castle Rock devil shop he calls home, he lets his 6.5 million followers know about it. Below is a list of endorsements King has made on Twitter in recent years, from the usual sci-fi and horror suspects to a few less expected titles.

US MODERN CLASSICS

The Americans, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Sons of Anarchy and The Shield

In Stephen King’s house (inside Derry’s landmark water tower, The Standpipe) as of February 2018, only three shows were considered ‘appointment television’: FX Cold War spy drama The Americans, HBO fantasy epic Game of Thrones and Showtime spy thriller Homeland. King describes all three as “a cut above”. Going one further, three days after the Game of Thrones series finale aired, King called out the New York Times’ list of 20 best TV dramas for neglecting to include the HBO dragon epic. He’s glad the Times included FX cop drama The Shield, a show that “fundamentally changed TV”, but feels it should also have tipped a hat to FX motorcycle gang drama Sons of Anarchy. Get it right, New York Times.

INTERNATIONAL DRAMA

Dark, Fauda, Hotel Beau Sejour, Les Revenants, Marianne, Money Heist, To The Lake, ZeroZeroZero

Nothing scares Stephen King, not even subtitles. When he’s relaxing in his converted alien spaceship half buried in the woods of Haven, Maine, he enjoys nothing more than streaming a foreign-language box-set. He particularly rates German sci-fi Dark, which he called terrific, complex and very German, and recommends these explanatory recaps for anybody confused by its multiple timelines. Virus thriller To The Lake was called “a pretty darn good Russian series on Netflix,” while Israeli spy thriller Fauda was described as “all killer and no filler”. King called Belgian crime drama Hotel Beau Sejour “eccentric, brilliant and strangely touching. Supernatural fare for those who don’t ordinarily like it.” Speaking of the supernatural, King’s a fan of celebrated French horror Marianne, which he says could scare even “a sicko” like him. Also in French, he loved atmospheric supernatural zombie drama Les Revenants/The Returned, calling it sexy and scary. Netflix’s Spanish-language thriller Money Heist is “a firecracker” while he found Italian-Anglo crime drama ZeroZeroZero “bone-shaking, chilling, terrifying, epic,” and King found it hard to believe it could be bettered. High praise.

Why You Should Watch Black Summer on Netflix

By Ron Hogan

The Best French TV Shows on Netflix

By Louisa Mellor

BRITISH DRAMA

Black Mirror, Life on Mars, Line of Duty, The Stranger

From underneath his massive, transparent dome in Chester’s Mill, Stephen King will often enjoy a bit of British telly. Back in 2013, when it was still a Channel 4 show only just available worldwide on Netflix, King Tweeted that he loved future-tech anthology series Black Mirror, calling it “terrifying, funny, intelligent,” and compared it to an R-rated The Twilight Zone. The show creator Charlie Brooker, told Den of Geek at the time that despite being a huge Stephen King fan, his reaction was characteristically muted:

“I think I probably smiled? That’s about as effusive as I get about anything, because whenever anything nice happens in the world I always expect something appalling to happen immediately afterwards.”

BBC crime-drama-with-a-time-travel-fantasy-twist Life on Mars is another British favourite that King described in September 2020 as one of his favourite shows of all time, “the kind you go to when you’re feeling sad.” That same year, he called Harlan Coben’s mystery thriller The Stranger, starring Richard Armitage, as an excellent, addictive mystery. King’s British TV crush of the moment of course, is BBC crime drama Line of Duty, which he praises for having a central Mulder/Scully-type vibe between main characters Steve Arnott and Kate Fleming.

US THRILLERS

Big Sky, Bosch, Designated Survivor, Escape at Dannemora, Fargo, Mindhunter, Perry Mason, The Good Fight, The Man in the High Castle, The Morning Show

After he’s finished all the two-finger KitKats from the minibar at Room 217 of The Overlook Hotel, where he lives, Stephen King puts a thriller on the TV. Crime thriller, political thriller, legal thriller, alt-history Philip K. Dick thriller… he has time for them all. King is a particular fan of ABC’s murder show Big Sky, which stars Ryan Philippe and Vikings’ Kathryn Winnick. In February this year, he called it the best drama on network TV and said the final three episodes were stepping into Emmy territory. He calls Bosch an excellent detective series, one of the best on TV, with an engrossing story and superb cast. Kiefer Sutherland-starring series Designated Survivor he called excellent, complex and involving after its move to Netflix. Prison drama Escape at Dannemora is TV at its best according to King, who in 2015 described the penultimate episode of Fargo season two as the best thing on television in the last three years. In 2017, he strongly recommended David Fincher serial killer drama Mindhunter, and last year called the Matthew Rhys Perry Mason reboot a “damn good show.” In 2019, King called The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight “the best show on TV”, and found nothing not to like about Apple TV+’s The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston. That was the year he also named Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle season four as “amazingly good”, challenging and involving.

HORROR & SUPERNATURAL

Black Summer, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House, Servant, Stranger Things, THEM

When he’s not nursing kidnapped novelists back to health in the remote Colorado cabin where he lives, Stephen King goes in for a bit of scare-action on the TV. He called Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House “close to a work of genius” despite not being a fan of revisionism of its kind in general, and praised M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant for its focus, acting and atmosphere, adding “if there’s anything creepier or more binge-worthy than this, I don’t know what it is.” He loved Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ BBC Dracula, calling it terrific and “VERY bloody”, found the first episode of Amazon Prime Video’s THEM scared the hell out of him, and praised Netflix’s Black Summer for reinvigorating the zombie drama: “Just when you think there’s no more scare left in zombies. THIS comes along.” As for Stranger Things, he described the first season as like “watching Steve King’s greatest hits” in a good way.

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Next week on What Famous People are Watching: is Stanley Tucci really that big on the Westminster Dog Show, or is he more of a The Underground Railroad guy? We find out.

The post Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves appeared first on Den of Geek.

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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Source: Spain is Customer of NSO Group

The cellphones of several politicians in Spain, including that of the president of one of the countries’ autonomous regional parliaments, were targeted with spyware made by NSO Group, an Israeli company that sells surveillance and hacking tools to governments around the world, according to The Guardian and El Pais . Motherboard confirmed the specifics with security researchers who investigated the attempted hack and a Facebook employee who has knowledge of the case.

A former NSO employee has told Motherboard that the Spanish government has been an NSO customer since 2015.

"We were actually very proud of them as a customer," the former employee said. "Finally a European state." Motherboard granted the source anonymity to protect them from retaliation from the company.

We cannot confirm whether these specific attempted hacks were directed by the Spanish government, though one of the politicians targeted believes the Spanish government is behind the attack.

Do you work at NSO Group, did you used to, or do you know anything else about the company? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on [email protected], or email [email protected]. You can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, OTR chat at [email protected], or email [email protected].

On Monday, the media outlets revealed that someone tried to hack the cellphone of Roger Torrent, the President of the Parliament of Catalonia, using a flaw in WhatsApp, which was discovered last year. Torrent is the president of the Parliament of Catalonia, which governs Barcelona and the surrounding region that has recently attempted to become independent from Spain.

Carles Puigdemont, a member of the European Parliament and the former president of Catalonia, condemned the hacking attempt, and implied that the Spanish government targeted Torrenthim. If that's the case, this would be the first known case of a European government using this type of technology against politicians inside Europe.

"Spain has been using authoritarian methods for a while. I myself had a tracking device on my car which is being investigated by the Belgian authorities,” Puigdemont told Motherboard in an email. “The EU cannot wait anymore to act, we have new proofs every day that the rule of law in Spain is totally wrecked."

"It is not the first time that accusations of spying on political opponents emerge in Spain. In 2009 there was a spying scandal within the center-right Popular Party. In 2012, Catalan lawmakers have accused the Spanish government of espionage,” Mathias Vermeulen, a former aide for a member of the European Parliament who focused on surveillance tech issues, told Motherboard. “But using extraordinary tools like Pegasus against democratically elected politicians is a first in Europe and should be immediately investigated."

"Finally a European state."

Citizen Lab, a research group that has investigated government spyware for a decade, said it could not definitively confirm who actually deployed the NSO spyware.

“Although we can positively verify that Mr. Torrent’s phone was targeted by NSO’s spyware, we are unable to determine by whom,” said Ronald Deibert, the director of the Citizen Lab. A Facebook employee confirmed to Motherboard that Torrent was targeted with NSO spyware on WhatsApp. The employee spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

“This is a case where we would infer the customer is Spain but I don't have hard evidence,” said a security researcher who has investigated previous cases of hacks done with NSO spyware. The researcher asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t allowed to speak to the press.

The former NSO employee said Spain had access to a 0-click version of NSO's Pegasus product. Pegasus is the suite of tools that lets customers remotely break into and surveill phones.

Beyond domestic use, the former employee added that the Spanish customer had a number of different territories unlocked for deploying Pegasus in, including France, Malta, and Mexico. NSO prices its Pegasus product based on how many countries or areas the client is able to hack phones in.

The client also bought products from Circles, another surveillance company related to NSO, the former employee said. Circles focuses on products that exploit the SS7 network and protocol, and which can be used to track the location of phones.

The former employee added that the sale related to a central intelligence agency of Spain. The CNI, or National Intelligence Centre, is Spain’s intelligence agency.

Two NSO executives and a company spokesperson declined to comment on whether the Spanish government was one of their customers. In a statement sent to reporters, NSO said that “Due to the confidentiality constraints, we cannot confirm or deny which such authorities use our Technology.”

"We were actually very proud of them as a customer."

“We are appreciative that this matter has been brought to our attention. In line with our Human Rights Policy we take our responsibilities seriously and if warranted, will initiate an investigation,” the statement read. “We will cooperate with any competent authority investigation if initiated, in parallel to our internal procedures.”

The CNI used to be a customer of Hacking Team, the infamous Italian spyware company that dominated the market in the 2000s. In fact, according to former employees of Hacking Team as well as leaked documents published after the company was hacked in 2015, the CNI became Hacking Team’s first customer outside of Italy after the terrorist attack in Madrid on March 11, 2004.

The CNI and the Spanish government did not respond to a request for comment.

The Spanish prime minister’s office told the Guardian that “the government has no evidence that the speaker of the Catalan parliament, Roger Torrent, the former MP Anna Gabriel and the activist Jordi Domingo have been the targets of hacking via their mobiles."

"Furthermore, we must state that any operation involving a mobile phone is always conducted in accordance with the relevant judicial authorisation."

Update: This piece has been updated to include more information from the former NSO Group employee.

Subscribe to our cybersecurity podcast, CYBER.

Source: Spain is Customer of NSO Group syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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