#hong kong tailor nyc

[ascotchang]

NYC manager Philip Cheung proudly displaying a client’s paper pattern that he drafted and cut from scratch.  

- Ascot Chang 

[formfollowsfunctionjournal]

I’ve gone to hit post on this multiple times. It doesn’t do justice to you or our friendship... So I’m going to just let this fly You had about 50 nicknames & aliases (& you had a shit ton for me too, luckily none of them ever stuck apart from Pip.) You were always Mike, 100% carrying an iced coffee & normally sweaty from skating a gap, but somehow GQ fresh, seriously intense, but also methodic & able to snap into a ‘Wire’ ‘Wu Tang’ or ‘Dipset’ reference ending in your goofy laughter everytime. We met in London working at the same spot, within 5 minutes of meeting we were thick as thieves. You put me on to orange bandanas & Jeezy, multiple times in fact, until I would actually listened to him. You moved back to RI, bounced to NYC & we talked most nights you were in the studio cutting patterns & sewing, normally every possible surface was also covered in WW2 watch parts! You put me onto that too. You came to visit me for a week in Portland when I wasn’t doing too great, while there you drank 6 shots of coffee for breakfast & ate ice cream for dinner & we thrifted, hit the bins, estate saled & antiqued for a week. You bought so much crap that I had to send 2 huge boxes of it back to New York. That time you came back to the east coast from HK for 2 days & you jumped straight on a train to come hang for a couple hours in Boston. Your journey to success took you to LA then across seas to HK, I was really proud to watch you grow, you transformed from knucklehead street skater to tailor, seamstress watch nerd to self made businessman. I’d remind you to be proud of yourself most times we spoke & you’d wave it off like it wasn’t a thing. You were always a generous friend, the last time Han went to Hong Kong you sent her home with that USMC watch for me, still my most treasured thing, you even seriously tried to get me to move out there a couple times. You were the first person to skate to a Fleetwood Mac song 🤣 #nocranberry #ongoldenponds2 #goyourownway It’s been 3 weeks since I heard & I’m still in shock. I hope you found eternal peace in a better place my brother, I’m forever heart broken 🖤 Uno #Number4 #cutfromadifferentcloth #restinpower (at Beat Street) https://www.instagram.com/p/CHs_HTuDGEK/?igshid=2lwylfb7bzdo

[dcvw]

WORN&WOUND: My Watch - Watches and Personal Style with The Armoury’s Mark Cho

Mark Cho is one of the sharpest-dressed guys I know, but that’s exactly what one would expect from the co-founder of The Armoury, one of the best men’s haberdasheries in NYC and Hong Kong. From fine tailoring to high-quality accessories, The Armoury has a curated selection of goods from some of the world’s finest makers, among them Ring Jacket (Japan), Caruso (Italy), Drake’s (England), Alden (USA), Carmina (Spain), and many more.

I first met Mark when he hosted an in-store presentation some years back. The topic was an exploration of different tailoring traditions, like what differentiates soft Neapolitan jackets from the sorts one might see from English producers. As someone who rarely ever wears a sports jacket, let alone a suit, the primer was absolutely fascinating, and I honestly learned quite a bit. Later that evening, I pulled Mark aside and thanked him for his hospitality, and we got to chatting about clothes and, as I quickly learned he was a fellow collector, watches...

[travel-for-all21]

Affordable Holiday Packages: What Are Some Must-See Places for Your Holiday Getaway? 

Do you want to go to Australia on a nice holiday weekend? Or head to the casinos in Vegas for an exciting time? No matter what time of the year you plan on going, there should be some type of affordable holiday packages available.

What destinations appeal to you? Are you interested in a specific package, such as those tailored around golf, romance, or families? Make a list of what you are hoping to get out of your upcoming holiday trip and see what kind of deals you can find. Depending on the location and the circumstances, you might not find exactly what you’re looking for right away, so either have a backup destination in mind or wait patiently for the right deal to pop up.

Holiday packages at the bare minimum include hotel accommodation and free breakfast. Some may include free dining or even airfare. It’s pretty common these days for travelers to book their airfare and hotel room at the same time as it is often cheaper to do so rather than book them separately. However, this isn’t always the case. First, check and compare the prices to see which strategy would work best for you.

If you’re going to an exotic place you’ve never been before, you might want to consider a tour. Some affordable holiday packages include guided tours, usually by a local. This way, you can ensure that you are truly experiencing everything that should be experienced. When going on a self-guided tour by yourself, there is always the possibility that you will miss out on something important.

Find Affordable Holiday Packages on the Beach

Holiday deals at the beach tend to be very popular. Everybody loves to escape to a tropical beach somewhere for a few days. Destinations in the Caribbean, Hawaiian Islands, South America, California, and Southeast Asia are always worth considering.

Other types of holiday getaways people seem to really love include ski resorts, mountain retreats, spa retreats, Disney World, and cruises. You could always fly to a major city for a couple of nights of cosmopolitan fun. In the US, must-see cities include Vegas, NYC, and New Orleans. A lot of people want to experience the West Coast as well, so San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles are often on the top of many people’s lists. Other cities across the globe you might want to consider include Paris, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Nassau, Hong Kong, Morocco, Sydney, and Toronto.

Keep in mind that the best affordable holiday packages often sell out quickly, so grab one while you have the chance!

https://bit.ly/buytour 

[thesimplyluxuriouslife]

Top 10 Podcast Episodes of 2019

Season 6 of The Simple Sophisticate is well underway as 2019 wraps up and we head into 2020. As I reflect back to September 2014 when the show premiered, I could not have fathomed the engagement it would inspire, the topics and books we would cover and explore nor the people who would wish to be on the show.

This year, Apple changed its categories for podcasts, and in so doing prompted me to reconsider how to label the show for new and potential listeners, which turned out to be a boon for the show and new listeners discovering it.

With the help of you, the listeners the podcast and readers of TSLL, the selections that were decided upon (#1— Education: Self-Improvement; #2 — Society & Culture; #3 — Leisure: Home & Garden) in no small part contributed to the podcast reaching #33 in the United States' ALL-Time Self-Improvement podcasts. And, as the podcast has a strong Francophile following, when episode #269 - 32 Ways to Be Parisian Chic went live earlier this month, the podcast soared to #5 for the daily Self-Improvement podcasts.

As listeners share how and when they listen to the show — while running the NYC marathon, while spring cleaning, while starting the day in Australia, while commuting via car or train or subway, while walking/running with their pups, while strolling along a river in the European countryside, while strolling through a park throughout the vast United States, while winding down at the end of the day in a cozy abode in Canada, and in so many countries around the globe as listeners go about their lives (the show ranked #16 in South Africa, #12 in Hong Kong, #23 in Romania, #6 in Oman, and #2 in Spain!) — I am humbled as well as tickled to realize how TSLL community stretches far and wide, but more so how similiar we are no matter where we call home regarding our interests to live a life of contentment, a life of deep joy and understanding of the world around us as we strive to contribute positively to its future as we savor the everyday moments.

How to rankings work? The combination of number of downloads and positive reviews and rankings drive up a show on the charts, and for both of these contributions by listeners, I want to say thank you. So many of you have left positive reviews and high rankings, and as I try to share all of the reviews, sprinkling a few in each podcast episode, thank you for your time to share specifically what draws you to the show. (you can leave a review here on Apple iTunes)

Now to the top 10 episodes of 2019 based on the number of downloads.

10.

34 Inspiring Daily Rituals to Ignite Your Creativity, episode #255

9.

Celebrating the JOMO and Enjoying Your Unique Chosen Life Journey, episode #251

8.

How to Create a Beckoning Sanctuary That Reflects Your Life Journey, episode #250

7.

A Lesson, for Women Especially, to Learn Sooner, episode #249

6.

22 French Beauty Secrets Worth the Investment in either time or money, episode #258

5.

Why Not . . . Tailor Your Life to Fit You? , episode #246

A well-designed life is a life that makes sense . . . a marvelous portfolio of experiences, of adventures, of failures that taught you important lessons, of hardships that made you stronger and helped you know yourself better, and of achievements and satisfactions." —Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

4.

31 Ways to Practice True Self-Care and Exponentially Improve the Quality of Your Life, episode #242

Mary Beth Janssen describes in her 2017 The Book of Self-Care, "No amount of massages, hot baths, aromatherapy, healthy food or exercise will sustain us over the span of our lives if not experienced from the layer of our being that is pure consciousness." In other words, there is deeper work that needs to be done, but we can still incorporate these surface, pleasure-finding practices into our self-care regimen.

3.

36 Ways to Welcome Joie de Vivre into Your Everyday Life, episode #253

"I firmly believe that it's the little things we do that eventually add up to a happy life. I am not asking you to change everything about the way you live, but perhaps to reconsider a few details of your daily routine. Remember that joie de vivre is not revolutionary —but it is evolutionary." —Robert Arbor, author of Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living

2.

12 Ways to Make Your Mornings Magical, episode #243

"When you take control of your mornings, you take control of your days. You get to engage with the world under your terms. You can act, instead of react." —Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning Millionaires

1.

Attaining the Change You Seek in the New Year, episode #241

“In bringing about genuine inner transformation and change, the Dalai Lama emphasizes the importance of making a sustained effort. It is a gradual process.” —The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by The Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D.

The next new episode will go live wherever you listen to podcasts on Monday January 6, 2020. I'll "see" you in the new year!

~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio | YouTube | Spotify

TOP PODCAST EPISODES FROM PREVIOUS YEARS:

Top 10 Episodes of 2015 & Fall/Winter 2014 (the show's premiere!)

Tune in to the latest episode of The Simple Sophisticate podcast

[ascotchang]

Managing Director Tony Chang, in an immaculate bespoke grey plaid suit.

- Ascot Chang 

[rodrigohyde]

5 Outerwear Looks From Instagram's Most Stylish Guys

AskMen Selects: Weekly Looks to Shop

Here at AskMen, we take our mission to help you become a better man seriously. In the spirit of doing all we can to help you look and feel your best, we present AskMen Selects, a weekly initiative to bring you the best street styles, worn by the coolest influencers, for every budget. With our expertise in what's going on in style and grooming, to our trusted relationships with influential tastemakers, we’ll curate the items, trends, and ideas for you to shop every week.  

RELATED: These 12 Men Are Rocking Instagram With Their Inspiring Style

Our Influencers of the Week

Coming off one of the coldest weeks in U.S. history, we’re highlighting great outerwear for our inaugural edition of AskMen Selects to prove that you can have killer style no matter how low the mercury plummets. From lighter-weight jackets to more substantial coats, look to these guys to know what to wear to look cool while you keep warm.

After browsing through streetwear styles from around the world, here are our picks for the week of February 4.

Eliezer Infante

@elisoul01

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Eliezer Infante (@elisoul01) on Dec 6, 2018 at 1:50pm PST

Eli Infante’s lifestyle blog North of Man has grown from a personal style site into a full-on creative agency providing styling, photography, and creative direction to brands as well as other influencers. Well versed in the fashion industry thanks to his runway experience, brand collaborations, and modeling campaigns, he has shown time and time again that he can identify and integrate young, emerging brands — such as Computers New York, seen in his photo here —  with long-established brands such as Hugo Boss, another favorite from his feed.

“I enjoy a wardrobe that can make statements in a subtle way, but I also believe in dressing as vividly as possible,” Infante says. “This look, I would say, is one of many meeting points.”

We appreciate Infante’s eye for bringing together unexpected color combos, like this royal blue and black, as well as mixing outerwear by labels made up of classic tailored designs with those backed by a young entrepreneurial spirit whose designs are fresh. He keeps us guessing from post to post, and when we landed on this look — which at first glance was so simple, but upon further inspection was so skillfully assembled — we had to give him props.

Items to shop inspired by Eli’s look:

Budget

Gap Wool-Blend Herringbone Top Coat, $124 at Gap.com

Russell Pullover Hoodie, $22.99 at Amazon.com

Top Level Baseball Cap, $8.99 at Amazon.com

H&M Slim Straight Jeans, $34.99 at HM.com

Clea Gregory High Top Sneaker, $39.99 at NordstromRack.com

Baller

Rubinacci Double-Breasted Herringbone Wool Coat, $2,410 at MrPorter.com

404 Not Found Hoodie, $80 at ComputersNewYork.com

Outdoor Voices Doing Things Hat, $35 at OutdoorVoices.com

Brunello Cucinelli Slim-Fit Jeans, $825 at MrPorter.com

Koio Triple White Hi-Top, $350 at Koio.com

RELATED: Your Comprehensive Guide to Packing a Carry-On Like a Pro

Leo Chan

@levitatestyle

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by LEO CHAN ? NYC + LA (@levitatestyle) on Jan 17, 2019 at 4:21pm PST

Born in Hong Kong and based in New York, Leo Chan managed to do what many guys dream of but most don’t get to do: He left his job in finance after four years, and along with his girlfriend Alicia Mara, got a sponsorship project to travel the world for five months. Five years and 41 countries later, they are both still working exclusively on his blog Levitate Style, using their travels to Egypt, Portugal, Spain, and more as inspiration for stylish posts.

Travel is a throughline in most of Chan’s posts, not limited to our current favorite from a recent trip to Los Angeles. “This is an effortless travel outfit bringing the NYC monochromatic street style to L.A.,” he explains. “Wearing [some of] my favorite travel essentials — comfortable turtleneck shirt, plaid coat, ripped jeans, and Balenciaga speed sneakers — lets me go from all day exploring town to dinner with friends at night.”

Items to shop inspired by Leo’s look:

Budget

Topman Hayden Check Print Overcoat, $104.98 at Nordstrom.com

Poriff Casual Knitted Thermal Turtleneck, from $6.99 at Amazon.com

Tissot Chrono XL Classic, $249 at Amazon.com

Abercrombie & Fitch Super Skinny Jeans, $26.40 at Abercrombie.com

Adidas Men's Eqt Support Adv Fashion Sneaker, from $28.37 at Amazon.com

Baller

Dunhill Prince Of Wales Checked Wool And Cashmere-Blend Coat, $2,795 at MrPorter.com

Officine Generale Slim-Fit Merino Wool Rollneck Sweater, $310 at MrPorter.com

Tag Heuer Formula 1, $2,200 at CrownandCaliber.com

Balmain Skinny-Fit Distressed Stretch-Denim Jeans, $1,250 at MrPorter.com

Balenciaga Men's High-Top Speed Sneaker, $875 at BergdorfGoodman.com

RELATED: Need Insight on What to Wear This Season? We Asked the Experts

Bobby Hicks

@thisfellow

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bobby Hicks (@thisfellow) on Jan 3, 2019 at 9:10am PST

Take one look at Bobby Hicks’ Instagram or YouTube channel and you’ll see this guy loves the outdoors. Outside exercising, outside with his girlfriend, or outside with his dog, there is one thing that’s always true: The dude looks pulled together even though his outdoorsy look is easy and effortless. Rustic style can quickly skew to a functional place and leave fashion out of it completely. Hicks repeatedly shows how to tackle time outside well, whether it’s the up in the mountains or downtown.

“I love living in NYC, but I'm happiest in the woods, and this outfit just felt right in so many ways,” Hicks says about his ensemble we chose as our favorite. “I basically live in jeans, but always love to create a color contrast against the blue of the denim, to find complementary or triadic color schemes.”

This quintessentially cool-weather color palette is timeless and likely to never go out of style. He adds of his look: “During the fall, it's magical because your environment can then complement your outfit in ways that you can't find in the city.”

Items to shop inspired by Bobby’s look:

Budget

J.Crew Field Mechanic Jacket, $198 at JCrew.com

Amazon Essentials Regular-Fit Long-Sleeve Flannel Shirt, $18 at Amazon.com

Carhartt Watch Hat, $9.99 at Amazon.com

Abercrombie & Fitch Athletic Skinny Jean, $39 at Abercombie.com

Frye Gordon Lace Up Combat Boot, from $131.99 at Amazon.com

Baller

Belstaff Journey Jacket, $995 at Belstaff.com

Proper Cloth Scarlet and Black Ombre Plaid Flannel, $100 at ProperCloth.com

Coach Cashmere Beanie, $62.50 at Coach.com

3x1 M3 Selvedge Slim Straight Jeans, $285 at 3x1Denim.com

Crockett and Jones Radnor 4 Russian Grain Boot, $1,100 at CrockettandJones.com

RELATED: 7 Tips to Win the Battle Against Your Hair-Flattening Hat

Talun Zeitoun

@Talunzeitoun

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Talun Zeitoun (@talunzeitoun) on Jan 14, 2019 at 7:29am PST

Born in Los Angeles with roots in France, Talun Zeitoun has become an influential voice in fashion. With a hairstylist mother who works with some of the biggest celebrities in the game, Talun had a unique exposure to the world not many kids can say they’ve had. His upbringing, along with being a true talent in his own right, has led him to be a sought-after authority in the luxury style space, allowing him to work with Coach, Christian Louboutin, and Saks Fifth Avenue, to name a few.

As you scroll through his namesake blog, TalunZeitoun.com, it quickly becomes clear he favors a calm, classic, neutral color palette when showcasing his style, and our outfit of choice is no exception.

“I'm into warmer tones when it's really cool out — I like the irony of it,” he says about his layers of the saturated shade of camel, a classic color season after season. “Plus, being efficient with fewer, but thicker layers helps minimize bulk and streamline a refined winter look.”

Items to shop inspired by Talun’s look:

Budget

Banana Republic Faux Shearling Coat, $198 at BananaRepublic.com

Asos Bershka Knitted Roll Neck Sweater, $32 at Asos.com

Jim Halo Aviator Glasses, $18.99 at Amazon.com

Uniqlo Stretch Selvedge Slim-Fit White Jeans, $49.90 At Uniqlo.com

Madden Men's Nathin Chelsea Boot, $74.99 at Amazon.com

Baller

Arje Neptune Reversible Shearling Jacket, $4,995 at arje.com

The Giacomo Chunky Cashmere Blend Turtleneck Sweater, $995 at Arje.com

Ray-Ban Aviator Glasses, $134.40 at Amazon.com

Rag & Bone Fit 2 Slim Fit Stretch Denim Jeans, $195 at MrPorter.com

To Boot New York Sheldon Shearling Lined Boot, $450 at ToBoot.com

RELATED: Why Every Man Needs a White T-Shirt (and How to Wear It)

Tommy Lei

@mybelonging

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tommy Lei (@mybelonging) on Jan 16, 2019 at 10:40am PST

One half of the brother-sister duo @theleisibs, Tommy Lei has an unlimited sense of self he shows off on his blog, MyBelonging.com. Whether he’s carrying a leopard print Jeff Wan bag the size and shape of a milk carton or stopping to pose with an iconic Versace print shirt tucked into his pink pants that perfectly match his hair, Tommy takes the laissez-faire attitude of Los Angeles and displays it for all to enjoy. But even in LA, outerwear can play an important role in his daily outfits of choice. We picked this understated combination due to its sophisticated simplicity.

“A shawl, wool coat is a great essential to have in any man’s wardrobe, so it’s paramount for me to invest in one that will stand the test of time and seasons,” says Lei. “The one I am wearing is from emerging LA-based label, Arcady, and their version of it is spectacularly tailored and just voluminous enough to be worn on both coasts.”

Another key to this coat’s success? Its camel hue, much like that seen in the post above, is a classic color that should be adopted by every man looking to dress well. Explains Lei: “Its camel tones are also particularly flattering on almost all skin tones and complexions, so naturally it makes second-skin styling that much more effortless.”

Items to shop inspired by Tommy’s look:

Budget

Laneus Belted Midi Coat, $329 at Farfetch.com

Gobiger Aviator Sunglasses, $12.99 at Amazon.com

H&M Reversible Shopper, $24.99 at HM.com

Zara Travel Jogging Pants, $49.90 at Zara.com

Fila Strada Disruptor, from $41.98 at Amazon.com

Baller

Arcady Belted Shawl Collar Coat, $695 at Arcady.com

Ray-Ban 58mm Metal Aviator Sunglasses, $168 at Amazon.com

Coach Metropolitan Tote in Saddle, $695 at Coach.com

Thom Browne Straight-Fit Unconstructed Chino Pants, $790 at MrPorter.com

Givenchy Jaw Neoprene, Suede, Leather, and Mesh Sneakers, $825 at MrPorter.com

These are the recent Instagram outerwear looks we thought rocked, but what do you think? What do you want to see? Do you have a look you like? Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and friend us on Facebook to share your best looks or tell us about someone we should check out. Tag us and use the hashtag #AskMenSelects to get our attention. Or e-mail us directly at Editorial@AskMen.com with “AskMen Selects” in the subject. Maybe next week, we’ll pick you!

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How to Make Pantone's Color of the Year Work With Your Style Men Are Getting Botox in Record Numbers: Here's What You Need to Know However You Wear It, the New G-SHOCK G-STEEL Looks Good from AskMen Style https://www.askmen.com/style/fashion_advice/askmen-selects-weekly-looks-to-shop.html

[samstailor]

#Repost @andyofaea ・・・ A custom-made $$$ top from Hong Kong's famed Sam's Tailor paired with a $5 little black skirt from Forever 21 . . . And the red lips were a given. #datenight #nyc #manhattan #style #hk #samstailor #adventure #escape #explore #travel #wanderlust #custom #stila #stilabeso (at Sam's Tailor)

[rogerdscotts]

The Armoury NYC F/W 2019 Collection Launch Event

from He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

The Armoury F/W 2019 Collection

Hidden along Duane & Hudson Street lies The Armoury, one of the most thoughtfully curated and well stocked menswear shops in NYC. Founded in Hong Kong in 2010, the Armoury has built upon a passion for craftsmanship and exceptional storytelling of artisans from around the world.

He Spoke Style was invited to view their latest F/W 2019 collection. Filled with plenty of popular names, such as Ring Jacket, Ascot Chang, Liverano & Liverano, and Drakes, the Armoury has been sourcing special items from all over the world as well as creating their own distinct products. This was my first time visiting the shop and it certainly won’t be the last.

The event was a hive of bustling well-dressed gentlemen, each one inspecting the latest offerings placed around the store. From their cognac colored suede jackets to the the wide collection of Meermin and Carmina footwear, I found myself drawn to a few of their jackets. This W.Thomas sport coat from Ring Jacket particularly caught my eye. Made from a mix of cashmere and wool, it’s got all the details that I’m looking for in a sport coat; gun-club pattern, 3-2 roll lapel and unpadded shoulders. Perfect for heavy grey flannel pants or dark denim.

What I always find interesting when I attend events is the vast range of personal style choices among men of different professions and cultures. It could be as simple as what the footwear a gentleman chooses to wear or what timepiece he’s wearing. I always make it a point to inspect and ask politely what these personal style choices mean to the wearer.

Beside their traditional seasonal launches, The Armoury regularly hosts traveling tailors, shoemakers and other craftspeople for limited time trunk shows. For those who want a one-on-one experience, they offer MTO, MTM and Full Bespoke processes on the premises.

You can see the entire F/W 2019 Collection Here

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stylishly Yours,

Steven D. Elliott He Spoke Style

The post The Armoury NYC F/W 2019 Collection Launch Event first appeared on the men's style blog He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

from Wellness http://hespokestyle.com/armoury-nyc-fall-winter-2019/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[mikemortgage]

AP Exclusive: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was 1 of many

LONDON — When mysterious operatives lured two cybersecurity researchers to meetings at luxury hotels over the past two months, it was an apparent bid to discredit their research about an Israeli company that makes smartphone hacking technology used by some governments to spy on their citizens. The Associated Press has now learned of similar undercover efforts targeting at least four other individuals who have raised questions about the use of the Israeli firm’s spyware.

The four others targeted by operatives include three lawyers involved in related lawsuits in Israel and Cyprus alleging that the company, the NSO Group, sold its spyware to governments with questionable human rights records. The fourth is a London-based journalist who has covered the litigation. Two of them — the journalist and a Cyprus-based lawyer — were secretly recorded meeting the undercover operatives; footage of them was broadcast on Israeli television just as the AP was preparing to publish this story.

All six of the people who were targeted said they believe the operatives were part of a co-ordinated effort to discredit them.

“There’s somebody who’s really interested in sabotaging the case,” said one of the targets, Mazen Masri, who teaches at City University, London and is advising the plaintiffs’ attorney in the case in Israel.

Masri said the operatives were “looking for dirt and irrelevant information about people involved.”

The details of these covert efforts offer a glimpse into the sometimes shadowy world of private investigators, which includes some operatives who go beyond gathering information and instead act as provocateurs. The targets told the AP that the covert agents tried to goad them into making racist and anti-Israel remarks or revealing sensitive information about their work in connection with the lawsuits.

NSO has previously said it has nothing to do with the undercover efforts “either directly or indirectly.” It did not return repeated messages asking about the new targets identified by the AP. American private equity firm Francisco Partners, which owns NSO, did not return a message from the AP seeking comment.

The undercover operatives’ activities might never have been made public had it not been for two researchers who work at Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group that is based out of the University of Toronto’s Munk School.

In December, one of the researchers, John Scott-Railton, realized that a colleague had been tricked into meeting an operative at a Toronto hotel, then questioned about his work on NSO. When a second operative calling himself Michel Lambert approached Scott-Railton to arrange a similar meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, Scott-Railton devised a sting operation, inviting AP journalists to interrupt the lunch and videotape the encounter.

The story drew wide attention in Israel. Within days, Israeli investigative television show Uvda and The New York Times identified Lambert as Aharon Almog-Assouline, a former Israeli security official living in the plush Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon.

By then, Scott-Railton and the AP had determined the undercover efforts went well beyond Citizen Lab.

Within hours of the story’s publication, Masri wrote to the AP to say that he and Alaa Mahajna, who is pursuing the lawsuit against NSO in Israel, had spent weeks parrying offers from two wealthy-sounding executives who had contacted them with lucrative offers of work and insistent requests to meet in London.

“We were on our guard and did not take the bait,” Masri wrote.

Masri’s revelation prompted a flurry of messages to others tied to litigation involving NSO. Masri and Scott-Railton say they discovered that Christiana Markou, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in a related lawsuit against NSO-affiliated companies in Cyprus, had been flown to London for a strange meeting with someone who claimed to be a Hong Kong-based investor. Around the same time, Masri found out that a journalist who had written about NSO was also invited to a London hotel — twice — and questioned about his reporting.

“Things are getting more interesting,” Masri wrote as the episodes emerged.

——

Like Almog-Assouline, the undercover operative the AP exposed in New York, the covert agents who pursued the lawyers made a string of operational errors.

The attempt to ensnare Alaa Mahajna, the lead lawyer in the Israeli suit, was a case in point.

On Nov. 26 he heard from a man who said his name was Marwan Al Haj and described himself as a partner at a Swedish wealth management firm called Lyndon Partners. Al Haj offered Mahajna an intriguing proposition. Al Haj said one of his clients, an ultra-rich individual with family ties to the Middle East, needed legal assistance recovering family land seized by Jewish settlers following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

“I believe you may be a good fit for this challenging task,” Al Haj wrote.

The request made sense. As a human rights lawyer based in Jerusalem, Mahajna has defended Palestinian activists and others at the receiving end of the Israeli government’s ire. But Mahajna became suspicious as he tried to learn more about the case. Al Haj was cagey about his client and seemed unwilling to provide any paperwork, Mahajna told the AP.

“Not even the basic stuff,” Mahajna said. “Usually people flood you with documents and stories.”

Mahajna said he was unsettled when Al Haj suddenly offered him an all-expenses-paid trip to London; no one had even asked him whether the case had any hope of success.

“At some point it was abundantly clear that this is not a bona fide approach,” Mahajna said.

Ten days later, Masri, the legal adviser in the Israeli lawsuit, received an email offering him a place on the advisory board of a Zurich-based company called APOL Consulting.

Masri became skeptical after he checked out the company’s website. Consulting firms typically trade on their employees’ intelligence and skill, so Masri expected the company’s site to prominently display the names, headshots and qualifications of its staff.

“Here there wasn’t even a name of one human,” he said.

When Masri turned down the position on APOL’s board, the representative who’d contacted him — a man who called himself Cristian Ortega — pressed Masri to see him in London anyway.

“I would consider it a privilege to have a chance to meet you in person for a friendly chat,” Ortega said in a Jan. 7 email. “No strings attached of course.”

Masri said that by then he and Mahajna had come to believe that Ortega and Al Haj were fictions and that their companies were imaginary.

But they didn’t yet know how widespread the covert operations were.

——

The undercover agents got a little further with Christiana Markou, the lawyer who is pursuing the Cypriot case against NSO-affiliated entities.

Her lawsuit, like Mahajna’s, draws heavily on reports by Citizen Lab that found that NSO spyware had been used to break into the phones of the Mexican activists and journalists who are the plaintiffs in both cases.

Markou told the AP she was approached over email Dec. 21 by a man who presented himself as Olivier Duffet, a partner at Hong Kong-based ENE Investments.

Duffet was ostensibly interested in inviting Markou — a leading data protection and privacy lawyer in Cyprus — to give a lecture at a conference. Markou said she proposed discussing the lecture over Skype, but he insisted on an in-person meeting in London, eventually flying her out, putting her up in a fancy hotel and chatting for a little more than an hour.

Most of the discussion revolved around the proposed lecture — but then Duffet suddenly pivoted to the NSO case, asking her whether she felt the lawsuit was winnable and who was funding it.

Markou said she “gave either incorrect answers or expressly refused to answer” because she found his questions suspicious.

Yet another target, Eyad Hamid, a London-based journalist who wrote a story about NSO, said he was also invited to a London hotel on two separate occasions to discuss his coverage of the Israeli company.

The purported company used in the operation targeting him was Mertens-Giraud Partners Management, which was described as a Brussels-based wealth management firm.

Neither MGP — nor any of the other companies — truly existed. The AP’s searches of the Orbis database of some 300 million companies, local corporate registries and trademark repositories turned up no trace of a Swiss firm called APOL, a Swedish company called Lyndon partners, a Belgian company called Mertens-Giraud or a Hong Kong-based firm named ENE Investments. Local phone books didn’t carry listings for a Zurich-based man named Cristian Ortega, a Hong Kong-based man named Olivier Duffet or anyone in Sweden bearing the name Marwan Al Haj.

There was no hint of APOL when the AP visited its supposed office not far from Zurich’s central train station; tenants said they’d never heard of the company. It was the same story in Hong Kong; a management representative at the Central Building, where ENE Investments was supposedly located, said he didn’t know anything about the company. An AP journalist wasn’t able to speak to anyone at Mertens-Giraud’s alleged office on Brussels’ Rue des Poissoniers; the entire building was boarded up for renovations.

At the modern office block in downtown Stockholm where Lyndon Partners claimed to have its headquarters, service manager Elias Broberger said he could find no trace of the wealth management firm.

“It says they are located here,” Broberger said as he examined Lyndon Partners’ professional-looking website. “But we don’t have them in any of our systems: not the booking system; not the member system. We don’t bill them; they don’t bill us.

“I can’t find them.”

——

Who hired the undercover agents remains unclear, but their operational and digital fingerprints suggest they are linked.

The six operatives all began approaching their targets around the same time with individually tailored pitches. Their bogus websites followed the same patterns; all of them were hosted on Namecheap and many were bought at auction from GoDaddy and used the Israeli web design platform Wix. The formatting of the websites was similar; in at least two instances — MGP and Lyndon Partners — it was identical. Even the operatives’ email signatures were the same — consisting of three neatly packed, colorful lines consisting of a phone number, web address and email.

The operatives’ LinkedIn pages were similar, too, featuring men in sunglasses shot from a distance, facing away from the camera, or at unusual angles — a tactic sometimes use to frustrate facial recognition algorithms.

Despite the indications that the undercover agents are all linked, there is no conclusive evidence who they might work for. An Israeli television channel, Channel 12, broadcast a report on Saturday claiming that an Israeli private investigation firm, Black Cube, had been investigating issues around the lawsuits against NSO. The TV channel showed secretly shot footage of the Cypriot lawyer, Markou, and the London journalist, Hamid, which matched the pair’s description of their encounters with undercover agents.

The TV segment was critical of the lawyers suing NSO, and quoted NSO founder Shalev Hulio in an interview accusing Markou and her colleagues of pursuing the lawsuits as a “PR exercise.”

NSO has previously denied hiring Black Cube, and Black Cube in a letter sent last month to the AP said it was not involved in the effort to ensnare researchers at Citizen Lab. “Black Cube had nothing to do with these alleged events,” the letter said, adding that no one acting on the company’s behalf did either.

Black Cube does have a possible tie to Almog-Assouline, the man who held the hotel meeting about NSO in New York. During a long-running Canadian legal battle between two private equity firms — Catalyst Capital and West Face Capital — one man caught up in the litigation said he recognized Almog-Assouline because he’d been approached by the same operative under a different identity several years ago.

“I recognized the individual, down to the accent and the anecdotes,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

In court filings, Black Cube has acknowledged dispatching agents to meet with “various individuals” involved in the private equity firms’ feud. But it’s unclear if other investigations firms might also have done work connected to the two companies’ legal battle.

Black Cube did not respond to repeated questions about whether it had ever employed Almog-Assouline. The firm previously drew international opprobrium for its unrelated work protecting the reputation of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Almog-Assouline himself denied working for Black Cube when two AP reporters confronted him in New York last month.

He has refused to answer any questions since.

When an AP reporter rang the door at his penthouse in Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon a week ago, a woman who identified herself as his wife said he wasn’t home. When the reporter followed up with a phone call to Almog-Assouline, he said: “I have no interest in speaking to you.”

——

Aron Heller in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, David Keyton in Stockholm, Sweden, Jamey Keaten in Zurich, Vincent Yu in Hong Kong, Sylvain Plazy in Brussels, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Meneloas Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.

——

Online:

Documents related to the undercover operation: https://www.documentcloud.org/search/projectid:42174-Citizen-Lab-Und https://ww

——

Raphael Satter can be reached on: http://raphaelsatter.com

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2RTV8LC via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[ttian8899-blog]

Digital citizenship: Activism and protest

It’s actual that acts of protests and advocacy can ignite wherever there are networked public's, when groups of humans connect and collect around frequent grievances and “find symbols beneath which to organise” (Sigal & Biddle 2015).  we know, digital science has enabled the formation of severs networked public's, in spite of bodily boundaries, and as such, has over the years, end up an increasingly more common tool for activists.(Sigal & Biddle 2015) suggests that whilst learning from previous movements has considered activists seek out simple and broadly handy technological know-how options to supplement extra analogue verbal exchange methods, they additionally point out that digital technology could really be a risk to protesters, and that it isn’t right to hinge the success of unique actions on the use of digital technology, rather than on the human memories at the back of the movements. True, digital technological know-how tailor-made for the functions of activism and protest are often Not used, in favour of extra mainstream structures like social media, and there Are issues that can arise from this. However, it’s additionally simple that overall, digital technology’s also benefited social or political movements. At least to a positive extent. 

Not long ago, instagram introduced the ability to introduce location and tag stories in exploration. I just sent a few copies because I wanted to try out new features. With this feature I can see what's going on around me and find stories that interest you. In addition, I can also see the story of people who use the same stickers. You can also search anywhere in the world and you will see the story circle at the top of the location page. Add a location tag or topic tag to your story that you may be included in a larger story. If you added your story, you'll see a line at the top of the story viewer list showing how many people saw it in a larger story. It's a simple, carefree, super-economic way to neatly blend into the common tapestries of my everyday life. Similarly, other people, whether full-time activists or not, have used these platforms to advocate their careers for many years. One of their "hijacking" and re positioning features is The Hashtag, a feature of social media that uses content tags to enable fast and efficient search and post links, as well as easier, faster response, or sharing. And redistribute text.

This is the example of Instagram introduced the ability to introduce location and tag stories in exploration. 

#NoBanNoWall Hashtag To Protest Trump’s Border Wall

source: Gani A 2017, (https://www.buzzfeed.com/aishagani/no-ban-no-wall-tweets-trump)

On Wednesday, President Trump ordered a wall be built on the US-Mexico border, just as news broke that he planned to enforce the "Muslim ban" he pledged on the campaign trail.  In response, tousands of people hit the streets on Wednesday in protest, with many chanting: “This is what America looks like."

People turned up at Washington Square Park in New York and chanted: "No ban, no wall, this is our New York." View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

See Talal Ansari's other Tweets Twitter Ads info and privacy At the same time, people started tweeting #NoBanNoWall – a hashtag founded by former Obama White House staffer Zaki Barzinji and activist Imraan Siddiqi.

Some Democratic members of Congress backed the hashtag.

People of Mexican heritage tweeted their fear.

Actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted his support for vulnerable minority groups.

Police violence and the new era of hashtag activism

source: dehhan 2014, (https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/hashtag-activism-police-brutality-march-nyc/)

The protest was one of many sweeping across the U.S. to fight back against a police violence. But this isn’t your grandmother’s protest: The rising demonstrations come as members of the movement are actively using over 30 hashtags dedicated to making their voices heard.

There’s a divide on what “hashtag activism” really is—for critics, it’s a sign of laziness, a half-measure that is no replacement for traditional fundraising and campaigning, and only serves to help those tweeting and sharing feel better about themselves. But for those riding the wave of anti-police violence action, it’s become something far more important: a tool.

“Hashtag activism is key,” said protester Stephanie McFarlane, as she marched up an avenue along with the rest of the anti-police brutality protesters. “There’s the many hashtags with all the information, which is very helpful.”  

McFarlane called herself an active Twitter user and lauded the ways in which hashtags help lead to organic conversations online. “People can share their strong opinions and be a part of a humongous discussion,” she said.

When asked if hashtag activism can be considered actual activism, she didn’t hesitate: “I would call it activism, I would.”

IS IT “ONLY A HASHTAG”?

Well, Sigal & Biddle (2015) presents a view in which technology regularly overshadows the human testimonies and symbols behind activists’ causes. But regardless of its obvious shortcomings, I now posit that whilst that can also be the case in some instances - like the Umbrella Protests in Hong Kong, in which FireChat gained interest for how it was hijacked via activists because of its unique characteristics - in others, like in #IAmStillAlive, #MeToo, and different moves like #BlackLivesMatter, a frequent characteristic (Hashtagging) of common digital science (social media sites) has furnished activists with a device that does Not overshadow present symbols, however rather, affords activists the easy formation of new Symbols. Instead of overshadowing the stories, the Hashtags have turn out to be beacons and at once recognisable umbrella phrases and avenues, underneath which man or woman activists and participants of the actions converge and Share their stories. They can quickly interact with said motion and with every other, and thru which they can without difficulty make bigger their Voices, whether or not to raise awareness or disseminate their alternative views. It is clear, even in media coverage, that while it is acknowledged that these actions are happening on social media, it is treated almost in passing as just every other method, and focus is still placed on the people these motives champion (Zacharek, Dockterman & Edwards 2017) in a way that they had not been before. I assume this comes following now not only the development of digital technology, but the increasing digital literacy and dependency of the world’s population. And I can only see digital technological know-how continuing to evolve as a tool for activism in the future.

[mikemortgage]

AP Exclusive: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was 1 of many

LONDON — When mysterious operatives lured two cybersecurity researchers to meetings at luxury hotels over the past two months, it was an apparent bid to discredit their research about an Israeli company that makes smartphone hacking technology used by some governments to spy on their citizens. The Associated Press has now learned of similar undercover efforts targeting at least four other individuals who have raised questions about the use of the Israeli firm’s spyware.

The four others targeted by operatives include three lawyers involved in related lawsuits in Israel and Cyprus alleging that the company, the NSO Group, sold its spyware to governments with questionable human rights records. The fourth is a London-based journalist who has covered the litigation. Two of them — the journalist and a Cyprus-based lawyer — were secretly recorded meeting the undercover operatives; footage of them was broadcast on Israeli television just as the AP was preparing to publish this story.

All six of the people who were targeted said they believe the operatives were part of a co-ordinated effort to discredit them.

“There’s somebody who’s really interested in sabotaging the case,” said one of the targets, Mazen Masri, who teaches at City University, London and is advising the plaintiffs’ attorney in the case in Israel.

Masri said the operatives were “looking for dirt and irrelevant information about people involved.”

The details of these covert efforts offer a glimpse into the sometimes shadowy world of private investigators, which includes some operatives who go beyond gathering information and instead act as provocateurs. The targets told the AP that the covert agents tried to goad them into making racist and anti-Israel remarks or revealing sensitive information about their work in connection with the lawsuits.

NSO has previously said it has nothing to do with the undercover efforts “either directly or indirectly.” It did not return repeated messages asking about the new targets identified by the AP. U.S. private equity firm Francisco Partners, which owns NSO, did not return a message from the AP seeking comment.

The undercover operatives’ activities might never have been made public had it not been for two researchers who work at Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group that is based out of the University of Toronto’s Munk School.

In December, one of the researchers, John Scott-Railton, realized that a colleague had been tricked into meeting an operative at a Toronto hotel, then questioned about his work on NSO. When a second operative calling himself Michel Lambert approached Scott-Railton to arrange a similar meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, Scott-Railton devised a sting operation, inviting AP journalists to interrupt the lunch and videotape the encounter.

The story drew wide attention in Israel. Within days, Israeli investigative television show Uvda and The New York Times identified Lambert as Aharon Almog-Assouline, a former Israeli security official living in the plush Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon.

By then, Scott-Railton and the AP had determined the undercover efforts went well beyond Citizen Lab.

Within hours of the story’s publication, Masri wrote to the AP to say that he and Alaa Mahajna, who is pursuing the lawsuit against NSO in Israel, had spent weeks parrying offers from two wealthy-sounding executives who had contacted them with lucrative offers of work and insistent requests to meet in London.

“We were on our guard and did not take the bait,” Masri wrote.

Masri’s revelation prompted a flurry of messages to others tied to litigation involving NSO. Masri and Scott-Railton say they discovered that Christiana Markou, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in a related lawsuit against NSO-affiliated companies in Cyprus, had been flown to London for a strange meeting with someone who claimed to be a Hong Kong-based investor. Around the same time, Masri found out that a journalist who had written about NSO was also invited to a London hotel — twice — and questioned about his reporting.

“Things are getting more interesting,” Masri wrote as the episodes emerged.

——

Like Almog-Assouline, the undercover operative the AP exposed in New York, the covert agents who pursued the lawyers made a string of operational errors.

The attempt to ensnare Alaa Mahajna, the lead lawyer in the Israeli suit, was a case in point.

On Nov. 26 he heard from a man who said his name was Marwan Al Haj and described himself as a partner at a Swedish wealth management firm called Lyndon Partners. Al Haj offered Mahajna an intriguing proposition. Al Haj said one of his clients, an ultra-rich individual with family ties to the Middle East, needed legal assistance recovering family land seized by Jewish settlers following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

“I believe you may be a good fit for this challenging task,” Al Haj wrote.

The request made sense. As a human rights lawyer based in Jerusalem, Mahajna has defended Palestinian activists and others at the receiving end of the Israeli government’s ire. But Mahajna became suspicious as he tried to learn more about the case. Al Haj was cagey about his client and seemed unwilling to provide any paperwork, Mahajna told the AP.

“Not even the basic stuff,” Mahajna said. “Usually people flood you with documents and stories.”

Mahajna said he was unsettled when Al Haj suddenly offered him an all-expenses-paid trip to London; no one had even asked him whether the case had any hope of success.

“At some point it was abundantly clear that this is not a bona fide approach,” Mahajna said.

Ten days later, Masri, the legal adviser in the Israeli lawsuit, received an email offering him a place on the advisory board of a Zurich-based company called APOL Consulting.

Masri became skeptical after he checked out the company’s website. Consulting firms typically trade on their employees’ intelligence and skill, so Masri expected the company’s site to prominently display the names, headshots and qualifications of its staff.

“Here there wasn’t even a name of one human,” he said.

When Masri turned down the position on APOL’s board, the representative who’d contacted him — a man who called himself Cristian Ortega — pressed Masri to see him in London anyways.

“I would consider it a privilege to have a chance to meet you in person for a friendly chat,” Ortega said in a Jan. 7 email. “No strings attached of course.”

Masri said that by then he and Mahajna had come to believe that Ortega and Al Haj were fictions and that their companies were imaginary.

But they didn’t yet know how widespread the covert operations were.

——

The undercover agents got a little further with Christiana Markou, the lawyer who is pursuing the Cypriot case against NSO-affiliated entities.

Her lawsuit, like Mahajna’s, draws heavily on reports by Citizen Lab that found that NSO spyware had been used to break into the phones of the Mexican activists and journalists who are the plaintiffs in both cases.

Markou told the AP she was approached over email Dec. 21 by a man who presented himself as Olivier Duffet, a partner at Hong Kong-based ENE Investments.

Duffet was ostensibly interested in inviting Markou — a leading data protection and privacy lawyer in Cyprus — to give a lecture at a conference. Markou said she proposed discussing the lecture over Skype, but he insisted on an in-person meeting in London, eventually flying her out, putting her up in a fancy hotel and chatting for a little more than an hour.

Most of the discussion revolved around the proposed lecture — but then Duffet suddenly pivoted to the NSO case, asking her whether she felt the lawsuit was winnable and who was funding it.

Markou said she “gave either incorrect answers or expressly refused to answer” because she found his questions suspicious.

Yet another target, Eyad Hamid, a London-based journalist who wrote a story about NSO, said he was also invited to a London hotel on two separate occasions to discuss his coverage of the Israeli company.

The purported company used in the operation targeting him was Mertens-Giraud Partners Management, which was described as a Brussels-based wealth management firm.

Neither MGP — nor any of the other companies — truly existed. The AP’s searches of the Orbis database of some 300 million companies, local corporate registries and trademark repositories turned up no trace of a Swiss firm called APOL, a Swedish company called Lyndon partners, a Belgian company called Mertens-Giraud or a Hong Kong-based firm named ENE Investments. Local phone books didn’t carry listings for a Zurich-based man named Cristian Ortega, a Hong Kong-based man named Olivier Duffet or anyone in Sweden bearing the name Marwan Al Haj.

There was no hint of APOL when the AP visited its supposed office not far from Zurich’s central train station; tenants said they’d never heard of the company. It was the same story in Hong Kong; a management representative at the Central Building, where ENE Investments was supposedly located, said he didn’t know anything about the company. An AP journalist wasn’t able to speak to anyone at Mertens-Giraud’s alleged office on Brussels’ Rue des Poissoniers; the entire building was boarded up for renovations.

At the modern office block in downtown Stockholm where Lyndon Partners claimed to have its headquarters, service manager Elias Broberger said he could find no trace of the wealth management firm.

“It says they are located here,” Broberger said as he examined Lyndon Partners’ professional-looking website. “But we don’t have them in any of our systems: not the booking system; not the member system. We don’t bill them; they don’t bill us.

“I can’t find them.”

——

Who hired the undercover agents remains unclear, but their operational and digital fingerprints suggest they are linked.

The six operatives all began approaching their targets around the same time with individually tailored pitches. Their bogus websites followed the same patterns; all of them were hosted on Namecheap and many were bought at auction from GoDaddy and used the Israeli web design platform Wix. The formatting of the websites was similar; in at least two instances — MGP and Lyndon Partners — it was identical. Even the operatives’ email signatures were the same — consisting of three neatly packed, colorful lines consisting of a phone number, web address and email.

The operatives’ LinkedIn pages were similar, too, featuring men in sunglasses shot from a distance, facing away from the camera, or at unusual angles — a tactic sometimes use to frustrate facial recognition algorithms.

Despite the indications that the undercover agents are all linked, there is no conclusive evidence who they might work for. An Israeli television channel, Channel 12, broadcast a report on Saturday claiming that an Israeli private investigation firm, Black Cube, had been investigating issues around the lawsuits against NSO. The TV channel showed secretly shot footage of the Cypriot lawyer, Markou, and the London journalist, Hamid, which matched the pair’s description of their encounters with undercover agents.

The TV segment was critical of the lawyers suing NSO, and quoted NSO founder Shalev Hulio in an interview accusing Markou and her colleagues of pursuing the lawsuits as a “PR exercise.”

NSO has previously denied hiring Black Cube, and Black Cube in a letter sent last month to the AP said it was not involved in the effort to ensnare researchers at Citizen Lab. “Black Cube had nothing to do with these alleged events,” the letter said, adding that no one acting on the company’s behalf did either.

Black Cube does have a possible tie to Almog-Assouline, the man who held the hotel meeting about NSO in New York. During a long-running Canadian legal battle between two private equity firms — Catalyst Capital and West Face Capital — one man caught up in the litigation said he recognized Almog-Assouline because he’d been approached by the same operative under a different identity several years ago.

“I recognized the individual, down to the accent and the anecdotes,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

In court filings, Black Cube has acknowledged dispatching agents to meet with “various individuals” involved in in the private equity firms’ feud. But it’s unclear if other investigations firms might also have done work connected to the two equity firms’ feud.

Black Cube did not respond to repeated questions about whether it had ever employed Almog-Assouline. The firm previously drew international opprobrium for its unrelated work protecting the reputation of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Almog-Assouline himself denied working for Black Cube when two AP reporters confronted him in New York last month.

He has refused to answer any questions since.

When an AP reporter rang the door at his penthouse in Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon a week ago, a woman who identified herself as his wife said he wasn’t home. When the reporter followed up with a phone call to Almog-Assouline, he said: “I have no interest in speaking to you.”

——

Aron Heller in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, David Keyton in Stockholm, Sweden, Jamey Keaten in Zurich, Vincent Yu in Hong Kong, Sylvain Plazy in Brussels, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Meneloas Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.

——

Online:

Documents related to the undercover operation: https://www.documentcloud.org/search/projectid:42174-Citizen-Lab-Und https://ww

——

Raphael Satter can be reached on: http://raphaelsatter.com

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2DmYJww via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage