see url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat
see url: https://www.bellingcat.com/
see url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Higgins
see url: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bellingcat
see url: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Eliot_Higgins
Now...today's little venture is to take a look at the above urls...That
is of course if you are sufficiently interested and can be bothered to
take the time. It is an exercise on disinformation, what a website can
do for a person or an organisation, and what it cannot do, and what a
website owned by a different organisaton and people which looks at
things slightly differently and what they can and cannot do.
Sourcing sound information, can be extremely difficult, even when it
comes from an ostensibly reliable website or person or organisation.
There are some stories which one knows from ones experience, which are
fishy, slightly fishy, overwhelmingly fishy and just downright lies or
propaganda. There are some websites and organisations and people who
might speak the truth the absolute truth and nuffink but the truth, so
help me God and whom one believes either wholeheartedly, or with few
misgivings, but who might, due to the nature of the world wide web, get
their information right, to a greater or lesser extent, but their
sources wrong...which might be a clue or even their facts and
interpretations wrong. But such are the ways of human beings and all
such failings are exacerbated by the internet and world wide web, that,
due mainly to the actors and interactors involved in the game, playing
on their laziness or bad habits of taking the easy route, or the route
of least research instead of doing proper research because time is a
finite entity to earn their credibility or spondoolix or acting on the
perceived or real weaknesses of other actors, use those weaknesses...and
even their strengths to deceive and with intent to deceive them and the
others who follow them.
Are you a leader or a follower...or are you both...better to be
both...got to believe in sumfink even it is nuffink. I am sure that
most of you on this list have been deceived, led on, been betrayed at
various times in your lives, in the restaurant or speakeasy of life
where the poisoned chalice has not been the beautiful but free or
expensive red wine but the information which one has received...or given.
Bellingcat is not quite what it appears to be...it has a very good page
in Wikipedia, well maintained, kept up to date, by people who can spell
and do grammar and who appear educated, but does it tell the truth? It
is owned by an "amateur" just like you and me...but he has made it to
the top of his profession; who is interested in the world around them,
particularly the political and secret world. His name is Eliot Higgins,
an ordinary working class man who has risen to the heights through his
superior knowledge and intellect and business acumen to being a
businessman and speculator of news stories and been lucky to have a
little bit of help along the way, till now he is often quoted and is the
source of so much valuable and saleable news in certain areas, around
the planet, still in a voluntary capacity of course, that he is now
world famous in all sorts of circles for his particular branch of news
story, and can be relied upon...
That is the question...Where did it come from? Who owns it? Who and
what organisations fund it? Who are its friends, and who are its
enemies, who and what are its sources? How reliable are its sources?
What sort of news stories does it purvey as the truth? What is its
political bent? Which organisations or nation states or organisations
does it support? That is not to say of course that it doesn't tell the
truth. I am sure that it does, its own kind of truth, just as I tell
mine, and you tell yours...we are all philosophers after all, but none
of us are Gods and none of us are perfect...only fascism is
perfection...in my view.
Personally, I have always been a sucker for a good story...and tend to
take most stories at face value...until I can prove otherwise, but as I
get older I tend to take most stories with a pinch of salt, though a
good storyteller is always a bonus. I have succumbed to the dangers of
the cynic, the last refuge of the idealist, or the optimist who is
really the pessimist who isn't aware of the facts. Far better to treat
them all as a piece of spy fiction, a story in a novel, and go away and
read Carre or Norman Mailer and such like other favoured novelists who
know the tricks of the trade, or tradecraft where one is more likely to
get at the truth, but suitably dressed up and much more interesting. In
fact it is probably better to go and play some golf! However, though the
tradecraft of deceit might not have changed much, its philosophy is much
the same, the techniques of administering it have become much more
sophisticated and a story promoted by an actor can get around the world
in an instant, if it is of sufficient interest, topical and strains the
weight of credibility just enough. It's source can be hidden behind a
myriad of ip addresses and platforms, even the metadata doesn't tell the
whole truth of its origins. There is a whole industry out there waiting
to spread it, for free or for lots of spondoolix or getting in first, or
buying credibility...and with the spying capabilities of google and
other corporates as well as state actors, can aim it all at you. Me
missus says that her computer knows her better than she does...
I hope you enjoy my little monologue or subject and please, feel free to
explore it and contribute your own ideas and suggestions and critiques.
ATB
Dougie.
