Dave Buschi's Blog, page 2
May 16, 2018
Half a billion
This is interesting.
Facebook closed 583m fake accounts in first three months of 2018 (see link below)
April 20, 2018
Yikes!
Where is James Kolinsky when you need him?
April 19, 2018
The Spy Inside
We purchase products that change and make our lives easier. Not all technology is our friend. This article touches briefly on some of the dangers of thinking that latest gadget is just a router, just a camera, just a phone.
April 12, 2018
The Monster that Facebook Helped Create
Reading this article in Bloomberg Businessweek (I’ve included the link below) reminded me of that movie, Boiler Room, that starred Vin Diesel, Ben Affleck, Giovanni Ribisi, and Nia Long, among others. In that movie a group of twenty-somethings discover an easy road to riches. All they needed was a competitive drive to succeed and a complete and utter lack of morals. That movie came out in 2000, but on a miniature scale could easily have summed up the Wall Street subprime mortgage crisis that created the Great Recession. Bad actors given the right tools can wreck all sorts of unbelievable havoc that impact the rest of us.
The last year we’ve seen what bad actors in Russia have done on Facebook. The articles about how they used Facebook to try and influence our election and stir discord in our country have been too numerous to count. This article in Bloomberg shines a light on some of the other bad actors using Facebook. Like for the actors in Boiler Room, the objective is money. The causalities of their money-making schemes are nameless. Not shown. Those nameless ones are the suckers. Us.
This article is worth reading. I found it amazing that Facebook reps, with all that’s going on in the news, presented at a convention in mid-2017 to a room full of attendees all eager to run ad scams. Those attendees were just like the new recruits in Boiler Room. Young and eager and ready to lay waste to humanity.
(Bloomberg Businessweek article link below)
March 23, 2018
Perfect Storm
Years from now this period of time, which I’ll call “T-time” (T as in Tornado) to give it a name, will be covered ad nauseum in books by insiders. For now we’re getting the outsider view. Peeks through the windows with each article that begins to flesh out a reality that belongs in a spy novel.
Yesterday there was this article about Guccifer 2.0 being a Russian operative. Guccifer 2.0, to give a brief recap, was the individual who breached the DNC and provided all those emails to WikiLeaks that were disseminated to the voting public. Emails, if you recall, that didn’t exactly put Hillary Clinton’s campaign in a favorable light.
The day before that article there was this article where the former director of the CIA, John O. Brennan, speculated that Russia may have something on Donald Trump.
Brennan is not the first one to think this. To back up a second, let’s look at some of the things that Russia has done to us recently.
Hacked our election.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/13/russian-breach-39-states-us-elections/
Hacked our power grid.
Tried to sow division and discord with every news cycle (below are a few).
http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/27/media/facebook-black-lives-matter-targeting/index.html
CNN: ‘Pokemon Go’ was used by Russian trolls to sow discord on social media
***
And what does the leader of our country do?
He congratulates the man responsible.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin/index.html
Not exactly the action most of us were hoping for. Generally leaders are supposed to protect who they lead. Make sure that if someone messes with us they don’t get a free pass. Or two. Or three. Or nine hundred and ten and counting.
Which does beg the question. What do they have on you, Mr. President?
Could it have anything to do with this (financial ties to Russia)?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-tax-law-firm-deep-ties-russia/story?id=47376041
Is it something to do with questionable real estate deals (possible money laundering)?
https://www.curbed.com/2018/1/12/16885354/trump-condo-money-laundering-report
Or is it this (pee tape)?
https://mashable.com/2018/03/16/donald-trump-pee-tape-golden-showers-explainer/#k8tsiFmtesqh
Guess we’ll have to wait.
Truth does come out sooner or later. It has a way of doing that.
March 8, 2018
A thriller for these times
Two weeks ago a Russian journalist, Alexander Anichkin, wrote this article about my book INSIDER X (link for article below). The article is written in Russian and I used Google Chrome’s “translator button” to read the article (link for Google’s free Chrome Web browser, also below).
Initially, Mr. Anichkin reached out to me on Twitter and asked if he could write an article about my book on his blog, Tetradki. The news about Robert Mueller’s recent Russian indictments had made him think about my book. A book which I wrote over four years ago.
I’m not surprised that folks are seeing parallels with my book and the current news making the headlines. I am surprised, however, to have a Russian journalist one of those folks. It just goes to show you how words do have power. They can reach across oceans.
In the last few months, INSIDER X has proven to be a very prescient story. At the time I wrote it, I suspected that much of what I was writing about was really happening. Nevertheless it was fiction… a suspense thriller meant to showcase a frightening ‘what if’ scenario. A scenario that has become very real as Russia’s interference with our 2016 election has become widely known.
Scary stuff. Particularly since I suspect what we see in the news is just the tip of the iceberg.
(link below to Mr. Anichkin’s article about INSIDER X)
http://european-book-review.blogspot.fr/2018/02/blog-post_21.html
(link below to Google’s free Chrome Web browser)
Hello from Russia
Two weeks ago a Russian journalist, Alexander Anichkin, wrote this article about my book INSIDER X (link for article below). The article is written in Russian and I used Google Chrome’s “translator button” to read the article (link for Google’s free Chrome Web browser, also below).
Initially, Mr. Anichkin reached out to me on Twitter and asked if he could write an article about my book on his blog, Tetradki. The news about Robert Mueller’s recent Russian indictments had made him think about my book. A book which I wrote over four years ago.
I’m not surprised that folks are seeing parallels with my book and the current news making the headlines. I am surprised, however, to have a Russian journalist one of those folks. It just goes to show you how words do have power. They can reach across oceans.
In the last few months, INSIDER X has proven to be a very prescient story. At the time I wrote it, I suspected that much of what I was writing about was really happening. Nevertheless it was fiction… a suspense thriller meant to showcase a frightening ‘what if’ scenario. A scenario that has become very real as Russia’s interference with our 2016 election has become widely known.
Scary stuff. Particularly since I suspect what we see in the news is just the tip of the iceberg.
(link below to Mr. Anichkin’s article about INSIDER X)
http://european-book-review.blogspot.fr/2018/02/blog-post_21.html
(link below to Google’s free Chrome Web browser)
https://www.google.com/chrome/
March 2, 2018
Glimpse into a troll farm
Fascinating video of a troll farm employee. When I wrote INSIDER X over four years ago I never anticipated that almost everything in that book would play out in headlines and become essentially non-fiction.
February 28, 2018
Breaking the Third Wall
(Reluctantly I’ve agreed to an “interview” with Marks and Lip, the two heroes in my books PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE and INSIDER X. Johnny Two-cakes, also in those books, has a cameo.)
Lip: You comfortable?
Me: mmmfff!
Lip: Here let me get that. Better?
Me: Thank you. Are these supposed to be this tight?
Marks: See… told you. Should have used duct tape.
Lip: He’s fine. They’re not blue yet. I suppose you wonder why we asked you to meet with us?
Me: Yes, it’s crossed my mind.
Lip: We’re kind of bummed.
Marks: Very bummed.
Me: Is this about REALITY RECODED?
Lip: Told you he was smart.
Marks: Did you read it?
Lip: No.
Marks: But you’re sure we’re not in it?
Lip: Very sure. If it had us in it, it would be a bestseller. You see it on any bestseller list?
Me: Guys, I haven’t forgotten about you.
Lip: Kind of looks like it.
Me: Really. I haven’t. I’m thinking maybe next book. Or the one after that.
Lip: What?! We can’t wait that long. What are we supposed to do?
Me: I don’t know. Hang around?
Marks: I’ve taken up knitting.
Lip: He has.
Me: You’re kidding?
Lip: Yeah, it’s bad. Can’t you do something?
Me: Maybe I can toss you a bone?
Marks: I like bones.
Lip: He does. He likes bones. Cave man thing.
Me: Okay. Let me think about this. Do you guys like to coach?
Lip: Coach?
Me: Yeah, I could use some assistant coaches.
Marks: What sport are we talking here?
Lip: Hold on! How does that help us?
Me: You guys wanted a bone.
(Johnny Two-cakes enters the rooms. Sees me. Double blinks.)
Lip: Relax. He’s fine.
Marks: We’ve been giving him cookies.
Booming voice from the ceiling: Click below. Tell all your friends. Put on Facebook. Tweet. Share.
Lip: Nice try, Buschi.
Me: That wasn’t me.
Marks: What happens when we click it?
Lip: Don’t!
(Click below)
September 21, 2017
When fiction is no longer fiction.
Reading this article makes me think there were some bad hombres that read my book INSIDER X. The parallels between what I wrote and what happened years later are too eerie. This article could have been cribbed straight from my book.
