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The FBI is under fire after an internal watchdog report released yesterday found that the agency is continuing to mishandle child sex abuse cases.

It comes three years after the agency failed to investigate USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar.

In the new audit, the inspector general found that agents missed responding to 42 cases marked for “immediate attention.” That’s a staggering 12% of the cases he reviewed.

The auditors also noted a failure to report cases to local law enforcement and to follow FBI policies. They noted a lack of staffing, highlighted by one agent assigned simultaneously to 60 cases.

The FBI says it is learning from its mistakes and will implement the watchdog’s recommendations. However, lawmakers call the report “damning” and “outrageous.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) is calling for a hearing next month.

It remains to be seen whether or not President Biden remains the Democrats’ nominee for president, amid growing calls to replace him atop the ticket. But at this moment, the race is frozen in place. 

Indeed, Donald Trump’s lead in national polling — now sitting at 3 points (47 percent to 44 percent) per the RealClearPolitics polling average — has remained remarkably consistent for months. This is true even after Biden’s disastrous debate performance and the discontent it engendered among Democrats.  

Since last November, the race has been stubbornly rangebound, with Trump’s lead over Biden consistently within a 1 to 4-point range, per RealClearPolitics moving averages. 

Moreover, even if Vice President Kamala Harris were to replace Biden, polls show there would be no significant movement. Trump’s lead over Harris, sitting at 3 points (48 percent to 45 percent), is identical to the former president’s lead over Biden.  

Put another way, the debate — and the last 18 months of campaigning — did little to alter national polling in a race that is frankly stuck, due almost entirely to the fact that both Biden and Trump are so well known, and our country is extraordinarily polarized. 

What, then, could cause a decisive shift in Biden or Trump’s favor? Quite simply, the answer is an outside event. Or, as it’s otherwise known, an October Surprise. 

To that end, given that Biden’s and Trump’s strengths and weaknesses are familiar to voters, it is more likely that a truly pivotal October Surprise comes in the form of a foreign policy development that either drastically helps or harms Biden.  

For Biden, this might be the only way he can change a situation where he leads in only one of the 13 most recent major polls. 

Biden appears to recognize that an October Surprise, handled well, would be decisive. During Thursday’s press conference concluding the NATO summit, he spent much of the time on foreign policy, setting up for a breakthrough in either Asia, Europe, or the Middle East. 

In particular, the war between Israel and Hamas could end, potentially even as part of a larger regional peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That would be considerably more monumental than when Trump orchestrated the Abraham Accords in the final days before the 2020 election.

As the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, there appears to be a breakthrough on a temporary cease-fire in Gaza that may turn permanent. While this is no guarantee, if Biden were able to secure a stop in the fighting that lasted through the fall, it would be a significant boost for his embattled campaign.   

However, events could go the other way. The war could escalate with the outbreak of a true second front in Lebanon, given Hezbollah’s repeated attacks on Israel. If a full-scale war breaks out, particularly if Iran intervenes on behalf of Hezbollah, the U.S. may be drawn into a direct conflict with Iran and a significant war in the Middle East, for which Biden would be held responsible.

At the same time, events in Asia could quickly spiral out of control if China or even North Korea thinks it would face less resistance to an invasion of Taiwan or South Korea, respectively, under a weakened Biden than under Trump.  

All of this is to say that if there is a major geopolitical crisis, Biden will play an outsized role. If he rises to the occasion, it will do more to address concerns over his fitness than virtually any press conference or campaign rally ever could.  

Conversely, if Americans feel that Biden’s perceived weakness led to increased geopolitical chaos, it may be the nail in his campaign’s coffin. 

The first significant “October Surprise” that I remember came more than six decades ago. In October 1962, former President John F. Kennedy narrowly avoided what could have been a nuclear Holocaust by diffusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, giving Democrats momentum ahead of that year’s midterms. 

However, it is often hard to tell whether or not an October Surprise is truly a “game changer.” It is usually unclear how voters will react, regardless of what the event is. 

Most notably, the 2016 and 2020 elections had events that all could have been considered decisive October Surprises, yet only one is considered to have swayed an election. 

October 2016 saw two bombshells just days apart, with the release of the now infamous Access Hollywood tape featuring former President Donald Trump and then at the end of the month — 11 days before the election — then-FBI director James Comey informed Congress that the FBI was again looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. 

As FiveThirtyEight noted shortly after the 2016 election, immediately before the Comey Letter, Clinton had a sizable 6 point lead over Trump. Within a week of its release, her lead had been cut in half. In the “average swing state,” Clinton’s edge declined from roughly 5 points to under 2 points in the same period. 

At the same time, the Access Hollywood tape — which may have assumed would be the decisive surprise — was relegated to the background.  

Similarly, in 2020, the Trump campaign surely hoped that the revelations surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop would be the decisive shock when the story broke that October, yet it made no difference in the end. 

As the race stands right now, Trump is the clear favorite. Even if national polling shows a race that has moved little, swing state polling underscores that conclusion.  

Yet there are nearly four months before Americans head to the polls, which is an immense amount of time in politics.  

While it is no guarantee that there will be an October Surprise, history has shown that within the closing months of a presidential campaign, the power of incumbents to shape perceptions of themselves, their ability to manage significant events and, ultimately, American public opinion, cannot be minimized nor ignored. 

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant and the founder and partner at Schoen Cooperman Research. His latest book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.” 

A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet may have been brought down by Ukraine’s own air defense in a case of friendly fire, a source in the country’s air force told Voice of America’s (VOA) Ukrainian service.

Kyiv said the F-16 crashed on Monday during a mission to repel Russian missiles, confirming the first loss of one of the U.S.-made fighter jets since their delivery to Ukraine was announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The pilot, lieutenant colonel Oleksii Mes, was killed in the crash, Ukraine’s Army General Staff said on Thursday.

Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets were used during a missile and drone barrage launched by Russia, the General Staff said, adding that the aircraft “demonstrated their high efficiency” and “four enemy cruise missiles were shot down by airborne weapons.”

“During the approach to the next target with one of the planes… the plane crashed, the pilot died,” it said.

Ukraine is considering the possibility that the F-16 crash was caused by friendly fire, the unnamed source in Ukraine’s air force said, adding that an investigation is ongoing into the incident.

“Various versions are being considered, including ‘friendly fire’ from our own air defense, a technical malfunction, and pilot error,” the source told the VOA on the condition of anonymity. “However, the exact causes will only be known after the investigation is completed.”

Newsweek has contacted Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

Ukraine’s Air Command Zakhid said pilot Mes was killed “defending our country.”

“He heroically fought his last battle in the sky. On August 26, while repelling a massive Russian combined missile and drone attack, Oleksii destroyed three cruise missiles and one attack UAV. Oleksii saved Ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles. Unfortunately, at the cost of his own life,” the command said.

Zelensky had long called on his Western allies to provide his military with the advanced fighter jets to assist in the war against Russia, now in its third year.

In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukraine’s allies in NATO had started transferring the U.S.-manufactured jets to Ukraine. He said they would be “flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression.”

F-16s were spotted earlier this month over the front line in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to Pavlo Filipchuk, a Kremlin-installed official, who said they were flying above the Ukrainian settlement of Kakhovka “only to sow panic.”

Zelensky had confirmed days earlier that the aircraft had arrived in Ukraine and were already being used by Kyiv’s air force.

“I am proud of all our guys who have mastered these aircraft and have already started using them for our country,” the Ukrainian president said. “F-16s are already in Ukrainian skies, and there will be more.”

Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium had pledged to send more than 60 F-16s to Ukraine this summer but Bloomberg reported on July 12, citing unnamed sources, that this year Kyiv may get far fewer of the jets than it had hoped—six this summer and up to 20 by the end of 2024.

Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine had used F-16s to intercept missiles and drones launched by Russia.

Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday that she was aware of the reports that the F-16 could have been shot down by Ukrainian air defense, but said she “can’t confirm it.”

“I don’t have that level of fidelity right now. So, in terms of if this pilot was killed and it was brought down by friendly fire, that I just can’t speak to. That would really be something for the Ukrainians to speak to,” Singh said.

She added: “The United States has not been asked to participate in any type of investigation to look into this incident.”

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Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in France on Saturday could complicate Russian military plans in Ukraine, experts claim.

Telegram is very popular among Russian speakers and plays a crucial role in the war in Ukraine, both for the operations on the ground and in spreading Moscow’s narrative.

According to the Institute for the Study of War think tank, it is “the main alternative to official communications for Russian military personnel in Ukraine”.

“It’s not just a news source, but it’s a kind of key messenger that is used for coordination of action at different levels, to store videos, to share large files and all this kind of things, and you’ve got a lot of channels more or less directly connected with the Kremlin or with the Department of Defence of Russia,” Christine Dugoin-Clément, a researcher at the Sorbonne Business School, told Euronews.

Telegram is an encrypted chat that avoided being put under Russian government control in 2018. However, according to experts, the Kremlin has managed to manipulate it by introducing stricter legislation regarding its activities.

“The owners of channels that have gathered more than 10,000 followers have to provide information to Roskomnadzor, which is more or less the organisation in charge of controlling all the media and social networks,” Dugoin-Clément said.

“In the same law, they are explaining that if you’ve got a channel that more than 500,000 users follow, you have to provide all the information on your users if Roskomnadzoror or the FSB is asking for it. So there is not exactly a control, but let’s say it is a kind of cooperation.”

Will Russians abandon Telegram?

With its CEO in prison in an EU country, Russian forces may start leaving Telegram, which, in the extreme scenario, could also be totally blocked in the country.

This uncertainty will likely impact Russian frontline operations, even if it seems unlikely that the French authorities could disclose the information in the encrypted chats.

“They could try to do so. It would be illegal, because at the EU level there is no decision about being allowed to read messages,” Axel Legay of the Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain told Euronews.

“Three months ago, the EU could not reach an agreement on this. So yeah, they could try this with secret services or whatever. But I really don’t think that’s that’s the main problem now.”

Durov’s detention is turning into a diplomatic incident between France and Russia. The Russian embassy in Paris has accused France of refusing to cooperate, but French President Macron insisted that the arrest was not a “political decision”.

It was 10 years ago that Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of the most popular Russian-speaking social media VKontakte (VK), modeled after Facebook, announced on April 16, 2014, that he had said “No” to the FSB by rejecting the Russian security service’s demand that he hand over the personal data of organizers of Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolutionary groups.  

“Delivery of personal data of Ukrainians to the Russian authorities would not have been only illegal, it would have been treason against all those millions of Ukrainians who trust us.” he wrote. He admitted that his decision would cost him control over his company — he was forced to sell his share in VK.

His second post, two hours later, said, “On March 13, 2014, the Prosecutor’s office requested that I shut the anticorruption group of Alexey Navalny. I didn’t close this group in December 2011, and I certainly won’t close it now. In recent weeks, I was under pressure from different angles. We managed to gain over a month, but it’s time to state this — neither myself, nor my team are going to conduct political censorship . . . Freedom of information is an inalienable right in post-industrial society.”

Five days later, Durov was fired as chief executive. Soon afterward, he left Russia and never returned.

That was how Durov, then a 29-year-old St-Petersburg-based IT entrepreneur, lost his first child, the Vkontakte social network, and his motherland. He later took French citizenship.

He retained his vision that Internet technologies could be a global and successful challenge to traditional national systems of control. And he kept his reputation — most Russians admired his bravery and his stand against the FSB. He also retained control over a new project his team had been working on for some time — Telegram messenger.

Telegram proved itself more creative than other messengers when it gave its users an option to run the channels — news feeds administered by the users. In countries where freedom of media was under attack from the governments, those channels became a substitute for news outlets, although not exactly — most popular channels were filled with half-news, half gossip, in some cases from known and trusted sources, but also from anonymous sources, who positioned themselves as insiders.

In Russia, both sides grabbed this new Telegram feature — pro-Kremlin bloggers used Telegram channels to spread propaganda and disinformation, while independent journalists and activists turned to Telegram to break through censorship. 

The messenger system gained popularity around the world, especially in countries with poor connectivity and authoritarian regimes, and there it became a competitor to Facebook’s WhatsApp messenger.

It put Durov at odds with an increasing number of governments: Russia banned Telegram for two years in 2018, while Iran blocked the app during the protests in 2017 and in 2018. Western governments, too, were upset because Telegram became increasingly popular among terrorist groups and all kinds of criminals. The service is accused of aiding money launderers, terrorists, extreme pornographers, and child abusers.

Durov maintained his public stance about privacy but secretly negotiated deals with governments that resulted in the lifting of bans and never revealed the terms.

For instance, we’re not sure exactly why the Kremlin lifted its ban on the messenger service in 2020. The Kremlin said Durov must not only ban “extremist content” but also wanted him to surrender Telegram’s encryption keys that would allow authorities to read private conversations. Telegram was unblocked in June 2020. Had Durov made some sort of deal with the FSB?  We don’t know.

Following the Kremlin’s unprecedented and existential offensive against independent media on the eve of the all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, most Russian journalists and opposition moved to Telegram, along with YouTube. Durov made no effort to block this, and nor did he raise a finger about the increasing presence of pro-Kremlin bloggers on the app.

When the full-scale war in Ukraine started, we launched a Telegram channel for our website Agentura.ru. The website was blocked by the Kremlin, but the channel was not. That story was repeated by many Russian independent media outlets, who are now in exile.

At the same time, the war gave a boost to pro-war bloggers, who enjoyed a massive following, which helped to mobilize public support for the war and crowd-fund for the Russian military.

As a result, Durov found himself under fire from all sides: the Kremlin demanded he block what it did not like, and Russian liberals criticized Telegram for providing a platform to warmongers. Human rights activists were meanwhile warning anti-war activists against using Telegram as a messenger because it was unclear whether the authorities had access to the system.

The unmediated mix of users, including two armies at war, reflects precisely Durov’s idea of freedom of expression. Everyone can have a say on social media, and there shouldn’t be any kind of control from any government.

His quasi-anarchic attitude seems to echo the ideology of the early hacker movement of the 1980s, but it isn’t a sustainable strategy today, when governments around the world are on the offensive against the free-for-all approach online. This bureaucratic counter-offensive has been efficient and successful.

First, the authorities recognized that behind even the most ambitious global platforms are human beings; and human beings can be put under all sorts of pressure. For example, in 2016, Brazilian authorities briefly detained Diego J. Dzodan, Facebook’s vice-president for Latin America, because WhatsApp had refused to share the messages of alleged drug dealers.

Next, the concept that big tech business tycoons were too eminent for even authoritarian states to tangle with was quietly abandoned, when, in 2020, Jack Ma, a high-profile Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder, fell out with the authorities. His company’s stock market listing was suspended, and Ma disappeared from the public eye. Later, he reappeared in Japan as a visiting professor at Tokyo College. 

In retrospect, Durov was living a charmed existence in his Dubai-based exile. The tech attitudes of 2014 look hopelessly out of date 10 years later. Governments from the US to Europe and far beyond are rolling out more and more regulations for social media, from Facebook to TikTok.

No one — other perhaps than the tech titans themselves can really argue against evidence that unruly social media can cause a lot of damage. The time for unmoderated social media has long passed.

Quite how that happens is a question to be discussed. But at the far end of the spectrum, the nation-state has the ability to arrest those who refuse to cooperate. That is how the French decided to make Telegram cooperate with the country’s law enforcement agencies. Other tools are also available — in 2020, India banned 59 Chinese apps altogether.

But is government coercion the only way to enforce the rules?

Users are constantly presented with an alternative — either a dangerously chaotic social media or government control. But maybe there are other options.

Social media are an essential part of our societal fabric, and our society, through non-government organizations, or parliaments, and parliamentary hearings, are perfectly capable of creating mechanisms of control that do not include the arrests of CEOs for the lack of moderation.

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are Non-resident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.) They are Russian investigative journalists, and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

В 2017 году спецслужбы Франции и ОАЭ провели совместную операцию по взлому айфона, принадлежащего Павлу Дурову. Об этом пишет The Wall Street Journal со ссылкой на источники.

Издание утверждает, что операция по взлому называлась Purple music и была спланирована из-за обеспокоенности французских силовиков тем, что ИГИЛ использует мессенджер для вербовки и терактов.

Через год после этого президент Франции Эмманюэль Макрон обедал с Дуровым и предлагал перенести штаб-квартиру Telegram в Париж. Как сказано в материале издания, тот отказался от предложения Макрона. Кроме этого, на этой встрече президент Франции обсуждал с основателем Telegram предоставление французского гражданства. В 2021 году он получил его по процедуре, которая, как отмечает газета Le Monde, применяется крайне редко. Тогда же он получил гражданство и ОАЭ.

“Хотя нет никаких признаков того, что встреча с Макроном или взлом телефона Дурова сыграли роль в его задержании, эти детали проливают новый свет на долгие и сложные отношения Дурова с Францией и ОАЭ”, – отмечает WSJ.

Дурова задержали вечером 24 августа в парижском аэропорту Ле-Бурже, куда он прилетел из Азербайджана на частном самолете. Вместе с ним были телохранитель и спутница, которых позже отпустили.

Основателя Telegram задержали в рамках расследования, которое проводится в отношении неустановленного лица по 12 составам преступлений.

The alleged leader of a global ransomware scam has been extradited from Poland to face charges in the U.S. that he defrauded millions of Americans.

The U.S. Secret Service detained Maksim Silnikau, a dual Belarussian and Ukrainian citizen who was formally indicted in both New Jersey and Virginia for computer hacking and wire fraud schemes, according to court documents unsealed on August 13. Silnikov, 38, has been associated with the online monikers “J.P. Morgan”, “xxx” and “lansky”.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said: “For over a decade, the defendant used a host of online disguises and a network of fraudulent ad campaigns to spread ransomware and scam U.S. businesses and consumers.”

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She added: “The Justice Department takes another step forward in disrupting ransomware actors and malicious cybercriminals who prey on victims in the U.S. and around the world.”

The arrest is part of a long-term investigation by the U.S. Secret Service with the help of foreign, domestic and private partners, according to Brian Lamber, the assistant director of investigations with the Secret Service.

“Cybercriminals should know that even if they attempt to hide their criminal conduct behind the anonymity of the internet that eventually, through the dedication of international law enforcement professionals, they will be apprehended and held accountable for their actions,” Lambert said.

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In New Jersey, Silnikau is charged along with his alleged co-conspirators Volodymyr Kadari, of Belarus and Ukraine, and Andrei Tarasov, of Russia. The District of New Jersey charged the three with cybercrime offenses in association with a scheme to transmit the Angler Exploit Kit and other malware.

They face maximum penalties of 27 years in prison for wire fraud conspiracy, 10 years in prison for computer fraud conspiracy and 20 years on each wire fraud count.

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Angler Exploit Kit enabled the delivery of the “scareware” ads to display fake messages claiming to have identified a virus or other issues with the victim’s device. The messages then tried to deceive the victim into buying or downloading software, providing remote access and disclosing personal identifying or financial information.

The court claims the three worked to scam “millions of unsuspecting victims” through online advertisements, or by “malvertising” between October 2013 and March 2022.

The ads “appeared legitimate but were actually designed to deliver malware,” according to Nicole Argentieri, the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s criminal division. The malware would compromise devices and retrieve personal information.

“The conspirators’ scheme caused unsuspecting Internet users to be forcibly redirected to malicious content on millions of occasions, and defrauded and attempted to defraud various U.S.-based companies involved in the sale and distribution of legitimate online advertisements,” according to the the Secret Service.

The three were able to “trick” advertising companies into delivering their malvertising campaigns by using dozens of online personas to pose as legit advertising companies. They also used and developed technologies and codes to refine their malware to conceal their malicious nature behind the advertising.

U.S. attorney Philip Sellinger said Silnikau and his co-conspirators would sell the information to other cybercriminals “on the dark net.”

In Virginia, Silnikau is charged for his role as the creator and administrator of the Ransom Cartel ransomware strain that started operating in May 2021. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum of two years in prison and a maximum penalty of 20 years.

Silnikau was allegedly a member of Russian-speaking cybercrime forums since at least 2005. He was also said to be a member of the cybercrime website Direct Connection from 2011 to 2016.

In 2021, it is alleged that he developed his own ransomware operation and recruited people from the cybercrime forums. On Nov. 16, 2021, Silnikau allegedly executed a ransomware attack on a company based in New York. Four months later, Ransom Cartel was deployed again in California.

“Silnikau and his co-conspirators allegedly used malware and various online scams to target millions of unsuspecting internet users in the United States and around the world,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.

“They hid behind online aliases and engaged in complex, far-reaching cyber fraud schemes to compromise victim devices and steal sensitive personal information. The FBI will continue to work with partners to aggressively impose costs on cybercriminals and hold them accountable for their actions.”

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