Good one!!!! Made me really laugh Le dim. 1 avr. 2018 00:44, Alex Balashov <[email protected]> a écrit :
> (Filed by the Geostrategic Open Source Alliance.) > > ATLANTA, GA (1 April 2018)--In a twist of events that has shocked the > global > technical community, the well-known open-source VoIP professional Alex > Balashov > has revealed himself to be a deep cover intelligence operative of the GRU > (Main Intelligence Directorate of the military of the Russian Federation) > and > the FSB (the Federal Security Bureau, the successor agency to the > Soviet-era > KGB). > > Balashov was reported to be seeking US political asylum and immunity from > prosecution in return for an exposé of the ways in which the Russian > foreign > intelligence apparatus has sought to influence the direction of the > open-source > communications project "Kamailio", widely used in telecommunications > carrier, > service provider and enterprise environments to deliver high-scalability > routing services and other SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) platform > building > blocks. > > In connection with these sensitive ongoing negotiations, Balashov was > debriefed > on behalf of the US Government by Fred Posner of The Palner Group, a > counterintelligence think tank and security consulting firm based in > Gainesville, Florida. This debriefing was coordinated with the German BND > (Bundesnachrichtendienst) agency and other agencies representing security > cooperation partners of the European Union and NATO. > > GOSA have been able to obtain exclusive excerpts from the portions of this > interview not deemed top secret: > > > POSNER: Please state your full name, age, place of birth, physical > characteristics, serial number and any other relevant professional asset > identification markers. > > BALASHOV: [redacted] > > POSNER: You have made the claim that Kamailio has been infiltrated by > Russian > spy agencies. Given that it's an open-source project, that's a bold and > provocative claim. Where's the evidence? > > BALASHOV: Infiltration is perhaps strong word from spy novels. Reality is > less > thrilling. As you are knowing from controversy about election of our > Donald, > covert global influence today is mainly question of soft power. > > POSNER: Is there an obvious way in which this applies to the Kamailio > project > you can show us? I remind you that you have staked your personal freedom on > this issue. > > BALASHOV: Influence is delicate matter. Da, of course there are some > superficial indications... > > POSNER: Such as? > > BALASHOV: For example module to support language Squirrel. What is > Squirrel? > Who uses it? If you take a look at code is a bit complicated, da? What > does it > do? > > POSNER: It is a bit complicated, But I'm not convinced. Sell me. > > BALASHOV: It was in fact committed to GitHub by former Eastern Bloc > personality, yes? Very complicated code for unknown mystery language > support > from Eastern Europe... > > POSNER: Yes, from the main developer and leader of the project. > > BALASHOV: Hmm. > > POSNER: What else? > > BALASHOV: There is a Ukranian [redacted] who is in charge of many SIP > captures > with system which diverts them to central database, yes? Something with > name > from ancient Greek troubadour or myths maybe? > > POSNER: We'll have to look into that. > > BALASHOV: Kamailio World is held every year in East Berlin. Every year > back to > Berlin. > > POSNER: So what? > > BALASHOV: Where do most guests of it spend their night? > > POSNER: [audible crack of pistol whip] This is not a quiz show! I ask the > questions here. > > BALASHOV: Yes, yes, okay, they are at the Park Inn at Alexanderplatz. > > POSNER: And? > > BALASHOV: The history of this hotel in East German times and Stasi presence > there... > > POSNER: That aspect of history is well-known. > > BALASHOV: Da... then is clear. > > POSNER: What are the strategic goals of Russia with regard to open source > communication infrastructure? > > BALASHOV: From news lately can be seen that is soft power leveraging and > economic sabotage. > > POSNER: Economic sabotage? How will they achieve that with open source? > > BALASHOV: Again is question of delicate influence in small ways. This is > not > time of Arab dignitaries visiting KGB hotels in Moscow in 1970s or this > kind of > naked and obvious trick. > > POSNER: [raises pistol] You are here to provide specifics. > > BALASHOV: Yes yes, okay. Well, I am not policy architect at Khoroshovskoe > Shosse, but general point of view with colleagues is that best approach to > Western countries is to encourage kind of "boondoggles" [air quotes] which > consume large economic resources with very little benefit. > > POSNER: Does Russia create boondoggles in America? > > BALASHOV: No no. We don't have this level of direct influence to create > per se. > You can see from recent activities of Internet Research Agency for example > that > the successful approach is the one which will amplify or grow existing > boondoggles which lead to kind of systemic dysfunction, through for example > injection of kind of "memes" [air quote gesture] and "trolls" [air quote > gesture]. > > POSNER: Where has Russia been successful at this specifically as it > relates to > the Kamailio, the VoIP industry, and real-time communications? > > BALASHOV: The GRU are very successful at disinformation campaign to > convince > business executives about cloud things. They are always listening to our > "thought leadership" [air quote gesture] to move to cloud, mostly Amazon > Web > Services, which is great for us since is worst possible approach. At > industry > events our people are always pushing very much cloud cloud cloud, you know, > like a stampede of rhinoceroses to cloud, don't miss out on cloud! Don't be > left on the ground, fly away to cloud! We have great podcas-- > > POSNER: --stop. But there is a legitimate value proposition for service > providers in moving to the cloud, isn't there? > > BALASHOV: Yes, for some maybe, but for example AWS is platform not > designed at > all for telecom, is kind of Node.js and Ruby on Rails hosting service. > > POSNER: Where is the economic sabotage? > > BALASHOV: Well they are spending one month $30,000 to Amazon, next month > $35,000, next month $40,000, always bigger instances, bigger, bigger, to > handle > even very basic work. Official sexy seduction mythology is you can fire > all the > system admins and no longer replace hard drives at 3 AM and forget all this > messing with hardware. > > Is very hard to resist for big business leaders who follow classical > Western > management consulting sermon from 90s about "divest yourself of non-core > competencies" [air quote gesture]. You know, it is same advice they come to > give to us in Gaidar and Yeltsin days. From my memory was not working out > well > until First Marshal Putin took different approach... > > POSNER: Let's stay focused. Surely companies can run the numbers for > themselves > and see if it makes sense for them? > > BALASHOV: Maybe, but where we have the success is in the exploit of the > fear of > missing out, I think is called "FOMO" [air quote gesture] nowadays. > Everyone is > moving to cloud, don't get left behind, even if unit economics of it are > disaster for your product and your company. Have you heard about the cloud? > It's future! > > POSNER: And this has been successful? > > BALASHOV: Hard to measure but for example there is major increase in > mailing > list posts about putting Kamailio in Amazon EC2, EC2, endless EC2 from > people > for whom it is obviously wrong thing. Lots of wheels spinnink, spinnik, > making > fire and sparks, light and heat going into cold, empty outer space, to > keep warm > our GLONASS satellites. But where is result? All cost increase. And still > the > $3000/mo instance does not process small amount of packets that is nothing > for > bare metal server. > > Meanwhile spendink, spendink, solvink big amounts of kind of fake > problems... I > heard this expression once in Atlanta, "keep up with Jones" [air quote > gesture]. I don't know who is Jones but everyone agrees is very important > to > keep up with h-- > > POSNER: --back up. Fake problems? > > BALASHOV: Maybe is better word: unnecessary problems that come from way AWS > inside workings. Stupid network constraints, stupid puzzles for > puzzle-solvers. > What is American term, "eager beaver" [air quote gesture]? > > POSNER: Apart from tying up resources, how does this enthusiasm for AWS > help > Russia? > > BALASHOV: Well it should be obvious that having whole industry pay huge > premium > price to centralise their infrastructure at one entity is both economically > wasteful and precarious. Fragile and expensive setup is like our Soviet > economy > at end of eighties. Also havink resemblance to old-times mainframe > computing is > top secret irony nobody sees. > > POSNER: Where else is Russia seeding economically harmful memes? > > BALASHOV: Other big initiative is encourage huge overinvestment in WebRTC > because is supposedly future of real-time communications. > > POSNER: But WebRTC is real. > > BALASHOV: Da, of course, sometimes workink fine, but eats up big > engineering > capital and talent fighting always browser bugs and incompatible > implementations and always changink changink changink. Meanwhile who is > caring > for fundamental SIP services? > > POSNER: And this is a form of economic sabotage? > > BALASHOV: Of course is sabotage. If you can make much of a sector of > economy to > obsess always about some toy and create kind of echo chamber of "visionary" > [air quote gesture] commentary about it it is negative for GDP and > innovation. > > "Vision" has shown the big success for us; is perfect concept in hand of > intelligence agency because nobody is knowing what it is but everyone so > desperate to show they have it. > > POSNER: So a large-scale movement of VoIP service providers to the cloud > and > big development around WebRTC represent Russian attempts at sabotage of the > Western real-time communications industry? > > BALASHOV: Well again, these tendencies are existing before. It is more > question > of amplifying and boosting and promoting them so many actors are distracted > from important things. American business guys are very vulnerable to it; > every > time they are asking, "this does not seem to be worth it for us?", always > they > hear from friends at country club, "you need more bold vision and company > culture of innovation, my friend". > > We have learned after some years and applying KGB psychology training to > exploit their big personal insecurities about many things. For example > they see > competitor have Cloud Business Analytics, they too must have now Cloud > Business > Analytics, not for any reason, just fear, insecurity, the angst about not > having enough "Big Data" [air quote gesture]. > > POSNER: What else? > > BALASHOV: In recent years can be found thought leadership to remove direct > sales because is inefficient, too high customer acquisition cost and so > forth. > Always now resellers, channel partners this and master agents that. Common > sense shows industry cannot support chain with big depth of reseller of > reseller of reseller with everyone wanting to be reseller and nobody > selling > actual products to the real people. > > POSNER: That's not new to telecom. > > BALASHOV: No, no, but now new twist! They are now having everything "as a > service" [air quote gesture], platform-aaS, infrastructure-aaS... > > POSNER: Okay? > > BALASHOV: But also now infrastructure management-as-a-service and kind of > meta > approach, management-of-management-of-platform-aaS. Resellers of resale > platforms of platforms of platforms. > > Maybe not quite clear, but this is special recursive sense of humour > tradition > in Russia. Put endless things inside things inside things like matryoshka > doll. Again-- > > POSNER: --matryoshka? Like the Russian nesting doll? > > BALASHOV: Yes yes, nesting doll. > > As I was saying key point is lots of "activity and buzz" [air quote > gesture] > which is parasitism by another name. Lots of energy and enthusiasm, big > banners, hype from UC press, LinkedIn Pulse CTO insights, cheerleadink, but > where is result? > > POSNER: How is this all tied to Kamailio? > > BALASHOV: Some of it is not directly tied. It is more idea that Kamailio is > tool for executing "big ideas" [air quote gesture] and "platform plays" > [air > quote gesture]. > > When you are reading mailing list post like, "how to scale up with > Kamailio to > deliver cloud WebRTC solutions for the enterprise?" and wonder with > yourself > "from where this small guy got such 'big ideas'?" is often result of > Russian-sponsored so-called thought leadership. Who is he? He does not have > enterprise! > > POSNER: What's wrong with that question? > > BALASHOV: Well from our point of view nothing; great question, bold and > inspiring! We are encouraging them always to go build grandiose megalomania > ideas, telling to them, yes, "boil the ocean", "be disruptor 2.0", etc. > Have > you seen ITEXPO? Ideally also raising some venture capital to erase value > from > fund limited partners portfolio, like pension funds, university endowments. > > Although sometimes we feel sorry, knowink they will not meet the success, > and > almost have heart to tell them is just trollink, but our government is > clear > about goal: work hard every day to suck money out of American economy. > > POSNER: So it is in Russia's interest to see big ideas funded in America? > > BALASHOV: Oh yes yes! Bigger is better! First mover advantage and network > effect, go big or go home trailblazink! On every time someone gets the > Series A > for "completely transforming the way you do the business with UCaaS" [air > quote > gesture] or like "a new kind of next-gen VoIP peering" [air quote gesture] > we > are having another champagne bottle at the headquarters. > > POSNER: This does not really sound like traditional intelligence work. > > BALASHOV: Is not. We are livink in Internet cultural moment, is about > memes, > engineering perceptions and mass behaviour, new kind of value creation. > Likewise destruction. > > POSNER: We will consider your asylum application in detail. In the > meantime, > you will be detained at [redacted] as before. > > BALASHOV: This is famous American tradition of "customer service"? > > POSNER: We call it "customer success" nowadays. > > _______________________________________________ > Kamailio (SER) - Users Mailing List > [email protected] > https://lists.kamailio.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sr-users >
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