Hello everyone after after packet here. We have another great speaker for you today. We have Alan with fire and a virus with a spreadsheet. And we're very excited to have them. And with that, I will let Alan take it away. Thank you. Yeah, I'm Alan Baronov. I'm from Melbourne, Australia. Today I'll be taking you through a real life story that that happened to me, mostly real life. Names and places have been changed to protect the innocent. What we'll do is we'll start at the successful end and we'll rewind a couple of months back to see exactly what steps were taken by me and my team to ensure that everything worked out okay. Yeah, the whole thing will be done in Excel because that's what we're on about. But about me, so I started off as a technical person about 20 years ago, working my way through firewalls and other kind of technical security controls and now a GIC consultant. So yeah, that's where I am and who knows where the future will be. If you want to reach out to me, I'm a Baronov or Alan Baronov and most social media. And yeah, let's take it away. All right. So on this slide, one of my friends who works in a blue team environment said I'm definitely put a warning here because some of the stuff that we were about to talk about can be quite scary for blue team. So yeah, Tuesday the 27th of June 2017, I arrived into work and yeah, my boss Trevor was was waiting for me. He was sleeping on a milkshake, which was a bad sign for me because when he does that that means it's going to be an interesting day. And he said that he just wanted to get in before the big people came to speak to me so essentially the CIO and what they called the security board came in and said that they wanted to speak to me. I'm okay. I'm not sure what's going on, but okay. They took me into a meeting and told me that there was something called MS17-010 and that it had been used. We didn't know what it was called just yet, but it's now it's got a name called not petia. It had taken down many of the Australian businesses and businesses around the world like Merck and Merck. And they were worried about our infrastructure and they were worried that that we were going to be brought down. And so could I actually get involved and help them out with that? So yeah, that's all good. And so what actually happened in that was I went back to them and I said, listen, we've got no problems because we're fully patched and they were like unbelievable. They didn't believe me. And I said, okay, that's fine. No problem. I've got all the information in spreadsheets. I'll show you how we've tracked the patching that we've done over time. And they were a bit impressed, but they're also a bit disappointed because I think they actually wanted to put up a bit of a fight against this piece of malware. But anyway, we were successful. And so now I want to take you back through the bit of the history before this as to how we got to this point and I could actually say, yeah, all good. That virus is not going to come anywhere close to us. All right. So yeah, while I was working there, my manager, he came out with this idea that he wanted big monitors and he wanted us to look like NASA. And well, yes, we had Pew Pew Maps and all of that on there, but he also wanted to put some other information up there. And so, yeah, he got me to do that. And I actually coined the phrase security through big monitors and I googled this and there were no search results that came out for that. So basically, I think I invented the term. So if anyone wants to use it, you're welcome. You just need to pay me royalties. So the first thing I decided that we'll do is put up some traffic lights because anytime you have a manager and they want information, traffic light, all the things, of course, because buses like to be given pretty pictures to look at. So what we did, yep, we came out and did a graph where we took all the patches, all the servers, sorry, all the patches divided them by all the servers and of course got lovely diagram. Some months we had more than 90% of patches applied some months we had SNAT. And so we tracked against the stats there. And of course, because we're using traffic lights, you always want to make sure that you're in the yellow just basically because if you're in the red that means you're not doing your job and if you're in the green it means that you've got way too much budget. So that you got to keep it in the yellow, which is a bit strange because essentially what you're looking at now, you know, if Microsoft release a lot of patches you'll probably go into the yellow if they don't release a lot of patches you go into the green. If they release a lot, a lot of patches then you might hit the red. So you're tracking Microsoft and that doesn't really help you. It doesn't give you any direction of where to go. But some of the stuff that we're looking at at this time to try and improve the whole process is, is it really the total number of patches? Did we get them all right? Is it to prove patches? Are there other servers that we could be looking at, etc? So that was that. And then the other thing that, so then what I did was I thought, okay, well let's enhance it, let's see if we can actually dig into the information a bit deeper. So you'll see I've taken this kind of list of computers, total patches, installed patches, all in all we came out 93.6%, which is good, which is great, which gets us in the green. But if you have a look at the actual computers themselves, you'll see that there's some issues here. So some of them are below what we're supposed to be having. Some of them are good. Most of them are good. But this one you'll see even is 76.5%. That may or never have received any patches in the lifetime of that server at all. So it's good to do that because of course it gives us direction. Let me just go back to that one. So it gives us direction as to where to go. So we can see, hang on, most of these are okay. We can just leave them. They seem to be updating. Everything's fine. The two that aren't, we can fix it out that that might be just a, you know, one month that just didn't quite work out properly. Maybe they just need to be rebuted. Who knows. So you can sort those. And then the one that has, is getting no patches at all. That's one where you're going to want to concentrate and get, get everything sorted out. Yeah. So I mean, I can talk about an hour on each one of these kind of slides. But unfortunately I can't. But if anyone wants to catch me on the discord, yeah, I'm available there. Or if you want to drop me a tweet, whatever we can talk further.  Then you can do, you can check against it and see why it's happening and just keep on working through it. And over time, what you'll find is that you're actually improving. And that's a good thing. So you're no longer tracking whether Microsoft has released too many patches for you to patch or not. What you're actually tracking now is how well are you doing? And how well are you getting patched? Okay. So what I just wanted to point out at this point is that a many, many two relationship is actually a very difficult thing to get right. And we have one in this particular case. So what we're looking at here is we have multiple servers. We have multiple patches. And if you have a case like that, then you need to start working out because it's too much information to try and work with all at once. So you kind of summarize it down to, okay, what, how many servers do we have? Okay, these are servers. Okay. And then what patches are there? But you can get more interesting information once you start looking at the patches. So you can have a look at whether they're a high, medium or low risk patch. And maybe you have different rules for each of those. So now you're starting to get into understanding information at an even higher level. And also you can start looking at the actual ages of the patches. So what you might do is you might say, okay, well, we haven't actually patched these patches here, but we're not expecting to because they only came out this month. And we just haven't had time to test them. We haven't had time to apply them. And they're not critical that we need to do it immediately. So that's okay, that they haven't been patched all good. You might have some that are one month out. And that's a problem because they haven't gone through. But at least you know that. And the next time you patch, okay, well, then that's fine. We'll patch them that time. You might then have a process. You might have it where the process has failed twice. And now you're going to have a bit of a problem. Why is your process not working? That's that's a bit of an issue. And then of course, if it fails three times, then hang on a second. And now we have a huge issue because we've looked at it three times and we still haven't been able to work it out. Hopefully something is being worked out to get that sorted eventually. And now that you have these that information, you have meaningful information that you can graph. And you can go back to doing the red, the yellow and the green, like a kind of flag. And it actually means something because what you can say is like, hang on a sec, where you see red is where our processes are failing. And we can actually start to work on that. And you can bring that down over time. All right, but wait, what about MS-17010 from the beginning of our discussion. So what we were doing before this point was we were actually trying to patch all the different servers over time. We weren't looking at the patches really. We were just looking at the servers and trying to patch server by server. And now all of a sudden you have this really bad vulnerability. It can be remotely attacked. And yeah, it's just a very, very bad vulnerability. It came out bad. And then of course, one of the things that Joshua Coleman came out with is something called HD Moers law, which is it's basically a pun on Moers law. And essentially what it is, is as vulnerabilities get easier and easier to exploit, they become more and more dangerous. And so what happened with this one is it's slowly, I noticed that it's exploits were being built, theoretical exploits and real exploits. And then I saw that and I thought, okay, this thing is going to become a worm in the not too distant future. So going back into the slide here, as I said, many to many relationships are not good because they bring in complexity. But sometimes they are good because now we can actually pivot and we can say, okay, well, we were looking at servers and how many patches we had running on the different servers. Now we can actually go back and we can say, okay, well, now let's look at this one single patch and how many servers have this patch installed on it. And so if we bring it, if we work out that information, then we can see, okay, well, these servers, A, B, E, G, A, N, H, I have the patch installed. And then these three computers have the patch missing. Now remember we're also using, so the reason why we've got so many computers that actually have it patched is because we were going through the computers and we will attack the critical patches while we're doing it. And also at the same time we were looking for computers that were missing. So we actually managed to get all the computers and we got them mostly patched. And then, hang on, these three for some reason just don't have this one single patch. And it could be that the new computers, they just haven't had patches applied at all ever. And so therefore, we can just basically apply the patch. And so that's what we did. And that's why we were successful. So essentially we built the information over time and got to this point. And then we managed to flip it and managed to change our processes. So there's a couple of takeaways. Well, there's more than a couple of takeaways. There's a few takeaways that I'd like to show you. Number one, get information. There's always information out there. The information I got directly from the Microsoft guys, they just basically pulled it out and sent it my way. Raw information, stick it into Excel. And then number two, play with it, manipulate it, move it around, experiment. Keep changing it. It's low risk that you have no issue with, you know, playing around with information. It's all in your spreadsheets. It's all good. Number three, use it to improve things. Try and say, okay, well hang on a sec, our processes need to be improved or not. Do we know? Or don't we know? And then of course, get the information that will tell you exactly what you need to know, whether your processes are working or not. Always ask why don't just fix stuff. Work out why was it broken in the first place, because if it happens again, you'll know and you'll be able to fix it up. Also just note that you don't need expensive tools. We have Excel and that's all I used. So basically that was, I didn't have to guard and buy anything, any special tools or anything. I had it already. All I needed was the information and some of my time to get it working. Don't believe that Excel was free. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So doing security right is hard. There's no easy wins. So it looks easy from what I've shown you here, but there was a lot of hard work behind the scenes. Once I got the information in place, sitting with the RT team and getting them to patch and repatch and repatch and get it right and research and find out what was going wrong. There was a lot of work. The one thing that I could point out at this point now is that having that extra good information that I could give to them made them more excited about the job that they were doing. It wasn't me just coming as a security person and saying, listen, you need to patch your service because patching service is a good thing to do. It was me coming to them and saying, hey, this computer, it doesn't seem to be working, doesn't seem to be getting its patches. Can you work out why that is? And then they come back to me and say, listen, this is a story and we can actually sort it out and fix it. So that's what comes out of having the information. It makes life a lot easier for you and for your RT team. And yeah, as I said, work with your teams. Yeah, you can say, okay, well, if you're asking why, can you help them? A lot of times they would come back to me and say, listen, I have no idea why this isn't working. And we dig in the history and we can see, okay, well, it patches sometimes, sometimes not. There must be something strange with that box or it's never been patched before. And then you can work out stuff like maybe there's a firewall in the way, et cetera, et cetera. Keep digging deeper. So as I showed you, the first things we were monitoring were just like the total number of patches across everything divided by the total number of computers. And it didn't really tell us very much. It didn't give us a good deep amount of information that we could work with. And usually that information is there. You're just not looking at it. So always keep getting more information. And don't be scared to get information from two different places. Like for instance, what I was saying earlier is we had all the computers that we knew about, but when I found some other lists of computers, those were different. And then the question is, well, why are they different?   So we had a good process. We were getting, we were making, you know, making leeway against what we had to do. So, sorry, making headway against what we were trying to do. So we were getting our servers patched and we were getting more servers patched and the lines were coming down because less and less critical patches were missing, less and less non-critical patches were missing. But then when all of a sudden I saw that there was one patch that was really, really important, that we really needed to get out of the way, changed everything. Okay, this is the one. This is what we need to sort out first. Everything else needs to take us, you know, we'll get to that. We'll get to it eventually. But this is what we need to get right now. And yeah, next steps. So if you're interested in this, the next step for you would be get your information. Go find where you can get it from. Get CSVs, get some JSON, get text and convert it. Put it all into Excel. Start fiddling with it. Learn how to join the sources together. Learn how to use pivot tables. Learn how to use graphs and play and play and play until you get the information that you need.  So use your hacking ability to work with Excel. And that's pretty much it. I'm just a shout out to the Baronov clan and to the DEF CON group of Melbourne. Hey, guys. I'm going to introduce also to the Australian B-Sides team, B-Sides, Canberra, B-Sides, Melbourne. And yeah, to all of you that are there, taking your time out to watch this presentation. Thank you very much for that. And thank you very much to the DEF CON team and to the Blue Team village for having me. It's a great honor to be able to speak in this forum. And yeah, if there's anyone that does have any questions, I'm not sure there might be a bit of time left or alternatively just find me in either the DEF CON Discord or alternatively in the Blue Team Village Discord. And yeah, I'll answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much. Awesome. Thank you for the wonderful presentation, Alan. As always, we suggest that you join the Blue Team Village Discord and direct your questions to Text Talk Track 1. Okay. I will do for sure. The presenter will take a look and be able to answer your questions. And other than that, I appreciate that. And thank you again. Thank you.


Hey guys, welcome back to Six Sister Stuff. Today we're gonna show you how to do a pot and pot recipe. We're gonna show you how to make lasagna. So my name is Kristen. And I'm Camille. And every Monday we share an instant pot recipe with you guys. Okay, so we're first going to cook sausage and onions and mushrooms, all together in the instant pot. So we're gonna first push the saute button and kind of let that heat up for a little bit. Okay, cool. For everything in. We're gonna start mixing the cheeses. This is a big tub of ricotta cheese. Yes. Going full send with all of that. And then I'm gonna add in about 16 ounces of cottage cheese.  Ricotta comes in whole milk or skim milk. If you want it super creamy, go whole.  They both taste good. I know, I do. I like both of them. They do. And then I'm gonna also add two eggs to this. Okay. All right, so this is all heated up, ready to go. So I put in my sausage first. I don't have to add oil because of, you know, the sausage is not gonna stick. So I have my lovely chopster. Chopster, favorite thing ever. I'm just gonna cook mom eat. A lot of times too, to the cheese mixture, I'll add in like some garlic powder or Italian seasoning, just to kind of give this cheesy layer a little boost of flavor, but it's fine without it too. Nice. Okay, so you're mixing all the cheeses. I'm mixing the sausage. Would you pass me the onions? So we chopped an onion. Stick that in there. So whole onion. Yep. Nice. And then there's mushroom. Okay, cheese is done. Yeah, this is pretty good. I'm gonna just add my mushrooms for just like a minute or so. Ooh, mixed in there. Whoops, it's flying. Now if you don't like mushrooms, you don't have to add mushrooms to this, but I love mushrooms. I do too. Looking good. And smelling good. You know, huh? We ready with this? Yep. Let's layer it up a little bit. So layer it up, so. Okay, so we're gonna start in the pot with some sauce on the bottom. So dump a little bit in there. Spread it around. Yep. Just getting it all the way to the edges. You can use any kind of sauce that you have, whatever your favorite is. Okay, and then we gotta use some noodles, right? And they have to be oven ready. They have to be oven ready for this recipe, right? Yep. Okay, so this is a circle pot, obviously.  Just kind of break your noodles so that they fit, right? Yeah, yeah, and it's not gonna be pretty, but no one will see that, you know, oh, there's a little bit of a noodle missing there. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Just as long as you get most of it covered. Yeah, the little pieces are perfect because they just cover the parts that need to be covered. Yeah, awesome. Okay, cool. All right. We have noodles down. Noodles down. Cheese next. Okay. So how many layers are we gonna be doing? So we're gonna do as many layers as we can. We'll probably, we'll see what we can do. We'll see how many we get in there. We're gonna fill it as full as we can. That's for sure. I love cheese, so I'm going heavy on it. It's a little bit different, like, nine by 13, you have a very flat lasagna. This is going to be a tall lasagna. I love it. Which is perfect. Okay, so we got cheese all the way to the edges. Good, add some meat now. Meat, onion, and mushrooms. Oh man, even pulling up, I still am all over the place. All right, what do you think of that? We're okay? Yep, looks good. Okay. You could do a little bit more even if you want. Okay, now we're talking. You like the meat. I like it meaty. Me too. Okay, cheese, do we do mozzarella and parmesan? Yeah, let's throw that on. Okay, because let's be honest, lasagna has to be cheesy. Oops, threw that back. Everyone likes cheese. All right, okay, so we just did some mozzarella and parmesan, and then we start again. Okay. Go with the sauce. And it's not gonna be pretty as you're spreading it around, but that's okay. No, lasagna is. Yeah, it all comes together. Exactly. So try and get it to the edges. Got that, I'm gonna go with the noodles. I'll grab one of those, and I'll grab one too. Yep. Chop it up. You do the big one in the middle. Okay, oh, I messed up. I'll hit the sides. I thought you could just come to my house all the time when we can cook together. Right, this is way faster. Trues through. No, lasagnas to me are really labor-intensive, but I love that you can cook it all in there, like saute it, and then you can layer it in this other pot. Yep. It's genius. I think this is the hardest part for me, is putting the cheese on after you put the noodles on. Right, because it just, those noodles move. Yes. I know. But it's not bad. Okay. Ready, ready for the meat? Yep, go more meat, and I'll add more cheese. Awesome. Can you go all the way to the top? Like. Yes, this one you can. Uh-huh. Some, I'm sure, kind of overflows. Yes, I mean, it really depends on what you have, just because the noodles are not going to expand that much, that everything will kind of cook and then shrink a little bit, so. Yeah, oh, that's true. I didn't think about that all the way to the top here. Okay. Cool. All right, more cheese, and then we'll go again. I think we'll just one more layer here, right? Yeah, I think just one more. Plenty of sauce, maybe a little bit more. It's a hefty little lasagna. Yes it is, it is. Like you said, it's going to be really tall.  Totally. Okay, so we're just going to finish out all the sauce. So I'm going to pull up, oh yeah. So it doesn't get covered. Yeah, you can rest it on top when it's done. And then we're going to finish off with just a hefty layer of cheese. Nice. Because the cheesy lasagna is where it's at. Exactly. Okay, so while you're putting cheese, I'm going to rinse this out real quick. Okay. So then we're going to cook it right inside of this pot that's already dirty. So you don't have to clean it, we're just rinsing it out. We need to put something on it so it can keep as much water out as we possibly can. So we're going to do it really tight with some foil. Cool. Now the handle is still in there, but that's okay. Okay.  Okay, cool. Because getting in is a lot easier than getting it out. Yeah. Okay, so then on the bottom of the pot, we're just going to add like a cup of water just so it can pressurize. We're just going to stick our pot right down inside. So you don't even need the trivet or anything. Just put it right in the water. Right in. Woopah. And it fits pretty tight in there. Yes. But like still in the room, you can slide it around. Yeah, it can slide around definitely. Cool. And you can have all the water will come up on the sides and still cook it, so. All right. So crazy. Ready? Yeah. Okay. So close the lid, make sure that your little knob is turned to ceiling, not venting. I've done that, it's fine. Yeah, we all have, we all have. All right, then we're going to push the manual or the pressure cook button, whatever instant pot you have. And we're going to go up to, what'd you say? 24. 24. 24 minutes. 24. Okay, then once you set the pot, you're going to wait just a few seconds for it to say on. There we go. And then that means you did it right. So awesome. Walk away. Hey guys, we'll see you in a little bit. All right, it's done. So when it's done cooking, you'll see that little L and then it will start counting up. So we're at two minutes. Lots of people are really funny about, you know, quick release or natural release. We're just going to do quick release because that's all we have time for today. That's what I do. Exactly, here we go. Okay, all steamed out. Good to go. Let's open it up. Let's open it up. Let's see what this looks like. I know. You see the foil first. Okay, so I like to take a glove and we'll just pull the foil off. I gotta use my finger a little bit to just pull it. Now, you gotta realize it is cooked with water so it's not the same texture as your oven. But with this pot and pot, you can stick it right inside your oven and broil for a few minutes to brown up that cheese. Okay, we gotta get the little handle out. There we go. Where's it gonna pull right out? Cool. Oh, it is heavy. Oh my goodness. Now, this is covered with some food. So we're gonna put it like in, you can put it on a cookie sheet or a pan or something like that, but just so you don't want the bottom of your oven a little gross. Yeah. All right, you wanna stick that in. So we're just going in the broiler just to kind of brown up the top. Yep. Will you open it for me? Yeah. All right, so here it is. Completely done. Still a little bit liquidy. I would let it set up for at least a few minutes before you serve it, but yeah. And that's all we have for you today. So we will see you guys next week. Bye.


More evidence that the U.S. is trying to prolong this war. The Washington Post has a new article out bemoaning the fact that Russian military commanders are declining calls from the Pentagon to discuss their operations in Ukraine. I don't know, guys, might have something to do with the fact that the U.S. is sharing extensive military intelligence on exactly those operations directly with the Ukrainian government. Talked all the way down in the 18th paragraph of the article, we find a much more interesting revelation. That Washington's top diplomat has made no attempt to contact his counterpart in Moscow since the war began on the 24th of February. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, since the start of the conflict according to U.S. officials, the Washington Post reports. So the U.S. government is continuing its established policy of refusing to attempt any high-level diplomatic resolutions to this war, despite its public hand-ringing about the horrific violence that's being inflicted upon the people of Ukraine. This revelation fits nicely with a recent report by Bloomberg's Niall Ferguson that sources in the U.S. and U.K. governments have told him the real goal of Western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order to bleed Putin and achieve regime change in Moscow. Building on an earlier report from the New York Times that the Biden administration seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire, Ferguson writes that he has reached the conclusion that the U.S. tends to keep this war going and says he has other sources to corroborate this. The only endgame now, a senior administration official was heard to say at a private event earlier this month, is the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, Russia will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it. Seeing Russia get cut off will not look like a good vector, and they'll have to re-evaluate the Sino-Russia axis. All this is to say that democracy in the West may well look back on this as a pivotal strengthening moment. I gather that senior British officials are talking in similar terms. There is a belief that the UK's number one option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin. Again and again I hear such language. It helps explain, among other things, the lack of diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a ceasefire. It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal. Earlier this month, when the intercepts Ryan Grimm was able to get a word in edge-wise at a White House press briefing amid the throngs of mass media reporters demanding to know why Biden still hasn't started World War III, Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave a very revealing answer. So aside from the request for weapons, President Zelensky has also requested that the U.S. be more involved in negotiations toward a peaceful resolution to the war. What is the U.S. doing to push those negotiations forward? asked Grimm. Well, one of the steps we've taken, a significant one, is to be the largest provider of military and humanitarian and economic assistance in the world to put them in a greater position of strength as they go into these negotiations, Psaki answered, completely dodging the question of whether the U.S. was actually doing anything to help negotiate peace. As we've discussed previously, the U.S. government has a well-documented history of working to draw Moscow into costly military entanglements with the goal of preoccupying its military forces and draining its coffers. Former U.S. officials are on record publicly boasting about having done so in both Afghanistan and Syria. This is an agenda geared toward sapping the Russian government, manufacturing international consent for unprecedented acts of economic warfare designed, though perhaps ineptly, to crush the Russian economy, to foment discord and rebellion, and ultimately to achieve regime change in Moscow. The U.S. empire doesn't care about Ukrainian lives, and it's insulting that its operatives continually pretend to. The empire will happily feed every man, woman, and child in the entire nation into the mouth of this war if it means unseating a disobedient leader from a nuclear-armed seat of power, which has become unacceptably close with Beijing and intolerably comfortable with intervening against U.S. imperial agendas. And all the Ukrainian flag-waving, propagandized masses with their stand with Ukraine, Instagram, activism, and blue and yellow profile pics will cheer for it every step of the way. I hope this brutal proxy war ends and peace comes to Ukraine very quickly. But from what we're seeing today, there appears to be an immense, globe-spanning power structure holding its foot against the door of the only exit from this horror.


You become a really important part of their life, it's like adding family members. Marcel suffered from a premature closure of the plates of the skull. If you put pressure on the developing brain, it could affect the development of the brain, it could affect the IQ.


My name is Tanya Nyanyati. I'm 23 years old. I'm currently doing my Master's in Academic Science at Betts University. I'm hoping to gain exposure into the research, into the academic sphere and I'm hoping to network with other researchers that are in the same field as I am. I've been programs like the ASI program are important in terms of encouraging researchers and young scholars into researching and also pushing them that it's not just about graduating to do their dissertation but also to do research to contribute. My research is talking about measuring woman empowerment for South African countries. We are using demographic cars on surveys and we are looking at the Southern African region. So what we're trying to do here is to measure women empowerment using a statistical method which hasn't been done before. What this research will do is that is to identify which indicator is least and which one is more important and then we invest in the one that is more important because Southern African region is not is a poor region so for cost-based analysis and for resource maximization it's important for us to identify where we can maximize it. I would like to see the gender inequality decrease and I would like to see a more balance between the male and the females in the future.


The kit that we will be using is Synthetic Blood Whose Baby Is It by Carolina Biological Supply. In this kit, we're introduced to two mothers, Kim and Andrea, and they have just given birth at a local hospital. Kim birthed two babies where Andrea only birthed one, but Andrea believes that she was actually sent home with the wrong baby. So now we're going to work through this kit and determine who the baby actually belongs to. When you perform this lab, you will be testing a total of five blood samples. This includes blood from Andrea, Kim, and each of the three babies. However, for the purposes of today's demonstration, I'll only be testing two of these samples. This will help you to know what to expect when you perform this test yourself. So let's get started. In addition to the blood samples, you'll need a blue toothpick, a yellow toothpick, anti-serum A, anti-serum B, and a blood testing tray. I will start by placing one drop of the first blood sample in the well-labeled A and one drop in the well-labeled B. Next, I will place one drop of the anti-A serum into the well-labeled A. And then one drop of the anti-B serum into the well-labeled B. Next, I will stir the sample in well-A with the blue toothpick. I'll stir it for about 30 seconds. And I'll do the same in well-B with the yellow toothpick. Again, for about 30 seconds, making sure not to slosh any out or make a mess. Finally, I will observe the result. In this first sample, I see some clumping occurring in both well-A and well-B. This clumping is called agglutination. Blood that contains A antigens will agglutinate in the presence of the anti-A serum. And blood containing B antigens will agglutinate in the presence of the anti-B serum. This agglutination lets us know that the sample is from someone whose blood is in the AB blood group. Let's test another one. Now we are following the exact same procedures as before. I will place one drop of the second blood sample into each well. Then I'll place a drop of the anti-A serum into well-A, and a drop of the anti-B serum into well-B. Now I'm going to use the opposite unused ends of the toothpick to stir the wells. Again, making sure to use the blue for well-A and stirring for 30 seconds. Now I'll use the end of the yellow toothpick for well-B, again stirring for about 30 seconds. Notice in both of these wells, nothing has happened. The blood sample does not contain A or B antigens.


It's finally over, after a contentious build-up spanning at least seven months, delegates finally had the chance to elect the next president of the Jamaica Football Federation. And when the votes were counted at Sunday's Congress in the grill, it was the incumbent. Michael Ricketts, who comfortably came out on top, 39-17 over Raymond Anderson, airs Ricketts speaking in the immediate moments after the announcement. What's indicated is the word, and with all the unfair, unfounded comments, I am here. I'm victorious. My team has worked very hard, and amidst all that we have gone through, we are victorious. And I want to give thanks to the Almighty, first and foremost. And to those who supported me, not just by voting for me, but by giving me encouraging words, positive comments, and the rest is history. So Ricketts also spoke to the issue of transparency during the election process. Yeah, we're going to get some audio on that, I hope, pretty soon. But let's move on now to the newly elected vice president, Elaine Walker-Brown, who says she is confident that they will have a successful tenure. And I really want to thank the delegates that believe in us. And it won't be business as usual. We have to rebuild, we have to rebrand football because it has been damaged, and I'm looking forward to helping with that. And I know a lot of Jamaicans are going to help us to rebuild and rebrand. There's work to be done, and we're going to get it done. We're going to prove to them because Mr. Ricketts has shown it over the years, and it's the success stories. So it's out there. It's just based upon what has transpired in the courts, on the road, in the media, the negativity, and keeping away corporate Jamaica from football. That's what we have to fix. Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of Raymond Addison's real solid action team, Carol Beckford extended congratulations to Michael Ricketts. They're members of who supported the RSA team or still presidents of their federation, and they're also on executives of their parishion clubs. So it really is that football development will continue. But I'd like to use the opportunity to say congratulations to Mr. Ricketts and his team for the hard fight. And we just want to see what's best for football. So if we're going to continue to be the watchdogs, we will. But I guess it's time to take a little break, commiserate, and then get back to the table. Carol Beckford, they are the real solid action team. Now a lot had happened before Sunday's election. And let's take you quickly now through the timeline of events that we have looked at for several months. We'll get that. Well, that's the administrative team. President Michael Ricketts. He has as his vice president Raymond Grant, Barry Watson, Gregor Daley, and Elaine Walker-Brown, who you just heard from. Bruce Gaynor and Rudolf Speed are ordinary members of this JFF administrative executive. And as we said, the timeline of events, June 2023, Michael Ricketts told nationwide sports that there is no official challenger, and it would be a travesty if his vice president, Raymond Anderson, was to throw his hat in the ring. And that comment obviously came when new surface that Raymond Anderson would in fact challenge him on the 14th of July, just under a month after that first Michael Ricketts comment on nationwide, Raymond Anderson officially announced his candidacy. And in October 2023, the election constitutionally due before December 31, 2023 was pushed back due to pillar three voting issues, affiliates not duly registered. November 6, 2023, President Michael Ricketts said only three of the seven pillar three entities met the requirements to participate in the election, citing a misrepresentation or misinterpretation of the Federation's new constitution. And then 10 days after that, the JFF election data announced for the 14th of January. But then on the 4th of December, the real solid action team led by Raymond Anderson accused the JFF of trying to fraudulently win the election. On the 4th of December, the RSA team also accused the JFF of withholding information from existing affiliates to form other bodies. In the new year, the 10th of January, Beach Soccer Association filed an injunction against the JFF. And then two days after that, the Supreme Court granted an injunction delaying the elections for at least 28 days. On the 9th of February, Supreme Court denied an application for the continuation of the said injunction. And then six days after that, the JFF served a notice of appeal filed on behalf of Patricia Garrell as President of Beach Soccer, Jamaica. On the 9th of February, 24, JFF announced March 17 as a new election date. And then the 13th of March, the Court of Appeal rejected Beach Soccer Association appeal against the JFF elections proceeding, meaning the election could go ahead on the 17th of March. So a pretty contentious process here, which we have covered on the show here in the months leading up. And a time for rebuilding. We heard Elaine Walker-Brown suggest that football has been damaged. And it's an opportunity now for them to rebuild and present the glorious game of football in a way that's palatable to the Jamaican public. Yeah. I'll start by saying that I was not really surprised by the results because coming into this election when we interviewed Raymond Anderson, and of course we discussed the election leading up to yesterday, one of the things we said is that it would have been difficult because one, Michael Ricketts and then two, the vice president on Raymond Anderson, to me it seems like one and the same because of course he's coming from the same administration that he's now going up against. So I will start by saying the election results did not come to me as a shock at all. Now moving forward, now that Michael Ricketts has been elected for another tomb, I am hoping that he can use this time that he has and of course ensures that some of the things that happened last tomb does not happen again because simple things as communication with the players, of course payment of their salaries on time, so many different issues would have read its ugly head. So I'm hoping that this time around he gets another opportunity to rectify those things and ensure that some of the GFF issues are not aired in the media like things that could be fixed before. You know a simple thing as a communication issue. That doesn't need to become an entire headline as a matter of fact. I wish that they can communicate among themselves and it does not reach to that point. Yeah, very much agree. So and Elaine Walker-Brown spoke to it in terms of the importance of rebuilding the confidence and especially that corporate Jamaica has in the Jamaica Football Federation because that has taken a tremendous hit over the last four years or so and there are a few issues I think that the Jamaica Football Federation needs to tackle right away in our zone update piece. We had the Rege Girls being spoken about by the President Michael Ricketts and he admitted well the players have been paid and it's no time for us to move forward. I think that is important but it's one thing for Michael Ricketts to say that yesterday in the immediate aftermath but I think within the next 30 days we need to get a very clear indication of where we're going with women's football with the national program and where we are with those World Cup stars who have not played since the Olympic qualifiers in September. I think that is extremely important because it is an issue that has festered for quite a while Lance and Mariah and I think it has to be at the top of the agenda for Michael Ricketts and his new administration. How do we know it's essentially meant the issues that we had with the girls and move on in a way that is beneficial to the country's football. Great to hear Ricketts speak about the fact that there are friendly international matches and that the players who will make themselves available will be selected. I hope I got him correctly and that is what he said but I do still believe Lance and Mariah that on this issue because so much has happened I also want to hear the President come out and said I have spoken to the girls at least I have spoken to the leadership of the girls we have an understanding and this is how we are going to go forward. I'm not sure if I fully buy into just hearing well if they're available we're going to select them that given everything that has happened there is something about that that does not sit right with me and maybe I am misunderstanding or not gathering completely what Mr. Ricketts might have said in the moment but I just think a lot has happened with these girls Lance and Mariah and I just think on this specific issue the rhetoric I would have preferred if it was slightly different. Yeah and communication I hope Ricardo because that's a communication issue the fact that it's a little bit more than a communication issue it's a respect issue as well because that's been part of the issue that the girls have had and given that we are turning over this new leaf or maybe we've bought a new book well actually it's not a new book we're just turning over a new leaf hopefully a different edition a different edition yes know that we have this new addition I think you need to almost start from scratch and go girls I know we've had some problems let's talk let's figure it out and at the end of that conversation Michael Ricketts should be able to say to the media I the president of the Jamaica Football Federation not my general secretary not my vice president I Michael Ricketts GFF president for a second and a half term has spoken to the girls and we have come to this understanding and this is how we will proceed and you can fully well expect the World Cup stars to play the next time the regga girls are in action once they are available that's a little different to me than just saying well if they're available they'll be selected yeah I think I get your point Ricardo and I agree with you 100% that I don't think it came over in his narrative post-election yesterday that it was as explicitly put as you would you would want it to be put so we'll have to watch the space and see what happens from here on in I note with a keen interest your term Ricardo that you said the football has been damaged for the last four years or so that's not the narrative that we got from Elaine Walker Brown and also the president I think their their their focus is the build up to the election with the court cases and so on when they're referencing damage to the football I think that is what they're talking about because as you know there is a disconnect between their feeling about their performance as an administration and the general public because the general public in football in Jamaica feels that the administration has failed football Ricketts thinks that he succeeded and he was a good president or has been a good president so I think there's a disconnect there and I'm happy Ricardo that you said over the past four years because football has been damaged over the past four years not just not just in the past few months where there was this scandalous build up and lead up to to the election and this is an opportunity for the JFF now given a fresh mandate to improve its performance because I see arrogance in Mr Ricketts and his team because they seem to be telling us repeatedly that he has been a great president and his his his successful performance over the years speaks for itself so so so that is why he's winning and I'm very sorry but that's not how people feel about the administration and just quickly statement was he feels vindicated he felt as if he felt as if I think he used that term because of how contentious it was once and and and and the accusations of the transparency and the issues about sectors being disenfranchised and so on so I think it was a rocky build up to the election for him and it is natural that he will say that he feels vindicated given the fact that not only that he won but that he won comfortably yeah because yes it was a massive margin of victory 39 votes to 17 quite comfortable one would have to say but I want to make the point quickly as well Lance as it relates to the confidence of corporate Jamaica in the Jamaica Football Federation because that's what I was speaking to specific specifically in terms of the damage because recall before the Adidas contract that the GFF got this is a Jamaica Football Federation that struggled to get support from corporate Jamaica and probably still is struggling not probably it still is struggling to get support from corporate Jamaica so that the level of confidence that was there and I don't know how great it was before to be honest because on the captain Horace Burrell's leadership he was sponsoring like pretty much all the parish associations so Mr Ricketts does not have a bakery to sponsor the parish associations and therefore he doesn't have that to turn to but it is important that they find a way to rebrand the Jamaica Football Federation in a way that corporate Jamaica can start supporting let's not forget the pfgl that runs the Jamaica Premier League when Chris Williams took over the type of sponsorship that he was able to pull in the type of support that the Jamaica Football Federation as an organization was not able to do previous to that and so the GFF itself without attachment brands needs to be able to do that and that has not been happening and that's what I'm talking about when I speak to the confidence from corporate Jamaica in the GFF that doesn't exist and you are right that did not start during the contentious last six or seven months that existed before yeah the other point I want to make is that I believe that football as a product not only in Jamaica I think is struggling with the confidence of the man in the street because of a lot of the corruption that has been unveiled in football in the past decade a lot of people feel that football is not being run in a righteous way and they refuse to put their money there yeah so I don't want to suggest that the ricketts administration is by itself in fighting this battle but it is a battle yes and I also think that while he won I think he based on the platform of the election process or the elective process he had an advantage in ensuring that the delegates that he controlled would support him I think the GFF administration needs to recognize that the football public is dissatisfied with its performance so don't come gloating that you won comfortably by 39 to 17 and you are thanking your delegates for showing confidence in you because the delegates are one thing but the delegates represent point zero zero zero point seven of a percent from the football football fraternity yes so the support that he has gotten to win the election does not represent truly how football fans in Jamaica feel about the GFF's performance as administrators and I think they need to be guided by this and they need to improve their performance because you know there was a lot of accusation about their incompetence we heard that said many times arguably or understandably by their their opponents mostly but the common man in the street use those terms as well incompetence and there was enough evidence to suggest that saying that they were incompetent wasn't untrue so I just believe that the GFF needs to lift its game they've got the mandate to continue and I think we have to look forward positively because I don't think this group is completely incapable of doing a reasonably good job but they have to do significantly better than what we've seen in the past four or five years because what we've seen in the past four or five years is not good enough and it needs to start right to a team with the example that we pointed to with the regular girls it needs to start with improving the communication we need to hear what's happening with these girls we need to even hear from the girls as to if they have received all the payments we we just need to have this communication is directed by and moving forward you know not have the players come to the forefront being dissatisfied with things that are being done by management yeah I just think at this stage you just have to fix the issues that need fixing from the last tenure and move ahead in that way and do so quickly a lot of the issues that we had with travel arrangements and per diem I don't even understand why players are old per diem because as far as I know per diem is something that you get on arrival so why am I not getting per diem nine and ten months later you know so just issues like those fix them put in place the systems that will mitigate against those things happening certain with the sort of regularity that they happened in in the last four years and Michael Ricketts has an advantage because he has the last four years to look back on see exactly where they went wrong and I'm sure for the last six or seven months we've seen the manifesto and everything would have been thinking about the measures that can be put in place to ensure there is improvement for the last four years mr. Michael Ricketts here's the opportunity get it done