I am your stepping stone to the presidency atiku tells Igbo Nation and EFCC, responsible for my ordeal in UK, Aquarium Madu tells KOT as KOT is to decide vacation order on temporary for future of Aquarium Madu's properties on January 25. This is Plus Politics. My name is Nyam Ghul Aghaji. I'll had ya tiku abubaka at the People's Democratic Party's nominee for president and if I knew kowa the governor of Delta State visited a Nambra State on Thursday to continue their campaign. The PDP candidate met with the state governor, professor Chukumasoludo, at the governor's lodge in Amawbia, under strict security after arriving at a Kweme Square in Oka at around 2.10 pm. Atiku made a commitment to his followers to bring Nigerians together by treating each zone fairly and ensuring everyone's security. Also speaking during the rally, a former vice presidential candidate Senator Beno B said atiku decided to pickifanyo kowa because Ohanese had directed that no Igbo man from the southeast should depict as deputy to anyone. According to him, atiku had been friends with the indigbo even as a vice president of the country and decided to pick an Igbo man from Delta State. He also promised to direct the river Niger and make Onitsha a functional seaport. We have joining us to discuss this, Osse Aneni, a PDP chiften. Pogratu have you on the program, Osse. Always a pleasure. Okay, well thank God that you are a chiften of a PDP. How is atiku really a stepping stone to the Igbo presidency? I think, well again thank you for having me and these types of statements you know when you take them out of context they sound a little bit curious. What atiku actually said was that he is a stepping stone to, he is the most viable stepping stone to an Igbo presidency because every time he has run he has he has run with an Igbo man, he ran with Senator Beno B, he ran with Governor Peter B and he is currently running with Governor and Senator Ifa Yokoa and even beyond the fact that he runs with, he always runs with someone from an Igbo man, it's the fact that he makes and I think a very valid argument that he is the only one determined after his presidency if he ever assumes office to deliberately work for a South Easterner to become president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We haven't really ever had a president since I think Namdi Atikuwe who was by and large a ceremonial president you know so he is committed to that, he is committed to it not just by the fact that he has run with Igbo vice presidential candidates but that he has publicly and verbally and vocally and consistently said that if he ever becomes president the person that will succeed him would be an Igbo man but again you know I was happy you picked up on I think the most significant statement he made about making the Southeast an economic powerhouse Atikuwe intends to use the private sector to drive Nigeria's economic growth and he has said he will drive the river Nigeria and he will actually create a port in Onitsha if you come president so that you know the South is again you know it doesn't just become a manufacturing hub or trading hub that relies on ports in Portugal to Lagos but actually becomes an engine of growth for import and export and production so it excites me you know my mum is from Amor Bia not Amor Bia and I'm sure she she'll be happy I've corrected the pronunciation of Amor Bia so for me it's it's almost like a homecoming you know I'm from Edo state but like I said my mum is from Anambra state from Amor Bia you know and we are truly excited not just at an Atikuwe presidency but for what it means for the entire Southeast and for Igbo's in general but I don't know how we can hold Atikuwe as a man of his words we will come to that anyway is it not supposing by this statement that he's saying it's only the PDP that can produce an Igbo president what of the many other parties that we have even at this time so two things to this the APC just finished fielding a northern president and the right thing the APC should have done if they were going to be fair you know and in answer to your question would have been to zone the presidency to the southeast they didn't zone it so everybody contested you know so you cannot look at the APC as an option the second thing is that in a democracy you really only have ever have two main political parties that can ever secure power there was a recent projection by SBM intelligence they are Nigeria's premier data and intelligence consultancy firm and they said you know if things remain as they are pita bia labor party have no roots to power they are actually predicting a runoff between APC and the PDP so and and that sort of is unfortunately just the nature of first past past the post electoral democracies you have two main contender and if you are lucky you have a third force party that can flip or tip the scales one way or the other and I think you know in reality you know that pita bia role in this election he's a third force candidate who if he decides to either align with the APC or the PDP will almost surely guarantee victory of whoever he aligns with because he's from our fold because he's one of us because you know he's manifesto is almost a copy of everything we want to do we hope that god forbid we don't win the election at the first ballot we'll be able to form an alliance with pita bia labor party I don't know when when you said pita bia is part of you I don't know how that will be something to rejoice about because Atiku can be claimed by APC as well as being as part of them so we should be talking about the party that they are belonging to now otherwise we can be classifying Atiku as an APC member by proxie as well no origins matter I think an ideological foundation matter even more so Atiku is a PDP member he's a foundational PDP member as um so a lot of people will not know that even before pita bia joined afga he was actually a PDP member he left for afga did his stint as governor and immediately returned home after his tenure as governor in anambra state so again ideologically pita bia is one of us again you know the data says he has no root to power we hope to win at the first ballot but even if we don't we think we can form an alliance with pita bia okay my concern right now is that our funding fathers brought what they call federal character so that no ethnic group no section of the the country will be marginalized whether really or perceived and PDP came in 1999 and brought what gladdened our heart and they called it zoning which may not be part of our constitution but they thought it's fit to zone but when it came to the 2023 election the PDP did some abracadabra and a lot of people have said that the person behind these was atiku abubaka he didn't want the zoning because naturally whether it was PDP that was leaving office or not it didn't matter the presidency should have come to the south but atiku abubaka made sure according to speculations that okay it was thrown open so that he too can get it and this is someone who is preaching unity how can a man like that bring unity let us walk us through the qualities of atiku abubaka that will make us have the confidence that if he gets the power he will work for the unity of the country so before I do that I'm I'll just take you in a brief historical tour you're absolutely correct in our party constitution we do have rotational presidency but if you remember when Abbasan you're finished in 2007 it was pita oddili from the south who was actually the front runner for the PDP and if Abbasan had not single handili intervened would have had a yoba presidency and then a Niger Delta presidency fast forward to John Yaduwa presidency when he finished he didn't go to the it didn't go back to the north good Lord Jonathan decided to run in 2011 atiku contested against him he didn't leave the party in 2015 many people don't know that even though there were agreements that power was supposed to go back to the north the PDP only printed one presidential form in fact some candidates took us to court at the time and in almost single handili installed Jonathan as a candidate which was why a lot of people left at the time so I'm saying you know we observed these things in breach it was cured in 2007 by Abbasan Joe in 2011 it wasn't cured power was supposed to go to the north we violated the agreement in 2015 it was supposed to go to the north we violated the agreement and so when you come to 2023 and you say it's atiku abubaka that has you know been wanting to to turn away and is only an agreement it's not historically accurate I just wanted to make that point to why he is a unifier it simply is because he is the only candidate pushing a message of national unity we have seen one candidate come out and say it's the turn of the yobas it's emilokan we have seen other candidates go to churches and say this is their turn the only candidate pushing a pan Nigerian message saying even though I am a northerner I want to run a presidency for all and even though or even when I win government I know Nigeria's problems are so deep rooted that I will need to form a government of national unity that brings together everybody from all political spheres of life and all ideological spheres of life as well he's the only person pushing that message loudly and consistently our manifesto is five points and the first one is unity then you have security the economy education and restructuring unity is first because atiku has consistently said that unless we we unite ourselves as a nation because we've never been this deeply divided since perhaps the civil war that unless we unite as a country we can also any of the issues whether it's security whether it's restructuring whatever it is because we must unite this nation before we're able to build the consensus we need to push through the constitutional amendment we are promising to make so you know literally the success and failure of any parties manifestos whoever wins lies on the ability to unite this country and the only person that has shown that he has the political weight and the will to unite this country to build a network to build consensus across this nation is atiku abubaka and that's why I support him and from the Niger Delta he has told me in the room where I was that he will push for resource control he will push for state police those are things that matter to me as someone from the south south today he was in the southeast and he was speaking to an economic regeneration those are the things that perhaps matter to them he was speaking to a sense of belonging that regardless of where you are from if you are from the south east you too can dream of becoming president everywhere this man goes he speaks to the things that caught to the hearts of people i'm confident that this message will resonate come february 2023 and i'm confident that he will not only unite this this country but recover lost prosperity well when you talk about the political will so many people will argue with you they will have some divergent views about political will to do something that is really tough political will means that you have the the the the resolve to to take a stand no matter how difficult that decision might be now i give two instances the first instance is the case of debra in the north that was killed and someone according to your principal said wrote and condemned it and he came and deleted it and that was after a few comments came from some people that he has lost the vote of the noranas and it was deleted yes he has said a lot of times that it was because he didn't he didn't sanction the tweet but we know that someone who is handling your your social media handle should be someone who at least knows a little bit about your mind that's the first one the second one is that till now there's a lingering crisis that has produced a g5 and we've not been able to resolve that the person in question is the head of pdp so he cannot be the judge and the prosecutor the guilty one everybody all in one so we cannot hold him that he's not uniting the party but atiku who is the presidential candidate for the party is expected to be the one to to unify the party and is not able till this moment to do that in fact it has gone to the stage that the other governors the five governors are campaigning for some other people so how would you call this man a man of unity i just want you to keep telling us and assuring us how he can be a man of unity when he cannot unite his party and he cannot take a stand no matter what or whose ox is god as they say and so very i was a very loaded questions i'll try to answer them as best as i can i'll take probably the easiest one which is the debora tweets as you are aware he he had a town hall recently broadcast nationally where he's he condemned her killing and went even further than condemning her killing by saying that you know nowhere in islam is jungle justice allowed um and he he he earned that the perpetrators he brought to book and i think maybe that's the the important point we sort of have capitalized or certain sections of the political class have capitalized on this poor deaths and this poor girls death they do not care about her they do not care about her parent they do not care about justice all they want to do is whenever atiku comes out to speak of or his surrogates like myself come out to speak they hit us across the head with the question why they he deleted debora tweet and like atiku said i'll just repeat what what what he he has stated repeatedly is that he has a process of signing off on his tweets and he was not reachable when that incident happened and just like you said someone assumed he would be okay with it and then they put out the tweet record that at the time you know sometime we we we don't connect real world occurrences with the online world at the time they were about to burn the palace of an emya at the time they were about to start lynching people in in so koto and there was no clarity about who was responsible or what had happened and so many people did not speak many people didn't speak and so when he found out that the tweet had been put out he deleted it but he has come out publicly and repeatedly to condemn her killing and he has called for her murder for her killers to be prosecuted and brought to justice you know so it's it's unfortunate i know it's political season and people will will try and capitalize on where they can they've seen this poor girl's death as a probably a weapon they can use to weaken at katiku's candidacy it's very cynical and now that he has once again come out to publicly condemn it i hope we can we can let the girl rest in peace okay on the five governors you yeah go ahead you can only do so much to make peace atiku has met wiki about five times he has met him in a buja he has met him with jerry gana he has flown out of the country to meet him at wiki's behest you know and there's only again there's only so much you can do and when people start making requests that um on the surface or on the face of it make no sense you know you start to to ask ask yourself whether they're acting in good faith so wiki of sanabili is saying that you know he wants the party to be balanced so ayu should go now that's his his point but the pdp constitution says if ayu goes ayu is a christian from the middle belt if ayu goes he's going to be replaced by muslim from the northeast so how does ayu's removal cure what wiki says his problem is and atiku has says he's a man of process he's a believer in the constitution and there's a process for removing the chairman he is not beholding to ayu ayu has to go ayu will go but these steps have to be followed constitutionally you ask about will because you said why does how do we know if atiku has political will because he did a tweet i want to speak about one of the things that probably cost atiku the presidency in 2007 he was one of the leading fighters against obasan just third 10 billion if you recall in fact he left him he was driven out of the party atiku was locked out of the villa obasan just fought him because atiku said he wasn't going to compromise on our constitution or on our democracy even if he was going to cost him personally which he did so you know when you talk about political will i don't think anybody to date has shown that type of resilience since 2007 the presidency has eluded him because he refused to compromise or bow to obasan just pressure so if we're talking about a man that has strength and will he has he has shown it time and time and time again a lot of people don't remember that when sharia was first introduced by obasan job atiku was one of the people that pushed against it because he called the political sharia to the point that he was even stoned when he went to the north so you know you you talk about debora street in 2016 a woman was killed in kano she was beheaded she was a christian they accused of how blasphemy those tweets are still up he sanctioned it and he condemned her killing and again asked that the killers be brought to book so it's it's um you know it it's funny when i hear people say atiku does not have the will or he's playing you know he's he's just playing politics restructuring is deeply unpopular in the north atiku is the only person that goes to the north and says i will restructure nigeria because he said it will benefit us in the long run it's deeply unpopular but his his consultants will say when you go to this space don't talk about restructuring because message you know the the polls show that it's not popular there but he goes there and said look if you vote me in i will restructure this this country removal of fuel subsidy is deeply unpopular atiku the only person calling in and saying if you vote me in i will remove fuel subsidy because we can no longer afford it so he's he's broaching unpopular positions head on even though they might cost him politically you know so so i am not i'm not i'm not concerned at all about his program because i don't think he's speaking politically i think he's very clear about what he wants to do he has a clear vision of how to get nigeria working again and he like he said to the guild of editors he actually has draft executive bills ready to go from day one on how he wants to restructure this country it's going to be difficult you need a national assembly and state assemblies to push to constitutional amendments which is why it's important i think it is vitally important to have a candidate who becomes president who can build consensus in the national assembly and across 24 states of the federal public of nigeria okay well there there were some so many other questions regarding that unity of a thing um but we have to trash other issues and our time is up already uh but let's just just take a peek if you cannot answer all of them just take a peek he talked about security he talked about the economy he talked about so many things that we are feeling like it's now a deja vu even because we've heard this economy will be better the nira will become one nira to one dollar the security will be everywhere and everything that we heard prior to this time the government seems to have failed so people say talk is cheap so just tell us walk us through the various steps that he is going to take maybe just for security because without security the economy cannot grow everything hangs on security so what is it going to do specifically to bring about this security that he is talking about because from security you can get unity you can get economy working and every other thing like right now farmers don't go to the farms anymore because there's no security so food insecurity will set in people can't make money anymore and so many other things so what particular things is he going to do to give us this security that we much we so much desire in our country today so the first thing i think is important to note like i said is political season so everybody will say what they think you want to hear i've heard tinubu talk about state police for instance i've heard pita we talk about it um this is a book on restructuring uh tiku um it's a compilation of his speeches the first speech goes back to i think about 1999 and in this book he talks about restructuring this country he actually talks about you know in the in the independence of inek and you know making sure their funding is a first line charge and what he has consistently said about security is that states should be responsible for their own security the constitution recognizes state governors as chief security officers but they don't have command and control of the police or the armed forces so article proposal proposal is a very simple one he says look the federal government will be in charge of the military and the military will be focused on protecting Nigeria's territorial integrity from intel and external aggression but states should be able to control and command their own police forces so that they can resolve and attend to local policing issues there's no reason why soldiers are checkpoints or chasing armed robbers that's a local policing issue any state that can do it should um you talk about so so that's for him that's a basic security plan the problem with Nigeria is not just that we have been hearing people saying the same thing all over over again is that a problem because we haven't tackled them haven't changed so that's why you hear politicians coming and say the same solution because the problems are not changing the economic variation he says the private sector is going to drive economic growth article did it at head of the economic management team 1999 we took over GDP growth on military of 0.56 i think in three years he had he had grown into 15.5 percent and it was a very simple tactic he used the small a medium scale enterprises to do it article created smitha if you recall it was under the article and a bus and your presidency that was what powered that good in just now i think smitha just wrap it up wrap it up please yeah okay recently smitha this report saying the smaller medium scale enterprise we've lost about two million of them two million not jobs have been lost we've lost about two million million companies and i think we're saying you know our problems are the same i've solved them before trust me so that i can solve them again okay thank you so much we wish your principle and yourself lock when it comes to when we get into 2023 but um as you go forward you also advise so that we will be we'll start hearing channels that will be created when or if he gets into office for people to uh say their concerns ask the relevant questions and get the answers because we don't seem to find that in our polity right now we don't have avenues that we can hold government to account and every other thing that will want them to uh talk to us about so osi aneni thank you so much for being a part of the show today always a pleasure thank you my brother okay we'll take a short break now and when we return we'll be looking at the organ harvesting case of the former deputy president and moves to forfeit his assets stay with us


A large fire at a plastic steeple, in the eastern Croatian town of Osijek early on October 4, has spread to a nearby building where chemicals were stored, releasing toxic fumes that could pose ecological risks as strong winds began to carry them south, officials said. Residents near the outskirts of Osijek where the fire began were urged to remain indoors and keep windows shut as clouds of thick, black smoke enshrouded the area. Schools were closed and there were unconfirmed reports the smoke was moving towards Bosnia and the South.3 firefighters were injured while trying to extinguish the fire, which began after midnight at Drava's depot in Osijek, local media reported.


October 13th. For those of you who may one day find my journal, clutch safely in my back once my bones are one with the vines, I would let you know that mine was not a disease of self-affliction, but rather one of humanity. My sickness, that of every human that has ever walked this wild and forbidden place, I had wanted to know the very reasons for the universe, so as foolishly as any man might stumble I found the library, and I believed in those times that no story could tell the edges of the world, but not even the God's eyes shown on it. But then I cleaned off my desk at the end of a semester and a card made of old yellowed fiber fell from the stack of papers. The writing on it was ancient and seemed written in a dead language from a man possessed, but I showed it to my closest friends and together we split the atom of sanity and were burned in its light. And standing in that place I asked for answers. I asked for the death of my mind when all was disproven and I received it from a creature that made belief itself irrational. A book, bound in damaged leather, tied with cord, the one which as of now is locked in a metal chest in my cabin's closet. I fear this book falling into the hands of anyone else. Those of Reddit have all gone on to places where the maps are the same at any angle. And as I fear I may now have been ensnared as they were. The book was written in English, yet no men could have written it. I spent days feverishly reading it. The darkness and light burned me away until I was a part of it. Crushed into singularity with the universe. Spoke of primordial gods created from the chaos of the universe. How they'd crashed into the natural earth to form the entity that would create mankind. A convoluted mecanica of progress and decay while the deep, cool earth slept and gathered the knowledge lost by mankind. It spoke to me of the trees, of the sun, of revelry and verdant praise, of light and power, of a quiet love from afar for all mankind. Spoke of the universe and the universe beyond and beyond that. The hinterland had captured me. It captured me and it pulled me here and here I now stand and I'm unable to find a way back to the point I started. So I find my knowledge of the world is now smoke. October 14th. If one finds themselves lost in a forest or finds themselves free from direction, the best advice would be to wait and let someone find you before you wander even further. But not only do I believe that it is now pointless, I feel as though I can't. But waiting would cause the world to pull out from under me and I may fall into a formless abyss. I have chosen to walk the path, chance the universe, roll its dice with my footsteps. Considering I have been entrapped by the same gods that have already gotten the others, I think there is little use in thrashing, save to make the venom take me faster. October 15th. As a child, I once wandered the area around my home, looking in awe as the world changed with time and I changed along with it. Leaves turned. The air grew cold and still. As I grew taller than did the surrounding trees, I'd often wonder if mankind formed as the earth cooled from its initial form of hellfire and hydrogen gas. Were we made by gods or as the forest told me, did we rise from dirt and moss, ice made of fresh spring water and souls made of wood and branches that longed to stretch to the sky. Binds grow and overtake and things fall to ruin, as do we as humans. Some ruin from disease, some from poison, some are cut down before their fingertips can touch the sky and know the air. In a way these trees near immortal shrines to nothing have surpassed us in every way and they have more meaning than we do, a quiet purpose and they seem to radiate emotions that have no names. Then again, names are things made by man in an attempt to understand the worlds they lock themselves into. October 16th. I keep believing it was supposed to have snowed last night. I remember in my cabin hearing from the ranger station that a snowstorm was coming from the north, coming down from Washington with a fury and that's why I had entered the forest in the first place. Together, I nod for the fire, though I only have a bottle of water. There has been no complaint from my body, no hunger. I didn't notice it first. I've never been one for indulgence but this seems almost unnatural. I have no real desire to think on it. I choose simply to take this divine energy and keep walking. October 17th. When I was 14, I had become an untamed, monstrous thing. Quick of wit and sinister in design. My father's drunkenness had come to be a disease that would surely end him and he infected me with zanger by brutal contact. The childish dreams of the forest had abandoned me then. Maybe I just stopped hearing its call. I was after all just a boy in the dangerous 70s when war was far away feared which I believe also poisoned me and perhaps the forest was a mark of my innocent adolescence. Something to eventually be discarded. The Vietnam War took many things from all of us back then, for some it took parents, for some it took much more. Some fathers came back from the war marbled and wrong. They tried to fill themselves with alcohol and desperation to remember the person they used to be. Unlike other gods, those of war do not care what they take as means to their ends. Some of their blessed came back with a thirst for fermented grain and eventually turned to a ravenous hunger for lead. Gods of war do not care for those youths they leave in their wake. October 18th. I believe I am right. I believe I have walked east. The forest has gone from autumn to winter and I feel almost renewed as if the ancient nameless gods of this forest have given me strength. I watch the sun begin to set and I find my place in a warm bed of pine and hemlock branches. Some time walking today I had forgotten about my search for civilization. Did I even have a purpose in my cabin with my books and candles, with my writing, the diaries? I feel as if it's all so deliberate, almost artificial. I begin to wonder if this forest is beginning to try and take me to make me into a tree to grow into the sky I once dreamed of. To bask in the sun and sleep in the cold and would that be so terrible? That be the end of me of the reward for having braved the trials of life? Did the ancient Greeks understand the words spoken to them by the gods? Could they hear the gods' words and the crashing of the waves on the sandy shore or the crackle of a fire or the clap of thunder? What power did they have to hear their words and what would those gods say now? The wind blows through the trees as dark falls and I think I can hear them. The gods are whispering to me in words so ancient that humans cannot speak them. Words humans have lost the meaning of. Unexplicable, far off fear sets into me as I look around at those nameless monuments. Is it the ancient gods of dirt and root walking around me? And what do they wish to communicate? October 19th. Mist had rolled in during the night, overtaking everything in a mind-warping sea of fog. And against my better judgment I tried to walk onward but I fell and rolled down a slope, bending myself like a nail on the side of a tree that grew resiliently on this treacherous slope. I've laid here in the bottom as I tried to recover myself and it's now noon. This is, I believe, the seventh day I have been walking in these wilds and against all reason. I have survived. The gods of this primordial earth have taken a liking to me I think and perhaps I did something they liked. Perhaps this is the afterlife or the way to it. I wonder then how I might have died. Perhaps frozen on that first night. I mean I'm sure I had been alive on the first day. Though this would normally terrify any man I feel a slight comfort from it. I've looked to these trails and darkness and found happiness, contentment, wonder, emotions man has no name for nor explanation. October 20th. As a young man I strode through the bleak existence of manhood living as humans do in a world with no sun shivering under the coldness of that confinement and wishing for my life to end. Having no family meant nothing to hold me down and I spent my childhood going between homes. Through the muddy paths of chemical obsession and sleeping under rainy skies I became tempered against the hardness and harshness of the world. Having no love made me immune to the knife of a rogue and the hunger of loneliness. I had been stripped to nothing. It was one night when the sirens were closing in on me and I was fleeing certain imprisonment that I came upon a cliff and a solitary trail and I fled there climbing higher and higher escaping the fog of the combustion engines and the chemicals that held my brain prisoner. I found a cave on the cliff once a line through which goods were moved by rail before the interstates and highways became commonplace and I sheltered here as a storm came down. My pursuers gave up when I couldn't be found and here I came down with a sickness unlike any other I've ever experienced. In sickness I lay against the wall of the cave my mind spinning until it came to rest and I saw the sun and I felt warm earth beneath my body and the sun dabbled down from the boughs of trees. I achieved a sort of awareness brought on in the escape from my self-inflicted disease.  I was desperate to see something I did not understand. I crawled on rocky soil and tore my body to pieces to reach the top of the cliff and when I did the sky opened up and I was stripped from my body by what I saw. A great flash of light in the heavens spiraled out before me in the night limitless and bright and I became man again more than a man under earth and sky and the chemical addiction was torn out of my brain like a parasite. I was filled with stars and planets and I was made whole again by the universe and after this I found myself with new clarity and purpose though I hadn't had purpose before and after this I found myself with new clarity and purpose I was certain that the path forward was before me and I took it October 21st. The path is now gone lost a vine and root and trume and rot and I have simply trekked the strange trail that seems to jump out at me from between the trees but I'm now lost in an ancient valley that shows no sign of ever having known human life it is pure and untouched in the way that you can look up and be confused for lack of a sky beyond the boughs. It's dark here but I am ever hopeful. I have found plenty to drink to the will of the ancient gods that watch me. Hope is a strange thing in this forest for one would be where I am and curl up and give up but I have chosen to look up into the sun I have chosen to look to the path ahead and see something more waiting. To walk this path is to leave the past behind. To keep walking the path of life one must learn to leave memories in the pages before them to leave the pain in those pages. We do not carry those pages with us in our heart where they cover the sun above. You can go back and read learn from the pages of your past but never carry them in your hands. Leave your hands free to write a better path ahead. Sometimes when you live in a world with no light as I have you have to climb and break the fog to see the sky again. October 22nd this valley seems to stretch on forever in a great maw that appears to be open to anything that might fall in. I have tried to find my way back out of it but the walls have come in on me and the top of the gorge I have tumbled into seems fenced with trees as the sun rose to its high peak I have found what I believe is the end of this veritable ravine but it has come to a cave that I am loathed to enter no matter what the gods may say to me I will sit for the rest of the day and rest hopefully the trees will speak to me an answer. At noon I decided to make a descension into the roots and unknown into a grave into freedom into heaven hell as much as I loathed to lose the sky this is the only way forward like life sometimes the only way forward is through the deep I have descended into the mouth of a god and found myself among its truest meaning the darkness has served to strip me of my humanity and create a soul out of me a ghost of what I once was a ghost of light trees dirt moss a black figure a shadow truth in the midst of the lie a reality I've become Dante chosen to plunge into the deepest bowels of the earth my flashlight my dearest Virgil to take me to hell and back out again learned of a man's purpose and its inherent disease given to it as soon as it first looked to the sun mankind is an entity unique in itself born with the ability to sense and feel to receive answers from the universe and to perceive with their mind but through a quirk in our culture we are brought up to reject that ability as useless as a heresy is evil as a child I heard the storms speak to me in ancient languages too old to understand and I heard those forgotten names but I know them now I know them as if they were a part of me part of all existence all children of man can hear these gods before their force discard them in favor of bread and wine or whatever mankind chooses to use as the tool to shut down the beauty of man but some still cannot resist that call and they come back the forest calls them maybe the lightning streaking across the sky maybe the roots of mankind itself in that primal glory but something calls them back and they desire nothing more than to bury themselves in the dirt and be reborn again as a child to hear them clearly say again with the true voices of the universe and I am standing at what I am certain is the end of everything all that waits me as a single chamber with a bottomless well and I cannot go back I have tried to sleep but it seems all in avoidance of the inevitable fact that I have arrived at my end I can only record my thoughts here before I make my descent into space and stars before I take the last steps of this journey and begin a new one I have considered trying to turn back but seeing as I have wandered for so long in this cave really is no choice this is my final letter in this book of memory I will tuck it into my coat and take my silent goodbye with me into hell I will dine with demons God knows I deserve it from all that I've done in my life I'm sorry Isabel I'm sorry Richard I'm sorry most to you my precious Annalise we wanted to know what man should never know we wanted answers to questions we shouldn't even have been able to ask the university will know me as William Hinsley professor of literature and a scholar of ancient gods but I will go down into hell as just a man who made countless mistakes and misjudgments I only asked the gods who whispered to me long ago give me some sort of mercy


What's our math learning objective? Let's read it together. Use math drawings to represent the composition when adding a two-digit to a three-digit add-in. I want you to whisper with your elbow partner right now and talk to them about what you think that means. Whisper with your elbow partner. I think it means that we add two numbers and so forth. I think it means that you've got a two-digit add-in and a three-digit add-in. How many numbers are in a two-digit add-in? Four. Two digits. Think about that. Three. There's a three-digit add-in. So if you have a picture and it matches the numbers, then that's what it is. Yeah, I know what you're saying. It's math talk. I know math talk. Me too. Great job. Jamiro, what did you and your partner discuss about what our learning objective means today? It means adding double digits and triple digits. Good. Double digits and triple digits. And if you notice up here today, we're going to practice adding two-digit and three-digit add-ins, and we're going to be drawing our chip model to represent the written addition. Okay? So when you get your personal board today, I want you to represent this horizontal fact in a vertical way. Okay? So we're going to pass them out just like we always do. And when you get your board, you can start.


Do you ever wonder what happens when the police leave? Crime scene cleaners are private companies that handle the cleanup after the police are gone. Spalling DeCon is one of the nation's largest cleanup companies handling the aftermath of homicides, suicides, decompositions, hoarding, and much more. These are our stories. We're here at a house where there was an unattended death that had happened late last year actually. From October, she was found maybe nine to fourteen days after she had passed. And this was my ex-wife in my house at one time and we got a divorce. Right over there's your hair. Do you see that? I mean, that's her whole head of hair. All right. Well, good morning. Here we are at our Cape Coral Biohazard day two. So just popping up some of the baseboards. We're still going to run the extractor a little bit. Well, I'm very pleased with what's going on here. Mentally, it's changed me, so I couldn't be happier, you know, with what's going on. The vial has kind of run down in here into the grout. It's pretty thick. I think we're going to get it with the lid up here. No, you're taking it all. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want any of these heads over here? No, I want the whole thing down on there. Because that's the puddle in the kitchen. I don't want to get one too. That was from already. Yeah, I can't believe it was still in there. It blows me away. So here's fresh knives to cut the linoleum, and then there's the, put those in there. Yeah, this is, it's what we call part A, and it has a terrible name. It's called meth part A. Meth part A, huh? Meth part A, because we'll use it for other things. So it's the meth that's useful? Yeah. So no, it's not indicating anything else, so you got it. So it'll make a change color or something? Yeah, it'll actually, it'll turn all like white and frothy and, yeah. All right. Well, good morning. Here we are at our Cape Coral Biohazard day two. So got the crew in there already started. You're going to hear some noises. Yesterday we spent the better part of the day just cleaning up that floor, sanitizing, disinfecting it, getting as much cleaned up and as much of the household items out and into the dumpster. And, you know, today we're in there just popping up some of the baseboards. We're still going to run the extractor a little bit. Not really considered a bio anymore because it's all cleaned up and sanitized and disinfected. So we get to be a little more comfortable today without all the gear and the masks. So we're excited. We're here. Let's go. The least amount of money I've ever found in a home. Really? Right there. The least amount of money. I think we found a penny yesterday right here. Yeah. And now look. Yeah. You want to roll it out? Yeah. What we had to do was these are the vertical blinds that were in the living room and because of the spread of the bio, some of the bottoms of these came in contact with the biohazard materials. So we're kind of painstakingly going through each one of them and finding out because they all aren't bio. So which ones have the bio on the bottom of it and we'll separate them out to regular trash and biohazard trash as well. You seen blinds like this before? Yeah. You have? Yeah. They look like the wraps. Like the, when you're injured. I can't think of the name. They're bandages. Yeah, bandages. They're bandages. Yeah. They're good observation. Yeah. They kind of do, don't they? Yeah. The more cloth, you know, I mean, these are actually more expensive than just like the vinyl verticals that a lot of us see. Oh, really? I mean, this is a fabric. So, you know, she definitely spent some money on these. You finding any with bio so far? Just a couple of them over. Oh, actually I have to indicate them. I think most of them are still in this moment. I don't know how to show this though. I have to go through this back. That's where we think most of the bio is. It's in the regular trash bag actually. Thick over here. The bio or the tiles? The bio that's kind of run down in here into the grout. It's pretty thick. And so what I'm trying to do is just get a little bit of it up the stuff. If this sets for about 20 minutes or so, which is why we have the steamer heating up, you know, it'll come up pretty easy too. And can you explain the importance of separating bio from things that are disposable? Yeah, yeah. So right now what we did, since they're in there ripping up the floor, we couldn't be in there at the same time, trying to take each one of these verticals down from the wall. So we chose just to take everything down, bring it out here. Some people put it in a regular trash bag for me to go through and separate it out and then separate it to a biohazard bag. So that's why you see a little bit on the ground, a little bit in a regular bag, and something's going in the bio bag. Oh, this one is not going to make it bubble. Yeah, this is like the degreaser. This is what's going to cut through the bio and make it really easy to clean up. You can see how it cleaned that, you know? Well, it's obviously not easy.  Yeah. I mean, it's pretty amazing stuff. Just do a great job. All right, Charles, can you kind of explain how you're feeling with the work done here so far? Well, I'm very pleased with what's going on here. Mentally, it's changed me. So I couldn't be happier, you know, with what's going on. I actually see progress and progress is what I need to move forward in my own life. So I couldn't be happier that this company has helped me mentally with this. So I just want to see it keep going. A curious question. You've been living in this home the entire time. What was that like with the bio? On the back porch in my tent for the first five days, and it was horrible. It was like 90 degrees in midnight. I couldn't, I mean, I just couldn't take it because seeing it in the window was really difficult. And then I cleaned the one room completely out and my father-in-law bought me an air conditioner so I can get in there. So that back bedroom in my house is sealed, but it's creepy. I know that that's my safe place and I can go there and think. But it's getting better because it's getting clean. So I know that the remnants is gone. So I'm feeling good. Rocks, is something up there too? Yeah, they're rocks. You want to be on there? Because yeah, it's kind of thick. So this is going to break up the biohazard? Yeah. Yeah, it works pretty fast. You know, we are still going to be removing the tile. However, we do still have to make it somewhat safe for the text to get down there and clean it up. Some of the biohazard material went underneath the baseboards and we pulled it out so you can see here. So not only what has happened is it's gone under the baseboard and it's probably gone down underneath the floor. And then we'll have to clean the floor and clean the concrete as well. So where the bio was. You don't have to walk through the outlander either. Well, you know what? We pretty much know. Because actually, yeah, it's kind of lengthy. The solution kind of tells us just how far. But I mean, you can start over there in that here and we're probably going to work our way and maybe right up to about here. And then we'll see if it indicates beyond that. Kind of like this underneath. And then it went out this way. But it was all in here. So we know we want, yeah. Yeah. You don't have to go to the wall. But it did go. You won't be able to get this out by like that unless you cut it or something because they're all snapped in.  There you go. There you go. There's rat droppings. How do they get in the floor? That is amazing. So here we are at the Cape Coral of Bio. We're about mid-morning. And here there's lots of stuff going on in the background. We've actually started to rip up the flooring. Got some laminate flooring in there. So it's coming up pretty easy. But there is linoleum underneath it. And then what we're starting to see in certain areas where the biohazard kind of leaked underneath and kind of spread out underneath that. So we'll be going back over that and cleaning that up as well. But for right now, we're just trying to get through it and get the panels up. And then we'll move on to doing the floor, the tile floor in the entryway and into the kitchen as well. The rotary type of instrument that we use. That's my dental background. Instrument. Everything was an instrument. Now in this career, everything's a tool. How long were you in the dental? 27 years. 27 years I was in the dental field. And then I became an instructor. But for the most part, working left hand to the dentist was 27 years. Nice. Well, welcome to the restoration industry. Yes, right? Yeah. Instead of restoring teeth, you're restoring homes. Exactly, yeah. Same principle. You start at the foundation, you work your way down. Yeah. There we go. Okay. So Mariah wants to know if I can describe the smell. And I will tell you, there's so many of these you guys see, I know, and we can say how bad it smells. But until you have ever been in one of these, it really is an unbelievable smell. It's very distinct. And man, woman, child, it all smells the same after nine or 14 days. But Crystal just came up with a really good analogy. So think of it like, you know, your freezer goes out. You've got raw meat in there. It's defrosting. And it's been closed up for 14 days. It's all hot now inside.  It's probably one-tenth. One-tenth of this. But it's the idea of, you know, what that smell might smell like. All right, Crystal, where we headed? We're off to a little adventure today. So once we pulled up the plank flooring, there's just a laminate. We found that there was linoleum that had been laid probably again in the 70s. So this stuff is like so glued to the concrete. Our little chisel is going to like take forever because the bio was so large. We're off to Home Depot to get a bigger blade for the end of the machine. So I don't make it faster to remove that flooring. At the end of day two, it feels like day four. We've done a lot. We've done a lot with three of us working here real hard, tearing up that floor. Crystal and I did a lot of the heavy lifting yesterday and clearing out a lot of stuff that was on the floor and getting up the initial bio off the floor. So today, we actually got to go in and we popped up all the laminate floors only to discover there was another layer of linoleum. For I and I, we had to rent this little tool over here to strip the linoleum off the floor. So we spent the better half of the afternoon doing that. It's four o'clock. We're ready to go. We'll be back here at eight o'clock tomorrow morning on a Saturday. Exciting! Hey Ed. Hey, good morning everybody. Karisen Ed here, Southwest Florida. We're third day here at the Cape Coral Project. You'll notice Ed's finally here and joining us. We've got a few more extra hands going on inside. You know, pretty much wrapping up today. We're going to be cutting into the drywall, seeing what we kind of are exposing there and kind of take it from there. We've got a couple of different jobs going on. Unfortunately, one of them is like, you know, 55 miles down the road south. But so yeah, I brought tools because we got to get into the drywall, the sill plate and the framing and things like that to see where the bio went. So that'll be part of today's action. And we've got the tools now to do it. Yeah, so they're going to be a little bit more of a challenge today. I think it's a little more humid.  We'll be in and out, but we're trying to wrap up. So we're going to have some water as you can hear. Awesome. We'll see you inside. So Karissa, what are you guys doing out here? Homeowner had a few miscellaneous things, not that many that was too heavy for him to lift. I'm going to toss that in there for him. All right, does anybody watch your eyes? Okay. It foaming or is that just the actual chemicals? No, that's just, yeah, it's not foaming yet. Yeah. I mean, usually it foams up pretty, pretty quick. Are you surprised at that or? I am, yeah. I would have thought there would have been a little bit more, but this, you know, it's just more or less like, we hit this pretty good with the bee yesterday. All right, CC, we're indicating right there. Yeah. Do you see the difference? Yeah, kind of like that. Yeah. Kind of like that. Yeah. And you put on some brocks. Yeah, exactly. It's so, are you surprised about nothing really indicating on the tile? Well, that's why I got this bottle. Yeah, every once in a while, this product is, it gets affected by sunlight and natural light. So it's supposed to be getting low-paked. I like to just double-check when something's suspicious that it should indicate and it doesn't. I just want to make sure there were, you know, we don't have a diluted or, you know, bad product. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be, surprisingly, it doesn't seem to be indicating. So here we got, so here we need to take some tile. Looks like it probably went under. Getting a little bit of indication almost looks like leakage, though, very minor. So I think we'll just go ahead and give us another scrub. What I like to do is flush it down. Don't wave pressure back here. I'd probably try one, maybe twice more. If not, I would focus very much and even, you know, mark the floor, specifically where it seems to be indicating. And then we're going to have to, you know, cut the drywall. It might just be that long little boiler, too. Right.  So we let it sit. So I really think we're going to have to take more of this tile. Yeah, I was just about to tell you. But extract it. So it gets the bio off. And then we're going to take more of this. Is that the same thing? Do it with a betta brush? Yeah. So can you kind of give us a brief update and, Ed, you're about to head out, right? Yeah. Got to run down to the other project we got going on down to Marco Island. Hopefully we're going to be wrapping up here today. As you can hear, there's a lot of commercial going on in the background. We're still ripping up some tiles. Still finding some bio underneath the tile and around the baseboards and stuff. So that's all coming up. And it's just a slow and tedious process of, you know, spraying and wiping and spraying and wiping. Follow the evidence. Yeah. Can't leave any of that behind because it's only a matter of time before the smell kind of comes back a little bit. So we don't want that to happen. So it's very thorough, very detailed with that. Is that rust or is that blood? Oh, it's not. What we'll do right now, we've got a pencil here so we can own those markets. You know, we don't have to do the whole thing. Really only where it's indicated. So, Carissa, will these beams, these vertical beams, be a problem? What the plan is, is only in the areas where it's indicating not necessarily doing the whole wall. But we're going to hit it again. And let's say, let's look at this one over here. Like, you can see some of the bubbles. It's bubbling here where it's indicating. All right? But we can't cut this vertical beam, but we can cut just, you know, to the left of it and then to the right of it.  Here's what we're going to do. We just spray it once, let it sit, and then see, you know, sometimes it indicates very quickly and then other times it takes a few minutes. So, actually that's looking pretty good. Chances of it absorbing, you know, when you think they're very slim. So that's all good. And then now, as an extra precaution, we're encapsulating it so no odor, no smell, you know, no wet wood smell. I think that's going to come through, so no smell control. Yeah, so that's good. So what we're doing right now is we're just going to type, you know, finish up a little bit in the kitchen so that it's indicating where we're going to go with that. I don't even know. I was in awe at how it got there because she was over here, you know. How did it get into my refrigerator? I mean, under my refrigerator, all of this was covered in. Well, you know, Frank was explaining earlier that, you know, no floor is completely level, you know, and so the house could have a small tilt to it. And so it just, it's just been a gravity, right? It's going to make it go wherever it's the lowest point, you know. I was really in awe. All right, Carissa. So tell me what we came back to after lunch. All right. So we came back after lunch. We had treated a few areas and we just kind of wanted to let the product set for a little bit and see what they indicated and showed us when we came back from lunch. So they indicated that a lot of things are clean. There's no more bio today. And we'll be able to turn this over to Charles for a nice little story at home. Tins of trauma that has happened here. He can begin his healing process and get his family here from North Carolina. Get the flooring done. The adjuster is going to be coming Monday morning at Inafog. He'll meet Charles, walk the area, make his list of things. And, you know, hopefully Charles will be getting a nice check to help him restore his life so he can move forward. That's our plan. Okay, Charles. So, Carissa gave you a walk-through. What did you think? I'm very impressed and very happy that everything is gone. You know, now I know, I mean everything. So that gives me a peace of mind.  I know there's a lot of repair, but it is closure, you know. I know that I can begin my new life with my family here. All right. So overall, you're impressed with the work Ed and Carissa did? Extremely. It was funny because I was just telling my father and all she's been like my therapist. Like she's helped me kind of just keep focused a little bit knowing that the process is happening. And I see in the end and I'm glad today's today, you know. It's a new day, you know. Very impressed with the people, you know, the respect and the empathy and sympathy they've had for this. Couldn't ask for more. Thanks for watching, guys. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe and ring that bell to be notified of the next episode. For more information, visit any of our locations.


What's going on everybody Ryan Williams of Fandle you can follow me on Twitter at Ryan Alexander underscore w and I'm here on this edition of the Fandle hurry up to talk the top three landing spots for the wide receiver Jarvis Landry this guy's going to be 30 years old this year but he still has a little bit of juice left in the tank and we'll see if one of these three landing spots can can bring that juice out of him will start it off in the AFC we're going to talk about the Baltimore Ravens the Baltimore Ravens have been tied to Jarvis Landry the past couple of days and when so many entities and there's so much traction around the landing spot we got to definitely think that it has legs to it and a little bit of merit they've traded Marquis Brown to the Arizona Cardinals they could use some wide receiver help as you're looking at you know Rashad Bateman and Devin DuVernay a lot of young guys at the position granted that they do have Mark Andrews at the Titan position but Jarvis Landry helps to get a veteran presence there for these young guys at the wide receiver position and just the scheme that makes a ton of sense when you're talking about one of the best run blocking wide receivers in the NFL today if he can stay on the field I think that they make him a favorable offer try to bring him in as they compete for an AFC title another team that I think could bring Jarvis Landry in to help them compete for an AFC title is the Indianapolis Colts who are pretty much said at every position granted that you believe that Matt Ryan can help them you know get over the hump they were competing with Carson Wentz last year but this defense is just so stout if they can get some wide receiver help with Michael Pittman there. I think that they you know are in a prime spot to at least compete for the division in the AFC South you're looking at this wide receiver group outside of Michael Pittman they've combined for just under just under 90 receptions just over 1100 yards and 10 touchdowns. I mean Jarvis Landry coming into the mix if he's healthy he can do that pretty much on his own so I definitely think that they could use a veteran presence like Jarvis Landry and again with Tennessee. Moving on from AJ Brown trading him you know to the NFC I do think that the AFC South is wide open and they definitely want to make a splash play to help them compete. Lastly we'll move over to an NFC team and if we can you know chime if we can get a direct line to Mickey Loomis let's bring the boy home to Louisiana. This is Jarvis Landry who played at LSU is from is from Louisiana his hometown is there so in Tyron Matthew the honey badger he just went there to I mean a lot of riding on the wall there to get him into New Orleans to help them compete. I think he is an immense help for for James Winston who is going to have the rookie Chris Olavi come in to help and hopefully get Michael Thomas back healthy. But then after that you're looking at Marquez Calloway you're looking at Deontay Harris you're looking at Trayquan Smith. I mean Jarvis Landry would definitely find a way to get on the field and be able to help these guys so Mickey Loomis if you're listening let's bring the boy home to Louisiana if we can. And I think Jarvis Landry would definitely want to be able to be there and be in New Orleans. Guys that's going to do it for the FanDuel hurry up if you guys haven't already done so make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel hit the hit the thumbs up on this video. We appreciate that traction I'll catch you guys next time on the FanDuel hurry up until then peace.


The sound of a train whistle in mountainous Sudhampur at a height of 810 meters above the sea level is nothing short of a dream come true for the people of the region. This is our national project and apart from the engineering marvel that it is, it will be expanding the railway network into Jammu and Kashmir. There's a lot of tourism potential which is there and a lot of tourists are visiting. It will be an all weather route where people will be able to commute and go and the goods and services which the railway offers will be available round the year irrespective of the kind of weather. So it will be a win-win situation for everybody, for the railways as well as for the people. The estimated Rs. 11,300 billion Kashmir link that has been taken up as a national project is perhaps the most important project taken up by the railways since independence. Border roads organization or BRO has made a remarkable contribution by building roads in hostile weather conditions and difficult terrains. Today, BRO is responsible for construction, improvement and maintenance of all important roads in the valley. Jammu and Kashmir boasts of a web of more than 15,000 kilometers of roads knitting together strategically important border areas and urban centers. Emphasis is also being given to the development of rural roads and under the Prime Minister Grameen Sarak Yojna, all the far flung and remote villages in Jammu and Kashmir will be connected by road by 2009 at the cost of Rs. 54,000 million. These changes are also visible in the energy sector. The state has tremendous potential for generating electricity which is yet to be fully exploited. It is estimated that it can generate around 20,000 megawatts through hydroelectric power projects. Jammu and Kashmir, apart from its natural beauty, is also known for its many pilgrimage sites such as Amarnath and Vaishnu Devi. The tourism infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir is up to the mark and is well equipped to cater to the rush of tourists. These are the scenes of year 2003 when mobile service was introduced in JNK for the first time. Thousands of tech savvy mobile enthusiasts queued outside the mobile registration offices. And it is not just mobiles which caught the fancy of the youth in JNK but broadband and internet have also become popular with generation next. The BPO sector that is unlocking the potential of the youth in the state is fast spreading its wings not only in the valley but also in Jammu and Ladakh. The young blood of Kashmir is clearly adopting to the urban lifestyle and are living life the metropolitan way. It's not just reflected in their penchant towards trendy jobs at plush gold centres or multinational chains but their propensity towards trendy modern music like rock speaks volumes about this transformation and transition. The advent of gold centres and multinational corporations has undoubtedly captured the imagination of the city youth. But joining the armed forces and air force still largely remains the first preference of youth living in the rural and remote areas of Jammu and Kashmir. And to reach out to the youth both the Indian army and air force regularly organised recruitment camps in the remote and half long areas of the state. The response at these camps is overwhelming. With its energetic youth power Jammu and Kashmir is one of the fastest growing states in India today. And if this growth continues unhindered the day is not far when the state will take its rightful place among the most advanced states of the country.


Good morning! How's everybody doing today? Mildly hungover? Really hungover? Alright, how many people here were at Caesar's Challenge last night? Raise your hand. How many people were at the Ninja Networks party? How many people were at the 303 party? And he's up this morning, surprisingly. How many people were at a completely different party? Black and white belt. How many people were at the black and white belt? Thank you. How many people don't remember very much of last night? How many people are still trying to figure out why they're in Las Vegas? Alright, we have one quick schedule change to announce. At 1 o'clock, 1300 in this room, we have a different Max. Speaking of Max Mullin talking about how to hack your car. That's the one schedule change that we know of right now, 1 o'clock in this room. And just so that we can keep things on schedule and get everything going, I present to you Mr. Rago. Thank you very much. Hey guys, you hear me okay? Out there? Alright. My name's Mike Rago. I work for Verisign as a member of their Incident Response and Forensics team. Probably asking yourself, what the hell is a guy from Verisign doing here? I've been doing a lot of research and strenography for the last four years. I think a motivating factor for me was certainly 9-11, like many of the people in the audience. I knew people that were there, including myself. And I happened to be there that day in New York City teaching on 33rd Street when all the stuff happened. So I think it's been kind of a motivating factor for me. I'm sure you've heard a lot of rumors about Al-Qaeda and Midlan supposedly using strenography for various types of communications and things of that nature. And it's raised the level of awareness such that NSA, DOD, a lot of other companies have approached me about some of my research. And so I'm here to demonstrate some of my tools for Steganalysis for identifying hidden messages within digital photographs, MPEGs, and so forth. So I'll go ahead and get right into the presentation. One of the things I want to say is I'm sure all of you have seen at least one presentation on stegrenography, whether it be here at a prior DEFCON conference or at some other conference. Where I think my presentation differs somewhat is that I'm going to focus a little bit more on the steganalysis and cryptanalysis of those steganized files rather than just gloss overview of what strenography is. In addition to that, I think there's been a lot of presentations on steganalysis, but they've focused a little bit more on statistical analysis. My analysis is more signature based, and I'll talk more about that as I go through the presentation. So for those of you who have never seen stegrenography or don't know what that is, I'll go through a brief overview of that. Like I said, I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that. You can go to prior DEFCON downloads to download other presentations on stegrenography. And then we'll get into some deep steganalysis in trying to find those hidden messages within those photographs and those video and wave type files. And then we'll blend that into cryptanalysis and distinguish between the difference of those. Talk about different attack mechanisms. Once you've identified a hidden message, how do you extract it? How do you decrypt it? What other types of attacks can you use to reveal that hidden information? Then we'll talk about forensics and anti-forensics. If you're using this as an anti-forensics mechanism, what methods can you use over covert channels and other types of things for communicating without being identified? And from a forensics perspective, how can you identify whether there's steganized files on the machine that you're doing forensics on? And then we'll talk about kind of where the direction of this is heading from my personal research and things that I know that other people are doing. We'll talk about some of the other tools that people are working on out in the wild as well. Alright, so stegrenography. From the Greek word, word means steganos, or in other words covered, and the Greek word graphy meaning writing. Stegrenography is the process of hiding a secret message within an ordinary message and extracting it at its destination. One major caveat to this is anyone else viewing the message will hopefully fail to identify that there's a hidden message within the communication. So stegrenography has been around literally for thousands of years. The Greeks used to use this for various types of communication. It's documented that they would have a wooden tablet with a hidden message on it covered with wax so that to casual observers, no one would notice that they were carrying some type of hidden communications. During World War II, access and allies both would use various types of invisible inks, whether this be various types of milk, vinegar, and other types of hidden type of writing by which you could go ahead and use some form of heat or something else to reveal the hidden message. I'm sure you all remember growing up having those games with the highlighter, and you'd be traveling sitting in the backseat in the car and wherever it was you were going, and go ahead and answer those questions and use that highlighter, and it would reveal the answer to those questions. So that's a form of invisible ink. So of course the U.S. government is concerned about the use of stegrenography. Common uses include the disguising of corporate espionage. In addition, it's been highly documented that possibly terrorist cells are using this for communications, whether this be for hiding a message within a photograph and posting it on a website for another terrorist cell to download and reveal the hidden message which may reveal details about a particular attack. And it's also a very good anti-forensics mechanism, especially in child pornography. I've had a lot of people approach me from various forms of the government about many child pornography cases that they've lost in court because they simply just haven't had the ability to either identify hidden porn within other types of digital photographs, or if they've been able to identify that there's something hidden there that they haven't been able to extract it so that they can prove it in court. So with modern digital stegrenography, many times the data is not only hidden, but it's also encrypted. We'll talk about some of the different encryption algorithms that I've seen with many of the stegrenography programs that I've analyzed. There's various techniques that they're using for hiding this information within a digital photograph or a wave file or some other digital mechanism. Sometimes the data is encrypted and then simply appended to the file. And in other cases, it's dispersed throughout the file using algorithms such as least significant bit and other types of mechanisms. But typically, the goal here is to the casual eye, really not to visually or technically identify that there's something hidden. But as you'll see through some analysis, I've done most of the stegrenography program fairly weak and easily identified as far as hidden messages within them, within the pictures that they've hidden, as well as extracting the messages as well. They're typically used with... Just some terminology for the rest of the presentation.  And this carrier file is essentially used to carry this hidden message. There are a variety of carrier files used with stegrenography, all types of digital photographs, whether they be bump files, JPEGs or GIFs, as well as video and audio files too, as well as wave and other types of files. So there are a variety of stegrenography tools out there. Most of them are freeware or shareware types tools, including S-tools, which has been around for many years, steg hide and visible secrets, and the list goes on and on. There are some commercial manufacturers out there, including Stegenos, which I believe is based out of Germany. They've got a fantastic tool that I've tried to do a lot of analysis on. That's one of the few tools I haven't been able to crack. They have a full software suite that allows you to not only hide messages within digital photographs and other mechanisms, but you can also hide drives and hide files within drives and all kinds of cool stuff. And they have some pretty elaborate encryption that they use with it as well. So if you're interested in finding out more information about stegrenography in general, I've provided a couple URLs for you. I don't believe they're the latest and greatest on your CD, so I've gone ahead and taken the liberty of updating this particular presentation with these updated URLs. I have sent these to Dead Attic, who will be posting these on the DEF CON site for your download. So you may notice some slight slide differences between what's on your CD versus what you see here on the board. Neal Johnson has a fantastic site. You can download many of the stegrenography tools through links on his site. He's got some great white papers out there and links to other Steg analysis people, including Neal Provost, Eric Cole, and some other people that are pretty predominant within the industry as it relates to stegrenography. Topology.org also has a link on it, too, with crypto, and a lot of that links to various stegrenography research as well. So let's get into the bulk of my presentation, which has more to do with steg analysis. We're going to talk about how to identify a file that has a hidden message in it in different ways in which you can do that, and the particular mechanisms that I'm using in the wild. All right, so when we talk about steg analysis, we're really talking about the identifying of the existence of a message, not essentially the extraction of the message that's left more to the crypt analysis portion of this presentation. Steg analysis really just has to do with the fact of trying to identify that it's a hidden message. So really, in this section, I'm not going to really talk about how to extract it. So technically, stegrenography deals with the concealment of a message, not really the encryption of it. That's really just become an add-on with many of the recent stegrenography programs. And then we'll talk about how is this really meaningful, and that'll basically bleed over into the crypt analysis. So by identifying the existence of a hidden message, we can perhaps identify the tool used to hide the message. A lot of the encryption used for encrypting these hidden messages are highly difficult, if not impossible to crack. So other mechanisms by which you can use to try to extract the message may be to identify the tool that was used to hide the message and then somehow use that tool to extract it, either through a password attack or some other mechanism. So common hiding techniques that I found during my research have to do a lot with appending to a file. Many times, you can view a suspect file and actually scroll down to the end of it and see that possibly the hidden message has been appended right to the end of the file. This may include the password as well as the message. It may even include the secret key or something else used by the particular algorithm that was used to encrypt the message. Still, other ways of performing this that I've seen is that they'll hide it up in the message header up at the top of the file or somehow some type of dispersion throughout the file, either using least significant bit or some other type of algorithm. So there's a variety of methods we can use for detecting steganography, many of which have been documented. Perhaps some type of visual detection. Maybe we can take a look at the file and see that just down at the bottom of the file or throughout the file is just not essentially all that clear. But really without the original file or the virgin file, it may be kind of hard to determine the differences. Perhaps there's some audible detection if it's a wave file or something else. Neopropos and a lot of other people have done a lot of different types of statistical detection or histogram analysis and we'll talk about that as well. Or you can actually view the structural chemistry of the file. For example, if you have the original virgin file, you can compare file size differences, date and time differences, check sums, and other types of modifications. But in many cases when you're performing forensic analysis, the original file is not there. So it really depends on the steganography program used to hide the message. Some of them will remove the original hidden message file and other ones will leave it behind. So I went ahead and kind of categorized these things into anomaly and signature based. If you're intimately familiar with intrusion detection systems, kind of the same mentality with this. So as far as histogram analysis, file properties, statistical attack, visual or audible type of review against the files, I kind of classify these into anomaly type of detection. Versus a signature detection, which may be a pattern consistent with the program that was used to hide the message. So when writing my program, essentially my goal was to provide some type of accuracy. It wouldn't be good if you were running this program and it told you that there was a hidden message in it and actually there wasn't. Some type of consistency that might provide better consistency of differentiating between one particular program that was used to hide the message versus the other. And most importantly, in my opinion, to minimize false positives. So if we use some type of visual detection, it may be next to impossible to determine if there's a hidden message within one of these two photographs. So I took a graphic file of Cartman here and I went ahead and hid a message in one of these two pictures. But if you take a visual look at this, it may be next to impossible to determine if there's a hidden message in this. So we really don't think this is a viable option. Still yet, there's some other mechanisms including kurtosis. This is the degree of flatness or peakingness of a curve describing a frequency of distribution. In other words, if you have a frequency of different colors making up the photograph, you may recognize a consistent pattern of certain colors showing up. And if you were to graph this out and they show consistent peaks. If we use histogram analysis to evaluate this in more detail, which would include kurtosis and other things such as standard deviation and other types of things, this may or may not allow us to really identify whether or not there's a hidden message. For example, if they're using a least significant bit type algorithm to go ahead and disperse it throughout the message, you may see a consistent pattern to these peaks. So I want to use histogram analysis to evaluate a number of different steganography programs and how they hid messages within photographs and wave files. For the most part, it was pretty much useless. I've read in Eric Cole's book and a number of other books, which are by the way very good books, but they say that you can essentially use histogram analysis for evaluating a lot of different types of steganography and steganized type files. I found the patterns to be grossly inconsistent and really only found this pattern with one of the 50 steganography programs that I've analyzed. So we don't think this is a viable option either. Yeah, this is actually just PaintShop Pro. Yeah. So there's a lot of different types of programs out there you can use for histogram analysis. I just use PaintShop Pro for this. Still yet, we can do other types of analysis comparing the file properties. If you do have the original file, you can do various types of comparisons which will show obvious differences as far as date and time, even file size. And still yet, you can also run various types of check-sums. But I won't really consider this a viable option either. If you do have the original version file, well then yes, it makes it quite easy to identify differences in the file and come up with a potential suspect file. But if you're performing forensic analysis and the person had any kind of intelligence, you wouldn't have the original file and the original message. And so I would think that if anyone was doing anything over a covert channel in which they didn't want anyone to detect this, you really wouldn't have the original file to compare it to. So although this is a possible option, again, I don't really consider it viable either. So when analyzing these types of files, it is important to understand what types of files you're looking at. Not only from the extension, but when evaluating the file itself, you can actually take a look at various signatures related to the type of file that it is. For example, if you're analyzing a JPEG file versus a GIF file, the headers are going to be different. As indicated on this board here, you can see that the ASCII signature at the beginning or header of the file, you can see the various differences. So then you know for sure what type of file you're actually looking at. Gary Kessler is a friend of mine. He did a presentation for SANS on steganography, which is pretty decent, highly recommended. It's out there for free download. I believe he works at the University of Vermont. And he's done a lot of research as well as far as steganography. So feel free to check out his site as well. So if you have a copy of the original file or a virgin file, it can be compared to the modified or suspect carrier file. Many files can be used for viewing and comparing the contents of a hidden file. You can use everything from Notepad to your favorite hex editor, such as WinHex or something else to go ahead and analyze the file contents. This may allow you to convert it to ASCII and other types of mechanisms that, believe it or not, may actually reveal the password itself in clear text when the message itself is actually encrypted. So reviewing multiple files may identify a signature pattern related to the steganography program used to hide the message. So if we use a particular steganography program to hide a message, it's going to hide it in a particular way. For example, it may append it to the end of a file. As part of that, it may add some additional information to the end of that file, which may be related to some type of signature. If we do a bunch of hiding of messages and then comparisons, we may identify a relative pattern to the way it hides that message, and it may be differentiated between different types of steganography programs. So I typically use WinHex for this. It does allow comparisons between ASCII and hex. You can open up multiple files and new file comparisons. It does allow you to save the comparison as a report, and you can do various types of searches as far as differences between the two files, or even possibly equal bytes as well. It also contains a file marker capability. So as you find differences in the patterns, you can use various types of markers so that you can come back later on and compare the differences at a later time. So I went ahead and put together a case study of a steganography program called Hyderman. This is a program provided from a company in France. It is a pay-for-type program. You can download a free eval. I think it's like a 30-day eval. So I went ahead, and as many of the analysis I've done on various types of steganography programs, this one in particular stood out to me. I thought it might be good for a demonstration. So I went ahead and had a graphic file, hit a message in it, and then did some analysis with my favorite hex editor. If we go ahead and take a look at this file, we can see BM related to bitmap at the beginning of the file, identifying what type of file this is, and then viewing the end of the file, I was able to identify that it appeared that the data was simply appended to the end of this file. So I had the original version file, as well as the carrier file, compared the two, and we can see what was added to the end of the file. So you may see some consistent patterns here, and on some of the other slides, you're going to see it actually reveals some of the pass route and clear text, too. So although it used some type of encryption algorithm for hiding the message, it went ahead and put the pass route in there, clear text. So I don't even need to reverse the encryption in order to reel this hidden message. Just take the pass route, take the program, and take this file and go ahead and open it up with the pass route. It was as simple as that. In addition, I noticed a consistent pattern to the way it hid the message. Not only did it append it to the end of the file, but the last three characters were always CDN, regardless of the encryption algorithm I used for hiding the message. And as I went through and did more and more comparisons using this program, found a consistent pattern, which to me means some kind of signature related to this type of program. Consistently at the end of the file and the same three characters every time. So by hiding different messages with different files and even different passwords, again, the same three characters were hidden or appended to the end of the file, essentially related to some kind of signature related to the Stagnant IP program used to hide the message. So I've written a program called Stagspy. It's gone through a couple iterations, and I have some more iterations in process. It is a signature identification program. Neoprovos and some other people have written some statistical analysis, Stagnalysis type programs, minus more signature based related to, again, the type of program that was used to hide the message. It search for Stego signatures and determines also the program that was used to hide the message. And also it'll identify the location of the hidden message within the file. So if you're going to go ahead and extract that message, simply just can then go ahead and open up your favorite hex editor, find that location, and then go ahead and try to extract the message. So I went ahead and used some different graphics and went ahead and hid messages in it. And through my analysis, I've used a number of different Stagnography programs for hiding these messages and have correlated these signatures to those Stagnography programs. And that's all built into my program. So if I go ahead and choose a file that I want to interrogate, it'll tell me, first of all, whether or not there's hidden Stagnography within this message, as it relates to the programs that I've correlated signatures to. But it'll also identify the program used to hide the message, as well as the marker position as well, as to where the hidden message is located within that file. So if you are doing forensic analysis and you want to make an attempt at trying to extract this message, you can add it to that marker using your favorite Hex Editor or something else and then make attempts to try to extract that message. So I've got a number of programs here that I've identified, including Masquer, JPEG-X, JPEG-HIDE, and a number of other different types of programs, including HIDERMAN, Invisible Secrets, and a whole slew of other Stagnography programs. And I'm continuing to add new signatures to this program all the time. Yes. No, it can't. Stagnos has given me quite a struggle. Stagnos is written by a really good cryptographer guy that's worked for the company since its start-up a number of years ago. It is a commercial program. People have done Stagnosis on older versions of it, which have revealed where the message was hidden. They use something a little bit more intelligent than just appending it to the file or hiding it in the message or header contents. They tend to use some type of least significant bit dispersion throughout the file instead. So in that case, it definitely requires a little bit more statistical analysis. So I've tried to identify signatures related to Stagnos, though, separate from the type of algorithm it used to hide the message, but I haven't been successful yet in identifying it, though. So I wrote the original version in Perl, and then I kind of cut it over to Visual Basic. You can download this program for free from my site, spyhunter.com. Like I said, I'm continuing to work on new versions of this program. Some of the new things that I'm adding to the program include additional signatures, constantly reviewing new Stagnography programs and identifying new signatures as it relates to those programs. Did you have a question over there? Coming up on the next slide. Yeah, I've had some other people recommend that as well, so I've got some cool information on the next slide. We'll talk about it. One of the cool things would be a Bosello plug-in that just inspects every image. Yeah, I honestly can't take credit for this idea. E.Y. over at Black Hat came up with this idea originally a while back while I was working on this. And I thought it was a great idea, so it's something I'm going to start working on probably as soon as I get back in town. Great idea though, yeah. So the goal of this would be to detect Stego as your browser. A little bit different than what you suggested. We're just kind of doing a spider over the web. I know someone did that a couple of years ago, and I think they combed through about two or three million pictures and found one potentially steganized photograph out there. This would actually detect Stego as your browsing. So as you hit a particular site, a pop-up could possibly pop up identifying well this particular picture on this web page potentially has a steganized file, or a hidden message in it. Some of the other features would be the ability to if you're doing forensic analysis to scan an entire directory, or maybe even an entire drive. So that's my number one priority at this point. In the next version of the program I'm going to do that and then also work on the Mozilla plugin too. Also I'm going to try to revert back to some type of pearl iteration, so it can be a little bit more UNIX and Linux friendly. I want to create a GUI around that, originally wrote it just in pearl. So it was mostly command line. I would like to create some kind of GUI around it, so I'm going to work on that a little bit more too. I just request that you keep that command line. Okay, I'll do that. Yeah, I'm old school too, so I think I'll keep the command line. Okay, so this does differ somewhat from a lot of the other type of research and steganized analysis that other people have done, which by no means I don't mean to undermine. I think Neo Provo has done some great research as far as statistical analysis as it relates to steganography. I just decided to take it in a different direction. So I've identified a number of signatures including Invisible Secrets, J.P. Hyde, High Demand, Masker, JPEG-X. There are some other ones that are in there that I haven't really come out and told people that are in there yet simply because I'm trying to minimize the false positives. I'm still trying to confirm that they are good signatures and all that good stuff. So as I feel comfortable with that I'll go ahead and post all those updates to my website as well. Okay, so how is this handy? We really haven't achieved the goal in my opinion, which is revealing the hidden message. So we've identified that there's a hidden message in the file, but in my opinion, really only halfway there. We need some type of ability to actually reveal that hidden message. And what I'm going to show you in the next part of this presentation is some tactical measures by which you can possibly perform that. So, searching for the signature pattern to determine the presence of a hidden message. And this signature reveals the program used to hide that message. So perhaps if you identified that there is a hidden message within that file and the program used to hide it, we're going to talk about ways in which you can leverage that to then possibly reveal the hidden message. So we bleed over into crypt analysis. So as stated previously, Stereoenography, the goal is to hide the message, not encrypt it. Cryptography provides the means to encrypt the message. So how do we reveal the hidden message? So knowing the Stereoenography program used to hide the message can be extremely handy when attempting to reveal the actual hidden message. Because trying to identify and crack the algorithm, good luck. A lot of these things use very strong encryption. But yeah, other ones still use pretty weak encryption as well. Other mechanisms we can use is to try to reveal or crack the password, seed, or secret key. Practically all Stereoenography programs use some form of a password or secret key or a seed to hide the message. If we can possibly reveal that, that may allow us to reveal the message as well. So although sometimes they may use some type of strong encryption, I have found that they use a clear text password or a seed right there within the file. And by using that you can just reveal the message. So far we've identified the program used to hide the message, identified the location of the program signature within the file. But now we want to try to identify the location of the password in the file. We've also identified the location of the hidden message. This is possibly the algorithm used to encrypt the hidden message. There are some password guessing and dictionary type tools out there. Neil Provost wrote one called Steg Break. Only works against one particular program called J-Steg. But nonetheless this is one of the first I've seen out there in the wild. It is now actually on the NAPIX Penguin Sleuth Forensic CD as well. You can check out Neil Provost's tour at outguest.org. He's been under a lot of political fire from the state of Michigan where he attends college. They've attempted to shut down his site a number of times. So his site is sometimes up, sometimes down. It's currently up as of my last check last night. Some of the links are crossed out but if you click on it it still takes you to the site where you can download the tools. So brute force methods or reverse engineering common encryption techniques. We did talk about modification of the least significant bit within the program by which it hides the message by dispersing it throughout the file. Changing the least significant bit in a particular portion of the file. Also password or other contents are masked using some type of an algorithm based on a secret key, a password or a random seed hidden somewhere else within the file. See you to be hidden.