"Putain! Celui la, depui deux semaines, il ecoute juste Michele Jazzon!" - co-tennant

Good day! These are the relations or narrations of a source traveling to Iceland for a postdoc and mainly based on advertisement that turned out to be propaganda and ultimately false. The source considers that all-in-all and with all things considered they have been quite literally scammed by both the propaganda revolving around Iceland, the Icelandic government as well as the University of Iceland. Unfortunately, since it is the era of suppression of free speech, with plenty of large precedents being set, much larger than this case, we have taken it upon ourselves to distribute the story from the source via our own website given that websites that are (even) designed for reviewing workplaces and/or educational institutions tend to find ways to remove reviews. Unfortunately, the converse does not hold and mainly employers go out of their way to nitpick even the smallest things in applications about which a future employee gets asked in an interview. Similarly, there exist databases that companies can access, yet "we the people" cannot, in order to determine whether a workplace is safe or not. That being said, we'd like to see this page as a large "review" that does not touch upon "touristic impressions" but is rather a relation from a proper workplace as being properly integrated within the Icelandic system, given that, when the fluff of words is brushed aside only the facts remain, that ultimately have the last say in how good a place like University of Iceland or Iceland are. If you are a future potential student, then, as the saying goes, "beware", and we are actually happy to provide perhaps one of the fewest anti-Icelandic stances that you might find on the Internet among an ocean of propaganda. As usual, we provide proof such that you are free to dismiss any "opinions" that might be uttered now and then for the sake of bridging the sentences. Ultimately, the hard evidence and what "the others say", aside the source, is what is important to any prospective future visitor, staff or student.

It is the 3rd of April 2024 and Mr. Thomas Edward Welsh, working for the University of Iceland invites our source to a series of talks, where an individual named Ionuț Stoica is about to give a talk on the topic of cybersecurity. As Stoica and Ionuț are both Romanian names, the source looks up Mr. Stoica and, even though he is part of the Romanian National Coordination Centre (N.C.C.), working for the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre and Network (E.C.C.C.), there is no public Curriculum Vitae, nor any statement of interest to be found that would be akin to someone working for an European institution. As it later will turn out, Mr. Stoica and most of the people involved with the N.C.C. and/or the E.C.C.C. are, in fact, not academics by trade, nor researchers in what regards cybersecurity, but are rather members of the police, and in Mr. Stoica's case, a member of the Romanian police.

The E.C.C.C. states that they, citing "[aim] to increase Europe’s cybersecurity capacities and competitiveness, working together with a Network of National Coordination Centres (NCCs) to build a strong cybersecurity Community", a superstructure organization with the N.C.C.s being regional country-local organizations, and has a logo that strongly resembles a menora.

In any case, it just seems that there is no reference to Mr. Stoica, one other Ionuț Stoica existing that is a soccer player and mentioned on Wikipedia, such that LinkedIn seems the only source to find out who this individual is that is giving a talk in Iceland. Looking on LinkedIn, Mr. Stoica describes himself as "Programme Officer [at the] European Cybersecurity Competence Centre".

In fact, Mr. Stoica shows his full employment history such that it seems clear that he is part of the Romanian N.C.C. at the very least.

Looking further at the official website of the Romanian N.C.C. it makes sense to check for Mr. Stoica, and due to the legal obligation of national institutions to publish the income sources of individuals working for the Romanian state, a good place to check is the statement of interest / income, from the Romanian N.C.C.. Ironically enough, and in spite of G.D.P.R. data-export regulations that forbid documents to be placed in commercial online storage repositories, all the statements are stored on Microsoft OneDrive. Of course, the information is public regardless, such that it is still not too bad. However, back to the main point, there is no file that would correspond to a Ionuț Stoica, the closest male match being "Alexandru Stoica" that does not seem to be him, given that the full name should be spelled out.

It seems highly suspicious that Mr. Stoica that advertises himself as working for a bunch of Romanian institutions, and in particular, institutions with the law being the main profile, does not offer their statement of interest or statement of income. Later, during discussions with Mr. Helmut Neukirchen, a lecturer that our source worked with, Mr. Neukirchen would sustain that individuals that work within the cybersecurity domain do not typically list their history, however, that is nonsense because they are, in fact, obliged by the law to publish their statement of interest. Then again, it seemed more like Mr. Neukirchen would have hinted that Mr. Stoica would be some sort of spy, however, Mr. Stoica's profile is fairly public and his belonging to various institutions is openly stated. Either way, for such an ample involvement with institutions such as The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (C.E.P.O.L.), it would make sense that Mr. Stoica would at least have some coordinates published that would not be behind the "membership wall" of LindedIn (or to paraphrase Mr. Neukirchen, we hope that that LinkedIn is not the SpyBook where spies can be looked up such that individuals like Mr. Stoica would only make their statements public on LinkedIn).

Nevertheless, the only other consistent reference that mentions Mr. Stoica is a website "cyberclub.ro", that has in its membership Mr. Stoica, and other individuals, all of them seemingly connected to the Romanian N.C.C. via other means. Looking at the rooster for "cyberclub.ro", it looks like a pan-national association of sorts, with multiple people listed, even people such as Megan Bishop, an individual working for the U.S. embassy in Romania, as an Economic Officer (apparently, cyberclub.ro mentions her as an economic officer for cyberclub.ro, if one were to consider that the blue text represents their functions for cyberclub.ro). Otherwise, there are Hungarian nationals, Polish, Italians and many others, some of them patrons of private companies and others professors at political institutes.

However, regardless of the diversity, it seems like the Discord server that the website advertises is just in Romanian, such that any of the people mentioned as part of the "Team" would more than likely have a problem understanding what is going on. Looking at the server, there are some announcements, and some people apparently looking for technical support.

Moving on, the cyberclub.ro website claims that "The CyberClub initiative is developed by the Romanian Association for Information Security Assurance (RAISA), with the help of the U.S. Department of State and Meridian.", with Meridian being a private company and the "Romanian Association for Information Security Assurance" (R.A.I.S.A.) being some organization that describes itself as "a professional, non-governmental, non-partisan political, nonprofit and public benefit association" being registered as a non-profit with the national registration number CUI 31048556. However, R.A.I.S.A. is not an organization that is recognized by the government and even looking at their own statement, even though members such as Mr. Stoica work for the Romanian N.C.C., there is no mention of anything European being either organizers or in any way connected to cyberclub.ro. Typically, if R.A.I.S.A. Looking at the website of R.A.I.S.A. it seems to spawn a large number of websites, most of them being self-plagiarized, with the same content to be found on all of them, including the graphics that are used across all the websites, along with the same people. Ms. Bishop from the U.S. embassy, for example, is the poster-child of all these websites, her photo and name being mentioned on most of them. Here is a list of websites all linked from arasec.ro with more or less the same content, the same people such as Mr. Ioan-Cosmin Mihai, and the same graphics (for example, they seem to love that green shield that is used for all "cybersecurity" stuff):

• https://www.raisa.org/
• https://www.arasec.ro/ (apparently just the Romanian version of raisa.org),
• https://www.cyberlearning.ro/
• https://www.securitatea-retelelor.ro/ (with Ioan-Cosmin Mihai's books in the books section https://www.securitatea-retelelor.ro/carti-si-studii-de-securitate-cibernetica/),
• https://www.securitatea-cibernetica.ro/,
• https://www.criminalitatea-informatica.ro/,
• https://www.securitatea-informatiilor.ro/,
• https://www.ijisc.com/ (a conference organized by R.A.I.S.A.)

However, even though R.A.I.S.A. claims to be non-profit, just following their own websites, leads you, to, say cyberlearning.ro where you get the option of purchasing online classes from the same individuals spawning all the websites, including cyberlearning.ro, which makes it unclear how far the "non-profit" goes given that the website advertises for paid services. You get to learn about cyber threats, the blockchain and various others. As you will see later on, this is very similar to the same MO of spawning websites of kidibot.ro and the StartEvo "non-profit foundation" that incidentally also happens to have a, citing "charitable shop", open for business.

In fact, looking at cyberclub.ro, R.A.I.S.A. and all the sub-sites created, the main architect seems to be an individual named Ioan-Cosmin Mihai, the vice-president of cyberclub.ro, and also mentioned by Meridian. Very similar to Mr. Stoica, Mr. Cosmin also seems very difficult to look up, in spite of being involved with many public institutions. Very difficultly, and found on the Romanian police academy website, there is a CV for Cosmin Mihai available that can be downloaded but it dates back from 2014. Skimming through the CV it seems that Mr. Cosmin is an engineer that completed the polytechnics University in Bucharest and then followed up with the Romanian police academy where he completes his doctorate and post-doctoral studies. For some reason, after having completed a doctorate and also additionally a post-doc, it seems that Mr. Cosmin followed up with a second master degree at C.E.P.O.L., the European Police School, which is strange in academic terms - it is not prohibited in any way, but one generally assumes that a path has been found once a doctorate level is attained. Mr. Cosmin also completes some courses, along the lines of law enforcement, one of the earliest being some course at the F.B.I. department of justice in Bucharest, Romania, as well as the other usual courses like CISCO and so on. Mr. Cosmin seems then to alternate between being part of staff at the polytechnic University in Bucharest and also part of the staff at the Romanian Police Academy.

Moving on, Mr. Cosmin also has a website that advertises for kidibot.ro, a website created apparently to be used by children, that became the main site of discontent between our source, Mr. Thomas Edward Welsh, Mr. Helmut Neukirchen and the rest of the staff at University of Iceland that tried to cover up the case.

Alas, not a Steam-deck component, but kidibot.ro and its subsites, following the same MO of R.A.I.S.A., such as kidibot.com (advertised as the U.S. website), kidibot.co.uk (United Kingdom), kidibot.md (Moldova) and kidibot.it (Italy) is advertised as a websites for parents, children and education that offers "activities" to play with. The activities themselves seem to be more or less quizzes with various questions, either pertaining to mathematics, general culture and sometimes even opinions on various topics. All the sub-domains listed above, for the various countries, contain versions of kidibot.ro that are not translated in their respective languages. For example, from kidibot.it (Italy) two links away from the main page, all the text is just written in Romanian and with some English. Even the English websites both for the U.S. and the U.K. have lots of text that is just not translated and written in Romanian. Another issue is that the subsites for the various countries make statements that seem unrealistic, with numbers that cannot be checked in any way; for example, the U.S. version of the website states "2363 participating classes, 2012 schools from United States of America, 7990 published quizes, 29 distinctions won!" indicating that this website is profusely used in foreign schools. The same follows for all other countries, for example, for Italy, kidibot.it states "370 classe partecipante, 230 scuola di Italia, 4921 test pubblicati, 18 distinzioni vinte!", and for the United Kingdom, kidibot.co.uk states "317 participating classes, 259 schools from Great Britain (UK), 7990 published quizes, 29 distinctions won!". Considering all the above, it seems hardly likely that the website is being used anywhere outside of Romania, or even, within Romania. Following the rankings link from kidibot.com, does list links that would reveal rankings by schools or towns, yet the links seem dead leading to a 404 error and a blank page. Then, somehow accessing the link directly leads to, say the top schools in the U.S. that use kidibot.ro and many of these being labeled as "Home school". Incidentally, the school named "Other" located in town "Other" and in the U.S. state "Other" is ranked as the 6th, accumulating a whooping amount of points.

Contacting some of these schools, for example, taking the very first school "CORNERSTONE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY" and contacting them to find out whether they even heard about kidibot.ro leads to a surprised response from the principal claiming they have never heard about kidibot.ro such that it is clear that the list mentions these schools without them even knowing (or knowing their ranking!).

The next-up problem is that the website monetizes membership and for about USD20 per month, any kdibibot account can become a "gold member" with a bunch of features activated, with USD20 being the reduced price from about USD50.

The videos section seems to aggregate some YouTube channels with the videos being watchable on kidibot.ro, thereby masking the original author that can only be identified via the description on YouTube (which is aggregated) or by clicking the YouTube logo and selection "Watch on YouTube".

Lastly, it seems that the kidibot.ro website contains a bunch of images that seem fairly out of place for children, poorly censored with just a flat black bar over their eyes, in spite of E.U. G.D.P.R. regulations, mixed with sexual memes, some dude in a swimming pool with a dog, that seemingly is meant to be one of the person creating the quizzes, various innuendos and statistically only very young children perhaps under the age of 13 but not much more than that. Interestingly, even though the kidibot.ro boasts such a large outreach, it seems that none of the children in the images are from any of the countries or schools mentioned on the kidibot.ro website, United States, Italy, Moldova and the United Kingdom.

Even for a website such as Cosmin's website that contains a bunch of "events", involving groups of people, for instance, from the Romanian police, it just stands out that the children and others that are mentioned with connection to the kidibot.ro website seem to be censored on his website, either using the Anonymous mask, something that Mr. Cosmin seems fond of, designing his face along those lines, or by using yellow smiley faces.

Strange images, adult-themed jokes on an educational website and half-naked adults aside, there is an additional concern that must be mentioned regarding the children visibly displaying cognitive disabilities that we touched upon in another investigation regarding Romanian hospitals and the breach of Nuremberg principles for clinical trials. The problem with those images is whether the children with cognitive disabilities are able to consent or not to be placed online, which hardly seemed the case, as per witnesses in the institutes running clinical trials on such patients within Romania. Even from a personal perspective, it is very highly doubtful that one would agree to be on public display with food drooling out of your mouth, and that being a consequence of a disability, not some choice to take part in some sort of competition. Can these people even, say, at a later time, utter their concern about being on public display, such that their "guardian" can enact some sort of G.D.P.R. procedure to take the pictures down? Or do these individuals, "just take it", at interpretation's mercy of their desires by their guardian and highly valued people (as per their CVs!) such as Mr. Cosmin or Mr. Stoica? How awkward for a state that prided itself on running things by "ethics" and not by law to let all of this slip.

Overall, it is a cringe experience, in particular given the references that are on display. Several websites are linked to kidibot.ro and/or the authors of kidibot.ro mention other organizations as friends. One of the websites linked from kidibot.ro is "Politoscop" (we read it as "Lolitoscop", initially). Looking a little more into "Politoscop", it states that it is a system meant to analyze Romanian politicians with a ranking provided on its first page that scores via an undisclosed system politicians and multiple individuals from the Romanian parliament. Apparently, the "Politscop" website is offered by an individual named George Butunoiu that hosts both the Politoscop website as well as his own personal website.

As it turns out, the kidibot.ro website is maintained by an individual named Constantin Ferseta, self-described as an entrepreneur, the head of StartEvo, kidibot.ro along with his wife, Alina Ferseta, both of these individuals following a quick search being referenced from Mr. Cătălin Tolontan's website, an investigative journalist that back in 2012 revealed that Mr. and Ms. Ferseta were writing political hitpieces on demand for Ms. Elena Udrea, a Romanian politician involved with Mr. Nicolae Baescu, a former president of Romania at the time. At the very least, it seems that Mr. Helmut Neukirchen's, from the University of Iceland, claims that these individuals would be some legitimate branch of the Romanian government seems to fail spectacularly.

Mr. and Ms. Ferseta are both seen in many images and gathering with Mihai Cosmin, seemingly working together very well, if not being close friends. This can be seen by looking at the kibibot.ro website, where not only did Mr. Cosmin initially introduce the kidibot.ro website, but also seems to hold various competitions and events along with Mr. and Ms. Ferseta.

On the other hand, Mr. Ferseta is seen hiding in many images hiding behind balloons, hats or glasses… always hiding, always hiding… all with that same smile… or other times he is seen shaking hands with Mr. Joe Biden (or one of his many clones, as everyone knows :P).

However, aside the images with Mr. Ferseta hiding behind objects, the rest can be explained via Mr. and Ms. Ferseta's connection to politics which has been made clear by Mr. Tolonan beyond a reason of a doubt.

Image	Moving Images

It has to be said that some storm was brewing already. One of the masters students, on our way to lunch, noticed that the police was swarming around the Groska building. One of the police motocycles swerving pretty close to us as we walked, at which point the student took out his phone and took a picture of the police motorcycle. The source laughed an teased him that he should not photograph the police, but the student claimed that this is a bit of novelty and that the police typically let the people at the University alone. He mentioned that they are most likely trying to gaslight due to handing out parking fines to staff, even though, apparently this rarely happened before. The source shrugged it off, made a whole lot of sense. . .

Given the gnarly background, it seemed a little out of place that the U.S. Department of State would be involved with cyberclub.ro and also additionally in full awareness of the kidibot.ro website, in order to, as stated by cyberclub.ro, be one of the organizers. To our sensibilities, it would have been possible that the U.S. Department of State would have maybe contributed with some funds, in the general sense of "progress" or "growth" but would definitely not have endorsed sites such as kidibot.ro (bear in mind that the picture with Mr. Ferseta shaking the hand of president Joe Biden is on the very same site that contains the images of the children). Even to the absurd, a website like kidibot.ro, were it to live within the Internet space of the United States, would be shut down very quickly by the F.B.I. Public forums, even containing drawings, just alluding to "young individuals", have been taken down in the past just based on the "allusions" that the drawings emanate.

Having said that, an E-Mail was drafted towards the U.S. consular in Reykjavik, to the public office that asked whether the U.S. DoS is truly aware of kidibot.ro, or whether it is just some omission and the U.S. DoS has not clue about it. Even though the source worked alone and only showed some of the material to Mr. Welsh, both Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen were placed in the CC due to wanting to share the case with them, with both of them being part of the projects and on-going cybersecurity group that was forming.

Interestingly, the U.S. consular only emitted a templated response to the address because, as it turns out, they switched to using an online form to communicate, and, after a quick look, it was determined that none of the form sections were relevant. There were plenty of sections for the usual, but not even a general inquiry section, such that the source did not bother further.

However, a response follows up soon with Mr. Welsh claiming that he does not want to upset people in the E.C.C.C. or in other countries. He does mention some self-published stuff that are indeed not fraudulent nor unethical; however, at the time Mr. Welsh did not have the knowledge that Mr. and Ms. Ferseta were known for publishing and/or handling political hitpieces as discovered by Mr. Tolontan. However, needless to say, that it did not take long to find out, and both the source and us "found out" by literally searching Mr. Ferseta's name using the usual well-known search engines, such that from some point of view, Mr. Welsh's reply and his conclusions are a little early to say the least. Leaving that aside, the main point that is being made is that Mr. Welsh does not want to upset people, which is something that Mr. Helmut Neukirchen, the source's other colleague seems to follow-up with in his E-Mail to the source.

The E-Mail refers to the "meeting" involving Mr. Stoica's talk but it is more of a matter of not lowering yourself, especially if, as Mr. Neukirchen implies, he "agrees that this whole web page looks dodgy", to attend a talk on "security" with, strictly in terms of privacy, children being improperly censored and thrown across the Internet.

An important follow-up within the same discussion chain is a reply E-Mail to Mr. Neukirchen in which it is spelled out that, ultimately, the question that was extended to the Reykjavik consular did not constitute any action and placing them both on the CC was a voluntary action. Otherwise, the source is allowed to contact anyone they like, unless there are special / secret laws about contacting the U.S. consular on certain topics that University of Iceland requires its employees to uphold.

The source did not spell it out exactly that way, but a point is made that, even though the source is colleagues with these two individuals, that does not mean that the source is supposed to ask these two individuals for their permission before contacting arbitrary people. As the source spells it out: "Otherwise, I mean, I guess I would have to ask you whom I have permission to contact, whom I am not allowed to contact and then who-knwos, perhaps even a list of things to say as well as things not to say?" The point is fairly important because mainstream propaganda about Iceland always presents Iceland as some progressive country that glorifies free-speech, openness and all the rest of the cushy chair stuff. We are talking about Iceland, a country where every week there is some sort of march through Reyjavik, on matters of free speech, freedom, anti-war, and all of that. However, as progress through the case will show, these two individuals, the entire senior staff, and also the "Security Department" in Reyjkavik quickly fired the source without any other justification than the fact that Mr. Thomas Edward Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen wish to hold onto their source of funding from the E.C.C.C.

Interestingly, as it would turn out later, these individuals involved with cyberclub.ro and kidibot.ro would have actually been in charge and approving funds, such that the insistence to "not upset people" is the key-point in the discussion. In fact, the next day, Mr. Thomas Edward Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen organized a meeting, invited the source and made it clear that they do not want to kick up any fuss about these individuals because they will be directly involved with the E.C.C.C. and paying them. Ultimately, there are no other concerns and a question is extended during the interview on what the source intends to do further on behalf of Mr. Welsh, and given that it seemed that these two individuals were only mentioned by association, Mr. Welsh was told that the rest does not concern him.

Either way, it was clear that both Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh wanted to get rid of the source but with our expertise, the answer is fairly unsure, aside the stated fact that they are being funded by the E.C.C.C. and that they don't want to stop being paid. As per the source's testimony, Mr. Neukirchen almost started to cry during the meeting when he realized that the matter is fairly serious, and with Mr. Welsh stating that he does not want to comment any further when he was made aware that they are both working for a public institution and on public funds such that decisions and statements that they make are pretty official, especially in the context of firing or hiring staff. The source also claims that both of these individuals has a fairly, citing "symbiotic" relationship, with Mr. Neukirchen sort-of being led on by Mr. Welsh. On the other hand, on unrelated matters, the source claims that at some point Mr. Welsh discovered that the DNS servers of a major ISP in Reykjavik changed to an IP, with a one-off number change, that corresponded to the U.S. Department of Defense, and, as the source tells the story, the event was big news with both Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen going on and on about the event. With that said, it seems a little dubious that a one-off mistake in an IP leads to a giant department-wide conspiracy, but a 7 year old (8?) child with a full ski-mask on and with a finger stuck in its mouth is completely inconspicuous. To spell it out, we would like to allude to some sort of racist undertones to the situation observed just by the difference in panic between these events.

As the E-Mails show, this is the last time, between the 4th of April and up to the 23rd of April that the source was contacted by Mr. Welsh. The source talked once with Mr. Neukirchen and the discussion was mostly reserved, the only highlight being the fact that the individuals mentioned as part of the Romanian N.C.C. were in fact going to have an important saying in their further funding.

Otherwise, the source was ignored between 4th and the 23rd of April. Meanwhile, the source reached out to Rúnar Unnþórsson the head of faculty, explaining the findings, mentioning the situation with these individuals, the kidibot.ro finding to which Mr. Unnþórsson replied that the source should contact some individual named Oddur Hafsteinsson that is the University's information security manager to take a look at the findings. Of course, Mr. Unnþórssondoes not ask for permission, but rather just states "He gets a copy of this email." and then forwards the E-Mail to Mr. Hafsteinsson.

From source recounting, Mr. Hafsteinsson, the information security manager, does not do much, except phone the source in one day and just asks around, funnily, even asking if he can be in on the "cooperation". Either way, in hindsight, Mr. Unnþórsson's response, one that will be withheld throughout the case, is very vague, speaks on very general terms, and does not really want to commit to anything in particular raising the question whether he should then also occupy the position that he occupies or perhaps let someone in the same position that is happy to commit to their job. The rector, Mr. Jón Atli Benediktsson, as expected, is within the CC of the E-Mail, and one that fully describes the situation, but well, we can only guess he's a busy and important person, that has additionally transcended such matters, such that he does not even bother replying.

After the 23rd of April 2024, the source is invited to some human resources meeting with Mr. Neukirchen, Mr. Welsh and Ms. Ingibjörg Óðinsdóttir introducing herself as a human resources manager. Given the behavior of Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh, it only seems sensible to the source to forward Ms. Óðinsdóttir the whole case discussion, along with various image extracts from kidibot.ro, just to make sure that the discussion takes place on well-known grounds.

During the meeting Ms. Óðinsdóttir confirms that she read the the E-mail, has little to comment aside of mentioning "trust issues" and the fact that the source should not have contacted "others", and essentially the source is dismissed from the job.

With some of our help, from the story as it was told by the source, and the discussion, it seemed that Ms. Óðinsdóttir and the rest of the staff planned the dismissal well ahead, somewhere between 4th of April to the 23rd of April, because after leaving the human resources meeting all the assets and access was removed such that the source could not even retrieve their bike from the parking spot and needed to approach a cleaning lady, ask politely, and socially engineer their way into the parking lot. There was a hint that Ms. Óðinsdóttir thought that if they deleted the accounts fast enough, the E-mails would also be deleted and hopefully the record would be wiped clean.

That is not the case. Both discussions between Mr. Neukirchen, Mr. Welsh and the source as well as the meeting with Ms. Óðinsdóttir were being recorded by the source, and the E-Mails were transferred out of hi.is ahead of time. Here are some highlights with the audio distorted that should offer the general direction of the conversation.

• 5th of August 2024, with Neukirchen, Welsh, source
  • 1, this snippet highlights Mr. Neukirchen's and Mr. Welsh' concerns that the E-Mails would affect their own funding, With Mr. Neukirchen somehow making it a point that the E-Mails sent "affect others" such that the source is lectured that they should not write E-Mails that "affect others" in the future. The discussion starts by the source mentioning that the U.S. Department of State is quite a prestigious institution and not some terrorist organization such that the visceral reaction upon contacting them not only seems unwarranted and exaggerated but also fairly peculiar. As per the E-Mail that replies to Mr. Neukirchen, as part of research, one would end up contacting a whole bunch of people, including larger organizations, such that it does not seem realistic to fence-in speech as it would even be detrimental to the job itself. However, maybe due to privilege, there is no mention of the children made during the whole meeting such that Mr. Neukirchen's lecture about "not affecting other people" seems to very conveniently leave out the dubious images with the children and the dubious statement on the "outreach" of the website. You also have to keep in mind that this meeting takes place 2-3 days after the news broke out, that Mr. Helmut Neukirchen (even) agreed that the website with those pictures seems dodgy himself (in writing), that the meeting was scheduled by them both so if they had any "ethical gripes" they could have just as well taken a week or so to organize the meeting and dispel their moral conundrums. Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen's statement that they somehow "have not seen much about the website", is at this point unrealistic, more than likely untrue and factually false given Mr. Neukirchen's own statement in his E-Mail to the source that the site is dodgy. In principle, both of these two, will play the stance of "oh, but we did not know" up to the end of the affair. The source calls Mr. Neukirchen (and by extension, Mr. Welsh out), highlighting the former and stating that there was plenty of time, but somehow this triggers some, what can be seen as, privileged response where Mr. Neukirchen makes makes it seem that somehow his time is precious as a justification for not having seen more of the website. Of course, all that is said in this meeting and all the claims made by Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh collapse upon themselves when the source is about to be ignored / ghosted for a month (in other words, trivially, if they had any ethical issues, they might as well ahve discussed them). To be fair, given the facts, this entire discussion is useless completely and only the very few minutes in this recording is what matters where the "official reason" with which Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh and the rest of the staff are going to run with till the end: namely, that by contacting people about the content on kidibot.ro, their source of financing is in danger. Still, it is a very good highlight of what you could expect if you would work for University of Iceland, or, perhaps, within Iceland itself, given other testimony unrelated to this case. Or, you could quote Solzhenitsyn at this point with the "they know that we know, we know that they know", and so on…
  • 2, this snippet was already leading them both, given that the source already contacted other people to find out about the website using their external account, such that this segment is pretty laughable. Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh somehow jump on the train, when it is offered to them, that it would have been alright if the source would have contacted other people using their external E-Mail account instead of the hi.is account. To us, this is the proverbial gripping at straws and funnily enough, with the person about to be fired throwing the straws at them. In the end, this did not matter anyway because the official reason for the dismissal was that "the source contacted others about the affair" and it wasn't "the source contacted others using their hi.is account about the affair", such that to us this was a decision that had been already taken. Of course, one should never do this and offer up "escape routes", especially to adversaries, but the source says that the overall intelligence (skill, qualifications, etc) was rather moot within the department such that it would have been an opportunity to laugh at it in hindsight. For us, this again exposes the staff at University of Iceland, is is again, more of an evaluation of what these people do (let's say, in spite of their academic prestige). This is also a good place to remark that following the escape route that was offered to them, and even if Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh both fell in the trap, the idea is that later during a meeting with human resources, Mr. Neukirchen fishes for information by stating "but you did contact other people as well, didn't you…", mostly hinting at the usage of the private E-Mail address of the source (even if the response offered to him in return by the source refers to the hi.is address, and claiming that the source contacted University staff, which is well within their "newly defined bounds"; ie, no evil U.S. embassy!). The source claims that out of all the ruckus, these little, let's say, racist undertones that shine through are perhaps the most scarring; first due to the publicity revolving around Iceland and University of Iceland in general where people are led to believe that they are a safe harbor for free speech, and then there is this, let's say, combination between racism and privilege where Mr. Neukirchen seems to think highly of himself that he somehow expects the source to confess how many people they contacted on their private E-Mail (even if that would somehow be irrelevant, or even worse, given the privacy violations). Then we have Mr. Thomas Edward Welsh, that admitted that his former PhD supervisor is helping him out "big time" to write his articles by "sending him blocks of text" that "he has to be careful how to arrange because sometimes if they are not arranged properly, the resulting article does not make any sense", as well as the fact that Mr. Welsh admitted to the source that he "never gave any credit to the pictograms, icons or other graphics in his papers" (even laughingly so, stating "haha! maybe I should not be doing that") that did nothing more than trigger a very cringe-smile from the source (you know the meme, think Monster and DiCaprio). So, as an evaluation from us, these individuals were nowhere near as large, in terms of prestige, and as demonstrated by their behavior, to hand out any sort of lessons.
  • 3, as yes, as suspected, Mr. Welsh suggests that the source is having a hard time in Iceland, talks about the future of the job, etc, clearly indicating that the decision had already been made. There is a lot of self-PR, from, say, Mr. Welsh, talking about "when we bring people here from other countries", but ultimately he is also a very early rival, having arrived just the year before. Mr. Welsh is asked to provide at least an example when the source has been found to be unhappy, but Mr. Welsh can only utter the examples that were already brought forth during the meeting such as the DNS. The other thing mentioned during his exemplification, is the TAing, with which there have been no remarkable issues, with one incident when one person from the staff hinted that some external student has been plagiarizing the exams and offering them for free. This case had also been brought to the attention of the University of Iceland, that claimed that nothing can be done, such that the frustration of the staff was growing. Weirdly enough, the case was brought to the attention of Mr. Matthias Book, Mr. Book stated that the student that has been plagiarizing the examns, stating that "I'm happy if students take initiative to support each other, and [the student] in particular has been active in helping current and incoming students, e.g. volunteering at Háskóladagurinn two years in a row. He provides his [github] repository with the explicitly stated intention "to inspire fellow students", and it can certainly be a useful resource for students who are stuck on some homework assignment.". The repository in question has "inspire" in italics, something that anyone that has been a student and also then has some teaching experience can definitely be used as a reference to distinguish between irony and being genuine. Ultimately, a lot of the students were found plagiarizing, and, as kids go, admitting to that themselves. Nevertheless, aside from this, there were no actual quarrels with Mr. Book nor his module and the source assisted till the end. The recording also shows Mr. Welsh manifesting an interest on what the source intends to do further with the kidibot.ro case, but is told that if the problem is the usage of the University of Iceland E-Mail, and if the source will then use their private E-Mail, and given that Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen are "of different opinions", then any other action is clearly none of their business. This is important because, with our counsel, the curiosity hints to the fact that Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen were more worried about other people finding out (and losing their funds, as they mentioned themselves) rather, say, "concerns with bringing people there from other countries" as a singular example, amongst others.
  • 4, this is just a shorter snippet in which Mr. Welsh claims that he does not really have any knowledge of the content on kidibot.ro, but you have to keep in mind that the letter to the U.S. Department of State and then the ensuing discussion with both Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen took place on the 2nd of April, whereas this meeting takes place on the 4th of April. Mr. Welsh was also sent screenshots and images from kidibot.ro, as a part of the a discussion that started in the morning on unrelated matters, such that at the very least he should have had quite a clear image of what the source is complaining about. Ultimately, it is Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen that scheduled the meeting, so as per the first recording, if they were "concerned about harming other people", they might just as well followed their own statements, just like Mr. Neukirchen stating that the website is dodgy, and dug further into the matter to find out if it is indeed dodgy (which it turned out to be, and, by all checks and balances, even very far away from "finer" academic offenses and more along the lines of fraud and criminal offenses).

The full discussion is spared but on record, given that it is just playing hopscotch around the issues, and not that entertaining given that such discussions end up being circular. While the discussions were still on-going, some control agencies have contacted us, some asking for further information, others hinting that the CIA should be contacted directly.

Well then, such was it done, with the message above being mentioned to Mr. Neukirchen hopefully to "awaken" him, given that the matter was pretty serious to be known for just wanting to continue to be paid by the E.C.C.C. in spite of the facts that had been brought forth.

The conversation with Ms. Óðinsdóttir is very similar, although Ms. Óðinsdóttir does not seem that proficient at such situations, given that all her claims are very quickly dismissed.

The source is laughing and claiming that just listening to all this is a penance in itself given how silly the people involved seem to be. Just as some summary examples, Ms. Óðinsdóttir claims that the source "has been working alone on the kidibot.ro case" and that "we do not like that here" but the source immediately answers that the situation involving kidibot.ro has nothing to do with the actual job at the University of Icleand, to which, of course, Ms. Óðinsdóttir has nothing more to say. Here is another one, where Ms. Óðinsdóttir states that the source contacted people about kidibot.ro, and when the source asks to clarify whether Ms. Óðinsdóttir is talking about the letter to the embassy (the one and only E-Mail sent from the University of Iceland E-Mail system), Mr. Neukirchen claims that there are other E-Mails that have been sent by the source. Then again, that avenue is tied up as well, given that the source mentions contacting the dean and/or rector which is well-within the University of Iceland, the one that incidentally is hiring the source, and not some external institution like the U.S. consular. Mr. Neukirchen makes a point that the head of security, Mr. Oddur Hafsteinsson was contacted, and that apparently Mr. Oddur Hafsteinsson told Mr. Neukirchen (or them?) that I contacted them. However, if you remember earlier on in this section Mr. Oddur Hafsteinsson was added by Rúnar Unnþórsson, the head of faculty / dean, himself and we even made a point that Mr. Unnþórsson didn't even ask us if we'd like to contact Mr. Hafsteinsson, but rather "made it a decree" by stating "He gets a copy of this email.".

Of course, in spite of all this, the source makes it clear early on during the interview with Human Resources that the source was coming in to work every day, did not ghost the University, such that if any issues between the 4th of April and to the 23rd of April were genuinely needing to be worked out, the individuals involved could have just as much reached out and solved the issue. In fact, Mr. Welsh and Mr. Neukirchen ghosted the source for about a month till organizing a meeting. Both to us and the source, this makes it clear that the matter was well-arranged very early on and that there was no remedial action planned thereby making these discussions more or less a ruse, or an opportunity for the people involved to save face and pin blame on the source. Unfortunately for them, it does not pan out very well.

It just goes on like that, when the source explains that kidibot.ro is not part of their job and with the response being a response to Ms. Óðinsdóttir's complaint that "the source was working alone", Ms. Óðinsdóttir even follows up ironically, stating that "but you are an employee here", as if the source would have to somehow be bound body and soul to the University of Iceland without being able to carry out their own activities otherwise. To us, the sense of entitlement is beyond the sky.

By this point during the discussion with Ms. Óðinsdóttir, the source sighs because the discussion is just taking a turn for extreme stupidity, with Ms. Óðinsdóttir insisting that the source is "working solo", and then the source having to even ask her to justify with what or on what she means "working solo" because debugging some Romanian website has nothing to do with the employment at University of Iceland, so any claim that the source is "working solo" is ridiculous.

As you notice, the circle forms.

Further on, Ms. Óðinsdóttir goes on to state that somehow the source expressed some opinion in their E-Mail to the U.S. consular, however reading the E-Mail in the former section reveals just the question that was extended to them, and namely whether it is possible for the U.S. consular to confirm or not whether they are involved with cyberclub.ro. The rest of the conversation is just an expression of Ms. Óðinsdóttir inability to comprehend that a question cannot form an option, or rather, in antic terms, to distinguish between a question or a statement. The source is, even audibly, low-key laughing because the arguments are getting so bad and broken, even stating that "there is no opinion there… it was a question […]". Then the source explains that the website is "dodgy", which Ms. Óðinsdóttir uses as leverage to show her education level and claim "that's an opinion", however none of that was mentioned to the U.S. consular, as the E-Mails reveal. Even more so, the statement that the website is "dodgy" is Mr. Neukirchen's own expression in the cited E-Mail. This gets so bad, with Ms. Óðinsdóttir confusing a question with a statement, or perhaps mixing in her own fantasies about events that did not happen, that the source has to step in and suggest that it might just be a language barrier while at the same time asking if she or the other people in the same room, namely Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh want to add some extra piece of information because to their knowledge and the source's knowledge, the only "official E-Mail" is the one sent to the U.S. consular. The discussion from then-on-out is completely numb, to use a word, with the exchange going back and forth between the source trying to explain to Ms. Óðinsdóttir that no value judgments have been made on whether the U.S. Department of State should or should not collaborate with cyberclub.ro, and ultimately going back to the problem of Ms. Óðinsdóttir making a claim that she cannot sustain from the E-Mail that was sent to the consular.

Finally, the source "gives in" on the actual discussion with Ms. Óðinsdóttir and ceases to attempt to teach her the difference between a statement and a question, by stating that iff. Ms. Óðinsdóttir still holds the conviction that the source uttered some or other opinion, the source will ask her for a written statement to clearly indicate what exactly the "opinion" is that she claims to be upset about. Naturally, there is no such statement, with Ms. Óðinsdóttir handing the source a very generic letter of dismissal from the University of Iceland, that only says that they decided to cease the contract without any further explanation.

The highlights are then the source stating: "I am not really inimidated, I am not guilty and I do not feel ashamed for speaking up about, this is an opinion, websites that might involve child trafficking or pedophilia, I wouldn't know. Of course I have my own trust issues, but these are now my own, because I do not think i can work with people that want to be funded by people [behind kidibot.ro]." Ms. Óðinsdóttir claims that the source is making an accusation, to which the source retorts that it is … well, an opinion that ultimately can be backed up - specifically, because the previous interview (as well as the E-Mail) with Mr. Neukirchen and Mr. Welsh shows both of these individuals make the claim that they would rather not bother people or the E.C.C.C. in general because they are about to be funded by them. In principle, the source claims many times that the issue could have been resolved, and that the staff at University of Iceland is exaggerating with a non-issue that could have handled better.

Interestingly, the source is asked to sign some papers, which the source refuses and asks for counsel. In fact, the source states specifically that they cannot sign these papers, just like that, and that they would rather seek some counsel for legal advice on whether the source should or should not sign the papers. Ms. Óðinsdóttir tries to press the issue by stating "You do not want to sign them." to which she is reminded that the source would be glad to sign them but only after legal counseling. The source even suggests, "tomorrow", "after-tomorrow", maybe, hinting that the signing of the papers could be rescheduled. Again, the source clearly states that they are not going to sign any papers.

More to the point that we are suspicious about, the interview shows that Ms. Óðinsdóttir claims that the E-Mail account will be closed, yet when the source claims that they have like 30 E-Mail accounts sprawled allover the Internet with passwords they cannot even remember, and hints to the fact that E-Mail addresses are, well, free, Ms. Óðinsdóttir seems to be a little taken aback. Even with the worst of judgment, it cannot be that Ms. Óðinsdóttir does not know this, with free E-Mail accounts existing across all major E-Mail providers dating a few decades back, such that it just seems like there is more to this. Ultimately, we believe in hindsight from the source, that the University of Iceland, and in particular what Ms. Óðinsdóttir hinted to with the E-Mail, just wanted the matter covered up and with the hopes of all the E-Mail discussions between Mr. Neukirchen, Mr. Welsh and the other individuals at University of Iceland to be lost. The source states that by the time they got back to the office, the keycard did not work anymore and by the time they sat down at the computer, the E-Mail account password did not work. Of course, if that was the intent, it's all a big bust, because all the data had been saved, and way in advance.

Ms. Óðinsdóttir insists a little on the source signing the dismissal papers, and makes a point that if the source does not sign, then the University of Iceland cannot pay the wages that were due.

Mr. Neukirchen at some point chimes in that the does not remember having a discussion where dismissing the source from the job touched on the subject of whom the source is allowed to talk to, however that is even in the snippets to be found within the very first interview where Mr. Neukirchen talks about contacting people and / or "not involving people". The other quote-unquote, "we're going to let you go, but it will have nothing to do with free-speech" belongs to Mr. Welsh, that utters something similar to the phrase during the first interview.

The source then insists again that the source feels that "their mind was pretty much made up" and that they have no saying in the issue, with Ms. Óðinsdóttir barging in again claiming that she thinks that is not true, but not really justifying. To any reader, this is obvious because for half a month between the 4th and the 23rd of April, the source was ghosted by the colleagues entirely, such that no steps for remedial had been made at all. The only funny incident was, out of curiosity, and for completeness sake, phoning up Mr. Oddur Hafsteinsson to see what he has to say. First, he did not answer at all with the phone ringing and then upon the next attempt, he set up the answering machine. Mr. Hafsteinsson did follow up with a call several days later, but the matter had been settled and the proof gathered was already exhaustive such that the call was not answered.

Mr. Welsh insists again with the signing of the papers, and is refused, on the same claims by the source that they want legal counsel. The source even makes it a point that it is clear that they do not have the best intention for the source, such that it would make no sense to sign any papers without any legal counsel. Ms. Óðinsdóttir interrupts again and claims that not signing the papers is working against the source's best interest and claims that they cannot pay the wages if the source does not sign the papers. The source makes it clear that they can do as they will but that the source will not be signing the papers.

As reference, here is the letter of dismissal.

After saying goodbye, Mr. Neukirchen sent back and E-mail claiming that the source had some form of psychosis and went ahead and wrote a huge E-Mail extending various personal threats along the lines of "I'd hate you to become homeless" or "if you ever want to work in Iceland […]".

Most of the reply from Mr. Neukirchen is just slander and libel with Mr. Neukirchen extending his non-expert opinion on issues for which he is not qualified for as a computer scientist. Compared to the evidence presented on this page, that is provided fact-by-fact from one discussion to the other, Mr. Neukirchen goes on a strange and creepy rant on how the source lost their job due to some "psychosis", that nobody from Iceland will hire the source in the future (as they say, thank God), indications to go to some hospital or call various phone numbers up, that the source is not thinking rationally, none of which, in any case, would be evident from either the interviews nor any correspondence.

There is lots of grooming involved, patronizing tones and subtones, along the lines of "you even have a PhD, so you are smart" that seem both eerie and cringe given the rest of the E-Mail that is trying to convince the source that they have lost their mind which does not seem to be very inline with some authentic appreciation that Mr. Neukirchen seems to want to provide. Mr. Neukirchen apparently justifies this psychological … evaluation? by citing some articles that he found on doi.org on "symptoms of psychosis". Apparently Mr. Neukirchen combines the situation with some joke about a "ghost driver", in the context of the kidibot.ro website being some indicator of child trafficking (factually, it is at the very least abuse, given improper censorship, but let's continue reading this E-Mail) that reads:

"A woman is listening to the radio one evening and she hears the announcer warn that there is a ghost driver travelling westbound on the highway between Amsterdam and Ulrecht. Concerned, because she knows her husband willbe travelling that route, she calls on him on his cell phone. When her husband answers, she tells him about the radio warning. ONE ghost driver? retorts the husband – There must be a a thousand out there right now."

It is tough to understand what it means in context. Does Mr. Neukirchen mean to imply that child abuse would in this case be acceptable because lots of people abuse children (in other words referring to "just ONE")? Or does Mr. Neukirchen mean that "there are many people out there that are not believed trying to convince other people about certain stuff", even though, that does not seem to flow from the context.

We believe that such stances set quite a precedent for political psychiatry used for the purpose of discrediting people and silencing whistleblowers or facts. The Romanian usage of political psychiatry is straightforward via their inheritance from communism. Even so, we think that evidence, based on public actions, taken by public individuals working for public and state-driven institutions, is incontestable in the sense that going after the reporter might result in slandering the reporter, but will definitely not invalidate any facts. As an allegory, a person with a cognitive disability that photographs a murder caught in the act, could be slandered for their disability, which is legally… tasteless, ableist or libelous, yet the condition of the reporter does not influence the photo that they took of the murderer caught in the act, and just because the reporter has a disability does not imply that the murderer will be set free! Sorry, we just do not have that much humor as Mr. Neukirchen does to frame the allegory in a neat joke, such that the former will just have to do. From this E-Mail, Mr. Neukirchen seems to want to make it appear as the source has lost their mind, such that somehow all the facts in this affair would somehow be invalid, based on some diagnostic clobbered together by looking up random articles on doi.org in a hasty and slandering response.

Mr. Neukirchen then continues that somehow the source is trying to convince everyone that (everyone else?) has a mental issue. This is factually incorrect, and it refers to the source making a reference to Mr. Neukirchen's meltdown, as related to the source by Mr. Thomas Welsh, regarding the use of Microsoft products at the University of Iceland (which nearly cost him his job). However that relates to Mr. Welsh's and Mr. Neukirchen's own admittance that Mr. Neukirchen had a meltdown at work that nearly cost him his job, as was told to the source by Mr. Welsh, given that Mr. Neukirchen insisted that the University should not use Microsoft products. Ultimately, "everyone else" cannot be factually backed up by Mr. Neukirchen!

As for the comment on the source becoming homeless, needless to say that by the time Mr. Neukirchen was composing his "magnum opus" of an E-Mail to the source, the source was already well on their way to the airport with a ticket to fly back home expeditiously given the reactions and, as per source testimony, the total wreck of a country that Iceland is. Far be it a possibility for the source to become homeless within Iceland, and it is even strange because there have been multiple interviews before the source physically left for Iceland. Recently the source contacted us again, claiming that they now remember having an image of an elderly person dressed in rags and smoking a cigarette as a wallpaper background on their laptop. No worries, we won't start to cite random papers in psychology explaining planting ideas into people's minds. Awkwardly enough however, this last idea ironically seems more plausible than the former given that the source was not picked up from the homeless shelter to supplement the staff at University of Iceland, nor were they an Icelandic citizen and nor were they running away, such that there is little explanation on how Mr. Neukirchen made the link to homelessness in this context. Far be it for us to dictate normality, or sanity, but the assumption that the source would have just returned home, would have been a much saner conclusion than somehow remaining in Iceland, as … a homeless person. It should be said that the combination of cringe, groom and creepiness along with this seeming… projection and/or determination to defame the source, that, even if it succeeds, does not invalidate the facts, makes it in our opinion, questionable whether Mr. Neukirchen should work for an University and specifically be found around younger minds that can be influenced more easily. While working for University of Iceland, the source mentioned that several students outright admitted to plagiarizing whole assessments, an admission of guilt that, whose naivety might end up exploited by such individuals and might have led to their dismissal from the University, or who knows, bought them a ticket to the psychiatric ward?

As for the record and Mr. Neukirchen's suggestion to contact the worker's unions, the source took Mr. Neukirchen's strange advice to heart, and the source did contact the "famous" Icelandic "workers' unions" just for the dossier to be complete and aside from being told to contact the police due to the gravity of the situation, the letters to the unions did not receive any reply at all, yet were well received without bouncing back. You think we'd conclude there without providing evidence, well here is the E-Mail to BHM.is along with all the prattle to the tune of how "BHM is your ally" and, of course, as per Icelandic dissonance, a "rally", the envelope organization for unions in Iceland that received no reply (the original was in color):

In the end, Mr. Neukirchen's meanderings on the dodgyness factor of kidibot.ro is well-settled by Mr. Cătălin Tolontan publications that demasks the Fersetas as handling people that write political hit-pieces on demand in exchange of payment and even as part of the Basescu presidency. Similarly, Mr. Neukirchen's concerns on who contacted the source regarding this issue, well, we didn't disclose much, but the source did talk to us and here we are and we did disclose the E-Mail redirecting the source to file a complaint with the CIA. So, at least, there is that, that we are happy to share from the source!

Obvious to us and the source as well, the Dean of the University of Iceland had nothing much to say, acting mostly reserved, even if he was in full knowledge of the facts, and somehow blaming the situation on "sometimes", as can be observed from the letter. Whether everyone just panicked or not, is anyone's best guess, but as ever, and for all practical purposes, all of the above ended up in damages for the source that ultimately, given such individuals, and their apparent collusion to have the source dismissed, is something that is tough to recover. It does not end there, even more daunting is that the University of Iceland did not have any proper on-boarding process that would pipeline obtaining the kennitala (a national ID without which nothing can be done in Iceland, and one that seemingly works around European regulations), such that for a while the arrangement would have been that officially the source would have been living with Mr. Neukirchen and given that obtaining the kennitala takes time, Mr. Neukirchen was about to offer to have the source borrow money and pay it back later. A scheme that would undoubtedly have ended poorly given all the above.

As mentioned earlier, there were few goodbyes, for other reasons, but the source left Iceland speedily, yet for some reasons, even after that, it seemed like the University kept making some sort of payments into the account. It seemed a little eerie that given the reaction and the sensitivity of the matter, these sums should be paid, especially because Ms. Óðinsdóttir and Mr. Welsh insisted that they could not even pay wages that were due if the source does not sign the dismissal papers. It is up to everyone, ultimately, to decide their limits and, how to answer the imperative "do as you will", but it seemed wrong to be somehow paid in spite of the events that took place in Iceland, and, ultimately, with a website such as kidibot.ro that is full with pictures of children from rural areas, some of them with mental disabilities, that would just make the payments look like a bribe and on their account. As an expression, "blood money".

This leads to the "stop paying me" E-mail that we still laugh about where the source sends an E-Mail to the rector, dean and the other people that were approached, and asks the University of Iceland to stop paying them.

Eerily the University sent back an E-mail signed off by some other member of staff, Ms. Ragnheiður Karítas Hjálmarsdóttir, claiming that "Unfortunately there was a mistake in the last salary payment where you received XISK, which you were not meant to receive. Please deposit the said amount into this account number XXXX-XX-XXXX, kt.XXXXXX-XXXX and send a receipt to the payroll‘s department at laun@hi.is." perhaps to add the proverbial insult to injury.

After the E-Mail, the payments from University of Iceland ended. The house always wins. It is highly unlikely that this was some mistake and not some payment to silence the source.

What is highly worrying, as an aside to the case, that pertains to kidibot.ro and the people involved, such as Mihai Cosmin, is that all these presentations, including the children and the strange statements how a bunch of schools play on kidibot.ro, only to be deceived later on by finding out that most of them are "home schools", is that these statements are not the product of some misguided random individuals across the Internet. An example that comes to mind is the case of Johann Scott Sveinsson, an individual from Iceland that used to work for Linus Tech Tips that a few years back was arrested for possession of child pornography. You have to ultimately realize that Mr. Sveinsson did not really have as much as an impact as the individuals revolving around kidibot.ro, cyberclub.ro, the E.C.C.C., C.E.P.O.L. and ultimately the European Community. In other words, people like Mr. Cosmin, will be the people that, well, as the case turn out to be, fund people like Mr. Neukirchen, or Mr. Welsh or become members of commissions that set public policy. Mr. Cosmin himself seems to have studied at C.E.P.O.L. (via his CV) and is also a member of the Romanian police that is also educating both future police officers and thereby implicitly, even if not intentional, setting what future policy will be. In other words, these are more or less the people that will tell you what you will be or will not be allowed to see or browse to on the Internet and also the people that will be kicking your doors down or, at the very least, lecturing you on what is and what is not ethically sound. The offense is, in that sense, way more severe than some random case because of the impact and the outreach of the individuals involved. Ironically, Mr. Cosmin is seen on YouTube citing the G.D.P.R. as well as general provisions of data privacy, such that it seems unbelievably awkward and even unbelievable that he would both put pictures up on his own website and/or link to kidibot.ro with those children that are improperly anonymized, in some cases, even their eyes being observable due to the "black smudge" being too thin to cover their eyes completely. You can imagine that we watched the YouTube videos of his explanations on privacy way differently than without the kidibot.ro knowledge. If you lived, say, before the 90s and had some form of Internet access, pictures of naked children were the run of the day on the Internet during those times, yet few people even made a big fuss about it. Google did not even exist, so usually you shoved the images aside and continued searching. However, nowadays and in a newer context, it seems that insult has been added to injury where, say, you have censorship laws yet at the same time, a member of the Romanian police and also a person that studied at the European Academy for the Police (CEPOL), as well as "an academic" is somehow associated and close friends of the Fersetas that flaunt those children across a large span of pages. The connection is also not "spurious", these individuals, including Mr. Cosmin can be seen in multiple photos on kidibot.ro in various different activities, photographed side-by-side with the Fersetas. That being said, it is definitely not a case of Mr. Cosmin having no knowledge or no forewarning, or at the very least, just "asked to present kidibot.ro" as some part of inauguration - no, the collaboration seems pretty involved with the Fersetas and kidibot.ro is definitely not the only activity.

We do however many times "waive" Romania's involvement as being natural and perhaps indigenous to Romanians in general given past transgressions and set precedents with which, thanks to sources that have reached out to us, we now do not worry too much no matter how bad the transgression might be; from pedophilia to genocide, for Romania, it's just normal. However one looming concern is the passivity, if not, as we may, the active involvement of international institutions in Romanian fraudulent schemes. It is clear that a weak state would be an easier hotbed for criminal activity, yet one has to keep in mind that all the propaganda, that in hindsight, now feels false, about "wanting to be a democratic state" seems to just be a ruse, if not, if you will, quite a ploy for oligarchical interests. And indeed, blowing the whistle in Europe, seems to fall on dead ears, just like in other cases, where the matter is approached like Mr. Neukirchen attempts to creepily yet vainly cover his own faults, with all the people involved essentially joining arms in some sort of corrupt bond where the messenger is at fault, and everyone employed for the exact purpose for which the issue is raised, being, seemingly too .. busy. A worrying tone is additionally extended by the realization that if you are looking for third-party arbitration, that is, to escape an abusive country, say, in the event of a crisis, then countries like Iceland would definitely not provide sanctuary. In other words, if you're looking for political asylum, you should avoid Iceland at all costs, because ultimately it seems that their money is far more important to them than any sort of moral fiber that seems like just a tool for their malinformation propaganda (we have some other witnessing regarding exactly this statement but we will not release it because it seems too specific for the case at hand). Come to think of it, we wonder which country would have approached the matter differently? Of course, we can sense the subtle racist undertones, with Mr. Neukirchen extending his "pensees" on how bad Romania is, yet Romania typically is only there to take the beating but with the lesson being mostly spared for some reason. Of course, this just has to have racist undertones, with statements made by Mr. Helmut Neukirchen such as "You stayed previously in a country that is completely different from the European cultures that you grew up with and have worked in and I would probably also develop a psychosis if I would have to work under the conditions of such a country." which, aside from being inaccurate, seems also awkwardly friendly, and too friendly for the matter at hand. The source is laughing reading that part and states how they have seen many T-Shirts worn in Iceland along the lines of "Nazi hunters" or "Nazi killers", with all of that being in hindsight maybe even a cover for their real feelings - otherwise, why does this individual work there and how come so many of staff have been complicit in attempting to silence the story? In that sense, countries find it a pass-time to hurl slurs at Romania, but do very little to provide that third-party arbitration that many Romanians opted for when they joined the European Community. Needless to say, we'll always look twice at news stating that some of these hopeless non-states somehow accepted some political asylum of certain individuals on… ethical grounds?

How to put this… Legally and based on the official papers that we have, we can now state that it is not communism that went away from Romania, it is just that the communism took over the entire European peninsula (with communism being mostly a placeholder for mafia because child abuse was not legal under communism) and, as it always turns out, remembering that the house always wins, to the detriment of the civilians. Even organizations like the ones created by R.A.I.S.A. spawn a net of interpersonal relationships, reaching to the United States, and digging right through a bunch of European institutions where there is little to no room for any sort of "opposition" because, ultimately, all the people end up being facilitators, complicit and participants to the situation. Or perhaps, is that intentional, such that iff. the case would blow open, then perhaps Romanian authorities would hold "Rachel" from the U.S. embassy as some kind of bargaining-chip of a hostage; "See! The Americans did it! The Americans did it!", being the foreseeable phrase. Quite frankly, what is the … finance advisor of the embassy of the United States to Romania doing as part of kidibot.ro? Did she have to partake in any secret rituals, perhaps get on her knees like some heads of the police regularly do in Romania, as reported by the press? Ultimately, how involved with this mafia is she? For example, is it the case that some of these people are not really being told the full story, and have never bothered to seriously look into websites such as cyberclub.ro or kidibot.ro to determine whether they should lend their good name to it? If the latter were to be the case, then that represents a larger problem where institutions that typically are meant to inform governance of "emerging situations" fail to do so. You get warned and reminded many times per day, to paraphrase the Hacker movie, that you are being surveilled and that the state can keep files on you but at the same time some people working at a foreign embassy, certainly not the hobbits, somehow swiftly end up being drafted by two individuals such as the Fersetas that take a single search engine query to look up and appear blatantly on Mr. Tolontan's website (again, Mr. Tolontan is not some conspiracy nutjob, it is pretty much "standard" investigative journalism and very official)? For what it's worth, only the incentive to just find out some little-extra about Mr. Stoica (what studies he has, etc), lead to the discovery of all the above; surely, something well-within the paygrade of people that can carry out these investigations that they are being paid to do. In this context, absurdly, yet filed well-under the "finesse" section, would the U.S. Department of State be, like, "taken aback" in the sense of "be surprised", about kidibot.ro and the "revelation" (sarcastically, obviously, given that Mr. Tolontan's article is old as dirt by now and not even "breaking news") that some of their people have been "mingling" with the, let's say, not-entirely-light part of Romania? Clearly, the matter of top-schools using kidibot in the United States is deceptive, with many "schools" being named "Other" or "Home school" without any information provided to be able to verify the statements. To play the old Romanian game of "thick milk", or originally, "lapte gros" (a dog-piling game, literally, but with humans instead of dogs) and pile more stuff on top, amongst many of the schools being mentioned on kidibot.ro as fervent players, seems to be some school with an Islamic profile. Would those people label those pictures haram or halal, as a side-question perhaps because given the religion, we doubt that just the image of the photo model in a miniskirt on top of car on kidibot.ro would be tolerated by Islam.

Bye-bye for now, Javert!