How much does it cost, doctor?

Mediation is derived from the Latin word "mediare", meaning to be in the middle, halfway. Its basis is that a third, independent person, the so-called mediator, which becomes an intermediary for peaceful, compromise solutions to disputed issues. The condition is that the mediator must be impartial, he cannot be a person associated with one of the parties to the dispute, because then the mediator would unfairly influence the other party and could, for example, force it to accept as a compromise a solution that would be disadvantageous for it.

So it's only dry theory. However, in our story it ended like this - How much, how much, how much?!

After a contentious January 2021 court hearing (in details written here) the Radio ГA / ГA, together with their proposed "independent mediator", they decided to show us their concept of the true meaning of the word "to be in the middle".

Before we were directed in this way, on 10.1.2021 the lawyer #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") delivered to us a response from Mrs. Colombo (all the way from "Washington") to our reconciliation proposals.

As it has become always as the rule in the future – apart from the raised middle finger, as "Cimrman" said in his comedy, they gave us nothing at all.

For those of you who can (not) read between the lines, we summarise the main ideas of their message:

• Your proposals are unacceptable to us because it would cost a lot of money (although we are happy to contribute to the payment of our contract law firm's invoices from the unlimited resources of the American taxpayer)

• We still do not recognise your claim for discrimination as a separate claim, as we have said many times and even the "independent" judge #JH(Dr. Hustá) told you so too (and it is your fault that you pay court fees and deduct her time, and therefore we do not accept your proposals for reconciliation, even in the form of your proposed is apology only)

• Because we know that you have been employed for a year, all this time you have been doing work, paying bills, trying to meet your financial obligations and survive without collecting trash, so it is "unfair" to ask us for any more money

• We want to come to an agreement (or "any promise to me won't make me sad")

• We are ready to "give you something", but we won't tell you how much, so offer again, we will ask in distant "Washington" and write back (How much, how much, how much?!)

• We want to attend the meeting before the mediator and actively participate in it, but according to our rules (which we already specified at the last court hearing on 5/1/2021, i.e. it will not be in Slovakia and it will not be your sister, even if it is registered mediator)

Even though we agreed at the court meeting on 5/1/2021 about the conditions of a possible meditation, i.e. that it will take place in halfway between Prague and Slovakia and it was even in the protocol of this meeting, the "independent" judge #JH( "Dr. Hustá") again decided differently and in favour of the defendant. Understandably, she did not accept our proposals and decided on a mediator "with whom she has excellent experiences and who is successful" and exactly according to her statement "No, I already have a mediator here ready for you! Yeah? So…”

So let us recall the sharp exchange of words regarding mediation between the two parties as they took place on that January day.

​Lawyer	​If I can say something about that.
​Judge	You can.
​​Lawyer	​I already informed the court in the previous proceedings that we are willing to go to possible mediation proceedings, possibly. Unfortunately, to this day, and now I don't want to talk about whether the plaintiff, as he imagined, any solution to the matter. Neither for Radio nor for Mr. XXXX, the trial is not a pleasant thing, and from this point of view we are inclined to the fact that mediation could take place. We think that it is not appropriate for the representative of Mr. XXXX to be the mediator here, even if she is rated as a mediator...
​Judge	No, definitely not!
​​Lawyer	At the same time, as I follow up on our discussion outside the door of this courtroom, we do not think that it would be appropriate for this mediator to be any mediator from the Slovak Republic, because that would be a conflict of interest.
​Judge	No, I already have a mediator here for you! Yeah? So...
​​Lawyer	Now from this point of view, I think that mediation could help in this matter, because the situation developed in such a way that there was Mr. XXXX's statement and subsequently there was an objection to the state of discrimination, which are very surprising and which do not correspond to how it has been treated so far. This means that the management of the Radio is also inclined towards the mediation procedure and is willing to participate in it, if it is possible to find some agreement. But in order for there to be some kind of agreement, from my point of view the mediator must find out what Mr. XXXX's position is from the point of view of his ideas regarding a possible settlement in the whole matter, and of course the Radio can react to that in some way.
​Judge	Good! So take a seat. Only for this I would suggest something, with the fact that, of course, within the mediation, both parties must agree. However, we will decide that the mediation will not be in Slovakia! So I say this in advance, the proceedings are conducted in the Czech Republic, they are conducted at the local court, so in terms of economy, speed of proceedings, the mediation would definitely take place here in Prague.
Sister	Of course you can suggest that, Your Honor...
​Judge	No, I decide!
Sister	Will you also decide that we must accept this mediator?
​Judge	Yes! Whether you accept it or not, but certainly not Slovak! (irritably)
Sister	Closer to Slovakia. Brno, for example, is for both parties...
​Judge	Please, let's talk some more if...
Sister	If you would allow, honorable court, the subject of mediation is again only an agreement. We have no problem saying what we want, we have said it clearly.
​Judge	No! Exactly! I want to write it down now! (irritably) Yeah? In what way could it be solved, and then you tell me whether it would work or not!
Sister	Given the fact that the lawsuit was filed and essentially a year ago, ...
​Judge	Please, I postponed it 2 times because of you, so we won't say that we are extending it... (jumps into the conversation irritably).
Sister	I have come, I am talking about, honorable court, how this dispute can be done more economically and effectively, because mediation is another process that lasts and can last half a year according to the law on mediation...
​Judge	No, I have a mediator who doesn't take that long and is relatively very successful. So please, ...
Sister	So I assume he is following the Mediation Act, ...
​Judge	Of course!
Sister	...he has half a year for the parties to come to an agreement, so this process will drag on for another half a year. This is my suggestion that...
​Judge	Okay, so now you dictate to me exactly your proposal as to how you want both of these disputes to be settled. So dictate it to me, please! So the representative of the plaintiff, the plaintiff, proposes to approve the agreement as it stands. Please!

And so, exactly according to #JH's ("Dr. Hustá") expression "No, I decide!" and without accepting the elementary principle of consent of both parties for the person of the mediator, her notification about decision in the matter of mediation was scheduled on 02/03/2021, .

It is probably not necessary to emphasise that this was "their mediator", who also appeared at other court hearings between Radio ГA / ГA and another unfortunate person.

Thus, we started to suspect that Radio ГA / ГA has "its" mediator in addition to "its" judge.

Very interesting things in that first thing will appear soon in our next posts.

I will not be sarcastic, so I will leave without comment the probably unique qualities of the judge assigned to the mediator. Actually, I don't even know her qualities. I looked at this whole selection of hers quite pragmatically - it was "their selection" and without any discussion with us about her acceptance, her remuneration was much higher than is customary in the region and the most important thing which played its role in our making decision in non-acceptance her in the future was the fact that the doctor lives 6 minutes' walk from the Radio ГA / ГA's hired law office and where #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") worked.

So her non-objectivity and neutrality had already been directly dealt with in advance.

Looking back, I keep asking myself - didn't all those unfortunate people (before me) see and know this? Or did it not bother them and blindly still believed in the justice of the reading book? Or did it not bother her legal representatives, if they even had any?

Our victory was that the judge finally accepted our objection and ordered the mediation process to Brno.

As can be seen from the copy in the reply below, it was necessary for them to have the proverbial last word here as well.

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The Covid year was at its peak and after several changes of dates, we finally received a confirmed date for the meeting with the mediator. That date became April 12, 2021.

In the morning we got into the car and, equipped with masks and expecting the unexpected, we set off towards Brno. After a few hours of travel, we were greeted by Brno's cool April morning, sprinkled with a few drops of rain. While waiting for Mr. Mediator in front of his office, our defendant duo #MV ("Mr. Prasátko") and #LA ("Leklá Andělka") suddenly appeared from around the corner of the street. Actually, I didn't expect so much interest, especially from her side. On the other hand, it gave me a sense of importance, I admit. With the passage of time and now with the knowledge of other things, I know that this privilege really only got to me and the other cases of other unfortunates were already developing outside of her interest.

We were ushered into a large office dominated by the mediator's desk and an adjacent desk for those who can't come up with a name. At first we just stared blankly at each other from behind the masks, and then, at the mediator's command, we got into each other.

I got the floor first, and since it was the first time I could tell them from the bottom of my lungs what I thought about this whole monster process, I tried not to let them down. When I got really excited and the sentences and thoughts were falling out of me as if from "machine gun", #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka") interrupted me with a sentence that completely took the wind out of my sails - "Sir, could you properly put a mask on?” Thanks to the mask that tightly wrapped around my chin, you couldn't see how my jaw dropped under it.

So I put on the mask as a sample according to Mr. Prymula's recommendation and tried to follow up on the broken wet thread. When I was getting into the caliber again, she repeated her attempt to throw me off. My sister must have understood from my expression that in the nearest moment I would throw myself across the table and the whole mediation effort would end even before it properly began, and with the calmness of a lawyer she turned to her: Doctor, if you feel that you could have been infected by us, so feel free to move your stool further.

There was a moment of awkward silence, accompanied only by the shifting of her chair. When she finally settled down, I was unable to simply continue my speech. Even now, I feel sorry for Mr. Mediator, who had to maintain the dignity of the situation and not laugh.

#LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka"), sitting on a chair in the middle of a large room about 3-4 meters from us, her lawyer sitting and listening at our table and me - speaking loudly to her from this distance - it really felt very comically.

When I finished, Mr. Mediator tried to summarize for us all the main ideas of my speech. The fact that #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka") disagreed with my arguments was to be expected. I was surprised that she didn't understand what I was talking about at all. She probably wasn't even listening to me. Otherwise, I can't understand how she could summarise my speech in these simple sentences - we really didn't deserve this from you", "we wouldn't have expected this from you" and "you disappointed us a lot".

Then she got to speak.

With the mask properly fitted just below her bloodshot eyes (probably from getting up early, with the edge of her dignity and sitting in the middle of the large room, this time she launched herself into me. After the introductory sentences in the spirit already described above and after the learned phrases about Radio ГA / ГA, I internally turned it off. I began to have the unrelenting feeling that the trip to this beautiful city was a waste of time and money for us, that we would never agree with them, and that it was only a game on their part.

As I was thinking about her in this way, my sister leaned over and whispered something in my ear.

At that moment, the red rag was thrown and #LA("Dr. Leklá Andělka") got into us and started lecturing us exasperatedly. That it is rude, that when she speaks, we should listen to her!

Since I wasn't used to being educated by such a morally anchored pedagogue in my then almost sixty years of age, I just stared blankly and didn't have the mask on at the time, I would certainly have looked like a "retard" at that moment.

Again, my sister saved the situation and, with her calmness, answered her with regret in her voice - ...then we must be rude".

When we both finished our monologues, the mediator turned to us to share our ideas for a settlement.

Because the opposing party had already known our ideas since January 2021, which I also documented in writing before the meeting, he was surprised by the reaction of #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka"), who said that we should again propose a settlement method.

He was visibly unprepared for such a thing, so he reminded them that mediation is about mutual assessment of proposals and finding a common consensus.

That it is not about one side only making proposals and the other only rejecting them, saying that they definitely want to come to an agreement.

The opposing party had to accept this argument.

Since they didn't have their "independent" judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá") here, who would be the only one capable of tipping the scales of justice in the right direction, after about a minute of silence they both asked for 10 minute break for a meeting outside the office door.

We wondered what they were doing behind that door. We imagined them burning wires all the way to Washington and pulling someone from USAGM out of bed, or consulting with someone "up there", like #KF("Kristina Fšetko"). Or that a friend on the phone would advise #JH ("Dr. Hustá")?

Our gray brain cells were in full blast, preparing responses to the possible scenarios that would come with them as soon as the door opened.

What are we able to accept? That was probably our most common thought.

When they didn't come even after 15 minutes of waiting and we worriedly discussed with the mediator whether something had happened to them behind the door, God forbid, or if by chance they didn't run away from this meeting, at the request of the mediator the door was finally opened, and so our mediation the negotiations could proceed to their quick finale.

And what was their proposal, for which we trudged across half the country, took time off, paid for PCR tests, for diesel, and for which we had to wait almost 4 months?

After they settled down at a safe distance from us, Mr. Advocate #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") finally took the floor with a serious voice.

That they considered their proposal for a long time, that it is a huge bag of money for poor Radio ГA / ГA, so I shouldn't expect more than 3 months' salary from them. And that it is said to be a decent amount for dismissal due to redundancy, the second of the righteous duo, #LA ("Dr. Leklá Andělka") added to the lawyer.

The mediator's question, whether we agree with this proposal, was rather just to keep the conversation going and for him to fulfill his duty. He knew from the documents that they had already come up with similar ideas in January 2021, so he didn't even mentally break us down.

I only remember that in response to their wonderful proposal, the last few verses of the song "Song of the Unknown Soldier" by Karel Kryl flashed through my head.

How much are they paying you for this idea?

You'd rather be snoring with bitches!

What are you telling me? Would I go again? Like?

Are you waiting for an answer? Shit, yeah, shit!”

So we drove home again with nothing done.

Anyway, at home when evaluating the results of this trip to Brno, we clearly came to the conclusion that Radio ГA / ГA is not interested in reconciliation and that they are only playing for time and our nerves. That they will try to scare us, intimidate us and financially exhaust us with similar actions. After all, it is known that RESOURCES ARE, as the communists used to say on similar occasions.

However, they kicked back a bit more - they finally showed that the described reasons for my resignation were only a pretext for my immediate dismissal due to so-called redundancy.

And so, after returning from the meeting on 18/05/2021, we sent the HR department of Radio ГА / ГA the following evaluation of the work of their parliamentarians:

So I decided to definitely put down the imaginary gloves and start fighting with their means and rules. But we didn't know how dirty they were back then.

We were only halfway there and our destination was out of sight. I was preparing for a thorough inspection of the files, listening to the recordings and for another court hearing that awaited us in the next 4 months.

But more on that next time, if there is one.

Money or justice?

The year came together and the old COVID year 2020 continued freely with the COVID year 2021. I successfully passed the trial period in a new company that was so modernly different in terms of size, work content and management leadership. I suddenly had the opportunity to work with technologies and systems that I could only read about on the web until then. My son, when he found out about where I was accepted after the "selection", just commented dryly - "Dad, if you don't like it there, you can leave at any time, now is the time, but I would stay there at least because of the CV". And so I ended up staying there for exactly one year.

But what about our fights with windmills?

After the last meeting with Judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá") in June 2020, we understood that the fight to clear one's name will be a tough and merciless fight. I was willing to accept at the time that our legal views might not logically coincide with those of the opposing side, but still armed with our naive belief in elementary fairness, we embarked on another year of fighting Radio ГА / ГA and its associated "independent" legal machinery .

As mentioned in previous posts, we invoked justice in two independent actions, referred to for simplicity as the "nullification of termination" action and the "anti-discrimination" action, each with its own unique number and associated docket. In particular, the latter lawsuit visibly broke the prepared script (described as template here) of this righteous trio, and therefore they decided to keep silent from the beginning. A possible proof of their efforts is the fact that the burden of proof is different for each of the above-mentioned types of lawsuits (once on the defendant and once on the plaintiff) and it is not permissible to combine them. But we are already getting on very fragile professional legal ice.

A typical example of their collaboration was a summons for a court hearing in the matter of a discrimination claim on 5/1/2021, which was marked with the number of the claim for the invalidity of the notice and, of course, as already has become customary in "anti-discrimination" lawsuits, with the address of the defendant modified. This is only so that both cases can be decided by the same court panel, i.e. the same judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá") (described in detail here). Visibly, this brilliant idea was gratefully accepted by the defence attorneys of the defendants #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") and #LA ("Leklá Andělka"), who copied this system in their next communication with us, even though we unsuccessfully protested against it "on all stations". They just didn't give up the idea of merging both lawsuits into a single one and traditionally crystal clear to "win" in the resulting dispute.

But let's first devote a few sentences to the dry theory, which I will refer to in my post today and which I will try to explain without paragraphs.

During the court proceedings, the judge announced a 30-day period for concentration, which is a certain statutory "stop status" ", in which the parties to the proceedings can enter decisive facts about the matter itself and mark the evidence to prove them. The court (with exceptions) does not consider the evidence and facts mentioned later.

But the funny thing is that after announcing the concentration of proceedings, the judge suddenly decided to mediation meeting, which actually logically interrupted the concentration, we thought. We believed that in preparation for mediation and while waiting for its date, neither party would offer additional evidence to the opposing party in order to additionally prepare for mediation. So, if you end up in a similar situation, think of this tactical move of theirs, which they subsequently used with another unlucky judge against Radio ГA / ГA.

Another principle is that an audio recording and finally a protocol are taken from the meeting, which become an important item of every court file. After all, there is one more to the party after that, and she is the recorder (that is, if the judge herself does not take notes during the hearing). However, one rule applies here – if there is a contradiction between the audio recording and the written protocol, the audio recording logically takes precedence as evidence.

One of the most important things in all court proceedings is the issuing of instructions by the judge to individual parties to the dispute, especially in disputes where one of the parties is represented only by a representative, and not by a lawyer, thus a priori pulling the short rope . This representative can be anyone in this type of dispute, and it's up to you whether you choose your favorite bricklayer, butcher, or feisty lady from your favorite shop for these purposes. Probably the most important lesson is the possibility of objecting to the bias of the judge(judges) to whom the case belongs according to the work schedule. In order to prevent the abuse of objections of bias only for delays in the proceedings, the participant is obliged to file an objection at the latest at the first meeting attended by the judge whose exclusion is in question, or even at the next stage of the proceedings, but no later than 15 days from the day when he learned about the reason for the judge's exclusion. At any time during the proceedings, a party to the proceedings may raise an objection of bias, if the court did not properly instruct the party about the right to comment on the persons of the judges who, according to the work schedule, discussed and decided their case.

As it can be seen from the audio recording, this instruction was presented only for the party #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") and only he did not apply his objection for its bias. In the written protocol, however, there is "not a single word" about this, on the contrary, it is stated that no one objected to the bias of the judge. The importance of this omission of hers is also evidenced by his effort to fight for the judge at the Court of Appeal to the point of tearing his body apart with the argument that it was not the case and, waving a protocol from the file, figuratively asked her to scratch behind her ear. That it would rely on the fact that no one will just get involved in listening to audio recordings?

So the question arises - did we expect a different scenario?

Actually, not back then.

So let's address the discrepancies between the audio recordings, presented in this post of mine as their textual transcriptions, and the official written protocol that became part of the files. Since Judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá") creatively and out of the blue, as was her custom, expanded the original topic of the court proceedings to include discrimination and proceedings on the invalidity of the statement, we present both transcripts.

So please be lenient with me and if you want to make me happy, please at least "like" my several hours of work listening and transcribing the events as they happened on that January day. It wasn't a pleasant listen at all, even after so long, believe me. Therefore, let my mother tongue be heard here, at least in a few sentences, performed by my sister, who fought hard here in an unequal battle for the purification of my name.

So far, we were still fed bread and we were even offered the prospect of a sweet candy to go with it.

The fact that we did not want to see or taste this sugar of theirs at the time resulted in a whip in the form of "speak Czech" and "we are in the Czech Republic, so Czech will be spoken here". When my sister subsequently tried, quite successfully, to speak Czech, she got the answer - "speak Czech slowly to write it down". As a result, I think that this whole "monster process" and the way it was conducted by this peripheral arm of justice ultimately led to my decision to apply for Slovak citizenship additionally.

After the initial introduction of the performers

so let's go to the individual transcripts.

1. Action against discrimination

Prepis - diskriminace - 05.01.2021.pdf

Download PDF • 144KB

As can be seen from the audio recording, I did not attend the court proceedings and was excused by the nurse, which is true, as I was sitting at work on the afternoon shift. In the protocol in the file, however, it is stated that I was there.

With the passage of time, it is thus possible to see the main reasons for their efforts to change the address of the defendant in a lawsuit against discrimination. This was a lawsuit that none of them had had experience with in the past and they desperately needed to catch time. Actually, it wasn't so much about time as it was about "making it difficult" for us. Even though #MV ("Mr. Prasátko") was equipped with power of attorney figuratively "for everything", he could always buy time by waiting for approval from some fictional boss in Washington. It was easier with us - the nurse had my power of attorney and my full trust.

Another common colour of all negotiations was again the inexorable effort of the two justices to combine the two lawsuits into a single one. It was a small satisfaction when listening again, to hear their inexpert floundering about a problem they do not understand at all and how they are trying to rewrite my lawsuit in their image at the last minute. The fact that a would-be impartial judge feels the immense need to help the professional lawyer of the defendant against the common "scumbag" and their proxy is exactly the parody of justice that we always perceived from this meeting until the last judgment.

As a beautiful example of expertise in this matter was her claim that the plaintiff in particular finds discrimination in the different approach of competition and lobbying between Barracuda Networks and Microsoft. Honestly, when I first heard this, I just rolled my eyes and said, "God, can you see that?" and tried not to think about it. She probably understood it in the way that Barracuda threatened me in the form of a predatory fish, and that made me feel discriminated against as a Microsoft administrator. Otherwise I can't explain it at all. Our 30 pages of reasons and attachments didn't work at all?

I will definitely come back to this "bright idea" of hers in one of my next posts. To make you believe that it actually happened and that it appeared in her final judgment. Every time I read or listen to it, I think of the well-known replica of MUDr. Štrosmajer "about a dove" from the popular series from a hospital stories.

Since we live in the Czech Republic, and even though I don't believe that any of you would envy me to go through this "martyrdom" and not take the "grumpy 10 salaries" for it after 15 years of work at the end of my productive life, I present this well-known argument, when OKD employees walked away after signing the agreement with 11 salaries according to the duration of their employment.

2. Action for annulment of notice

Prepis - proti vypovedi 5.1.2021.pdf

Download PDF • 122KB

The fight in the spirit of "we will trample the nasty worm" and get rid of it, continued from the run and at a fast pace to the next point discussed, until the moment when the recording was forcibly stopped by the judge. If things don't go well, we will figuratively wring his neck as during "Bolshevik" era, especially let it be with his blessing and only from the seemingly distant "Washington". At that time, we still naively believed it, and to be honest - after personal experiences when important management decisions were avoided or delegated to someone "else" (whether in reality or only in appearance) - we were not surprised by this delegation of responsibility to someone else at all.

Apropos, to this day there is a rumour going around in Radio ГA / ГA that no one knows who actually fired me from my job. If I ignore the fact that miracles simply don't happen after a certain of a person age and that normally an ordinary woman is not able to give birth without conception, in my case the notice was signed by #KF("Kristina Fšetko").

However, the efforts of #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") not to seek consensus through a fictitious approver led to one of their very important kicks.

The last of the trio of righteous #LA ("Leklá Andělka") already accompanied the lawyer to all other meetings, who took the whole thing as her "party task", one would say in the terminology of the previous regime. Perhaps this was her way of increasing her visibility in the "food chain" of Radio ГА / ГA, where until then, thanks to her abilities, she was rather pitiful to the other employees and was taken as a backup third-fiddle choir member. Let this be confirmed by the fact that the parallel legal proceedings with another employee of Radio ГА / ГА are already taking place outside of her interest.

And so, in the role of a useful idiot, she declared her "jihad" against us from this day on.

Will it be done or will it be undone? How many people have had to deal with the same dilemma in this case, do you remember the previous posts?

As you can see from the audio transcript, it was an uneven fight from the beginning and I am still grateful to my sister for putting up with them and teasing me properly.

I always told her that I couldn't imagine ever sitting there alone against them. They would probably have taken me out of the courtroom after a few minutes, with a financial account burdened with several fines for contempt of court, which they apparently relied on, according to one of the next audio recordings, and for bodily harm to those sitting closest to me. Although I bravely attended other meetings in the spirit of "you have to live through your own hell", I did so only thanks to heavy doses of magnesium and Lexaurin. And also thanks to the fact that I was motivated by a simple rule - because it's not done and they just can't get away with it that easily.

We were only at the beginning of the pivotal year 2021.

We were waiting for the answer from "Mrs Columba" from Washington, i.e. from #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko"), we were preparing for possible mediation, as #JH ("Dr. Hustá") might order for the next her scheduled court hearings - and most importantly, to fight with other windmills.

We felt more and more intensely, that something interesting was waiting for us in the files (even between the lines), in the audio recordings that no one listens to, in the monitoring of the website and in the information obtained according to the law on free access to information.

We were still prepared to meet, come to a reasonable agreement and honor our commitment to refrain from any public publicity.

So let me conclude by borrowing one thought from a certain unnamed attorney with whom we met later that year and discussed possible representation. It was at a time when we were already exceptionally losing the remnants of illusions and were preparing our "appeal" to a superior court.

This little man was sympathetic to me because of his sense of reality, and especially because, as one of the few approached, he "had time" for our possible legal representation against Radio ГA / ГA. Unfortunately, he demanded money for his representation, unlike the representative of the opposing party with their unlimited resources from the money of American taxpayers #UTP("US Tax payer").

Even now I get chills at those words:

So do you want money or justice?

Then sometime next time, if there is one.

Everything can be bought

When I last browsed through "our site", I was alerted that we haven't published any useful article for you for a long time. So let me share with you one computer security article this time that might seem a bit "out of the box" to you in the context of the Radio ГА / ГА website. Never mind, I'll try anyway, and even if you don't speak my tribe's language, I'll try to make you think in a simple way about how valuable your digital wealth can be, how and what you can lose from it, especially in case when you don't take care.

Digital assets and digital heritage include, for example:

Since this area is very broad and, as you can see, very diverse, I will focus on the first one, i.e. the area of email accounts. After all, the events described in many of our previous posts prove that since I should have the most experience with them, thanks to the position of "Chief Postman".

According to an article on "BLEEPINGCOMPUTER.COM", on the dark web here are automated e-shops that offer business e-mail accounts for about 2 US bucks each. These e-shops are increasingly selling stolen corporate email addresses to meet the growing demand from hackers who use them to compromise business emails and for phishing attacks or to gain initial access to networks.

Among the most active webmail e-shops are "Xleet" and "Lufix", which claim to offer access to more than 100,000 stolen corporate e-mail accounts for between $2 and $30, depending on the reputation of the organisation .

These accounts were usually stolen through password cracking (via a password generator), credential disclosure, phishing, or purchase from other cybercriminals.

Sales of corporate email access have reportedly remained steady in cybercrime over the past few years, since hacker forums are selling compromised email accounts as a sort of 'combo', with the final price set at "package" as a whole.

The image below shows a recent case where a ransomware vendor called "Everest" allegedly offered $15,000 to access the email accounts of an aircraft manufacturing company.

Mass and individual offers involve a lengthy process of negotiation with the seller, and the risk of the currentness of the offered data thus increases, including the demand.

This is what has created the need for automated webmail shops such as "Xleet", "Odin", "Xmina" and "Lufix" that allow cyber criminals to easily purchase access to email accounts of their exact choice. Basically such a regular e-shop.

The entire sale takes place simply by electronic communication via a computer keyboard, and payment is made due to a lack of tracking in digital currency.

In the image below, it can be seen that the transaction takes place also by means of immediate verification of access to the offered e-mail, or via the display of a screenshot from the attacked mailbox of the unfortunate person's account. It's just that a hacker doesn't buy a rabbit with ones money.

The seller is identified each time only as "seller" with a number. The red "Check" button is simply flawless.

Of course, the most attractive offers on these e-shops are Office 365 accounts, which account for almost half of all listed webmails. This is followed by email hosting providers such as "cPanel", "GoDaddy" and "Ionos".

Sellers in these stores do not use their nicknames, but hide behind names generated by a system that assigns them numbers. The "Odin" store offers additional seller details such as number of items sold, total sales and user ratings.

He can simply come to some "action" and "discount". There is also an average rating ("Average Rating"), so it is possible to choose between sellers with the "best reputation".

How did #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") say it during the court hearing?

"Today, almost no one uses the system you managed. Everyone uses Office 365 and it's the most modern one.”

As #RC ("Remotely Controlled") used to say - I was simply "legacy".

The "Odin" and "Xleet" stores also specify how email accesses were gained, categorising these methods as - "hacked", "cracked", "logged" or "newly created". However, the majority (98%) in "Xleet" are either "hacked" or "cracked".

Logged" are email credentials stolen by malicious malware (malicious software) that steals this information when logging into the system without the attacker's knowledge, while "created" are new email accounts that attackers created in the attacked company using compromised administrator accounts.

On the latter category, I'll just make a small note - this type of global admin account compromise was used here on that famous October day (please not to be confused with the "Great October Revolution"of the summer of 2019) by the hacker group #STRONTIUM, controlled by the Russian GRU.

For the forgetful or for those new to visiting here, I refer to the article "OMG, WTF and the rest" here .

The rise of these markets can be prevented by forcing regular changes (resets) of passwords for all services and platforms so that potentially compromised credentials are useless to these criminal individuals. Also, using strong (longer) passwords and training users to identify phishing emails should help significantly reduce these threats.

While reading these basic security recommendations, I remember the closing speech of the righteous couple of #JH ("Dr. Hustá") and #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko"), who at that time were fitted in role of IT specialists for computer security themselves. Reading my judgment they evaluated passwords reset as something which was not crucial recommendation and as insufficient.

That the lady judge called a good moment phishing" with the word "bushing still brings a convulsive smile to my face.

Although probably the compromised Radio ГА / ГA accounts did not end up on any of those famous e-shops, these events here led to the strengthening of computer security and to internal extensive organisational changes (which is certainly a very positive thing).

In October 2019 the money was not flowing. It was all about politics.