A new aspect of yesterday’s shipwreck off the coast of Palermo, Sicily is brought to light by Politico, as it reports extensively on the connections of the billionaire “Britain Bill Gates”, Mike Lynch, who was recovered dead, with American and British secret services.
So the recent shipwreck off the coast of Palermo, Sicily may have shocked the world in itself, but the case took on a special interest with the news that Leeds, a British-Irish technology tycoon, had been recovered dead.
And while there is no suspicion of foul play and climatologists are talking of bad weather leading to the Bayesian wreck, the death of Mike Lynch’s partner Stephen Chamberlain in a car accident further complicates the case, raising the question of whether there is more to it. by a “mere coincidence”.
The members of the company Darktrace were former secret service officials
Leeds co-founded Darktrace with former British intelligence officials in 2013 after selling software company Autonomy in 2011. The company was created to fight cyberattacks, using software that learns the behavior patterns of each actor in a organization and detecting any unusual activity.
One of the co-founders was Stephen Huxter, a senior officer in MI5’s cyber defense team who became Darktrace’s chief executive. Huxter then, according to Politico, hired 30-year GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) veteran Andrew France as the company’s chief executive – who later joined the board.
Lynch served on the board until 2018, when he resigned after being accused of fraud.
In addition, former MI5 chief Jonathan Evans also served on Darktrace’s board for a time, while Jim Penrose, a 17-year veteran of the US National Security Agency, headed the company’s activities involving partnerships with USA. Other ex-spies at the company included technology director Dave Palmer, who previously worked for MI5 and GCHQ, and security director John Richardson, who worked in cyber defense for the UK government.
Leeds connections with secret services since 1996
Leeds’ connections to the intelligence world predate Darktrace.
His first company Cambridge Neurodynamics, which specializes in computerized fingerprint recognition, had contracts with British intelligence, Politico reports.
Lynch spun Autonomy out of Neurodynamics in 1996. The company, which Chamberlain joined in 2005, used machine learning to analyze data from sources such as intercepted phone calls and emails.
Autonomy has also won high-profile tenders from UK and US government agencies, including a contract to provide infrastructure to the US Homeland Security Office to analyze intelligence in the post-9/11 war on terror.
The company also reportedly held other contracts with US government agencies, including the military, NASA and US intelligence agencies. GCHQ and MI6 are also believed to have been her clients. Also, Richard Pearl, a former Pentagon appointee, served as one of the company’s directors.
The fraud charges
Leeds has been in the headlines for the past few months due to a high-profile fraud case. According to Sky News, on June 15 he was acquitted by a US court of all charges related to the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He was extradited to the US to stand trial in May last year and spent 13 months under house arrest in San Francisco as he awaited trial on 17 counts of conspiracy and fraud – later reduced to 15 – brought against him by the US Department of Justice .
Lynch was accused by HP of artificially inflating the value of Autonomy, a business he founded and ran, before it was acquired by the US technology company. He denied any wrongdoing.
Stephen Chamberlain was also accused of the same offences. Chamberlain, was the former vice president of finance at Autonomy. Before his trial in the US, he was also the former chief operating officer of Darktrace.
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