Doing Away with Confucius Institutes

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has issued a report which says in part that "In the last 15 years, the Chinese government has opened more than 100 Confucius Institutes at U.S. universities and, through those, more than 500 Confucius Classrooms teaching students in kindergarten through 12th grade."  It further goes on to make an unusual recommendation - do away with all of them, or get reciprocity from China.  Now, they are unlikely to get reciprocity because China would never allow the U.S. to open facilities to teach English and espouse the merits of the US political system.  

This is the first recommendation by a government agency to look more closely at these "education centers" and get them under control.  Some schools that had them did away with them, but many have not.  They get paid to have them in their midst.  Does any College board think this is a good idea?  Come on guys....

Russia Announces "New Targets" for Nukes

Russia is playing a transparent game when it announces it will target the Pentagon and Camp David - among others - because the US is going to allow medium range missiles to move into Europe.  I used to be stationed at Frances E. Warren in Cheyenne Wyoming.  There are a lot of missiles in the ground around there and they were targeted by the Russians.  We know that because 60 Minutes did an interview with the Russians at one of their missile sites and asked them where the particular missile they were looking at was targeted.  The General looked up and said "Frances E. Warren Air Force Base".  We always knew we were a target, but having someone point it out is more personal.

Does anyone doubt that Russians target the Pentagon?  Why announce it?  This game allows Putin to make this kind of threat without doing much of anything else.  Free deterrence.  Pressure on Europe to not allow missiles in their countries.

What we found after the Cold War was over was that the Russians did not have as many missiles as we thought, and they weren't as reliable as we might have believed.  The problem with that kind of bluff is that it makes believing them again more difficult.

Truism from Lengthy Report

For those following the UK report on social media, part of the report reads this way:  "

This proliferation of online harms is made more dangerous by focusing specific messages on individuals as a result of ‘micro-targeted messaging’—often playing on and distorting people’s negative views of themselves and of others. This distortion is made even more extreme by the use of ‘deepfakes’, audio and videos that look and sound like a real person, saying something that that person has never said. As we said in our Interim Report, these examples will only become more complex and harder to spot, the more sophisticated the software becomes." 

When people get their news from Facebook, friends, and a biased national media, the tailoring of news to fit a narrative is easier to do.  If the real story does not fit the facts, bend the facts and make new ones. 

We once made a picture of our boss with the Russian President's arm around him.  We circulated it around and eventually he saw it.  About the same time, some guys at Headquarters saw it and went ballistic.  They didn't see the humor in having a Defense Department leader shown in this light.  We thought they were just being funny until we found out they didn't know the picture was a fake.  We thought it was obvious, but that was 25 years ago. 

Data Sharing - With or without your permission

The new Facebook saga is going to be bad for them.  The Wall Street Journal exposed data sharing even when you don't have a Facebook account, and even when you specifically say you don't want to share sensitive data.  This is going to get Congressional attention in a way that is unavoidable and will cause a reaction that will take Facebook, Google and whatever other companies they can identify in its wake.  On one like this, Congress says "do something" even if it is the wrong thing and likely over the top in its application.  Nobody will care this time.  Congress and the EU have tolerated more from social media than they would on almost any other group.  Facebook needs to get it in the neck over this one.

Russia Backs Messaging to US Millennials

A CNN report shows the connections between another messaging campaign directed at the US and Russia.  The online videos are connected to "Maffick Media, a company whose majority stakeholder is Ruptly, a subsidiary of RT, which is funded by the Russian government."  This is pretty much routine stuff for the Russians, but it shows they do not stop when discovered. 

UK Facebook (and other Electronic Media) Report

The UK released its report on Facebook et al and it did make a splash in the press.  I think the press is missing the point of all of this because they didn't read the report;  they just read the results of the Facebook discussions.  They missed the point:

"This proliferation of online harms is made more dangerous by focussing specific messages on individuals as a result of ‘micro-targeted messaging’—often playing on and distorting people’s negative views of themselves and of others. This distortion is made even more extreme by the use of ‘deepfakes’, audio and videos that look and sound like a real person, saying something that that person has never said. As we said in our Interim Report, these examples will only become more complex and harder to spot, the more sophisticated the software becomes."

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf

US to buy Iron Dome from Israel

I saw an article the other day that made me stop.  I was about the US buying the Iron Dome which is a missile defense system developed to work mostly against short-range missiles, the other side of missile defense that we don't hear much about.    The Israelis developed it out of necessity, but they had an abundance of technology that came from Arrow, their ballistic missile interceptor.   Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries are the developers, so not all of that work comes from Israel, though they like to make it seem like that.  Boeing claims the lead on that team. 

One of the most irritating things about the Israeli missile program is its seeming ability to tout its missile systems over those of its partners, mostly the US.  They used to downplay the Patriot all the time and try to show how much better their missile systems were than ours, irritating those who were working with them.  They do make enhancements to anything they get from outside Israel, but Iron Dome is a good deal more than just an enhancement.  I would just like to know that they are not selling us something we paid for some of the research to develop. 

China Trade Deficit Up

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has a new report that show the deficit and a number of other trade issues affecting our deficit with China.  Well worth reading. 

Cuba, Iran and its Hezbollah in Venezuela

Secretary Pompeo was on Fox Business last night talking about the influence of Iran and Cuba in South America, especially Venezuela.  We could do without Iran in our back yard, because Cuba and China are enough trouble.  China has been lingering and talking to Middle and South American countries that can help them make Taiwan part of China.  They could care less, but must say something if the money is right.  Huawei can help build infrastructures at reduced rates, and public service activities abound. 

Socialists stick together.  The Chinese and Cuba are the only ones in this group that call themselves Communist.  They are working together with Russia to undermine democracy in as many places in the world as they can.  Once elected, a socialist government won't willingly go.  It rigs elections, harasses political opposition members, undermines democratic election processes, controls the courts, nationalizes the major industries, and hands out money until it bankrupts itself, a familiar story all over the world.  Then, they bring in their military, augmented by terrorists, to keep order.  Oh, then they try to say how democratic they are. 

I never thought I would see a day when we would have to worry about that in the United States, but it seems that day is here.  If we look behind the curtain, Russia, China, Iran and some of their allies are behind it.  Our own intelligence services are trying to tell us something but nobody in the political system is listening. 

A Different Kind of Harvest

Benedict Rogers had an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today scared me.  It was about the statistics on Chinese organ harvesting at various hospitals verses the actual figures posted by the central government.  Can you really get two livers (one for a backup) in 24 hours?  The people waiting on lists in the U.S. must wonder what we are doing wrong to have to wait months for a liver transplant, when the Chinese can do it so fast. 

And here we get to an interesting cultural difference between countries.  Can doctors do organ removal on a perfectly healthy individual?  Yes, in both countries that has to happen for kidneys and things we can live without.  But, do we believe a doctor can do a removal of organs from a person who does not consent to the removal?  That is a much different question and one, that in the deep recesses of our mind, we don't really want to answer. 

Add Czechs to Huawei Banning list

For a quick read on what led to Huawei being banned from bidding on some Czech infrastructure check out this article in the Wall Street Journal.  Remember when this was big news? 

Students Stealing Secrets

CNN reports the Director of National Intelligence is telling us that China is using students in the US to steal technology.  That would be interesting if it hadn't been going on for more than 40 years, and it is much harder to do anything about than "being aware" would suggest.  That doesn't do much.

We used to be concerned about the Russians being in schools, taking engineering courses and getting access to source materials that were export restricted.  The Chinese were already here then, at least at the University of Wisconsin where I was.  They were working in our computer department (such that it was) and in the computer test labs where much of the research was going on.  When I started doing Industrial Security inspections in that area when I was older, I already knew what to look for.

A professor cannot decide which of his students get what material.  Most of them don't even think about that when the classes are small and the courses are advanced.  You cannot give an assignment to a student and say to that person, "You can't take that book because it has a lot of export restricted material in it. You can't go this plant we are visiting because there is proprietary information on the assembly line."  One of the professors invited me to a class and told me to tell him when there was material our foreign students were not allowed to have.  Even if you know the subject well, and I didn't know advanced networks all that well, it was impossible to tell.

It was possible to keep those students from working on sensitive research that was funded by the Federal government, providing they had the clauses in the contract that banned it.  Most didn't.  That is a US problem, not the students'.  Those were Vietnam War days and we didn't want Russian and Chinese knowing where our advanced research was going to be used over there.  We have more to worry about these days.

Many of those students go on to jobs in this country, encouraged by business leaders who want cheap, highly qualified labor.  Can you blame them?  They get work permits and remain.  Now you have foreign business people with ties to their home country working right in the places where they shouldn't be.  But they are cheap labor, don't forget.  These business people work with Chinese, Russian, Iranian, et al businesses, some set up just to handle all the data these people can send back.  Yes, some of them are recruited into spying, but most are not.  Even when not, they are working with people who are.  It is difficult to separate the motivations of a working person, but we allow it because the price is right.

And last, the Chinese especially are becoming US citizens though a number of illegal programs that allow them to come to the US to birth babies, grow businesses that give them EB-5 visas, and just wait out our long and tedious system made more complicated by the number of illegal immigrants in the US.  It must be frustrating for them to wait. Being a US citizen wipes away most of the difficulties they have getting into more sensitive areas where real secrets are kept.  I did see last week that the Department of Energy has finally taken action on having foreign nationals work at their labs.  where have they been?

There are a lot of things that need to be cleaned up to stop tech transfers here in the US.  It is harder in China where businesses still think it is a good idea to swap technology for commercial business, a strategy that fails in the long term.  Long after the Board is retired.

I told you it was complicated, and that is not the half of it.

Iran in Indonesia

When the US Director of National Intelligence said there were several countries trying to influence the mid-term elections in the US, he mentioned Russia, China, and Iran (and some others not named).  So, when Facebook started to find Iranian accounts in Indonesia that were employing "coordinated inauthentic behavior"  it was not a surprise to anyone but Indonesians who had been looking at those accounts.  But there is more to this story than that.

The company being investigated there is Saracen, which was said to have been servicing various clients who wanted to make news, one way or another.  It affected Indonesia in the run-up to Indonesia's national election.  Reuters is reporting that a police official in Indonesia said "there is no evidence that Saracen actually exists."  The Guardian says these accounts were linked to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and were not just Facebook.  Twitter was removing accounts as well.

I went to the Digital Forensic Research Lab post, referenced by the Guardian, and it is good reading.  For Facebook there were 250,000 followers of these pages and 15,000,000 engagements.  In at least one case, the pages were removed previously by Facebook and were restored by the original source.  Most of the page managers were in Iran, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.  There was no mention of Russia or Venezuela, though the source material may have come from those countries. 

Fake companies, attempts to influence the national elections, setting up groups that were issue oriented.  Where have we heard about this before?  Either Iran is using the Russian playbook so often quoted in discussions about Russian Information War, or the Russians and the Chinese who have been working together on this,  have gotten help in their program to influence national elections wherever they can.

Big Trouble for Boeing

I wonder if Boeing can stand the heat with a Democratic House Financial Services Committee (FSC).  I previously described the situation that had Boeing accused of selling a satellite to China, which our export laws prohibit.  That was worth investigating and the SEC is taking that on.  That is probably not the only investigation going on there, but there is not much discussion of the others. 

Enter the ranking member of the FSC who want to "a firm with connections to the Chinese government may have used a complex financing arrangement in an attempt to skirt U.S. export controls related to national security" says the Wall Street Journal.   That will mean they better get some pretty good answers or they will be testifying in front of a committee run by that famous Congresswoman, Maxine Waters.  It so happens that a large portion of the world's satellites are made in Maxine Waters' Congressional district.  Perhaps she will help Boeing by providing advice on how they should deal with this case.