Russians Deny the Obvious

The Russians seem to stick to stories that are impossible to believe to support denials of their covert operations. 

It was like a reminder today when David Satter had an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that reminded us that the Dutch have not forgotten about MH17, the commercial airliner shot down by Russians. The operators brought over a Buk launcher and took it back to Russia after they did the deed.  The Dutch are now indicting four people for murder and two of them are going to be real hard to prosecute:  "The defendants include Igor Girkin, “defense minister” of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a Russian-backed Ukrainian separatist movement; and Sergei Dubinsky, head of the separatists’ intelligence service..." That didn't stop the Dutch from pushing for the indictment (technically, it is a joint task force but the Dutch lead it).  

The whole thing took place in 2014, and with the news cycle the way it is, almost anybody who followed the story has forgotten about it already.  The rest of the world wants to forget about it but the families of those killed and a few governments won't let it go.  We should listen to them.  

This was at a time when the Russians had a story ready to explain this away within minutes of the aircraft going down.  When that story didn't work very well, they tried a couple of others including one that said it was a Ukrainian jet shooting at Putin's aircraft passing its way.  The Dutch had hard evidence and took almost two years to complete an investigation.  By that time, most of the world's web readers had forgotten why this report was written.  By the time a case is brought (if they can issue warrants and find these guys crossing a border somewhere there is extradition) it will be years more.  It doesn't matter how long it takes.  

The Russians are accountable for this and deny any involvement.  It was a covert operation gone bad.  The cover stories were preposterous and the visible and audible evidence was pointing in a direction the Russians denied.  Their plausible deniability went out the window, but they stuck to stories that were unbelievable.  Russian involvement in foreign elections has followed the same model with the same result.  The Germans, French, and U.S. are pretty unhappy with the Russians and rightfully so.  They are sticking to denials that are incredible.  

APT 10 Did Not Go Away

Several news outlets carried stories about APT 10 getting into several (10) international carriers and using information about phone calls, locations et.al. to track specific individuals.  There even seemed to be surprise that this was going on. 

1.  APT 10 did not stop hacking when they were first identified nor when they were charged in U.S. courts.  As with most hackers, they just change pseudonyms and press on.  Most of them already use multiple on-line accounts anyway so it isn't much to switch to another one. 

2.  China has abused carriers to get similar information from places that used Chinese equipment, but now, with all the trade restrictions, that is harder.  There are many countries questioning buying Chinese network equipment (not just Huawei and ZTE).  It becomes more difficult, so they have to go about it a different way.  The Chinese have never been shy about changing tactics to get what they want. 

3.  The stories are not naming the telecoms and I wish they would.  I think we all want to know if our carrier is so bad at security that the Chinese can get root access into their systems.

4.  How many other countries are hacking the same carriers? 

Chinese Military

For those of you interested in the Chinese military, take a look at the latest panel done by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission last week,  There were a few items worth noting, not the least of which is the growing threat in the region from China's expanding military. 

https://www.uscc.gov/Hearings/%E2%80%98world-class%E2%80%99-military-assessing-china%E2%80%99s-global-military-ambitions

Cyber Attacks on Iran

There are several news outlets (like the Wall Street Journal U.S. Launched Cyberattacks on Iran, today) and the stories are all much the same.  The U.S. is said to have attacked Iran's military in retaliation for shooting down a drone. 

Vice President Pence said "We never comment on covert operations." That is a statement that comments about it even though his intent may have been to not comment on it.  If that is confusing, it is always best to say "no comment" or the old standby "we cannot confirm or deny the existence of any such event" which has been used forever.  Otherwise, other governments know it was a covert operation and can guess who might have done it. 

People in government talk too much. 

China's Alchemists Making Gold

When all else fails, sue.  Huawei, which has been mostly on the defensive since the Trump Administration went after them, has decided to bite the hand that feeds them.  Huawei claims Verizon has not paid it for over 200 patents it licenses.  However unlikely such a claim would be, the timing of it would almost certainly come up in any court in the U.S.  With that many involved, this had to have been going on for more than a year or so.  Huawei ignored it when it was in their interest, but now that companies are starting to exit some of their manufacturing, China decides to retaliate with legal action, thinly disguised as legitimate. 

This is a lesson for other companies who are pulling their operations out of China, a warning given by China, without specifics, last week.  Now we know.  They are going to grind all they can out of these companies with phony patents conjured up in the Chinese patent filing system which takes almost any claim and turns it into gold.  This is going to keep most of them in court for long enough to learn their lesson. 

Nobody is looking at the validity of Chinese patents from an intellectual property standpoint.  Many of those patents are stolen technology repurposed into a new use.  They are bogus.  Time for the rest of the world to take action and challenge some of those patents on the basis of their validity.