California Dreamin’

 So, can the Democrats pull the same stunt twice and make it work both times?  Probably not.  They managed to pull off the crime of the century with the riots surrounding George Floyd who was no more innocent than most of the criminals being rounded up by ICE right now.  This time, sentiment is not on their side because most people believe illegal immigrants who commit crimes should be exported as fast as can be.  Still the Democrats want to hang on, swimming upstream, carrying the weight of criminal illegals on their backs.  Eventually, they will not float anymore and the time seems to be approaching fast for them to sink.  

New Look at Recommendation Algorithms

 I wondered why China was cracking down on Recommendation algorithms and there was not much going on in the USA about the same thing.  If you have questions about what these are and how they work, see: https://towardsdatascience.com/introduction-to-recommender-systems-6c66cf15ada

The Chinese may be right to look more closely at these.  We are allowing tech companies to write recommendations for all of us on what movies, books, text, et al and we don't have any oversight of these products.  We have enough problems with deep fakes, biased search results, and manipulating where users fall on pages of searches that we don't need any more help with recommendations (or lack of recommendations) based on these tech giants deciding what books we would read, what articles are the most authoritative, or what sites are best for certain types of things like recommendations for Supreme Court Justices.  

We need some research, some of which will appear in my next book called Government Approved Opinion - about governments manipulating public opinion.  There needs to be much more.  

Open Border good for China

 

Anyone trying to figure out why an open border is good for China should read this report.  Besides the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country from all over the world, Fentanyl is coming faster than ever before, and is the reason given for many of the new deaths from opiods.     Today, the U.S.-China Commission released a new staff issue brief entitled, “Illicit Fentanyl from China: An Evolving Global Operation." Key Findings China remains the primary country of origin for illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States: In 2019, China fulfilled a pledge to the United States and placed all forms of fentanyl and its analogues on a regulatory schedule. Nevertheless, illicit fentanyl from China remains widely available in the United States. Chinese traffickers are using various strategies to circumvent new regulations, including focusing on chemical precursors, relocating some manufacturing to India, rerouting precursor shipments through third countries, and leveraging marketing schemes to avoid detection. China’s weak supervision and regulation of its chemical and pharmaceutical industry also enable evasion and circumvention. Since China’s government scheduled fentanyl, the amount of finished fentanyl shipped directly from China to the United States has declined, while the amount shipped from Mexico has increased: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) assesses Chinese traffickers have shifted from primarily manufacturing finished fentanyl to primarily exporting precursors to Mexican cartels, who manufacture illicit fentanyl and deliver the final product. U.S. law enforcement has seen a growing trend of Chinese nationals, in both Mexico and the United States, working with Mexican cartels. As Chinese suppliers coordinate more with international partners, the DEA is concerned that fentanyl production is becoming increasingly global and more difficult to track and control. Chinese brokers are laundering Mexican drug money through China’s financial system: Chinese money launderers are using financial technology, mobile banking apps, and social media to evade authorities. Cooperation between the United States and China remains limited: U.S. law enforcement agencies have established working groups, conducted high-level meetings, and shared information with their Chinese counterparts, which has led to the dismantling of a few illicit fentanyl networks. At the same time, U.S. authorities are reporting that cooperation remains limited on the ground. The Chinese government has cooperated less with U.S. authorities on criminal and money laundering investigations, conducting joint operations, and U.S. requests for inspections and law enforcement assistance.    Read the full report here.

Thank you,  Jameson Cunningham Congressional Affairs and Communications Director U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 202-624-1496

Verizon's Router

 I bought the 3100 router and started to configure it for IPv6.  It turns out that it isn't configurable as an IPv6 device, so I called them and asked why that is.  "Why is that important?" the tech says.  From Google:  Key benefits to IPv6 include:

No more NAT (Network Address Translation)

Auto-configuration.

No more private address collisions.

Better multicast routing.

Simpler header format.

Simplified, more efficient routing.

True quality of service (QoS), also called "flow labeling"

Built-in authentication and privacy support.

---- More important to me is that I buy a router I should have been given for free, since I have a gig internet package, but Verizon wants me to pay extra so I can get that service.  That makes no sense.  Then, I get the router which is an IPV6 device, but was never configured that way by the people who sold it to me.  What is going on with these people at Verizon?  

Privacy Anew in Virginia

 

Anyone who is a Virginia resident better read this.  

https://www.securityprivacyandthelaw.com/2021/07/virginias-new-data-privacy-law-an-uncertain-next-step-for-state-data-protection/

Virginia’s New Data Privacy Law: An Uncertain Next Step for State Data Protection

Illegal Fentanyl : Live and in person from China

 This month the US China Economic and Security Review Commission has published a good report on that dangerous drug Fentanyl that China seems to manufacture in bulk, just for the world to consume.  See https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/Illicit_Fentanyl_from_China-An_Evolving_Global_Operation.pdf. for the complete report.  

Stopping Huawei from their Infrastructure Grab.

 Dear Mr. Poindexter,

          Thank you for contacting me about S. 1260, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, formerly known as the Endless Frontier Act.

I was pleased to vote in favor of the bill when it passed the Senate on June 8, by a vote of 68-32.

The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 serves as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to solidify U.S. leadership in science and tech innovation, strengthen our national security, and reinvigorate American ingenuity.          

I am pleased to see Congress taking bipartisan action to shore up U.S. investment in the research, development, and manufacturing of critical technologies. Without intervention, China will continue to outpace and outperform us in the global technology race impacting our country’s economic well-being, our global influence, and our national security.

As Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I have long been sounding the alarm about the importance of supply chain security and the threat posed by state-directed 5G providers like Huawei.

That’s why this bill is so important. It includes funding for my bipartisan legislation, the Utilizing Strategic Allied (USA) Telecommunications Act, which fosters U.S. innovation in the race for 5G by providing $1.5 billion to invest in Western-based alternatives to Chinese equipment providers like Huawei and ZTE.

I am pleased that this legislation also invests in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, packaging, and advanced R&D, with a $52 billion investment in the programs included in my legislation, the CHIPS for America Act, which was enacted last year. With the U.S. lead over China in semiconductor manufacturing shrinking each year, a significant investment like this is long overdue.

 This unprecedented investment in advanced manufacturing, critical technologies, and research and development is a major step in solidifying American science and technology leadership.

I hope you will contact me in the future about issues that are important to you, and please be assured that I will continue to work with my colleagues across the aisle to support US innovation and competitiveness. 

Sincerely,

MARK R. WARNER

United States Senator

A Right to Free Speech

Who has the right to free speech in the democracies of the world? Does a paid troll on the Internet have a right to repeat the position of government censors as their own?  Does it have the right to criticize others for their opinions?  Do they have a right to pretend to be someone they are not, and publish the same ideas for multiple pseudonyms using free speech as the justification?   They do not.  

Ten percent of the users of social media are bots.  We know because social media companies have to report them to the SEC.  I know that is hard to believe, but that is what research shows.  Bots have no idea what free speech is all about, nor what rights any of us have.  Neither do trolls paid for by China and Russia, yet social media companies treat them as if they have that right.  

Computer Systems Fail to be Secure

 “There is little question that contemporary commercially available systems do not provide an adequate defense against malicious threat.  Most of these systems are known to have serious design and implementation flaws that can be exploited by individuals with programming access to the system….  The security threat is the demonstrated inability of most contemporary computer systems to provide a sufficiently strong technical defense against a malicious user who is deliberately attempting to penetrate the system for hostile purposes.”  Computer Security Technology Planning Study,  James P. Anderson October 1972

Any wonder our networks are worse than our computer systems used to be.  We have many to blame for this but start with the service providers and work out.  These networks have yet to stop telephone and email scammers and even Congress cannot mandate it, though they try.   

Interesting look at how the new administration describes the relationship

 

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission New Report China-Iran Relations: A Limited but Enduring Strategic Partnership Today the U.S.-China Commission released a new staff report entitled, “China-Iran Relations: A Limited but Enduring Strategic Partnership.” Key Highlights The China-Iran relationship has evolved in recent years into a partnership more pointedly opposed to the U.S.-led international order. Beijing views Tehran’s opposition to the United States as augmenting China’s global influence. The Iranian regime’s destabilizing actions in the Middle East complicate U.S. efforts to shift its focus to the Indo-Pacific. China has boosted its diplomatic engagement with Iran since 2015, coinciding with the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, and the gradual easing of international sanctions on Iran. Following U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, China has continued to engage Iran—including through violation of U.S. sanctions—and used bilateral summits to demonstrate the two countries’ opposition to Washington. Iran views China as a critical economic lifeline and diplomatic supporter against pressure from the United States. A 25-year bilateral cooperation agreement signed in March 2021 is the latest indication of the two sides’ willingness to coordinate more closely. The agreement also signals China’s capacity to work with U.S. adversaries to undermine U.S. influence in the region.  China has remained Iran’s top economic partner despite significantly reducing its economic engagement through partial compliance with U.S. sanctions. As Iran’s primary oil customer, China is a valuable asset to the Iranian regime while deepening its leverage over the country. By also investing in Iran’s energy infrastructure and regional integration, China seeks improved access to Iranian energy and raw materials.  China and Iran maintain modest defense cooperation and share intelligence, reportedly including information that led to the dismantling of much of the U.S. espionage network in both countries. China has supported Iran’s cruise and ballistic missile programs for decades, including through technology likely utilized in at least one of the missile systems used in Tehran’s 2020 attack on U.S. forces in Iraq. Despite Tehran’s interest in procuring advanced weapons from China, Beijing may hesitate to sell the requested arms out of concern over jeopardizing relations with its Gulf partners. China’s deepening ties with Iran’s regional adversaries, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, force China to strike a balance between its relationship with Iran and these emerging partners. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime eagerly seeks Chinese trade and investment but remains wary of becoming overly reliant on China economically.    Read the full report here. Thank you,  Jameson Cunningham Congressional Affairs and Communications Director U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 202-624-1496

U.S.-China Commission | 444 North Capitol St. NW, Washington, DC 20002 uscc.gov

Verizon Connection Speeds

 Just about everyone knows that Verizon only says it will get your service to the router at a certain speed.  In my case it is a gig connection, but the fastest I have ever gotten on any device, including a wired connection, is 350 Mbs.  So, I started looking into this from a user standpoint.  

I have been a Verizon customer for all of my time in this house, twenty years.  I pay more for a gig connection, but I don't get gig service.  I have heard of people suing Verizon over this but not recently because Verizon changed its policy to prohibit a customer from filing or joining a class action lawsuit (https://fairshake.com/verizon-wireless/lawsuit/).  They say the service is only to the router, not to any device in the house.  I even understand that, but it isn't that part that irritates me. 

I pay a good bit of money to Verizon each month for a gig connection using a router that I pay them for.  That router is not configured for IPV6 even though it is a IPV6 device.  The one I have is two generations old, because Verizon does not update their routers even though you are paying for the service.  So I don't have the speed I pay for, and Verizon wants me to pay for a faster router to get a faster speed.  If this sounds ridiculous, that's because it is.  

My speeds drop off every day, around mid day and at night.  That has nothing to do with the router speed.  My cameras were dropping signal every day for a month until I had my security provider look into why.  They recorded when it happened and the speed it lost connection.  Good information for me.  I asked Verizon why this would happen and it stopped for a few weeks, but continues to occur.  So it is not just the router that is involved.  

This county is growing like crazy with many new people coming here every day.  They all want broadband and Verizon has actually tried to expand their service to the area, but they are not keeping up.  Covid hasn't helped either.  Now everyone is home or just starting back to work.  My system crawls at breakfast and in he evening when kids come home from school.  Verizon is a victim of their own success, but the users are the ones who get the hit.  

When my contract is up, Verizon will end, but until then, I have adapted.  I'm not going to pay for extra speed I don't get and will test out a few vendors to find out who does it best. 

TIKTOK Security Analysis

 Citizen Lab, my favorite security site, has published an analysis that is interesting but not very eye opening since I expected to see more on what it was sending back to China.  My main objection to Tiktok is it is allowed in the U.S. but China will not allow Facebook there.  There is no reciprocity in that kind of policy.  

To read the analysis see https://citizenlab.ca/2021/03/tiktok-vs-douyin-security-privacy-analysis/

Office of the Director of National Security

 2018 position was this:  Russia, and other foreign countries, including China and Iran, conducted influence activities and messaging campaigns targeted at the United States to promote their strategic interests.  

for the complete unclass assessment on the 2020 election see

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR21.pdf

In 2020 two statements:  One indicates China did nothing to influence the 2020 election and the other says Iran had influence campaigns directed at Trump but not favoring Biden.  

The IC is bending over backwards to make China look good, when it is anything but.  China has long running influence campaigns.  They don't need to influence the election because those influence campaigns are successful.  

Putin's Denials are Laughable

 When Vladimir Putin says his GRU did not poison Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok, we should look to recent history to question the statement.  

In 2018, two GRU "tourists" were identified by British police as the two who poisoned Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, in the UK.  The Russians deny they did that and had these two geniuses on Russian television to tell the world what sounded incredible at the time.  They were there on vacation to look at the architecture of the town.  The British did not believe them and expelled 23 diplomats.  You would think that might have gotten Russia's attention but apparently not.  

Yesterday, the Russians denied Navalny even had any contamination present when he was in the hospital in Siberia.  So, their inference must be that the nerve agent must have been introduced after he left there.  Unbelievable.  Novichok is a Russian invention six times more powerful than VX nerve gas.  They use an agent that is known to be Russian so they can deny doing it, but make clear that it was them.  It serves as a warning to others who oppose Putin for any reason.  

The longer the Russians maintain they did not do the poisoning, the longer the people who read about what the Russians are saying view their comments as incredible.  

Do Any of them Listen

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.” [Gilens, Martin and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, American Political Science Association, 2014; see also from Gilens, Bartels 2008, Gilens 2012. See also Jacobs and Page 2005, which indicates that the general public may have little or no influence on U.S. foreign policy, when the preferences of business leaders and other elites are taken into account.] . 

So, we wonder why Democrats are willing to vote on Impeachment today when most of their own constituents do not favor removing a President that millions voted for with thin, and totally transparent reasoning.  They decry the President for failing Democracy when they look more like China and Russia than what we remember of the United States.  

China Still Recruits at US Labs

Years after one of the most famous cases of a scientist working with the Chinese for the purpose of espionage took place, we have a sobering report from the U.S. Senate (see U.S. Fails to Counter Chinese Efforts to Recruit Scientists, Acquire Research, Senate Report Says) that says Chinese recruitment has not stopped and is still successful.  That includes both the collection of unclassified and classified information.  In my first book, The Chinese Information War (McFarland Press) I referenced Congressional sources saying the Chinese had 80% of U.S. nuclear weapons designs which came from those same labs.  When will they ever learn? 

We have to ask ourselves who the Department of Energy works for.  Is there anyone there who thinks the national labs are run by the academic community?  Do they think the labs are immune from investigation or change?  These are serious issues that continue to be a national disgrace.  

Russians Assasinate Another

The Russians are not shy about killing their former enemies in another country.  This time it is Germany, instead of the UK where the Russians had been busy making headlines and having a number of their agents removed.

According to the Wall Street Journal today (Russia Orchestrated Chechen Rebel’s Murder in Germany, U.S. Officials Say), the victim is a a 40-year-old Georgian who once commanded forces against Russia during a Chechen uprising, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.  "Minutes later, German police arrested a Russian man attempting to leave the scene on an electric scooter after he discarded a pistol and silencer. " Given the circumstances of his capture, it is a good bet they have the right person.

The Russians, even in the face of being caught red-handed so to speak, will deny any involvement in the killing.  Official press releases will offer alternative ways the person might have died, motives for others to have killed him, and official statements from high-ranking government officials "proving" that it couldn't have been anyone Russian or directed by the Russian government.  It is a little easier to do this time.

At least this guy is not a known GRU agent who is stupid enough to get caught.  He was recently released from a Russian prison, where he had been serving a sentence for murder.  They let him out and gave him a passport with a new identity.  They have used this little trick before with people in mental hospitals.

The victim's routes of travel were laid out for him by someone else.  He rode a bicycle to the park where Khangoshvili was known to get to his mosque, shot him in the head twice in a place with plenty of witnesses around, changed clothes and hid away.  He still got caught.

The Russians are going to have some openings for telling a different story since the shooter is not a GRU agent.  They can deny government sponsorship, though the passport is a liability after just getting out of prison.  They will, of course, say they were glad to be rid of this person.  The French can tell us why they gave this person a visa to travel all over Europe. 

China Manipulation of National Economic Data

There is a good article in the Wall Street Journal today on the manipulation of Chinese economic data.  The title will tell you quite a bit about the content:  China Says Growth Is Fine. Private Data Show a Sharper Slowdown.

Most China followers find the growth China shows a little too optimistic and amazingly aligned with the goals set by the Chinese Communist Party.  For many years Russia had the same problem with harvests and production data.  It should be obvious that there are consequences for not meeting a production target so it is better to meet the number whether there was actual production to meet it, or not.  We know why some people do that, but the U.S. is getting better at getting to the real financial data by some really clever ways.  Included in this article were stories about satellites measuring the amount of electricity being used in certain cities, production data from unofficial sources like banks that loan money for autos, and some U.S. companies with operations in China.  One, Eaton, reported industrial growth was 2.7% but the official Chinese estimates were 5%.  When China's economy is at $13 Trillion, those one or two percent differences can be a lot of money. 

TransPacific Cable Comes Under Scrutiny

Well, you may have already heard that Justice has decided to look into a cable being laid across the Pacific to Hong Kong by Google, Facebook Inc. and a Chinese partner.  It is a little surprising since I raised this issue in my first book, The Chinese Information War, almost 10 years ago.  Chinese  Telcoms have been putting cables in to a lot of places without any notice what-so-ever for longer than that.  My concern then was the number of communications terminal points being controlled by China.  Those points were decrypting bulk transmissions and had access to almost any traffic that came through them.  Or, they could simply divert traffic as they are famous for doing "accidentally" .

Now, seemingly out of the blue, comes this concern for these partners and their cable.  They should have started looking at this years ago, and better late than never is not a good response to the problem.  The US does not pay enough attention to what traffic flows over those cables and it should.  Contractors use them;  government agencies use them.  China redirects traffic from other networks to cables and terminals they control.  I don't think this late coming action is going to help resolve the problems that have developed over the last 10 years. 

New Release by US-China Econ & Sec Review Commission

07/11/2019
THE CHINESE MILITARY’S ROLE IN OVERSEAS HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE AND DISASTER RELIEF: CONTRIBUTIONS AND CONCERNS
Over the past two decades, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has expanded its involvement in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) missions outside China’s borders. Through its contributions to HA/DR, Beijing has provided important assistance to disaster-stricken populations and sought to burnish its image as a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. At the same time, Beijing routinely allows political considerations to guide its participation in HA/DR missions, violating the humanitarian spirit of these operations and suggesting Chinese leaders may view HA/DR less as a global good than an instrument of influence. Moreover, the PLA has cooperated haltingly with international partners during these missions and at times willfully disregarded best practices for military participation in HA/DR. This report examines the drivers behind the PLA’s increasing participation in HA/DR abroad; the impact, both positive and problematic, of the PLA’s involvement in several recent multinational disaster relief operations; and the implications of the PLA’s involvement in and approach to these missions for the United States.