Correspondence on China

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Dear [REDACTED]

Sometimes it takes me time to read the various things I get, but I try to, and I appreciate what you send me. And I am very ignorant of the details of China. I know more about the Tarim Basin or prehistoric Italy than I do about China. Some of this is intentional because it is a vast topic.

I do know about the vast amount of money we dumped on China to help them fight in WW 2 (very little of which went to the Communists as far as I know). I do know about Stillwell and the Flying Tigers. I do know about the time when the numbered air force that Curtis Le May was running in China against the Japanese sent three C-47s filled with medical supplies to Mao but I dont recall what the occasion was. I do know about when Doolittle and his flight of B 25s landed in China and the number of Chinese murdered by the Japanese in retribution. We were not always complete enemies, or maybe we were, but not on the surface of things.

Before I care to hear too much about the other side of the story, I need to know that the Chinese cyberattacks have stopped. I need to know what exactly we are doing educating people who are going to fight a war with us to kill as many Americans as possible since I think that is the most likely scenario in the next 20 years. I need to know that the Americans who deliberately lied to steal the money by sending industry to China without doing anything for the Americans whose lives were destroyed receive justice, which is to say civil asset forfeiture and years of important therapy in an institution run by our federal government. You know, the way a black man would if he stole food to feed his family.  And I need to know that whatever is going on with the Uyghurs in China has stopped and people given real help to recover.

I dont think we are blameless in our relationship with China, far from it.  But I also dont much care.  The above issues are happening now, they need to stop now.  After that I am very interested in some of the details.

Rumors of War October 2016

Lets now move beyond the grim reality of the collapse of our political system, and lighten things up around here by considering whether or not we are on the brink of another serious regional or world war. Not only is this a very reasonable time to ask such questions, it also leads into the larger blog theme of “predicting the future”. In this case, no esoteric knowledge is necessary, we can rely on our own knowledge of history and what we can see of world events.

Whenever a war happens, there are always people who say that there were clear signs that the war was obviously going to happen and that either we should have been better prepared, or should have avoided it, or that the government knew it was going to happen and wanted it to happen, or any of a number of other opinions, some of them interesting, many of them completely out-of-their-mind crazy.

Hindsight is 20/20 but in the real world there are always tensions and conflicts that could explode into a major war. But it also the case that there are a variety of “indicators” that a war may be on the horizon. Here are a few drawn from recent history: (a) a nation is pursuing what it sees to be a goal of critical national importance and another nation executes economic sanctions (war) against it, (b) a nation is executing a rearmament of their armed forces as fast as they possibly can, (c) a nation executes an intense intelligence attack on another nation with whom they are at peace of a size that is unparalled in peacetime, (d) a nation insists that it controls another nation's territory or that a formerly public right-of-way is declared to be their sovereign territory, and always has been.

Do we see any of these four situations in the world today? In fact, we see all four of these.

Russia has a centuries long relationship with Ukraine and Crimea. They see that relationship differently than we do. For them, Crimea is the ice-free port that Russia strategically requires. For them, Ukraine is a slavic territory that has been part of Russia for centuries. The very origins of Moscow and Russia can be traced to Kievan Rus in what we might now call Ukraine. The west has imposed sanctions on Russia for the events in that part of the world. Right or wrong, these sanctions are certainly hurting Russia.

Both Russia and China are extensively rearming and reconfiguring their armed forces. The Russian army, navy and air force seem to be rebuilding at a vastly increased rate. China is doing something similar.

For the last decade, China has executed a cyber-attack against the United States of unprecedented scope. The only people who do not know it at this point are people who are really not paying attention (or don't want to know). The US Government has given every indication that it knows and that it wants it to stop. We know that something has been going on in part because our country has begun an immense investment in offensive and defensive cyberwar.

China's actions in the South China Sea are about as aggressive as a nation can be in times of peace. It is a setup for a hot war, and they are arming for it. They want it, they need it, they have to have it. And if we don't like it, we have to fight for it. The problem is not what we want, the problem is what all China's neighbors want and we are in a mutual defense alliance with those neighbors. Probability of war? High, about as high as war between India and Pakistan, for example.

Oh, did I forget to mention India and Pakistan?  Or India and China?  Or Vietnam and China? Or Pakistan's financing of terrorist groups? The war in Syria and the refugee crisis? Russia's blatant cyberwar against America? N. Korea and its nuclear weapons? Russia and Chechnya (what's left of it)? Or the Congo? Or Somalia? Or Sudan? Or Libya?

So are we headed to world war? Not necessarily. After all, even a hot regional war does not imply a world war.  But if we do end up in a major world war, there will be people who say that there was plenty of evidence that it was on the horizon.

This topic continues here.

Diplomatic Protocol for Asgardians and Americans

Americans just had an extraordinary example of public rudeness by the People's Republic of China towards President Obama at the G20 conference in Beijing, an incident whose ramifications are not yet completely understood. But there is one thing that we, the public, can know without hacking Hillary's email server: that the offense against the American President was not an accident but a deliberate statement of the Chinese ruling elite indicating their contempt for Obama, and symbolically, for America and the American people.

We know it was not an accident because anyone familiar with diplomatic protocol knows just how far in advance and in what detail such nuances as “red carpet” exit ramps are prepared. “In exquisite detail and with the utmost seriousness” is one way I have heard the process described.

Nothing, repeat nothing, is left to chance.

In this matter we are instructed, as we are in so many things, by the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the MCU).

The student of alien relations must notice that the various races and civilizations of the MCU are generally not very diplomatic. They seem to enthusiastically shoot at one another, invade across dimensional portals, fly around in speeder cars shooting arrows, throwing rocks, and dropping cities on innocent tax payers.

Perhaps things would be more peaceful and loving if some diplomacy was observed.

We do have one example of such diplomacy in Thor: The Dark World (2013) on the occasion of the visit of two Asgardians on a secret mission of great importance, perhaps even more important than the occasion of Obama at the G20 conference.

How do we greet an Asgardian? A hearty handshake? Do we say “Howdy Partner!” and take off our hats? Here are the stages that I have noted in greeting two important Asgardians engaged as they are on a secret mission.

First, your slave girl brings the honored guests into your presence, looking very proper and pleased, if a little stiff, probably thrilled at the occasion.

Second, she gestures first with her right hand, then with her left hand, then makes a half turn, and a half curtsey on one knee, and announce you to the guests, saying “I present to you Taneleer Tivan, The Collector”.

Third, you, the host, pretends to be surprised at the arrival of such honored beings, and recognizing them, exclaim with total sincerity “Asgardians! Its an honor!” while performing the following flourishes:

- bring your hands together in front of you, elbows bent, palms facing the guests

- with your hands in this position do a half bow,

- flip your hands such that palms are facing you

- complete the bow to a full bow and holding the bow, extend your arms outstretched to the sides in greeting

You can be sure that our Asgardians know that they are truly welcome and can proceed with their mission.

Failure to comply with such courtesies is a deliberate insult, as all Asgardians, and now all Americans, know.

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The State Department's Protocol for the Modern Diplomat

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/176174.pdf

Thor: The Dark World (2013) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1981115/

Coming Soon on Global Wahrman

Coming right up on Global Wahrman: an essay on what Baggage means to a Human Resources person and why nearly all, or all, experienced workers have "baggage", an essay on the literary genre of entertainment fiction known as predicting the future, and an essay on America's slide into failure, poverty and submission to the new world leader, Communist China.

Also, in the cyberwar between the US and Russia, we have new news on Russia's paid trolls and the stupid morons in this country who believe and enable them.   My goodness, when you need a stupid American, it isnt very hard to find one, now is it?

Not to mention a post about what Nina Z (Miles G's significant other) told me about middle class values.  Its very interesting, you will want to know this.

And the passing of Tanith Lee and Christopher Lee.

Also, a post on a distant colleague who committed suicide and what a surprise it was. Yeah, right, bullshit. Even I knew she was depressed.  Maybe her death is more about our community's failure to act proactively to help those who are in distress, he wondered, out loud, sarcastically.

Where is Anne Graham of after science when I need her?   I am looking for that pure spirit of inspiration that comes from the untainted.  Anne ?

I appreciate all of you out there who do seem to be reading my blog, even if I do not know who most of you are.  I do wish that you would comment more as I have a feeling your comments would add a lot..

We just ran an unscheduled experiment on my brain by going off all ADHD medication for several weeks, and the results were very surprising.  You see, even though I slept most of the time, and could not do even the simplest tasks that needed doing, in certain very important ways I was very productive, more productive than I normally have been in spite of my reliability and calm demeanor brought on by the ADHD medication. This is a real problem.   What do I want?  Creativity or stability?

American Cockroaches Lunge for Freedom in Communist China

In a daring escape from slavery, a million cockroaches escaped from a Chinese farm where they were being raised by cockroach slavers. Their escape was aided by an unknown “Friend of Cockroaches Everywhere” who destroyed the integrity of the horrible slave chambers that the cockroaches were contained within.

The cockroaches were being raised as a commercial venture to provide critical components of Chinese folk medicine which is based in part on pieces of cockroaches torn from their still living bodies.  Thus these innocent victims of Communist oppression were headed for certain death had they not made their escape.

In a heartening moment of cultural diversity and American Exceptionalism, the freedom loving cockroaches were American cockroaches, imported from N. America where there is said to be no shortage of free-range cockroaches.

Freedom loving cockroach making a dash

“This is one tiny step for a cockroach, one giant leap for cockroaches everywhere,” said an anonymous cockroach-loving organization in China. “We hope that this will be just the beginning.”

The oppressive Communist Chinese dictatorship was working to destroy the escapees by any means possible, reported sources.

http://phys.org/news/2013-08-million-cockroaches-china-farm.html#nRlv

Russians Discover Chinese Home Appliances Designed for Crime

We are told to accept Globalization as inevitable and beneficial. Just trust us, says Congress, as they pass free trade act after free trade act, and pass exemptions to polluting transport companies to lower costs for container ships. It may be that most Americans are impoverished in the short run, says Congress, perhaps for the first 50 or 100 years, and are thrown out in the street giving up all hope of having a home or family, but ultimately no doubt Globalization will benefit all Americans and not just the rich, they promise. Really.  One day.

But what if all those cheap devices that flood our shores contain Trojan Horses that are secretly working for our destruction? Sound far fetched? Maybe not.

We believe that Americans are in denial about the extent of cybercrime and cyber-espionage that is going on in the world. Russia in particular seems to be the home of cybercrime whereas China seems to be home of cyber-espionage, although all countries dabble in all the black arts, perhaps.

Many Americans have come to rely upon their home appliances.  What could be more trustworthy than a coffee maker that helps us wake up in the morning?  Or a blow dryer that dries our hair?  What about a blender or food processor?   We rely on these instruments of modern convenience and it is inconceivable that these items could be turned against us.   They are as American as Apple Pie even if they are no longer made in America in order to increase the profits of the wealthy.

Now something has happened that may yet wake Americans out of their complacency, and it comes, ironically from the Russians. They have been discovering for some time covert cyber penetration devices in home appliances manufactured by that supposedly "friend of cheap manufacturing", the People's Republic of China, and they have gone public with this shocking news just recently.

Home appliances of all types including irons, blenders and even the beloved toaster oven have been found kitted out with the most devious of devices, including and especially WIFI hardware designed to penetrate any unsecured WIFI within 600 feet or so of the appliance. Once such a WIFI is found, the innocent-looking home appliance transforms itself into a network-based spy (or "Snowden" as they are known these days) and tries to penetrate any computer it can find on the local network in order to insert viruses (virii?) into the defenseless computers. Of course these home appliances phone home to their masters in Beijing as well.

Are these innocent looking home appliances in fact criminal devices from the East?

The Russians believe that the primary purpose of these devices is to find and make robot slaves for Spam delivery, but we don't buy that. The Chinese are guilty of the largest espionage program in history in their attacks against the United States and have totally raped this country of both military and industrial intellectual property. The theft is vast, persistent and hostile and we are just now starting to calculate the costs, billions of dollars, of changing various military-related apparatus (e.g. electronic warfare) based on the knowledge of this theft. I propose that countries only do this level of espionage if they believe that they are going to war.

Now on top of the previous attacks, we learn of the Russians under attack by home electric appliances. Are Americans also under attack in the same manner? How can we tell? I call on the President and Congress to pass a Homeland Appliance Defense Act and investigate this potential threat to our freedom at once.

For one article on this emerging crisis, see here.

Ubuntu Linux Now Controlled / Owned by the People's Republic of China

For those of you who care, Ubuntu Linux is now for all practical purposes owned by the People's Republic of China. I doubt very much if you care, but since we are in a war with the PRC (an undeclared one), the PRC will be putting a variety of trap doors and other compromises into the system. Now the fact is that it is very unlikely that anyone who reads my blog is going to be doing anything serious for national security, which will no longer be able to use Ubuntu, so it doesn't really matter.

Of course if you do proprietary technical work, you should think twice about using Ubuntu Linux because pretty much any Chinese hacker can get access to it.   Of course that might be true using any OS given all the energy the Chinese put into stealing intellectual property.

Just thought you should know.

Here is an article that goes over the public elements of the deal.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/22/china_makes_linux_os_with_canonical_help/

Why China Attacked Google

In a brilliant stroke of counterintelligence, the cyberwarfare arm of the People's Republic of China raped Google's servers and aside from picking up their most proprietary intellectual property (their search engine core) they targeted and no doubt got their database on which individuals had been targeted for legal surveillance by court order.

First, let us review why this is excellent counterintelligence. Then, why I mention it to you and what it may mean for American policy.

When country A is spying on country B, it can do so with various means and approaches, the most famous of which is often badly represented in films: the clandestine agent or spy. (1) The clandestine agent may be a citizen of the target country, or he/she may be a foreign national masquerading as a citizen. The clandestine agent may be working at a sensitive position in industry or government, or socialize with such people, or recruit and then manage networks of people who pass on confidential information.

Since country B knows that country A is spying on them, they organize their resistance and defense against such spying and call it counterintelligence. But since country A knows that country B is protecting themselves, they have an incentive to hide and protect their sources, and this is also called counterintelligence, although it might more properly be called counter-counterintelligence.

Still with me?

China is spying on the US. The US investigates the spying. China wants to know who the US is investigating so that they can hide their agents, protect them, tell them to do nothing incriminating for a few years, or find some way to mislead the US about their spying.

How does China find out who the US suspects?

In general, when we use surveillance on a person in the USA, we need a court order. This is not trivial to do, but it is done all the time and requires a judge to agree that it would make sense to do surveillance as part of a criminal investigation. Court order in hand the counterintelligence agency can go to various organizations like the phone company or the internet provider and request information about what the user is doing and ask for records to be kept.

Naturally, the phone company or whatever keeps a record of who they are looking at. What China did was to penetrate Google, find their database of who they had been requested to keep information about, and steal it. In this way they can know a great deal about who we suspect may be a Chinese spy. They can then look at this list and know to a large extent how far we have gotten in our defense against their attacks and make adjustments.

This they have done. It is a fait accompli. All counterintelligence in this country that involves HUMINT and the Chinese is dead as of that date. New investigations may now come into being, but they will probably be compromised as well because China is massively attacking all such targets for this and other information.

This is one datapoint of many that indicates that China is waging an undeclared war against the Untied States. It is not a hot war in the sense that thousands of people die each year, but it is a war of intelligence among other things and dozens of people die each year. When countries execute massive intelligence campaigns against other countries, it is in preparation for real war, or in anticipation that there may be a real war.   And if there is a real war, which there very well may be, then thousands of people will die because of the intelligence gathered by the people who China has now successfully protected.

Again this is just one datapoint. There are many such datapoints, and if you doubt me, look up the euphemism "advanced persistant threat" and look for yourself.  

Since China is executing a campaign of massive espionage against the United States, possibly the largest in history, this helps to explain why we finance them by sending all our manufacturing to China, right?   This is why the Republicans defeat any attempt to require American business to protect sensitive information, right ?   Its the price we have to pay to make a fast buck.

A few links to news articles on this and related topics.

Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chinese-hackers-who-breached-google-gained-access-to-sensitive-data-us-officials-say/

A respectable article from the Council of Foreign Relations:
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2011/12/13/can-you-hear-me-now-the-u-s-sends-china-a-message-on-cyber-espionage/

See this link for a truly wonderful editorial on the implications of all this for private industry. It is of the great Internet rants, this time of the so-called INFOSEC world.
http://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/counterintelligence-false-flags-disinformation-and-network-defense/

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Notes

1. Modern intelligence takes many forms and the number increases with time. The classic clandestine spy is called HUMINT in todays jargon, e.g. human intelligence. Other types include SIGINT (signals intelligence), IMINT (imagery intelligence), MASINT (measurment intelligence), open source intelligence and the emerging field of cyber intelligence. The CIA keeps an excellent archive of declassified intelligence research and it is worth reading for background. https://www.cia.gov/library/index.html