General Tsao's Cold War

[romad1]

a colleague from the local Softball league is in Taiwan.  I asked him if he heard the former President's words about not defending Taiwan.   He hadn't.  I guess the local media suppressed that.  

[chasfh]

On 1/21/2024 at 6:13 PM, romad1 said:

a colleague from the local Softball league is in Taiwan.  I asked him if he heard the former President's words about not defending Taiwan.   He hadn't.  I guess the local media suppressed that.  

I think our media is suppressing that.

[romad1]

woopsie Tik Tok

 

[1776]

Today’s WSJ -

WASHINGTON—A congressional probe of Chinese-built cargo cranes deployed at ports throughout the U.S. has found communications equipment that doesn’t appear to support normal operations, fueling concerns that the foreign machines may pose a covert national-security risk.

The installed components in some cases include cellular modems, according to congressional aides and documents, that could be remotely accessed.

The discovery of the modems by lawmakers, which hasn’t been previously reported, has added to concerns in Washington about port security and China. The Pentagon and intelligence officials at other agencies in the Biden administration have grown increasingly alarmed by the potential threat of disruption and espionage presented by the giant cranes built by ZPMC, a China-based manufacturer that accounts for nearly 80% of ship-to-shore cranes in use at U.S. ports. 

The Chinese government “is looking for every opportunity to collect valuable intelligence and position themselves to exploit vulnerabilities by systematically burrowing into America’s critical infrastructure, including in the maritime sector,” said Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, which has been investigating Chinese maritime security threats. “The United States has clearly overlooked this threat for far too long.”

Over a dozen cellular modems were found on crane components in use at one U.S. port, and another modem was found inside another port’s server room, according to a committee aide. Some of the modems had active connections to operational components to the cranes, the aide said.

 

Edited March 7, 2024 by 1776

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, 1776 said:

Today’s WSJ -

WASHINGTON—A congressional probe of Chinese-built cargo cranes deployed at ports throughout the U.S. has found communications equipment that doesn’t appear to support normal operations, fueling concerns that the foreign machines may pose a covert national-security risk.

 

 

I'll await a second look on this before I get too excited. A lot of sophisticated and expensive equipment like this has communication equipment built in to notify operators or owners, or even the manufacturer's tech service dept if the on board diagnostics detects something while the equipment is unattended. It might be a little ambiguous where the line really is between service ware and spy ware and probably has as much to do with the SW on board as the hardware installed.

Edited March 7, 2024 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

So, we are close to turning off Tik Tok.  

Analogous situation maybe:  Soviet Union owns ABC or NBC and Nielson and the US Postal Service in 1965. 

Edited March 14, 2024 by romad1

[chasfh]

All Tik Tok has to do is promise to promote Trump more and the Party will drop its objections.

[romad1]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

All Tik Tok has to do is promise to promote Trump more and the Party will drop its objections.

yes, so add...Soviet Union owns LBJ in 1965. 

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, romad1 said:

yes, so add...Soviet Union owns LBJ in 1965. 

Barry Goldwater might have alleged so ...

[romad1]

4 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Barry Goldwater might have alleged so ...

LBJ never asked for KGB assistance in defeating his political opponents. 

[CMRivdogs]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

All Tik Tok has to do is promise to promote Trump more and the Party will drop its objections.

 

[chasfh]

Even better! The Party will control and disseminate the fascism message like Twitter appears to be trending toward.

[romad1]

 

[romad1]

Glad they made the move

 

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, romad1 said:

Glad they made the move

 

It truly doesn’t get much more bi-partisan than that.

[romad1]

as a reminder, Apple just cleared multiple non-PRC social media apps from their stores in the PRC.  You can't use Whatsapp, Signal, Threads and others. 

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/china-orders-apple-to-remove-meta-apps-after-inflammatory-posts-about-president

Quote

The Wall Street Journal paraphrased a person familiar with the matter as saying that the Chinese cyberspace agency "asked Apple to remove WhatsApp and Threads from the App Store because both contain political content that includes problematic mentions of the Chinese president [Xi Jinping]."

I have zero problems taking Tiktok away from the CCP.

[romad1]

So, apparently middle class PRC citizens are spending hard currency to fly to central America and then sneak into the US.  What is weird about that is most airline routes do not cross the Pacific directly from Asia to Latin America.  It has to do with not spending majority of flight over ocean which means that transit routes usually go Asian city to middle city like Dubai or Paris or Frankfurt or perhaps over the great circle to Los Angeles via Siberia/Alaska/Canada. 

So, the huddle masses yearning to breath free are more likely the educated and (possibly talented) who just don't like their odds of prospering in a system like that anymore. 

This particular article identifies Ecuador as being a hub for this transit from China to Colombia to the US border.  

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/americas/china-us-migrants-illegal-crossings-intl-hnk-dst/index.html

Edited May 25, 2024 by romad1

[romad1]

I'll say this.  I was in Panama last year and saw plenty of of middle class Chinese with jobs in the country associated with the canal and other trade.  They didn't seem to be in "get-to-the-US" mode.

[gehringer_2]

Current US immigration law is so completely screwed up -  there is no way any of these good  Chinese folks qualify for political asylum under any reasonable definition, and I would note the Senate GOP just refused again to visit the issue.

Now on the other hand, these folks probably do have the skills to come the US under an H1 or green card system that was actually working and should have been allowed to apply that way.

[chasfh]

33 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Current US immigration law is so completely screwed up -  there is no way any of these good  Chinese folks qualify for political asylum under any reasonable definition, and I would note the Senate GOP just refused again to visit the issue.

Because they want to keep the issue open to both campaign and demagogue on. 

[romad1]

amusing 

 

[romad1]

 

[romad1]

Have you ever seen this photo?  I hadn't

Donald Trump probably has a stiffie over this.

[romad1]

Nice pickup by Team Biden

 

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

Nice pickup by Team Biden

 

account suspended already. is Elmo angy?