RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pompeo-chinese-hypersonic-threat-a-very-difficult-problem/

Mike Pompeo warned this week that defending the United States from a hypersonic-missile attack is “a very difficult problem.” The former secretary of state’s remarks provide the latest example of a senior U.S. official vexed by this emerging threat.

The Trump-era top diplomat was speaking Tuesday evening during a session of the Nixon Seminar — a monthly foreign-policy-discussion program — after host Mary Kissel, vice president at Stephens Inc. and Pompeo’s senior adviser at the State Department, asked whether the U.S. can protect against hypersonic missiles from China.

Pompeo, who in January called for fast-tracking new defensive and offensive technologies to deal with the hypersonic threat, suggested that the U.S. doesn’t have the technological capabilities to detect such an attack in time

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckbrooks/2022/01/21/cybersecurity-in-2022–a-fresh-look-at-some-very-alarming-stats/?sh=6c30802c6b61

Earlier this year I wrote a FORBES article called “Alarming Cybersecurity Stats: What You Need To Know For 2021.”  Alarming Cybersecurity Stats: What You Need To Know For 2021 (forbes.com) It included an assortment of stats on the increase in threats to our digital wellness as companies, governments, and consumers. The article was based on the backdrop of a spate of high-profile cyber-attacks such as Solar Winds, and Colonial Pipeline and had painted a dire assessment of the 2021 first half status of the cyber-threat ecosystem. Now we have reached the second half of 2021. Just when we thought it could not get much worse from a cybersecurity stat perspective, it did.

Americans Seem To Be Wakening Up To The Need for Better Cybersecurity

Let us start with a positive stat, it appears that in the U.S. most are finally waking up to the cyberthreats. Awareness is an important step! A poll by The Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that “about 9 in 10 Americans are at least somewhat concerned about hacking that involves their personal information, financial institutions, government agencies or certain utilities.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/talibans-year-end-gift-biden-administration-and-un-joseph-klein/

The Biden administration has just handed the Taliban terrorists now running Afghanistan an end-of-year gift. Lots and lots of money will be coming their way.

President Biden’s Treasury Department said on December 22nd that it was issuing new “general licenses” allowing financial transactions by the U.S. government, international entities, and non-governmental organizations involving the Taliban and members of the terrorist Haqqani network, subject to certain conditions. The money can only be used for such permitted purposes as humanitarian aid, civil society development, and environmental and natural resource protection projects.

Morgan Ortagus, a State Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration, tweeted that the licenses legitimize “brutal organizations like the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, which is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. These licenses will effectively end their isolation.”

Ortagus also noted that “much of the aid going to Afghanistan…will end up straight back into the pockets of the Taliban and other terrorists and warlords, just as so much has for decades.”

“Where is the plan to prevent this?” Ortagus asked rhetorically. There is evidently no plan.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/12/20/potential-terrorist-from-saudi-arabia-caught-after-crossing-bidens-open-border-n1542983

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has announced that his state will be building the border wall that Biden’s handlers won’t build, and on Monday we saw yet again why this wall will come not a moment too soon: U.S. Border Patrol officials announced that a “potential terrorist” linked to “Yemeni subjects of interest” was caught in Arizona after crossing into the country from Mexico. Biden’s handlers resolutely ignore the evidence that their open border mess is a national security issue, yet that evidence just keeps on piling up.

According to Fox News,

… the 21-year-old man was apprehended Thursday night entering the U.S. from Mexico through Yuma, Arizona, according to a tweet from Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem. He appears to have been wearing a jacket emblazoned with an American flag patch and another that stated: ‘Central Oneida County Volunteer.’ The man is allegedly from Saudi Arabia and ‘is linked to several Yemeni subjects of interest.’

Central Oneida County is in New York; Central Oneida County Volunteer Ambulance Corps Chief Thomas Meyers said the Saudi who was apprehended is not actually a member of the organization. It’s unclear how he got the jacket, but it suggests that he may have been in the United States before.

Border Patrol officials did not explain why the man was considered a “potential terrorist,” but there is nothing implausible about the claim. Rep. John Katko (R-NY), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, distributed a fact sheet in October warning that “known or suspected terrorists are crossing the border ‘at a level we have never seen before.’”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-will-soon-lead-the-us-in-tech-global-leader-semiconductors-5g-wireless-green-energy-11638915759?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns announced in October that the agency is establishing two new major “mission centers,” one focusing on China and the other on frontier technologies. This action reflects his judgment that China is the “most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century” and that the “main arena for competition and rivalry” between China and the U.S. will be advanced technologies. The question Americans should be asking is: Could China win the technology race?

A new report on the “Great Technological Rivalry” from Harvard’s Belfer Center answers: Yes. The report isn’t alarmist but nonetheless concludes that China has made such extraordinary leaps that it is now a full-spectrum peer competitor. In each of the foundational technologies of the 21st century—artificial intelligence, semiconductors, 5G wireless, quantum information science, biotechnology and green energy—China could soon be the global leader. In some areas, it is already No. 1.

Last year China produced 50% of the world’s computers and mobile phones; the U.S. produced only 6%. China produces 70 solar panels for each one produced in the U.S., sells four times the number of electric vehicles, and has nine times as many 5G base stations, with network speeds five times as fast as American equivalents.

In the advanced technology likely to have the greatest effect on economics and security in the coming decade—artificial intelligence—China is ahead of the U.S. in crucial areas. A spring 2021 report from the National Security Commission on AI warned that China is poised to overtake the U.S. as the global leader in AI by 2030.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bureaucratic-global-posture-review-pentagon-defense-biden-china-11638380029?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Military planning in recent decades has increasingly become the purview of risk-averse academics and bureaucrats, and a new Pentagon study shows the result.

The Biden Administration in February set out to conduct a “Global Posture Review” on America’s military positions worldwide. The Pentagon announced its completion Monday. So what changes are in store?

Not many that we can discern. The review “strengthened DoD’s decisionmaking processes by deliberately connecting global posture planning and decisions to strategic priorities, tradeoffs across geographic regions, force readiness, modernization, interagency coordination, and ally and partner consultations,” said Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Mara Karlin in a Pentagon press briefing.

Ms. Karlin said the Pentagon conducted 75 consultations with friendly countries in formulating the document, but its main suggestion appears to be further consultation. “In the Indo-Pacific, the GPR directs additional cooperation with allies and partners,” the executive summary says. In Europe, it suggests “additional consultation with allies in the near future.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17947/supply-chain-border-security

There is another threat to the trucking industry, the supply chain and our national security. It is NOT reported in the mainstream media: Foreign truckers — cleared for expedited commercial crossings between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. — include at least half a dozen drivers who had deep connections to terrorism and drug-smuggling operations. And those are just the ones we know about.

The disturbing details are outlined in a 34-page report, issued by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General with redactions to protect information in the original “law enforcement sensitive” version.

Even when the criminal history of a candidate is available from another U.S. federal law enforcement agency, CBP apparently cannot access it. Instead of rejecting the foreign driver in question out of an abundance of caution, the agency simply rubber-stamps the candidate without additional screening.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says that national supply chain problems are caused by a lack of affordable childcare. While major U.S. ports such as Los Angeles and Baltimore have ships in the harbor waiting to offload cargo, a trucking shortage is delaying offloads and hauling. “Some of those issues,” Buttigieg stated, “may have to do with the availability of truckers, a thousand miles inland. There are a lot of things contributing to this. One of them is childcare, of course, which is why the president’s Build Back Better vision is going to be good for the labor market.”

Over at MSNBC, host Tiffany Cross offered a different analysis of the trucking/supply chain problem. “This is an industry populated by a lot of white men over the age of 55,” she stated. “This group of people overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Some people have talked about aggressive truck drivers cutting them off or not being helpful.”

The trucking shortages in the United States are real. Buttigieg and Cross are entitled to their opinions, of course, but their analyses seem off the mark. There is another threat to the trucking industry, the supply chain and our national security. It is NOT reported in the mainstream media: Foreign truckers — cleared for expedited commercial crossings between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. — include at least half a dozen drivers who had deep connections to terrorism and drug-smuggling operations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17946/china-influence-united-front

Newsweek did an extensive report that linked 600 groups operating in the US to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

[FBI Director Christopher] Wray used a phrase common among counter-intelligence professionals: “malign foreign influence.” This phrase describes the covert efforts the FBI has seen in several cases where American politicians were influenced indirectly to adopt policies the Chinese regime desires, particularly in four areas: Hong Kong, Taiwan, human rights abuses against the Uighurs, and the Chinese government’s role in the Covid-19 pandemic.

That is fascinating considering that just this month, the U.S. State Department announced it would stop using that phrase.

The irony here is that those “PRC nationals” the State Department wishes not to offend are exactly the kinds of people that are employed by or connected to [Chinese Communist] entities operating in the US.

“This is the second time Chairman Meeks [D-NY] has blocked taking action against the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, an organization which literally exists for the purpose of undermining our democracy and engaging in political warfare. It baffles me why Chairman Meeks seems to oppose any measure holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable.” — Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), National Review, September 13, 2021.

China obsesses over what the world thinks of it. Its rise to rival the US as the world’s greatest economic superpower includes a strong psychological element. China seeks not to be feared, but as having peaceful intentions. Looking at its use of “united front” tactics reveals how China’s messaging seeks to convince gullible people in the West that Chinese interests are really their interests, too. This is one example where Chinese communism borrows “Russian characteristics,” using the old Soviet tactic of “united front” groups that wittingly or not do their bidding.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2021/11/13/fbi-email-servers-hit-by-hackers-who-spammed-security-alerts-n1532701

We like to think that our law enforcement authorities have the most sophisticated computer networks around with the highest level of security. After all, they’re responsible for loads of sensitive information that they use to solve crimes.

But even an organization like the FBI is vulnerable to hacking, as we saw today. Someone breached the FBI’s servers, and the hackers sent spam emails warning of fake attacks.

Bleeping Computer reports:

The emails pretended to warn about a “sophisticated chain attack” from an advanced threat actor known, who they identify as Vinny Troia. Troia is the head of security research of the dark web intelligence companies NightLion and Shadowbyte.

Spamhaus noted that the emails went out to at least 100,000 recipients in a database.

They also demonstrated what the emails looked like.

These emails look like this:

Sending IP: 153.31.119.142 (https://t.co/En06mMbR88)
From: eims@ic.fbi.gov
Subject: Urgent: Threat actor in systems pic.twitter.com/NuojpnWNLh

— Spamhaus (@spamhaus) November 13, 2021