Data War 2021 - Hacker Poisons Water Supply

(continuation from here)

"A computer hacker gained access to the water system of a city in Florida and tried to pump in a "dangerous" amount of a chemical, officials say.

The hacker briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide (lye) in Oldsmar's water treatment system, but a worker spotted it and reversed the action.

In 2016, a security report from Verizon detailed a similar attack on another unnamed US water facility. And in 2020 there were multiple unsuccessful hacks on Israeli water supplies."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55989843

So if you couple electricity off with poisoning the water supply - that's gonna have a crippling impact.

This raises the question again - at what point is a cyber war a real war?

If someone is shooting at you it's easy to know - and respond - but where's the line in a cyber war?

BBC: Zoom founder Eric Yuan... moved roughly 40% of his stake in the company last week.

The shares were shown as gifts to unspecified beneficiaries last week.

Is that legal? Wouldn't you have to say who this/these "unspecified beneficiaries are?" It's not just the money (6bil)but 40% board control.

Zoom spokesperson: The distributions were made in accordance with the terms of Eric Yuan and his wife's trusts.

So it's a family thing? What's the big secret?

BBC: Zoom's shares have nearly tripled in the past 12 months and the company has a market valuation of around $100bn.

Chinese-American Mr Yuan was named the 2020 Time Businessperson of the Year and was included in its annual list of the 100 most influential people.

Yuan: The future is here with the rise of remote and work from anywhere change. We recognise this new reality.

Edward Moya, trading firm: Zoom founder Eric Yuan's decision to transfer more than a third of his stake will raise some eyebrows. Yuan is only 51, married and has three children, so the distribution of his wealth could be viewed as rushed."

Yes, so where is it being rushed to?

We know Zoom is one of the few big-tech operations allowed in China - due to their obsequious compliance with the CCP's surveillance regime. Zoom's crackdown on Tienanmen Square Massacre commemorations being one example.

Zoom Blog: The Chinese government demanded that we take action (so) we made the decision to end three of the four meetings and suspended or terminated the host accounts associated with the three meetings.

Zoom is developing technology over the next several days that will enable us to remove or block at the participant level based on geography. This will enable us to comply with requests from local authorities when they determine activity on our platform is illegal.

Great - so you're a vassal surveillance tool for totalitarianism. But don't worry:

Zoom: We have made significant progress defining the framework and approach for a transparency report that details information related to requests Zoom receives for data, records, or content.

Making "significant progress defining the framework and approach for transparency..?" - that's the kind of Yes Minister language you use when you don't want transparency

Zoom: We did not provide ... any meeting content to the Chinese government in connection with these meetings, other than ...user data concerning China-based attendees and potentially the meeting information for one of the meetings.

At least one of the Zoom callers, Lee Cheuk Yan, was later arrested.

News.com: China is accused of a global spying operation that’s been declared “the real deal” and has our intelligence agencies on “high alert”

Last week, cybersecurity researcher and journalist Brian Krebs reported 30,000 organisations had been compromised by an “unusually aggressive Chinese cyber espionage unit” that exploited flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server software, giving the hackers “total, remote control” over the systems affected.

Another example of the war we are in but don't quite realize we're having it.

At what point does a cyber-attack get met with a trade sanction? At least a trade sanction, even an ineffectual one, is some measure of (a) acknowledgement of a malicious attack (b) a public response

Taiwan Times: Since 2018, Z Holdings, the company managing Line in Japan, outsourced the handling of its servers to a Chinese company.

As a result, Chinese engineers obtained permission to look at data about Line users as well as at the content of their messages.

This is a good example of how it's not just China's fault. How the fuck does a private Japanese company think it's fine to outsource LINE data to a Chinese company? Which is then required by Chinese law to provide access for the CCP?

Later they will say 'Oh, who knew? We try to keep politics out it' - same line the scientist use - but what did they think was gonna happen? Obviously they don't give a shit - not when there's money involved.

It's similar to when i hear people complain about 'Made in China crap'. It takes two to tango for that product to get on the shelf of a mega-store in the free-world. The Chinese will make anything you want - if you want quality - sure - but it costs more. If you want cheap crap so you can super-size your profits - yeah we can do that too.

The nut behind the wheel of the non-China company, be it K-Mart, or LINE, is fully-complicit in producing those outcomes.

I wonder what's going on with Jack Ma? The CCP has publicly taken him down several cogs - now they've fined Alibaba $2.75 bil.

If i was a western intelligence agency i'd be trying to turn him. The only way to crack the CCP (short of a shooting war) is to crack the Great Fire-wall - get information out to the Chinese public - destabilize their precious control over the masses. Jack Ma might be uniquely situated to facilitate that. Or is he just another self-centred big tech guy only interested in his own power?

This is an interesting development. It comes just when China is unleashing its digital yuan on the world. Many people think that digital currency, such as Bitcoin, allows for anonymity. It's just the opposite. One of the qualities of digital currency is that it's entirely transparent, and this will give China complete control over even more of Chinese citizen's daily lives, including the super wealthy.

This is an interesting development. It comes just when China is unleashing its digital yuan on the world. Many people think that digital currency, such as Bitcoin, allows for anonymity. It's just the opposite. One of the qualities of digital currency is that it's entirely transparent, and this will give China complete control over even more of Chinese citizen's daily lives, including the super wealthy.

Ok, i didn't know that - like you said, i thought the whole point was the anonymity, but i can see how it can be flipped to become an ultimate tracking device.

Guess that just leaves us with cash - and bartering.

Well, in a sense something like Bitcoin provides anonymity in that nobody controls it, so I can send some to you with no names attached to the transaction. But, all transactions are recorded on a public ledger, the blockchain, forever, and that record is viewable by anybody. So what governments are doing now is requiring exchanges, places that sell bitcoin, to get "KYC" (know your customer) information before allowing you to buy crypto. This is all about tax. If they know I bought crypto, they can track it and know when I spent or sold it, and charge me any capital gains. That's all they really care about.

So on the one hand it can provide anonymity, but it's not nearly as anonymous as cash can be. These idiots that go on to talk shows talking about how crypto is used for crime are just that, idiots. Cash is the currency of choice for criminals and always will be.

But with China developing its own crypto, they can completely control everything, and allow absolutely zero anonymity. This will provide them with more information than they could dream of in a pre-crypto world. If they could get everyone using their state crypto, they would quite literally know everything thing about everyone's spending habits, including place, time, quantity, everything.

That's an interesting take on crypto-currency - not the one you normally hear.

However, i did notice that the cyber-criminals behind the Colonial Gas hack are demanding payment in Bitcoin.

It doesn't appear to be a state-sponsored operation, though it's the kind of target you'd love to be able hit if you were a state.

Also highlights the problem of cyber-attackers being able to operate with impunity. Apparently they advertise/operate on the dark web (whatever that is) as if they were a legit business.

I'm curious how the US is going to handle it - seems they haven't paid yet coz their pipeline is still down - i wonder what their alternatives are?

Edit: Turns out Colonial paid - "just hours after the ransomware attack took place".

If there is war over Taiwan, you can imagine all hell will break lose on the cyber-warfare front with energy supplies being a main target. Better get those solar panels and battery set up!

If there is war over Taiwan, you can imagine all hell will break lose on the cyber-warfare front with energy supplies being a main target. Better get those solar panels and battery set up!

It crossed my mind that this recent massive power outage in Taiwan might be China testing the waters of cyber attacks.

Me too - but they're saying 'human error' at this stage.

TT: The company said that a Taipower employee caused the blackouts by mistakenly turning a switch at an ultra-high-voltage substation in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District.

It does open up another possibility for sabotage apart from cyber-warfare - just have a plant in the power station with access to the switchboard.

They've now got water and energy restrictions in Taiwan - that's getting precarious.

It was 40C in Kaohsiung yesterday! Not a good day to have the air-con out.

Wow. It blows my mind that one person turning one switch can cause so much havoc. Talk about the weak link.

China has cracked down on Bitcoin and crypto in general to clear the decks for its own digital currency. The only surprise to me is why they didn't do it sooner.

It was interesting that the FBI managed to get most of the Bitcoin ransom money back from the Colonial Pipeline hack. How did they do that?

Is that the end of Bitcoin as a thing?

This article says it was just a case of "sloppy password storage" - but that doesn't make sense for an organization that hacked a key energy supplying company.

If it doesn't have anonymity then there's not much value left.

It was interesting that the FBI managed to get most of the Bitcoin ransom money back from the Colonial Pipeline hack. How did they do that?

It's very simple. They had the 'keys' to the wallet holding the coin. They got the keys through a KYC exchange (or through the hackers directly, see below). These exchanges must follow laws similar to those of banks. The news reports on this story are INCREDIBLY vague. They don't indicate from which exchange these funds were taken, or, if, by chance, the attackers simply gave back some of the coin as an agreement.

Is that the end of Bitcoin as a thing?

Not at all. It doesn't change a thing.

This article says it was just a case of "sloppy password storage" - but that doesn't make sense for an organization that hacked a key energy supplying company.

I don't even need to read the article because it's very clear what happened. The hackers stored their coin, or put their coin purposely to be found, on an exchange. The US govt can audit and confiscate Bitcoin KYC exchange accounts just like banks. That's what happened here. This is why people recommend that you never leave coin on an exchange.

"Not your keys, not your coin". If your coin is on an exchange, the Man can take it, and that's what happened here. If you store your own coin, the banks, the govt, God, they can all fuck off.

So the question is, why did this happen? Well, didn't the govt only get a little more than 1/2 of the BTC back? Right? It was a deal. The thieves cut a deal. They put up 1/2 the coin and made it look like the Man made a big bust. It's all fucking theater.

Why did the thieves do that? Because they felt the full heat of what they'd done. They shut down the fucking fuel for the entire east coast of the US. They fucked up. They knew they'd overstepped their bounds. Also, by (apparently) selling out BTC, they served the Man's purpose by degrading BTC. The Man doesn't like BTC. So they cut a deal, and they both won. The thieves kept 2 MILLION in BTC, and the Man got headlines causing a 20% drop in BTC. Everyone wins. Again, it's all fucking theater.

If it doesn't have anonymity then there's not much value left.

Hmmm... that must be why BTC is worth 37K USD right now, nearly twice what it was at the height of 2017, and why El Salvador has been the first country to make it a national currency. It's value is just beginning to be understood.

I predict fairly intense attacks on cryptocurrency technologies from the leading financial powers in the coming months and years, including the media. El Salvador has fired the first shot in a war, make no mistake about that.

The IMF, the World Bank, and all the other world banking bodies are terrified of Bitcoin and the technology it represents. These bodies, countries in general, depend on their currencies as expressions of their wealth. Bitcoin upends that. It completely fucks things up.

It's not just Bitcoin, but the blockchain tech behind it, so there's nothing sacred about BTC, but the fact is that blockchain technology means that people can exchange value without banks. That's the bottom line. We no longer need banks to exchange value internationally. This freaks out the big boys.

So we're going to see a lot of media attacks on Bitcoin and everything else that isn't mainstream BANK. Because the Man doesn't make money off of Bitcoin, and that pisses him off.

What has happened in El Salvador is truly revolutionary. It's a big deal. It's very historical.

My fear is that there's going to be a reaction. El Salvador is messing with the big boys, the Man. By making BTC a national currency, they are reclaiming their independence. It's a bold move. How will the Man react? Will he declare El Salvador a state sponsor of terrorism? Will he just fuck with the country in any number of ways?

One thing is for sure. Whatever the Man decides to do, it won't, it can't, stop Bitcoin.

That's an interesting analysis. If there's one thing that Covid (and Anthrax, and the Iraq War, etc, etc) has taught us, we can't believe a word the experts and governments tell us.

I'm curious though as to why governments haven't just outright banned cryptocurrencies?

Also noticed the hackers went straight onto the next target - the world's biggest meat processing company, JBS, who paid US$11 mil - also in Bitcoin - so seems the hackers haven't lost faith in it.

Funny how there's no talk of 'not negotiating with terrorists' - seems they just cough up straight away.

I'm curious though as to why governments haven't just outright banned cryptocurrencies?

Because they can't. How do they ban them? What would that look like?

An interesting side note here. El Salvador just made Bitcoin a national currency. They also said it won't be taxed, meaning capital gains won't be taxed, meaning that someone could get residency in El Salvador, and pay no tax on their millions in gains on the currency. This is huge. El Salvador could end up taking in billions of dollars just in economic activity as the result of this.

If countries try to ban it, they quickly find out they've shot themselves in the foot because Bitcoin is not bound by any country.

There's not a lot of choice for media in Australia - either the blanket ban on 'lab leak' investigation of the so-called liberal press - or the Murdoch press - where you got a tiny trickle of stories exploring the possibility. Later they will say they championed the story but they didn't - piling on with stories now that the heavy lifting has already been done by citizen researchers doesn't count.

The only papers that provided decent coverage when it was all on the line were the Taiwanese ones.

But somehow, out of desperation, i started reading some Murdoch press in the daily mix.

Luckily, i'm able to filter through the crap. One thing i've noticed recently is a concerted attack on crypto-currency - they never miss an opportunity to talk it down. No surprise there i guess - just another example of how out-of-control the media is. It's like they go into their morning meetings and the only topic of discussion is: 'How can we pervert the truth to benefit our financial advantage?'

I wonder if the world can ever find a way through this? I'm not optimistic coz it would involve a 'whole-of-culture' rebuild. My hope is that big media will become less relevant as people look for information elsewhere - but will your average Joe ever be bothered to look past the headlines of mainstream media?

Luckily, i'm able to filter through the crap. One thing i've noticed recently is a concerted attack on crypto-currency - they never miss an opportunity to talk it down. No surprise there i guess - just another example of how out-of-control the media is. It's like they go into their morning meetings and the only topic of discussion is: 'How can we pervert the truth to benefit our financial advantage?'

We're going to see a lot more attacks on crypto in the coming months and years, not only from the media but from governments as well. They're going to do everything they can to scare people away from crypto and also to make it difficult to exchange to fiat. But in the end, this negative pressure from the big boys is going to help the little guys. Right now, that's El Salvador, but it looks like Paraguay might get in on the action soon. Once these small countries who have been bullied by the USD, IMF, and World Bank start realizing they have an edge with crypto, things will get really interesting. The economy of El Salvador will initially profit, possibly a lot, by the acceptance of BTC as legal currency. That should result in other central and south American countries embracing it and telling the financial elites to fuck off.

I wonder if the world can ever find a way through this? I'm not optimistic coz it would involve a 'whole-of-culture' rebuild. My hope is that big media will become less relevant as people look for information elsewhere - but will your average Joe ever be bothered to look past the headlines of mainstream media?

I'm not optimistic either.

You rarely hear anything from Google management - considering it's the most powerful company ever. Founded/owned by Larry Page and Sergei Brin, the current CEO is Sundar Pichai. This BBC article sheds some light.

Not surprisingly he says AI will have as profound an impact on humanity as fire, electricity, and the internet - and he sees it happening in the next 25 years.

Also talks about quantum computing.

Touches on the reality that the internet, as wonderful as it is, also functions as a powerful control tool for totalitarianism - but doesn't go too deep there. Avoids mentioning China.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57763382

This fits with the theory of the One-Everything set aligning - above all other allegiances.

WASHINGTON, DC - Sept 14 (Reuters) - Three former U.S. intelligence operatives, who went to work as mercenary hackers for the United Arab Emirates, face federal charges of conspiring to violate hacking laws.

The court documents describe how the three helped the UAE design, procure and deploy hacking capabilities over multiple years. Their victims allegedly included U.S. citizens, which Reuters previously reported based on information provided by Stroud.

Court Documents: Defendants used illicit, fraudulent, and criminal means, including the use of advanced covert hacking systems that utilized computer exploits obtained from the United States and elsewhere, to gain unauthorized access to protected computers in the United States and elsewhere and to illicitly obtain information.

Wow, that's serious, considering UAE is a totalitarian, human right oppressing regime. You could get life imprisonment for that, right?

Prosecutors wrote in a separate filing that they have promised to drop the charges if the three men cooperate with U.S. authorities, pay a financial penalty, agree to unspecified employment restrictions and acknowledge responsibility for their actions.

In fact he says they're not crypto-currencies - just governments trying to centralize your money.

https://news.bitcoin.com/edward-snowden-calls-cbdcs-cryptofascist-currency-closer-to-be...

Oct 11 (Reuters) - Facebook Inc's (FB.O) oversight board, a body set up by the social network to give independent verdicts on a small number of thorny content decisions, said on Monday it would meet with former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen in the coming weeks.

So what was she whistleblowing about? The scandalous censorship by FB of anyone even mentioning that Covid may have come from a lab?

The crackdown on the vaccine hesitant?

No, none of that. She is calling for even greater content regulation by FB! This has to be some sort of con job.

Good insight. I hadn't considered that, but you're right. This would effectively kill two birds, or many birds, with one stone. It gives the governmental oversight puppets a win, it would give FB a win by giving them more control, and it would pacify the public who wants to see FB dragged through the mud a bit.

It is a brilliant ruse, if this is what's actually happening. And let's consider -- when has government or industry given two shits about the health of young people? We have them on a drip feeding of junk food and sugary drinks. The US has a very high percentage of kids who can't access good health care, Internet services, education...

I think you may be on to something.

They'll by crypto in the sense that cryptography will be used to maintain a record, but that record will be the opposite of anonymous. A government digital currency on a blockchain will allow the government to track every cent you do anything with. But it will also allow the government to limit what you can spend that money on, quite literally. It will also allow the govt to fine, tax, punish, tag, trace, follow, snoop... it will be the end of any privacy at all with regards to day-to-day life. That's not an overstatement. They'll even know which stall of a pay toilet you used and which brand of condom you bought from the vending machine. And size.

It will also allow the govt to fine, tax, punish, tag, trace, follow, snoop... it will be the end of any privacy at all with regards to day-to-day life. That's not an overstatement. They'll even know which stall of a pay toilet you used and which brand of condom you bought from the vending machine. And size.

Now there's a robot (in Singapore) to help enforce all that ...

[image]

University of Vermont: (S)cientists at the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have discovered an entirely new form of biological reproduction—and applied their discovery to create the first-ever, self-replicating living robots.

Joshua Bongard, lead scientist: This is an ideal system in which to study self-replicating systems. We have a moral imperative to understand the conditions under which we can control it, direct it, douse it, exaggerate it.

Moral imperative - just hearing a scientist crapping on about enacting moral imperatives gives me the creeps. If Covid has taught us anything, it's that scientist cannot be allowed anywhere near the steering wheel when it comes to morality.

Bongard: If we can develop technologies, learning from Xenobots, where we can quickly tell the AI: ‘We need a biological tool that does X and Y and suppresses Z,’ —that could be very beneficial.

Yes, very beneficial if you're an unaccountable One-Everything regime - which is the kind the world's leading scientists have been supporting in recent times. Especially the suppressing Z part.

Bongard:We need to create technological solutions that grow at the same rate as the challenges we face.

No we don't. That's the fallacy at the heart of this type of scientist-driven thinking. Our two biggest challenges are Covid and Climate Change - both man-made. We need to stop doing the behaviours that caused them. It's that simple.

I don't blame the scientists for doing this work - but continuing to allow scientists to dictate the moral compass of society is a recipe for the same catastrophic results we've seen from their past efforts. Scientist are good at focusing on trees - in microscopic detail - in an amoral way. But when it comes to seeing the forest, they're hopeless.

They must stand down.

Let the adult thinkers weigh all the consequences, all the ethical/societal implications - then make sensible decisions on the total input.

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Data War 2021 - Hacker Poisons Water Supply (General)

Zoom - Eric Yuan transfers 40%

Microsoft hack

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China - Jack Ma

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Crypto-currency

Crypto-currency

Crypto-currency - Colonial Gas pipe-line hack

Crypto-currency - Colonial Gas pipe-line hack

Taiwan power outage

Taiwan power outage

Crypto-currency - China crackdown

Crypto-currency - China crackdown

Crypto-currency - China crackdown

Crypto-currency - China crackdown

Crypto-currency - BTC retrieval - JBS

Crypto-currency - BTC retrieval - JBS

Crypto-currency - Big-media

Crypto-currency - Big-media

Google CEO interview

US hacker mercenaries - UAE

Snowden warns against Govt crypto

FB's Fake Whistleblower

FB's Fake Whistleblower

Snowden warns against Govt crypto

Snowden warns against Govt crypto

Self-replicating bio-bots