Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[Good2Golf]

Federal politicians, said the source, also had to worry about “the public perception of handing over a billion dollars or more to very large companies.

:rofl:

Canadians have been Bombardiered, so nothing surprises us no. Since were racking up an additional $300+ BILLION, what’s another $1B to keep Huawei frozen out of stealing all our personal information hiding within our country’s telecom infrastructure?

Get on with it...lock ‘em out.

:nod:

 

[Dana381]

Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century | Yes Prime Minister

;D

:rofl: That was great, true stuff is always the funniest stuff!  :rofl:

 

[MarkOttawa]

This looks very worrying, Canada involved:

China's 'hybrid war': Beijing's mass surveillance of Australia and the world for secrets and scandal

A Chinese company with links to Beijing's military and intelligence networks has been amassing a vast database of detailed personal information on thousands of Australians, including prominent and influential figures.

A database of 2.4 million people, including more than 35,000 Australians, has been leaked from the Shenzhen company Zhenhua Data which is believed to be used by China's intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security.

Zhenhua has the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party among its main clients.

Information collected includes dates of birth, addresses, marital status, along with photographs, political associations, relatives and social media IDs.

It collates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and even TikTok accounts, as well as news stories, criminal records and corporate misdemeanours.

While much of the information has been "scraped" from open-source material, some profiles have information which appears to have been sourced from confidential bank records, job applications and psychological profiles.

The company is believed to have sourced some of its information from the so-called "dark web".

One intelligence analyst said the database was "Cambridge Analytica on steroids", referring to the trove of personal information sourced from Facebook profiles in the lead up to the 2016 US election campaign.

But this data dump goes much further, suggesting a complex global operation using artificial intelligence to trawl publicly available data to create intricate profiles of individuals and organisations, potentially probing for compromise opportunities.

The database has been shared with an international consortium of media outlets in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Australia, comprising the Australian Financial Review and the ABC [emphasis added]...

Of the 35,558 Australians on the database, there are state and federal politicians, military officers, diplomats, academics, civil servants, business executives, engineers, journalists, lawyers and accountants.

They range from the current and former prime ministers, to Atlassian billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, and business figures David Gonski and Jennifer Westacott.

But there are 656 of the Australians featured on the list as being of "special interest" or "politically exposed". Exactly what the company means by either of these terms is unexplained, but the people on the list are disparate in occupation and background, and there seems little to no explanation in who has made the list [emphasis added].

The list includes current Victorian Supreme Court Judge Anthony Cavanough, retired Navy Admiral and former Lockheed Martin chief executive Raydon Gates, former ambassador to China Geoff Raby, ex Tasmanian Premier Tony Rundle and former foreign minister Bob Carr.

Singer Natalie Imbruglia features in this list, along with One Nation co-founder David Oldfield, National Party President Larry Anthony, former treasurer Peter Costello's son Sebastian, ex-Labor MP Emma Husar, News Corp journalist Ellen Whinnett and rural businesswoman and ABC director Georgie Somerset...

The database was leaked to a US academic based in Vietnam, Professor Chris Balding, who until 2018 had worked at the elite Peking University before leaving China citing fears for his physical safety.

"China is absolutely building out a massive surveillance state both domestically and internationally," Professor Balding told the ABC.

"They're using a wide variety of tools — this one is taken primarily from public sources, there is non-public data in here, but it is taken primarily from public sources...

Professor Balding has returned to the United States, leaving Vietnam after being advised it was no longer safe for him to be there.

It was also a grave risk taken by the person who leaked the database to him, who contacted him as he started publishing articles about Chinese tech giant Huawei [emphasis added]...

Of the 250,000 records recovered, there are 52,000 on Americans, 35,000 Australians, 10,000 Indian, 9,700 British, 5,000 Canadians, 2,100 Indonesians, 1,400 Malaysia and 138 from Papua New Guinea.

There are 793 New Zealanders profiled in the database, of whom 734 are tagged of special interest or politically exposed [emphasis added].

Zhenhua boasts it has about 20 "collection nodes" scattered around the world to vacuum enormous amounts of data and send back to China. Two of the nodes have been identified as being in Kansas in the United States and the South Korean capital Seoul. The Australian node has not been detected...

Zhenhua Data, established in 2018, is believed to be owned by China Zhenhua Electronics Group which in turn is owned by state-owned China Electronic Information Industry Group (CETC), a military research company which had an association with the University of Technology Sydney until 2019...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-14/chinese-data-leak-linked-to-military-names-australians/12656668

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CBH99]

:rofl: That was great, true stuff is always the funniest stuff!  :rofl:

:rofl:

I didn't know what to expect, I've never seen the show before.  Didn't realize it was a documentary!

 

[MarkOttawa]

This looks very worrying, Canada involved:

Mark
Ottawa

Now major Globe and Mail story:

Chinese firm amasses trove of open-source data on influential Canadians
…
The company’s ambitions, though, extend far beyond its small real-estate footprint. It is building tools to process the world’s open-source information about influential people — culled from Twitter, criminal records, LinkedIn posts, YouTube videos and more — into information that can be analyzed and used by universities, companies, government actors and the Chinese military. “Our client base is a bit special,” the woman said. It also claims to have built tools to manipulate content on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other platforms. Facebook now says it has banned the company from its platform.

Zhenhua declined an interview request, saying it was not convenient to disclose trade secrets. The company’s website became inaccessible after The Globe and Mail visited its office, which is located in a government-backed business incubator building across the street from an investigative centre for the local Public Security Bureau — all of it a short drive from headquarters for some of China’s most important technology and civil-military companies, including Tencent and China Electronics Corp.

But The Globe and a consortium of international journalists have accessed an early copy of the company’s Overseas Key Information Database, which shows the type of information Zhenhua is collecting for use in China, including records of small-town mayors in western Canada, where Chinese diplomats have sought to curry favour. The company, led by a former IBM data centre management expert, has also described its work online in job postings, LinkedIn records, blog articles and software patents. One employee described work “mining the business needs of military customers for overseas data.” Zhenhua’s website listed a series of partners that include important military contractors. In total, it claims to have collected information on more than 2.4 million people, 650,000 organizations from over two billion articles of social media.

Together, the documents show a Chinese firm with a keen interest in advanced forms of warfare, the structure of the U.S. intelligence apparatus and the use of social media to achieve military victories. The company has secured a software patent for a “social media account simulation system,” a title that connotes a tool for managing networks of fake social media usernames in a way that emulates human characteristics, making them more effective at spreading messages. Zhenhua’s name translates to “China Revival,” a reference to a mantra of the national rise sought by president Xi Jinping, who has proclaimed the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

“It seems to be collecting information about people who are around things that China would be interested in. The question is if this is a database of potential targets that could be used by the intelligence services of China to get what they want,” said Stephanie Carvin, a former national security analyst who viewed the database on behalf of The Globe and Mail. She is now an associate professor of international relations at Carleton University.

While Prof. Carvin said it wasn’t clear whether this was a database used by Chinese intelligence – or just a database created by a company hoping to sell it to Chinese intelligence – she found it curious that there were records on people like Ella-Grace Trudeau, the 11-year-old daughter of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Jeremy Fry, the adult son of longtime MP Hedy Fry. That, Prof. Carvin said, suggested an attempt to learn more not just about the people in power in Canada, but those around them.

“Why have these people in some kind of database? That, to me, is the question that national security agencies in the West have to figure out. That’s the thing I worry about,” Prof. Carvin said. “Is this an attempt to create a database of targetable individuals? And what are they trying to do with that?”

A version of the Zhenhua OKIDB database analyzed by The Globe contained nearly 16,000 entries mentioning Canada.

The database’s files seem to have been cobbled together from various sources: Some catalogue news stories, including hundreds of articles from The Globe itself, while others are archived Facebook posts from Donald Trump about trade tariffs. A large portion of the data appears to have been extracted from the business information website Crunchbase, and serves as a rolodex of social media accounts and contact information for people in all sorts of occupations, from tech executives to university professors. Roughly 70 per cent of the people captured in the data are men.

The database appears to contain a special focus on mayors of Western Canadian towns, as well as academics and bureaucrats who focus on international relations. However, the effort is broader than it is deep.

The vast majority of the files contain little more than accumulation of what can be found about the individuals on social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. In some cases, where the person of interest had a police record, links are included to newspaper stories about their cases.

The mass-scraping of data contravenes Facebook’s policies, spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois said. “We have banned Shenzen Zhenhua Data Technology from our platform and sent a cease and desist letter to ordering them to stop,” she said. LinkedIn does “not permit the use of any software that scrapes or copies information from LinkedIn,” said spokesperson Billy Huang. “If any violation of our User Agreement is uncovered or reported we investigate and take necessary steps to protect our members’ information.”

A shorter list of 3,767 Canadians have been assigned a grade of 1, 2 or 3 by the creators of the database. Those assigned a 1 appeared to be people of direct influence, such as mayors, MPs, or senior civil servants, while those assigned a 2 were often relatives of people in power, such as Mr. Trudeau’s daughter and Ms. Fry’s son. Those assigned a grade of 3 often had criminal convictions, mostly for economic crimes.

Dozens of current and former MPs dot the list of those assigned a 1, including new Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, whose file, like most, includes only a seven-digit ID number and a link to the webpage of his official parliamentary profile.

Others who had files assigned a grade of 1 include senior bureaucrats at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Treasury Board, the Transportation Safety Board, the Export Development Canada – even the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

The justice system appeared to be another focus of the database, which contains entries on judges up to and including current and former members of the Supreme Court of Canada…
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-chinese-firm-amasses-trove-of-open-source-data-on-influential/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Donald H]

Hi Don

Nah, I think you're strecthing the whatever happens in the future but remember, trump has frequently verbally attacked China for years.  :2c:

I hear you Shawn, but I'm suggesting that Trump needs to appear to be taking a hard line on China right now for political purposes.
One aspect of the conversation that is continually avoided is the question of Trump's support being antiwar. I've suggested that is a large portion and is consistent to the well known phrase, 'bring the troops home'.

Your opinion?

 

[shawn5o]

I hear you Shawn, but I'm suggesting that Trump needs to appear to be taking a hard line on China right now for political purposes.
One aspect of the conversation that is continually avoided is the question of Trump's support being antiwar. I've suggested that is a large portion and is consistent to the well known phrase, 'bring the troops home'.

Your opinion?

Good point Don

I think The Don will take a harder line towards China but that might cause a blowback or something like that. China and the US are (I think) the two biggest economies and they are entwined. How in hell are they going to seperate from each other? I don't think either can w/o upsetting world economy.

As for bring the troops home, CHB in a similar thread stated some good info/observations.

Cheers

 

[a_majoor]

More examples of Chinese "Unrestricted Warfare" to compliment some of the upthread liinks:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/15/china_shenzhen_zhenhua_database/

Chinese database details 2.4 million influential people, their kids, addresses, and how to press their buttons
Compiled using mostly open-source intel, shines a light on extent of China’s surveillance activities
Tue 15 Sep 2020 // 06:27 UTC76
Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor

A US academic has revealed the existence of 2.4-million-person database he says was compiled by a Chinese company known to supply intelligence, military, and security agencies. The researcher alleges the purpose of the database is enabling influence operations to be conducted against prominent and influential people outside China.

The academic is Chris Balding, an associate professor at the Fulbright University Vietnam.

And he says the company is company is named "Shenzhen Zhenhua".

Security researcher Robert Potter and Balding co-authored a paper [PDF] claiming the trove is known as the “Overseas Key Information Database” (OKIDB) and that while most of it could have been scraped from social media or other publicly-accessible sources, 10 to 20 per cent of it appears not to have come from any public source of information. The co-authors do not rule out hacking as the source of that data, but also say they can find no evidence of such activity.

“A fundamental purpose appears to be information warfare,” the pair stated.

Balding wrote on his blog that the database contains the following:

The information specifically targets influential individuals and institutions across a variety of industries. From politics to organized crime or technology and academia just to name a few, the database flows from sectors the Chinese state and linked enterprises are known to target.

The breadth of data is also staggering. It compiles information on everyone from key public individuals to low level individuals in an institution to better monitor and understand how to exert influence when needed.

The database includes details of politicians, diplomats, activists, academics, media figures, entrepreneurs, military officers and government employees. Subjects’ close relatives are also listed, along with contact details and affiliations with political and other organisations.

In the paper, the pair said all that data allows Chinese analysts “to track key influencers and how news and opinion moves through social media platforms.”

“The data collected about individuals and institutions and the overlaid analytic tools from social media platforms provide China enormous benefit in opinion formation, targeting, and messaging.”

It gets worse: “From the assembled data, it is also possible for China even in individualized meetings be able to craft messaging or target the individuals they deem necessary to target.”

Balding said the database is “technically complex using very advanced language, targeting, and classification tools.”

More on the link, but this, coupled with other information gathering exploits like the Chinese hack of the OPM database in 2015 (which contained the information of every single American who had applied for a security clearance), or the widespread infiltration of academic institutions provides the raw materials to create very detailed link diagrams, detailed dossiers of select individuals and theoretically gives the Chinese State the ability to wage war on individuals if they desire (how well they can do so is another question).

Certainly the parameters of defense are rapidly changing given these sorts of abilities, and Canada and the West will need to mobilize all the tools of DIME (Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economics) in order to protect ourselves and our institutions.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Chicoms seeking retribution for our detention of Meng Wanzhou:

Beijing Moves the Goalposts for Resumption of ‘Healthy’ Sino-Canadian Relations: J. Michael Cole for Inside Policy

Undoubtedly frustrated with its inability to coerce Ottawa into releasing Meng, Beijing has decided to up the ante, making Kovrig and Spavor victims not of the Meng affair, but now making an example of them to punish Ottawa for its defiance, writes J. Michael Cole.

Although China may be a relatively new fact of life for the majority of ordinary Canadians, for those who have lived under the shadow of its “rise,” it is a well-known fact that one constant to how the Chinese Communist Party conducts foreign relations is that nothing is ever constant. China’s envoy to Canada, Cong Peiwu, made that clear in an interview published in Montreal-based La Presse, with a warning that the release by Canada of Meng Wanzhou would not result in the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

The remark contradicts an earlier statement by Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s ministry of foreign affairs, which suggested that Beijing could be amenable to releasing Kovrig and Spavor if Meng were set free. While we cannot entirely rule out the possibility that Ambassador Cong’s comments do not reflect Beijing’s official policy on the matter, there is a higher likelihood that his remarks to Canadian media followed consultations with the Chinese government.

Cong leaves little doubt that a prisoner swap is out of the question. “The reason for their detention is completely different,” he observed. “Therefore, the two issues should be treated separately.” In fact, Cong signaled that Meng’s release was now a precondition for the resumption of healthy relations between Canada and China, adding that Canada’s arrest of Meng made it an “accomplice of the United States.”

If Cong’s remarks indeed reflect Beijing’s new policy, then it is clear that the goalposts have moved. Undoubtedly frustrated with its inability to coerce Ottawa into releasing Meng, Beijing has decided to up the ante, making Kovrig and Spavor victims not of the Meng affair, but now making an example of them to punish Ottawa for its defiance. Canada is not the first target of such kidnapping diplomacy — in recent years, Australian, Swedish, and Taiwanese nationals have also been disappeared by Chinese authorities amid a downturn in the relationship.

Ironically, Cong’s warning obviates what arguably was Beijing’s most potent leverage with Ottawa — hopes by many Canadians to see two of their own return home — in exchange for vague promises of the resumption of cordial ties with China. The problem is that there is no knowing how long this would last, as we cannot know what next “offense” by Canada would prompt the kidnapping of another of our nationals by China.

If Ottawa concedes, Beijing gets what it wants — Meng back — while underscoring the fact that, in its hierarchy of states, it is China, not smaller states, that gets to set the rules of the game. The only thing Canada would obtain in return is “healthy” relations, whose nature and duration would also be decided by Beijing. Based on the precedent set by Beijing with other countries, it’s easy to imagine that we’d get screwed. Weakness and contrition would only invite recidivism by Beijing, which would whittle away at Ottawa’s ability to set its own parameters for our relations with China.

Canada therefore has even less incentive now to set Meng free. However, tempting it may be to repair our relationship with China by giving it what it wants, we should never lose sight of who our real friends are. Disagreements with President Trump notwithstanding, there is absolutely no doubt that the United States is a much better and ideologically compatible friend.

The fate of Kovrig and Spavor is a brutal reminder of the risks of attracting Beijing’s displeasure now that its rulers have concluded that China is a first among equals. It also underscores the urgency of decoupling from China and for a reconfiguration of the global supply chain.

Since their arrest and descent into China’s Orwellian legal system, it had been generally acknowledged that by detaining them, Beijing was creating a “moral equivalence” which should have facilitated Meng’s release. Though it never was a good idea, maybe there was a time when a swap would have at least been possible. But that window has closed. Beijing is now “unshakably” set on retribution.

As General Marshall discovered in his Sisyphean endeavors to encourage unity in China following World War II, the CCP will always exploit weakness in its opponents, while using maximum propaganda to shift the blame for failure squarely on its opponents. It’s difficult to imagine what will secure freedom for Kovrig, Spavor, and the many others who have been kidnapped by China in recent years. It’s likely they will remain in detention for a while yet, probably until there is a change of attitude in Beijing.

We owe it to them to not give in to the CCP’s disregard for the norms of decency. We also owe it to them to deny Beijing the pleasure of depicting us as the reason for soured relations. If it wasn’t Meng, it would eventually have been something else, as China’s disputes with many other countries have shown. The worst that we could do is to give it what it wants.

J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa and the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a former analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. His latest book, Insidious Power: How China Undermines Global Democracy, was published in July.
https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/beijing-moves-goalposts-resumption-healthy-sino-canadian-relations/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

China looks to the skies as well:

https://spacenews.com/new-study-looks-at-space-power-competition-through-chinas-lens/

New study looks at space power competition through China’s lens
by Sandra Erwin — September 20, 2020

"China's Space Narrative" was released Sept. 17 by the U.S. Air Force Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute and the CNA nonprofit research center.
WASHINGTON — A new study by the U.S. Air Force’s university think tank confirms the widely held view that China’s anti-satellite weapons pose a national security threat to the United States. But the study also highlights China’s use of soft power and diplomacy as potentially powerful weapons that could undermine the United States.

"China's Space Narrative” released Sept. 17, was a joint project by the U.S. Air Force Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute and the CNA nonprofit research center.

“As the era of great power competition continues to evolve, we must understand the full breadth and depth of the competition, how they think, and how they are likely to act or react,” Brendan Mulvaney, director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute, writes in the introduction to the report.

CASI used publicly available native language resources to draw insights on how the Chinese view the U.S.-China space relationship.

“The two countries are in a long term competition in which China is attempting to become a global power, and part of this effort is being played out in space,” the study says.

The rest of the article discusses how China re-frames space issues in order to minimize the perception of their militarization, use of diplomatic tools to attempt to isolate the US on issues of space policy and even a discussion of how Chinese aerospace corporations should try to emulate SpaceX. Access to space resources could break multiple economic bottlenecks on Earth, so whoever can access this first will have a massive advantage (for example a single metallic asteroid a kilometer in diameter is thought to have about $22 trillion dollars in platinum group metals at current prices - even thought that amount of platinum would crash market prices, the availability of cheap platinum to use as industrial catalysts would certainly change multiple industries on Earth).

 

[a_majoor]

More on Huawei's issues. It is very likely that as part of China's "Unrestricted Warfare" doctrine, planting this equipment in national infrastructures is or was part of a long term process of preparing the Battlespace. Coupling real time communications monitoring with the massive databases of individuals such as identified up thread would make link diagrams, analysis and targeting of individuals and institutions far easier for the Chinese, while the Western powers would be at a very asymmetric disadvantage with no comparable form of access to China.

https://news.sky.com/story/gchq-discovered-nationally-significant-vulnerability-in-huawei-equipment-12086688

GCHQ discovered 'nationally significant' vulnerability in Huawei equipment
The issue in Huawei's equipment was initially withheld from the Chinese company and not reported due to security concerns.
Alexander J Martin, technology reporter

Cyber security analysts tasked with investigating Huawei equipment used in the UK's telecommunications networks discovered a "nationally significant" vulnerability last year.

Investigators at the UK's Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) found an issue so severe that it was withheld from the company, according to an oversight report published on Thursday.

Vulnerabilities are usually software design failures which could allow hostile actors (in particular the Chinese state when it comes to Huawei) to conduct a cyber attack. They are not necessarily intentional and can't be seen as an indication of any hostile intent on the part of the developers themselves.

There is a hypothetical concern that Beijing could purposefully design some kind of deniable flaw in Huawei's equipment which it would know how to exploit - or that it could have been alerted to a potential attack vector once the issue was reported to Huawei.

The report explicitly states that the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) - a part of GCHQ - "does not believe that the defects identified are as a result of Chinese state interference", and adds that there is no evidence the vulnerabilities were exploited.

Instead, the agency reported that "poor software engineering and cyber security processes lead to security and quality issues, including vulnerabilities" - and that "the increasing number and severity of vulnerabilities discovered" is of particular concern.

While the article goes on about how this was not intentional, given the level of access that Huawei or the Chinese government would have over the equipment once the flaws were identified, including in the article's own words "Other impacts could include being able to access user traffic or reconfiguration of the network elements."

Given China's behaviours over the last decade, it is difficult to discount the idea that this was intentional after all, and provided a convenient and deniable "backdoor" to equipment installed as part of national 5G networks.

 

[FM07]

More on Huawei's issues. It is very likely that as part of China's "Unrestricted Warfare" doctrine, planting this equipment in national infrastructures is or was part of a long term process of preparing the Battlespace. Coupling real time communications monitoring with the massive databases of individuals such as identified up thread would make link diagrams, analysis and targeting of individuals and institutions far easier for the Chinese, while the Western powers would be at a very asymmetric disadvantage with no comparable form of access to China.

https://news.sky.com/story/gchq-discovered-nationally-significant-vulnerability-in-huawei-equipment-12086688

GCHQ discovered 'nationally significant' vulnerability in Huawei equipment
The issue in Huawei's equipment was initially withheld from the Chinese company and not reported due to security concerns.
Alexander J Martin, technology reporter

While the article goes on about how this was not intentional, given the level of access that Huawei or the Chinese government would have over the equipment once the flaws were identified, including in the article's own words "Other impacts could include being able to access user traffic or reconfiguration of the network elements."

Given China's behaviours over the last decade, it is difficult to discount the idea that this was intentional after all, and provided a convenient and deniable "backdoor" to equipment installed as part of national 5G networks.

Amazing.

It would have been like letting the burglar install the security system. Thank God the West has woken up to this egregious threat.

 

[YZT580]

the west minus Canada, so far!

 

[CBH99]

Amazing.

It would have been like letting the burglar install the security system. Thank God the West has woken up to this egregious threat.

Anybody with half a functioning brain could see the ploy for what it was, years ago.  It's only the politicians that have recently begun to catch on...  which I guess makes my comment about half a functioning brain null & void

Letting China manufacture and install our own telecommunication networks?  Or purchase and own our telecom companies, who then in turn install the infrastructure? 

There truly outta' be a "Criminally Incompetent" piece of legislation out there for national leadership  :facepalm:




Glad to see more & more pushback from the West in regards to this.

 

[Donald H]

Anybody with half a functioning brain could see the ploy for what it was, years ago.  It's only the politicians that have recently begun to catch on...  which I guess makes my comment about half a functioning brain null & void

Letting China manufacture and install our own telecommunication networks?  Or purchase and own our telecom companies, who then in turn install the infrastructure? 

There truly outta' be a "Criminally Incompetent" piece of legislation out there for national leadership  :facepalm:




Glad to see more & more pushback from the West in regards to this.

I have to disagree completely. It's nothing but superior 5G technology that contains nothing that can't be ferreted out by experts in the field so that our country's security isn't compromised.

:cheers:

 

[a_majoor]

Chinese action creates a counter reaction:

https://strategypage.com/on_point/2020100622010.aspx

On Point: For China, the Quad Is a Diplomatic and Military Double Whammy
by Austin Bay
October 6, 2020

This week's Quadrilateral Security Dialogue foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo signals that the so-called Quad has arrived as a global diplomatic combination. The Quad is already an Indo-Pacific military power.

For Beijing, the Quad's formation and solidification is a nightmare -- and China's communist government has only itself to blame.

In 2007, the Quad, at the behest of Japan, held its first informal meeting. At that meeting, Japan said all four nations regarded China as a disruptive actor in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This common concern should spur close cooperation to confront it.

For several reasons, India downplayed the initial meeting. Many Indians valued their nation's Cold War-era "non-alignment" policy. Tight military cooperation with the U.S. might betray that legacy. Australia, the U.S. and Japan have long-term bilateral and trilateral defense relationships. Indian and Australian military contacts are close, but India prized strategic autonomy and was suspicious of mutual defense commitments.

Moreover, in 2007, India carefully avoided the appearance of actively countering China. Economic cooperation with Beijing had potential benefits. Plus, New Delhi and Beijing were trying to peacefully resolve their border disputes in the Himalayas.

What a difference 13 years make, especially a baker's dozen scarred by Chinese imperialist territorial expansion, intellectual theft, military buildup and lawless behavior. China's fake South China Sea islands bristle with weapons and violate the Philippines' and Vietnam's maritime zones. Beijing recently announced its new hypersonic missiles can smash Guam, a sovereign American territory. Human rights organizations accuse Beijing of genocide against Turkic Uighurs and ethnic Tibetans.

What a difference indeed. "Containment" of China is happening as the nations surrounding the South China Sea, the First and Second Island chains and the rest of the world react to Chinese activities. IF China were not behaving in such a bellicose manner, I doubt that tariffs, "decoupling" and the formation of groups like the Quad would have happened at all.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Meanwhile PM Trudeau et al. keep the muzzle on our cyber experts--note John Adams quoted in last para of excerpt:

Canada watchdog mum as U.K. agency finds security defects in Huawei gear

Canada’s cybersecurity watchdog is refusing to say whether it found the same security and software defects in telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. that Britain’s cyberspy agency identified last week.

The British government’s National Cyber Security Centre, which oversees the vetting of Huawei gear and includes officials from Britain’s GCHQ signals intelligence agency, issued a report last Thursday citing ongoing security and software engineering problems with Huawei gear.

“Overall, the oversight board can only provide limited assurance that all risks to U.K. national security from Huawei’s involvement in the U.K.’s critical networks can be sufficiently mitigated long-term,” the report said.

The British cybersecurity agency said if an “attacker has knowledge of these vulnerabilities and sufficient access to exploit them, they may be able to affect the operation of a U.K. network, in some cases causing it to cease operating correctly.”

The British said they do not believe the “defects identified are a result of Chinese state interference.”

Canada’s Communications Security Establishment, which handles cybersecurity and oversees the testing of Huawei gear, would not say if it found similar defects.

CSE set up independent labs in 2013, staffed by security analysts, that test all Huawei equipment. Unlike the British agency, CSE does not release annual reports on these tests.

The agency told The Globe and Mail the security review program for Huawei equipment prevents it from releasing the results.

“While non-disclosure agreements prohibit CSE from disclosing further details of this testing process, Canadians can rest assured that the government of Canada is working to make sure the strongest possible protections are in place,” CSE said in a statement.

John Adams, who ran CSE from 2005-2012, told The Globe on Monday [Oct. 5] it is “logical” that the cyberspy agency would have found the same flaws as the British. Mr. Adams said he does not trust Huawei equipment and believes Canada should join its Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partners in banning the Chinese telecom giant’s equipment from next generation 5G mobile networks...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-british-cyberagency-finds-security-defects-in-huawei-gear/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CBH99]

Meanwhile PM Trudeau et al. keep the muzzle on our cyber experts--note John Adams quoted in last para of excerpt:

Mark
Ottawa

One thing I've learned over the years is that Canadian agencies/units/organizations dedicated to operations regarding national security are quite often the most mum on their exploits, yet incredibly proficient at their jobs.

A good example is our very own JTF2.  We don't hear much about them, but we know they are out there doing what needs to be done, and doing it exceptionally well.


The fact that CSE doesn't publicly announce their concerns, doesn't bother me.  I trust they are some pretty smart folks who know what to look for when it comes to this stuff.  And due to the 'political hostage' situation, I imagine anything they have to say that is China related will be behind closed doors for the time being.

If they were truly being muzzled or ignored, to the detriment of our national security - I imagine 'something' would be mysteriously leaked to the press that would instantly draw attention to what they wanted the attention on.


:2c:

 

[blacktriangle]

No one from the Cdn S&I community needs to leak anything. I doubt it would accomplish much aside from landing the member(s) in hot water.

Anyone that cares to look can already find enough open source reporting, as well as the published concerns of more prominent FVEY partners.

The problem is, does anyone, elected or otherwise, actually care enough to make an issue out of it? It's part of the reason that DND owns the old Nortel Campus now...Canada is a soft target.

:2c:

 

[shawn5o]

Australia seems to understand China and its actions


Canada's feckless government needs to show some spine on China
When dealing with an international bully, restraint is rarely effective. Neither is handwringing, or keeping your head in the sand

Author of the articleerek H. Burney, National Post
Publishing date:Oct 06, 2020  •  Last Updated 2 days ago  •  6 minute read

A new geopolitical order is taking shape. The globe is rapidly realigning under American and Chinese spheres of influence and the pandemic has only raised the stakes. How can Canada finally get serious about its internal stability and external security so it can effectively play a role as a middle power? That is the question this National Post series will answer. Today, Derek H. Burney on what Canada can learn from Australia when it comes to dealing with Beijing.

Canada’s approach on China is feckless, completely hamstrung by concerns about the illegal incarceration of the “two Michaels” (Kovrig and Spavor). This situation, for which the government seems to have no practical solution, leaves us, as the late John Crosbie would observe, “naked as a newt” in dealing with a government in Beijing that is not only authoritarian but increasingly coercive on global affairs.

Meanwhile, the seemingly endless and well-funded extradition process involving Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the founder of Huawei, is becoming more farcical by the day and may run inconclusively until the end of the decade.

In a recent letter to the prime minister I joined several other Canadians to suggest that the government propose to swap Meng for the two Michaels. That suggestion prompted moral outrage from the prime minister and others who claimed that it would violate the rule of law. None of the critics offered a practical alternative and yet all of them know that hostage swaps and other unusual means have been used countless times by many countries, including Canada, to resolve seemingly intractable international problems.

More at https://nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-h-burney-canadas-feckless-government-needs-to-show-some-spine-on-china