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with a ransomware attack on 5/6/21, caused the shutdown of fuel transport in the pipe line from Texas to New Jersey on 5/7/21, with the effect at the gas pumps about 2/3 of the way "up" the pipeline today, 5/12/21....

We live in "interesting" times.

132/365

 

Sources of the map image are listed on the map.

Photos of gas pump and keyboard are mine.

 

There is also a problem of folks “hoarding” gas in some areas in the southeast, who beyond filling the gas tank of their vehicles bring extra containers to fill...

 

Edited to add:

5/13: The pipeline is now fully functioning again, one week after it was shut down. It will take a couple of days until distribution from the the pipeline to the wider area will have things “back to normal.”

Both books describe the AI revolution and technology’s ability to shift geopolitical power, but draw nearly opposite conclusions.

 

Suleyman argues for robust AI containment, rife with dystopian fears and surveillance solutions. He is CEO of Microsoft AI, and formerly Google Deep Mind (where at both companies employee protests shut down work on military systems).

 

Karp, in stark contrast, argues that restraint is misguided, and America should “without delay commit to launching a new Manhattan Project in order to retain exclusive control over the most sophisticated forms of AI for the battlefield.” He is CEO of Palantir.

 

Here are the excerpts that summarize their AI arguments, starting with similar premises but driving to divergent recommendations:

 

The Technological Republic

Opening line: “SILICON VALLEY HAS LOST ITS WAY.”

“A generation of founders cloaked themselves in the rhetoric of lofty and ambitious purpose — indeed their rallying cry to change the world has grown lifeless from overuse — but often raised enormous amounts of capital and hired legions of talented engineers merely to build photo-sharing apps and chat interfaces for the modern consumer. A skepticism of government work and national ambition took hold in the Valley. Startup after startup catered to the whims of late capitalist culture without any interest in constructing the technical infrastructure that would address our most significant challenges as a nation.” (9)

 

Why? “The most capable generation of coders have never experienced a war or genuine social upheaval.” (10) “The current generation of spectacularly talented engineering minds has become unmoored from any sense of national purpose or grander and more meaningful project.” (11)

 

“The causes of this turn away from defending the American national project, we argue, include the systematic attack and attempt to dismantle any conception of American or Western identity during the 1960s and 1970s. The dismantling of an entire system of privilege was rightly begun. But we failed to resurrect anything substantial, a coherent collective identity or set of communal values, in its place.” (13)

 

“In this book, we make the case that the technology sector has an affirmative obligation to support the state that made its rise possible.” (11)

 

The Software Century

“The newest forms of artificial intelligence, known as large language models, have for the first time in history pointed to the possibility of artificial general intelligence (AGI) — that is, a computing intellect that could rival that of the human mind when it comes to abstract reasoning and solving problems. It is not clear however that the companies building these new forms of AI will allow them to be used for military purposes. We make the case that one of the most significant challenges that we face in this country is ensuring that the U.S. Department of Defense turns the corner from an institution designed to fight and win kinetic wars to an organization that can design, build, and acquire AI weaponry — the unmanned drone swarms and robots that will dominate the coming battlefield.” (12)

 

“The United States since its founding has always been a technologic republic, one whose place in the world has been made possible and advanced by its capacity for innovation.” (15)

 

“An unwinding of the skepticism of the American project will be necessary to move forward. We must bend the latest and most advanced forms of AI to our will, or risk allowing our adversaries to do so as we examine and debate, sometimes it seems endlessly, the extent and character of our divisions. Our central argument is that—in this new era of advanced AI, which provides our geopolitical opponents the greatest opportunity since the last world war to challenge our global standing—we should return to that tradition of close collaboration between the technology industry and the government. It is that combination in pursuit of innovation with the objectives of the nation that will not only advance our welfare but safeguard the legitimacy of the democratic project itself.” (15)

 

“We have now, nearly eighty years after the invention of the atomic bomb, arrived at a similar crossroads in the science of computing, a crossroad that connects engineering and ethics, where we will again have to choose whether to proceed with the development of a technology whose power and potential we do not yet fully apprehend.” (18) “It is not at all clear—not even to the scientists and programmers who build them—how or why the generative language and image models work.” (19)

 

“The risks of proceeding with the development of artificial intelligence have never been more significant. Yet we must not shy away from building sharp tools for fear they might be used against us. The potential integration of weapons systems with increasingly autonomous AI software necessarily brings risks, which are only magnified by the possibility that such programs might develop a form of self-awareness and intent. But the suggestion to halt the development of these technologies is misguided. It is essential that we redirect our attention toward building the next generation of AI weaponry that will determine the balance of power in this century, as the atomic age ends, and the next.” (26)

 

“This next era of conflict will be won or lost with software. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on AI is set to begin. The risk, however, is that we think we have already won.” (28)

 

“The decisive wars of the future will be driven by artificial intelligence, whose development is proceeding on a far different, and faster timeline than in the past. A fundamental reversal of the relationship between hardware and software is taking place. For the 20th century, software has been built to maintain and service the needs of hardware, from flight controls to missile avionics, and fueling systems to armored personnel carriers. With the rise of AI and the use of large language models on the battlefield to metabolize data and make targeting recommendations, however the relationship is shifting. Software is now at the helm, with the hardware—the drones on the battlefields of Europe and elsewhere—increasingly serving as the means by which the recommendations of AI are implemented in the world.” (45)

 

“Yet the level of investment in such technologies, and the software systems that will be required for them to operate, is far from sufficient (at 0.2% of the defense budget). The U.S. government is still focused on developing a legacy infrastructure—the planes, ships, tanks, and missile—that delivered dominance of the battlefield in the last century but will almost certainly not as central in this one.” (45)

 

“Other nations, including many of our geopolitical adversaries, understand the power of affirming shared cultural traditions, mythologies, and values in organizing the efforts of people. They are far less shy than we are about acknowledging the human need for communal experience.” (217)

 

“What we need is more cultural specificity—in education, technology and politics—not less. The vacant neutrality of the current moment risks allowing our instinct for discernment to atrophy. We must now take seriously the possibility that it will be the resurrection of a shared culture, not its abandonment, that will make possible our continued survival and cohesion.” (216)

----------------------------

And from The Coming Wave:

 

“Having been up close to this unfurling revolution over the last decade and a half, I am convinced that we’re on the cusp of the most important transformations of our lifetimes.” (16) “We really are at a turning point in the history of humanity.” (78)

 

“At the heart of the coming wave lie two general purpose technologies of immense promise, power, and peril: artificial intelligence and synthetic biology.” (17)

 

“Four key features that explain why this isn’t business as usual: these technologies are inherently general and therefore omni-use, they hyper-evolve, they have asymmetric impacts, and in some respects, they are increasingly autonomous.” (17)

 

“The foundation of our present political order will be further weakened by a series of shocks amplified by the wave: the potential for new forms of violence, a flood of misinformation, disappearing jobs, and the prospect of catastrophic accidents.” (17)

 

“The coming wave of technologies threatens to fail faster and on a wider scale than anything witnessed before. Containment is not, on the face of it, possible. And yet, containment must be possible. (19)

 

“Proliferation of new technology is the default. Civilization’s appetite for useful and cheaper technologies is boundless. This will not change.” (31)

 

“History tells us that technology diffuses, inevitably, eventually to almost everywhere, from the first campfires to the fires of the Saturn V rocket. Incentives are overwhelming. Capabilities accumulate; efficiencies increase. Waves get faster and more consequential.” (34)

 

“Technology’s unavoidable challenge is that its makers quickly lose control over the path their inventions take once introduced to the world.” (35) “Thus, technology’s problems have a tendency to escalate in parallel with its capabilities, and so the need for containment grows more acute over time.” (36)

 

HAVE WE EVER SAID NO?

“Unhappy at the prospect of unregulated mass production of knowledge and culture, the Ottoman empire tried to ban it. Istanbul did not possess a sanctioned printing press until 1727, nearly three centuries after its invention.” (38)

 

“Technologies are ideas, and ideas cannot be eliminated.” (41) “For most of history, the challenge of technology lay in creating and unleashing its power. That has now flipped; the challenge of technology is about containing its unleashed power, ensuring it continues to serve us and our planet.” (48)

 

A CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION

“Technology is a set of evolving ideas. New technologies evolve by colliding and combining with other technologies. Invention is a cumulative, compounding process. It feeds on itself.” (56) “General-purpose technologies are accelerants. Invention sparks invention.” (92)

 

“Of course all programs in the future will ultimately be written by AIs, with humans relegated to, at best, a supervisory role.” (69)

 

(He then gives a cursory nod to robotics, quantum computing, and fusion energy as amplifiers of the mega wave)

 

“The coming decades will be defined by the convergence of biology and engineering. At the center of this wave sits the realization that DNA is information, a biologically evolved encoding and storage system.” (79) “Already genetically engineered organisms account for 2% of the U.S. economy through agricultural and pharmaceutical uses.” (88)

 

ASYMMETRY: A COLOSSAL TRANSFER OF POWER

“Never before have so many had access to such advanced technologies capable of inflicting death and mayhem.” (106)

 

“Over time, technology tends toward generality. What this means is that weaponizable or harmful uses of the coming wave will be possible regardless of whether this was intended. Simply creating civilian technologies has national security ramifications. What’s different about the coming wave is how quickly it is being embedded, how globally it spreads, how easily it can be componentized into swappable parts, and just how powerful and above all broad its applications could be. It unfurls complex implications for everything from media to mental health, markets to medicine. This is the containment problem supersized.” (112)

 

“A paradox of the coming wave is that its technologies are largely beyond our ability to comprehend at a granular level yet still within our ability to create and use. In AI, the neural networks moving toward autonomy are, at present, not explainable.” (114)

(I have described this process of creation as more akin to parenting than programming.)

 

“In China, Go wasn’t just a game. It represented a wider nexus of history, emotion, and strategic calculation. AlphaGo [AI-built with RL, beating a human champion] helped focus government minds even more acutely on AI. Today, China has an explicit national strategy to be the world leader in AI by 2030 ‘making China the world’s primary innovation center’ from defense to smart cities” (120)

 

“In terms of volume of AI research, Chinese institutions have published a whopping 4.5x more AI papers than U.S. counterparts since 2010, and comfortably more than the U.S., U.K., India and Germany combined.” (121)

 

“China installs as many robots as the rest of the world combined. It built hypersonic missiles thought years away by the U.S. In 2014, China filed the same number of quantum technology patents as the U.S.; by 2018 it filed twice as many.” (122)

 

“Shortly after becoming President in 2013, Xi Jinping made a speech with lasting consequences. ‘Advanced technology is the sharp weapon of the nation state,’ he declared. ‘Our technology still generally lags that of developed countries, and we must adopt an asymmetric strategy of catching up and overtaking.’” (123) “Any world leader could make the same point. Technology has become the world’s most important strategic asset” (124)

 

“In the Manhattan Project, America had conducted an arms race against phantoms, bringing nuclear weapons into the world far earlier than other circumstances." (126)

 

FRAGILITY AMPLIFIERS:

"Technology is ultimately political because technology is a form of power. Wherever power is today, it will be amplified. Whether it’s commercial, religious, cultural, or military, democratic or authoritarian, every possible motivation you can think of can be dramatically enhanced by having cheaper power at your fingertips. This will be the greatest, most rapid accelerant of wealth and prosperity in human history.” (164)

 

“The cost of military drones has fallen 1000x over the last decade. AI-enhanced weapons will improve themselves in real time. AI cyberweapons will continuously probe networks, adapting themselves autonomously to find and exploit weaknesses… a worm that improves itself using reinforcement learning, experimentally updating its code with each network interaction” (166)

 

“Now powerful, asymmetric, omni-use technologies are certain to reach the hands of those who want to damage the state. The nature of the features favors offense: this proliferation of power is just too wide fast and open.”

 

“A Carnegie Mellon study analyzed more than 200 million tweets discussing COVID-19 at the height of the first lockdown. 82% of influential users advocating for ‘reopening America’ were bots. This was a targeted propaganda machine, most likely Russian, designed to intensify the worst public health crisis in a century.” (172)

 

“More than half of all jobs could see many of their tasks automated by machines in the next seven years. Automation is unequivocally another fragility amplifier.” (179)

 

“The history of humanity is, in part, a history of catastrophe. Pandemics feature widely. Two killed up to 30% of the world population” (205) “We know what a lab leak might look like in the context of amplifying fragility… the omnicron variant of COVID infected a quarter of Americans within 100 days of first being identified.” (209)

 

THE DYSTOPIAN TURN

“Technology has penetrated our civilization so deeply that watching technology means watching everything. With the architecture of monitoring and coercion being built in China and elsewhere, the first steps have arguably been taken. If zombielike states will sleepwalk into catastrophe, their openness and growing chaos a petri dish for uncontained technology, authoritarian states are already gladly charging into this techno-dystopia, setting the stage, technologically if not morally, for massive invasions of privacy and curtailments of liberty. And on the continuum between the two, there is a chance of the worst of all worlds: scattered but repressive surveillance and control apparatuses that still don’t add up to a watertight system. Catastrophe and dystopia.” (217)

 

“Make no mistake: standstill spells disaster. I think it’s easy to discount how much of our way of life is underwritten by constant technological improvements. A moratorium on technology is not a way out; it’s an invitation to another kinds of dystopia, another kind of catastrophe. Even if it were possible, the idea of stopping the coming wave isn’t a comforting thought. Maintaining, let alone improving, standards of living needs technology. Forestalling a collapse needs technology. The costs of saying no are existential. And yet every path from here brings grave risks and downsides. This is the great dilemma.” (221)

 

“For progress there is no cure. Any attempt to find automatically safe channels for the present explosive variety of progress must lead to frustration.” — John von Neumann in 1955

 

CONTAINMENT MUST BE POSSIBLE

“On paper, regulation looks enticing, even obvious and straightforward; suggesting it lets people sound smart, concerned, and even relieved. It’s a simple way to shrug off the problem. It’s also the classic pessimism-averse answer. As we have seen, governments face multiple crises independent of the coming wave—declining trust, entrenched inequality, polarized politics, to name a few.” (226)

 

After this thoughtful discussion of the problems facing us, the final 40 pages on containment remedies rang hollow to me, more wishful thinking than implementable solutions to the grand dilemma. Rather than quote them all, I will list:

Narrow AI instead of general systems that are harder to contain. An “Apollo program for technical safety.” More safety researchers. Automating alignment research. Resource caps on training compute. Crypto-protecting model weights limiting how widely they could be copied. Bulletproof off switch. “Audits are critical to containment.” “Keeping close tabs on significant data sets that are used to train models.” KYC for AI API access. Scan for harmful code. “Encrypted back doors” (!) Buy time with choke points: “China spends more on importing chips than it does on oil.” (249) “Skills too are a choke point: the number of people working on all the frontier technologies discussed in this book is probably no more than 150,000.” (251) A new generation of corporations. Heavier government involvement: “I think the government needs to get way more involved, back to building real technology, setting standards, and nurturing in-house capability.” (259) but… he then suggests that the government “above all needs to log all the ways technology causes harm—tabulate every lab leak, every cyberattack, every language model bias, every privacy breach—in a publicly transparent way so everyone can learn from failures and improve.” (260) Licensing labs to restrict access. Overhaul taxation “to fund security and welfare as we undergo the largest transition of value creation¬—from labor to capital—in history. If technology creates losers, they need material compensation.” (261) A new tax on robots and autonomous systems. UBI. New world government entities – a “World Bank for biotech or a UN for AI” Precautionary principles: “pause before building, pause before publishing” a “Pandemic Test Ban Treaty to stop working with pathogens or gain-of-function research.

 

“Technology is not a niche; it is a hyper object dominating human existence.” (236)

 

“The wave and its central dilemma need containment, need an intensified, unprecedented, all-too-human grip on the entire technosphere. It will require epic determination over decades across the spectrum of human endeavor.” (286)

 

“Looking at the myriad paths forward, it seems containment fails in many of them. The narrow path must be walked forever from here on out, and all it takes is one misstep to tumble into the abyss. The blunt challenge of containment is not a reason to turn away; it’s a call to action, a generational mission we all need to face.” (278)

Image Courtesy: Tor Project, Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported | Wikimedia Commons

This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report:

www.gao.gov/products/GAO-22-105024

 

Critical Infrastructure Protection: Education Should Take Additional Steps to Help Protect K-12 Schools from Cyber Threats

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

A cyber security incident at Des Moines Public Schools caused a disruption to the school week (and work week). As the diagnostic and forensic work continues around the clock, I documented a little of the behind-the-scenes effort underway on a Saturday morning.

(c) European Voice

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

Don't fall prey to Cyberattacks, Get in touch with Riskpro India for Cybersecurity services.

Women and cybersecurity.

 

Photo: UN Women/Ana Norman Bermudez

Virtual Private Network

JustAskGemalto infographic on the state of online banking for consumers, common security issues and online threats, and tips for consumers to ensure they are safely banking online.

 

For more on how to bank safely online and practical answers for your digital life, visit www.JustAskGemalto.com.

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune

Well, colour me surprised.

 

"So far 180 people out of roughly 650 who attended a disco in the eastern Dutch city of Enschede have tested positive for Covid-19, despite them having to show a negative test or proof of vaccination on entry.

 

The number was revised up from 165 on Monday.

 

The suspected mass spreading event has brought under scrutiny the implementation of the Netherlands’ “test for entry” system and a decision to drop almost all Covid-19 restrictions, as the number of national daily infections reported on Sunday was 145 per cent higher than a week earlier.

 

The local health authority said the number of cases among people who attended the event could rise still further."

 

Another source, the NL Times reports:

 

"On the weekend of the Aspen Valley party, there were some clear problems with access testing in the Netherlands. An IT failure likely due to a cyberattack caused long waiting times for test results, and some test subjects were given a negative result without taking a test as compensation for delays."

 

I love that it was called an 'Aspen Valley' party, that conferring of 'Après-ski' glamour, in a very flat landscape, in this wondrous time of universal access to everything.

 

This initial quote comes, as reported, from the 'Irish Times' today, that very same organ that housed the daily column of Myles na Gcopaleen. Mr de Selby would have loved these shenanigans.

 

I relish the idea of these compensation negative tests, without their being any actual test at all, at all. I might get me some of those tests, they sound relatively pain free. I do shudder at the idea of some drive-in nurse, male or female, shoving a cotton bud up my proboscis, halfway to my grey matter, and then wiggling it about to find some infected snot. I cannot help but wonder if the, presently non-existing, Dutch government charges for these non-existent, tests, like they do for those other quick ones.

 

Yes, Cinderella, you will go to the ball, and we are very sorry you had to wait, at all, at all (to be sure, to be sure).

 

As an aside, it was also reported today that an Austrian man, of advanced years, (a 65 year old stripling) was bitten by a python whilst sitting on his toilet, "when he felt a 'pinch' on his genitals".

 

"Mr Stangl (I don't make up the names, they're a godsend) told local newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten that, in 40 years of dealing with reptiles, he had not seen anything like Monday's incident."

 

I must look into whether de Selby ever broached the subject of bowl surprises, or bowel surprises, even. I must admit that it, the Indian python in the bowl idea, has crossed my mental landscape, occasionally, whilst, of a morning, dangling precipitously, and possibly too invitingly.

 

Disclaimer: It was never my intention to be political, but we all know about 'Best Intentions', and worst.

 

You have to laugh though, even, at the thought of the devil himself, that snake, hanging from one's family jewels. I shudder to think what the female equivalent of this nightmare, morning-mare, might be. I somehow 'melodeon' it in with my mother's fear of having a mouse run up her leg, as if it was, potentially, heading for some other dark place. But that's another squeezebox story entirely.

 

The Chinese had a little man pop up out of a bowl, now there's another idea, yet again, entirely. We appear to be approaching the entirety of everything, by dint of repetition. Perhaps one is at the beginning of generating a mantra, a praying mantra, even, to be sure, to be sure.

 

"A proboscis (/proʊˈbɒsɪs/ or /proʊˈbɒskɪs/) is an elongated appendage from the head of an animal, either a vertebrate or an invertebrate. In invertebrates, the term usually refers to tubular mouthparts used for feeding and sucking. In vertebrates, a proboscis is an elongated nose or snout."

 

The Divine WIKI

 

I like to think of 'The Divine Wiki' as a late 20th Century, portable and Universal, de Selby, a transmogrification of his equally divine self into our modern 'on-line', infinite, virtual world, available on an iPhone near you now.

(c) European Voice

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune

Test your own reaction to a cyberattack in the ICT Discovery gaming area. Work to help secure files, identify and track cyber-criminals and locate the origin of the attack.

Still frame from the Cyber Space Odyssey Game, developed by Dr. Scott Nykl and his team at the Center for Cyberspace Research at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The game provides a virtual world mimicking real life tactics and objectives as teams of students pilot virtual spaceships or space stations in a contest to steal and protect data. (Photo / AFIT CCR)

Cyberbullying #CyberAttacks and Trauma PSA by Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D. #iPredator NYC - Educational #Cyberpsychology, #Cyberbullying & #Cyberstalking Website: www.ipredator.co/

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

www.globaltimes.cn/page/202209/1276192.shtml

 

US cyberattack against leading Chinese aviation university intended to control infrastructure equipment, steal personal info: source

 

The cyberattack launched by the US National Security Agency (NSA) against Northwestern Polytechnical University in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province - well-known for its aviation, aerospace and navigation studies - was aimed at infiltrating and controlling core equipment in China's infrastructure and stealing private data of Chinese people with sensitive identities, the Global Times learned from a source close to the matter on Tuesday.

 

www.globaltimes.cn/page/202209/1275816.shtml

 

US’ NSA infiltrates China’s data infrastructure in cyberattack on leading university

 

During the cyberattack against the email system of Northwestern Polytechnical University in China's Shaanxi Province - well-known for its aviation, aerospace and navigation studies - the US' National Security Agency (NSA) was found to have constructed a "legal" channel for remote access to the core data network of some infrastructure operators so that the US intelligence agency could infiltrate and control the country's infrastructure, the Global Times learned from a source on Thursday.

 

On June 22, Northwestern Polytechnical University announced that hackers from abroad were caught sending phishing emails with Trojan horse programs to teachers and students at the university in an attempt to steal their data and personal information.

 

A police statement released by the Beilin Public Security Bureau in Xi'an the next day said that the attack had attempted to lure teachers and students into clicking links of phishing emails with Trojan horse programs, with themes involving scientific evaluation, thesis defense and information on foreign travel, so as to obtain their email login details.

 

To probe the attack, China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and internet security company 360 jointly formed a technical team to conduct a comprehensive technical analysis of the case.

 

By extracting many Trojan samples from internet terminals of Northwestern Polytechnical University, with the support of European and South Asian partners, the technical team initially identified that the cyberattack on the university was conducted by the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) (Code S32) under the Data Reconnaissance Bureau (Code S3) of the Information Department (Code S) of the US' NSA.

 

Targeting Northwestern Polytechnical University, TAO used 41 types of weapons to steal core technology data, including key network equipment configuration, network management data, and core operational data. The technical team discovered more than 1,100 attack links that had infiltrated the university and more than 90 operating instruction sequences, which stole multiple network device configuration files, and other types of logs and key files, the source said.

 

According to an analysis of the characteristics of the TAO attack, infiltration tools, and Trojan horse samples, the technical team also found that TAO had infiltrated some infrastructure operators in China, built a "legal" channel for remote access to the core data network, and attempted to control China's infrastructure.

 

More details about TAO's cyberattack on Northwestern Polytechnical University will be released soon, the source said.

 

www.cbsnews.com/news/china-accuses-us-nsa-cyberattack-spy...

 

China accuses U.S. of cyberattacks on university that allegedly does military research

 

China on Monday accused Washington of breaking into computers at a university that U.S. officials say does military research, adding to complaints by both governments of rampant online spying against each other.

 

Northwestern Polytechnical University reported computer break-ins in June, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center announced. It said the center, working with a commercial security provider, Qihoo 360 Technology Co., traced the attacks to the National Security Agency but didn't say how that was done.

 

China and the United States are, along with Russia, regarded as global leaders in cyberwarfare research.

 

China accuses the United States of spying on universities, energy and internet companies and other targets. Washington accuses Beijing of stealing commercial secrets and has announced criminal charges against Chinese military officers.

 

The U.S. actions "seriously endanger China's national security," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. She also accused Washington of eavesdropping on Chinese mobile phones and stealing text messages.

 

"China strongly condemns it," Mao said. "The United States should immediately stop using its advantages to steal secrets and attack other countries."

 

The American Embassy in Beijing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Security experts say the ruling Communist Party's military wing, the People's Liberation Army, and the Ministry of State Security also sponsor hackers outside the government.

 

Northwestern Polytechnical University, in the western city of Xi'an, is on a U.S. government "entity list" that limits its access to American technology. Washington says the university helps the PLA develop aerial and underwater drones and missile technology.

 

Monday's announcement accused the United States of taking information about the university's network management and other "core technologies." It said Chinese analysts found 41 "network attack" tools that it said were traced to the NSA.

 

Last year, a Chinese man, Shuren Qin, was sentenced to two years in prison by a federal court in Boston after he pleaded guilty to exporting underwater and marine technology to Northwestern Polytechnical University without required licenses.

 

The NSA, part of the Department of Defense, is responsible for "signals intelligence," or obtaining communications and other data.

 

The Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, set up in 1996 by the police department of the eastern city of Tianjin, describes itself as the Chinese agency responsible for inspection and testing of anti-computer virus products.

 

A report by Qihoo 360 in 2020 said hacking tools used in attacks on Chinese companies and government agencies in 2008-19 were traced to the Central Intelligence Agency by comparing them with code in CIA tools disclosed by the Wikileaks group.

 

The virus center accused the NSA of carrying out other "malicious network attacks" in China but gave no details. It said 13 people involved in the attacks had been identified.

 

The hackers targeted a "zero day," or previously unreported, vulnerability in the school's security, the statement said. It said the break-ins were conducted from servers in 17 countries including Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Poland, Ukraine and Colombia.

 

The statement described what it said were NSA software tools with names such as "Second Date" and "Drinking Tea" but didn't say which might have been used at the university.

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune

Capt. Seth Martin and 1st Lt.Joshua Mosby, Air Force Institute of Technology students, listen as Barry Mullins, AFIT computer engineering professor, explains a hacking technique they can use during their computer systems cyberattack class at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Feb. 20, 2018. Counter insurgency hacking is an espionage attack weapon taught to deter enemy threats to national computer communication systems. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Al Bright/Released)

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

(c) European Voice

Gemalto infographic on the state of banking, trends, common security threats and remedies, benefits and example ROI stats of secure online banking, five reasons to be secure, and an 11 step guide to implement your own secure ebanking platform at your bank.

JustAskGemalto infographic on the state of online banking for consumers, common security issues and online threats, and tips for consumers to ensure they are safely banking online.

 

For more on how to bank safely online and practical answers for your digital life, visit www.JustAskGemalto.com.

 

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

JustAskGemalto infographic on the state of online banking for consumers, common security issues and online threats, and tips for consumers to ensure they are safely banking online.

 

For more on how to bank safely online and practical answers for your digital life, visit www.JustAskGemalto.com.

 

Still frames from the Cyber Space Odyssey Game, developed by Dr. Scott Nykl and his team at the Center for Cyberspace Research at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The game provides a virtual world mimicking real life tactics and objectives as teams of students pilot virtual spaceships or space stations in a contest to steal and protect data. (Photo / AFIT CCR)

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

Diverse computer hacking shoot

The future and growth of online banking according to Forrester Research.

JustAskGemalto infographic on the state of online banking for consumers, common security issues and online threats, and tips for consumers to ensure they are safely banking online.

 

For more on how to bank safely online and practical answers for your digital life, visit www.JustAskGemalto.com.

PLANETART CYBERATTACKS XXXL

digital hardcore performance from Netherlands and Outerspace

starring mega supersized deadly serious superhero's:

Sandwoman: erotic gothic venusvamp mixing virtual worlds mash-up and:

Cesaro S. and Napoleon R. torturing microphone and megaphone, acting and

performing as 6 foot robot-dolls on acid.

 

produced by PLANETART and ViaviaOral

www.planetart.nl/cyber

planetart:home of the electronic rage, Amsterdam, Holland

  

www.vrlart.com

www.planetart.nl 9 Feb 2011 at www.super-deluxe.com Tokyo, Japan

  

video: www.youtube.com/planetartnl

 

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

Photo: Jennifer Jacquemart / (c) European Voice

011

Fortune Global Forum

November 18th, 2019

Paris, France

 

16:15

SECURING THE ALLIANCE

The digital revolution is changing the very nature of warfare. Cyberattacks present grave and complex dangers to everything from global energy grids to fundamental democratic processes. How can NATO, a 70-year-old organization and a bedrock of security for North America and Europe, keep pace with these hybrid threats? And what role does the U.S., a founding member of NATO, have in building trust, preventing conflict, and securing the alliance?

Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Interviewer: Nina Easton, Co-chair, Fortune Global Forum

16:35

 

Photograph by Stuart Isett for Fortune