Month: December 2018

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The United States is preparing a “crackdown on Beijing,” after it was discovered that the recent Marriott data breach was perpetrated by Chinese hackers, according to a report.

“The cyberattack on the Marriott hotel chain that collected personal details of roughly 500 million guests was part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering effort that also hacked health insurers and the security clearance files of millions more Americans,” reported the New York Times, citing two people “briefed on the investigation.”

“The hackers, they said, are suspected of working on behalf of the Ministry of State Security, the country’s Communist-controlled civilian spy agency,” the Times explained, adding, that the “Trump administration also plans to declassify intelligence reports to reveal Chinese efforts dating to at least 2014 to build a database containing names of executives and American government officials with security clearances.”

The New York Times also reported that the “discovery comes as the Trump administration is planning actions targeting China’s trade, cyber and economic policies, perhaps within days,” and added that the United States may “make it harder for Chinese companies to obtain critical components for telecommunications equipment,” in response to the hack.

A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied reports that China had anything to do with the hack, claiming, “China firmly opposes all forms of cyberattack and cracks down on it in accordance with the law… If offered evidence, the relevant Chinese departments will carry out investigations according to the law.”

The Marriott breach, which was discovered in November, affected hundreds of millions of guests that had used the company’s Starwood reservation system.  According to Breitbart News’ reporting on the incident:

Following a company-wide database assessment, Marriott concluded on November 19 the breach occurred on Starwood’s network and that unauthorized activity has taken place on its servers since 2014, which included duplicating and encrypting data.

“The company has not finished identifying duplicate information in the database, but believes it contains information on up to approximately 500 million guests who made a reservation at a Starwood property,” the Bethesda, Maryland-based company said in a statement.

Breitbart News will follow this story as it unfolds.

WASHINGTON, DC — China is by far the most active economic espionage offender in the United States today, often pilfering or attempting to steal U.S. firepower and the fruits of American brainpower, experts and national security officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

During a hearing titled “China’s Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses,” John Demers, the assistant attorney general for the national security division at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed via written testimony:

We cannot tolerate a nation that steals our firepower and the fruits of our brainpower. And this is just what China is doing to achieve its development goals. While China aspires to be a leading nation, it does not act like one. China is instead pursuing its goals through malign behaviors that exploit features of a free-market economy and an open society like ours. … From 2011-2018, more than 90 percent of the Department’s cases alleging economic espionage by or to benefit a state involve China, and more than two-thirds of the Department’s theft of trade secrets cases have had a nexus to China.

Currently, DOJ is dealing with “three pending cases against former U.S. intelligence officers who are alleged to have spied for China—which is an unprecedented number,” Demers declared.

Echoing the DOJ official, Peter Harrell from the Center for a New American Security think-tank noted in his written testimony:

China is by far the most active practitioner of economic espionage today. While it is challenging to accurately estimate the costs of such espionage, in 2017 the U.S. China IP Commission estimated that the total cost of China’s theft of IP, which also includes more prosaic forms of IP theft like piracy and counterfeiting, costs the U.S. economy at least $225 billion annually and possibly as much as $600 billion.

China’s cyber espionage capabilities have exceeded the U.S. government’s ability to defend against the threat, a top U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official conceded.

In his prepared remarks, Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, said:

Our adversaries’ capabilities online are outpacing our stove-piped defenses. Specifically, there has been a critical gap in cross-sector, cross-government coordination on critical infrastructure security and resilience. Working together with the private sector and other government partners, we are taking collective action to strengthen cross-sector, cross-government coordination against malicious cyber actors.

Krebs identified China as one of the top cyber espionage rivals facing the United States, along with Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

One of the witnesses noted that China had integrated civilian and military efforts in the pursuit of intelligence.

China’s “military is also likely to help secure business information,” Dean Cheng from the Heritage Foundation think-tank testified, adding, “In the realm of computer network operations, the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] quite clearly expects to operate closely with non-military and even non-governmental forces.”

“PLA cyber units appear to operate specifically in conjunction with other parts of the Chinese government, especially those parts responsible for various aspects of information security,” he added.

Despite the ongoing threats, the U.S. government is not fully aware of what technology is leaving the United States, James Mulvenon from SOS International, LLC testified, adding:

While Chinese cyber threats and clandestine spying against the United States dominate the public discourse, a far more serious and insidious threat is posed by China’s informal or ‘extralegal’ transfers of US technology. Operating under the radar, these quiet diversions of US technical know-how are carried out by groups and individuals in the US, whose support for China erodes America’s technological edge and ability to compete in international markets.

…

Regardless of whether these informal transfers of US technology are legal (or illegal), the real danger lies in the fact that US regulators have no visibility into what leaves our country; whether it is owned by or merely accessible to these agents; and whether the technology is or should be under export restriction or protected to maintain our competitiveness.

The witnesses told the Senate panel the U.S. needs a whole of government approach in collaboration with the private sector to combat Chinese efforts to subvert U.S. economic and national security.

Harrell urged Congress to consider “hack back” measures.

“‘Hacking back’ proposals would need to be carefully tailored to mitigate potential unintended consequences and to protect innocent parties, and the risks need to be carefully evaluated. That said, I recommend that Congress carefully consider “hacking back” proposals that would enable U.S. companies to take a broader range of active measures to defend themselves against cyber espionage and other cyber attacks,” he said.

The State of California may begin taxing text messages if a new proposal from state regulators is approved.

The San Jose Mercury News Mercury News reports that the California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal to add a surcharge to text messages next month.

The surcharge would reportedly be used to fund services to provide cell phone access to the poor — just as surcharges on land lines once did, Fortune magazine notes. As phone calls have declined, so have revenues.

Fortune adds (original link):

So California’s PUC is exploring its options and, as texts share infrastructure with voice calls — even if the medium is different — it estimates it could raise $44.5 million a year with the change. Applied retroactively it could amount to a bill of more than $220 million for California consumers.

In response, the telecoms industry is filing complaints arguing that texting is an email-like “information service” and should be exempt from PPP.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering the issue on Wednesday. But Fortune notes that the tax may arrive too late to make a difference, as smartphone users are increasingly turning to services like WhatsApp and Snapchat as an alternative to text messages.

Californians are already struggling to deal with higher gas taxes, passed last year and upheld by a referendum last month in which the state’s Democrats allegedly manipulated the title of the ballot initiative to confuse voters. The measure, which would have repealed the new gas tax, the state told voters that Proposition 6 “Eliminates Certain Road Repair and Transportation Funding” rather than “Repeals Gas Tax.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Photo: file

President Trump clearly shocked House speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer yesterday with his televising of the Oval Office sit-down over his demand for $5 billion in funding for border security, including funding of critical mileage for his border wall.  Knowing well that Pelosi had already vowed publicly that “transparency and openness” would characterize the Democrat-run House starting next month, her plaintive request to speak in private scored points for Trump and revealed her hypocrisy before any substance at all was considered.

The remarkable body language during the meeting tells the story of Trump’s dominance.  Here is the full video of the press gaggle, via Grabien:

That was merely the first of three traps Trump had prepared for the Democrats’ congressional leadership.

Trump’s second trap is his bold declaration of ownership of any “government shutdown.”  Democrats have convinced themselves that what is called a “shutdown,” but really means furloughing non-essential federal workers, is a tragedy, a scar on the nation’s psyche.  The fact that federal workers are now a major and solid constituency for Democrats skews their perception of the public’s concern.  Aside from canceling sleigh rides in national parks and other such photo drama, the fact is that life goes on well for nearly all Americans during the furlough.  They learn that there are a lot of non-essential government workers.

After multiple shutdowns, including the last one that bore the label “Schumer Shutdown” and was quickly conceded by the Democrats, the public is no longer afraid of non-essential services (roughly 25% of the government) being temporarily suspended.

Chuck Schumer took the bait on the second trap, and after the Oval Office meeting, he employed triumphantly the term “Trump Shutdown” as if he had won a victory through Trump’s surrender.  Thus fortified, he is more likely to take Trump’s dare and refuse funding for adequate border security and metaphorically throw Bre’r Trump into the briar patch.

The third trap is maneuvering the Senate Democrats into standing for open borders, or at least ineffective border security.  The current House of Representatives will pass the funding.  It is the Senate, where a 60-vote filibuster could be employed, that would be the obstacle.

Never forget that Trump was the most successful producer of reality television in the history of the medium.  He understands drama and a story arc.  Chuck Schumer leading a Senate filibuster right before Christmas to stymie border protection is exactly the story Trump wants the nation’s TV-viewers to absorb.   

He is immeasurably aided in crafting his third trap narrative by the Democrats’ acceptance of and belief in the narratives peddled by their allies in the mainstream media.  Just as they believe that the voters share their own horror over a “partial government shutdown,” they also believe their own rhetoric about a wall being “immoral” (Pelosi) or “wasteful” (Schumer).

But the arrival of the Central American caravan and the reaction of Tijuana’s political leadership and citizens have changed the game.  The “race card” (more properly, the “ethnicity card” for Hispanics) no longer trumps (pun intentional) the hand being played by Trump.  It is obvious that a substantial portion of the populace of Central America would like to enter the United States and take advantage of our free schooling for their children; food stamps; the refundable tax credit (which doesn’t refund taxes, but sends a check to poor families who file tax returns without owing any taxes); Section 8 housing; and, when their kids are ready for college, race preferences.

Trump knows he would win in the court of public opinion, by making the point that the Democrats want to let more illegals into the country, and that failure to reinforce the border will mean more caravans, more terrorists, and more welfare clients entering our country.

President Trump clearly shocked House speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer yesterday with his televising of the Oval Office sit-down over his demand for $5 billion in funding for border security, including funding of critical mileage for his border wall.  Knowing well that Pelosi had already vowed publicly that “transparency and openness” would characterize the Democrat-run House starting next month, her plaintive request to speak in private scored points for Trump and revealed her hypocrisy before any substance at all was considered.

The remarkable body language during the meeting tells the story of Trump’s dominance.  Here is the full video of the press gaggle, via Grabien:

That was merely the first of three traps Trump had prepared for the Democrats’ congressional leadership.

Trump’s second trap is his bold declaration of ownership of any “government shutdown.”  Democrats have convinced themselves that what is called a “shutdown,” but really means furloughing non-essential federal workers, is a tragedy, a scar on the nation’s psyche.  The fact that federal workers are now a major and solid constituency for Democrats skews their perception of the public’s concern.  Aside from canceling sleigh rides in national parks and other such photo drama, the fact is that life goes on well for nearly all Americans during the furlough.  They learn that there are a lot of non-essential government workers.

After multiple shutdowns, including the last one that bore the label “Schumer Shutdown” and was quickly conceded by the Democrats, the public is no longer afraid of non-essential services (roughly 25% of the government) being temporarily suspended.

Chuck Schumer took the bait on the second trap, and after the Oval Office meeting, he employed triumphantly the term “Trump Shutdown” as if he had won a victory through Trump’s surrender.  Thus fortified, he is more likely to take Trump’s dare and refuse funding for adequate border security and metaphorically throw Bre’r Trump into the briar patch.

The third trap is maneuvering the Senate Democrats into standing for open borders, or at least ineffective border security.  The current House of Representatives will pass the funding.  It is the Senate, where a 60-vote filibuster could be employed, that would be the obstacle.

Never forget that Trump was the most successful producer of reality television in the history of the medium.  He understands drama and a story arc.  Chuck Schumer leading a Senate filibuster right before Christmas to stymie border protection is exactly the story Trump wants the nation’s TV-viewers to absorb.   

He is immeasurably aided in crafting his third trap narrative by the Democrats’ acceptance of and belief in the narratives peddled by their allies in the mainstream media.  Just as they believe that the voters share their own horror over a “partial government shutdown,” they also believe their own rhetoric about a wall being “immoral” (Pelosi) or “wasteful” (Schumer).

But the arrival of the Central American caravan and the reaction of Tijuana’s political leadership and citizens have changed the game.  The “race card” (more properly, the “ethnicity card” for Hispanics) no longer trumps (pun intentional) the hand being played by Trump.  It is obvious that a substantial portion of the populace of Central America would like to enter the United States and take advantage of our free schooling for their children; food stamps; the refundable tax credit (which doesn’t refund taxes, but sends a check to poor families who file tax returns without owing any taxes); Section 8 housing; and, when their kids are ready for college, race preferences.

Trump knows he would win in the court of public opinion, by making the point that the Democrats want to let more illegals into the country, and that failure to reinforce the border will mean more caravans, more terrorists, and more welfare clients entering our country.