Tag Archives: politics

More Revisionist History

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The Food and Drug Administration has decided to remove social media posts and online materials commentary that overtly disdained and recommended against the use of Ivermectin as a Wuhan Virus infection treatment.

It’s good for the FDA to correct its dismal performance regarding Wuhan Virus treatments, but trying to pretend—even if its pretense is public this time—its dismal performance never happened by deleting those posts is just dishonest. The honest thing to do would have been to bring those posts back to the fore and append to them the FDA’s corrections regarding Ivermectin’s efficacy and safety.

Unfortunately, the move to alter history and deny the occurrence of actions that had plainly occurred, rather than treat the misbehavior honestly, comes as a result of a law suit settlement in which the sole plaintiff agreed to the revisionist move.

That’s how deeply embedded dishonesty about our recent history has gotten in our society.

Cyberattack Culpability

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The Federal government is warning States regarding a series of cyber attacks against water distribution networks that have been carried out, and that the primary attackers are the People’s Republic of China and Iran. EPA Administrator Michael Regan and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote a letter to all of our State Governors, in which they wrote in part,

Threat actors affiliated with the Iranian Government Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have carried out malicious cyberattacks against United States critical infrastructure entities, including drinking water systems.

And

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber group known as Volt Typhoon has compromised information technology of multiple critical infrastructure systems, including drinking water, in the United States and its territories. Volt Typhoon’s choice of targets and pattern of behavior are not consistent with traditional cyber espionage. Federal departments and agencies assess with high confidence that Volt Typhoon actors are pre-positioning themselves to disrupt critical infrastructure operations in the event of geopolitical tensions and/or military conflicts.

They added by way of emphasis,

Drinking water and wastewater systems are an attractive target for cyberattacks because they are a lifeline critical infrastructure sector but often lack the resources and technical capacity to adopt rigorous cybersecurity practices.

What particularly drew my eye in their letter, though, was this, which Regan and Sullivan also pointed out as one of the reasons for the IRGC’s choice of targets:

In many cases, even basic cybersecurity precautions—such as resetting default passwords or updating software to address known vulnerabilities—are not in place and can mean the difference between business as usual and a disruptive cyberattack.

Which brings me to my bit about culpability. [A] common type of operational technology used at water facilities where the facility had neglected to change a default manufacturer password. This has to be especially important given the number of lives that depend on reliable potable water. It’s also the case that there is no excuse whatsoever for IT types, or anyone else responsible for maintaining a computer network or any of its subnetworks, being so lazy they can’t even be bothered to do so basic a thing as changing passwords away from factory preset defaults, defaults that are, by design, widely publicized precisely so that those who’ve newly purchased such a device can gain access and change the default password to something else and thereby deny those not authorized easy access.

Thus: it’s time to start holding IT managers whose networks are penetrated because they affirmatively chose not to bother to replace default passwords with very strong passwords not just accountable, but culpable.

Current criminal negligence law centers on offenses that occur

primarily in situations involving the death of an innocent party as a result of the operation of a motor vehicle by a person who is under the influence of Drugs and Narcotics or alcohol.

The key is death of an innocent party, and that innocent party part includes all Americans using our potable water infrastructure or any other critical infrastructure: natural gas distribution, for instance, electricity distribution, heating oil pipelines, and so on. Those primary situations, though, should be easily enough modified to include the potential for death when something so central to life as access to water or to any of the other critical infrastructure deliverables is criminally disrupted. The presence or not of death should only inform the severity of the sanction, not the existence of the criminal negligence.

This criminal negligence culpability with its stern sanctions should apply to IT types responsible for subnet management as well as, not instead of, the overall IT head.

The problem extends beyond mere deaths of users of our water or other infrastructure systems. Prolonged disruption will—not can—severely and negatively impact our national security, our ability to defeat an infrastructure cyber attack or any other attacks done in concert with infrastructure disruption.

A Thought on Mexico

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In the ongoing internal-to-the-US debate over whether Texas can take steps to protect itself from the flood of illegal aliens—SB4—in the absence of the Federal government’s overt action to not protect any of the States, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said, through his Foreign Minister’s spokesman, that

[Mexico] “won’t accept, under any circumstances,” deportations by Texas.
Mexico “categorically rejects any measure that allows state or local authorities to carry out immigration control tasks, detain and return nationals or foreigners to Mexican territory[.]”

This is the Mexican government inserting itself into American domestic laws; this is Mexico rejecting the force of our laws as they apply within our nation. If Mexico were merely objecting to the impact of those laws on it, that government would not reject our laws; it would only block their enforcement within Mexico. AMLO’s foreign ministry statement does include words to the effect of that enforcement block within Mexico, but it also includes that outright dismissal of our state or local laws in their entirety.

This is unacceptable, and AMLO’s government blandishments should be ignored. If AMLO were truly serious about this, he would move to prevent aliens from entering his nation illegally, and he would prevent the flood of illegal aliens into his nation from crossing into our nation in the first place, a flood that forces States like Texas to take the actions it is.

A Clear Demonstration

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Michigan’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed, in the name of the State of Michigan, a deal with Gotion Inc, a subsidiary of Gotion High Tech Co Ltd which is headquartered in the People’s Republic of China. Gotion Hi Tech is not only subject to PRC national security law that requires domestic companies to provide information the intelligence community “requests” in whatever nation that information might reside, it has open and direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. From that, Gotion Inc, the party to that Whitmer deal, has those same ties and PRC-legal obligations.

The problem is this. The Gotion-Whitmer deal is for a Gotion battery factory to be built at least in part in the Michigan township of Green Charter. Green Charter has demurred from being used for that deal, and in response, Gotion has filed suit…against Green Charter. Chuck Thelen, Gotion’s Vice President Gotion Global, North America Manufacturing Center:

It’s unfortunate that Gotion has had to resort to litigation to get the township to comply with their obligations under the agreement[.]

This, despite that Gotion’s beef is with Michigan and the Governor’s Office as the signatories of the overall agreement, which presumed to commit the Township to it. Green Charter isn’t the jurisdiction with any contractual obligations here.

It’s true enough that a prior Township board of supervisors had negotiated an agreement with Gotion, but that was done against the will of the Township residents. They ran a recall that tossed every one of those board members and installed a board amenable to the requirements of its collective bosses, those residents. That move rendered the prior agreement nonexistent.

This is a clear, dispositive demonstration, then, of the People’s Republic of China’s cultural mindset and that of Gotion’s managers. Government is in charge and subjects must obey. 一切都在國家之內，沒有什麼是國家之外的，也沒有什麼是反對國家的. Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State (hat tip to Benito Mussolini, who originated the maxim).

A Quote…

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…from a couple of centuries ago, by a man with whom some folks might still be familiar today. Edmund Burke was speaking, here, about the then newly done French Revolution.

They were possessed with a spirit of proselytism in the most fanatical degree, – and from thence, by an easy progress, with the spirit of persecution according to their means. What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act might be wrought by a longer process through the medium of opinion. To command that option, the first step is to establish a dominion over those who direct it. They contrived to possess themselves, with great method and perseverance, of all avenues to literary fame. Many of them, indeed, stood high in the ranks of literature and science. The world had done them justice, and in favor of general talents forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar principles. This was true liberality, which they returned by endeavoring to confine the reputation of sense, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers.
–Edmund Burke

Sounds like an apt description of what’s going on today in our own nation.

 

h/t Ricochet, whose poster first had much the same thought.