back to article Congress told how Chinese goons plan to incite 'societal chaos' in the US

Chinese attackers are preparing to "wreak havoc" on American infrastructure and "cause societal chaos" in the US, infosec, and law enforcement bosses told a US House committee on Wednesday. "The fact that PRC hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure, water treatment plants, our electrical grid, our oil and natural gas …

  1. ldo

    Re: American public is way ahead of them

    ... that creeping realization that “Manchurian Candidate” was not so far-fetched fiction after all ...

    1. Clausewitz4.0 Bronze badge
      Devil

      Re: American public is way ahead of them

      ... that creeping realization that “Manchurian Candidate” was not so far-fetched fiction after all ...

      With a little twist - the ones doing the torture are the NSA/CIA fellows, backed by their vassals - but it backfired

      Middle Eastern fellows have more balls to contain this - and capitalize accordingly

      1. d0x360

        Re: American public is way ahead of them

        As someone whose note a fan of the 3 letter agencies I can assure you what you just said is not true. Considering how trollish that sounds we will all just assume you're 5

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: American public is way ahead of them

      Come on. You can say it. Trump. It was Trump. Sure he was Russia's but same difference!

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: American public is way ahead of them

        You don't need to have a candidate you can overtly control like in Manchurian Candidate if you have a guy like Trump who is so easily manipulated via praise and personal favors. Xi can give up something that doesn't cost him anything (like letting Ivanka have all those Chinese trademarks) versus having to give up something real when he's negotiating with a president who is negotiating for the US instead of for himself.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: American public is way ahead of them

          So what did Trump actually do for Russia? All these claims he was a 'Putin Puppet' but what did he DO?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: American public is way ahead of them

            You know, I didn't used to buy the "Putin Puppet" thing for this reason initially.

            However, you can see Trump quite personally blocking US weapons going to Ukraine which are being used on Russians at the moment on pretexts that shift by the day. This benefits only the Russians who end up on the receiving end of the weapons.

            Iran/Russia/China were quite clearly arming the Taliban in Afghanistan to screw with the west, and China would in all likelihood have had a go at taking Taiwan by now if Russia's invasion hadn't turned into a farce.

            Any quarter competent strategist should be able to see the benefit of eliminating the Russian army as a fighting force for decades to come (thus ruling out any further hostile activity on the Russian's part, and probably by extension China's too) for the quite limited cost of sending our old weapons from storage (with nominal dollar values that can in reality never be realised unless you manage the unlikely feat of getting somebody to buy ~40 year old vehicles for the current replacement value) to a proxy war with Russia and China; basically doing the same thing back to them that they've just finished doing to us in Afghanistan except with vastly more effectiveness and damage.

            This leaves the only explanation as being either Trump is not even a quarter competent strategist, or that he's actually being blackmailed or is working for the opposition. One of the latter looks ever more plausible after he says that he could force a ceasefire in Ukraine in 24 hours; by starving Ukraine of supplies. Since Russia has broken 4? treaties and 29 ceasefires with Ukraine so far since 2014 one has to be a particularly special sort of idiot to make such a suggestion; Russia quite clearly intends to rearm, resupply, retrain, redeploy and retry. So why help them?

            I'm not normally somebody to suggest kicking somebody while they are down, but i'm making an exception in Putins case.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: American public is way ahead of them

              You are aware that Trump imposed some of the harshest sanctions on Iran during his tenure which were all reversed by the Biden admin? And the Biden admin freed up $6 billion for Iran. Financially Iran is doing a lot better now than in 2019.

              We cannot just eliminate the russian army as you so simply put it. They are a nuclear armed nation. So is China. All this talk of Trump getting us into WW3 and yet it is under Biden that the west is now involved in 2 proxy wars and the US is distributing its nuclear stockpile to places like the UK. MIRVs will rain down on the US and Europe before Russia is defeated.

              1. MattAvan

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                Zero American nukes rained down on China or the USSR at the end of the Vietnam war. Are you saying that the USA did not lose that war?

                The point of a proxy war is to prevent a direct conflict between nuclear powers, but still prevent them from bullying or annexing countries. Putin is rebuilding the Russian Empire of Tsar Peter the Great (in his own words on national television). That means Finland, Lithuania, Poland and more are in the crosshairs. Even Alaska. Trump withdrawing from NATO would facilitate most of that. I would probably want to vote Republican if I lived in the US, but I deeply suspect that Trump is being blackmailed by Russia.

                1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: American public is way ahead of them

                  That means Finland, Lithuania, Poland and more are in the crosshairs. Even Alaska.

                  No, they are not. This is a meme that's spread to try and justify keeping the killing going in Ukraine and the arms money flooding in. It also demonstrates extreme cognitive dissonance and projection. Russia has been 'defeated' in Ukraine already and is down to fighting with shovels and using washing machines for spare parts. If Russia's military has been so severely degraded already, how is it supposed to conquer Finland or Poland?

                  Of course the expansionism has been entirely from the EU and NATO. This will also lead to the destruction of both because we can't keep propping up the US's misadventures. But the US knows this, and if you remember Nuland's infamous comment, fscking the EU was part of the plan.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Dawn of the Dead

                    Russia doesn't fight wars with armies. Russia fights wars with bodies. And Russia still has millions of these.

                2. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: American public is way ahead of them

                  Vietnam did not 'eliminate' the US armed forces. They withdrew from someone else's country and bitched about it. The USA itself was not threatened, the conflict did not follow the US armed forces back to their home bases and the USSR, China and/or Vietnamese were not calling for the elimination of the US army.

                  The previous poster was suggesting we should wipe out Russia as a military force. Very different.

                  I quote:

                  "Any quarter competent strategist should be able to see the benefit of eliminating the Russian army as a fighting force for decades to come"

                  This is very different to the outcome of Vietnam.

                  "for the quite limited cost of sending our old weapons from storage"

                  This has been done already and the result has been a lot of dead people.

            2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

              Re: American public is way ahead of them

              This leaves the only explanation as being either Trump is not even a quarter competent strategist, or that he's actually being blackmailed or is working for the opposition. One of the latter looks ever more plausible after he says that he could force a ceasefire in Ukraine in 24 hours; by starving Ukraine of supplies. Since Russia has broken 4? treaties and 29 ceasefires with Ukraine so far since 2014 one has to be a particularly special sort of idiot to make such a suggestion;

              Meanwhile, back in the real world. The 'competent strategist' currently sitting in the Whitehouse had Ukraine as a pet project. That extended into a family project when his son got involved, got given a seat on the board of Burisma despite having no experience. And having a well documented drugs and hooker problem at the time. So a close family member who would have been extremely easy to compromise, and probably was. Who is more likely to be being blackmailed?

              And if he is being blackmailed, it would explain why $200bn has been poured into Ukraine with no accountability and very little in the way of results. The US created the conditions for this fiasco with the 2014 coup, and now we're all paying the price. Ukraine repeatedly broke the Minsk ceasefire agreements, and Merkel said that was just an excuse to rearm and retrain the UAF after they got badly mauled at the start of the civil war. Since then Ukraine has lost 3 armies, 20% of it's country, probably around 400k dead or mutilated and is down to around 1/4 of it's 1991 population. Ukraine has clearly lost this conflict, yet Biden and our 'leaders' are still determined to fight to the last Ukrainian.

              Russia quite clearly intends to rearm, resupply, retrain, redeploy and retry. So why help them?

              Why indeed? We've given Russia every incentive to do this. Nuland was in Ukraine bragging about giving them yet more wunderwaffe, probably a long range missile Ukraine will use against civilians again. All this means is Russia is going to create a wider buffer between it's territory and armed Ukraine. So they get a 100km missile, Russia creates a 150km DMZ. This is probably what Trump is thinking. The conflict could be ended, if Ukraine and Russia negotiated in good faith. This would mean Ukraine losing territory and probably a DMZ east of the Dnipr, but the killing would stop.

              Alll Biden seems able to do is start more wars. Not content with the death and destruction already created in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc etc, he's going to blow more stuff up and escalate with Iran.

              1. DanceMan

                Re: if Russia negotiated in good faith

                If pigs could fly.................

                Is this the ghost of Neville Chamberlain speaking?

                1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: if Russia negotiated in good faith

                  Is this the ghost of Neville Chamberlain speaking?

                  Nope, just someone who dislikes lashing out randomly. The US has just done it's usual of bombing sovereign nations. A US base that shouldn't be in Syria got attacked. Jordan says it's territory wasn't attacked. The US blames Iran, because why the heck not? And starts bombing targets in Syria and Iraq, promising this is only the beginning of it's escalation. US oil & gas exports will probably increase in value, except Biden's been talking about banning those.. Just as he's gotten the EU hooked on US gas.

                  Oh, and for maximum hypocrisy-

                  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-68144478

                  "Let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond."

                  Unless it's an American Journalist, who died in a Ukranian jail.. RIP Gonzalo Lira.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: if Russia negotiated in good faith

                    > " The US has just done it's (sic) usual of bombing sovereign nations."

                    Says the guy supporting Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

                    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                      Re: if Russia negotiated in good faith

                      Says the guy supporting Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

                      Nope. You confuse my dislike of the West's policy of invading small countries with support for Putin. We've invaded, illegally occupied or just bombed far more sovereign nations than Russia has, and if we can do it, why not Russia? But you presumably support the invasion and occupation of Syria. Bombing it again is just another example of breaking international law from the society that supposedly upholds 'rules-based international order'.

                      1. Anonymous Coward
                        Anonymous Coward

                        Debunking more BS from Jellied Eel

                        > But you presumably support the invasion and occupation of Syria.

                        You seem to be confused. When was Syria invaded by the USA? The Syrian war is a civil war that started during the Arab Spring. Syria is dominated by a Shia minority called the Alawi originating from the North West of Syria. It started with Hafez el-Assad, Bashir el-Assad's father. The el-Assad clan is ruthless and have caused millions of death in Syria and in Lebanon through bombings, chemical weapons against civilians, and assassinations. This rogue regime is supported by Iran (for religious and geopolitical reasons) and by Russia (for geopolitical reasons and in particular for the naval base in Tartus). In contrast to Iraq or Afghanistan, there has been no full scale invasion in Syria (maybe in your alternate universe).

                        The US presence in Syria was

                        1/ motivated by the activities of the Islamic State,

                        2/ confirmed by your cult leader Donal Trump

                        3/ agreed with your idol Vladimir Putin

                        Citation from Wikipedia

                        On 22 September 2014, the United States officially intervened in the Syrian civil war with the stated aim of fighting the Islamic State as part of Operation Inherent Resolve in the international war against the Islamic State. The U.S. also supports the Syrian rebels and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces opposed to both the Islamic State and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

                        In mid-January 2018, the Trump administration indicated its intention to maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria to accomplish U.S. political objectives, including countering Iranian influence and ousting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

                        US presence in Syria is around 400 personnel. Compare this with 600000 Russian forces in Ukraine. Which one is an invasion, again?

                        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                          Re: Debunking more BS from Jellied Eel

                          You seem to be confused. When was Syria invaded by the USA?

                          A simple definition of invasion from wiki-

                          An invasion is a military offensive of combatants of one geopolitical entity, usually in large numbers, entering territory controlled by another similar entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory; forcing the partition of a country; altering the established government or gaining concessions from said government; or a combination thereof.

                          US/Western forces invaded and occupied Syria, establishing control over it's oil fields and agricultural areas, and in the case of the base that was hit, cutting off and controlling a major MSR.

                          The Syrian war is a civil war that started during the Arab Spring.

                          It's a proxy war started by Obama. Trump.. I mean.. Biden.. I mean Assad is not the legitmate leader, despite winning elections, and we decided he must be replaced because that MSR would also make a nice gas pipeline route. Of course it started in the usual proxy war way with controlled oppposition, protests, and then the shooting starts. The same way it happened in Liibya and Ukraine.

                          This rogue regime is supported by Iran (for religious and geopolitical reasons) and by Russia (for geopolitical reasons and in particular for the naval base in Tartus)

                          Well, yes. But Iran and Russia are there at the request of the Syrian government. We are there to remove that government. You're right that removing the Russian base at Tartus is an objective because it's Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean. Bases were also an objective in Ukraine, ie preventing Russia from using it's Black Sea base in Crimea. It's almost as if we're determined to blockade Russia. See also attempts to deny Russia access to the Baltic. All of which is in breach of UNCLOS and general maritime law. You are also right that it's a sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni, with the Sunni contingent in Syria being the head choppers, and grill mastahs. These are Obama's 'moderate terrorists'.

                          1/ motivated by the activities of the Islamic State,

                          Also right. So after Russia invaded Afghanistan, the US armed and trained Sunnis as proxies to fight against Russia. The name Osama Bin Laden may be familiar to you. This of course spawned AQ, and once Russia withdrew from Afghanistan, OBL was no longer a useful idiot. This created abandoment issues and resulted in AQ turning on their masters. US is the 'Great Satan', UK is the 'Little Satan'. How to win friends and influence people. But then 9/11, the 'War on Terror', and the invasion of Afghanistan to destroy AQ and the Taliban, complete with Rumsfeld's 'Fortress of Evil' showing OBL's mountain lair. Too bad Afghanistan's not volcanic or that would have been inside a volcano probably. But OBL wasn't there, he was living in Pakistan, ostensibly an ally. But 20yrs and over $1tn later, Biden gave up, pulled out of Afghanistan and left the Taliban firmly in charge. Complete with billlions of dollars in military equipment as a good bye gift.

                          But this also spawned ISIL, and a variety of aligned 'moderate terrorists' who turned terrorism into a MLM/Pyramid scheme. Who says capitalism doesn't work? So an existing tribal/feudal structure turns into a bunch of warlords getting funded based on the attrocities they commit. As long as money gets kicked up the pyramid, they get supplies. Or just control over some valuable stuff like oil. But they're still useful idiots, so also provided a handy proxy force to attempt to overthrow Syria's government and impose it's ultra-Orthodox version of Islam on what was/is a pretty moderate Islamic nation. Women in Syria could wear jeans, drive cars, take jobs.. All of which is unacceptable to the moderate terrorists we're supporting who prefer to keep women in their place. Or just sell them, rape and kill them etc etc.

                          But then Russia and Iran intervened to prevent our moderate terrorists doing stuff like this-

                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidi_genocide

                          2014 was not a good year to be a religious or ethnic minority in Syria. Or Ukraine for that matter. But Russia helped the Syrian government reduce the threat from ISIL and it's subsidiaries. How it did it should have been a bit of a clue for Ukraine, but those that ignore history etc. So we intervened and occupied the most economically attractive parts of Syria to prevent the Syrian government from winning, and starve them out of power. Russia and Iran have been far more effective at eliminating ISIL, but now they have protected zones to operate from. Far from protecting the lives of US people, those US troops are in Syria as tripwires to trigger escalation, which of course has now happened.

                          And of course we're repsonding in our usual fashion by creating more martyrs and increasing the threat. And with Biden's open borders policy, I wonder how many of those moderate terrorists are now inside the US, or UK?

            3. d0x360

              Re: American public is way ahead of them

              Ukraine can't win even if we sent them 5x as much money and weapons and our government knows that.

              Russia can literally just send bodies into Ukraine for years and win by attrition without needing to sacrifice as much money in equipment as Ukraine burns through and they have plenty of prisoners accepting ended sentences if they serve for 6 months and yes plenty hav survived.

              Don't buy the propaganda my friend... Do you really think Russia is so weak it can't roll over Ukraine?

              Trump is clearly no ally to Russia or China. Russia gets involved in every election and has for decades. Trump imposed very damaging sanctions and tarrifs on China and Russia that Biden KILLED DAY 1 which caused Putin and Dictator Xi to dance in streets with joy. Of course China's economy is still collapsing rapidly as more investors wise up and realize it's a terrible place to invest 98% of the time.

              Try reading a bit and compile your own info instead of just eating up everything you're fed because it's usually more nonsense than truth and no that was not me endorsing trump either.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                The Russian federation is on the verge of collapse just as the USSR was in 1991. This is 2024. Not 1917.

                Besides, Putin's printing money like there's no tomorrow. And he's right: there's no tomorrow. For him.

              2. cryptopants

                I doubt that

                Trump doesn’t have a coherent policy. The only reason why he was ever tough on Russia is because some members of his cabinet were reasonably competent and pushed for that. They had some results. But inevitably everyone in that administration, even the good ones, are driven out from a toxic work environment. They realize that all the good that they are doing doesn’t really matter to Trump. He’s more interested in other things like the internal backstabbing and politicking between the various factions within his administration he gets a perverse thrill from it.

                And as those seasoned WH staff leave the White House, they are replaced with less capable people, and so the effectiveness of the Trump administration diminishes with time. And by the end of his presidency, he’s almost completely ineffectual on all policy, foreign and domestic.

                The only thing Trump can do is break things he’s very destructive. And a lot of people are still not up to speed. They support this man’s destructiveness, because they are under the very false impression that he’s capable of building something from the ashes.

                As far as my own opinion is concerned, every Russian trespasser in Ukraine is subject to being annihilated. And if Putin doesn’t want to potentially lose his entire army, then he should keep them on his side of the fence.

                On the matter of Putin challenging NATO? I don’t think that’s the concern. Although no one should’ve dismiss the possibility. Instead what most likely Putin’s aim is or his intentions are with NATO Insta challenge article 5. He wants to undermine and fracture the alliance by destroying its credibility, which is backed on article 5 by the United States.

                It’s just the sort of hybrid warfare type thing he might like to start a conflict in an obscure part of Europe that the rest of the NATO members don’t feel strongly for especially in the US.

                And he has every incentive to work for this Republicans, reinforce the belief in his mind that he can find just the right situation that the US won’t want to become involved in that undermines the foundation which NATO was built on.

          2. NoneSuch Silver badge
            Gimp

            Re: American public is way ahead of them

            "So what did Trump actually do for Russia? All these claims he was a 'Putin Puppet' but what did he DO?"

            Apart from literally encouraging the overthrow the US government itself, you mean...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: American public is way ahead of them

              Um, that was the democrats in 2020.

              1. Casca Silver badge

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                Oh, spot the moron

            2. d0x360

              Re: American public is way ahead of them

              Last I checked "peacefully protest" is not a war cry of revolution. Should we get into the BLM riots? If you wanna talk insurrection start there

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                Remember that Chris Cuomo did say on air 'show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful?'.

                Yes I know its in the text of the 1st amendment! I'm not sure he has actually read it....

                And AOC said "The whole point of protesting is to make people uncomfortable. To those who complain that protest demands make others uncomfortable, that’s the point.”

                So J6 was A-OK :)

              2. Casca Silver badge

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                Good little maga...

          3. DS999 Silver badge

            Re: American public is way ahead of them

            So what did Trump actually do for Russia?

            Let's see:

            - the time he gave away top secret information to Russia's foreign minister when he visited the White House (which wasn't his to give, it was Israeli secrets that may have compromised their assets)

            - the multiple times he met with Putin ALONE, with only the two of them and Putin's translator in the room so there is ZERO record of what secrets he may have told Putin

            - constant praise of Putin and denigration of western allies

            - attempt at dismantling NATO - he wanted to pull the US out of NATO but fortunately congressional republicans told him they would not permit that...would they be willing to stand up to him in a second term? Given how obsequious they are even before he's nominated that seems highly unlikely

            I could go on, but Putin got more than he dreamed from his little orange puppet! If Trump is elected to another term not only would US support for Ukraine disappear, Trump would likely pressure (via threats to stop all arms sales/support) NATO allies to end their support as well, permitting Putin to not only permanently take the territory he occupies but the entire country like he wanted from the start (remember that hilariously inept attempt to send massive tank columns into Kyiv when it started?)

            If the US pulled out of NATO, Putin would not stop at Ukraine, and Trump would talk about how it is a good thing that Russia is invading Poland etc. and reconstituting the USSR.

            Also consider all the secret documents Trump took when he left the White House. I think it is almost a certainty some/all of them ended up in Putin's hands. All Trump would have to do is allow some Russian asset into the storage room and bathroom where the documents were kept for a few hours to take pictures of them.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: American public is way ahead of them

              "the time he gave away top secret information"

              Sources say, not actual fact.

              "the multiple times he met with Putin ALONE, with only the two of them and Putin's translator in the room"

              You know that he wasn't meeting Putin alone if there was a 3rd person there. And do you really think meetings like this never happen anywhere else?

              "constant praise of Putin"

              Completely valid. The problem is TDS supporters love the ad-hom attack vector as you need to feel superior. He called Putin 'smart' and this is a true statement. He is smart as he has retained power for a very long time. Putin has also pulled the west into a completely unwinnable proxy war to which we cannot back away from.

              Trump also called Hamas smart to which the TDS sufferers started screeching again. But Hamas WERE smart as they managed to plan the Oct 7th raid without raising suspicion and then get through the barriers and murder lots of people and caught the IDF completely off guard. If they were dumb they would have been met with a hail of bullets, rockets, bombs etc. and mown down the moment they made a move.

              "and denigration of western allies"

              Again valid. Look at the egg on Germany's face now they can't get cheap Russian gas. They were warned many many times and not just by Trump.

              "attempt at dismantling NATO"

              Again legit. The USA contributes most to NATO in terms of % GDP and total.

              https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/nato-spending-by-country

              In Europe we have come to expect the US to save the day for us and as such we don't need to spend as much on our own defence.

              As for documents, pure conjecture made up by failing news outlets to boost numbers.

              1. MattAvan

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                "Putin has also pulled the west into a completely unwinnable proxy war to which we cannot back away from."

                The point of calling it a proxy war is that the US can easily back away from it. Trump and Mike Johnson are doing exactly that, and betraying American interests in the process.

                As for calling it unwinnable, Ukraine has retaken half of the territory initially occupied by Russia in this war. This threatened the invaders so much that they had to build a whole line of defensive fortifications to stop from being overrun, called the "Surovikin Line", complete with trenches, dragon's tooth, and ditches.

                3500 Russian tanks lie gutted by fire in Ukraine, and you think Putin planned it this way? That the side fighting the proxy war is the side caught in some sort of trap? I am impressed by Russian propaganda, that's all I can say to that.

                1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                  Re: American public is way ahead of them

                  As for calling it unwinnable, Ukraine has retaken half of the territory initially occupied by Russia in this war. This threatened the invaders so much that they had to build a whole line of defensive fortifications to stop from being overrun, called the "Surovikin Line", complete with trenches, dragon's tooth, and ditches.

                  Ukraine has a warm body problem. We can send it lots more wunderwaffe, but it's running out of people. When the SMO started, Russia stated the objective was to demilitarise Ukraine and reduce it's threat. So protecting the population of Crimea, DPR and LPR who were being killed by Ukraine. It was not about territory. Ukraine has since shrunk by around 20% and it's much hyped counter offensive did nothing more than waste yet more lives and equipment. Russia can replace equipment much faster than we can, especially as we continue to deindustrialise as a result of our leader's energy policy and sanctions.

                  Ukraine is busily building it's own version of the Surovikin Line, but if it keeps up it's 'strategy', won't have any people to man those defences. This is the bit people seem determined to ignore. If Russia continues it's war of attrition, and Ukraine continues wasting it's people's lives, Russia is going to be able to take whatever territory it wants because Ukraine will have nothing left to defend itself with.. And neither will NATO.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: American public is way ahead of them

                    Thanks for eliciting Putin's cunning plan: "Match each Ukrainian bullet with a Russian body". You guys can't lose. For sure. NATO surely can't supply millions of bullets. Can they?

                2. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: American public is way ahead of them

                  "betraying American interests in the process."

                  And they are? Apart from somewhere for the Biden family to launder money.

                  The only 'interest' the US has in Ukraine is as a puppet state for NATO expansion.

                  "3500 Russian tanks lie gutted by fire in Ukraine"

                  Alongside all the tanks the west has sent. Ukraine has seen the first losses of British Challenger 2 tanks along with losses of German Leopard tanks. Putin will keep throwing resources at the problem until the Ukraine is a wasteland and there is no-one alive to fight or he gets dragged out of office in a coup. The west 'won' the cold war due to attrition but it wasn't costing thousands of lives and destroying cities.

                3. d0x360

                  Re: American public is way ahead of them

                  Russia has enough bodies to continue for a decade at this pace. Ukraine does not. Ukraine is also out of money and low on equipment.

                  We are burning cash when Biden should have been negotiating peace. Instead he's fueling a losing war and using the Ukrainian people as his personal army but forgot to tell them they have no chance unless Russia decides to just stop attacking. They could take every inch back and that wouldn't stop Russia from attacking until twvwey fighting age Ukrainian is dead. Putin hasn't even gotten through 1/4 of the prisoners volunteering to have their prison sentence wiped for 6 months of service. Wake up

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: American public is way ahead of them

                    What good is 'winning' all this land back when your country is mud and rubble and you've got no men left to rebuild it?

                    Obama should have done something in 2014 but didn't.

                    1. Grinning Bandicoot

                      Re: American public is way ahead of them

                      That is exactly why you want to joust in the other guys yard.

                  2. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: American public is way ahead of them

                    > Russia has enough bodies to continue for a decade at this pace.

                    A decade of Putin and 40% inflation rate? Dream on, darling.

                    > Instead he's fueling a losing war and using the Ukrainian people as his personal army but forgot to tell them they have no chance

                    Amazing how Russian trolls seem to care about Ukrainian lives.

                    1. Anonymous Coward
                      Anonymous Coward

                      Re: American public is way ahead of them

                      It is safe to say that the warmongers in the US do not care about Ukrainian lives one bit. They are just numbers on paper and so long as these people see their bank balance go up they don't mind who gets killed in a far off land.

                      1. Anonymous Coward
                        Anonymous Coward

                        Re: American public is way ahead of them

                        Common logic: If you give people the means to defend themselves against a self confessed murderer, you give them a chance to survive.

                        Russian troll logic: If you give people the means to defend themselves against Russian aggression, we need to kill more of them to enslave them. So it's your fault. You're the real murderers. Not us, who press the trigger.

                        Shame on you Russian troll. Why don't you tally your "cargo 200" and leave us, free people, support each other.

                        1. Anonymous Coward
                          Anonymous Coward

                          Re: American public is way ahead of them

                          "Russian troll"

                          Yawn! Please, come up with something better. Try not suckling at the teat of corporate news.

                          Russia annexed Crimea, Donbas etc. in 2014! TEN YEARS AGO! The west has let this fester for 10 years. Some say we might have caused it with the CIA backed coup in Ukraine but that is another story. We encouraged the murder of civilians in these area cos nothing says 'become part of Ukraine again, we love you!' like a good shelling.

                          It is just hilarious how the pro-hammas faction claim that Gaza has historically been 'palestinian' for all of history while also claiming that ethnic russian areas are actually part of Ukraine. You can't have it both ways. Maybe Putin should start supporting Gaza then you will really blow a fuse :)

                  3. cryptopants

                    Re: American public is way ahead of them

                    Biden can’t negotiate peace when Putin has said he will not attend any negotiations. He has made his demands and basically that is for Ukraine to surrender. Anything short of that the war will continue. That is coming from Putin out of his own words. Biden doesn’t have the ability to control Putin any more than Trump, or anyone else. he is the head honcho of Russia what he does is the law there.

                    That leaves you with one option to stop this war. Destroy his ability to conduct it. Exhaust his manpower. Unless Putin is going to go down there and fight himself, he only can work with what he has. Any other suggestion is just being naïve. You don’t seek war, but when someone else brings it to you, you better be prepared to fight. Or it will be a much longer and much bloodier war as a consequence.

                    1. Anonymous Coward
                      Anonymous Coward

                      Re: American public is way ahead of them

                      "he only can work with what he has. Any other suggestion is just being naïve"

                      What he has is a large arsenal of nukes. Short of invading Russia and taking away all their toys your vision of 'victory' in Ukraine is pure fantasy.

                      The best time to have dealt with the issue was in 2014.

                      Trump is actually 100% correct in his comments about Nato. FFS, the UK is one of the select nations who get to sit at the H-bomb table and we can't even get ONE of our carriers out of port. And ain't we still waiting on the planes to go on our carriers?

                      https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-68268560

        2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: American public is way ahead of them

          You don't need to have a candidate you can overtly control like in Manchurian Candidate if you have a guy like Trump who is so easily manipulated via praise and personal favors.

          Or alternatively, the poorest politician on the Capitol being grifted at least 10%, the odd diamond here or there.

          1. DS999 Silver badge

            Re: American public is way ahead of them

            One member of the house or senate, or even a few members, doesn't have all that much power other than shouting on the 24x7 news channels. Putin already basically owns Hannity (at least he reliably parrots anything Putin says so whether he's bought and paid for or a "useful idiot" is beside the point) so the value of having a few politicians who will do the same is limited.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: American public is way ahead of them

              "Putin already basically owns Hannity"

              WUT? Are you smoking something? Hannity HATES Trump and didn't he also ask why the US doesn't just assassinate Putin?

              1. d0x360

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                Sometimes I think people just pick random names when making up "information" lol. Yes Hannity has said he should be assassinated so I doubt he's a Putin puppet lol

              2. johndrake7

                Re: American public is way ahead of them

                Citation for the claim that Sean Hannity of Fox news hates TFG Trump. Go on, I'll wait.

                Citation for the claim that Anonymous Coward can't spell "what" and confuses Trump with Putin in the same sentence ... here: https://forums.theregister.com/forum/containing/4804194

  2. ecofeco Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Wait. Again?

    WHOCOULDAKNOWED?!

  3. HuBo
    Stop

    Lax-security-ve roulette

    It's quite unacceptable IMHO that we've been running rather insecure end-of-life routers at Guam military bases (and other key infrastructure) for years, rather than continuously upgrading them, properly (to newer models), to maintain their security. Also, that the FBI could remotely reconfigure the PRC/Volt-exploited VPNs on those routers into loopback mode, further suggests that critical web-facing interfaces were still using default passwords (or even no password at all) -- a basic big no-no. Someone's been broadly underestimating what's at stake here, relying on wishful thinking to keep systems operating, with an outcome that could be quite disastrous.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile in China…

    Pooh Bear looks away and whistles to himself.

  5. Khaptain Silver badge

    Saves billions of dollars for the Chinese

    So instead of developing expensive missiles, radars, aircraft carriers etc China only has to ask it's local hackers to hack outdated routeurs and knock out US comms the cheap way......

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Saves billions of dollars for the Chinese

      it's almost hilarious, US has the NSA, and china has the NSA x 10,000 The war is already lost. China is taking their time with global conquest. If they don't have to fire a shot they won't. This war started over 40 years ago as far as china is concerned.

      1. d0x360

        Re: Saves billions of dollars for the Chinese

        Uhm ... You clearly dont know what you're talking about lol.

        Guess what!? We are hacking right back with our own hacker army. The problem is 99% of people actually know nothing about information security despite thinking they do which leads to breachs from seemingly mundane vectors. It also doesn't help that companies don't have to support equipment that can be used as a vector.. at all! Netgear could release a $500 or $50 router tomorrow and the next day say it's EOL despite having the capability to at least issue security patches but they won't unless it's a law and it should be.

        By the same token people should be upgrading their ancient kit because it's constantly being used as huge bot nets and attacking all kinds of targets in insane numbers.

        Sometimes I wish I wish I didn't work in infosec, blissfully if ignorant.. but then I read your email and see my paycheck and I get over it lol, now get a new phone!

        1. Grinning Bandicoot

          Re: Saves billions of dollars for the Chinese

          Sheeple want convenience and ease of use. If you doubt this go into ancient history, read the tears about the computer doing what is was instructed to do exactly not what was meant by the user. MS/DOS had the virtue of forcing thinking; hence it quick replacement.

          Security is some variety of an inverse function of easy use. If the barns double barred and padlocked too, one is not going horse riding on a whim

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IoShite.

    Yet again the major security fail here is allowing infrastructure to be managed via the internet, once people know it's there it will be attacked, if you're lucky only for shits n giggles by people with no malicious intent, if you're not then by whichever boogy man is flavour of the month.

    You only have to spend a small amount of time looking at firewall logs for something with an internet facing connection to realise the 'net is not the place for install and forget stuff that's controlling infrastructure like water plants, substations, gas pumping stations etc.

    Take it off the 'net, put it back on leased lines, point to point connections, cellular, its own mesh networks or even satellite for the really remote stuff and suddenly it becomes a lot easier to manage the security and spot any attempts at misuse, hacking or other 'anomalies'.

    Sure it costs more PCM than a basic internet connection but it's cheap compared to paying for network architects to re-do your infrastructure every 5-10 years, new hardware, security response teams and having to explain the inevitable outages to regulators, governments, compensate customers and then *still* redo all your network and associated hardware.

    1. Diogenes8080

      Re: IoShite.

      Obligatory XKCD reference https://xkcd.com/1966/

    2. Trank1234

      Re: IoShite.

      And somehow people think internet connected cars and refrigerators are excellent ideas. I will literally cut the communications antenna out of my car if ever I can't get one without it. If it's on the internet, it's exposed, corruptible and stealable by billions of people, most of whom you have no chance of stopping, catching or holding accountable. No sane person would choose that, yet somehow we are.

      1. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

        Re: IoShite.

        I've had that conversation today at work with a tech savvy user, he was trying to track down some traffic on his home WiFi and it turns out his refrigerator calls home far more regularly than you'd have any reasonable expectation.

        I queried why he'd even connected it to the 'net and it seems the only way to get a service call when it stops working (which it does quite often) is to run diags on the thing over the 'net so the engineer can guess which bits to bring to fix the piece of crap.

        My fridge on the other hand, hasn't needed an engineer in the 10 years I've owned it, it has a compressor, an electromechanical thermostat which doesn't need an internet connection and, about the most high tech bit, the switch that turns on the light when you open the door.

        I'm baffled to what actual value IoT brings to home appliances.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: IoShite.

          Yes, and it's not like no one makes refrigerators that aren't network-connected. We have a brand new Westinghouse one which has no network capability, but all the amenities we wanted: French-door side-by-side main compartment and bottom-drawer freezer. It also has a filtered water dispenser, but we didn't want that so it's not connected; the dispenser is small and located inside the compartment, so there's no loss of door-shelf storage space. That's just one example. There were plenty of non-Internet models available.

          Our new Bosch dishwasher is also non-networked.

          Our LG gas range has WiFi and an app (according to the instructions; neither of us have gone looking for it). We didn't connect it to the network, and have no plans to do so; that hasn't caused any problems. True, I can't bake remotely. I have never, ever wanted to do that, so it's no great loss.

        2. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

          Re: IoShite.

          "I'm baffled to what actual value IoT brings to home appliances."

          I see, you think it should bring value to the purchaser. The only value to the purchaser is a negative value.

  7. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
    Holmes

    better threat sharing....

    Hmmmm if the FBI shares its detected threats with industry, surely that just tells any interested foreign state actors what the FBI know and hence how to adjust their approach to cracking the nut?

    One would asusme (wrongly I guess) that industry already tells the FBI what it is noticing...

  8. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Open door policy

    > "The fact that PRC hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure, water treatment plants, our electrical grid, our oil and natural gas pipelines, our transportation systems — and the risk that poses to every American requires our attention

    The more worrying issue is that they can!

    What are "critical infrastructure" elements doing on the wild west internet in the first place?

    What provides cheap and convenient access for remote operators provides exactly the same for bad actors.

    1. Trank1234

      Re: Open door policy

      Nuclear industry has resisted digitization of primary control functions for this reason for years. People walk into a control room and think it's ancient tech, it must work poorly, but couldn't be more wrong. Unfortunately, you can't buy the parts anymore, so there's that to contend with.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Open door policy

      A large portion of US infrastructure, including water treatment plants and power generation and distribution centers, are owned by small, in many cases non-profit, rural and micropolitan organizations. They have very little budget for, well, anything. That includes little budget for building industrial control systems (ICSs) and software, so they use off-the-shelf components, nearly all of which these days are network-connected. It means little budget for staff, so to ensure continuous coverage they may well have to allow remote access. It means little budget for security, which has to cover physical and IT threats.

      Critical infrastructure gets created because people need it — including in poor and sparsely-populated areas. Often that's going to mean it operates on a shoestring.

  9. Zibob Silver badge

    Not easy problems?

    You say they are not easy problems to solve but reading the article its the very people warning of this that are causing the biggest problems

    You want to solve this, education!

    Right now people don't even know what's vulnerable to worry about. And instead of educate them, and help them protect themselves and their equipment they put out a general fear mongering statement that "China is already here"

    That's just moving the responsibility from the manufacturers, maintainers and users to the army branches to try and stop China.

    That's also not going to happen. You need the nation to work as a whole, understanding and mitigating their own flaws.

    Pushing this to "we must stop China" is just insiting war.

  10. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "50 to one"

    Really ?

    Because we know how many hackers China is using at this point in time ?

    No, we don't. That is just a throwaway phrase destined to further the message of fear. It is a gratuitious attempt to bolster an argument that does not need such shenanigans.

    Stop fearmongering and start pushing the solution : don't have your critical infrastructure accessible from the Internet.

    Yes, it'll cost money, but it will make your country secure.

    So, what'll it be ? Security, or keeping the masses in a constant state of fear ?

    I think I know the answer to that . . .

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: "50 to one"

      Stop fearmongering and start pushing the solution : don't have your critical infrastructure accessible from the Internet.

      There's nothing necessarily wrong with having stuff connected to the Internet, as long as the Internet hasn't slipped into the bit-bucket. But as the article says-

      This is a battle cry that Easterly repeated during her CISA tenure. The agency wants vendors to make their tech "secure-by-design," so it's safe out of the box, and this responsibility isn't passed on to businesses and end users.

      US vendors flogged millions of insecure devices. Those devices got hacked, then counter-hacked to fix them. If the devices were secure by design, hacks wouldn't have happened. Of course making stuff secure is a challenge, but legislating so vendors have liability and consequential losses might focus their minds. Too much stuff has too many 'features' that often aren't needed, wanted, are enabled by default and end up making holes for attackers to slip through. There's a lot to be said for 'dumb' devices with a minimum, well documented feature set as the default. If you want more and know what you're doing, enable those features.

      It's bad enough with routers, but much, much worse with OS's like dear'ol Windows. Hundreds of obscurely named processes running that even a reasonably clueful user (ie me) has no idea what they're doing, and it's a PITA to keep terminated. Something I wish legislators would do is implement a 'Closed Means Closed' Act. Fire up calculator, hit the 'X' to close it, calc still keeps running in the process list hogging cycles.

    2. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: "50 to one"

      Its really easy as well. The vast majority of devices are read-only and only need to speak when they're spoken to. This dramatically simplifies the code needed to support network access while at the same time making the unit impervious to hacks.

      The damage is done by sticking a commodity network stack on everything. Apart from potential bugs and unforeseen hacks this code has properties that a typical appliance device just doesn't need. So not only can someone get into the device but they can then start using it for purposes that it was never intended. (it doesn't help that programmers now think 'network' means 'web programming' -- adding any kind of web capability to a device makes it insecure almost by definition.)

      But its easier to just push out scare stories for the rubes, I suppose. If nothing else, though, it keeps legions of the unemployable in a job.

  11. Gene Cash Silver badge

    'societal chaos' in the US?

    How will we be able to tell?

    1. Ideasource

      Re: 'societal chaos' in the US?

      I live in the US and societal chaos is the norm here.

      It's re-themed every couple years to seem as if something new but when you grow up with the monotonous trend of chaos, recognizing despite the rebranding becomes all too obvious.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: 'societal chaos' in the US?

      Indeed. The subhead was really the only comment this article needed.

  12. Trank1234

    It's about time

    It's about time people started taking this seriously.

    1. Ideasource

      Re: It's about time

      Serious minded people stress out and that lends to greater occurrences of misjudgment.

      Light sense of importance with the acceptance of the occasional inevitable setback and and make it fun to try. Now that's a recipe for happy success despite imperfect results.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: It's about time

      Many people have been taking it seriously for years. It's not easy to fix, contrary to what some posters here would like to believe. Resource constraints and implementation issues are real and severe.

  13. qubit000

    US tabloid journalism whipping up anti China hysteria to create self fulfilling prophecy so that when chaos does happen China can be blamed.

    Americans should be rational and ask why China would sabotage its largest trading partner...WMDs Iraq?

    1. Grinning Bandicoot

      Since the Hearst-Pulitzer news wars of the 1880s ALL media has used to the crisis de jour to keep the BIG MONEY flowing into the tiny pockets of these elitist ol' money.

  14. Omnipresent Bronze badge

    Awake the sleeping giant

    Americans are waking up to the damage caused by social media. America's youth are especially keen. Japan made this mistake once China. Ask putin.

  15. d0x360

    Attempts nonstop

    I work in information security for a company I can't name and hackers from China often attempt to breach our network but in the last 3 months the number of avg attempts per week is absolutely insane... easily 10x our normal avg

    They don't stand a chance

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Attempts nonstop

      You are a sock puppet account created by 2 days ago.

  16. mitch074

    Like Iraq's WMDs ?

    So, Chinese groups are attacking US infrastructures? Like Saddam Hussein was building atomic bombs? Yeah, right.

  17. Grogan Silver badge

    Man, would I ever like to see a "Chinese goon". Do they have big noses like Alice?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Disinformation Is Source-Neutral...........................

    Quote: "....China also has less overtly destructive cybertools at its disposal including disinformation, spread via TikTok and other social media..."

    Just replace "China" in the quote with "Trump"........................................or "GOP"................or "Giuliani"........................

    Yup.......disinformation is completely neutral as to its source!!!!!

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