Sleepless in Midland

What's your Chinese social credit score?

Attorney General William Barr held a press conference the other day in which he announced indictments against four Chinese military hackers. Unless those malefactors decide to travel to the U.S. they will likely never have to face justice. They are more likely to be awarded honors by the Chinese government. Mr. Barr's prepared remarks can be seen here. And this excerpt tells us just how many American's personal information was purloined from Equifax:

This was one of the largest data breaches in history.  It came to light in the summer of 2017, when Equifax announced the theft.  The scale of the theft was staggering.  As alleged in the indictment, the hackers obtained the names, birth dates, and social security numbers of nearly 150 million Americans, and the driver’s license numbers of at least 10 million Americans.

Let's not forget that Chinese hackers stole OPM information about government employees a few years ago.

The objective could have been to aid thefts from the hacking victims. But it's just a likely, and maybe more likely, the goal was to compile dossiers on each and every American for future use in persuasion or coercion.

A news item supporting this theory is the scoring of American governors revealed in BUSTED: Mike Pompeo Says He Has List of American Governors Named as 'Friendly' by Communist China.

Meanwhile, major print periodicals routinely contain inserts paid for by the Chinese which purport to tell us all how great China is.

As if we needed a reminder, we would all do well to remember that China is not a friend.

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3:08 PM 2/11/2020

the heckler violates the right of others to listen

We haven't seen as much news lately about conservative speaker being shouted down on college campuses. Maybe it's because conservatives no longer get invited to speak.

In any event, the subject of the heckler's veto comes up from time to time, and that prompted this blogger to seek out this ancient quote from Fredrick Douglass. His speech came about after a gang of hired ruffians disrupted a speech against slavery. Here's the quote:

There can be no right of speech where any man, however lifted up, or however humble, however young, or however old, is overawed by force, and compelled to suppress his honest sentiments.

Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.

Fredrick Douglass was an old school orator, and the speech seems verbose by today's standards. But if interested, a transcript of the speech can be found at this website: A Plea for Free Speech in Boston.

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3:28 PM 5/4/2018

More warnings about EMPs

This post was originally going to be about how the local newspaper -- The Midland Reporter-Telegram -- is too reliant on a Houston Chronicle columnist for information about the petroleum industry all while the local paper brags that this part of the country leads the nation in petroleum production. But the post got hijacked by this article: As North Korea threatens electromagnetic pulse attack, questions over lapses in US grid security rise.

This wasn't a new threat, Kim Jong Un has been threatening something bad for a very long time, and it is certainly no secret that his missile crew has the capability to deliver a nuclear bomb into the air and explode it high over the U.S. We've been told that 90% of the people in the U.S. would be dead within a year. That's merely conjecture, but it certainly sounds reasonable given that everything we currently take for granted will disappear and roving gangs of armed marauders will be scouring residential neighborhoods for scraps.

For a sampling of a best case scenario, look at the news from Puerto Rico following their utility wipe-out. But at least there the personally owned electrical devices still work.

Anyway, utilities on the mainland don't appear to be all that prepared for an EMP power interruption. Maybe they they really are prepared and are just keeping it secret. But that seems doubtful given how they would have to spend money to do it. And while it seems reasonable that utility commissions would grant authority to raise rates for that, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that the utilities have asked.

So let's get back to the original purpose of this post. An article by Chris Tomlinson that was in the Houston Chronicle was presented to readers of the Midland Reporter-Telegram recently as top of the front page news. Here's the link to Too much energy creates a challenge for Texas electricity grid.

Tomlinson explains in that column how all the natural gas in Texas is driving down prices and hurting the electric utilities. He closes with this:

Texas led the nation in doing away with government-regulated monopolies and introducing less-regulated competition. That has led to some of the lowest power prices in the country and a boom in industrial construction.

The state should not abandon its faith in the competitive market by fixing the game to protect incumbents. Driving out the old and inefficient is what the market is all about, and we should welcome the creative destruction created by our enormous energy potential.

But what about putting some money into protecting the grid from an EMP attack? The MRT.com is very fond of Mr. Tomlinson's columns, so maybe they could request him to address that issue in one of his columns.

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1:06 PM 9/26/2017

Bowling for Ebola

Dr. Craig Spencer is the Ebola carrying doctor who returned to the U.S. and went bowling. Here's what dailymail.co.uk reported:

New York's Ebola-stricken doctor was told by the charity that he worked for that he did not have to self-quarantine after returning from an Ebola-ravaged country

Dr Craig Spencer returned to the U.S. on October 17 from Ebola 'hot zone' Guinea where he was treating patients with non-profit group, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Not such good advice.

Meanwhile, the CDC had the job of warning people about Ebola without inspiring panic. So what did they do? Here's Alex Berezow of USAToday.com:

Likely aware of this, the CDC chose the worst possible action: In an effort to keep the public calm, the CDC pretended to know more about Ebola than it actually does.

Way to diminish your credibility, CDC. You're right up there with the IRS, the ATF, the VA and Obamacare. The pattern of government agency competence seems to be that they perform adequately until they're tested or tempted.

By the way, Doctors Without Borders, in spite of the bad advice given to Dr. Spencer, has provided a good lesson. Nations need borders.

Coming in the future: Patients Without Borders -- organization with the goal of moving infectious disease ridden people from third world countries to more prosperous countries where they would presumably get better treatment. Past achievements include importing thousands of undocumented minors from Central America to the U.S. where they've been welcomed and injected into local school systems. Many of them were disease free.

Reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s computer breached -- it could happen to anyone

James Rosen of Fox News was in the spotlight recently for being the target of Eric Holder's Department of Justice email grabs. He probably wasn't the only reporter targeted at Fox News.

But this one at CBS really is intriguing. Sharyl Attkisson is a reporter there who was actively pursuing the mysteries of Fast and Furious and the Benghazi terrorist attack. The Obama administration has made it clear they want both of those topics to disappear. Now we learn that her office and home computers were mysteriously hacked. See this from CBSnews.com Sharyl Attkisson on computer hacking: "I'm outraged".

"The unauthorized party accessed the CBS computer at my home on multiple occasions, and specifically in December, they used sophisticated methods to cover their tracks, meaning they tried to remove the indications of their previous unauthorized activity," she said. "We're not prepared to talk more about the who's and who did this today, but the intruder is considered highly skilled and used very sophisticated methods."

Emphasis mine. More:

Speaking of the invasion of the computers, Attkisson said, "When any unauthorized party comes into the home of an American -- whether it's a private citizen or a journalist -- and searches through their computers, inserting or removing material for whatever their reason is, it's a very serious and disturbing matter.

"I'm outraged that anyone would do such a thing and CBS News takes all of this very seriously."

That's good news that CBS News is taking it seriously. It was only last month that Attkisson was in jeopardy of losing her job over her aggressive coverage of the Obama admin. See Top Obama official’s brother is president of CBS News, may drop reporter over Benghazi coverage. Maybe the prospect of a government spy job on her made it too untimely to give her the pink slip.

In any event, the problem with these sophisticated spyware programs, the FBI's CIPAV for example, is that they are undetectable by the off-the-shelf anti virus programs. And the really frightening aspect about this whole thing is the possibility that we all may have that type spyware lurking in our hard drives just waiting for the command to forward it to the NSA, the FBI, Eric Holder, Obama, China, or even the kid down the street.

Attkisson and CBS should do us all a favor and publish a way for us ordinary slobs to sniff out spyware like that on our own computers.

Texas DMV sells our private info

We've all probably received a telemarketing call from the seller of an extended auto warranty who knew exactly what make, year, and model of car we own. The one I received the other day ended after the telemarketer refused to disclose the name of the city from which she was calling. They knew exactly where I was but didn't want me to know where they were. Maybe that makes me a stalker for asking. Or maybe they were using my information illegally and didn't want to face too many questions.

They must have bought my information from the Texas DMV. CBS 11 DFW explains how easy the information is to get and even provides a link for a downloadable xlsx spreadsheet listing the names and addresses of the companies that bought the database in 2012. A list of the companies with Midland, Texas, addresses will follow in the addendum to this post.

The federal statute, Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994, 18 USC CHAPTER 123, is a prohibition with many exceptions. And a loose definition of the "driver safety" exception is probably the one the warranty seller was relying on.

Notice all the car dealers on the list below. One can imagine the sales representative typing in your plate number as you pull into the lot then viewing the DMV information about you as she watches you scrutinize the window sticker of that nice new BMW. But if the dealership subscribes to all the information available about us from private companies they probably know us as well as our own mothers. Or the NSA.

Addendum: The full list of the companies on CBS 11's list is quite long. For a sampling, here are the ones showing a Midland, Texas, address.

Action Wrecker Service
B & B Wrecker & Recovery
Basic Energy Services LP
Basin Auto Sales
Bi-Rite Auto Sales Inc
BMW of the Perian [sic] Basin
City of Midland / Code Administration
Farmers Insurance Group
GDR Investment Corp dba Golden Eagle Motors
Hubbard Certified
Linro Investments
Midland College Police Department
My Community Federal Credit Union
Nissan of Midland
Rogers Ford Sales Inc
Texas Car Company
Toyota of Midland
United Auto Sales

The bugs (bacteria) on your cell phone

Close up photos of bacteria are usually both fascinating and disturbing. And this is no exception. Dailymail.co.uk has a photo spread showing what was growing in Petri dishes a few days after students were asked to press their mobile phones into them. Click to see the photos.

Disclaimer: Sleepless in Midland assumes no responsibility for nausea, hypochondria, paranoia, contract cancellation, unfriending, or any other situation resulting from looking at the photos.

Tips for stalkers, robbers, assassins and terrorists -- explore Geotagging

Sorry about that teaser title. This isn't a tip for bad guys, this is for the good guys: DON'T use geotagging on your smartphone. Cheryl Rodewig explains it in Geotagging poses security risks at Army.mil, and it's a warning that the GPS feature in the typical camera phone records the user's location, and some social media services publish that information. Excerpt:

Someone with the right software and the wrong motivation could download the photo and extract the coordinates from the metadata.

Warren cited a real-world example from 2007. When a new fleet of helicopters arrived with an aviation unit at a base in Iraq, some Soldiers took pictures on the flightline, he said. From the photos that were uploaded to the Internet, the enemy was able to determine the exact location of the helicopters inside the compound and conduct a mortar attack, destroying four of the AH-64 Apaches.

Geotagging leads to body bagging. It's the 21st century version of "Loose lips sink ships."

Needless to say, there are plenty of reasons to be wary on the domestic side as well. There's no good reason to broadcast to strangers the fact that no one is home.

Via nakedsecurity.