Meet Zhe Wu and His Low Orbit Balloon Program

Posted on February 13, 2023February 13, 2023 by Denise Simon

It went with almost zero attention that between our US Commerce Department added a handful of companies to a so-called Entity List last week, restricting them from obtaining US technologies in a move blasted by Beijing on Monday as “illegal unilateral sanctions”, almost as soon as the first balloon was shot out of the sky off the coast of South Carolina. Now, just exactly how did our officials know to do that so fast? Now we have to wonder why Treasury has not done the same.

At least someone was paying attention and knew of Zhe Wu and his work…yet no other part of any Federal agency or any part of the military was on their game for the last several years?

Okay…sounds about right.

Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology

Established in 2015, Beijing Nanjiang is controlled by a subsidiary of Shanghai-listed real estate company Deluxe Family Co Ltd, which also invests in materials and robotics projects.

The state-run Science and Technology Daily in 2015 hailed the firm’s development of a large silver helium airship as the country’s first “new near-space platform with capabilities for both military and surveillance use”.

State media said the company’s steerable, reusable and continuously powered airship was equipped with broadband communications and “high-definition observation” gear.

China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 48th Research Institute

Part of a state-owned IT giant, the research institute specialises in building power systems and solar energy components, as well as semiconductor equipment.

The institute has worked to develop flexible solar power cells suitable for both military and civilian aircraft, the China National Space Administration said in a document in 2017.

Parent company China Electronics Technology Group Corporation also funds Hikvision, a surveillance camera maker that has been implicated in intensified monitoring of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.

Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co

Founded by military aircraft expert Wu Zhe, the group specialises in research and development of stealth aircraft technologies.

Eagles Men is “devoted to becoming a benchmark business for China’s (strategy of) military-civil fusion”, according to the company’s profile page on the official Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics website.

The company in 2013 filed a patent for making airship skins stronger.

Wu told state media in 2019 that his team had developed a stratospheric airship able to “fly around the globe”.

Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology Co

Set up in 2019, the company counts among its investors a branch of the state-run Beihang University, as well as Eagles Men Aviation.

Public records show Dongguan Lingkong has received licences from local market supervisors to conduct research on remote sensing technology, which allows aircraft to detect conditions on the ground from a high altitude.

Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology Co

The company was originally established by the Chinese military to develop “vehicle-mounted unmanned reconnaissance aircraft”, according to its official website.

Specialising in surveillance drones, the company was reorganised in 2006 with its current name and under the control of military veteran Li Yuzhuang.

Tian-Hai-Xiang says it has received multiple defence science awards, with its website boasting that the company was “the first unit in the domestic drone industry to equip our military’s first digitalised troops”.

Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co

A wholly owned subsidiary of Eagles Men Aviation, the company was set up in 2012 with a focus on chemical products, according to Chinese business database Tianyancha.

As report in part from The Wire:

On an October morning in 2007, Wu Zhe, an aircraft design expert at Beihang University, gave a lecture about the “military value of balloons.” He described why it was an area of key scientific research for China and explained different solutions for powering these unique aircraft. When he concluded, according to a university press release, his “erudite knowledge and brilliant speech” received multiple rounds of applause.

Nearly two decades later, Wu and his business partner, a tech investor and executive named Wang Dong, are at the center of a military-linked program that has sent balloons over the U.S. and other nations, setting off a diplomatic crisis in Washington. After days of intense media coverage, on February 4, the U.S. shot down one Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina, and has since shot down three more unidentified objects floating in American and Canadian airspace.

On Friday, the Commerce Department announced that they were leveling sanctions against six Chinese companies involved in the balloon program — which U.S. officials say aims to intercept communications and surveil the ground below, including sensitive military sites.

Records show that Wu and Wang are linked to four of the six sanctioned firms. The two men, according to data from WireScreen, have a complex network of companies involved in balloon and aerospace technologies, some of which are closely affiliated with the Chinese military but are not sanctioned by the U.S. government.

In a statement on Friday about the sanctions, Alan F. Estevez, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security, said that “today’s action makes clear that entities that seek to harm U.S. national security and sovereignty will be cut off from accessing U.S. technologies.” Neither of the two Chinese men, through their companies, responded to requests for comment.

Zhe Wu has published at least 23 scholarly papers of his work and they are found here..quite chilling actually. For instance: (note the date)

Hovering control for a stratospheric airship in unknown wind

Zewei ZhengMing ZhuDalong ShiZhe Wu
Engineering
13 January 2014

A novel hovering control methodology for a stratospheric airship is presented by using path following approach in the presence of unknown wind by expressing the wind field in the state equation, which avoids the difficulty of guaranteeing system stability in strong wind for other stabilization methods.

The New York Times too published a very recent piece with further context.

In late 2022,

noted –>

Mystery airship spotted over Philippines near South China Sea

Images of an unidentified craft near Subic Bay have sparked speculation it could have been collecting military intelligence

There is no evidence the airship was from China, though its design appears similar to types on display at the Zhuhai air show

Images of the stratospheric airship – allegedly taken in Pangasinan province, about 100km (62 miles) from Subic Bay in the northern Philippine island of Luzon – were first posted on Facebook last weekend. The pictures were deleted, but not before they were also shared on Twitter.

There is no evidence that the airship was from China, although its design appears to be similar to several unmanned types developed by the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China’s Special Aircraft Research Institute and other scientific academies.

The we hear that the objects in the airspace of North America were cylindrical.

Could it be? Below reported from Poland in reference to the same object.

I have asked several out there smarter than me about the connection of the objects with clustered ground hubs..or if ground hubs were dropped by the balloon or objects….I did not need an answer.. Seems there are several that have the answers and we are collaborating AGAIN with China?

An Observation Scheduling Approach Based on Task Clustering for High-Altitude Airship

by Jiawei Chen, Oizhang Luo and Guohua Wu.

School of Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA

School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260, Singapore

You but the judge….

Delete TikTok and then Get a New Phone, Period

Posted on December 12, 2022December 12, 2022 by Denise Simon

Don’t use TikTok in any form. Don’t even open it when it has been sent to you. Spread the word and do it now. Why you ask?
Well if the Pentagon has issued an order to all military personnel, uniformed and civilian to not download or use TikTok that is a good reason to consider. But, there is a movement among Republican governors that have issued executive orders with much the same language for all state employees and contractors…TikTok is forbidden. So far those states include: Utah, South Dakota, Texas, Maryland and Nebraska. Even FBI Director Chris Wray has said he is extremely worried about the app.

TikTok - Make Your Day

There is a rather shallow attempt by TikTok otherwise known as Byte Dance the parent company to address security concerns. That effort is known as Project Texas. What about this Project Texas thing? It is a result of the letter sent to TikTok by several Senators dated last June. Read the letter here in case you need to understand more.

Source: Warnings don’t come as blunt as the one Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) dished Thursday to the users of the highly popular Chinese TikTok app.

“Let me just be clear,” said Cotton, a China critic. “If you have TikTok on your device, you should delete it from your device. And even better, you should go and buy a new device and not download TikTok,” he added.

Cotton is the latest official to warn of intelligence findings that the app is collecting vital information on users and possibly storing it for future use — even blackmail.

Addressing China and Chinese immigration scams at a conference hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, Cotton warned younger audience members about the possible trap the app was setting them up for.

“The back-office risks of TikTok aren’t the videos you see and the kind of corrosive effects it has on the minds of America’s youth. It’s the data that it collects,” he said.

“And that data can be used against our kids as they grow up, and not just kids obviously. Grown-ups use it too. I think, increasingly, people in Washington are using it to try and reach voters, communicate. That means they are being exposed as well,” he said.

Cotton also said that the app “exposes all of your personal data, perhaps all of the data that you have on your device, to collection and exploitation. It’s not like if your 15-year-old daughter is watching videos of drum major routines that that’s going to put her at risk. But if it accesses every bit of other information on her phone, then that can put her at risk. And it puts her at risk for the rest of her life. This data doesn’t just disappear. It’s collected in troves” and can be used against her if she lands a sensitive job in the future.

The center hosted Cotton because he has recently pushed Homeland Security on the app and TikTok’s use of visas to bring in Chinese nationals who take U.S. jobs at reduced pay.

“TikTok captures vast amounts of private information on users, including American citizens, and has long been suspected of providing the CCP with potential access to that information. This threatens the safety and security of American citizens and also functions as an avenue for the Chinese government to track the locations of and develop blackmail on federal employees and contractors,” he said in a letter to Homeland Security.

He also has asked the DHS to explain how many visas it has granted TikTok’s U.S. outlet, ByteDance. He said in the letter to the DHS that “Beijing-based employees of ByteDance have targeted specific American users for surveillance, and that at least 300 TikTok and ByteDance employees are also current or former employees of Chinese state media.”

Who Needs to be Fired or Jailed at the Pentagon?

Posted on October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 by Denise Simon

Is there an Inspector General on the case? Where is the DIA or the FBI?

Hypersonics refers to a range of emerging technologies that can propel missiles at greater than five times the speed of sound and potentially evade current defenses. Pentagon officials have said the United States and China are locked in an arms race to develop the most potent hypersonic weapons. “In this case the American technology is superior—we can’t do certain things without foreign technology,” a Chinese scientist whose lab conducts testing for hypersonic vehicles told the Post. “There isn’t the same technical foundation.” Using Chinese government procurement databases and other contract documents, The Post identified almost 50 U.S. firms whose products were sold through intermediaries since 2019 to Chinese military groups that work on missile technology. The Post reviewed procurement documents related to seven other sales since 2020 of Ansys technology to Chinese groups that are either on the export blacklist or have known missile links,including through three other Chinese intermediaries that had no apparent link to Pera Global. These groups include the National University of Defense Technology, which is on the Entity List, and the China Air to Air Missile Research Institute in Luoyang, which develops long-range, high-precision missiles. More here.

FB: Research groups for China’s hypersonics and missile program are buying specialized American technology produced by firms funded by the Pentagon, according to a Washington Post investigation released Monday.

The Post found over 300 sales since 2019 of advanced software products from nearly 50 U.S. firms to research groups involved in China’s missile development program. Many of the firms that developed these products received millions of dollars in grants from the Department of Defense. The companies are finding their way around U.S. export bans by selling to private Chinese middleman distributors.

“It’s very disturbing, because the bottom line is that technology that can be used for military hypersonics was funded by U.S. taxpayers, through the U.S. government, and ended up in China,” University of Colorado Center for National Security Initiatives director Iain Boyd, who conducts experimental research on hypersonics, told the Post.

The report reveals the U.S. government’s struggle to keep American military innovations out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. The acquired commercial software—the results of decades of research—will save the Chinese military time and resources as it strives to outpace the United States in a race to create the most effective hypersonic weapons.

The Defense Department has strict export controls designed to prevent products that threaten national security from reaching China.

“U.S. export controls require a license for the export of any type of software, hardware, or technology to China if there is knowledge that it would be used to develop a missile or other item used for weapons of mass destruction,” Kevin Wolf, a former senior official at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, told the Post. “And that license would generally be denied.”

American firms are skirting these safeguards by blindly selling advanced software to private Chinese firms. Some of those firms openly advertise their relationships with Chinese weapon and military groups, the Post found.

“What we’ve always told companies is you cannot self-blind,” Matthew Borman, the Commerce Department’s deputy assistant secretary for export administration, told the Post. “You can’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m selling it to a distributor, I don’t know what they’re going to do with it.’ Especially if it’s a party where it’s readily ascertainable that they are a supplier to the Chinese military.”

The Post found that two of the U.S. firms—Arizona-based Zona Technology and California-headquartered Metacomp Technologies—sold software to the Chinese Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, which played a key role in designing China’s 2021 hypersonic missile test. Both companies are also beneficiaries of the Pentagon’s Small Business Innovation Research grant program, which incentivizes development of American defense technology.

Chinese Immigrant and CEO of Konnech, an Election Software Company, was Arrested

Posted on October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 by Denise Simon

Do you think the J6 Committee is even aware of this or will include it in hearings or reports? As the case moves on, do you think there is more to the investigation?

RedState: As we reported on October 4, Eugene Yu, a Chinese immigrant and CEO of Konnech, an election software company, was arrested “as part of an investigation into the possible theft of personal identifying information of [Los Angeles County election] workers,” which officials believed “was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China.”

The other shocking part of the story was that LA County District Attorney George Gascon, who’s not known as being tough on crime, announced the arrest and extradition and that investigators from his office had been working on the case.

One of Konnech’s software offerings is a program called PollChief, which schedules election workers and assists elections officials with supply and logistics procedures. In 2019 LA County entered into a contract with Konnech, and a sole-source contract worth more than $2 million was finalized in 2020. As part of the contract, Konnech was to abide by state and federal law, and to various information security procedures, which an LA County District Attorney’s office investigator described in a complaint supporting the request for a warrant for Yu’s arrest:

“[C]ontractor shall screen and conduct background checks on all Contractor personnel contacting County’s Confidential Information, including Personally Identifiable Information, for potential security risks and require all employees and contractors to sign an appropriate written confidentiality non-disclosure agreement.
Personally Identifiable Information, and County’s Confidential Information: (i) may only be made available and accessible to those parties explicitly authorized under the Contract or otherwise expressly approved by County in writing.
Only Contractor’s staff who are based in the United States and are citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States shall have access to any County data, including personally identifiable information, hosted in County’s instance of the System Software.

This complaint, which is dated October 13, 2022, contains additional information about what investigators have found – information that does not lead to any type of confidence in the security of our election information.

Despite Eugene Yu’s insistence in a verified court pleading that “all of Konnech’s U.S. customer data is secured and stored exclusively on protected computers located within the United States,” the Los Angeles County DA’s office found that:

“On or about October 10, 2019, through October 4, 2022, Eugene Yu and other employees at Konnech, Inc. were providing these services to Los Angeles County using third-party contractors based in China.

“…Konnech employees known and unknown sent personal identifying information of Los Angeles County election workers to third-party software developers who assisted with creating and fixing Konnech’s internal ‘PollChief’ software.”

So, the personal identifying information of US election workers was intentionally sent not just out of the country, but to China. And to third-party contractors, which is potentially in complete violation of the state’s anti-independent contracting AB5 law.

Criminal Complaint

One Pill Can Kill

Posted on October 18, 2022October 18, 2022 by Denise Simon

Those dying from Fentanyl are not drug addicts, rather they are dying because they think they may be taking regular over the counter medication or simply eating candy. They are being poisoned. This White House has proven it does not care but the Drug Enforcement Agency DOES care.

Do you ever hear from the FBI that reports from the Southern border? How about U.S. Southern Command? How about Space Command? Yes, Space Command….

“We can use our space detection capabilities, optical cameras,” Croft told NBC 6. “We can track things within a couple of hours and see things moving.”

That includes being able to see what’s happening in places like Colombia and Venezuela, where intelligence experts fear drug traffickers and terrorist groups will join forces.

Around the clock, space and intelligence experts are sharing what they find.

Inside a room at Southern Command, there is a big screen that shows where the satellites are located. There is also a host of workstations where space experts can explain what they are seeing to representatives from the military and federal agencies.

“Space Command can provide a perspective to be able to identify and find some of these folks, the ways that they communicate, the ways they move,” said Lt. Col. Bobby Schmitt, who is with the U.S. Space Force and is assigned to coordinate what happens in orbit with Croft’s team. “Space Command provides the ability to see down and find these folks.” More here.

DEA Announces Results of Enforcement Surge to Reduce the Fentanyl Supply Across the United States

As part of the One Pill Can Kill initiative, the DEA and its law enforcement partners seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder during the period of May 23 through Sept. 8, 2022. The amount of fentanyl taken off the streets during this surge is equivalent to more than 36 million lethal doses removed from the illegal drug supply. Additionally, 338 weapons were seized, including rifles, shotguns, pistols, and hand grenades.

Read the details here.

Every adult across the country should be talking about this and every school regardless of age should be taking all precautions.

Rainbow fentanyl close up photo

As part of the One Pill Can Kill initiative, the DEA and its law enforcement partners seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder during the period of May 23 through Sept. 8, 2022. The amount of fentanyl taken off the streets during this surge is equivalent to more than 36 million lethal doses removed from the illegal drug supply. Additionally, 338 weapons were seized, including rifles, shotguns, pistols, and hand grenades.

Of the 390 cases investigated during this period, 51 cases are linked to overdose poisonings and 35 cases link directly to one or both of the primary Mexican cartels responsible for the majority of fentanyl in the United States – the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). In addition, 129 investigations are linked to social media platforms, including Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and TikTok. These results build upon the One Pill Can Kill Phase II

results announced by DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in December 2021.

“Across the country, fentanyl is devastating families and communities, and we know that violent, criminal drug cartels bear responsibility for this crisis,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department, including the extraordinary professionals of the DEA, is working to disrupt and dismantle the operations of these cartels, remove deadly fentanyl from our communities, and save Americans’ lives.”

“For the past year, confronting the fentanyl crisis has been the top priority for DEA. The most urgent threat to our communities, our kids, and our families are the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG who are mass producing and supplying the fentanyl that is poisoning and killing Americans,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “The Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG are ruthless, criminal organizations that use deception and treachery to drive addiction with complete disregard for human life. To save American lives, the DEA is relentlessly focused on defeating the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG by degrading their operations to make it impossible for them to do business.”

Fentanyl remains the deadliest drug threat facing this nation. In 2021, a record number of Americans – 107,622 – died from a drug poisoning or overdose. Sixty-six percent of those deaths can be attributed to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

Drug traffickers have expanded their inventory to sell fentanyl in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes

. Rainbow fentanyl was first reported to DEA in February 2022, and it has now been seized in 21 states.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin. Just two milligrams of fentanyl, or the amount that could fit on the tip of a pencil, is considered a potentially lethal dose.

As part of DEA’s ongoing efforts to educate the public and encourage parents and caregivers to talk to teens and young adults about the dangers of fake pills and illicit drugs, DEA has also created a new resource, “What Every Parent and Caregiver Needs to Know About Fake Pills.”

In September 2021, DEA launched the One Pill Can Kill enforcement effort and public awareness campaign to combat the fake pill threat and educate the public about the dangers of fentanyl pills being disguised and sold as prescription medications, despite these pills not containing any of the actual medications advertised. The only safe medications are ones prescribed by a trusted medical professional and dispensed by a licensed pharmacist. All other pills are unsafe and potentially deadly.

Additional resources for parents and the community can be found on DEA’s Fentanyl Awareness page.