Cyber Hacking Tools for Sale on Underground Network

Executive Editor Fionnuala Sweeney sits down with Steve Grobman, Chief Security Officer with the Intel Security Group. When it comes to America’s security in the cyberspace, the U.S. government and the private sector haven’t always seen eye to eye.

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Stop the denial about Russian intrusion…..how about taking the United States out of the debate and examine other countries… you must also remember that all payments and or salaries are often paid for using Bitcoin….un-traceable. Have you thought about Islamic State migrating to hacking operations using ransomware?

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Brit cyber warriors fight off two hacking attempts against the state every day

The National Cyber Security Centre has foiled 86 attacks in its first month – most of which are suspected to have come from China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and criminal gangs

Cyber warriors are fighting off more than two major hacking attempts against the British state every day.

Top targets include the Bank of England , the Ministry of Defence , nuclear bases, security services and infrastructure such as transport, the NHS and power systems.

Chief suspects are China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and major criminal gangs.

The National Cyber Security Centre foiled 68 major attacks in the first month after it was launched in October.

China is suspected of trying to steal technology or probing our security and finance systems while Russian is feared to be testing security and military networks.

It is believed North Korea may be doing all the above and Iran is suspected of acting for other countries, including Syria .

Retail, technology and security firms have also been hit. Senior security sources say a major theft of aerospace technology cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

It is thought cyber experts have responded to many of the attacks by hacking into systems used by the attackers. A source said: “This is the new front line.”

The NCSC was formed as part of a £1.9billion government crackdown.

At its launch Chancellor Philip Hammond said we had to hit back against “foreign actors” or face having planes grounded or being left in darkness.

Going back to 2012, was this fella part of a Kremlin authorized hack operation? If not, is he a proxy? Note what corporations and operations had cyber intrusions…

A Russian man was arrested in Cyprus last week for allegedly launching two distributed denial-of-service attacks on Amazon.com in June 2008.

Dmitry Olegovick Zubakha, a 25-year-old man from Moscow, was indicted last year by a Seattle grand jury for conspiracy to intentionally cause damage without authorization to a protected computer and possession of more than 15 unauthorized access devices.

In addition to the attack on Amazon, Zubakha was linked to similar attacks on Priceline.com and eBay.

Along with fellow hacker Sergey Logashov, Zubakha is alleged to have launched the attack using a botnet of computers under the control of multiple users. The duo brazenly took credit for the attacks on hacker forums, according to the indictment.

In addition to their denial-of-service attacks, law enforcement also traced 28,000 stolen credit-card numbers back to both men, which helped lead to the arrest.

“Amazon is willing to expend dollars and energy beyond even what can be economically justified in order to bring cybercriminals to justice,” said company spokesperson Mary Osako in a statement.

If found guilty on all charges, Zubakha could face up to 37 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Intentionally causing damage to a protected computer with a resulting loss of more than $5,000 is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Logashov was also charged with the same count.

The arrest in Cyprus was a complex undertaking, with the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington and the Seattle Police Department all working together with global officials.

“The [three agencies] talking to each other is a direct result of the birth of the Department of Homeland Security,” security consultant Robert Siciliano told the E-Commerce Times.

American authorities are seeking Zubakha’s extradition.

According to the indictment, the first of two attacks lasted four and a half hours on June 6, 2008, before Amazon was able to intervene. Amazon’s servers were working overtime, on a magnitude of between 600 and 1,000 percent of normal traffic. The second attack began on June 9 of the same year and lasted until June 12.

Zubakha was also charged with aggravated identity theft for using the credit card of a Lake Stevens, Wash.,  resident illegally.

“This defendant could not hide in cyberspace,” said U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan, head of the Justice Department’s Cybercrime and IP Enforcement Committee. “I congratulate the international law enforcement agencies who tracked him down and made this arrest.”

Logashov is still at large.

 

Chinese Spy Caught Stealing Military Documents

If you don’t think that our country is full of foreign spies and operatives engaged in industrial espionage, perhaps this case will change your mind. One has to ask why foreign nationals are employed by domestic corporations that are government contractors in the first place.

Long Yu Criminal Complaint

Related reading: Russian Spies and Espionage in NATO and USA

Chinese National Admits to Stealing Sensitive Military Program Documents from United Technologies

Yu Long, 38, a citizen of China and lawful permanent resident of the U.S., waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty today in New Haven federal court to charges related to his theft of numerous sensitive military program documents from United Technologies and transporting them to China.

The announcement was made by Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary B. McCord, U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly of the District of Connecticut, Special Agent in Charge Patricia M. Ferrick of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent in Charge Matthew Etre of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Boston, Special Agent in Charge Craig W. Rupert of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) Northeast Field Office, and Special Agent in Charge Danielle Angley of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

“Long admitted to stealing and exploiting highly sensitive military technology and documents, knowing his theft would benefit China’s defense industry and deliberately contravene the embargo on U.S. Munitions List technology the United States has imposed on China,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General McCord. “Export laws exist as an important part of our national security framework and disrupting and prosecuting this kind of economic espionage is one of the National Security Division’s highest priorities.”

“In an effort to further his own career, this defendant stole an extraordinary amount of proprietary military program information from United Technologies and transported much of that stolen information to China,” said U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly.  “His actions, which he knew would benefit China, not only violated his employment agreement and damaged the company, but have threatened our country’s national security interests.  U.S. companies continue to be targeted by those who seek to steal intellectual property, trade secrets and advanced defense technology – whether through a computer hack or cyber intrusion, or through a rogue employee.  Working closely with our nation’s defense contractors, we will relentlessly investigate and prosecute those who steal, or attempt to steal, trade secrets and sensitive military information, whether for their own personal gain or for the benefit of foreign actors.”

“This case highlights the complexity in which the FBI and law enforcement are being challenged to keep the integrity of our industry intellectual property intact,” said Patricia M. Ferrick, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  “Investigating criminal activity of this nature will continue to be a priority.”

“These sophisticated technologies are highly sought after by our adversaries,” said Special Agent in Charge Matthew Etre of HSI Boston.  “They were developed to give the United States and its allies a distinct military advantage, which is why HSI and our law enforcement partners will continue to aggressively target the individuals who steal the ideas of others and sell these items.”

“Today’s plea demonstrates the commitment of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and our federal law enforcement partners to identifying those who illegally export sensitive defense information to adversarial Foreign governments,” said Craig W. Rupert, Special Agent in Charge, DCIS, Northeast Field Office.  “DCIS will continue to safeguard sensitive technology and to shield America’s investment in national defense by disrupting efforts of groups and individuals who try to illegally acquire our national security assets.”

“This case was enabled by the outstanding teamwork of the FBI, DCIS, HSI, AFOSI and the U.S. Attorney’s office,” said Danielle Angley, Special Agent-in-Charge with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.  “In addition, it demonstrates the focus of law enforcement agencies to protect our nation’s critical resources.”

According to court documents and statements made in court, from approximately May 2008 to May 2014, Long worked as a Senior Engineer/Scientist at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) in Connecticut. Long’s employment at UTRC included work on F119 and F135 engines. The F119 engine is employed by the U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft, and the F135 engine is employed by the U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft.

Beginning in 2013, Long expressed his intent to individuals outside UTRC to return to China to work on research projects at certain state-run universities in China using knowledge and materials he had acquired while employed at the UTRC. To that end, Long interacted with several state-run institutions in China, including the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and the Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), a state-run university in China affiliated with CAS.

During 2013 and 2014, Long was recruited by SIA and other state-run universities, during which he leveraged information that he had obtained while working at UTRC to seek employment in China, culminating in his travel to China in the possession of voluminous documents and data containing highly sensitive intellectual property, trade secrets and export controlled technology, which he had unlawfully stolen from UTRC.

In December 2013, after Long agreed in principle to join SIA, an SIA-CAS Director and an SIA-CAS Recruiter asked Long to provide documents from his work at UTRC and examples of projects on which he had worked to substantiate the claims Long made in his application, and interview with SIA.  Long agreed.

On Dec. 24, 2013, Long emailed several documents to the SIA-CAS Director, including a document that contained the cover page of an export controlled UTRC presentation on Distortion Modeling dated Sept. 30, 2011.

While negotiating with SIA, Long also continued to explore other opportunities at other state-run institutions in China. In one email, Long stated: “I have made my mind to return to China, so have prepared a research plan based on my industry experience and current projects.” In the research plan, Long stated: “In the past five years, I have been working with Pratt Whitney, also other UTC business units, like UTAS (including Hamilton Sundstrand and Goodrich), Sikorsky, CCS (including Carrier and Fire & Security), and Otis. These unique working experiences have provided me a great starting point to perform R&D and further spin off business in China. I believe my efforts will help China to mature its own aircraft engines.”

On May 30, 2014, Long left UTRC. In June 2014, Long traveled to China and began working for SIA. Beginning in July 2014, digital evidence and forensic analysis indicated that Long brought with him and accessed in China a UTRC external hard drive that had been issued to him and that he unlawfully retained.

In July 2014, Long was listed as the project leader on a lengthy research plan for CAS involving fourteen other individuals.  The plan was replete with references to how the proposed research and development would benefit China. The plan stated: “The three major engine companies in the world, i.e. GE, Pratt & Whitney in the US and Rolls-Royce in the UK, are all using this technology. . . Our nation lacks the ability to process high performance components, such as airplane wings, tail hooks on carrier aircrafts, and blisks . . . Because of the technology embargo imposed by western developed countries, it is very difficult for us to obtain more advanced design and manufacturing technology . . . This research project will increase our independent ability, efficiency and quality in key component manufacturing.”

On or about Aug. 12, 2014, the Document on Distortion Modeling – the same document from which Long had sent the cover page to the SIA-CAS Director on Dec. 24, 2013 – was accessed on the external hard drive. Travel records and forensic analysis confirmed that both Long and the external hard drive were in China when this file was accessed.

On Aug. 19, 2014, Long returned to the U.S. from China through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. During a secondary inspection screening by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, Long was found in the possession of a largely completed application for work with a state-controlled aviation and aerospace research center in China. The application highlighted certain parts of Long’s work related to the F119 and F135 engines while at UTRC.

On or about Aug. 20, 2014, Long emailed an individual at a university in China, attaching an updated “achievement and future plan.” In the plan, Long discussed his work related to the F119 and F135 U.S. military fighter jet engines and stated that he also had knowledge of unpublished UTRC projects in which the U.S. Air Force had shown interest.

On Nov. 5, 2014, Long boarded a flight from Ithaca, New York to Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, with a final destination of China. During Long’s layover in Newark, CBP officers inspected Long’s checked baggage and discovered that it contained sensitive, proprietary and export controlled documents from another defense contractor, Rolls Royce.

Further investigation determined that the U.S. Air Force had convened a consortium of major defense contractors, including Pratt and Rolls Royce, to work together to see whether they could collectively lower the costs of certain metals used. As part of those efforts, members of the consortium shared technical data, subject to restrictions on further dissemination. Rolls Royce reviewed the documents found in Long’s possession at Newark Liberty Airport and confirmed that it provided the documents to members of the consortium, which included Pratt. Rolls Royce further confirmed that Long was never an employee of Rolls Royce. A review of UTRC computer records indicated that Long had printed the documents while employed at UTRC.

Long was arrested on a federal criminal complaint on Nov. 7, 2014. A review of Long’s digital media seized at the time of his arrest revealed voluminous files protected by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and Export Administration Regulations, and voluminous files proprietary to various U.S. companies. In short, the investigation revealed that Long took his laptop and the UTRC external hard drive with him to China in 2014, at which time there was a substantial body of highly sensitive, proprietary and export controlled materials present on that digital media. UTRC has confirmed that the hard drive that Long unlawfully retained and accessed in China contained not only documents and data from projects on which Long worked while employed at the company, but also from projects on which he did not work to which he would have had access.

Long pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in the theft of trade secrets knowing that the offense would benefit a foreign government, foreign instrumentality or foreign agent, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 15 years. He also pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful export and attempted export of defense articles from the U.S. in violation of the Arms Export Control Act, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years.

Long, who has been detained since his arrest, will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford.  A sentencing date has not been scheduled.

This investigation is being led by the FBI in New Haven in coordination with Homeland Security Investigations in New Haven and Newark; the Defense Criminal Investigative Service in New Haven; the U.S. Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations in Boston, Massachusetts; and, the Department of Commerce’s Boston Office of Export Enforcement. U.S. Attorney Daly and Acting Assistant Attorney General McCord also thanked the FBI in Newark, Ithaca and Syracuse, New York, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service in New York and Newark, and the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Northern District of New York and the District of New Jersey, for their efforts and assistance in this matter.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tracy Lee Dayton and Stephen B. Reynolds of the District of Connecticut, and Trial Attorneys Brian Fleming and Julie Edelstein of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

Does China have a Covert System to Kill Americans with 4-FIBF?

In 1893, Methamphetamine or crystal meth was first developed from ephedrine. A chemist by the name of Nagayoshi Nagai was responsible for this creation. It wasn’t until 1919, that methamphetamine was turned into its crystallized form by Akira Ogata. Ogata was able to do this by reduction of ephedrine using iodine and red phosphorous. Amphetamine, which is a related drug, first came into existence in 1887 by a Lazar Edeleanu in Germany. Methamphetamine manufacturing initially began in the United States in Hawaii in the 1960s.

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Adolf Hitler used cocaine and creative concoctions made by his personal doctor. He also relied on a stunning array of drugs while ruling Nazi Germany, including one made popular by the show Breaking Bad: crystal meth.

According to a 47-page U.S. military dossier, a physician filled the Fuhrer with barbiturate tranquilizers, morphine, bulls’ semen, a pill that contained crystal meth, and other drugs, depending on Hitler’s momentary needs, the Daily Mail reports. By this account, Hitler downed crystal meth before a 1943 meeting with Mussolini in which the Fuhrer ranted for two hours, and took nine shots of methamphetamine while living out his last days in his bunker.

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The next drug of choice used by militants is Captagon which is manufactured and trafficked from Lebanon. Captagon, a meth-like variant of the banned pharmaceutical Fenethylline, and is manufactured in large quantities primarily in Lebanon and neighboring Syria, where it is sold to ISIS via middle men.

Cali Estes, founder of The Addictions Coach, said the drug is referred to as the “Super Soldier Pill”because it can last up to 48 hours and causes users to be full of energy, impervious to pain, and “in a sense removes any barriers they would have to fighting and getting killed.”

Most of the blame for war in Iraq, Syria, Yemen can be blamed on Iran. The proxy terror group Hezbollah operated worldwide and is funded by outright selling Captagon.

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Image result for fluoro iso butyrfentanyl

The newest deadly narcotic on the market is being studied by the DEA and it is an epidemic, the basis of which appears to be China.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — No one knew what was in the baggie. It was just a few tablespoons of crystalline powder seized back in April, clumped like snow that had partially melted and frozen again.

Emily Dye, a 27-year-old forensic chemist at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Testing and Research Laboratory, did not know if anyone had died from taking this powder, or how much it would take to kill you.

What she did know was this: New drugs were appearing in the lab every other week, things never before seen in this unmarked gray building in Sterling, Virginia. Increasingly, these new compounds were synthetic opioids designed to mimic fentanyl, a prescription painkiller up to 50 times stronger than heroin.

This, Dye realized, could be one of them.

The proliferation of rapidly evolving synthetic opioids has become so fierce that the DEA says they now constitute an entire new class of drugs, which are fueling the deadliest addiction crisis the United States has ever seen.

The fentanyl-like drugs are pouring in primarily from China, U.S. officials say — an assertion Beijing maintains has not been substantiated. Laws cannot keep pace with the speed of scientific innovation. As soon as one substance is banned, chemists synthesize slightly different, and technically legal, molecules and sell that substance online, delivery to U.S. doorsteps guaranteed.

More Americans now die of drug overdoses than in car crashes. Almost two-thirds of them, more than 33,000 in 2015 alone, took some form of opioid — either heroin, prescription painkillers or, increasingly, synthetic compounds like U-47700 and furanyl fentanyl, manufactured by nimble chemists to stay one step ahead of the law.

It is now forensic chemists like Dye who are on the front line of the nation’s war on drugs, teasing out molecular structures of mystery drugs so they can be named, tracked and regulated.

Dye held the baggie of powder in her gloved hand.

“Man,” she said. “I’ve got to figure out what this is.”

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A NEW CLASS OF DEADLY DRUGS

Dye had an idea where to start. The sample came in tagged as suspected fentanyl. Dye picked up a vial with 2 milligrams of fentanyl from her long, clean lab bench. The container looked empty. Up close, squinting, she could see a spray of white dust clinging to its sides. The contents of that vial will kill 99 percent of the people who take it.

Dye first handled fentanyl three years ago. If she breathed it or touched it, she could die. It was nerve-wracking then — and still is.

The vial was made of glass. Dye had drop-tested it and knew that if it rolled off and hit the hard floor, it would not shatter. She rapped the vial against the benchtop, trying to make the powder inside more visible. Bang, bang, bang. It was still invisible.

“There’s nothing more terrifying than dealing with a lethal dose of material,” she said. Her hands were steady. Dye won modeling competitions for poise while she was at Graham High School in Bluefield, Virginia, a town of some 5,000 people on the eastern edge of Appalachian coal country.

Dye’s mother is a nurse who also deals with hazardous material. Mother and daughter both know that risk is not something to worry about, it’s something to manage. Dye has recommitted to every safety protocol she was ever taught. One, safety glasses. Two, lab coat, buttoned. Three, powder-free disposable nitrile gloves. Four, face mask. She placed an emergency naloxone injection kit — an antidote for opioid overdose — near her workspace. Just in case. And, on samples like this, she never works alone.

The Special Testing Laboratory is one of eight forensic chemistry labs the DEA runs. Focused on research, it has a worn functionality that gives it an academic feel. Down echoing hallways are labs packed with fume hoods and high-tech machines sprouting tubes and wires. Beakers dry by the sinks. “Safety First” signs have been taped to the doors. Mostly, it is silent.

Forty chemists work here. Their job is to identify substances seized by law enforcement in the field before they kill or kill again. One of the compounds they identified is carfentanil, which is so potent it was used as a chemical weapon before it hit the North American drug supply over the summer.

“Right now we’re seeing the emergence of a new class — that’s fentanyl-type opioids,” Dye’s boss, Jill Head, explained. “Based on the structure, there can be many, many more substitutions on that molecule that we have not yet seen.”

Entrepreneurial chemists have been creating designer alternatives to cannabis, amphetamine, cocaine and Ecstasy for years. But this new class of synthetics is far more lethal.

Back in 2012 and 2013, when reports of fentanyl derivatives started coming in to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna, chemists chucked them in the “other” category. Today those “other” substances are one of the fastest-growing groups of illicit chemicals tracked by the agency.

“New opioids keep emerging,” said Martin Raithelhuber, an expert in illicit synthetic drugs at the U.N. They deserve their own category, he added, but that will take time.

Once, forensic chemists like Dye confronted a familiar universe of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. Drug dealers, users and DEA agents generally knew what substance they were handling.

Today, things are different. This is a golden age of chemical discovery — and subterfuge. Dealers may not know that the high-purity heroin from Mexico they’re selling has been laced with fentanyl. Users may not realize the robin’s-egg-blue oxycodone tablets they’re taking are spiked with acetylfentanyl.

If field agents bust a clandestine drug lab and see a cloud of white powder in the air, they no longer assume it’s cocaine. They run.

“Had I come on board at a time when everything was cocaine and heroin and meth and marijuana, it’s not an exciting day,” Dye said. “Now I come to work and see something that’s never been seen.”

“And it can kill somebody,” she added.

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SEEDS OF A NEW INDUSTRY

The sprint to market unregulated chemicals is driven by demand in the U.S., where users gobble up 80 percent of the world’s opioids, according to the DEA.

Dye was just 6 years old when Purdue unveiled OxyContin as a breakthrough drug, a powerful yet supposedly nonaddictive opioid that would revolutionize pain management.

Instead, aggressive marketing and unscrupulous doctors helped push a generation of people into addiction.

Dye saw them all around her in Bluefield. Her dad’s pharmacy was her window on the crisis.

“People used to break into his store and steal Oxys,” Dye said. “He became friends with a lot of cops.” She did, too.

In high school, Dye fell in love with chemistry. Drawn to linearity and logic, she found beauty in the way equations yielded answers.

The year Dye graduated, 2007, Purdue Pharma and its executives paid more than $630 million in legal penalties for willfully misrepresenting the drug’s addiction risks.

By then it was too late.

The seeds of a new industry had already taken root. Today, it is almost as easy to order synthetic opioids on the open internet as it is to buy a pair of shoes, The Associated Press found in an investigation published in October . Payments can be made by Western Union, MoneyGram or Bitcoin, and products are shipped by DHL, UPS or EMS — the express mail service of China’s state-run postal service. As the lines between licit and illicit commerce blurred, it became possible for just about anyone with internet access to score an ever-changing array of lethal chemicals.

By the time Dye was in college studying forensic chemistry, U.S. regulators were cracking down on prescription drug abuse. Users turned from pills to heroin, which was cheap and relatively easy to get. Between 2010 and 2014 heroin overdoses in the U.S. tripled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three-quarters of today’s heroin users first used prescription opioids, a JAMA Psychiatry study showed.

Drug dealers soon learned that if they cut potent synthetic opioids, like fentanyls, into drugs like heroin, they could make vastly more money. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids — a category dominated by illicit fentanyl — more than tripled from 2013 to 2015, hitting 9,580 last year, CDC data show.

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A DISCOVERY

On June 28, two months after the singer Prince died of a fentanyl overdose, Dye walked down a long, white hallway, past a heavy metal grate and into a dim room known as “the vault.” She was surrounded by packages of evidence, seized from the field and waiting for analysis. She checked out an envelope wrapped in plastic wrap and yellow tape that had come in on April 13, and placed it in a steel lockbox with her name on it.

Back in the lab, Dye unwrapped the package and found a silver pouch the size of a small handbag. Inside that was a palm-size baggie.

She scooped up a dot of powder from the baggie with a thin metal spatula and gingerly placed it in a small glass crimp vial. As she worked, she treated the material as if it were radioactive, twisting the spatula around with her fingers to avoid contamination. Using a glass pipette, she transferred a few drops of methanol into the vial and clamped it shut.

Dye dropped the sample into a mass spectrometer. The machine sucked the evidence through a copper-colored wire and bombarded it with electrons. That broke it up into many different small pieces. “Kind of like when you drop a puzzle,” she said.

The resulting pattern of peaks is akin to a chemical fingerprint. Dye compared the result with the lab’s library of approximately 1,500 known drugs.

None matched. This was new.

Dye had made a discovery.

China has banned many synthetic drugs, but new chemicals continue to sprout like weeds. In October and November, the AP identified 12 Chinese vendors hawking furanyl fentanyl and U-47700 — drugs that are not banned in China — as substitutes for blacklisted drugs. All offered their products via the Korean business-to-business platform EC21.com.

“Most customers choose the U-47700 now,” a man from XiWang Chemical Co. who called himself Adam Schexnayder emailed. “Although U-47700 is weaker than fentanyl. But it is a good opioid product. You can try it. How about it?”

Contacted by the AP, Schexnayder responded with a graphic Chinese obscenity, but said nothing more. The site has since vanished.

EC21 blocked searches for furanyl fentanyl and U-47700 after the AP called to ask about the chemicals, though “heroinn” still yielded results on Wednesday. The site has banned more than 768 search terms and is working with a developer to block changing patterns of forbidden terms more effectively, said Kim Min-Jeong, a service team manager. “We spend a significant amount of operating costs and labor on auditing.”

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‘ASK TO DIE’

The closest match to Dye’s evidence in the lab’s database was a compound called butyryl fentanyl. But it wasn’t the same. In her sample, distinctive small peaks kept popping up after taller ones.

She and her colleagues ran the evidence through a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, which pulses samples with a magnetic field to help map the position of different atoms. Then they guessed. They bought a sample of the compound they thought they had from a legitimate research chemical company and used it to test their theory.

On July 26, Dye ran the reference standard they’d purchased through the mass spectrometer. The result matched their evidence exactly. Now they knew what they had on their hands.

“It’s 4-fluoroisobutyrylfentanyl,” Dye said.

Case closed.

What had Dye discovered?

4-fluoroisobutyrylfentanyl — 4-FIBF for short —has exactly the same weight and chemical composition as one of the compounds China banned in October 2015. The only difference is the arrangement of three carbon atoms.

Long before Dye made her discovery, Chinese vendors were offering 4-FIBF for sale.

Shanghai Xianchong Chemical Co., a trading company that operates from a small, spare office on a leafy street in central Shanghai, was one of them. Shanghai Xianchong started fielding requests for 4-FIBF around April, according to the manager, a clean-cut man in a white polo shirt named Jammi Gao.

Gao said in an email that he could sell 4-FIBF for $6,000 a kilogram, though he later denied ever brokering a deal.

He refused to ship opioids, like the ultrapotent carfentanil, that are banned from general use in the U.S. But 4-FIBF is so new to the street it is not a controlled substance in either the U.S. or China.

Drug users yearn for better chemistry, for highs with incredible analgesic power that go on and on. 4-FIBF showed promise. It was strong and cheap and though it produced little euphoria, it lasted a long time, users reported in online forums. Several said it could be used like methadone, to control opioid withdrawal symptoms. One user-turned-dealer called 4-FIBF “a miracle molecule.”

But 4-FIBF was so strong that getting the dose right was a problem. “Eyeball this, ask to die. ’nuff said,” one user noted in March.

None of the users replied to AP’s requests for comment.

Back in the lab, Dye peeled off her gloves and tossed them into a hazardous waste container. She didn’t know users were already warning each other not to go overboard chasing a heroin high that never kicked in with 4-FIBF. She didn’t know about the rough dosing schedules addicts had worked out. And she didn’t know that 4-FIBF gave some people satisfying, sleep-through-the-night results when they stuck it up their rectum.

Dye would go home, safe, to her dog. Maybe tomorrow she would find the next new thing in an evidence bag on her bench. User forums were already buzzing with talk of things like cyclopentyl fentanyl and acryl fentanyl.

But elsewhere, all across America, people would not make it through the night. By the time Dye finished work the next day, another 90 Americans would be dead of opioid overdoses.

Denying Russian Encroachment is Dereliction of Security

Hillary Clinton is no novice to security measures when it comes to global adversarial incursions. Her team of political operatives are not neophytes either.

By virtue of Hillary’s emails, inspector general’s reports and non-approved (unknown servers) and violations of data protection, Hillary’s team are guilty of malfeasance of duty and management. For proof, read the FBI search warrant of the Abedin/Weiner computers and hard-drive.

FBI Search warrant Huma

Have you considered why certain buildings in government have harden structures including sound proof windows, SCIFs, entry and exit procedures, security clearances and action protocol when transmitting information in hardcopy and electronically? This is due to thousands of foreign tasking of espionage of history that include Russia, China and North Korea to mention a few. Not all hacking is equal, there are viruses, malware, electronic theft and propaganda.

Schiller

A distinction should also be made between hacking and SIGINT, signals intelligence. SIGINT is the interception of data used by foreign powers which can and does include scooping and snooping. There are electronic signals, radars and weapons systems that are all part of the target base applied by foreign adversaries and allies. No part of the United States government or civilian enterprise is exempt or omitted by outside powers including outright spying and theft of industrial espionage, patent information and intelligence.

Beyond this, there is the whole model of propaganda, real and fake news. Under Barack Obama, the United States has been in a reactionary mode rather than installing and actively pursuing defensive and countermeasures when it comes to biased, misleading, filtered or altered influence causing ill legitimate attitudes, movements, synthesis and policy decisions. The master of this game is Russia.

The U.S. government spent more than a decade preparing responses to malicious hacking by a foreign power but had no clear strategy when Russia launched a disinformation campaign over the internet during the U.S. election campaign, current and former White House cyber security advisers said.

Far more effort has gone into plotting offensive hacking and preparing defenses against the less probable but more dramatic damage from electronic assaults on the power grid, financial system or direct manipulation of voting machines.

Over the last several years, U.S. intelligence agencies tracked Russia’s use of coordinated hacking and disinformation in Ukraine and elsewhere, the advisers and intelligence experts said, but there was little sustained, high-level government conversation about the risk of the propaganda coming to the United States.

A former White House official cautioned that any U.S. government attempt to counter the flow of foreign state-backed disinformation through deterrence would face major political, legal and moral obstacles.  

“You would have to have massive surveillance and curtailed freedom and that is a cost we have not been willing to accept,” said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They (Russia) can control distribution of information in ways we don’t.”

Clinton Watts, a security consultant, former FBI agent and a fellow at the nonprofit Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the U.S. government no longer has an organization, such as the U.S. Information Agency, that provided counter-narratives during the Cold War.

He said that most major Russian disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe have started at Russian-government funded media outlets, such as RT television or Sputnik News, before being amplified on Twitter by others.

A defense spending pill passed this month calls for the State Department to establish a “Global Engagement Center” to take on some of that work, but similar efforts to counter less sophisticated Islamic State narratives have fallen short.

The U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against U.S. political organizations in October, a month before the Nov. 8 election.

U.S. ‘STUCK’

James Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies who has worked for the departments of State and Commerce and the U.S. military, said Washington needed to move beyond antiquated notions of projecting influence if it hoped to catch up with Russia.

“They have RT and all we know how to do is send a carrier battle group,” Lewis said. “We’re going to be stuck until we find a way deal with that.” More here including Alex Jones from Reuters.

Then there is Iran who has and continues to use propaganda to build internal reputation and power, the same as Putin of Russia himself.

When Iran detained our Navy personnel, consider the traction that was gained both positive and negative.

NR: The sight of members of the American military, disarmed and under Iranian control, is of enormous propaganda value in Iran’s ongoing war against the United States. To its allies in the Middle East, the photo demonstrates Iran’s strength – how many jihadist countries have had this many American servicemembers under their power? – and it demonstrates American weakness. Then there’s this: “This time, the Americans were cooperative in proving their innocence, and they quickly accepted their faults without resistance,” the analyst, Hamidreza Taraghi, said in a phone interview. “The Marines apologized for having strayed into Iranian waters.” Never fear, John Kerry made friends with the Iranians, and that made all the difference: Also playing a role was the strong relationship that has developed between Mr. Kerry and the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, during negotiations on the nuclear deal, Mr. Taraghi said. “John Kerry and Zarif were on the phone during the past hours, and this helped the problem to be resolved quickly due to their direct contact,” he said. Nations that take illegal propaganda photos, crow about their seizure of American boats, confiscate part of their equipment, and then point to our allegedly admitted faults aren’t “easing tensions,” they’re flexing their muscles. I’m glad our sailors and boats are back in American hands — minus, apparently, their GPS equipment — but once again Iran has thumbed its nose at the U.S., demonstrating that it does what it wants — whether it’s testing missiles, launching rockets near U.S. warships, or taking, questioning, and photographing American sailors who (allegedly) stray into Iranian waters.

Not only does government need to harden security, but civilians must as well. That includes people, information, news, systems, software and brick and mortar structures. Separating fact from fiction, providing exact and true definitions and not conflating conditions is the charter and mission in the future.

 

A Message to Trump? China Seizes U.S. Underwater Drone

A Navy file photo shows T-AGS 60 Class Oceanographic Survey Ship, USNS Bowditch. The Navy says the ship’s mission includes oceanographic sampling and data collection and the handling, monitoring and servicing of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), among other things. U.S. Navy 

China Seizes U.S. Underwater Drone From International Waters, Pentagon Says

NPR: A unmanned underwater vehicle deployed by a U.S. Navy ship in international waters has been seized by China, according to Pentagon officials.

The seizure of the underwater vehicle took place Thursday, about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay in the Philippines, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement Friday

The situation is unusual: U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told journalists there was no precedent for it in recent memory, NPR’s Tom Bowman reports.

The Pentagon says that the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic survey ship, had two unclassified “ocean gliders” — unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) — in the water, conducting “routine operations in accordance with international law.” The undersea drones measure things like salinity and temperature, the Pentagon says.

The Bowditch was retrieving one vehicle when a Chinese warship pulled up, put a small boat in the water and retrieved the second UUV, officials told reporters.

The U.S. sent radio messages requesting that the drone be returned, the Pentagon statement says, but the Chinese ship merely acknowledged the messages and ignored the request.

No shots were fired by either vehicle, officials said, and the Chinese ship left with a final message that it was returning to normal operations — and with the drone.

The U.S. has issued a demarche — a formal diplomatic protest — and demanded the drone’s return, Reuters reports.

“We call upon China to return our UUV immediately, and to comply with all of its obligations under international law,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in his statement.

The incident occurred in the long-disputed waters of the South China Sea, where several countries make various overlapping territorial claims. China has been the most aggressive in claiming the strategically and economically significant waters as its own.

Competing Claims In The South China And East China Seas

South China Sea and East China Sea
These are the approximate claims by China and other countries. In many cases, countries are intentionally vague about the extent of their claims.
In South China Sea Islands, Anti-Aircraft And Radar Systems Emerge In Full Color

Highlighting new areas of Chinese construction on Mischief Reef, a monitoring group says that in addition to an airstrip, the artificial island will likely be outfitted with large anti-aircraft guns and a cruise missile defense system.

NPR: China “appears to have built significant point-defense capabilities” on artificial islands in the South China Sea, says a think tank that cites new satellite imagery showing hexagonal gun platforms and other recent construction.

In vivid color, the photos show what the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says is an array of anti-aircraft guns, cruise missile defenses, in nearly identical emplacements on islands created on large reefs to serve as outposts in the Spratly Islands.

In recent years, tensions around the islands have been an undercurrent in America’s relationship with China, featuring in talks between President Obama and President Xi Jinping and raising the specter of escalating shows of military might in the area.

China’s military emplacement on Fiery Cross Reef includes “four structures, consisting of tiered hexagonal towers oriented toward the sea,” according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. CSIS/AMTI/DigitalGlobe 
 

Discussing the satellite photos that were taken in recent weeks, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative Director Gregory Poling told Voice of America, “This is further evidence that the commitment that President Xi Jinping made to President [Barack] Obama last year not to militarize these islands was, at best, premature.”

The new military emplacements are being highlighted months after an international tribunal in The Hague invalidated China’s claims in the South China Sea. That unprecedented ruling also found that China’s build-up of artificial islands in the region was also harming natural ecosystems.

China’s leaders rejected that decision, which came in a case that was brought by the Philippines. In addition to those two countries, parts of the South China Sea are also claimed by Taiwan, Malaysia, the Vietnam and others.

The disputed areas include busy shipping lanes in the sea, along with a wealth of natural resources, from fishing grounds to underground oil and gas reserves.

“But the dispute is not just about economic assets,” as our Parallels blog reported earlier this year. “The sea’s strategic location near half a dozen East and Southeast Asian countries means those countries want to control the military and civilian activities in the area.”

Providing analysis of China’s military goals in the islands, the AMTI says:

“These gun and probable CIWS emplacements show that Beijing is serious about defense of its artificial islands in case of an armed contingency in the South China Sea. Among other things, they would be the last line of defense against cruise missiles launched by the United States or others against these soon-to-be-operational air bases. They would back up the defensive umbrella provided by a future deployment to the Spratlys of mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) platforms, such as the HQ-9 deployed to Woody Island in the Paracel Islands.”

As the Parallels blog noted, “The potential for deteriorating cross-strait relations puts the United States in a tough spot — it must uphold its security commitments to Taiwan while avoiding confrontation with Chinese vessels patrolling Taiwanese islands.”