China Warning to America, Prepare to Live off the Land

Posted on May 25, 2023May 25, 2023 by Denise Simon

It is a major cyber attack discovered by Microsoft. It was discovered while we were all watching that ‘silly spy balloon’ as Biden called it. The attack is called Volt Typhoon, so be on notice America. The Biden White House has said nothing….

Microsoft has uncovered stealthy and targeted malicious activity focused on post-compromise credential access and network system discovery aimed at critical infrastructure organizations in the United States. The attack is carried out by Volt Typhoon, a state-sponsored actor based in China that typically focuses on espionage and information gathering. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that this Volt Typhoon campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises.

Volt Typhoon has been active since mid-2021 and has targeted critical infrastructure organizations in Guam and elsewhere in the United States. In this campaign, the affected organizations span the communications, manufacturing, utility, transportation, construction, maritime, government, information technology, and education sectors. Observed behavior suggests that the threat actor intends to perform espionage and maintain access without being detected for as long as possible.

To achieve their objective, the threat actor puts strong emphasis on stealth in this campaign, relying almost exclusively on living-off-the-land techniques and hands-on-keyboard activity. They issue commands via the command line to (1) collect data, including credentials from local and network systems, (2) put the data into an archive file to stage it for exfiltration, and then (3) use the stolen valid credentials to maintain persistence.

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Dark Reading in part published the following:

China-sponsored threat actors have managed to establish persistent access within telecom networks and other critical infrastructure targets in the US, with the observed purpose of espionage — and, potentially, the ability down the line to disrupt communications in the event of military conflict in the South China Sea and broader Pacific.

The first signs of compromise emerged in telecom networks in Guam, according to a New York Times report ahead of the findings being released. The National Security Agency discovered those intrusions around the same time that the Chinese spy balloon was making headlines for entering US airspace, according to the report. It then enlisted Microsoft to further investigate, eventually uncovering a widespread web of compromises across multiple sectors, with a particular focus on air, communications, maritime, and land transportation targets.

A Shadow Goal? Laying Groundwork for Disruption

The discovery of the activity is playing out against the backdrop of the US’ frosty relations with Beijing; the two superpowers have stalled in their diplomacy since the shooting down of the balloon, and has worsened amidst fears that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could spur China to do the same in Taiwan.

In the event of a military crisis, a destructive cyberattack on US critical infrastructure could disrupt communications and hamper the country’s ability to come to Taiwan’s aid, the Times report pointed out. Or, according to John Hultquist, chief analyst at Mandiant Intelligence – Google Cloud, a disruptive attack could be used as a proxy for kinetic action.

“These operations are aggressive and potentially dangerous, but they don’t necessarily indicate attacks are looming,” he said in an emailed statement. “A far more reliable indicator for [a] destructive and disruptive cyberattack is a deteriorating geopolitical situation. A destructive and disruptive cyberattack is not just a wartime scenario either. This capability may be used by states looking for alternatives to armed conflict.”

Anderson Air Foce Base/source

Dubbing such preparations “contingency intrusions,” he added that China is certainly not alone in conducting them — although notably, China-backed APTs are typically far more focused on cyber espionage than destruction.

“Over the last decade, Russia has targeted a variety of critical infrastructure sectors in operations that we do not believe were designed for immediate effect,” Hultquist noted. “Chinese cyber threat actors are unique among their peers in that they have not regularly resorted to destructive and disruptive cyberattacks. As a result, their capability is quite opaque.”

An Observed Focus on Stealth & Spying

To achieve initial access, Volt Typhoon compromises Internet-facing Fortinet FortiGuard devices, a popular target for cyberattackers of all stripes (Microsoft is still examining how they’re being breached in this case). Once inside the box, the APT uses the device’s privileges to extract credentials from Active Directory account and authenticate to other devices on the network. Read more here.

Migrants in America Causing Collapse of Law Enforcement

Posted on May 23, 2023May 23, 2023 by Denise Simon

These sanctuary governors and mayors are arguing the wrong point. It is not so much about where to house these people and re-shipping them to other locations, but rather the scandal should be to tell the entire illegal immigrant operation that there is nothing in America to come to that is better than what they left. Consider just how much money these people spend to come here and the deadly traveling just to get beyond our borders. Are these people coming to anything better in the long term than what they left? Do they really want to work in slaughter houses, work farms in disgusting living conditions? Do they really want to be trafficked in the sex trade industry?

Ah, but read on to see a Chicago police station and consider how it is in expensive hotels across the country where we have no idea of their names, ages or even their history, no visas, no passports and no documents at all. How can law enforcement even begin to deal with this considering all the other existing crime across the country….

A huge hat tip to Rebecca Brannon!

New footage shows a Chicago police station filled with mattresses and dozens of illegal migrants, as the city struggles to house the hundreds of border crossers arriving there each day.

Officials in Chicago have said they cannot afford to rent hotel rooms for the more than 8,000 migrants who have arrived in their city and have pushed for more federal funds to cover costs.

Due to the lack of available shelters, some migrants have turned to police stations for a safe place to sleep.

The migrant-housing crisis in Chicago follows last week’s end to the Trump-era COVID-19 border restriction known as Title 42, which allowed U.S. authorities to send migrants back to Mexico without giving them a chance to seek asylum.

Tens of thousands of people hurried to cross the border illegally into the U.S. before President Joe Biden implemented a strict new asylum policy to replace Title 42.

In the shocking footage posted by photojournalist Rebecca Brannon, dozens and dozens of migrants are seen sitting on and around mattresses in a Chicago police station.

Brannon reported that many of the migrants have slept and eaten on the floors, which has placed a strain on the law enforcement officers whose day-to-day jobs have been made more difficult by their presence.

Small children were seen running around and an alley sits full of trash produced by the migrants.

Chicago already has a serious violent crime problem, with its new influx of migrants likely to further strain budgets desperately-needed to try and make the city safer.

More than 8,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since August, which is when southern states started to bus asylum seekers north. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent migrants to the Democrat-led cities to help ease the burden on border towns.

‘To provide much-needed relief to our overrun border communities, Texas began busing migrants to sanctuary cities such as your ‘Welcoming City,’ along with Washington, DC, New York City, and Philadelphia, with more to come. Until Biden secures the border to stop the inflow of mass migration, Texas will continue this necessary program,’ Abbott noted in a letter earlier this month.

Migrants been sent to cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. Migrants have also arrived in Washington, DC, with buses stopping outside the home of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite the Chicago’s obvious overcrowding issue, new Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive Democrat who assumed office Monday, said in his inauguration speech that in Chicago, ‘there’s enough room for everyone.’

Johnson’s affirmed commitment to welcoming migrants to Chicago follows his predecessor – Lori Lightfoot’s decision to declare a state of emergency earlier this month, calling migrant arrivals a ‘humanitarian crisis’ and pushing for increased federal aid.

Chicago officials have said they expect a $53 million shortfall without additional aid because of the cost from housing migrants.

‘We’re in May, and we haven’t received any funding from FEMA,’ Chicago budget director Susie Park recently told the City Council, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. ‘The need is great. A lot of requests are coming in. New York is probably asking for $1 billion. There is a lot of need.’

The Durham Report has Several Omissions However

Posted on May 17, 2023May 17, 2023 by Denise Simon

The first glaring omission is the media. Outside of Fox News and a minute or so with Jake Tapper, nothing was mentioned by the legacy media including print media. One has to wonder if the Clinton Foundation or the Brookings Institute actually paid key media to advocate the whole operation from it’s inception. Will there ever be an apology or retraction not just to Donald Trump but to those whose lives were turned upside down including General Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cavuto and countless others. Furthermore, every person in this country suffered through years of the hoax …..THE BIGGEST LIE of all in our history. We are a divided country, never to be restored as proven by the rebuttals of Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Hillary herself.

To be sure, while all sources including the Durham report having Hillary ‘approving’ the Clinton plan, you can bet she did not concoct it from the start….she merely approved it. So, the Durham report leaves out the real genesis of the hoax. Consider those that Durham did not interview in his investigation, Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Lisa Page, Susan Rice, McCabe, John Podesta and many others that were likely the players of the whole plan from the start. Did Durham obtain the various types of communcation from those people or others such as Barack Obama, Loretta Lynch, Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell or Harry Reid? Nah…

What about Stafan Halper or Joseph Misfud? What about Robert Mueller and his team and their alleged documents?

Meanwhile, everyone one of those people should have their security clearances stripped. Every willing accomplice should be forced to pay at least the legal fees of those victims of this hoax such as Carter Page. Let the civil suits begin.

Now on to the 7th floor of the FBI. It has not been reformed at all as Director Christopher Wray has stated given those ‘missteps’ he referred to. Consider the investigations going on now including the Hunter laptop and the targets of churches and parents trying to sustain a good education for their children in public schools.

The names mentioned above gave little if any consideration to the permanent damage to the country as all of them were self-serving to advocate for Hillary to be president. Sadly, would her presidency actually be any different than Biden’s presidency? No.

The reputation of our country has forever been tarnished globally. Consider that media across the globe has reported on all these travesties and scandals for years and years. China, Russia, Brazil, Iran and others have postured and planned for a post America world while we figure out still what happened, the consequences and if there is a restoration in the near term.

There are corrupt leaders across the globe and corrupt countries as well, is there anything now that separates us as a nation from that? Yes, only decent and informed American citizens that get in the game and commit to break the American oligarchs of which there are many.

While the Durham report is 300 plus pages, of which you can read here, it is prudent to at least skim the report for context and details that support the assertions above.

This report will likely have zero legal consequences but it will further explain the width and depth of the deep state of which continues to hardly be understood by voters.

Do we really understand the war against the deep state?

WH/Susan Rice is well Aware of Child Labor Violations/Immigrants

Posted on April 18, 2023April 18, 2023 by Denise Simon

Yes, THAT Susan Rice, the hateful video/Benghazi lady that works at the Biden White House. Furthermore, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Beccera does nothing when it comes to sponsors that immigrant children are released to. And then there is the Department of Labor….silence…

But this is nothing new as it began under the Obama administration. After an internet search, several outlets reported much that same that the Obama administration actually did separate children from parents or when just children came across the border they were placed into sponsors’ care and trafficked into the sex slave industry or into agricultural operations under all the same conditions described by the recent New York Times investigation. Yes, imagine the New York Times actually doing on investigation on this scandal…yes….after a long read, there is much the NYT’s left out but it is a start, at least.

As a primer, the Department of Labor is responsible for child labor law enforcement which does include limited exemptions. These immigrant children are actually slave labor working in conditions and overnight shifts that violate the Fair Labor Standards Act.

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/01/american-child-labor

So, what did the New York Times investigation offer? Titled –>

Read the full NYT’s investigation here.

As Migrant Children Were Put to Work, U.S. Ignored Warnings

The White House and federal agencies were repeatedly alerted to signs of children at risk. The warnings were ignored or missed.

In the spring of 2021, Linda Brandmiller was working at an arena in San Antonio that had been converted into an emergency shelter for migrant children. Thousands of boys were sleeping on cots as the Biden administration grappled with a record number of minors crossing into the United States without their parents.

Ms. Brandmiller’s job was to help vet sponsors, and she had been trained to look for possible trafficking. In her first week, two cases jumped out: One man told her he was sponsoring three boys to employ them at his construction company. Another, who lived in Florida, was trying to sponsor two children who would have to work off the cost of bringing them north.

She immediately contacted supervisors working with the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency responsible for these children. “This is urgent,” she wrote in an email reviewed by The New York Times.

But within days, she noticed that one of the children was set to be released to the man in Florida. She wrote another email, this time asking for a supervisor’s “immediate attention” and adding that the government had already sent a 14-year-old boy to the same sponsor.

Ms. Brandmiller also emailed the shelter’s manager. A few days later, her building access was revoked during her lunch break. She said she was never told why she had been fired.

Over the past two years, more than 250,000 migrant children have come alone to the United States. Thousands of children have ended up in punishing jobs across the country — working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories — all in violation of child labor laws, a recent Times investigation showed. After the article’s publication in February, the White House announced policy changes and a crackdown on companies that hire children.

Warning Signs

Inside the White House, Ms. Rice was at the center of the migrant children crisis. As she pressed to move children out of shelters more quickly, clues began to emerge about what was happening to them once they left.

In the summer of 2021, near the height of the crush at the border, H.H.S. managers wrote a memo detailing their worry about increasing reports that children were working alongside their sponsors, a sign of possible labor trafficking. Ms. Rice’s team received the memo, and Ms. Rice was also told what it said, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

Andrew J. Bates, White House deputy press secretary, disputed that, saying Ms. Rice “did not see the memo and was not made aware of its contents.”

Around the same time, Ms. Rice’s team was told about concerns over a large group of children who had been released to one city in Alabama, according to six current and former staff members. The situation was the subject of frequent updates as H.H.S. sent case managers to the city to check on children, and coordinated with the Labor Department and Homeland Security Investigations to look into whether they were working in poultry plants. The full article is found here.

Biden Admin Using Taxpayer Dollars to Fund CCP Research at UVA

Posted on March 24, 2023March 24, 2023 by Denise Simon

With the decades of proof of the intellectual theft and espionage by the Chinese inside the United States, the Biden administration is not protecting America at all in fact helping to fund the Chinese Communist Party operations inside the United States.

During the Trump administration, espionage was so dangerous, two embassies were shuttered. Then there is the matter of Tik Tok….but now this? Is this a John Kerry climate agenda item and is it going on at other U.S. universities or institutions?

The Free Beacon reports:

The Biden administration is using taxpayer cash to fund a University of Virginia climate change partnership with a Chinese Communist Party-controlled school that conducts research for China’s military.

President Joe Biden’s National Science Foundation last year awarded more than $130,000 to the University of Virginia to conduct climate change research with Beijing-based Tsinghua University, federal spending disclosures show. Tsinghua University, which counts Chinese president Xi Jinping among its alumni, will work with University of Virginia researchers to chart the global “transition to a low-carbon economy,” according to the grant description. Board Approves 'Great and Good' Strategic Plan for University of ... UVA source

Tsinghua University is funded by China’s Ministry of Education and maintains a “CCP Committee” that keeps the school “in accordance with President Xi’s hopes.” It also holds “secret-level security credentials” for classified military research, trains students for China’s nuclear weapons program, and has allegedly carried out cyberattacks for the Chinese government, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. It is also one of several Chinese universities under the supervision of the communist nation’s State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, a CCP agency that works to deepen university involvement in the defense sector.

The National Science Foundation’s decision to fund the partnership with Tsinghua calls into question the foundation’s vetting process as it enjoys a record-high budget. The bipartisan CHIPS Act, which Biden said would help “counter China,” authorized $80 billion in funding for the National Science Foundation to invest in research and development. But in the case of its University of Virginia grant, the foundation found working with the Chinese on climate change “worthy of support.”

For American Foreign Policy Council fellow Michael Sobolik, the foundation’s decision to use “taxpayer money to facilitate research cooperation with a People’s Liberation Army-affiliated university” is “questionable at best.”

“We’ve seen time and again how the CCP leverages people-to-people ties to further its malign influence within the United States,” Sobolik told the Washington Free Beacon. “When you’re in the midst of a cold war, you can’t play both sides of the ledger. The sooner we accept that reality, the better.”

The National Science Foundation downplayed Tsinghua’s role in the project, with research security strategy and policy chief Rebecca Keiser saying the Chinese school’s involvement stems from “researcher-to-researcher collaboration.”

The foundation “has instituted a first-in-government analytics process to identify research security concerns and ensure transparency when assessing proposals and awards to ensure that any international collaboration provides mutual benefit,” Keiser said in a statement. “In any international research collaboration, [the National Science Foundation] only funds the U.S. side.”

The grant, which started in October and runs through 2026, funds University of Virginia research into “the transition to a low-carbon economy.” Tsinghua and a second Chinese partner, the China University of Petroleum-Beijing, will conduct similar research in China, the results of which “will be used to develop a U.S.-Chinese collaborative course on climate leadership skills.” That collaboration, the grant says, “will lead to better strategies for lowering emissions in the United States that are complementary to those in China.” China is by far the biggest polluter in the world—in 2019, it emitted more greenhouse gases than all developed nations combined.

This is not the first time the University of Virginia has partnered with Tsinghua. The two schools are exchange partners, and the University of Virginia’s engineering department in 2017 developed a “teaching collaboration” with Tsinghua that saw students from both schools pair up for homework assignments. That project, however, does not appear to have received federal money. Beyond the October grant, the National Science Foundation has only funded projects linked to Tsinghua on two other occasions—once under Biden last June and once under former president Barack Obama in April 2011. Both of those grants, which went to Boston University and Drexel University, respectively, funded academic workshops that included participants from Tsinghua.

A University of Virginia spokesman defended the university’s work with Tsinghua, arguing that because the project “does not involve critical technologies or military applications,” it does not compromise U.S. national security interests.

“An important part of researching global challenges like climate change is working with institutions around the world to compare the effects of a warming climate and the efficacy of different proposed solutions,” university spokesman Brian Coy said. “As part of those efforts, we take seriously our responsibility to operate within all U.S. laws and regulations regarding the protection of intellectual property and U.S. national security interests.”

“Our university collaborates closely and transparently with federal regulatory and law enforcement partners in order to ensure our collaborative research efforts contribute to human understanding of global challenges without compromising our interests as a nation,” Coy said.

The university’s partnership with Tsinghua could attract scrutiny from Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin. “Since being elected, the governor has taken steps to protect Virginians from the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party,” Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez told the Free Beacon. “Through his TikTok ban on all state devices and networks, prohibiting foreign adversaries, including China, from acquiring the commonwealth’s agricultural land, requesting Fairfax County schools cut ties with CCP-linked entities, and preventing a Trojan horse deal for a CCP-linked battery manufacturer to produce electric vehicle batteries propped up by U.S. tax incentives, the governor has made it clear that there is no room in Virginia for the Chinese Communist Party.”

National Science Foundation director Sethuraman Panchanathan, who serves at the pleasure of the president, in 2014 was put on the foundation’s National Science Board by Obama. Then-president Donald Trump in June 2020 went on to elevate Panchanathan to foundation director. Biden has appointed 10 of the National Science Board’s 24 members.

While the National Science Foundation’s grant did not send federal money directly to Tsinghua, the Chinese university has received money from American actors in the past. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—one of America’s largest liberal nonprofits—gave Tsinghua more than $1.5 million in 2021, the Free Beacon reported in January.