Miscellaneous News

[AssassinsMace]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I'll agree with those that argue that for China, it's probably better in dealing with Trump than the Republican and Democratic parties because he's solely operating on his self-interests and nothing else. It's like how the West supported dictators during the Cold War despite how they claimed to care about human rights and democracy. It's easier and cheaper to payoff off one guy that's in charge to have them work for your interests than actually doing what it takes to win over people in a country to your side. Yeah watching the news you can tell the mainstream Democrats and news media are having a hard time having any sort of human rights principles over the Iran War that they secretly support. Even with this ceasefire they want to spin saying Iran is violating the ceasefire already when Israel hasn't paused attacking. They want the war to continue despite how they don't like Trump personally.

 

[Zhejiang]

Xi Jinping meeting with the KMT chair Cheng Li-Wun in Beijing

 

[shiftenter]

Introducing

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

: a distilled LLM of all Trump's social posts, interviews, books, academic research and policy records, providing a real-time “self-analysis“ of TACO probability.





Source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[AssassinsMace]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Isn't it funny how Western China hawks were celebrating how closing the Strait of Hormuz was bad for China because the country get's "50%" of it's oil from there but were vilifying China because they were buying Iranian oil that were getting a pass to get through? And now the US is placing a price floor on rare earths. You know what that means? It's called a subsidy where American tax payers will be paying the difference making sure that a US private entity makes a profit to continue production despite how they're cheaper in the open market. They know the US doing it will always cost more. This guarantee makes sure American companies make a profit despite the actual reality is the US is overpaying for them. And you know what's going to happen? It's going to be like how the US found out Chinese parts ended up in the F-35. It was because some US defense contractor decided to buy cheaper Chinese parts that do the same job so he can even make even more money because the budget allocated for American parts that costed more but instead bought cheaper Chinese versions. What's going to happen with rare earths is someone is going to buy the cheaper Chinese rare earths and pass them off as being produced in the US and then making all that money from the difference because of the higher than normal price floor. And if the US government knows this is what's happening just like finding Chinese parts in the F-35... that's called corruption. So what was the point in the first place? The US domestic capacity on producing rare earths still doesn't meet the US's military needs. The US is still going to have to buy them from China one way or another. That's what the rare earth coalition the US created was all about so that other countries can buy Chinese rare earths... for the US. China might as well raise the price to make even more money.

 

[PandaAI]

This is where China should further restrict all critical minerals to everyone. US will try to get these critical minerals indirectly since direct sales to military is banned. Do not process foreign rare earths and then export it. All rare earths and other critical minerals should be fully under state control as they are vital for national security. Can’t trust private companies.

 

[4Tran]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Isn't it funny how Western China hawks were celebrating how closing the Strait of Hormuz was bad for China because the country get's "50%" of it's oil from there but were vilifying China because they were buying Iranian oil that were getting a pass to get through? And now the US is placing a price floor on rare earths. You know what that means? It's called a subsidy where American tax payers will be paying the difference making sure that a US private entity makes a profit to continue production despite how they're cheaper in the open market. They know the US doing it will always cost more. This guarantee makes sure American companies make a profit despite the actual reality is the US is overpaying for them. And you know what's going to happen? It's going to be like how the US found out Chinese parts ended up in the F-35. It was because some US defense contractor decided to buy cheaper Chinese parts that do the same job so he can even make even more money because the budget allocated for American parts that costed more but instead bought cheaper Chinese versions. What's going to happen with rare earths is someone is going to buy the cheaper Chinese rare earths and pass them off as being produced in the US and then making all that money from the difference because of the higher than normal price floor. And if the US government knows this is what's happening just like finding Chinese parts in the F-35... that's called corruption. So what was the point in the first place? The US domestic capacity on producing rare earths still doesn't meet the US's military needs. The US is still going to have to buy them from China one way or another. That's what the rare earth coalition the US created was all about so that other countries can buy Chinese rare earths... for the US. China might as well raise the price to make even more money.

The entire way that the US, and the West in general, deal with the critical material challenge is wrong. Look at the very concept of setting a price floor for rare earths. It doesn't accomplish anything because nobody sensible would go into rare earths to make money to begin with. The entire world wide industry in rare earth exports is just a few billion USD. And because the technology to extract and process is going to take possible a few billion USD a year to develop and there won't be any real returns for the first 10 years, what kind of capitalist is going to tackle this regardless of what kind of price guarantees get promised?

The only real solution is to implement proper industrial policy to ensure the security of critical materials. But I don't think that there is any Western country that's still capable of industrial policy any more so this performative nonsense is the best they can do.

This is where China should further restrict all critical minerals to everyone. US will try to get these critical minerals indirectly since direct sales to military is banned. Do not process foreign rare earths and then export it. All rare earths and other critical minerals should be fully under state control as they are vital for national security. Can’t trust private companies.

This is sort of the case already. While many critical minerals are dual purpose, some of the key military applications require minerals that aren't used in civilian industry at all. I think that most of these are found in the heavy rare earths, and they are largely mined in China to begin with. These minerals aren't exported at all so military producers will have to make do with their existing stockpiles.

 

[shiftenter]

White House Warns Staff Not to Place Bets on Prediction Markets Amid Iran War​

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

SEC Proposes 11% Budget Cut, Reducing Examination Funding By $3M​

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I'm not believing any officials are conducting insider trading, as we have

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, right?

 

[TPenglake]

"Western Civilization"
https://www.reddit.com/r/iranian/comments/1sgcmhv

 

[horse]

Major news outlets reporting a hacking group breached China’s National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) in Tianjin and stole a significant ammount of data including classified and secret document/designs. There are samples files from the alleged leak floating around on twitter.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I think this is fake.

That would make more sense. The Americans just suffered a horrible defeat. So, deflect attention, say China is doing things poorly.

They make up this story.

They do not have to give any details, still they did. Allegedly.

They could have made any story up, but this time, the is a compromised VPN was used.

What does that even mean? I thought it was ridiculous.

I am not a hacker, but did read some stuff about it decades ago.

A compromised server, is something a hacker can use to launch denial of service attacks. Put that program in there, then bring down a website, temporarily.

If we are to believe this story, they used a compromised VPN server to break into a top secret computing facility.

That detail, does not make any sense. So they are either bullshitting here because they did do the hack but this is disinformation on how they did the hack, or the person writing up this story or making it up does not even know how to make it up.

They are saying, they were using this server, which has an IP address, to break into a top secret facility in China.

This IP address is known. Would the Chinese authorities allow foreign VPN to access these computers, under any circumstances? Er, we know the answer to that.

Maybe the hacker attacked through a Chinese VPN, but that is even more ridiculous.

But the story did not say a compromised VPN server, which is how it usually works from what I remember, they wrote a compromised VPN domain.

No one uses that term anymore, a domain. What that means, is a network of servers. So how was that VPN domain compromised? See, that sounds like they do not know what they are talking about.

A domain is a bunch of servers, networked together to each other. If one server is compromised, then the hacker is already in. No need to compromise every single server, you're already in. No need to use the word domain here, just say compromised VPN server. But they call it a domain, a word that is rarely used anymore.

Then, the idea that this top secret facility allowed an upload to their server, that sounds suspicious. From a VPN no less. Haha!

From what I recall, you would need root access to install a bot net. Meaning you would be trusted enough to place an executable file on that computer, which the current login used. That would be like top top secret secret admin. And they were able to do it from a VPN server somewhere.

Well, like, you know, there are fish stories, and tall tales, and internet scams.

So I think this story is completely fabricated in order to deflect attention from this Iran adventure.

 

[Thecore]

I think this is fake.

That would make more sense. The Americans just suffered a horrible defeat. So, deflect attention, say China is doing things poorly.

They make up this story.

They do not have to give any details, still they did. Allegedly.

They could have made any story up, but this time, the is a compromised VPN was used.

What does that even mean? I thought it was ridiculous.

I am not a hacker, but did read some stuff about it decades ago.

A compromised server, is something a hacker can use to launch denial of service attacks. Put that program in there, then bring down a website, temporarily.

If we are to believe this story, they used a compromised VPN server to break into a top secret computing facility.

That detail, does not make any sense. So they are either bullshitting here because they did do the hack but this is disinformation on how they did the hack, or the person writing up this story or making it up does not even know how to make it up.

They are saying, they were using this server, which has an IP address, to break into a top secret facility in China.

This IP address is known. Would the Chinese authorities allow foreign VPN to access these computers, under any circumstances? Er, we know the answer to that.

Maybe the hacker attacked through a Chinese VPN, but that is even more ridiculous.

But the story did not say a compromised VPN server, which is how it usually works from what I remember, they wrote a compromised VPN domain.

No one uses that term anymore, a domain. What that means, is a network of servers. So how was that VPN domain compromised? See, that sounds like they do not know what they are talking about.

A domain is a bunch of servers, networked together to each other. If one server is compromised, then the hacker is already in. No need to compromise every single server, you're already in. No need to use the word domain here, just say compromised VPN server. But they call it a domain, a word that is rarely used anymore.

Then, the idea that this top secret facility allowed an upload to their server, that sounds suspicious. From a VPN no less. Haha!

From what I recall, you would need root access to install a bot net. Meaning you would be trusted enough to place an executable file on that computer, which the current login used. That would be like top top secret secret admin. And they were able to do it from a VPN server somewhere.

Well, like, you know, there are fish stories, and tall tales, and internet scams.

So I think this story is completely fabricated in order to deflect attention from this Iran adventure.

If it is indeed kabuki theater (very possible) to stop-loss further US domestic skepticism of their government, then it was a pretty stupid strategy because all it does is encourage china to do more to shore up their own network defences.