Politics XXXIV (Politics never changes)

[Amentep]

4 hours ago, Gromnir said:

am thinking after +3 years in the wh, the realization trump behaviours and statements is still resulting in shock and dismay is the real surprise. 

'course the issue is not trump. when we attempt to explain the improbability o' trump statements and actions there must need be the recognition the President only indulges in acts o' improbable increasing crudeness, perfidy and pettiness, while displaying a kinda ignorance heretofore unimaginable given his responsibilities, 'cause his base encourages and/or supports him. 

shake head in sorrow and bafflement at the next trump inanity is, in our estimation, misplaced. real shocker for us is how there is no mendoza line for competence or character demanded by the trump base. none. while am recognizing just how polarized is the nation, the willful indifference o' the trump base still manages to disappoint us. more fool is Gromnir, eh?

HA! Good Fun!

I read an elaborate conspiracy theory yesterday regarding hospitals and liberals in the government conspiring to classify all deaths, regardless of manner, as COVID so as to make Trump look bad by inflating the numbers of a virus that is basically just the flu.

The mind boggled.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Amentep
added a word

[Skarpen]

17 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I read an elaborate conspiracy theory yesterday regarding hospitals and liberals in the government conspiring to classify all deaths, regardless of manner, as COVID so as to make Trump look bad by inflating the numbers of a virus that is basically just the flu.

The mind boggled.

Ah, I knew there was something wrong with those numbers. Now we know.

[213374U]

  

 

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Free access to information for everyone is the bane of every government. Even the "free" ones. Especially ones like China. I think what they are proposing will be found attractive to a lot of places. 

I hadn't heard about this, thanks for posting it. A pity that the COVID crisis is letting things like this fly under the radar, but I doubt that'll be the last time we hear about it. Huawei has its tendrils firmly wrapped around the internet infrastructure in many countries, and they will be in a tough position to refuse implementation.

I predict that, as per usual, the EU "recommendation" to watch Huawei will amount to nothing and the bunch of cronies, incompetents and lazy asses appointed to do it will instead let the Chinese further their agenda unopposed. And developing countries don't even have that layer of "protection".

I'm bringing this conversation here, where I feel it belongs, I hope you don't mind.

Edited April 1, 2020 by 213374U

[Guard Dog]

No conspiracy theory is credible to me if:

• It requires a high level of intelligence to conceive
• If it requires the cooperation of a disparate group of people to achieve. 

Now I WILL consider them if the theory is describing success by accident. A serendipitous blunder that comes out well despite all odds. I'd far more believe the moon landing was a botched attempt to reach Mars that got lost rather than a hoax altogether! 

[Malcador]

2 hours ago, Amentep said:

I read an elaborate conspiracy theory yesterday regarding hospitals and liberals in the government conspiring to classify all deaths, regardless of manner, as COVID so as to make Trump look bad by inflating the numbers of a virus that is basically just the flu.

The mind boggled.

Bit better than the theory Gates is behind this so eventually he can microchip us all and he's the Antichrist.  Some really funny theories out there, I think my favourite of all is the belief that St Patrick massacred hundreds of thousands of African pygmies in Ireland at the orders of the Orthodox Pope. 

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, 213374U said:

  

 

I hadn't heard about this, thanks for posting it. A pity that the COVID crisis is letting things like this fly under the radar, but I doubt that'll be the last time we hear about it. Huawei has its tendrils firmly wrapped around the internet infrastructure in many countries, and they will be in a tough position to refuse implementation.

I predict that, as per usual, the EU "recommendation" to watch Huawei will amount to nothing and the bunch of cronies, incompetents and lazy asses appointed to do it will instead let the Chinese further their agenda unopposed. And developing countries don't even have that layer of "protection".

I'm bringing this conversation here, where I feel it belongs, I hope you don't mind.

It's news  to me aswell, so thank you for that GD, and it's a nightmare read aswell, but I am not surprised one bit. And just as you say, many countries are going to rely on Huawei for their 5G networks, so they'll already have a foot in the door.

Add in that we do have several authoritarian leaning parties here, and I don't doubt that the economic  troubles that comes following the current pandemic could get them even bigger poll numbers, they'd have alot to gain in having a system like this available to them.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Azdeus

[ComradeYellow]

Yeah perhaps you Euros should do something about it and find a Hitler or something and stop the evil commies xD

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, ComradeMaster said:

Yeah perhaps you Euros should do something about it and find a Hitler or something and stop the evil commies xD

It's not necessarily any "evil commies" that are going to use it, but the future Hitlers that are going to use it to stop dissent.

[HoonDing]

 

[Volourn]

"blame entire on china may make vol feel better, but if such vindication means US and kanada reacts with insufficient vigor in preparing for the next pandemic, then it is utter misguided and unacceptable dangerous. "

 

Laying the blame wher eit belongs - China - doesn't absolve Kanada/US/West for their missteps but let's confuse this. This mess occurred  because of China. That isn't racism. That is fact.

 

"Volo under the circumstances I thinks its best Canada and its citizens accept the temporary suspension of rights and certain Constitutional outcomes.... all Canadians, like most other countries,  should be trusting and supporting your government . These are unusual times and they call for unusual actions from all governments "

 

That's what Hitler said. In fact, I'd argue that it is circumstances like these where we have to keep our democratic laws in place - not remove them. Consitutional rights should NEVER be suspended under ANY circumstances. I trust the gov't as much as they trust me - ZERO.

[Zoraptor]

6 hours ago, 213374U said:

  I hadn't heard about this, thanks for posting it. A pity that the COVID crisis is letting things like this fly under the radar, but I doubt that'll be the last time we hear about it. Huawei has its tendrils firmly wrapped around the internet infrastructure in many countries, and they will be in a tough position to refuse implementation.

Huawei has no leverage. What are they going to do, turn off the infrastructure? Refuse to upgrade it? Perhaps they could cut out the intermediate steps and just abolish their international arm and gift its business wholesale to Cisco/ Samsung etc etc. The US would love that.

The sad fact is that liberal western democracies object to the source of the proposal and them not having control, they do not object to the spirit of it- per NSA intercepting Cisco shipments to add spyware, Intel's IME and AMD's PSP and a host of other examples. Indeed, given the complete lack of actual evidence about Huawei's malfeasance and reliance on, basically, racist dog whistling from Pompeo and friends I'd submit that the main reason, ultimately, for these articles is that Huawei still won't put NSA spyware into its systems. The presence of some completely theoretical Chinese spyware or them wanting to supercede TCP/IP and DNS- both of which are deeply flawed- at some point in the future is somewhat, er, trumped, by the west doing the exact same thing, provable spyware and having its own TCP/IP/ DNS replacements under development since 2014. Pretty much 100% 'do as I say, not as I do', and the articles are modern yellow scare.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Zoraptor

[ComradeYellow]

1 hour ago, Volourn said:

Consitutional rights should NEVER be suspended under ANY circumstances. I trust the gov't as much as they trust me - ZERO.

That's what the Confederacy said.

[Elerond]

57 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Huawei has no leverage. What are they going to do, turn off the infrastructure? Refuse to upgrade it? Perhaps they could cut out the intermediate steps and just abolish their international arm and gift its business wholesale to Cisco/ Samsung etc etc. The US would love that.

The sad fact is that liberal western democracies object to the source of the proposal and them not having control, they do not object to the spirit of it- per NSA intercepting Cisco shipments to add spyware, Intel's IME and AMD's PSP and a host of other examples. Indeed, given the complete lack of actual evidence about Huawei's malfeasance and reliance on, basically, racist dog whistling from Pompeo and friends I'd submit that the main reason, ultimately, for these articles is that Huawei still won't put NSA spyware into its systems. The presence of some completely theoretical Chinese spyware or them wanting to supercede TCP/IP and DNS- both of which are deeply flawed- at some point in the future is somewhat, er, trumped, by the west doing the exact same thing, provable spyware and having its own TCP/IP/ DNS replacements under development since 2014. Pretty much 100% 'do as I say, not as I do', and the articles are modern yellow scare.

Huawei's strategy is to offer it stuff so cheap that their solution is picked over over other solutions in order to ensure that their standard is what dominates. Meaning that evil commies are out capitalizing, freedom loving capitalists   

[ComradeYellow]

And yet, somehow Huawei's products seem more attractive than the horrendous Apple business model. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/google-stadia-nvidia-geforce-microsoft-xcloud-not-on-apple-ios

Some scary **** there.  At least Huawei seems like they operate on a platform that welcomes competition, unlike these "Freedom loving capitalists".

Then again I'm not greatest judge of cell phones here, I still sport a Tracfone ffs!

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, Elerond said:

Huawei's strategy is to offer it stuff so cheap that their solution is picked over over other solutions in order to ensure that their standard is what dominates. Meaning that evil commies are out capitalizing, freedom loving capitalists   

They don't really own any 'standards' though. They make #g repeaters/ exchanges and other internet/ telecommunications stuff which anyone can do. They have some patents for 5g and other IP, but so do others; and to a far greater extent. The vast majority of 'standards' are owned by and exploited in the cause of the west with the rest of the world meant to simply accept it. They may well try and apply leverage at some unspecified time in the future, but that's hardly unique and it's totally hypothetical. OTOH the US leveraging its standards- Android, threatening fabs/ chip makers with exclusion from the banking system if they don't drop supply to Huawei- so the rest of the world is forced instead to buy infrastructure replete with NSA spyware- is 100% non hypothetical and demonstrably happening right now.

(Huawei's economic strategy is an entire different matter, and it certainly does follow the trajectory of other Chinese State Backed enterprises- loss lead to drive out competition; then jack up prices and down quality once market dominance is achieved and if anyone threatens that dominance revert to step 1 until they've run out of money. They are however only in the preliminaries of step 1 of that, and there is zero realistic chance of them getting to step 2 due to national security concerns)

[ComradeYellow]

Cause and effect. I'm sure if the West starts enacting better and fairer business practices, China will respond in kind.  China is simply trying to stay afloat, even in the face of aggressive U.S. corporatism and expansionism.  Which is, I'll say it again, FASCISM.

[213374U]

6 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Huawei has no leverage. What are they going to do, turn off the infrastructure? Refuse to upgrade it? Perhaps they could cut out the intermediate steps and just abolish their international arm and gift its business wholesale to Cisco/ Samsung etc etc. The US would love that.

No, I don't think they'd shoot themselves in the foot like that. It'd be enough to simply build or upgrade an infrastructure that uses "New IP" for peanuts so no reasonable government would choose the competition, with assurances that an implementation of dual stack or whatever will guarantee compatibility with the wider net.

It's all speculative at this point of course, because there isn't an RFC as far as I'm aware, and some of the things I've seen reported are simply idiotic ("devices within the same network communicating without going through the internet"?). But I doubt they'd just work on something they know has no chance of ever being adopted outside of China -- if even that.

And I'm aware that NSA spyware-laden hardware is not a better alternative. %country% spyware on top of a network protocol with built-in censorship and surveillance features for freedom-loving democratic Western governments to exploit is something I'd much rather avoid.

[Zoraptor]

Trouble is, who would actually create a TCP/IP replacement that doesn't have control mechanisms built in?

Not China- but equally, not the US or any other western country. Indeed, if a western backed replacement like NDN got traction you can pretty much guarantee that every single security improvement touted by it would instantly get turned into an air quoted version by a plethora of backdoors built into the encryption, and no doubt there would be controls of pretty much the exact same type proposed by the Chinese added to the protocol itself by western powers wanting to defend against 'terrorist propaganda' 'external threats and bad actors' 'fake news' or anything else deleterious to the public spooks and politicians' good. Of course, they'd be used to 'protect' their own citizens, the diametric opposite of any Chinese proposal that would be used to oppress their citizens, by, er, doing exactly the same thing.

It would all be very good having an independent group of scientists, computer experts or whoever come up with a country/ ideology agnostic, secure, and genuinely control free new protocol that also fixes the flaws of TCP/IP, but to get adopted it would have to be backed by the same sort of people who are currently desperately trying to destroy any and all encryption they don't control.

The Chinese would also definitely work on network type stuff intended or potentially only for use in China. They're spending billions upon billions removing their dependencies on compromised western tech- fabs and CPUs to avoid the NSA backdoors of IME/ PSP (Zhaoxin), creating a SWIFT alternative, creating an Android alternative etc etc.

[Skarpen]

In the middle of the pandemic in which EUrokolkhoz failed to act leaving the individual states to fend for themselves they have the time for this crap:
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/world/europe/european-court-refugees-hungary-poland-czech-republic.html

[Guard Dog]

On 4/1/2020 at 5:02 AM, Gromnir said:

am thinking after +3 years in the wh, the realization trump behaviours and statements is still resulting in shock and dismay is the real surprise. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Heck sometimes when I see him standing at the podium behind the great seal and still think "Wow, Donald Trump is the President of the United States. How the HELL did that happen???"

[Hurlshort]

It is clear Trump has lost the Mandate of Heaven.

[Elerond]

2 hours ago, Skarpen said:

In the middle of the pandemic in which EUrokolkhoz failed to act leaving the individual states to fend for themselves they have the time for this crap:
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/world/europe/european-court-refugees-hungary-poland-czech-republic.html

Case show why EU can't help in member states during crisis, as minor help for country suffering crisis needs 5 years fight in courts and even after highest EU court rules against them, said member states proclaim that they will not offer help they have agreed (noted that agreement was given under political pressure) to give, even when there is already another crisis ongoing 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Elerond

[Maedhros]

https://www.businessinsider.com/sen-loeffler-dumped-more-retail-stock-in-new-disclosures-coronavirus-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

Is this not insider trading? Why do I have a feeling nothing's gonna happen here?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

23 minutes ago, Maedhros said:

https://www.businessinsider.com/sen-loeffler-dumped-more-retail-stock-in-new-disclosures-coronavirus-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

Is this not insider trading? Why do I have a feeling nothing's gonna happen here?

I would have a hard time believing someone married to the chairman of the Intercontinental Exchange wouldn't be insider trading in general, the fact that she is a senator who received briefing(s) about Covid-19 well before it was considered a nationwide crisis and invested in things like telecommunications and medical supplies makes it undeniable that she was insider trading. Anything less than absolute misery for the rest of her life is too kind, but at most her and hubby will get a slap on the rest or a stay in club fed.

[Elerond]

Boy wonder's answer gives me new understanding why GD doesn't like federal government