Posted on 09/24/2016 9:40:29 AM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March
Please brace for just one thick sentence:
ICANN's power is mainly legal, and a contract with ICANN could trigger a violent dispute over international law.
~ ~ ~
Bluntly stated: giving away ICANN could ultimately trigger a cyber war or worse.
~ ~ ~
Raw Power and International Law
When you face a super power like the USA it helps to have raw power. China probably assumes it will not come to that, but just like nuclear deterence, they need the war-making capability.
And the Chinese already enjoy raw power. Their encryption is superior, their nuclear capability suffices, and they are now experienced at cyber warfare.
Compare that to the US -- NSA recently got hacked. That was supposed to be the best encrypted, best protected agency in our nation. Imagine if all of our satellites got simultaneously hacked. We would be blind and appear weak in the eyes of the world.
International Law
The reason China is building a compound to welcome ICANN is international legitimacy. Other tyrants seeking to censor online speech can seek a shiny new contract with Obama's Free Range ICANN.
Bluntly stated: ICANN helps China build a large alliance to alienate the USA if it comes to a full-scale 'cyber-war'.
~~~
China's Cyber-Skirmishes, Probing with Bayonets
It's been widely reported that China is already waging a cyber-war. But in my opinion those are just skirmishes, raids to test their capability and possibly pick up more tech, intel to blackmail, etc.
~~~
Superior Chinese Encryption
China developed something revolutionary.
Back in 2014, the UK Telegraph reported that China developed 'quantum encryption'. It's a pioneering concept said to be impenetrable to hackers.
Here's a more recent headline:
Aug 20, 2016:
China's Latest Leap Forward Isn't Just Great—It's Quantum - WSJ
by The Verge:
China’s quantum network could soon span two continents, thanks to a satellite launched earlier today ... the Quantum Science Satellite is designed to distribute quantum-encrypted keys between relay stations in China and Europe. When working as planned, the result could enable unprecedented levels of security between parties on different continents. [snip]
That was written in August 15 -- mid-August of this year, the same time that Strickling boasted of his criminal transition plan of ICANN.
But actually, here's a March 2016 report ...
[Be advised -- the article is difficult to wrap your brain around.]
China's Quantum Satellite Could Change Cryptography Forever
-- by Jeffrey Lin, P.W. Singer, and John Costello [at popsci.com]
[snippets]
... China is poised to launch a project that may provide the path to an uncrackable communications system, by turning messages quantum and taking them into space. The new Quantum Space Satellite (QUESS) program is no mere science experiment. China is already becoming a world leader in quantum communications technology ... a strategic asset for Chinese power worldwide.
[snip]
Quantum entanglement is the act of fusing two or more particles into complementary “quantum states.” In such states, no particle can be independently described, instead the particles exist in a hazy shared quantum state that “collapses” when observed. Quantum encryption thus takes advantage of this feature, using it to detect would-be eavesdroppers, whose presence causes quantum states to collapse and reveal their spying to legitimate parties. Additionally, the complexity of quantum mechanics makes it virtually impossible to reverse engineer the quantum key generated through quantum entanglement.
[snip]
[link to be provided in followup post]
...
I am left to believe that it's unlikely that the USA currently stands a chance against China in a cyber-war until we work out better encryption ourselves, and we would have to develop it WHILE sustaining cyber-bombardment. We would need our developers to get off the internet completely, and that would slow down their progress.
The only reason why China doesn't dominate the internet yet is probably because they want us to keep importing their goods.
But it runs deeper than that. What about satellites?
Satellites are critical to dominance of today's internet.
Back in March 16 Bill Gertz wrote:
~
China, Russia Planning Space Attacks on U.S. Satellites
China and Russia are preparing to attack and disrupt critical U.S. military and intelligence satellites in a future conflict with crippling space missile, maneuvering satellite, and laser attacks, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday. [snip]
[The the primary concern in the article was a direct military threat ...]
U.S. Global Positioning System satellites remain vulnerable to attack or jamming.
[snip]
~
So yes, our targeting systems would be blinded. That in itself would would be decisive in cyber-warfare.
But destruction of GPS satellites is also a 'raw force' threat to our communications satellites as well. While our GPS is blinded, they can pick off our com-sats one-by-one. No more cell phones, no more wireless internet -- just landlines. We would be back in the '70s while China becomes the world's hub of online communications.
I doubt that China wants to destroy our economy let alone 'nuke' our cities. However, they would love to prove their super power status and be viewed as the world's new technological leader. And if they can't beat us via encryption, they can wipe out our communications satellites directly, one at a time, until we kowtow to their 'reasonable' demands.
In fact, it might be prudent to ask President Obama if it is already too late to oppose China's dominance. Behind closed doors he might be feeling 'blackmail pressure' to hand over ICANN to them as a gesture of surrender.
~~~
Brain Drain to China Quite Possible
If the US loses prestige regarding ICANN, it is possible that talent will 'drain' into China rather than the US. We currently draw in so much talent from the world that some of us feel contempt toward 'foreign geeks', but mark my words -- we benefited greatly from the 'foreign geeks' who fled from Nazi Germany into the US. And our weakness [loss of prestige] could cause us to lose that edge.
Even US college grads could feel enticed by job offers in China.
In such a climate, how could we ever hope to improve our encryption and win a prolonged cyber-war?
~~~
We should Not Trust Obama -- specifically why
The most glaring reason to not trust Obama is that his administration refuses to even contemplate the dangers in public.
Instead, they attempted two brazen stabs at spin:
1. Deregulation
The Obama administration claims that he is 'deregulating' the internet with a 'Free Range ICANN'.
First off, ICANN is assisting China in suppression of free speech. That's a good indicator of what a 'Free Range ICANN' looks like.
Secondly, the internet is the USA's most deregulated industry, and that all foreign governments want to do is increase its regulation.
A man who ought to know something about how foreign governments tick is John Bolton: “But the fact is, under American control, it’s had remarkable growth. It’s been kept free. It’s been able to withstand a lot of pressure to try and set rules that favor one side or another. And in an international environment, I can tell you from my own experience, when you get all kinds of governments from all over the world setting standards and making decisions, it will be far less free than it is now ... "
Bolton called the Internet handover “a mistake of such colossal proportions that you would have thought we’d have a huge debate about it in this country.”
2. A 'Gift to Russia'
The Obama administration also claims that renewing the contract would be a 'gift to Russia'.
First off, I'm not yet aware of Russia building any facilities for ICANN's relocation. China is.
Secondly, many in Obama's adminstration are or were close to the Clinton family. And it is well-documented that the Clinton administration sold US technology to China in exchange for illegal campaign funding. That includes satellite technology and encryption technology as well -- a corrupt gift from the Clintons.
[More on how Bill Clinton paved the way for this coming up in a followup post.]
Thirdly, Obama and Hillary Clinton dropped the ball on encryption. Why?
Fourthly, Obama has been begging China to buy bonds throughout his administration. He is beholden to them and thus this administration should recuse itself from this debate for that reason alone.
~~~
Conclusion:
Military intel is nothing like modern media. Your enemy doesn't 'spell out' his plans -- he simply attacks. And surprise preemption has been the trend in the history of modern warfare. So you don't have the luxury of being certain about 'friend or foe' until it is too late.
Renewing ICANN's IANA functions contract may help unravel China's apparent designs. While that could make us appear to be 'control freaks' in the world's eyes, we need a competent Executive Branch to navigate this clear and present danger.
More importantly, trusting the Clintons with our military and communications technology another time around would only make the problem worse. They gave massive amounts of it away before and would most likely do it again.
I'm putting libertarians on notice -- if you have any love for internet freedom of speech and online intellectual property rights, your choice is clear: Hillary Clinton must lose this election unless you think that high-tech drone development will fail to suppress China's people even more than they already are. The helplessness of China's people is getting worse every year. The government's technology outstrips human iniative.
It's true that ICANN could fracture. It's true that China's cyber-war might escalate regardless. But we are talking about the USA's Number 1 exporter. China might prefer a seamless transition -- a clean contract with the official ICANN organization.
We might owe China a lot of bond debt, but we do not owe them our nation's soul.
I’m thinking that a brief summary might help for those who lack the time to read it all. Kind of hate to do that in a way. Would rather lay it out the way it is.
What do you think?
Thanks for this sobering post.
'Free Range ICANN' = DEATH TO AMERICA
It is always possible to have say a Microsoft-based or Google-based Internet name search.
The browser writers have the ultimate say when it comes to Internet addresses.
In fact this could be automated.
www.famousname.com could ask for a Microsoft-based address, a propose a new page and provide an email address.
Microsoft would check to see if the page isn’t there, then send famousname an e-mail telling it to create the page.
famousname would create the page and tell Microsoft to verify it.
Microsoft would then verify the new page and activate the www.famousname.com link.
They know, that is, China knows Mr. Trump has done a lot of business deal with folks from that country.
Why have to jump through hoops?
Having a browser-based name lookup capability would end the annual need to pay for a name.
Simple. China and Russia have proven ability to break into America’s most secure data and internet control systems and if motivated, they could disrupt our mi!litary and economy. As to encryption, America really does not seem to care about spending capital or tax money to defeat cyber warfare.
You have provided a lot of information, but that information is necessary to get the bigger picture. I am amazed at how effectively you have taken that information and condensed it down to the size you have.
Perhaps breaking that down into smaller segments, and calling them Part 1, Part 2, etc. might get more people involvedt. Do this by taking the five most extreme arguments that anyone could read in a few short minutes, to draw them in. With links to more? They would also have to be the ones most easily understood, or put into terms that make them easily understood, so that it would hit home to the largest possible crowd, and quickly. Instead of using the term quantum encryption, speak in general terms that most can understand, just encryption as an example.
But all-in-all I found what you did to be a remarkable job of research and presentation. In fact I think that it should be sent to news outlets to get wide exposure.
BTW, I have sent out emails to people I know directing them to your post.
It’s easy to think of the current system as perpetual, but it’s not.
First off, there are technical ways to neuter our wireless communications or possibly hijack them if they can pierce our encryption.
Secondly, ICANN has legal authority.
Easy To Explain — WHY ICANN is dangerous
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3472522/posts
This is the quick way to explain why ICANN is so dangerous.
They essentially ‘govern’ the TLDs [top level domains].
Each TLD [such as .com or .org] runs its own ‘phone directory’.
And ICANN controls them through ‘Registry Operator Code of Conduct’.
Right now ICANN is subject to US law, mainly because its headquarters are in the US. But if ICANN’s contract isn’t renewed, it’s free to move overseas [which it secretly plans to] and modify its ‘Registry Operator Code of Conduct’ for each dot-com or dot-org or ...
... theoretically even our military websites.
From October on through to a republican president, there’s no telling how much the White House will coordinate with ICANN in the name of ‘no controlling legal authority’.
[In other words — Hillary will have her gatekeeper if she wins, and Obama might too for a few months.]
... Everyone ...
Please note Robert DeLong’s advice in post 29.
Whatever ‘grabs’ you — what tugs at you the most — please make a vanity. A few lines in your own words maybe, and then in your followup post [post 2] it’s easy to copy-paste the address to here:
China’s Conquest of Internet, ICANN + Quantum Encryption
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3473008/posts
It also helps to copy-paste this, the key word search for ‘ICANN’ ... key word addresses keep updating in real time:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/icann/index
... Everyone ...
Also, please feel free to copy-paste any of my ICANN / internet giveaway research.
God bless all of you for taking the time to read, ponder, and take action.
FRegards ....
I can only hope Arthur has a ping list on this subject and will add me to it ....:o)
Have you on the ping list, and God bless you.
Ditto.
Palmer keeps making me reach.
Transfering a post to here [part of which involves the NSA hack]
Palmer:
Everybody has access to the same encryption algorithms. If we did not, then we would have security by obscurity which always fails eventually. What China could conceivably do is crack our encryption keys using quantum computing. AFAIK that hasn’t been done yet, but I’m sure they and the NSA are working on it. Also, as you mentioned, they could protect their own comms using quantum encoding of some sort. I don’t know that works at line speeds yet. It works in the lab but AFAIK only at low speeds.
[unquote]
Quantum Encryption [one of Chinas advantages in a cyber-war]
Quantum entanglement is the act of fusing two or more particles into complementary “quantum states.” In such states, no particle can be independently described, instead the particles exist in a hazy shared quantum state that “collapses” when observed. Quantum encryption thus takes advantage of this feature, using it to detect would-be eavesdroppers, whose presence causes quantum states to collapse and reveal their spying to legitimate parties. Additionally, the complexity of quantum mechanics makes it virtually impossible to reverse engineer the quantum key generated through quantum entanglement.
People almost never pay attention to the ‘brain drain’.
If China becomes the hub of the internet and thereby damage our prestige in the tech community, that’s a game changer.
You may recall the ‘brain drain’ that occurred in WWII when some of the most brilliant innovators and scientists fled from the Nazis to the US. That has continued to this day. But China is in position to alter that drastically and become the new capital of cutting edge talent.
During a prolonged cyber-war you need all of the top tech guys possible and ‘drain’ them from your rival.
Would this not be a fantastic question for the debates? Doubtful that a moderator wants to ask Ms Clinton. Her own behavior suggests she knows hacking exists, but no one around her, including her, seems to think clearly about cyber security—a reason to vote for Trump if there was no other. It’s rather hard to believe there aren’t better encrytion experts workng at NSA. Maybe Code Toad can speak to this?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.