Beyond Mathematical Odds VI - The Shadow War
The human factor
This post belongs to a series, that I advise you to read it. Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V are as important as this one.
This will be another complex one, and I will attempt to demonstrate that you have been living in a shadow war, and had 0 clues about it.
This is a story from a few days ago.
Germany warns against ban on energy imports from Russia
Germany is currently still dependent on Russian fossil fuels, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Thursday.
"We need these energy supplies to maintain the price stability and energy security in Germany," Habeck added.
A shortage in supply could threaten social cohesion in Germany, he warned.
Any decision to stop Russian energy imports would hit next winter's supplies-Engie CEO
Engie chief executive Catherine MacGregor said on Monday that any decision to stop Russian energy imports in retaliation for Russia's invasion of Ukraine would impact the energy supplies of France and Europe next winter.
Now some people responsible for energy are saying the quiet part loud, there are some naive individuals going around stating the EU can cut its needs for Russian energy up to 80%. That is mathematically, engineeringly, everything-ly impossible.
There is a lack, not only of material, but trained workers and everything in between, and if you go back and read some of my “energy themed” posts, you will see France chose to turn off its reactors and do maintenance that takes weeks on the important ones that were left.
With war, without war, Europe is in for a very steep and hard fall.
Russia's Yamal-Europe westbound gas pipeline flows stopped on Friday
Westbound natural gas flows through the Yamal-Europe pipeline stopped on Friday while Gazprom's bids for additional transit capacity via Ukraine stand at high levels, data from pipeline operators shows.
The cascade effect of such a move is massive. You can read how fast and broad the impact of this was in this Twitter post, and read all the comments. Between the start of this post (I refuse and will never call any of these essays like some nice Twitter person called it lol), PMs, German politicians and the market itself responded to this.
And the response couldn’t be any different, nickel, aluminum, and tin went to historic highs today, and so did wheat, and this last one will not stop going high any time soon. Also, worth not, the mere parabolic price increase (squeeze) of said commodities already had a cascade effect.
Market conditions are so non-linear and chaotic, this happened.
Even if this war was to stop right now, the system, non-linear cascade effects of this event will ripple throughout the year. We have now passed the point of cataloging and enumerating tipping points. We are well into contagion, and events will feed on itself to create a larger and larger impact on the system structure.
Xi Says China Can’t Rely on World Markets for Food Security
China can’t rely on international markets to ensure food security, President Xi Jinping told a political meeting, the state radio broadcaster reported on Sunday.
China should focus on its domestic food markets, while making sure it has an appropriate level of import capacity, Xi said during a meeting attended by members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Drought Coverage Now Rivals 2012, Wheat Belt and Cattle Country Conditions Continue to Crumble
Drought covering the continental U.S. grew by 2 points this week, now covering nearly 60% of the country. As drought continues to grow, it’s now rivaling the 2012 drought, when drought coverage peaked at 65.5% of the U.S in September 2012.
“By far the Wheat Belt is the biggest concern,” says Rippey. If you look at crop conditions in areas where the crops starting to actively grow. It's absolutely terrible.”
As drought has gripped much of the West all year, the streak is historic. Rippey says drought has now covered more than 40% of the country for 75 weeks. That beast the previous record set from June 19, 2012 through October 1, 2013 of 68 weeks by a long shot.
The latest season drought outlook doesn’t paint much hope for those areas, either. As it shows drought persisting, or even intensifying through the end of May. Rippey says La Nina is lending no favors to areas seeing the stubbornness of drought.
I have not only warned, but also forecasted, and covered drought in this post. As I mentioned on my Twitter, I have been listening to an audiobook about The Year Without Summer, in which I wrote a post about its second coming, and even under different circumstances, we are repeating it, play by play.
Back in TYWS, 2 years before, there were odds of weather shifts, and production of grains was affected, and the years after, there was literal famine, the price of grain rose exponentially, and there was very little supply.
Now the Wheat Belt of the United States finds itself under a severe drought, while there is a big fertilizer and nutrient shortage, and given the current sanctions by the US government aimed at Russia, you can expect an even greater shortage. Grain production throughout the year will be unreliable, with unexpectedly lower yields where you expect higher ones.
The current conflict in Ukraine will impact the Spring season, and they will either miss or severely impact its numbers.
We still need more data, and to watch very closely the volcanic activity pattern, it doesn’t need to be a massive eruption to cause a big enough weather shift. Consistent releasing SO2 into the atmosphere for 2-3 years will have a similar effect on global climate (cooling it down). Empires fall under these circumstances.
The major concern from a threat analysis perspective is, not will, the massive migration that will take place during the next 18 months because of the events set in motion in the last 10 days. The Middle East already has a precarious food security situation, and now they will experience mass starvation, and localized famine, which will lead to the breakdown of civil order, civil unrest, and mass exodus. Nothing new, as I have covered this before.
China has one of the world’s biggest housing markets on the planet, and most of the big players in the West are invested in its market. Keeping an eye on this specific signal could lead to an advantage, and the reader could leverage it. A global real estate correction is long overdue, not only China's fake economy will take a massive hit, but other overinflated markets too (US, Canada, Australia). China has one of the world’s biggest housing markets on the planet, and most of the big players in the West are invested in its market. Keeping an eye on this specific signal could lead to an advantage, and the reader could leverage it. A global real estate correction is long overdue, not only China's fake economy will take a massive hit, but other overinflated markets too (US, Canada, Australia).
China commercial paper delinquencies double in Feb amid property crisis
The number of Chinese companies "consistently overdue" on commercial paper payments more than doubled in February from a month earlier as the Chinese property sector continued to struggle with a liquidity crisis.
China has one of the world’s biggest housing markets on the planet, and most of the big players in the West are invested in its market. Keeping an eye on this specific signal could lead to an advantage, and the reader could leverage it. A global real estate correction is long overdue, not only China's fake economy will take a massive hit, but other overinflated markets too (US, Canada, Australia).
Russian invasion propels price of ship fuel to historic high
The price of ship fuel was flirting with a new record even before Russia invaded Ukraine. Then war broke out, and the highs of the past were left far behind. Ship fuel costs have “gone parabolic,” said Braemar ACM Shipbroking.
To the extent the fuel cost increase is passed along to the shippers of containerized goods and bulk commodities such as oil and grain, it will add to inflation. To the extent it’s not passed on, it will lower shipping’s bottom line.
I have read just a few experts that didn’t expect shipping costs to go down this year, even if things worked out, Omicron itself disrupted workers globally, and ports in China, to the extent it creates a second-order effect that would ripple throughout the year.
Now in a sanction war with Russia, everything in regard to maritime shipping (and air freight too) gets disrupted, and prices of any type of fuel go up parabolic too. This will add to inflation, and everything else, but that isn’t the only problem, some already expect a cost of 30.000 USD per container.
Russia's invasion has heavily impacted cargo ships that traverse the Black Sea — a key route for oil and bulk food exports. Since Thursday, several ships have been fired upon or detained.
The flow of goods, the export of commodities, grain, and gas (chip manufacturing) already affect, which cascades into more than just second-order effects, this will tip the system into more pressure, more failing points, and more “contagion” when tipping points are reached.
This was the price of gas today in Europe.
And the Russian government spent most of the day sending alarm signals.
African swine fever outbreak in Poland found to likely influence forest dynamics for many years
A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in Poland has found that an outbreak of African swine fever seven years ago could influence forest dynamics in a given area for many years to come. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes their years-long study of oak trees and the acorns they produced in the Białowieża primeval forest.
The researchers note that approximately 90% of the boars living in the area where they were counting acorns died during the 2015 outbreak. And that led to approximately twice as many acorns establishing themselves in the ground. Such high numbers suggest that in the coming years many new trees will be growing in the areas where the boars died, which in turn suggests that the 2015 outbreak represents a significant influence on forest dynamics.
Any person who has an interest in cascade dynamics, complex systems, and complexity, should reserve a few hours every other weekend to read the said paper when it comes to ecology, it can and will lead you to great insights.
This one is pertinent to our issues, of course, the current pandemic of African Swine Fever has now multiple wild reservoirs, and it will impact and create massive ecological, systemic changes for years to come. Which leads us to this.
African swine fever is a growing concern
New cases of ASF continue to be reported throughout Europe and further afield, though thankfully the UK continues to be free of the disease. In the last 12 months, cases in domestic pigs in Europe have been reported in Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and the Ukraine. Cases in wild boar have been reported in Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, the Ukraine and, most recently and most concerningly, mainland Italy.
While ASF has been found on the island of Sardinia since the late 1970s, it has not been found in mainland Italy since 1993. The case was found in Piedmont, in the north-west, and is nearly 800 km away from the nearest confirmed case in domestic pigs in Germany and nearly 1000 km from the nearest case in wild boar in Hungary and Slovakia. This represents an enormous geographical jump, with human-mediated spread considered the most likely source.
I want you to click on this post and read all images. After I started tracking down the ASF, which was merely an epidemic, I kept getting signals that, even inside China, with a very severe governmental crackdown, a human hand, for grid or whatever another purpose, was helping the spread of the disease.
Any malicious actor, state or non-state, could exploit this to further multiple agendas, disrupt state, national, and global protein security, and set off powder kegs, kegs fueled by grain shortages.
I will insist on two of my previous point, the ASF didn’t become a global problem without some sort of human intervention, and governmental stupidity and overfocus on SARS-CoV-2 led us to this imminent disaster.
Another threat to food security is the current mismanaged, yet predictable locust plague in many parts of Africa.
Locust plague might lead to financial distress and job losses
The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) should have anticipated the locust outbreak in parts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape as previous outbreaks had been reported in parts of East Africa and other parts of Southern Africa. DALRRD failed dismally to recognise the warnings, engaging neighbouring states within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and put plans to mitigate the locust outbreak.
2020 had a Locust plague of literally biblical proportions.
And now we come to the real issues I wanted to discuss. While everything in this thread has massive, global repercussions, the following analysis will attempt to demonstrate, not only how precarious the West situation is, but China is the biggest winner in the last 2 years. After the nVidia hack, we are faced with this.
Samsung Gets Hacked by Same Group That Compromised NVIDIA’s Data, 190GB Worth of Info Allegedly Stolen
Samsung has reportedly been struck by a massive cyberattack initiated by the group Lapsus$, who claims that they have gotten hold of 190GB worth of valuable data. This is the same group of hackers who earlier stole 1TB worth of data from NVIDIA, which included leaked DLSS code.
The biggest problem with these types of attacks is that you learn when hackers announce it, or try to sell the data, or too late. Samsung is a critical company for national security, not only in South Korea, but it has a massive market in the Third World, which you can exploit as a hybrid warfare tool.
The nVidia attack was not only impressive but quite bad. Quote from here.
The problems arising from the recent hack of graphics card maker Nvidia continue. According to the Bleeping Computer news site, threat actors are using stolen Nvidia code signing certificates to sign malware they try to install on victims’ computers. These are things like backdoors, the Cobalt Strike communications tool and the Mimikatz credentials stealing tool. With these certificates, Windows would allow these tools to load. The certificates have expired, but Windows still recognizes them. Windows administrators need to configure systems to deny these certificates until Microsoft prevents them from loading.
Hackers Targeted U.S. LNG Producers in Run-Up to Ukraine War
21 companies affected by two-week blitz in February, firm says
More than 100 workers hacked as tensions roiled energy markets
In mid-February, hackers gained access to computers belonging to current and former employees at nearly two dozen major natural gas suppliers and exporters, including Chevron Corp., Cheniere Energy Inc. and Kinder Morgan Inc., according to research shared exclusively with Bloomberg News.
The attacks targeted companies involved with the production of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and they were the first stage in an effort to infiltrate an increasingly critical sector of the energy industry, according to Gene Yoo, chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based Resecurity Inc., which discovered the operation. They occurred on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when energy markets were already roiled by tight supplies.
Something that isn’t known, since early in February, an oil company in Germany was also hit by a cyber attack. There is an active shadow war going on, and it is ramping up to 11, and nobody is the wiser, and the potential for loss of life is massive, bigger than the actual conflict and the total deaths from the pandemic.
Hapag-Lloyd flags spear phishing attack
German liner Hapag-Lloyd has notified the market that the company is possibly the target of a spear phishing attack after its IT security team found a copy of its website.
“This means that e-mails are used to redirect users to this site and when they log in with their personal access data, which are then tapped by criminals. This kind of fake websites are usually a one-to-one copy of the real pages and can therefore usually only be recognised as malicious pages via the domain or Internet address,” Hamburg-based carrier said in a statement.
All of the world’s top liners – MSC, Maersk, Cosco and CMA CGM – have suffered hacks in recent years, leading to massive losses. Shipping has been warned to be on high alert for cyber attacks in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Humans and human stupidity are still one of the biggest failure points in any system, and I know what some tech-savvy, cyber security reader might say. That you could build new systems and tools to better protect your system. Well, your system has been owned already, and China is ahead of the rest of the planet.
How China built a one-of-a-kind cyber-espionage behemoth to last
A decade-long quest to become a cyber superpower is paying off for China.
The “most advanced piece of malware” that China-linked hackers have ever been known to use was revealed today. Dubbed Daxin, the stealthy back door was used in espionage operations against governments around the world for a decade before it was caught.
But the newly discovered malware is no one-off. It’s yet another sign that a decade-long quest to become a cyber superpower is paying off for China. While Beijing’s hackers were once known for simple smash-and-grab operations, the country is now among the best in the world thanks to a strategy of tightened control, big spending, and an infrastructure for feeding hacking tools to the government that is unlike anything else in the world.
This change has been going on for years, driven right from the very top. Soon after he ascended to power, President Xi Jinping began a reorganization of China’s military and intelligence agency, which prioritized cyberwarfare and initiated a “fusion” of military and civilian organizations geared toward boosting the nation’s cyber capabilities
Powerful tools
Daxin is just the latest powerful tool linked to China over the past year. It works by hijacking legitimate connections to hide its communications in normal network traffic. The result provides stealth and, on highly secure networks where direct internet connectivity is impossible, allows hackers to communicate across infected computers. The researchers who discovered it, from the cybersecurity firm Symantec, compare it to advanced malware they’ve seen that’s been linked to Western intelligence operations. It’s been in use at least as recently as November 2021.
And in February of last year, a massive hacking spree against Microsoft Exchange servers by multiple Chinese groups, beginning with zero-day exploits known as ProxyLogon vulnerabilities, showcased Beijing’s ability to coordinate an offensive so large in scale it seemed chaotic and reckless to outside observers. The onslaught effectively left a door wide open on tens of thousands of vulnerable email servers for any hacker to step through.
This piece from SecurityWeek goes into more technical detail about what this tool is capable of. The problem with these types of tools and cyber attacks is precise because you only know weeks or months after the fact. After the attackers have been already inside your system and done whatever they wanted to do.
While the entire planet is asleep, not paying attention, or paying attention to the wrong thing, China might make Taiwan obsolete to its own needs. You keep looking at the hand of the magician and miss the background. At face value, this clearly looks like a mere hack, or disruptive, hybrid attack, but when you stop to properly analyze what said the attack can entail, especially after reading all the other articles about Hybrid War and cyberattacks, a light might click on your head.
Chinese solar panel companies have been investing billions of dollars in the last few years to create massive factories that can *check notes, and produce semiconductors. China lacks some expertise, mainly the IP, which is heavily monopolized.
They have been laying the groundwork and thinking long term, regardless of how feasible “experts” think this strategy would be.
You can expect the number of cyberattacks to raise like this was the start of the Omicron wave.
I said this publicly on Twitter, but I will repeat it here to the reader. If you were planning to buy any sort of electronic device, either for work, or pleasure, I would do it RIGHT NOW. Don’t think about it, and don’t try to find reasons not to.
The number of disruptions and cascade effects from the last 10 days are, quite literally, beyond mathematical odds, we left the realm of what is logical. The price and supply of electronic devices will increase, and you have other things to worry about (food, fuel, electricity).
If you own or work for a company, you should read all the posts linked, and write down, on paper, the points that popped into your mind and hedge accordingly to the best of your ability, or financial reach. Big companies can weather some of this, but not all, and it will affect everything.
I would keep an extremely close eye on your suppliers, and go back to how many clients have been buying/using your services. Start trying to think ahead, using these posts as a start for a road map.
This post is long, and complex enough, as it is, especially if you go read all the other parts, and attempt to absorb the whole picture, on the next one I will touch on a shortage few are talking about, and it is more important than the lack of raw materials.
Silicon Wafer Giant GlobalWafers Resumes Production Days After Hack Attack
The Japanese subsidiary of GlobalWafers had to shut down production on Monday in the wake of a spate of cyberattacks. GlobalWafers Japan (GWJ) has since investigated (PDF, Japanese) the "illegal… unauthorized access" of its networks and the extent of any system corruption. From Thursday, it started to restore production capacity in sequence.
At face value, this clearly looks like a mere hack, or disruptive, hybrid attack, but when you stop to properly analyze what said the attack can entail, especially after reading all the other articles about Hybrid War and cyber attacks, a light might click on your head.
Chinese solar panel companies have been investing billions of dollars in the last few years to create massive factories that can *check notes produce semiconductors. China lacks some of the expertise, and mainly the IP, which is heavily monopolized.
This post is long, and complex enough, as it is, especially if you go read all the other parts, and attempt to absorb the whole picture, on the next one I will touch on a shortage few are talking about, and it is more important than the lack of raw materials.
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You are the scariest substack I read. Many thanks for your work.