A Pro-China Online Influence Campaign is Targeting the Rare-Earths Industry (technologyreview.com) 52
Disinformation operatives seek to undermine firms in the Western world as China fights to maintain near-monopoly power. From a report: An online influence campaign carried out by a group that promotes China's political interests is targeting Western companies that mine and process rare-earth elements, according to a new report from cybersecurity firm Mandiant. The campaign, which is playing out in Facebook groups and micro-targeted tweets, is trying to stoke environmentalist protests against the companies in the US. The operation is attributed to an online group code-named Dragonbridge, which has also been responsible for campaigns claiming that covid-19 originated in the United States. Its latest campaign has increased in intensity in recent weeks as part of a strategic battle between China and its Western adversaries over who controls the precious resources and their own destiny.
"We are headed to a future where the likelihood of tools like influence operations being used against key industries will only increase," says John Hultquist, Mandiant's head of intelligence. "As competition between the US and China changes, the nature of the competition may become more aggressive." It's also proof that influence campaigns are not easy: Dragonbridge has largely failed in its bid to draw negative attention to the Western companies. Shane Huntley, who directs Google's Threat Analysis Group and has tracked Dragonbridge since 2019, previously tweeted that his team has taken an "aggressive" approach against the influence operation but that "it really is amazing for all the effort put in how LITTLE engagement these channels get from real viewers."
"We are headed to a future where the likelihood of tools like influence operations being used against key industries will only increase," says John Hultquist, Mandiant's head of intelligence. "As competition between the US and China changes, the nature of the competition may become more aggressive." It's also proof that influence campaigns are not easy: Dragonbridge has largely failed in its bid to draw negative attention to the Western companies. Shane Huntley, who directs Google's Threat Analysis Group and has tracked Dragonbridge since 2019, previously tweeted that his team has taken an "aggressive" approach against the influence operation but that "it really is amazing for all the effort put in how LITTLE engagement these channels get from real viewers."
Re: Slashdot doing it's bit for US foreign policy (Score:1)
China is and will always be asshoe.
The roots of the movement (Score:5, Informative)
Most people tend to forget that roots of Green movements in much of the West are in KGB. Original goal was to block oil and gas extraction projects to drive prices for primary export products of Soviet Union. It then evolved into targeting alternatives for pretty much anything Soviet Union made, things like anti-nuclear protests in Germany in 1970s and 1980s for example, which lead to the increase of gas imports to supply energy to Germany.
Similar things were done with China. There are plenty of rare earths in Western nations. The problem is that separation process of most of them is so excessively toxic that it's all but impossible to make it reasonably efficient without allowing for some spoilage of the land around the refining facilities.
Which is why Chinese currently dominate that field.
It's worth remembering that this does NOT mean that current Green movements are under the thumb of foreign intelligence. Those were designed from ground up to be self sufficient movement to sabotage their host nations, so that intelligence agencies would not need to invest significant amounts into them after they're been successfully launched. Comparable movements by Western intelligence are things like modern islamism, which was specifically targeted at Soviet Union with it's ~15% muslim minority after it was successfully tested in Indonesia against communists there. This movement was built on the similar principle of "they will begin attacking structures of the host nation that we need destroyed once set up", becoming largely autonomous.
These movements also have a tendency of running away from their original purpose, with islamist movements coming back to bite Western intelligence agencies and nations as a whole after collapse of Soviet Union and Greens starting to demonstrate against oil and gas imports from Russia.
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That is the point. Same as if you look at how modern islamist movements work, they also sabotage their host countries in specific ways typical to them, preventing them from developing into more functional states.
This is one of the reasons why you will see environmentalists often distance themselves from Green movement. Because there's a difference between being pro environment as a whole, and being politically Green. Those are are in fact often directly at odds with one another about methods. It's just that
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lol. You are always off-base. What makes you think you're right about nuclear power?
Re:Seems to still be true (Score:5, Interesting)
Attempting to block or sabotage nuclear power for instance, is just one of the moves that obviously is designed more to hurt the shot nation than to help the environment.
I am certainly going to agree that played a part but the US nuclear industry really got hit with a unique knockout blow in the late 70's. The environmental movement certainly was there but nuclear was not as high on the list until Three Mile Island incident which was predated by the release of "The China Syndrome" [imdb.com] just 12 days before led to a marked increase in public outcry.
So now we have a populace suddenly given a literal horror movie scenario about nuclear power, a terrifying nuclear incident happening in America that was followed with a confusing government response, some pretty bad messaging from the NRC, revelations of corruption and greedy companies cutting corners and trying to cover things up and you have the recipe for a disaster.
It was after the fallout of all that, in which TMI turned out to be a combination of better protocols in America combined with also a bit of luck that things did not in fact go pretty south. It was after all that where nuclear plant plans started to hit the toilet as regulations now had to go over every plant out there and increase safety everywhere. This was all years before Chernobyl.
Now the end result of all that was in fact nuclear plants ended up safer and there has not been anything close to that level in the US but the damage was done. The environmental group had all the fear needed to push agendas, the public is panicky as they get mixed messaging and reports of corporate coverups and in the US a lot of leverage for proposed nuclear plans goes to States and municplaties so there's no avenue for the federal government to push through with plans like in other countries.
Anyone interested should check out the Netflix series "Meltdown" which has a lot of interviews from people working in the plant and the investigation. The industry in the US was challenged and it dropped the ball on all fronts and unfortunately it has not recovered.
I love nucelar power, I think its awesome but it's an uphill battle and I don't think we can keep talking about how great it is and expect all the pieces needed for it to fall together in the wake of that, not without big direct government intervention (my preferred path forward)
It's coming back (Score:1, Interesting)
The industry in the US was challenged and it dropped the ball on all fronts and unfortunately it has not recovered.
I think it's on the cusp of recovery, around the world a lot of countries right now are building new nuclear plants, and not shutting down existing ones they planned to - and that includes the U.S. And soon, Germany.
The thing that has happened is the inescapable math of what zero CO2 emission really means has finally reached politicians, and unless they want to be burning coal for a thousand y
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I hope so. I think France goes about it while not perfect is I think closer to how the US needs to approach it, it's gaining some traction again but I think there needs to be a fundamental change to how we approach it and a commited Federal push to really kickstart it. Like 50% of generation by 2050 style kickstart.
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The price of electricity in France is twice that of America. Even higher if you include all the government subsidies for nukes.
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And yet it's generally below the average in the rest of the EU and they are more insulated to price shocks from fossil fuels and they are not nearly as reliant on external sources and they are on a track to meet their own carbon goals and they have a internal baseload ready for electric vehicle deployments.
The gap in cost residentially looks to be around .05c per kWh between France and the USA average. We don't include all the subsidies for NG or coal in our US prices so that's a bit of a diversion.
If you
Yes, and? (Score:1)
The price of electricity in France is twice that of America.
So? Do you want more CO2 free power or not.
Solar/Wind only would be 8x.
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I take a much more cynical view on why nuclear power is in the state it is.
If it had delivered on it's promises of "too cheap to meter", it would be everywhere now, environmentalists, nimby's and government regulations notwithstanding. Hell, we are so greedy I suspect that would be true if they were all as unsafe as Chernobyl. Large dams are in are far less safe than nuclear. They can and have failed, when when they do they kill people by the 1000's. The failure of the Banqiao Reservoir Dam killed an est [wikipedia.org]
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We keep building dams because hydroelectric power is by far the most ideal power source we can harness. Even with dam collapses it is remarkably safe, extremely reliable, runs 24/7 and is easy to maintain and not subject to price shocks since it's fueless. Dams are also built for non-energy related reasons.
Nuclear power was probably never going to be too cheap to meter but there are countries that do it better and cheaper and the US doesn't for a variety of reasons. It's all related to the fact that all
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The fundamental problem with nuclear power is that it was a great idea to start with, but a bad idea the longer it goes on just for purely financial reasons. There was a high up front cost to set up, a low incremental cost to generate a lot of power, and a high decommissioning and waste disposal/storage cost. Give
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for example they were about to build a large desalination plant in California for a state that desperately needs more reliable water sources. Who blocked it? Environmentalists of course.
Environmentalists are not the only opponents of desalination. Economists, people that can do math, and people with basic common sense are also opposed.
Paying $1 per cubic meter for desalination is profoundly stupid when the government gives water away at $0.07 per cubic meter to farmers.
The solution to California's water problems is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
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It never ceases to amaze me just how hard it is to demonstrate to significant portion of the populace once they have been fooled that they have indeed been fooled, as compared to actually fooling them.
Unchecked ego is truly a horrific force.
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I already know that I will not be convincing any of the zealots who still believe in that conspiracy theory. This can be easily seen from how you rapidly retreated to the motte of "but they spent a tiny amount of resources that helped Trump's case against Clinton" from bailey of "potentially decisive support for Trump".
That tells me that both you have faced the overwhelming evidence to contrary to the former claim, and know that this position cannot be defended, but persist in trying to push it regardless.
Re: The roots of the movement (Score:3)
Who's then sponsoring the protests against mining in the western world?
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No. Europe (as in the EU and some small nearby countries - I don't dispute that Russia, having most of its population in Europe is dependent on Russia) isn't "dependent on Russia for their basic needs."
Basic needs are food, water, shelter, sex, clothing.
Russia is not a major supplier of any of these to Europe. With the exception of clothing, the EU is or is close to being self-sufficient in basic needs.
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You forgot energy. Having a heated shelter is a pretty basic need around here.
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The Green movement itself. It no longer needs (or even really gets) any political support from its founders. It's self sufficient.
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Almost any national movement will have some backers who are involved for selfish or nefarious reasons. To say the whole movement is corrupt just because some backers are slimebags is sloppy reasoning.
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But I'm making a point that is the exact opposite. That they've been founded by forces that are no longer backing them.
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Bottom line, just buy from China.
That is what China wants: to control the supply of rare earths which will give it political clout by rationing supply if the USA/others do not do as it wants.
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Whoosh. Also you should buy your energy from Russia. Much cheaper and high quality. That is what Europe does and we know Europeans are so much smarter than Americans.
I would have added the /sarcasm tag to that post.
And if I had Mod points I would bless you with a +1
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It worked well for the Europeans, they got cheap, high-quality resources from Russia for decades. Even now, it isn't much of a problem: Coal and oil from Russia are easy to replace by coal from Australia and oil from Saudi Arabia (and China is now buying from Russia instead of Australia and Saudi Arabia).
The Rare-Earths situation is different: China is trying to get a monopoly here. They subsidized their rare-Earths mining to push all other suppliers out of the market, which worked. But they do face a probl
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Mining is bad for USA. Why produce minerals there when we can just buy from China? Bottom line, just buy from China.
National security is the reason.
Rare earths are critical to many products and industries, including many defense products.
Never let your enemy control your air supply.
We need to stockpile, open our own mines, and/or buy from friendly nations.
The Mountain Pass Mine [wikipedia.org] in California has repeatedly opened and been shut down by environmental lawsuits. Congress needs to pass a law to put rare earth mines outside of state jurisdiction so only the EPA has the authority to regulate them.
No one even cares. (Score:1)
The article states that no one paid attention to the campaign. Yet, somehow these so called threats are supposed to be ALARMING!!!!
This is how all China's so called "influencing" campaigns have been. It was just bots talking to each other with no real people even paying attention.
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No. This happened for economic and technical reasons. From the 1960s, coal gas use was phased out in favor of natural gas, which had many advantages.
Europe bought Russian coal, gas and oil, because they were cheap. And for oil and coal, those imports have easily been replaced by imports from other countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Australia. With natural gas that is a bit harder, but Europe will manage that, too. Once Russia has lost the war, and sanctions are lifted, Europe can go back to buying the chea
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China was a non-starter until Nixon opened the doors to having them make all our trinkets, and so now they are a superpower. Thanks, Tricky Dicky! Today you'd pass for a hard-left moonbat!
you think that china is actually over-achieving, and if it werent for the voracious consumer appetite of the states, theyd still be in the 1800s? negro, please. 1 billion population, scientific achievement rivalling the west, and an economy hamstrung by communism... it would only be surprising if they DIDNT become the #1 economy.
All our current ills can be traced directly to the Civil Rights Act and the Immigration Reform Act. Do the homework. Connect the dots. It's true.
ohh... im talking to a moron
Don't take my word for it, do your own work.
"home" work
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Russia's GDP is less than a single Chinese province.
Don't forget the EU. If Ukraine really joins them, that is a major force. The EU might suffer from overregulation and bureaucracry, but it is still a strong economy. And the Ukraine might be able to contribute the extra land and heavy industries that the EU needs to become a superpower.
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While Russia was an important energy supplier to the EU, the situation is far from hopeless dependence. Before the war, about 30% of crude oil imports and 50% of coal imports came from Russia. But those are relatively easy to replace by other suppliers, such as Saudi Arabia and Australia. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/... [europa.eu]
Gas imports are harder to replace, but the EU will make it through the winter (depending on how harsh that winter will be, there might be a little damage to the economy, but even that will
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As someone living in Belgium, I do get the feeling that the overregulation and bureaucracy is really more in people's minds than in reality.
Doing business in the Eurozone is streamlined, there are standards.
Traveling in the Eurozone is easy, no need to buy and sell special valuta.
The rest of the bureaucracy that one is subjected to is really the one of the country one lives in.
I also have the, rather personal, impression that, having suffered the ravages of two big wars, the descendants of the survivors
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Doing business is sufficiently streamlined that it works okay for big companies.
But innovation often depends on small companies, and for those overregulation is a big problem. To give just two examples: WEEE and VAT.
WEEE is a total mess. Every supplier wanting to sell its electronic devices in a European country must register with local authorities for electronic waste disposal. It works differently in every country, often requiring a local representative. Basically, WEEE is EU regulation that created new b
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P.S.: I agree that a lot of the bureaucracy is indeed the fault of the individual countries. But it is still a problem for the EU as a whole. When I wrote "The EU might suffer from overregulation and bureaucracry" I was thinking of the overregulation and bureaucracy that exists in the EU,not just the overregulation and bureaucracy actually introduced by the EU as an organization.
haven't caught up with the Ukranian misinformation (Score:2)
yet.
So much fake news about the Ukraine in the Western media that it's hard to catch up with something new.