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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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I mean, why'd Chinese blow TSMC up ? By that point they'll have a better chip industry of their own, probably somewhat closer to state of the art than now but, but are unlikely to have caught up.

Americans would be due to massive loss of prestige probably unable to stop TSMC's non-US suppliers for working with it. And I don't think Chinese are the kind of die-hard scorched earth fanatics that they'd destroy TSMC rather than go on grinding out chips as before, with a new set of bosses.

Unless China takes over without a fight, TSMC seems certain to be damaged in the fighting.

Why?

I mean, Taiwan has a couple of weeks of fuel for its power plants. A naval blockade would be the simplest task. Taiwanese navy isn't up to deterring it, and it could be enforced purely by airpower if needed anyway.

I really don't see Taiwanese as doing a Japanese-style doomed last stand. Totally different culture, ethos and all that.

Taiwan is full of Chinese spies, US humint is rather dismal - e.g. CIA lost their entire network in China a few years back when they told them to use some stupid webpage and Chinese spooks figured it out.

So who'd do it? US cruise missile attack?

CIA lost their entire network in China a few years back when they told them to use some stupid webpage and Chinese spooks figured it out.

They actually figured this out? I was under the impression it was from Clinton's email server, I hadn't heard of any actual confirmation for this one.

Yeah, I read about it.

CIA was so clever they had some special secure web page agents could use to report. They were using this in the middle east, it was okay.

Someone decided people in China should also to this. Chinese roll up the entire network, probably dozens of dead-

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communications-system-helped-blow-cover-chinese-agents-intelligence/

It was considered one of the CIA’s worst failures in decades: Over a two-year period starting in late 2010, Chinese authorities systematically dismantled the agency’s network of agents across the country, executing dozens of suspected U.S. spies. But since then, a question has loomed over the entire debacle.

How were the Chinese able to roll up the network?

Now, nearly eight years later, it appears that the agency botched the communication system it used to interact with its sources, according to five current and former intelligence officials. The CIA had imported the system from its Middle East operations, where the online environment was considerably less hazardous, and apparently underestimated China’s ability to penetrate it.

They literally used the same few servers for thousands of these "very secret" websites, they had bloody activeX on there and also if I recall all the sites used the same CMS/general web page template. Also the servers were easily identifiable by their IP range if I remember correctly.

It was major boomer internet botching.

I think they were made using frontpage 2000.