Alt. Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20241007151423/https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/atandt-verizon-reportedly-hacked-to-target-us-govt-wiretapping-platform/

Multiple U.S. broadband providers, including Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies, have been breached by a Chinese hacking group tracked as Salt Typhoon, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It is unclear when the intrusion occurred, but WSJ cites people familiar with the matter, saying that “for months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data.”

According to the WSJ, the attack was discovered in recent weeks and is being investigated by the U.S. government and security experts in the private sector.

Salt Typhoon has been active since at least 2019 and is considered a sophisticated hacking group focusing on government entities and telecommunications companies typically in the Southeast Asia region.

Security researchers also found that the threat actor attacked hotels, engineering companies, and law firms in Brazil, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Canada, Israel, France, Guatemala, Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

The hackers usually obtain initial access to the target network by exploiting vulnerabilities, such as the ProxyLogon vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server (CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065).

In previous attacks attributed to Salt Typhoon/Ghost Emperor, the threat actor used a custom backdoor called SparrowDoor, customized versions of the Mimikatz tool for extracting authentication data, and a Windows kernel-mode rootkit Demodex.

Chinese APT hacking groups have been increasingly targeting U.S. and European networking devices and ISPs in cyberespionage attacks.

In August, cybersecurity researchers at Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs disclosed that the Chinese threat actors known as “Volt Typhoon” exploited a zero-day flaw in Versa Director to steal credentials and breach corporate networks. During these attacks, the threat actors breached multiple ISPs and MSPs in the U.S. and India, which is not believed to be related to the recent breaches.

In September, Black Lotus Labs and law enforcement disrupted a massive Chinese botnet named “Raptor Train” that compromised over 260,000 SOHO routers, IP cameras with malware. This botnet was used by the “Flax Typhoon” threat actors for DDoS attacks and as a proxy to launch stealthy attacks on other organizations.

While these attacks have been attributed to different Chinese hacking groups, they are believed to operate under the same umbrella, commonly sharing infrastructure and tools.

True, they always seem to be missing on the most important of times.

Well, the government forced the rail road unions to agree to the watered-down negotiations instead of their original demands due to the laws passed.

Instead of siding with the working class and forcing corporations to meet the Uninos demands, they help the corporations and once again betray the working class.

I agree though; in this case, they did nothing to help make it worse or better for the unions, but alleged pressure was added as always.

Again, Harris is not doing as well as before, Muslim support for Dr. Jill Stein and other groups is at an all-time high, and the support Trump is receiving from the working class is increasing, so intervening in a strike would lessen support of the Democrats even more than it already is at.

I don’t think we will agree on this, due to my views on the intentional systematic problems our society has:

The duopoly likes to play political theater; both act like they are for the working class, but in reality, policy helps the owner-class much more, while crumbs are offered to the working class to keep us quiet.

The settlement pushes the strike and any potential shortages past the November presidential election, eliminating a potential liability for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. It’s also a big plus for the Biden-Harris administration, which has billed itself as the most union-friendly in American history. Shortages could have driven up prices and reignited inflation.

Thursday’s deal came after administration officials met with foreign-owned shipping companies before dawn on Zoom, according to a person briefed on the day’s events who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. The White House wanted to increase pressure to settle, emphasizing the responsibility to reopen the ports to help with recovery from Hurricane Helene, the person said.^[1]

I disagree; I remember the rail road strikes, and I think the reason why they caved is due to being an election year; crushing another strike would end their projections for 2024.

They interfered previously, so no need to take politicians at their word when we know that they lie all the time, Democrats or Republicans.

All is well; some do not like to read, and that is okay.

paragraphs and paragraphs of text

They are quotes from an article updating us on the strike, which you mentioned… Thank you for mentioning their was an update!

It did, if you look at how they reacted to the railroad strike.

Good news at the end of the day!

Good that the backlash (due to breaking the railroad strike and being an election year) and viral news of the strike helped the government cave and allowed the working class unions to fight for their demands!

I don’t trust any governments or politicians; we must always be critical of those with power and influence.

Biden was forced to cave to their demands due to the backlash on breaking the railroad strike and this being an election year.

The working class must continue to unite against the owner class; a general strike would help force the government and the corporations to listen to working class struggles instead of the same old crumbs we reicve from the duopoly; many grassroots movements have arisen for this occasion!

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” ― Frederick Douglass

Dockworkers strike suspended, tentative agreement includes 62% pay raise over 6 years [Max Zahn, Meredith Deliso, and Soo Youn | October 3, 2024 | abcnews.go.com] https://abcnews.go.com/US/dockworkers-strike-suspended-sources/story?id=114445386

The tentative agreement would increase workers’ wages by 62% over the life of the 6-year contract, sources familiar confirm to ABC News.

This represents a significant increase from the shipping industry group’s offer of a 50% wage increase earlier this week. The union had been pushing for a 77% pay hike over six years.

The tentative agreement would bring the hourly wage for a top dockworker to $63 per hour at the end of the new contract, up from $39 per hour under the expired contract.

“I want to applaud the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance for coming together to reopen the East Coast and Gulf ports. Today’s tentative agreement on a record wage and an extension of the collective bargaining process represents critical progress towards a strong contract,” Preisdent Joe Biden said on the agreement.

Tens of thousands of U.S. dockworkers had walked off the job early Tuesday morning, clogging dozens of ports along the East and Gulf coasts.

Amid the strike, USMX said Wednesday it remained “committed to bargaining in good faith to address the ILA’s demands and USMX’s concerns.”

A prolonged work stoppage of several weeks or months could have rekindled inflation for some goods and triggered layoffs at manufacturers as raw materials dried up, experts said.

In 2002, a strike among workers at West Coast ports lasted 11 days before then-President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act and ended the standoff.

Thanks for the link and for letting us know!

Thanks for sharing with us, we are not alone!

Oh, @InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works seems to have found the likely cause.

I am on a well-known VPN, and the same thing happens once in a while.

On Destop and on the Lemmy apps (Jerboa, Infinity for Lemmy, etc.).

I am not sure if connection is lost while making post, but rarely it goes through.

I do double check before I redo the post again to try to make sure I don’t create a duplicate post.

On my end, it may be my connection to wifi or some setting on my system that losses connection.

Again, it happens once in a while, so I know when it does not go through and keeps loading to post, I will have to exit and start over to create a new post.

We must not let our government stop another major strike.

The working class must stay united against the owner class.

Biden signs bill to block U.S. railroad strike [David Shepardson and Nandita Bose | December 2, 2022 | https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/]

The U.S. Senate voted 80 to 15 on Thursday to impose a tentative contract deal reached in September on a dozen unions representing 115,000 workers, who could have gone on strike on Dec. 9. But the Senate failed to approve a measure that would have provided paid sick days to railroad workers.

Eight of 12 unions had ratified the deal. But some labor leaders have criticized Biden, a self-described friend of labor, for asking Congress to impose a contract that workers in four unions have rejected over its lack of paid sick leave

Railroads have slashed labor and other costs to bolster profits in recent years, and have been fiercely opposed to adding paid sick time that would require them to hire more staff.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien harshly criticized the Senate vote on sick leave. “Rail carriers make record profits. Rail workers get zero paid sick days. Is this OK? Paid sick leave is a basic human right. This system is failing,” O’Brien wrote on Twitter.

Without the legislation, rail workers could have gone out next week, but the impacts would be felt as soon as this weekend as railroads stopped accepting hazardous materials shipments and commuter railroads began canceling passenger service.

The contracts cover workers at carriers including Union Pacific (UNP.N), Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s (BRKa.N) BNSF, CSX (CSX.O), Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC.N), and Kansas City Southern.

Edit: added quotes below

In the first strike, all East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, in almost 50 years, dockworkers from Maine to Texas walked out on strike at midnight this morning. The International Longshoremen’s Association represents some 40,000 dockworkers at 36 ports who are demanding higher wages and guarantees that jobs won’t be automated.

AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, President Biden said he would not intervene to stop the strike, which will disrupt trade and potentially lead to high prices just weeks before the presidential election.

At the same time, the dockworkers, who have very dangerous jobs — they’re very physically rigorous jobs; they are highly paid, but their position is, “We’re entitled to that as compensation” — their wages have actually flatlined. They’ve stagnated compared to inflation. And so, they’re seeking what looks like a very substantial headline increase, you know, 70-plus percent, it’s been reported, though there’s a lot of — there’s not a lot of open discussion of these terms, over the next several years. And overnight, it seems like the port operators tried to bridge the distance with a package that they say would be about a 50% raise. The dockworkers say that’s not enough.

The rail system, by the way, has really been depleted by a version of just-in-time known as precision scheduled railroading, which is essentially a fancy way of saying, “Let’s fire lots of workers. Let’s stick the remaining workers with extra jobs.” They’ve diminished service. They’ve made trains longer than ever, so accidents tend to be much more dangerous. And it’s really about boosting returns for shareholders at the expense of the operational capacity of the rail system. So the idea that rail will pick up the burden is really dubious.

AMY GOODMAN: The president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Harold Daggett, endorsed Biden in the 2020 election, but, more recently, accused Biden of, quote, “not fighting for us.” Last November, Daggett said he had a productive meeting with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He spoke in a video released by the union last month.

AMY GOODMAN: A $4 billion bonus for the boss. That’s president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Harold Daggett. Peter Goodman, can you talk about what he said —

PETER GOODMAN: Sure. It’s a very strange dynamic, because, of course, traditionally, labor, key Democratic constituency. Biden is very reluctant to wade in and end this strike, because he faced a backlash when he used a different law to shut down the railroad strike two years ago without getting paid sick leave for traveling maintenance crews and other rail workers. So he’s very reluctant to be the guy who steps in, takes away the leverage for the union. I mean, this is a time of labor mobilization in this country. And, of course, we saw that the UAW did very well with a militant strike. The ILA is doing likewise.

Here’s the irony, though. So, you’ve got all these business groups that are lobbying the Biden administration to act, because, of course, the economy writ large is going to get hit by a long strike. Factories that are dependent upon imported components and parts are going to get hit. Retailers waiting for products to come in, often from Asia, will get hit. Consumers could face shortages, inflation. Here’s the one group that probably won’t get hit: the shipping carriers.

So, the one move for the union is, “Well, we’re going to monkeywrench the economy as a way to generate pressure for a settlement,” but that could actually be good for the people they’re trying to get greater leverage for. That could increase the pressure on the Biden administration, really reluctant, again, to intervene in a labor dispute, to put an end to this thing, because it will hit the real economy. And I don’t have to tell you that we’re only weeks away from a presidential election that could very well hinge on economic sentiments and unhappiness over inflation.

Coming up, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has broken his silence, addressing the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. We’ll play some of his comments. And then, it’s the last day of the presidency of Mexican President AMLO, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. We’ll talk about his legacy and also immigration. Stay with us.

That would require increasing government regulations on the major companies in the world; the owner-class would not allow that to happen; that would cut into their profits too much.

There is a reason lobbying is ‘legal’.

The Green New Deal was created by the Green Party, then watered down for a Democrat version.

The duopoly is bought by these corporations.

Every time I hear about Uyghurs, I get reminded of the good work independent journalists do.

Specifically this article, Max Blumenthal | April 30, 2021: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/30/xinjiang-forced-labor-china-uyghur/

The Grayzone: Independent news and investigative journalism on politics and empire.

The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

The additions to the entity list under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act marked the first time a China-based steel company or aspartame sweetener business had been targeted by U.S. law enforcement, DHS said.

The federal law that President Joe Biden signed at the end of 2021 followed allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing against members of the ethnic Uyghur group and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has rejected the claims as lies and has defended its practice and policy in Xinjiang as fighting terror and ensuring stability.

The new approach marked a shift in the U.S. trade relationship with China to increasingly take into account national security and human rights. Beijing has accused the U.S. of using human rights as a pretext to suppress China’s economic growth.

Since June 2022, the entity list has grown to 75 companies accused of using forced labor in Xinjiang or sourcing materials tied to that forced labor, Homeland Security said.

Iran has not received $100 billion in unfrozen assets under the Biden-Harris administration

Walz overstates the cost of insulin before cap

Vance links unaffordable housing to immigrants who have come into the country illegally

Walz wrongly claims Project 2025 creates pregnancy registry

Vance overstates immigration numbers

Vance distorts Minnesota abortion law

Vance on Trump and Jan. 6, 2021

There are many competitions that are open to people outside the US, so I would check others out if you are interested in rockets!

Here is another: https://www.soundingrocket.org/sa-cup-home.html | https://www.soundingrocket.org/2024-sa-cup.html

Teams that competed last year from outside the United States:

1. Mexico
2. Philippines
3. Canada
4. Thailand
5. United Kingdom
6. Turkey
7. Algeria
8. Brazil
9. India
10. Argentina
11. Romania
12. Germany
13. Australia
14. Spain
15. New Zealand
16. Poland

2024 Team List (Last updated 6-11-24 acb): [https://www.soundingrocket.org/uploads/9/0/6/4/9064598/published_team_list_061124.xlsx_-_for_output.pdf]

Join in on your school clubs and research projects, or start some with friends!

There are many great competitions where previous programming experience would come in handy.

One competition that takes place in the U.S.:

NASA Student Launch

It actually IS rocket science! Student Launch is a 9-month long challenge that tasks student teams from across the U.S. to design, build, test, and launch a high-powered rocket carrying a scientific or engineering payload. It is a hands-on, research-based, engineering activity and culminates each year with a final launch in Huntsville, Alabama home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The activity offers multiple challenges reaching a broad audience colleges and universities as well as middle and high school aged students across the nation.^[1]

Culminating Event Dates: April 30 – May 4, 2025

Culminating event location: Huntsville, AL

Eligibility: Open to U.S. Students

Grade Levels: Grades 6-12, College and University

Cross-post comment:

DeArrow is a paid (if you want) browser extension. You can purchase an unlimited-use license key for 1$.

However, if you cannot, or do not want to pay, you can click the button at the bottom to use DeArrow for free. No worries if you can’t or don’t want to pay :)

Post: https://lemmy.world/post/20151502

"You know what they want?

They want obedient workers.

Obedient workers.

People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough, to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs, with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it." – George Carlin

David Graeber’s book on bullshit jobs blew the myth of office productivity wide open several years ago. The elites have been promising us shorter work weeks for more than a century now. We have the technology to make it happen. As we speak, they’re bragging about their new AI minions.

Of course, that article even admits that onsite employees aren’t more productive. They just find different ways to “goof off,” like shopping online or scrolling their phones. The real ire seems to stem from envy, that remote workers are capable of meeting their responsibilities while also doing healthy things and taking care of themselves, like taking a walk in the middle of the day or (gasp) even a nap. Ironically, wellness articles have been telling bosses to let their employees take walks or naps in the middle of the day for almost 20 years.

Many news outlets finally came clean last year and reported that a big chunk of companies might simply be using office return mandates as an excuse to lay off employees and “restructure” their workforce.

Anywhere from 12 to 20 percent of office space remains vacant. It’s worse than the 2008 recession. If these landlords can’t find a way to make money off their corporate real estate soon, they’re going to start defaulting on their loans. The landlords will go bankrupt, and banks will wind up with giant office towers they can’t sell. More than $1 trillion will go poof.

According to a piece in the Harvard Business Review, the $1 trillion will come due between now and 2026. That explains why CEOs keep making these edicts, and newspapers keep trying to trash remote work. As the piece explains, “The damage could metastasize into a full-blown financial crisis if scores or even hundreds of small and midsize commercial banks fail simultaneously.”

The Federal Reserve’s misguided war on inflation has made everything even worse over the last couple of years. By raising interest rates, they’ve motivated more companies to ditch their office leases. Now commercial real estate is in a death spiral that could tank the economy (again).

Major cities have spent the last several decades catering to these corporate landlords. Now their entire downtowns rely on workers for commerce. We’re talking about all those restaurants and coffee shops that serve breakfast and lunch to white-collar workers, and all the bars where people used to go and complain about work before they spent an hour commuting home.

Once again, the elite have gotten themselves into big trouble. They want the rest of us to bail them out. If they don’t want our tax money, they want us to give up our freedom and autonomy. They want us to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of capitalism to protect their fortunes.

Submit or consume the consumed

The gags of dissonance echo as they preach

“‘A Visceral Retch’ is a song that fans of The Somatic Defilement will latch onto immediately. It was one of the first songs we had in the chamber to work with. This song came to light thanks mostly to [guitarist] Zach Householder. He showed us and we all immediately said, ‘yup, that’s it.’ Zach is notorious for very dark and horror-like vibes so this album is right in his wheelhouse. The song is disturbing. Imagine being put in a situation of survival by gluttonous, mammoth demons that give you a choice. Eat the demons’ waste, eat each other, or starve to death. The twist, you’re against the people you love the most. It’s a way to find the ones that are truly evil people to build and strengthen their cult. It also represents how horrible people can really be, when push comes to shove.” – Phil Bozeman^[1]

AOC would never hate “Mama Bear!”