#Business Telecom Systems

[glancetelecom]

Businesses seeking to leverage this power can achieve transformative results by prioritizing quality assurance (QA) practices. Integrating real-time analytics allows for continuous improvement, while a strong focus on call center compliance ensures every interaction meets the highest standards. Click Here To Read More: https://rb.gy/p4nen1

[youthchronical]

Telcos race to transition from 'dumb pipes' to tech players with help from AI

Ryu Young-sang, CEO of South Korean telecoms giant SK Telecom, told CNBC that AI is helping telecoms firms improve efficiency in their networks. Manaure Quintero | Afp | Getty Images BARCELONA — Global telecommunications firms are talking up advances in key technologies like artificial intelligence as they look to transition away from being perceived as the “dumb pipes” behind the internet. At…

[pricetelecommunications]

Why Price Telecommunications is the Ideal Partner for Scalable VoIP Solutions

VoIP Phone Systems Scalability for Growing Business

What is Scalability in VoIP and Why Does It Matter?

VoIP Phone System scalability is more than just a buzzword—it’s a key component in ensuring your business VoIP phone system is equipped to scale as your business grows. 

Price Telecommunications provides scalable VoIP phone systems that scale effortlessly, allowing you to increase or reduce call capacity based on your communication needs. Whether you’re hiring a large new team or shifting to a smaller workforce, our VoIP phone systems can adapt without expensive phone upgrades or call system downtimes. 

By choosing Price Telecommunications, you ensure that your VoIP phone system is scalable and ready for whatever changes come your way, giving your business the call system flexibility it needs.

VoIP Call System Flexibility for Changing Business Needs

Adding or Removing Users with Scalable VoIP Phone Systems

At Price Telecommunications, we believe your VoIP phone and call communication system should be as flexible as your business needs. With our scalable VoIP phone service, you can quickly add or remove call users through an intuitive online platform. There’s no need to wait for network technicians or deal with hardware installations because the VoIP phone system is managed remotely, allowing you to add phones to your scalable VoIP phone system to adapt to staffing changes in real-time.

Our flexible VoIP phone system means you can adjust user numbers instantly, making it perfect for businesses that experience seasonal fluctuations or rapid growth. Price Telecommunications makes managing your phone and call communication infrastructure simple and efficient.

Scalable VoIP Phone Systems

The Role of Cloud-Based VoIP in Scalability

A cloud-based VoIP phone system is essential for businesses looking to scale quickly, and Price Telecommunications offers one of the most reliable scalable VoIP cloud solutions available. By hosting your VoIP phone system in the cloud, you can easily manage multiple locations, remote employees, and growing teams without needing expensive physical infrastructure.

With Price Telecommunications’ cloud VoIP phone systems, you benefit from automatic updates, secure backups, and system redundancy. This ensures your VoIP phone system is future-proof and enhances your business’s overall call communication capabilities as you grow.

VoIP Phone System and Planning for the Future 

Anticipating Your Communication Needs with Scalable VoIP

A VoIP phone system that is scalable is essential in planning for future growth. VoIP phone systems are built to avoid costly and time-consuming phone system changes. 

We help you anticipate your long-term VoIP phone and call communication needs at Price Telecommunications. VoIP phone systems can scale with your business; whether you’re looking to expand your workforce, open new offices, or implement advanced VoIP phone features like analytics and international calling, we provide a scalable VoIP phone system tailored to meet those demands.

Our VoIP team helps to ensure that your VoIP phone system grows in sync with your organization, keeping call communication smooth and VoIP phone systems reliable as you expand.

Contact Price Telecommunications for expert scalable VoIP phone systems for your business or family office.

Price Telecommunications, Inc.

3237 S Cherokee Lane Building 1100 Suite 1120 Woodstock GA 30188

Office: (770) 977–9999

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[fusiondynamics]

Available Cloud Computing Services at Fusion Dynamics

We Fuel The Digital Transformation Of Next-Gen Enterprises!

Fusion Dynamics provides future-ready IT and computing infrastructure that delivers high performance while being cost-efficient and sustainable. We envision, plan and build next-gen data and computing centers in close collaboration with our customers, addressing their business’s specific needs. Our turnkey solutions deliver best-in-class performance for all advanced computing applications such as HPC, Edge/Telco, Cloud Computing, and AI.

With over two decades of expertise in IT infrastructure implementation and an agile approach that matches the lightning-fast pace of new-age technology, we deliver future-proof solutions tailored to the niche requirements of various industries.

Our Services

We decode and optimise the end-to-end design and deployment of new-age data centers with our industry-vetted services.

System Design

When designing a cutting-edge data center from scratch, we follow a systematic and comprehensive approach. First, our front-end team connects with you to draw a set of requirements based on your intended application, workload, and physical space. Following that, our engineering team defines the architecture of your system and deep dives into component selection to meet all your computing, storage, and networking requirements. With our highly configurable solutions, we help you formulate a system design with the best CPU-GPU configurations to match the desired performance, power consumption, and footprint of your data center.

Why Choose Us

We bring a potent combination of over two decades of experience in IT solutions and a dynamic approach to continuously evolve with the latest data storage, computing, and networking technology. Our team constitutes domain experts who liaise with you throughout the end-to-end journey of setting up and operating an advanced data center.

With a profound understanding of modern digital requirements, backed by decades of industry experience, we work closely with your organisation to design the most efficient systems to catalyse innovation. From sourcing cutting-edge components from leading global technology providers to seamlessly integrating them for rapid deployment, we deliver state-of-the-art computing infrastructures to drive your growth!

What We Offer The Fusion Dynamics Advantage!

At Fusion Dynamics, we believe that our responsibility goes beyond providing a computing solution to help you build a high-performance, efficient, and sustainable digital-first business. Our offerings are carefully configured to not only fulfil your current organisational requirements but to future-proof your technology infrastructure as well, with an emphasis on the following parameters –

Performance density

Rather than focusing solely on absolute processing power and storage, we strive to achieve the best performance-to-space ratio for your application. Our next-generation processors outrival the competition on processing as well as storage metrics.

Flexibility

Our solutions are configurable at practically every design layer, even down to the choice of processor architecture – ARM or x86. Our subject matter experts are here to assist you in designing the most streamlined and efficient configuration for your specific needs.

Scalability

We prioritise your current needs with an eye on your future targets. Deploying a scalable solution ensures operational efficiency as well as smooth and cost-effective infrastructure upgrades as you scale up.

Sustainability

Our focus on future-proofing your data center infrastructure includes the responsibility to manage its environmental impact. Our power- and space-efficient compute elements offer the highest core density and performance/watt ratios. Furthermore, our direct liquid cooling solutions help you minimise your energy expenditure. Therefore, our solutions allow rapid expansion of businesses without compromising on environmental footprint, helping you meet your sustainability goals.

Stability

Your compute and data infrastructure must operate at optimal performance levels irrespective of fluctuations in data payloads. We design systems that can withstand extreme fluctuations in workloads to guarantee operational stability for your data center.

Leverage our prowess in every aspect of computing technology to build a modern data center. Choose us as your technology partner to ride the next wave of digital evolution!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others; they entered their networks and spent months intercepting US traffic – from individuals, firms, government officials, etc – and they did it all without having to exploit any code vulnerabilities. Instead, they used the back door that the FBI requires every carrier to furnish:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-targeted-in-china-linked-hack-327fc63b?st=C5ywbp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In 1994, Bill Clinton signed CALEA into law. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires every US telecommunications network to be designed around facilitating access to law-enforcement wiretaps. Prior to CALEA, telecoms operators were often at pains to design their networks to resist infiltration and interception. Even if a telco didn't go that far, they were at the very least indifferent to the needs of law enforcement, and attuned instead to building efficient, robust networks.

Predictably, CALEA met stiff opposition from powerful telecoms companies as it worked its way through Congress, but the Clinton administration bought them off with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to acquire wiretap-facilitation technologies. Immediately, a new industry sprang into being; companies that promised to help the carriers hack themselves, punching back doors into their networks. The pioneers of this dirty business were overwhelmingly founded by ex-Israeli signals intelligence personnel, though they often poached senior American military and intelligence officials to serve as the face of their operations and liase with their former colleagues in law enforcement and intelligence.

Telcos weren't the only opponents of CALEA, of course. Security experts – those who weren't hoping to cash in on government pork, anyways – warned that there was no way to make a back door that was only useful to the "good guys" but would keep the "bad guys" out.

These experts were – then as now – dismissed as neurotic worriers who simultaneously failed to understand the need to facilitate mass surveillance in order to keep the nation safe, and who lacked appropriate faith in American ingenuity. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can build a security system that selectively fails when a cop needs it to, but stands up to every crook, bully, corporate snoop and foreign government. In other words: "We have faith in you! NERD HARDER!"

NERD HARDER! has been the answer ever since CALEA – and related Clinton-era initiatives, like the failed Clipper Chip program, which would have put a spy chip in every computer, and, eventually, every phone and gadget:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

America may have invented NERD HARDER! but plenty of other countries have taken up the cause. The all-time champion is former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who, when informed that the laws of mathematics dictate that it is impossible to make an encryption scheme that only protects good secrets and not bad ones, replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the-laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/

CALEA forced a redesign of the foundational, physical layer of the internet. Thankfully, encryption at the protocol layer – in the programs we use – partially counters this deliberately introduced brittleness in the security of all our communications. CALEA can be used to intercept your communications, but mostly what an attacker gets is "metadata" ("so-and-so sent a message of X bytes to such and such") because the data is scrambled and they can't unscramble it, because cryptography actually works, unlike back doors. Of course, that's why governments in the EU, the US, the UK and all over the world are still trying to ban working encryption, insisting that the back doors they'll install will only let the good guys in:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

Any back door can be exploited by your adversaries. The Chinese sponsored hacking group know as Salt Typhoon intercepted the communications of hundreds of millions of American residents, businesses, and institutions. From that position, they could do NSA-style metadata-analysis, malware injection, and interception of unencrypted traffic. And they didn't have to hack anything, because the US government insists that all networking gear ship pre-hacked so that cops can get into it.

This isn't even the first time that CALEA back doors have been exploited by a hostile foreign power as a matter of geopolitical skullduggery. In 2004-2005, Greece's telecommunications were under mass surveillance by US spy agencies who wiretapped Greek officials, all the way up to the Prime Minister, in order to mess with the Greek Olympic bid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%80%9305

This is a wild story in so many ways. For one thing, CALEA isn't law in Greece! You can totally sell working, secure networking gear in Greece, and in many other countries around the world where they have not passed a stupid CALEA-style law. However the US telecoms market is so fucking huge that all the manufacturers build CALEA back doors into their gear, no matter where it's destined for. So the US has effectively exported this deliberate insecurity to the whole planet – and used it to screw around with Olympic bids, the most penny-ante bullshit imaginable.

Now Chinese-sponsored hackers with cool names like "Salt Typhoon" are traipsing around inside US telecoms infrastructure, using the back doors the FBI insisted would be safe.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea

Image: Kris Duda, modified https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahorcado/5433669707/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[justacynicalromantic]

Holy shit. The speed of Trump turning the U.S. into Russia 2.0 is faster than I can say Panama🤯 This is classic Putin Playbook.

Former prosecutor Jessica Aber, 43, who was found dead on Saturday, led investigations into intelligence leaks, war crimes against people linked to Russia, and suspects in the supply of secret technologies to Moscow.

Jessica Aber’s death feels like one of those stories that’s meant to fade quietly into the background — a tragic headline that people are supposed to forget. But when a career prosecutor who spent her life chasing Russian cybercriminals, CIA leaks, and war criminals turns up dead just weeks after resigning, forgetting isn’t an option.

Aber, the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead at her home in Alexandria on March 22. She was 43 years old. Police haven’t said how she died, but the timing — and her unfinished business — makes it impossible to ignore.

THE PROSECUTOR WHO WOULDN’T BACK DOWN

Jessica Aber wasn’t just a lawyer — she was the person you sent in when things got messy.

In January, just before her resignation, Aber helped put Asif Rahman, a former CIA analyst, behind bars for leaking top-secret information about Israeli military plans against Iran. The information ended up splashed across social media in October 2024.

Aber didn’t mince words when Rahman pleaded guilty. She warned that his leak had “placed lives at risk” and “compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.” That’s prosecutor-speak for this guy seriously screwed things up. Whatever Rahman leaked, it wasn’t just embarrassing — it was dangerous.

BIG CASES, BIGGER ENEMIES

Aber’s cases didn’t stop there. In November 2024, her office prosecuted a Virginia-based company accused of funneling sensitive U.S. technology to a Russian telecom firm with Kremlin ties. It wasn’t exactly an accident — the company allegedly disguised shipments and played fast and loose with American tech that Russia wasn’t supposed to have.

Then there was the war crimes indictment. Aber’s office charged four Russian-linked individuals with torturing and unlawfully detaining a U.S. national in Ukraine. She wasn’t just making legal noise — she was putting serious pressure on powerful figures with deep connections.

Aber’s career was a parade of people you wouldn’t want showing up at your funeral — oligarchs, cybercriminals, and corrupt players with resources to make problems disappear.

A SUSPICIOUS EXIT

Aber resigned in January 2025, just after Donald Trump returned to power. Nobody’s said she was forced out, but resigning from one of the country’s most powerful U.S. Attorney’s offices weeks after jailing a rogue CIA analyst feels a little too clean.

It’s not hard to imagine why someone like Aber might suddenly find herself in a tight spot. Trump’s return came with a wave of loyalty tests and DOJ shakeups — and Aber’s aggressive pursuit of Russian networks and CIA leaks doesn’t exactly scream “team player” in this new political climate.

If she was pressured to resign, what cases got quietly buried when she left?

A SYSTEM THAT’S GONE SOFT ON POWER

The Supreme Court’s ruling in July 2024 handed Trump near-total immunity for “core presidential powers,” including military command. Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that this decision could allow a president to order an assassination — and face no legal consequences.

By the time Aber resigned, that ruling had already cast a long shadow over the Department of Justice. Prosecutors like Aber — the kind who took on powerful players with foreign connections — were now working in an environment where accountability had been gutted.

If Aber’s investigations had exposed something that threatened powerful interests, the court’s ruling would have made it easier for those interests to apply pressure — or worse — without consequence.

Her resignation may have been voluntary. It may not have been. But by the time Aber walked away from her post, the guardrails protecting prosecutors like her were already crumbling.

WHAT DID ABER KNOW?

Jessica Aber knew things that mattered — things that powerful people wanted buried. She chased down Russian cybercriminals, locked up a CIA leaker who compromised military intelligence, and tangled with foreign operatives who wouldn’t hesitate to make problems disappear.

Now she’s gone, and the timing stinks.

[esotericimagesforredpilledpeople]

In the late 1990s, Enron, the infamous energy giant, and MCI, the telecom titan, were secretly collaborating on a clandestine project codenamed "Chronos Ledger." The official narrative tells us Enron collapsed in 2001 due to accounting fraud, and MCI (then part of WorldCom) imploded in 2002 over similar financial shenanigans. But what if these collapses were a smokescreen? What if Enron and MCI were actually sacrificial pawns in a grand experiment to birth Bitcoin—a decentralized currency designed to destabilize global finance and usher in a new world order?

Here’s the story: Enron wasn’t just manipulating energy markets; it was funding a secret think tank of rogue mathematicians, cryptographers, and futurists embedded within MCI’s sprawling telecom infrastructure. Their goal? To create a digital currency that could operate beyond the reach of governments and banks. Enron’s off-the-books partnerships—like the ones that tanked its stock—were actually shell companies funneling billions into this project. MCI, with its vast network of fiber-optic cables and data centers, provided the technological backbone, secretly testing encrypted "proto-blockchain" transactions disguised as routine telecom data.

But why the dramatic collapses? Because the project was compromised. In 2001, a whistleblower—let’s call them "Satoshi Prime"—threatened to expose Chronos Ledger to the SEC. To protect the bigger plan, Enron and MCI’s leadership staged their own downfall, using cooked books as a convenient distraction. The core team went underground, taking with them the blueprints for what would later become Bitcoin.

Fast forward to 2008. The financial crisis hits, and a mysterious figure, Satoshi Nakamoto, releases the Bitcoin whitepaper. Coincidence? Hardly. Satoshi wasn’t one person but a collective—a cabal of former Enron execs, MCI engineers, and shadowy venture capitalists who’d been biding their time. The 2008 crash was their trigger: a chaotic moment to introduce Bitcoin as a "savior" currency, free from the corrupt systems they’d once propped up. The blockchain’s decentralized nature? A direct descendant of MCI’s encrypted data networks. Bitcoin’s energy-intensive mining? A twisted homage to Enron’s energy market manipulations.

But here’s where it gets truly wild: Chronos Ledger wasn’t just about money—it was about time. Enron and MCI had stumbled onto a fringe theory during their collaboration: that a sufficiently complex ledger, powered by quantum computing (secretly prototyped in MCI labs), could "timestamp" events across dimensions, effectively predicting—or even altering—future outcomes. Bitcoin’s blockchain was the public-facing piece of this puzzle, a distraction to keep the masses busy while the real tech evolved in secret. The halving cycles? A countdown to when the full system activates.

Today, the descendants of this conspiracy—hidden in plain sight among crypto whales and Silicon Valley elites—are quietly amassing Bitcoin not for profit, but to control the final activation of Chronos Ledger. When Bitcoin’s last block is mined (projected for 2140), they believe it’ll unlock a temporal feedback loop, resetting the global economy to 1999—pre-Enron collapse—giving them infinite do-overs to perfect their dominion. The Enron and MCI scandals? Just the first dominoes in a game of chance and power.

[misfitwashere]

Jessica Aber’s death feels like one of those stories that’s meant to fade quietly into the background — a tragic headline that people are supposed to forget. But when a career prosecutor who spent her life chasing Russian cybercriminals, CIA leaks, and war criminals turns up dead just weeks after resigning, forgetting isn’t an option.

Aber, the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead at her home in Alexandria on March 22. She was 43 years old. Police haven’t said how she died, but the timing — and her unfinished business — makes it impossible to ignore.

THE PROSECUTOR WHO WOULDN’T BACK DOWN

Jessica Aber wasn’t just a lawyer — she was the person you sent in when things got messy.

In January, just before her resignation, Aber helped put Asif Rahman, a former CIA analyst, behind bars for leaking top-secret information about Israeli military plans against Iran. The information ended up splashed across social media in October 2024.

Aber didn’t mince words when Rahman pleaded guilty. She warned that his leak had “placed lives at risk” and “compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.” That’s prosecutor-speak for this guy seriously screwed things up. Whatever Rahman leaked, it wasn’t just embarrassing — it was dangerous.

BIG CASES, BIGGER ENEMIES

Aber’s cases didn’t stop there. In November 2024, her office prosecuted a Virginia-based company accused of funneling sensitive U.S. technology to a Russian telecom firm with Kremlin ties. It wasn’t exactly an accident — the company allegedly disguised shipments and played fast and loose with American tech that Russia wasn’t supposed to have.

Then there was the war crimes indictment. Aber’s office charged four Russian-linked individuals with torturing and unlawfully detaining a U.S. national in Ukraine. She wasn’t just making legal noise — she was putting serious pressure on powerful figures with deep connections.

Aber’s career was a parade of people you wouldn’t want showing up at your funeral — oligarchs, cybercriminals, and corrupt players with resources to make problems disappear.

A SUSPICIOUS EXIT

Aber resigned in January 2025, just after Donald Trump returned to power. Nobody’s said she was forced out, but resigning from one of the country’s most powerful U.S. Attorney’s offices weeks after jailing a rogue CIA analyst feels a little too clean.

It’s not hard to imagine why someone like Aber might suddenly find herself in a tight spot. Trump’s return came with a wave of loyalty tests and DOJ shakeups — and Aber’s aggressive pursuit of Russian networks and CIA leaks doesn’t exactly scream “team player” in this new political climate.

If she was pressured to resign, what cases got quietly buried when she left?

A SYSTEM THAT’S GONE SOFT ON POWER

The Supreme Court’s ruling in July 2024 handed Trump near-total immunity for “core presidential powers,” including military command. Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that this decision could allow a president to order an assassination — and face no legal consequences.

By the time Aber resigned, that ruling had already cast a long shadow over the Department of Justice. Prosecutors like Aber — the kind who took on powerful players with foreign connections — were now working in an environment where accountability had been gutted.

If Aber’s investigations had exposed something that threatened powerful interests, the court’s ruling would have made it easier for those interests to apply pressure — or worse — without consequence.

Her resignation may have been voluntary. It may not have been. But by the time Aber walked away from her post, the guardrails protecting prosecutors like her were already crumbling.

WHAT DID ABER KNOW?

Jessica Aber knew things that mattered — things that powerful people wanted buried. She chased down Russian cybercriminals, locked up a CIA leaker who compromised military intelligence, and tangled with foreign operatives who wouldn’t hesitate to make problems disappear.

Now she’s gone, and the timing stinks.

Maybe her death was just an awful coincidence. Maybe it wasn’t. But when the people investigating corruption start turning up dead, there’s only one responsible thing to do:

Start asking louder questions.

[justforbooks]

House of Huawei by Eva Dou

A fascinating insight into a Chinese telecoms giant and its detractors

Huawei is not exactly a household name. If you’ve heard of it, you either follow the smartphone market closely – it is the main China-based manufacturer of high-end phones – or else consume a lot of news, because the company is at the centre of an ongoing US-China trade war.

But this enormous business is one of the world’s biggest producers of behind-the-scenes equipment that enables fibre broadband, 4G and 5G phone networks. Its hardware is inside communications systems across the world.

That has prompted alarm from US lawmakers of both parties, who accuse Huawei of acting as an agent for China’s government and using its technology for espionage. The company insists it merely complies with the local laws wherever it operates, just like its US rivals. Nevertheless, its equipment has been ripped out of infrastructure in the UK at the behest of the government, its execs and staffers have been arrested across the world, and it has been pilloried for its involvement in China’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Into this murky world of allegation and counter-allegation comes the veteran telecoms reporter Eva Dou. Her book chronicles the history of Huawei since its inception, as well as the lives of founder Ren Zhengfei and his family, starting with the dramatic 2019 arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, at the behest of US authorities.

Dou’s command of her subject is indisputable and her book is meticulous and determinedly even-handed. House of Huawei reveals much, but never speculates or grandstands – leaving that to the politicians of all stripes for whom hyperbole about Huawei comes more easily.

At its core, this book is the history of a large, successful business. That doesn’t mean it’s boring, though: there’s the story of efforts to haul 5G equipment above Everest base camp in order to broadcast the Beijing Olympics torch relay. We hear about the early efforts of Ren and his team, working around the clock in stiflingly hot offices, to make analogue telephone network switches capable of routing up to 10,000 calls; and gain insights into the near-impossible political dance a company must perform in order to operate worldwide without falling foul of the changing desires of China’s ruling Communist party.

Dou makes us better equipped to consider questions including: is this a regular company, or an extension of the Chinese state? How safe should other countries feel about using Huawei equipment? Is China’s exploitation of its technology sector really that different to the way the US authorities exploited Google, Facebook and others, as revealed by Edward Snowden?

Early in Huawei’s history, Ren appeared to give the game away in remarks to the then general secretary of the Communist party. “A country without its own program-controlled switches is like one without an army,” he argued, making the case for why the authorities should support his company’s growth. “Its software must be held in the hands of the Chinese government.”

But for each damning event, there is another that introduces doubt. The book reveals an arrangement from when Huawei operated in the UK that gave GCHQ unprecedented access to its source code and operations centre. US intelligence agencies seemed as able to exploit Huawei equipment for surveillance purposes as China’s. While Huawei’s equipment was certainly used to monitor Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, it was hardware from the US company Cisco that made China’s so-called Great Firewall possible.

Anyone hoping for definitive answers will not find them here, but the journey is far from wasted. The intricate reporting of Huawei, in all its ambiguity and complexity, sheds much light on the murky nature of modern geopolitics. The people who shout loudest about Huawei don’t know more than anyone else about it. Eva Dou does.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[beardedmrbean]

Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Chinese hackers called Salt Typhoon have infiltrated a ninth telecommunications firm, gaining access to information about millions of people, U.S. cybersecurity officials say.

The FBI is investigating the Salt Typhoon attacks, which are spurring new defensive measures, deputy U.S. national security adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters on Friday.

"As we look at China's compromise of now nine telecom companies, the first step is creating a defensible infrastructure," she said.

The hackers primarily are targeting individuals and organizations involved in political or governmental activities and a significant number of hacking victims are located in the Washington D.C.-Virginia area.

The hackers can geolocate millions of people in the United States, listen to their phone conversations and record them whenever they like, Politico reported.

Among recent victims are President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and several Biden administration officials.

Neuberger did not name the nine telecommunications firms that have been hacked, but said telecommunications firms and others must do more to improve cybersecurity and protect individual customers.

"We wouldn't leave our homes, our offices unlocked," she said. "Yet, the private companies owning and operating our critical infrastructure often do not have the basic cybersecurity practices in place that would make our infrastructure riskier, costlier and harder for countries and criminals to attack."

She said companies need better management of configuration, better vulnerability management of networks and better work across the telecom sector to share information when incidents occur.

"However, we know that voluntary cybersecurity practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking our critical infrastructure," Neuberger said.

Australian and British officials already have enacted telecom regulations "because they recognize that the nation's secrets, the nation's economy relies on their telecommunications sector."

Neuberger said her British counterparts told her they would have detected and contained Salt Typhoon attacks faster and minimized their spread and impact.

"One of the most concerning and really troubling things we deal with is hacking of hospitals [and] hacking of healthcare data," Neuberger said. "We see Americans' sensitive healthcare data, sensitive mental health procedures [and] sensitive procedures being leaked on the dark web with the opportunity to blackmail individuals with that."

She said federal regulators are updating existing rules and implementing new ones to counteract the cyberattacks and threats from Salt Typhoon and others.

The Department of Justice on Friday issued a rule prohibiting or restricting certain types of data transactions with certain nations or individuals who might have an interest in that data.

The protected information includes those involving government-related data and bulk sensitive personal data of individuals that could pose an unacceptable risk to the nation's national security.

The Department of Health and Human Services likewise issued a proposed rule to improve cybersecurity and protect the nation's healthcare system against an increasing number of cyberattacks.

The proposed HHS rule would require health insurers, most healthcare providers and their business partners to improve cybersecurity protections for individuals' information that is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

"The increasing frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks in the healthcare sector pose a direct and significant threat to patient safety," HHS Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm said Friday.

"These attacks endanger patients by exposing vulnerabilities in our healthcare system, degrading patient trust, disrupting patient care, diverting patients and delaying medical procedures."

The proposed rule "is a vital step to ensuring that healthcare providers, patients and communities are not only better prepared to face a cyberattack but are also more secure and resilient," Palm added.

Neuberger estimated the cost to implement improved cybersecurity to thwart attacks by Salt Typhoon and others at $9 billion during the first year and $6 billion for years 2 through 5.

"The cost of not acting is not only high, it also endangers critical infrastructure and patient safety," she said, "and it carries other harmful consequences."

The average cost of a breach in healthcare was $10.1 million in 2023, but the cost is nearing $800 million from a breach of Change Healthcare last year.

Those costs include the costs of recovery and operations and, "frankly, in the cost to Americans' healthcare data and the operations of hospitals affected by it," Neuberger said.

The Federal Communications Commission also has scheduled a Jan. 15 vote on additional proposed rules to combat Salt Typhoon and other hackers.

[mitvpusolapur]

Top B.Tech Courses in Maharashtra – CSE, AI, IT, and ECE Compared

B.Tech courses continue to attract students across India, and Maharashtra remains one of the most preferred states for higher technical education. From metro cities to emerging academic hubs like Solapur, students get access to diverse courses and skilled faculty. Among all available options, four major branches stand out: Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Information Technology (IT), and Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE).

Each of these streams offers a different learning path. B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering focuses on coding, algorithms, and system design. Students learn Python, Java, data structures, software engineering, and database systems. These skills are relevant for software companies, startups, and IT consulting.

B.Tech in Artificial Intelligence covers deep learning, neural networks, data processing, and computer vision. Students work on real-world problems using AI models. They also learn about ethical AI practices and automation systems. Companies hiring AI talent are in healthcare, retail, fintech, and manufacturing.

B.Tech in IT trains students in systems administration, networking, cloud computing, and application services. Graduates often work in system support, IT infrastructure, and data management. IT blends technical and management skills for enterprise use.

B.Tech ECE is for students who enjoy working with circuits, embedded systems, mobile communication, robotics, and signal processing. This stream is useful for telecom companies, consumer electronics, and control systems in industries.

Key Differences Between These B.Tech Programs:

CSE is programming-intensive. IT includes applications and system-level operations.

AI goes deeper into data modeling and pattern recognition.

ECE focuses more on hardware, communication, and embedded tech.

AI and CSE overlap, but AI involves more research-based learning.

How to Choose the Right B.Tech Specialization:

Ask yourself what excites you: coding, logic, data, devices, or systems.

Look for colleges with labs, project-based learning, and internship support.

Talk to seniors or alumni to understand real-life learning and placements.

Explore industry demand and long-term growth in each field.

MIT Vishwaprayag University, Solapur, offers all four B.Tech programs with updated syllabi, modern infrastructure, and practical training. Students work on live projects, participate in competitions, and build career skills through soft skills training. The university also encourages innovation and startup thinking.

Choosing the right course depends on interest and learning style. CSE and AI suit tech lovers who like coding and research. ECE is great for those who enjoy building real-world devices. IT fits students who want to blend business with technology.

Take time to explore the subjects and talk to faculty before selecting a stream. Your B.Tech journey shapes your future, so make an informed choice.

[mariacallous]

In April 2024, Elon Musk was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and announce a multibillion-dollar Tesla factory investment. Instead, he canceled at the last minute and flew to China. Musk’s switch earned him a barrage of aggrieved Indian headlines. But even before his emergence as a force in Donald Trump’s second administration, the incident also served to underline Musk’s unusual role as a prized ambassador to the emerging industrial giants of Asia.

Musk embodies much of what India wants from its ties with the United States: the prospect of major investment, valuable technology transfer, and now a direct back channel to the White House. But viewed in a different way, India, with its system of close connections between billionaire industrialists and political power brokers, offers a means to understand an emerging U.S. economic model, in which tycoons such as Musk act as handmaidens of industrial policy but also conduits of political power.

In recent decades, ties between India’s political leaders and industrial giants have grown ever stronger. Billionaires such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani sit atop vast corporate empires, with tentacles into almost every area of national life. Conglomerate ownership has been lucrative, especially for the country’s most famous business duo: Ambani and Adani rank as two of Asia’s richest men on Forbes’s real-time list of billionaires, with fortunes of $92 billion and $57 billion, respectively, as of mid-March.

In this environment, accusations of crony capitalism against the Indian government, meaning collusion between political leaders and business, remain common. Main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, for instance, made this topic a central theme of his campaign in last year’s general election, which Modi went on to win comfortably.

But the relationship between India’s government and its industrialists has changed since Modi’s election as prime minister in 2014. In my book The Billionaire Raj, I tell the story of an era of rampant corruption and cronyism in the 2000s and early 2010s. During that time, a weak but scrupulously honest prime minister, Manmohan Singh, presided over what was known as the “season of scams,” in which myriad multi-billion-dollar corruption scandals erupted one after another.

Even then, India’s cronyism was sophisticated and a long way from crude bribes delivered via cash in brown envelopes or bulging suitcases. Nonetheless, it was widely perceived to be out of control: “Every cabinet minister was a sovereign enterprise,” a close observer of Indian business once put it to me, with only a degree of exaggeration, describing how under Singh’s government many political leaders ended up being accused of involvement in scandals in areas from telecommunications regulation to the licensing of minerals such as coal or iron ore.

Under Modi, the relationship between government and the ultra-rich has evolved into something more politically harnessed and directed. Like Singh, Modi enjoys a reputation for personal probity. Though corruption still exists on his watch, the number of major public scandals has fallen dramatically. Today, few Indian ministers would dare to skim off the top, for fear of offending their politically dominant prime minister.

India’s system is beginning to resemble the kind of crony capitalism common in recent decades in East and Southeast Asia—for instance, under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Malaysia in the 1980s or during President Park Chung-hee’s period of rapid growth and autocratic rule in South Korea in the 1970s. The model is that select plutocrats develop mutually favorable ties to political leaders in return for building the airports, buildings, and telecoms networks their countries need for national development.

The reason politicians work with powerful billionaires is because they can get big things done quickly. And if their political connections then provide tycoons with financial advantages elsewhere in their businesses—as often happened in India’s original season of scams—then that is considered an acceptable trade-off.

The role Musk plays in the Trump administration is unprecedented, straddling high politics, industrial policy, and increasingly international affairs. Certainly no industrialist in India enjoys a position as far-reaching or as globally high-profile. But in a sense, the United States and India are actually converging: Indian crony capitalism has become less chaotic and more organized under Modi, while under Trump the United States is moving the other way. A successful U.S. system of open markets and fair competition is being abandoned for one in which Trump-linked industrialists enjoy favorable quid pro quos. In international affairs and economic policy alike, the United States is turning its back on a rules-based approach.

Of course, the billionaire-politician nexus has long-term pitfalls, whatever benefits such tacit cooperation might at first deliver in terms of improved infrastructure or higher investment. One is the danger of discord. If Trump’s model of economic management involves deals with favored politically connected business leaders, that model breaks down if he subsequently falls out with them. A system that relies on the efficient cooperation of industrial and political elites remains highly vulnerable, since squabbles will inevitably emerge.

While billionaire tycoons appear in the public imagination as if unconstrained heroes in an Ayn Rand novel, across the autocratic world—be it India, China, Russia, or increasingly in Trump’s America—the reality is that business leaders are generally the supplicants. For all their power, Adani and Ambani remain deeply wary of Modi, just as Jack Ma is of Chinese President Xi Jinping or any sane Russian oligarch would be of President Vladimir Putin. Even Musk has been notably deferential to Trump in recent interviews, seemingly aware that his privileged position could be revoked at any moment. Ultimately, in the relationship between autocrat and tycoon, it is the autocrat who holds true power.

At least in India, it is possible to argue that the economy is partly changing for the better. What began as a chaotic and self-serving cronyism has shifted somewhat to become more efficient and less rampantly corrupt. Eventually, perhaps, a more rules-based market system will emerge. Under Trump and Musk, the United States is heading toward kleptocracy rather than away from it. The fear is that a U.S. season of scams is unlikely to be far away.