As many are now aware, the Chinese Leadership and its underpinning agents have not taken kindly to some of those who have been outspoken against their antics, such as human rights abuse, continued cyber warfare attacks, and not no mention the current situation the world is facing with the human and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, resulting, potentially in the viral kill-chain of COVID-19. Yes, many have been understandably outspoken, but here we have seen another underhand tactic attacks against some who have dared comment – with the deployment of disinformation and other such verbal and technological attacks. Here, I myself have had the misfortune to fall into the cross-hair of aggression with direct and abusive communications via LinkedIn, one comment of which said ‘the arrogance of the west deserves the pandemic to teach them a lesson’. I have also encountered some funny happens on my cell phone, with the mail application starting to show signs of slowing and other such adverse indicators, manifesting in three mail boxes being wiped – maybe this is just a coincidence! There are also many other reports in the press of high-impact misinformation campaigns being mounted against some public figures who have also seen fit to comment on subjects, ranging from the potential of germ warfare through to using backdoored technologies to support 5G!
All said, granted, what we are now seeing in 2020 is social, economic, and employment opportunities being diminished in the west, and the US. However, what really worries me here is, granted, most of us feel the manifestations of germ, and cyber issues have come out of China, but I am also concerned for the implications that are being imposed on the suppressed people of the region – let us not forget that the implications are very real for them also – their educational opportunities have been badly damaged, and some great futures may have been quashed by the current educational and business stands-off we have with the Chinese leaders attitude to the rest of the world.
Here we must assure that we do not allow this to drive a level of racism against the ordinary, innocent Chinese public – please let us remind ourselves that it is not the fault of the entire Chinese population, and thus we must avoid blaming everyone who may appear to come from that region of guilty parties – let this not be yet another reason to feed those who have racist tendencies. We are one world, and need to see people beyond their political leadership transgressions, colour, or religion. Lets try to be kind at this very sad time we find the world in where we can!
John is the Principle at Shadow-Intelligence (Si), partnering with PALISCOPE, BreachAware and iStorage. He is a Visiting Professor at the School of Science and Technology, Nottingham, Trent University (NTU) and holds the appointment of Editor in Chief for the International Journal of Cyber Forensics and Advanced Threat Investigations (CFATI). For the last decade he has delivered training courses in the Middle, and Far East to Commercial, Industrial, the Financial Services Sector, and Military Agencies, including the UAE, US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia (KL), Singapore, Argentina, and Sao Paulo
He served in the Royal Air Force 22 years’, specialising in Counterintelligence, working with UK Agencies such as GCHQ/CESG, and others in the fields of SIGINT, COMINT and Satellite Communications, holding appointments such as System ITSO for a CIA SCIF.
In the commercials sectors of IT/Cyber he has worked for/with Logica, Bae, T5, GM, Experian, Betfair, Palace of Westminster, House of Lords/Commons, TSol (Treasury Solicitors) and provided Consultancy to the Saudi Arabian MOD, TRA (Telecommunications Authority (Dubai) and the Military Academy of Malaysia (KL) on SOC, CSIRT, Digital Forensics and OSINT. Within the last 5 years he has focused on Geopolitics, with global expertise around the UAE and Russia, Anti-Terrorist Operations (ATO), Cyber-Warfare, Dezinformatsiya (Disinformation) and Maskirovka (Military Deception).
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