Author: RidgeCook

Over the last year or so I have discussed the dynamic of coal and Liquid Natural Gas in energy policy and pricing in the US.  Particularly its National Security implications in regard to Europe.

The last post was in Aug where pricing in Europe was cited and its implications for Russian Gas.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2017/8/4/71514/65050

Now word is coming out from the US Energy Information Agency that the US has become a net exporter of natural gas for the first time in 60 yrs.  Much of it going to Mexico but there is an increase of LNG overseas, even with only one LNG port online, but others on the way.

The attempt to falsely inflate demand for coal by the Trump Energy Dept recently failed, but as discussed, the market may solve that problem by itself, for the short term.  If LNG demand overseas increases, then use of coal for energy generation may increase.  It will happen quicker if environmental controls are lessened.  If they are not or stopped by a Democratic House/ Congress.  If not lessened and NG prices still continue to rise, there will be pressure for effective environmental controls to counter act the negative aspects of coal electricity generation.  

This isn’t morality but economics.

It will take far sighted Democratic Congress and Admin to rebuild the nation’s electrical grid to fully take effect of renewables and end fossil fuel dependence.

Ridge

——-excerpt——-
“Never before has the global LNG market had such significant flexible LNG volumes as the volumes coming online in the next three years, mostly from the U.S., which will lead to a fundamental shift in how LNG is marketed and traded globally,” Zaretskaya said.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/u-s-became-a-net-gas-exporter-for-the-first-time-
in-60-years

A few months ago, we discussed the speech by the Mayor of New Orleans and the removal of Confederate monuments in that city.  As a comment, I mentioned that if the Monuments in Richmond were ever removed, that would be the crack in the Wall for the apologists and the movement toward a realistic discussion of the “Lost Cause”

Well the cracks are beginning to form-
http://www.nbc12.com/story/36152055/mayor-stoney-tells-monument-avenue-commission-to-consider-remova
l-of-statues

The first real shift was after the tragedy in Charleston, SC; after which the governor and state legislature moved to remove the Confederate element of the state flag.  An issue that had been stalemated for years. Hard headed looks at the Confederate history and legacy began.

The movement to remove Confederate symbols from cities began to accelerate.  New Orleans and the speech by Mayor Landreiu gave the movement much needed credibility.  Such forceful sentiments from a white mayor of a majority black city could not be argued.

Then Charlottesville, a rather liberal enclave in the red portion of Va.  There is no legal argument.  The City Council voted the Lee monument in during the 1920s.  The City Council voted it out in 2015.  The attack by Nazis and Klan members will do nothing to prevent it and accelerate the process in other cities.

For the majority of Americans, its not cool to fight for slavery or return of Nazis, and its not good to see their antics on the TV.  The minority who want to play Brown Shirt or Laundry Sheet ghost just did their cause damage.  It forces America to confront an uncomfortable past, and deal with it so they can go back to their oblivious lives.  Just as the TV images of hoses and dogs set loose on civil rights protestors was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow.  The torch light processions, shouting, screaming, and attacks is the beginning of the end for the white supremacists and Lost Cause apologists.

Plus its not economic for Southern States, who tout business friendly atmosphere and No Unions to overseas investors and NE manufactures, to be identified with over weight would be fascists and Klansmen.  How would BMW feel about expanding their plant in Spartanburg, SC.  Their parts suppliers right next door? Executives’ wives feel safe?  Would Daimler Benz officials feel safe sending their kids to school in Vance, Ala if they have overt fascists running around the town and in the hallways.

No matter how much they sputter, there ain’t no money in being a Nazi. And the South knows it.  And now, with the Confederacy now being identified with violent thugs in modern times, there ain’t no money in that as well.

Ridge

Some months ago, while discussing coal markets and pricing here, I mentioned that natural gas pricing that everyone was depending on for cheap/clean energy in US would face upward pricing pressures. Liquefied Natural  Gas markets opening in Europe would suck up the gas  glut in US.  Of course, pipelines to  LNG conversion plants and ports had to be built, tankers to transport it, etc… all had to be constructed or reserved.

I had two points at the time.

1) Coal as energy source could return if the equation of;
coal + environmental costs < natural gas + environmental costs.

2) It is a strategic goal of US/NATO to reduce  Europe’s dependence on Russian Nat Gas supplies.

These two factors could drive Nat Gas higher pricing and make coal an economic alternative…if the other associated costs could be worked out.  This is not to tout or promote it as an energy source, just stating facts.

Already US Henry Hub bulk pricing of NG around $2.85- $3.00 mbtus vs coal’s $2.18 mbtu in US.  Pipelines are being proposed from Northern WV/PA gas fields- through VA and splitting- one toward the coast, the other to high growth NC/SC.  Ports under construction or being converted. Next couple of years, those ships will be sailing for Europe in greater numbers.

This is now being discussed openly in economic press.

—–excerpt——-

“US and Russia step up fight to supply Europe’s gas”

https://www.ft.com/content/352f4cac-6c7a-11e7-b9c7-15af748b60d0

Jason Bordoff, a one-time adviser to former US President Barack Obama who runs Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy, suggests that while LNG is normally more expensive, Gazprom will still face painful choices as supplies from rivals make their way to Europe. The Russian group has to pick between “competing on price and defending market share” or “cutting back on supply to keep prices high”, he says.

If Gazprom decides to opt for the former, which Mr Bordoff thinks the evidence points to, then the Russian company will need to accept it is entering a price war that may hit its revenues even if it can keep raising sales in a region hungry for energy.

The US president’s overture to countries such as Poland chimes with the mood among pro-Nato politicians in central Europe, who resent Moscow’s leverage over their gas supply with their web of import pipelines. Some might happily rely more on the US for their gas, even if it means paying more.  …..

————–

Of course, it always comes down to money.  Finding the price of US LNG is tough to determine once it lands in Europe.  Nice that these guys have worked it out.

LNG to Europe is about $6.00 per mbtu where Russian Gazprom supplies it at about $5.00 per mbtu. Around 20% surcharge.  But, LNG is now being pooled into international markets, like oil with advent of US, Australia, and Mideast supplies.  That means, like oil, the supplies can be bought and routed when the best price appears.

Gazprom has gone into hock with Western capital for new pipelines into Europe, and add to that downward price pressures and the added trouble of Sanctions…means less money in the pockets of Vlad and Co.  Which means added pressure on Vlad.

This is one more slavo in the War On Czar Vladimir.

Russia has very few International products people want.
-Weapons: useful but limited market.
-Energy and other natural resources: dependent on global pricing
-software engineering

The last one has the premier example in Kaspersky Labs. Well regarded anti-malware, but since the hacking of the election; it has been downgraded and denied use in US govt/contractor networks. Also NATO and Western Europe will begin to question it. Always viewed with suspicion by US intel, now openly slagged.  That is going to filter down to Enterprise and private use.  

I always thought the OPEC over production had a geopolitical element against Russia and Iran. Now with major LNG exports on the horizon, even greater pressure.

That just leaves weapons as an export product to prop up foreign exchange.

To use a worn analogy-
US used economic sanctions against Japan for aggression in Asia. (As Russia in Ukraine) Got to the point, that secure their place in Asia and world stage and gain “respect” they staged Pearl Harbor.  People in Tokyo who knew US, thought it was a mistake.  the “Sleeping Giant” quote.

Well, I think the 2016 election was a cyber Pearl Harbor.  Like then, it will take a couple of years to show real progress.  Trump and Admin is toast already and you see the security hands in Congress/military stepping in to insure the Admin Chaos does not permanently damage US.  I mean, good Lord, veto proof Sanctions Bill and pro forma Senate session.  They know he is history.

What now has to be done is put pressure on Czar Vlad’s oligarch cronies. “I’m sorry Yuri, would love to do this deal, but can’t as long as Putin is in power.  You know, sanctions and public opinion, the election and all that.  I mean, with all the court case revelations…did he really think we would just stand by?”

Of course, that presupposes that US corporate interests have any patriotism left, aside from love of money.  For years, they have been pushing stateless interest for profits over love of country.  It may mean boycotts of their products and public shaming to make them tow the line.

Ridge

Living in parts of the South, I have never been *of* the South and have always seen the Civil War for what it was; treason in the cause of slavery.  Would be apologists say the cause was "state’s rights" or other such nonsense.  Yes, it was a State’s Rights effort to hold human chattel.  Reading the records and memoirs of those who lived in that period leave no such questions.  The public record itself is quite explicit.  The various articles of secession by the several "Confederate" states.  The newspapers, the diaries, statements by "Confederate" govt officials.  Even foreigners saw it.  The British consul to Charleston, SC during the 1850s-60s heard the public sentiment and reported such to London.  His reporting stated that reviving the Slave trade (that was being suppressed by British and US warships in the Atlantic) was a goal of commercial interests throughout the South. That expanding Slave States to the West Coast would create a market for those new transported Slaves.

Of course, after the defeat, an effort was made to ennoble the sacrifices of the thousands and thousands of families.  To say, "they died for Slavery" (while accurate) would not sit well over dinner.  So another cause was needed. State’s Rights, a golden chivalrous age, a fight against crass commercialism of the North….take your pick.  One element in this deceptive illusion was Confederate Monuments througout the South.  Some are simple soldier statues or obelisks in from of courthouses to expensive and elaborate cast monuments and equestrian statues to military and political leaders of the rebellion.

They have been there so long as to become part of the landscape for many, but a reminder to others of a despicable past of bondage.  I think since the shooting in the Charleston, SC church, the public sentiment shifted and the toleration for such things is falling.  

New Orleans has begun the effort to remove those monuments.  The Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu , has given a speech about that effort and it is well worth the time to read.  It lays out the cause for the monuments and their effect on that city’s citizens.  He also lays out the root of the problem about the "Lost Cause".  

Truth telling on a subject often lied about.

Ridge

———excerpt——–
http://pulsegulfcoast.com/2017/05/transcript-of-new-orleans-mayor-landrieus-address-on-confederate-monuments

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This `cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy.
It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

He said in his now famous `Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s "cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union…….

Remember- there is no free lunch in America.

———–

WSJ:  Companies Offer Free Tax Preparation So They Can Harvest And Monetize Your Personal Data.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/04/wsjcompanies-offer-free-tax-preparation-so-they-can-
harvest-and-monetize-your-personal-data.html

Some recent moves by ISPs (mainly mobile but others would take advantage as well) want to remove the anonymity of web browsing for commercial purposes.  A rule change under Obama would require an “opt in” action for user’s browsing and app use to be recorded and commercially monetized.  Now, under Trump, proposals have been made to remove the “opt in” action.

“Web browsing and app usage history are not ‘sensitive information,'” CTIA said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission yesterday. CTIA is the main lobbyist group representing mobile broadband providers such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, and Sprint…..

The FCC defined Web browsing history and app usage history as sensitive information, along with other categories such as geo-location data, financial and health information, and the content of communications. If the rules are overturned, ISPs would be able to sell this kind of customer information to advertisers…..”

https:/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/isps-say-your-web-browsing-and-app-usage-history-isnt-se
nsitive

This article goes on and discusses the differences in responsibility of the FTC and FCC.  We have all experienced geographic advertising targeting, or targeting based on cookie history but now, we will see advertising based on individual web histories.  

Many years ago, among the more “cautious” of Internet users, there were anonymizing web proxies.  Services that acted as a buffer between your computer and the websites you visited.  They have in a large part been subsumed by TOR services.  If the problem becomes serious, we all may be using TOR for common, instead of extraordinary, web usage.; both desktop and mobile.

In another trend toward removing the curtain between web user and TLAs/LEAs.  A judge in a small city in Minnesota has issued a warrant to Google to find out who searched for an individual and their photo in connection to a less than 30,000.00 fraud case.  Evidently the most sweeping non-national security warrant of its kind.  If its successful, then due to the ubiquity of Google’s use, we can expect much much more of this.

https:/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims
-name-on-google

Ridge

Before the election, some Internet researchers found that servers in Russia associated with a major bank were pinging or making DNS calls to a server located in Trump Tower.  While there may have been a semi innocent (though not really believable) explanation for the traffic, not for the extraordinary volume.  The FBI came out and said it was nothing, probably spam.  Well that was bull and they knew it as it was probably the basis for FISA warrants, which they wanted to keep quiet.

Since then, multiple media sources have said that monitoring was done on TT centered on that traffic, though other individuals may also be targets of electronic surveillance.

But that about these servers that set people off?  What were they doing?

DNS calls are the background radiation of the Internet.  Each second billions of DNS packets are sent from every conceivable device around the Net.  DNS (Domain Name Server) is the way that traffic is addressed across the Net.  Computers recognize IP#s as legitimate Internet addresses, not web site names  When you type Googe.com or Boomantribune.com into the address bar, a DNS packet is sent out to a Name Server, which sends back the correct IP#  for the site.  (Boomantribune.com is 64.34.170.44)  The browser, ftp client, email client, etc.. then use that address to request the page or other data.   Name servers are maintained for public use and private use for large enterprises that require them on their private networks.

It is possible for one server in a private network to send DNS requests to a DNS server on another private network if it was going to access resources on that private network.  But you would only need to do that once to copy the records from one server to another, then regularly update.  What was found in looking at the traffic between TT and the banks was near constant traffic for periods of time.  Like thousands and thousands of packets back and forth.  

“Earlier this month, the group of computer scientists passed the logs to Paul Vixie. In the world of DNS experts, there’s no higher authority. Vixie wrote central strands of the DNS code that makes the internet work. After studying the logs, he concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” …..

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_t
rump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html#return

About 10 years ago, this method of secret communications was brought up at another forum by very knowledgeable Sys Admins and DNS programmers.  I hadn’t heard of it and thought it would require custom code.  Imagine my surprise when I see today that there is a program to do this very thing.  

Unix/Linux/Apple/Win32/Android

http://code.kryo.se/iodine/

As I said, DNS calls are the background radiation of the Internet.  If you could disguise communications within that vast pool of similar traffic, you could possibly go un-noticed.  As long as you kept it short and wasn’t under constant surveillance. like a sanctioned Russian Bank.

Ridge

The story is accelerating rapidly.  To try and summarize it so far would be out of date tomorrow.  But for those of us who remember Watergate see the same pattern; but at a much faster pace.

Consider, all the effort then was to protect Nixon’s awareness of the illegal activity trying to stem leaks plus sabotage the Democratic campaign and hide that awareness from Congress, the Special Prosecutor and the public.  Only when it was no longer possible, due to court orders, to continue to conceal Nixon’s knowledge and acceptance did he resign his office.

All this Russian stuff is the same.  And it all comes back to the unquestionable closeness of the Trump campaign to the Putin regime in Moscow.  What is the source of that closeness?  And why protect it to the probable collapse of the Trump Administration and possible political damage to the GOP?

The only thing that makes the most sense is commercial ties between Trump, his family, and Moscow money.  And that will only be explained by examining several decades of Trump tax returns. If there was nothing there, certainly they would have been released.  So why not?

1. the returns show he is not as wealthy as he claims (public records of bankruptcy, selling of assets, etc… lead to this)
2. He has lied about his ties to Moscow money.
3. Russian thugs don’t look kindly on to bankrupts and have ways of exerting pressure or revenge on those who they think are going to screw them. Just who does Trump’s private security for himself and family report to?  I mean why push the Secret Service aside when they have the full support of the US military and intelligence agencies and use private security?

Its all going to unravel. When it comes out, Donald will have to go.  The only question is when and will all the GOP efforts and policies be tainted by association with Trump.  Like Watergate, the “Silent Majority” didn’t accept or give importance to the story at first.  However, the constant drip of stories and revelations turned them.  

And who will the GOP blame for this mess.  Can’t be themselves, even though they fell in line with Trump.  Can’t be their base.  Won’t be the Democrats as they have been  in front of this all along.

The Russians will be blamed.  The GOP will pivot and become very hardline against Moscow; the opposite result they were trying for.  Already there is awareness of it all going wrong in Putin’s circle with firings.  The death and arrest of Russian cyber warriors may be tied to this, wiping the trail of the hacking back to the Kremlin.  But the NSA and fellows have all the records going back years.  Already the archives are being opened.  European agencies are reporting contacts in various cities with Russians. To keep out of the spotlight takes years of training and nation state resources.  Something that business men and political hacks don’t have.

So the question I might have is, will Putin himself become a liability to the Moscow Money as Trump will become.  Will he be such a liability that he is tossed overboard?  Or killed?  Or dies from a heart attack. Or in a hunting accident?

So enough of speculation.  But count on this. Trump will go when the tax returns become the focus and are about to be released.

Ridge

That has been the question since national security level encryption has been available to the masses.  Up to the early 90’s it was considered a “munition” and restricted as to export.  That was defeated when books with code exaples like “Applied Cryptography” by Schneier and Zimmerman’s PGP program was printed out and mailed to Europe.  They could not be stopped under 1st  Amendment protections.  Plus once the Duffie-Hellman protocol became practical,  commercial interests wanted strong cryptography available in browsers for eCommerce.  The fight between Netscape and the defeat of the clipper chip under Clinton Admin was based on that.

Logically, data protected by strong encryption and available only through the application of its password/passphrase should be in the same vein as demanding the combination of a safe by the police.  Essentially a warrant for what is inside your head.  In the past that was protected.  The cops could haul away your safe and force it open but they couldn’t force you to incriminate yourself by demanding you open it.

Some federal courts have upheld that notion.  The most famous was Kevin Mitnick in the 1990’s who was arrested,tried and convicted for hacking the US Govt sentenced to prison for years.  The FBI labs had his laptop but could never open his files without his input, which he refused.

State courts have demanded decryption, some Fed courts also while United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has said the 5th Amend applies. The Supreme Court agreed in a general sense, but not on this issue.  National Security Letters which can be applied to Enterprises, may be exempt.

However some courts do not agree and there is now a US citizen held without charge. charge or conviction (except contempt), for 16 months, because he won’t open his files based on 5th Amendment assertion.

So the question becomes, can a US Citizen be compelled to “self incriminate” if the data is stored digitally but protected; but not if its testimony or documents as in US v Hubble?  It will end up in the Supreme Court, and how it rules will be interesting.  Will the judges be “conservative” or “liberal” in their reading?

Ridge

https:/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/justice-naps-man-jailed-16-months-for-refusing-to-reveal
-passwords

Just a little BTW info for those interested.  If one is thinking about about resisting authoritarian tendencies of governments, then they need to be aware of their capabilities.  

Personally, I like to keep up with these sorts of things as opposed to web site navel gazing and the weird capability of down rating comments.  I mean, Jeeeez, they are just electrons on a screen

Anyway, Feds are revealing that another NSA contractor working for Booz Allen Hamilton (as did Snowden )stole a huge database of computer exploits that are used against targeted systems; such as foreign or domestic computers.  His lawyers are saying he only took them home to work on them and improve.  Maybe, but you know, his systems would have been targeted as an employee with such access.  Kind of like Clinton and her server.

The 2nd is also very interesting.

In January, someone hacked Cellebrite, an Israeli forensic hacking company who sold tools to Russia, Turkey, etc… as well as US LEA.

Well someone got into their tool box and took 900gb of data, including lots of unknown iOS tools used on iPads and iPhones throughout the world.  These vulnerabilities were known but not disclosed to the public by the companies.  Why?  either for reputation or security reasons.

But what is interesting is that some of the apps released appear to be jailbreak code developed by the unofficial iOS jailbreak community.

” Zdziarski also said that other parts of the code were similar to a jailbreaking project called QuickPwn, but that the code had seemingly been adapted for forensic purposes. For example, some of the code in the dump was designed to brute force PIN numbers, which may be unusual for a normal jailbreaking piece of software.

“If, and it’s a big if, they used this in UFED or other products, it would indicate they ripped off software verbatim from the jailbreak community and used forensically unsound and experimental software in their supposedly scientific and forensically validated products,” Zdziarski continued. …”

So jailbreakers got their code stolen and sold for commercial purposes so security agencies could break into phones.  Great.

Cellebrite may have been the Israeli company the FBI paid thousands to break into an iPhone earlier this year; probably using this tool set. The FBI should grab this code dump and save the taxpayers some money.

These are just two examples of US and allied govt capabilities in accessing electronic data.  If you are interested in organizing resistance, you need to be as paranoid as your fellows in the 60’s; because the mentality hasn’t changed, just the capabilities.  

And if someone in  your group suggest you get “serious” and maybe do a little anti-govt or property violence…run as they are 99% sure to be FBI plants.  Worked in the student movements, the radical elements, the militia movement and now “terrorist” cells.  The old ways are often the best.

Ridge

———excerpt———
“Myers said Martin took “many thousands of pages” of classified material as well as 50 terabytes of digital data, much of which has “special handling caveats.”

Martin previously worked in the Navy, leaving active duty in 1992 and then held a variety of tech jobs with government contractors. He worked at the NSA from 2012 to 2015, where he was an employee of the intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

For some portion of that time, Martin was in the NSA’s elite hacker unit, Tailored Access Operations, which makes and deploys software used to penetrate foreign targets’ computer networks for foreign espionage purposes.

Some U.S. officials said that Martin allegedly made off with more than 75 percent of TAO’s library of hacking tools — an allegation which, if true, would be a stunning breach of security.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/prosecutors-to-seek-indictment-against-former
-nsa-contractor-as-early-as-this-week/2017/02/06/362a22ca-ec83-11e6-9662-6eedf1627882_story.html?utm
_term=.9e0feccff416