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2019年9月25日 星期三
立陶宛：中國間諜活躍，為安全威脅；中國使館職員涉擾亂「人鏈活動」 立陶宛傳召華大使；不普天同慶
外國叫貨，又快又便宜：中國郵資太低 美國威脅退出萬國郵政
中國郵資太低美國威脅退出萬國郵政
萬國郵政聯盟負責制定國際郵資。隨著電商的大規模興起，美國認為，來自中國的郵資太低，形成不公平競爭優勢。如果不解決這個問題，美國就將退出該聯盟。
每年從中國寄送到德國的小型電子產品價值約10億歐元
（德國之聲中文網）充電線、桌上裝飾品、抹布：在網上可以超級便宜的訂購。有時候，花幾歐元就可以從中國直接訂貨，一直送到德國的信箱。單單是電子產品，據行業估計，每年就有7000萬個小包裹從中國遞送到德國。歐洲的網店在價格上難以抗衡，是因為中國發貨的郵資低得驚人，特別是兩公斤以內的包裹。從北京郵寄到德國的價格甚至比德國境內的郵資還低。
本週二（9月24日）起，日內瓦開始舉行萬國郵政聯盟緊急會議。該聯盟負責制定國際郵資標準。美國威脅退出有150年曆史的該體系。如果該聯盟不能改變從中國發貨低郵資的情況，那麼美國將在10月退出192個成員國的該組織。
美國的網上銷售商早已十分不滿。2015年，亞馬遜董事會成員邁斯納（Paul Misener）在美國國會聽證時就曾表示："美國企業郵寄給美國消費者的費用，比中國企業還要高。由此產生的競爭劣勢是不公平、也不合邏輯的。"
萬國郵政聯盟將世界各國分為四個類別。工業國在最高類別，最貧窮的國家在最低類別。這一分類的理念是，幫助較貧窮國家加入世界範圍內的信息溝通。
以海地為例：從這個一貧如洗的國家向德國寄送郵件，海地郵政僅需要向德國郵政支付很少的錢。而如果同樣的郵件從美國寄到德國，德國郵政會得到明顯更多的錢。中國在萬國郵政聯盟屬於第三類。很長時間裡，這沒有什麼問題，直到近些年來網上購物繁榮起來。美國總統特朗普的經濟顧問納瓦羅在《金融時報》的一篇文章中寫道："美國是最大的受害者。"
德國電商行業聯合會（BEVH）批評來自中國的不公平競爭。該聯合會主席弗爾希海姆（Gero Furchheim）表示："我們估計，每年單單從中國直接寄送到德國私人家庭的電子產品價值就超過10億歐元。"他表示，除了郵資低以外，中國商家的價格低還有一個原因，就是他們時常繞過安全標準以及逃漏增值稅。
中國廣西一處物流中心
富裕國家的郵政企業對來自中國的郵資問題立場不一。許多企業雖然有損失，但認為未來這是一樁有利可圖的業務。瑞士郵政在2017年業績報告中寫道："儘管來自亞洲的郵件得到的報償還很低，但對瑞士郵政而言仍是值得的，因為這是一樁以量取勝的業務。"德國郵政一名發言人表示："德國郵政將致力於找到一個解決方案，能夠繼續讓國際郵政的價格對客戶、網絡銷售而言，有一個可靠的可預估性。"
美國的要求是什麼呢？郵資在2021年以前本來就會重新調整，但這對美國是不夠的。美國談判代表納瓦羅表示："美國必須能夠自主決定本國的郵資，好讓郵政企業接收發自其它國家的郵件所需要的成本得到補償。"
如果萬國郵政聯盟成員國不批准這一點，並在周四前達不成妥協，那麼，美國將在10月17日退出該組織。屆時，世界郵政會發生混亂嗎？網絡銷售平台Ebay警告說："如果美國退出，那些在網上向世界各地發貨的小商家可能會在美國郵政那邊經歷遞送中斷或者大幅度的提價。而美國則可能要未來與各個國家單獨簽訂雙邊郵政協議。
2019年9月14日 星期六
The World Expected a Chinese Tech Takeover. Alibaba Can’t Even Conquer Vietnam.
“The general consensus of Chinese companies in this part of the world is they’ll just bulldoze their way through.” Why China's tech giants struggle outside China.
“The general consensus of Chinese companies in this part of the world is they’ll just bulldoze their way through.” Why China's tech giants struggle outside China.
The World Expected a Chinese Tech Takeover. Alibaba Can’t Even Conquer Vietnam.
The Chinese juggernaut handles more business than any other company. Yet like many of its compatriots, it has struggled to expand into new markets
Last year, Alibaba’s Vietnam operation put together a plan to win big in toilet paper.
In the company’s home base of China, toilet paper is a popular online purchase and volumes are typically huge. Staff bought hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth and offered it online at low prices, say people familiar with what happened.
But Vietnam’s...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
2019年9月12日 星期四
A court ruled that a man who died of a heart attack after having sex during a business trip suffered a work-related injury, making his employer liable.
nyt:
France: A court ruled that a man who died of a heart attack after having sex during a business trip suffered a work-related injury, making his employer liable.
google 翻譯： 法國：法院裁定，一名因商務旅行期間發生性行為而死於心髒病的男子遭受與工作有關的傷害，使其雇主承擔責任。
France: A court ruled that a man who died of a heart attack after having sex during a business trip suffered a work-related injury, making his employer liable.
google 翻譯： 法國：法院裁定，一名因商務旅行期間發生性行為而死於心髒病的男子遭受與工作有關的傷害，使其雇主承擔責任。
2019年9月11日 星期三
Women’s Share of Board Seats Rises to 20%； "研究發現75%的新任董事仍是男性"2018
The Wall Street Journal
A California law requiring female directors is causing ripple effects at companies across the country.
WSJ.COM
Women’s Share of Board Seats Rises to 20%
有些國家享用立法來強制規定某類公司的董事會組成。
所以美國大型公司對於有色人種或女性的董事，需求大。
然而，這些成效都相當有限。
擴大到地區別或國家別，這種性別比率失衡的情形更嚴重，
研究發現75%的新任董事仍是男性
全球獵頭公司億康先達的最新研究結果顯示，公司董事會的性別平等可能永遠無法實現，在新任命的董事中，75%仍為男性。
研究发现75%的新任董事仍是男性全球猎头公司亿康先达的最新研究结果显示，公司董事会的性别平等可能永远无法实现，在新任命的董事中， 75%仍为男性。
Google指出，將持續在台灣成長，尋求擴展的機會，期待在不久的將來還能分享更多關於Google台灣資料中心的計畫
這第二座data center可能為增長的廠商委託管理服務？
（中央記者江明晏台北11日電）Google今天發布新聞稿宣布，已於台南購地，因應未來在台資料中心的營運需求；Google表示，按照嚴謹的選址流程、評估技術與各項因素，選擇台南作為興建資料中心的地點。
Google表示，如同全球各地的Google資料中心，Google按照嚴謹的選址流程、評估技術與各項因素，選擇台南作為興建資料中心的地點；非常感謝經濟部工業局、台南市政府、台南科技工業園區、台灣電力公司以及許多合作夥伴，為這次的選址流程提供諸多協助。
Google指出，台灣是全球高科技產業重鎮，長期以來支持創新發展，更位處亞洲中心地帶；台灣的這些優勢是Google在2013年於彰化啟用資料中心的主要原因。
在台灣展開營運後，Google一直十分重視Google資料中心對當地環境帶來的影響，因此投入了數項環境保護行動，例如：廢棄物管理計畫、近期開放的電動車充電站。今年年初，也在台灣落實了Google 採用再生能源的長期承諾，向座落於台南市的太陽能電廠購買10MW（千瓩） 的再生能源電力。
數年來，Google也不斷透過資料中心社區公益計畫（Data Center Community Grant Program） 支持台灣資料中心的鄰近社區發展，自2015年至今年，已有超過40個包括公立學校和非營利組織等單位、以及超過50個幫助當地社區發展的專案，獲得總額43萬美元 （約新台幣1350萬元）的資助獎金。這項計畫旨在支持STEM（科學、技術、工程、數學）教育、協助弭平數位落差、以及發展維護區域生態的行動。
隨著 Google在台資料中心投資的逐漸增加，Google也為台灣本地的人才帶來更多的就業機會。Google表示，2018年起，開始在台灣的資料中心招收實習生，這項計畫非常成功，有幾位實習生在畢業後已被Google資料中心聘用為正職員工，而Google也決定擴大實習計畫的規模。
Google指出，將持續在台灣成長，尋求擴展的機會，期待在不久的將來還能分享更多關於Google台灣資料中心的計畫。（編輯：黃國倫）1080911
2019年9月7日 星期六
千奇百怪墓誌銘
Kumaraswamy Vela Velupillai - 2017 - Business & Economics
Perhaps we, as mathematical economists are, after all, more enamoured of social approval than an adherence to a scientifically sanctioned norm! ... Like the dangerous epitaph to Marshall's Principles, 'borrowed', indirectly, from Huxley,26 the one Samuelson borrowed from ... source for this vision in Frege's masterpiece書的墓誌銘 Marshall's Principal
Willard Gibbs
Mathematics is a language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Willard_Gibbs
章末是送Simon之"有限理性"
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某經濟學家將他發現的"經濟關係式子"當墓誌銘
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Nestled along an unmarked, unpaved footpath in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, this 87-year-old’s lighthearted epitaph is a tip of the hat to life’s simple joys. (via Gastro Obscura)
Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China's Drive for Global Supremacy [Bill Gertz]
Book reveals how Chinese intelligence steals U.S. tech secrets to dominate world
Excerpts from “Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China’s Drive for Global Supremacy” (Encounter, September 2019), a book published Tuesday by The Washington Times veteran national security reporter and “Inside the Ring” columnist Bill Gertz.
Excerpts from “Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China’s Drive for Global Supremacy” (Encounter, September 2019), a book published Tuesday by The Washington Times veteran national security reporter and “Inside the Ring” columnist Bill Gertz.
【华盛顿记者新书出炉：中国是比苏联还危险的“邪恶帝国”】美国从上世纪80年代起的一系列错误对华政策造就了“21世纪邪恶帝国”的崛起。中国，这个比冷战时期的苏联还要危险的国家，是美国当下面临的真正威胁。这是本周在美国出版的一本有关中国的新书所传递的主要讯息。https://www.voachinese.com/a/5073543.html
The reason PoisonIvy is so widely used is simple: All computers and networks using Microsoft Windows operating systems are easy prey. Once inside, the malware allows remote key logging, screen capturing, video capturing, massive transfers of files, password theft, system administration access, internet and data traffic relaying and more.
The email from the 3PLA officer seeking PoisonIvy cyber-spying software had been intercepted by the National Security Agency and would eventually lead to the arrest and conviction of a major Chinese cyber espionage actor named Su Bin, aka Stephen Su. The case of Su Bin would reveal for the first time the Chinese military’s relentless drive to steal American weapons know-how from defense contractors such as Boeing to build up its forces for the ultimate defeat of “American imperialism” — the term used by China in many of its internal communications to describe the Communist Party of China’s main enemy, the United States.
Military intelligence organizations are strategic players in the Chinese goal of achieving information dominance — the first step in laying waste to the main enemy in both peacetime and war and paving the way forward to achieving global supremacy.
Defeatist policy
Until 2016 and the advent of the Trump presidency, details about Chinese cyberattacks and the organizations behind them were tightly held secrets. Successive U.S. administrations since the 1990s sought to cover up and hide nefarious Chinese intelligence activities as part of rigid policies designed to appease Beijing.
It was through such feckless, defeatist policies that the United States theorized that conciliation and engagement would lead the Party rulers and their military henchmen away from communism and toward democracy and free markets. Instead, a hated Communist Party regime was not only perpetuated but strengthened at the expense of America’s most precious intellectual resources.
In spring 2018, the Trump administration took an unprecedented step and, for the first time, exposed the activities of one of China’s most important spymasters, PLA Major General Liu Xiaobei. Gen. Liu for many years headed 3PLA.
In late 2015, 3PLA was subsumed into a service-level military organization known as the Strategic Support Force and became the main component of a new unit called the Cyber Corps. The Cyber Corps is one of the PLA’s most secret units and is staffed by as many as 100,000 hackers, language specialists and analysts at its headquarters in the Haidian District of Beijing. Branch units are located in Shanghai, Qingdao, Sanya, Chengdu and Guangzhou.
Beginning in the 1990s, the Chinese used large-scale cyberattacks in support of a larger industrial policy of building up the country’s science and technology business and military sector. 3PLA is China’s most aggressive technology collector by far, with at least 19 confirmed and nine possible cyber units under its command. The CIA identified Gen. Liu in a 2014 report as an encryption specialist and director of the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau, another term for 3PLA.
The general appeared in a 2013 PLA propaganda video called “Silent Contest,” which described the United States as the main target of Chinese cyberattacks, based on the country being the birthplace of the internet and having the ability to control its core resources.
A U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) report on Chinese technology theft provided some of the first clear evidence of the massive damage caused by cyber-economic spying attacks. Chinese unfair trade practices and Beijing’s intellectual property theft, according to the report, cost Americans a staggering $225 billion to $600 billion annually in lost information.
The Su Bin case
The case of Su Bin provides one of the clearest examples of how that theft occurs. Mr. Su was the owner of a company based in China and Canada called Beijing Lode Technology Company Ltd., an aviation and space technology supply firm with clients in China and around the world, including the United States.
The email dated July 23, 2008, from the PLA officer marked the beginning of a series of events that ultimately led the U.S. government to expose part of China’s hugely successful campaign of cyber theft operations — the most massive transfer of American wealth through cyberattacks in U.S. history.
That technology theft ranged from extremely valuable government information to the pillaging of proprietary electronic data on some of the most strategic weapons systems — all obtained covertly from the small group of American defense contractors, including Boeing and Lockheed, who built and maintained cutting-edge aircraft, warships and other military hardware that made the United States the most powerful nation on earth. China significantly undermined the United States’ standing as the world’s premier military power by funneling this stolen military intelligence into the PLA for use in its massive arms modernization program.
On October 24, 2009, a day after receiving a contract, Mr. Su returned the signed document in an email to the 3PLA officer. Over the next five months Mr. Su and the two PLA officers directed a team of hackers operating in China, who began targeting specific employees with access to computer networks at the Boeing C-17 assembly plant in Long Beach, California.
The Chinese used emails with fraudulent email sender addresses that were carefully crafted to masquerade as someone known to the recipient. The objective was to have the person click on an innocuous computer link that would automatically download malicious Chinese hacking software. The practice is called “spear phishing,” or just phishing, and is a tactic mastered by the Chinese.
Sometime between December 2009 and January 2010, the Chinese hacking operation hit pay dirt. Mr. Suwas able to gather details of several Boeing executives, and within a few months the hackers had stolen 85,000 files on the C-17 aircraft from Boeing.
An intercepted email to higher-ups in the PLA outlined the operations in detail. It outlined the successful exfiltration of C-17 secrets between two other PLA officers and one other member of the hacking team — probably a civilian hacker working as a contractor. The report expressed the elation the hackers experienced from stealing the crown jewels of a development project that had cost American taxpayers around $40 billion to develop from the 1980s to the 1990s. Ultimately, 280 C-17 aircraft were built at an average cost of $202 million apiece.
Extraordinary coup
For the Chinese, the operation to steal the vital secrets was an intelligence coup of extraordinary magnitude. Not only did Chinese aircraft manufacturers save billions of dollars in development costs, but those companies quickly incorporated the secrets in a new PLA transport, Y-20, that cost a mere 2.7 million RMB, or $393,201.98 for the entire cyber-spying operation.
The PLA summary of the operation read in part:
“… Thorough planning, meticulous preparations, seizing opportunity, [we] initiated all human and material preparations for the reconnaissance in the beginning of 2009. After a few months’ hard work and untiring efforts, through internal coordination [we] for the first time broke through the internal network of the Boeing Company in January of 2010. Currently, we have discovered in its internal network 18 domains and about 10,000 machines.
“From breaking into its internal network to obtaining intelligence, we repeatedly skipped around in its internal network to make it harder to detect reconnaissance, and we also skipped around at suitable times in countries outside the U.S. In the process of skipping, we were supported by a prodigious quantity of tools, routes, and servers, which also ensured the smooth landing of intelligence data.
“… We made appropriate investment and reaped enormous achievement. Through our reconnaissance on the C-17 strategic transport aircraft, we obtained files amounting to 65G [gigabytes]. Of these, there were 630,000 files and 85,000 file folders, containing the scans of C-17 strategic transport aircraft drawings, revisions, and group signatures, etc. The drawings include the aircraft front, middle, and back; wings; horizontal stabilizer; rudder; and engine pylon. The contents include assembly drawings, parts and spare parts. Some of the drawings contain measurement and allowance, as well as details of different pipelines, electric cable wiring, and equipment installation.
“Additionally, there were flight tests documents. This set of documents contains detailed contents, and the file system is clear and detailed, considered top-flight drawings by experts! This project took one year and 2.7 million RMB to execute, showing cost effectiveness and enormous achievement. This reconnaissance job, because of the sufficient preparations, meticulous planning, has accrued rich experience for our work in future. We are confident and able … to complete new mission.”
The PLA report was made public in court documents from the Su Bin case after his arrest — five years after the PLA stole Boeing’s secrets.
Less than a decade after the Boeing C-17 data heist, the Chinese were busy showing off their version of the aircraft, the Xian Y-20 heavy transport, a jet that not surprisingly looked almost identical to the C-17 when it was showcased in November 2018 at the Zhuhai International Air Show. Chinese propaganda outlets bragged that the Y-20 “made China the third country after Russia and the US to design and develop its own heavy military transport aircraft.” The first prototypes were built in 2013 — three years after the Boeing hack.
Michelle Van Cleave, a former high-ranking US counterintelligence official within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the Su prosecution was a success. But the case did little to stem the torrent of secrets flowing out of American computer networks and represented but “a drop in a bucket that keeps getting bigger every year.”
“The Chinese have a sophisticated network of tens of thousands of human spies and computer hackers targeting American military and technological secrets,” Ms. Van Cleave said. “What they can’t acquire legally through trade, or creatively through mergers and acquisitions, they are prepared to steal. And it’s getting harder all the time to stop them.”
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