Cyber war is coming to your town soon

Years ago, my US Government OPM file was hacked. We were told it was by criminals and given insurance to cover expenses if they stole our identity.
But it turned out to be Chinese hackers,

Wikipedia report:

2015 data breach targeting Standard Form 86 (SF-86) U.S. government security clearance records retained by the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM). One of the largest breaches of government data in U.S. history, the attack was carried out by an advanced persistent threat based in China, widely believed to be the Jiangsu State Security Department, a subsidiary of China's Ministry of State Security spy agency... 

Approximately 22.1 million records were affected, including records related to government employees, other people who had undergone background checks, and their friends and family

so anyway, if China decides to start a war, they know I am a dangerous person and they probably know where I live, along with other Yanks (expats and Fil Ams) many of whom have military training. (never mind that I had a waiver not to carry a fire arm).

but of course we would be outnumbered by thousands of Chinese citizens who live here, many of whom are military age men working for the casinos, but also working with Chinoy businessmen.

Indeed, Rappler in May 2023 noticed a lot of them were working on our electric grid:

Here's a rundown of the controversies surrounding the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines and a history of how China teamed up with Filipino businessmen to manage the country's transmission network:

it goes back to our lovely ex president Arroyo of course, so China essentially owns 40 percent of the grid. (the legal limit since the Philippines usually doesn't let foreigners own businesses or property).

So fast forward:

Reuters has an article today about the vulnerability of the power grid to hackers.,

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Hackers linked to the Chinese government are targeting critical U.S. infrastructure, preparing to cause "real-world harm" to Americans, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional committee on Wednesday. Water treatment plants, the electric grid, oil and natural gas pipelines and transportation hubs are among the targets of state-sponsored hacking operations, he told the House of Representatives Select Committee on competition with China

Hmm... I think we've seen this before.

of course, with recent reports on the illegal migrants have changed in character, noticing most of them are now military age men, (most coming to find work), but also gang members and at least 700  known terrorists, so such sophisticated attacks might not be needed: attacking sub stationg with rifles will do a lot of damage. (although I should point out that most of the damage of substations are by squirrels, not sabateurs)...

fast forward to today's Philippine news. The annual Philippine American military training session this year is not about invading places or fighting people or even teaching the Yanks to coordinate with the Phil Military in delivering supplies to a disaster area (as in previous training sessions)

No the Inquirer reports:

ASIA & PACIFIC US, PH ‘Balikatan’ 2024 to include ‘cyberspace, information warfare’

“Aside from kinetic activities and littoral, airspace and land, we will also be doing exercises in the nonphysical domain such as cyberspace and information warfare,” she added. This development is in line with the military’s move to bolster its cyber defense capabilities, culminating with the creation of AFP’s Cyber Command.

information war fare means getting the story out.

 Anyone reading Hama propaganda knows they are sophisticated in reframing the story, but less well known is how the Philippine military has young computer/smartphone savvy guys who record and post what they are doing. They did this after the Islamic terrorists took over the city of Marawi, and they are now doing it to show how China is terrorizing Philippine fishermen and even the Phil Coast guard in the West Philippine sea: not just in international waters, but in the EEZ of the Philippines.

Like the guy streaming boogie woogie, showing what happened in real time and getting the story out first is not something China likes.

True, China would probably not invade Luzon (locals would take up arms and cause a mess), but they can and will use economic warfare, sabotage (and bribery) to get the Philippines to kowtow to their plans.

Some worry about these things because of the presence of thousands of military age Chinese men working in the casinos or other Chinese businesses, and of course the Philippines is very vulnerable to cyber attack.

Now, hitting the power grid here might not affect people as much as it does in the USA: why? Because we have frequent brownouts and lots of earthquakes and typhoons that leave one with no power (or water or internet, but cellphone service usually works)... and of course every business and middle class family has a generator. Of course, if the diesel/gasoline supply is stopped, that could cause trouble (palm oil diesel or alcohol might eventually let us fill in the gap).

but businesses would suffer. And it's not just the local electric grid. The huge internet cable that carries a lot of traffic from India, SEAsia and the Philippines goes right by Taiwan.

SCMP article from 2022 discusses this.

>China has already cut the internet connection of Taiwan's Matsu Island

as the TaipeiTimes points out, if they cut these cables it won't just isolate Taiwan, but could hurt a lot of other Asian nations.

Taiwan has 14 subsea cables — many little wider than a garden hose — stretching thousands of kilometers and directly linking Asian nations including China to the US and other parts of the world. That is a vulnerability the government, which sees any interruption as potentially destabilizing, wants to minimize.

I remember in 2006 when a large earthquake cut an internet cable: it affected China and Taiwan but also Korea, the Philippines and even India. We were offline for six weeks.

So would China cut these internet cables to isolate Taiwan, knowing it would hurt other countries that are already mad at China (not to mention affecting China's internet)?

and into this geopolitical question, comes the white knight who saved the Ukraine:

of course, last year Fortune magazine notes yes Starlink is there, but Musk does a lot of business with China so might not cooperate. So Taiwan might be looking also to other similar services, in the UK or do it on their own.

So even if Biden screws this up, remember that India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Viet Nam are all being bullied by China and might help.