What I'm Reading 2/10/2020 - Amazon Censorship and Chinese Espionage

CNN- A man posed as an Uber or Lyft driver to lure women into his car, police say. They want other potential victims to come forward -

On at least one occasion, Ragheb allegedly drove a victim to her home and forcibly kissed her, police said.

In another case, a victim reported seeing Ragheb in the victim's backyard, peering into the windows, authorities said.

 CNN - Federal prosecutors gear up for fight with Flynn over his guilt by attempting to use his former lawyers against him -

But the prosecutors, from the DC US Attorney's Office, asked District Judge Emmet Sullivan on Sunday to give Covington permission to counter Flynn's claims, according to a new court filing. If allowed, the defense lawyers could even be called to testify against Flynn in future court proceedings, the prosecutors noted.

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The prosecutors on Sunday also raised the possibility of charging Flynn with perjury. (Flynn under oath has said he is both guilty and not guilty, though he has not been charged with a perjury crime.)

NYTimes -  In Amazon’s Bookstore, No Second Chances for the Third Reich -

It's paywalled, but basically Amazon is banning books from sale with no explanation of how the process or why the books were chosen.  All the examples given in the article seemed to be anti-Semitic but with no documentation or transparency how can we know.  Again, the fact that there seems to be no competition or checks on the company makes it a far bigger threat to freedom than what they are supposedly protecting us against.  

ZDNet - FBI is investigating more than 1,000 cases of Chinese theft of US technology -

"The FBI has about a thousand investigations involving China's attempted theft of U.S.-based technology in all 56 of our field offices and spanning just about every industry and sector," Wray said.

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According to US officials say that China appears to be encouraging IP theft from foreign countries, and has a system in place to reward these actions.

"There are certainly a lot of cases where we don't have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Chinese government has procured or sponsored the theft, but we see patterns where the theft is rewarded after the fact," said Adam Hickey, Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

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According to reports from varied sources, Chinese hacking operations are ordered by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, they're coordinated by intelligence officers assigned to specific areas of interest, who in turn hire private contractors in order to isolate and distance any intrusions from the Beijing government. These contractors can be known criminal hackers, security researchers, security firms, or regular IT professionals.

If these contractors can't breach a target, intelligence officers assigned to specific cases come into action. They operate on the ground, near targets, by recruiting company insiders, or even coercing Chinese employees to aide their hacking efforts using blackmail or threats against families living at home. 

Twitter - Justice Department announce indictment of 4 PLA officers for 2017 Equifax hack -

Indictment here (24 pages)