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Chinese Hackers Impersonate Former White House Official In Attempt To Steal US AI Policy Secrets
Chinese Hackers Impersonate Former White House Official In Attempt To Steal US AI Policy Secrets
https://amgreatness.com/2026/10/02/chinese-hackers-impersonate-former-white-house-official-in-attempt-to-steal-us-ai-policy-secrets/,
Chinese-linked hackers have allegedly been impersonating American artificial intelligence experts, including a former White House official, in a targeted cyberespionage campaign aimed at obtaining sensitive information about U.S. AI policymaking.
Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint revealed Thursday that a hacking group it identifies as https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/chinese-hackers-impersonated-ex-us-official-steal-emails-ai-experts-2026-10-01/ has been attempting to steal passwords from individuals at American and Japanese think tanks, defense contractors, universities and law firms since at least 2025.
Proofpoint attributed the activity to Chinese hackers based on the malware, infrastructure and targeting patterns associated with the attacks, which the company said align with Beijing's intelligence priorities.
The latest operation involved fraudulent emails appearing to originate from prominent AI and national security experts, including Lynne Parker, former principal deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The messages typically invited recipients to participate in AI-related projects or collaborations before directing them to fraudulent websites designed to steal login credentials.
Among those targeted was Alex Engler, a former White House official who now leads the Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy.
Engler https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/chinese-hackers-impersonated-ex-us-official-steal-emails-ai-experts-2026-10-01/ he received an email supposedly from Parker inviting him to participate in a new AI policy initiative. After noticing something suspicious and consulting colleagues, he discovered the message was fraudulent.
Proofpoint said the operation targeted fewer than 10 individuals across several organizations, particularly experts involved in AI regulation, export controls and national AI strategy.
The company's findings suggest the hackers were pursuing intelligence about Washington's policymaking rather than simply attempting to steal American technology.
Parker confirmed that at least two individuals received suspicious messages using her identity in early July.
"The United States and China are in a competition around AI," Parker told Reuters.
The allegations underscore growing cybersecurity concerns surrounding America's technological competition with China, particularly as AI becomes increasingly important to national security and economic policy.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beijing has consistently denied conducting cyberespionage operations.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 22:10
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/chinese-hackers-impersonate-former-white-house-official-attempt-steal-us-ai-policy
Chinese Hackers Impersonate Former White House Official In Attempt To Steal US AI Policy Secrets
https://amgreatness.com/2026/10/02/chinese-hackers-impersonate-former-white-house-official-in-attempt-to-steal-us-ai-policy-secrets/,
Chinese-linked hackers have allegedly been impersonating American artificial intelligence experts, including a former White House official, in a targeted cyberespionage campaign aimed at obtaining sensitive information about U.S. AI policymaking.
Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint revealed Thursday that a hacking group it identifies as https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/chinese-hackers-impersonated-ex-us-official-steal-emails-ai-experts-2026-10-01/ has been attempting to steal passwords from individuals at American and Japanese think tanks, defense contractors, universities and law firms since at least 2025.
Proofpoint attributed the activity to Chinese hackers based on the malware, infrastructure and targeting patterns associated with the attacks, which the company said align with Beijing's intelligence priorities.
The latest operation involved fraudulent emails appearing to originate from prominent AI and national security experts, including Lynne Parker, former principal deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The messages typically invited recipients to participate in AI-related projects or collaborations before directing them to fraudulent websites designed to steal login credentials.
Among those targeted was Alex Engler, a former White House official who now leads the Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy.
Engler https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/chinese-hackers-impersonated-ex-us-official-steal-emails-ai-experts-2026-10-01/ he received an email supposedly from Parker inviting him to participate in a new AI policy initiative. After noticing something suspicious and consulting colleagues, he discovered the message was fraudulent.
Proofpoint said the operation targeted fewer than 10 individuals across several organizations, particularly experts involved in AI regulation, export controls and national AI strategy.
The company's findings suggest the hackers were pursuing intelligence about Washington's policymaking rather than simply attempting to steal American technology.
Parker confirmed that at least two individuals received suspicious messages using her identity in early July.
"The United States and China are in a competition around AI," Parker told Reuters.
The allegations underscore growing cybersecurity concerns surrounding America's technological competition with China, particularly as AI becomes increasingly important to national security and economic policy.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beijing has consistently denied conducting cyberespionage operations.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 22:10
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/chinese-hackers-impersonate-former-white-house-official-attempt-steal-us-ai-policy
Minnesota Might Hand Republicans A Senate Upset Nobody Predicted
Minnesota Might Hand Republicans A Senate Upset Nobody Predicted
Democrats entered this year's midterms aiming to flip Senate seats in Maine, North Carolina, Alaska, and Ohio, and hold Georgia and Michigan.
With the national mood really riding against the GOP, they see opportunities in Texas and Iowa as well. But things appear to be changing. That Democrats plan to flip the Senate assumed they wouldn't lose any seats they currently hold. Michigan is potentially winnable for the GOP after Democrats in the state nominated Abdul El-Sayed, but now another reliably blue state has landed on the defensive side of the ledger, forcing Democrats to defend a seat in a blue state they have held for nearly two decades.
Republican Michele Tafoya trails Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan by less than 2 points in the RealClearPolitics https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/minnesota/tafoya-vs-flanagan of Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, a gap that sits inside the margin of error. If the environment were as poisonous for Republicans as it is believed to be, this election wouldn't be on anyone's radar. Instead, it has become a true contest, and that raises a question the party would rather avoid: how many of its offensive gains survive if one of its safest seats slips away in November?
The competitive nature of this election is most certainly due in part to unique circumstances in the state. A https://infogram.com/poll-important-issues-sept-general-1h0n25oj7vlzz4p taken last month found that 14% of Minnesota voters named fraud as their most important issue, behind inflation and cost of living at 37% and ahead of health care at 12%.
Federal prosecutors estimate that at least $9 billion billed to 14 state-run Medicaid programs since 2018 may be fraudulent, a figure Walz disputes, on top of separate schemes in which sham nonprofits billed the state for child care, school lunches and other services. According to a https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-report-finds-minnesota-officials-ignored-fraud-avoid-racism-accusations, the state's Democratic leaders knew about the fraud and failed to act.
Most of those charged are of Somali descent, and the House report found state officials ignored the fraud to avoid accusations of racism. Gov. Tim Walz's net approval has since collapsed from https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/kstp-surveyusa-poll-walz-approval-rating-continues-to-fall-trumps-rebounds-slightly/ in June 2025 to https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/kstp-surveyusa-poll-walz-trump-klobuchar-approval-ratings-all-fall-to-low-points/ in August 2026. The damage has spread to Attorney General Keith Ellison, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and the Democratic legislature. Pollsters have yet to publish separate numbers for Flanagan, though a politician who has stood one step behind Walz since 2019 has little room to distance herself from the scandal. Tafoya has built her campaign on that exact point.
NEW 📺 AD: We teach our kids that bad behavior has consequences, but somehow politicians think the same rules don’t apply to them.
Peggy Flanagan ignored warning signs while fraudsters stole our tax dollars.
She has spent eight years as lieutenant governor in the Walz… https://t.co/utZpS40XRe
— Michele Tafoya (@Michele_Tafoya) https://x.com/Michele_Tafoya/status/2100954976449126610?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The fraud issue is moving more than one race. Klobuchar entered the governor's contest in late January with a https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/minnesota-governor-election-polls-2026.html. The most recent co/efficient https://battlegrounds.coefficient.org/mn/ has her up by 2.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/09/21/minnesota-senate-candidates-michele-tafoya-peggy-flanagan-are-harder-to-find-these-days described the Senate contest as quiet, since the outside money pouring into Texas and Maine has yet to show up in Minnesota. That quiet works in Tafoya's favor. She is running a state-level argument about state-level failure, and national Democrats have given her the space to make it without interference.
If control of the Senate comes down to a single seat in November, Democrats may discover that the race they never thought they would have to defend was the one that mattered, and that their handling of one of the largest benefits scandals in American history might save the GOP from losing the Senate.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 21:35
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/minnesota-might-hand-republicans-senate-upset-nobody-predicted
Minnesota Might Hand Republicans A Senate Upset Nobody Predicted
Democrats entered this year's midterms aiming to flip Senate seats in Maine, North Carolina, Alaska, and Ohio, and hold Georgia and Michigan.
With the national mood really riding against the GOP, they see opportunities in Texas and Iowa as well. But things appear to be changing. That Democrats plan to flip the Senate assumed they wouldn't lose any seats they currently hold. Michigan is potentially winnable for the GOP after Democrats in the state nominated Abdul El-Sayed, but now another reliably blue state has landed on the defensive side of the ledger, forcing Democrats to defend a seat in a blue state they have held for nearly two decades.
Republican Michele Tafoya trails Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan by less than 2 points in the RealClearPolitics https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/minnesota/tafoya-vs-flanagan of Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, a gap that sits inside the margin of error. If the environment were as poisonous for Republicans as it is believed to be, this election wouldn't be on anyone's radar. Instead, it has become a true contest, and that raises a question the party would rather avoid: how many of its offensive gains survive if one of its safest seats slips away in November?
The competitive nature of this election is most certainly due in part to unique circumstances in the state. A https://infogram.com/poll-important-issues-sept-general-1h0n25oj7vlzz4p taken last month found that 14% of Minnesota voters named fraud as their most important issue, behind inflation and cost of living at 37% and ahead of health care at 12%.
Federal prosecutors estimate that at least $9 billion billed to 14 state-run Medicaid programs since 2018 may be fraudulent, a figure Walz disputes, on top of separate schemes in which sham nonprofits billed the state for child care, school lunches and other services. According to a https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-report-finds-minnesota-officials-ignored-fraud-avoid-racism-accusations, the state's Democratic leaders knew about the fraud and failed to act.
Most of those charged are of Somali descent, and the House report found state officials ignored the fraud to avoid accusations of racism. Gov. Tim Walz's net approval has since collapsed from https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/kstp-surveyusa-poll-walz-approval-rating-continues-to-fall-trumps-rebounds-slightly/ in June 2025 to https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/kstp-surveyusa-poll-walz-trump-klobuchar-approval-ratings-all-fall-to-low-points/ in August 2026. The damage has spread to Attorney General Keith Ellison, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and the Democratic legislature. Pollsters have yet to publish separate numbers for Flanagan, though a politician who has stood one step behind Walz since 2019 has little room to distance herself from the scandal. Tafoya has built her campaign on that exact point.
NEW 📺 AD: We teach our kids that bad behavior has consequences, but somehow politicians think the same rules don’t apply to them.
Peggy Flanagan ignored warning signs while fraudsters stole our tax dollars.
She has spent eight years as lieutenant governor in the Walz… https://t.co/utZpS40XRe
— Michele Tafoya (@Michele_Tafoya) https://x.com/Michele_Tafoya/status/2100954976449126610?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The fraud issue is moving more than one race. Klobuchar entered the governor's contest in late January with a https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/minnesota-governor-election-polls-2026.html. The most recent co/efficient https://battlegrounds.coefficient.org/mn/ has her up by 2.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/09/21/minnesota-senate-candidates-michele-tafoya-peggy-flanagan-are-harder-to-find-these-days described the Senate contest as quiet, since the outside money pouring into Texas and Maine has yet to show up in Minnesota. That quiet works in Tafoya's favor. She is running a state-level argument about state-level failure, and national Democrats have given her the space to make it without interference.
If control of the Senate comes down to a single seat in November, Democrats may discover that the race they never thought they would have to defend was the one that mattered, and that their handling of one of the largest benefits scandals in American history might save the GOP from losing the Senate.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 21:35
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/minnesota-might-hand-republicans-senate-upset-nobody-predicted
25 States Ask Supreme Court To End Maine's 72-Hour Gun-Purchase Wait
25 States Ask Supreme Court To End Maine's 72-Hour Gun-Purchase Wait
A Montana-led coalition of 24 state attorneys general and the Arizona Legislature is urging the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to Maine's three-day waiting period for gun purchases.
Under https://legislature.maine.gov/legis/statutes/25/title25sec2016.html, a seller can't hand over a firearm until 72 hours after the buyer and seller agree to the sale. The wait runs even if the buyer's background check clears right away. A gun bought at noon Monday can't go home with its owner before noon Thursday.
The law exempts some buyers and sales, including law enforcement and security personnel, dealers, certain family transfers, antique firearms, and sales that don't require a background check. Sellers who break it face civil fines of $200 to $500 for a first violation and $500 to $1,000 after that.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen https://dojmt.gov/attorney-general-knudsen-leads-25-state-coalition-against-unconstitutional-waiting-period-law/ the coalition's friend-of-the-court brief Tuesday. It was filed September 28 in Beckwith v. Frey, a case brought by gun owners and businesses, and argues that the waiting period violates the Second Amendment even for buyers who have already passed a background check.
The challengers asked the Supreme Court to take the case on August 25. Maine has not defended the law there yet: Attorney General Aaron Frey's office filed a https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/425562/20260924144558579_2026.09.24%20_%20SCOTUS%20BIO%20Waiver%20_%20To%20FILE.pdf on September 24 saying it won't respond unless the Court asks it to - a routine step, not a concession.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64gKn3dL9gk's August report on the petition.
How Maine Won Round One
The law https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/420108/20260825161902465_132404-PRT-BECKWITH_Petition.pdf August 9, 2024, one of several gun measures Maine passed after the October 2023 Lewiston mass shooting. A federal judge blocked it in February 2025, but on April 3 of this year the First Circuit lifted that injunction, finding the law likely constitutional and sending the case back for further proceedings.
The appeals court's reasoning turned on the difference between buying a gun and keeping one. In its https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/413451/20260617110127232_2.%20CA1%20Opinion%20Vacating%20PI.pdf, the court held that restrictions on buying a gun fall outside the Second Amendment's text:
"laws regulating the purchase or acquisition of firearms do not target conduct covered by the Second Amendment's 'plain text.'"
The court didn't say every purchase restriction is immune from challenge. It treated the waiting period as a presumptively lawful condition on gun sales, similar to licensing systems that issue permits to anyone who meets objective criteria, and found the challengers hadn't shown the law was being applied abusively.
The States' Argument
That framing matters because of the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf. If the Second Amendment's text covers the conduct in question, the government has to justify its law by pointing to the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation. It can't simply weigh public-safety benefits against the burden on gun owners.
The coalition says Maine's law has to face that historical test. Its https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/425833/20260928142649208_26-258_Amicus%20Brief.pdf argues that keeping a qualified buyer from taking possession of a gun necessarily restricts the right to keep arms. Otherwise, the states warn, governments could regulate every step needed to exercise a right while dodging the scrutiny attached to the right itself.
The states also reject Maine's historical comparisons to licensing and intoxication laws. Those restrictions, they argue, targeted conditions a person could satisfy or avoid. Maine's wait applies even after a buyer has been cleared.
The https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260924/nra-files-amicus-brief-urging-scotus-to-hear-challenge-to-maine-s-72-hour-waiting-period-law and Second Amendment Foundation filed their own brief urging review, citing 18th- and 19th-century newspaper advertisements and other records they say show buyers could routinely take a gun home immediately.
A Split Between Circuits
The Tenth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion on New Mexico's seven-day waiting period, holding that acquiring a firearm is protected conduct and that the delay is likely unconstitutional. The coalition argues the conflict between the two appeals courts is reason enough for the Supreme Court to step in.
The New Mexico win has limits. According to an August 28 https://mslegal.org/press-releases/federal-court-rules-on-new-mexicos-seven-day-waiting-period/ from the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the challengers there, the final injunction protects only its two named clients, Samuel Ortega and Rebecca Scott. Every other buyer in the state is still subject to the wait.
The law's supporters say the point isn't paperwork. The https://www.mainegunsafety.org/72-hour-waiting-period argues that putting time between a purchase and access to the gun can prevent impulsive suicides and violence driven by short-lived anger or distress - risks a background check can't catch, because the buyer may be legally eligible.
The challengers point to the opposite risk. Their https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/420108/20260825161902465_132404-PRT-BECKWITH_Petition.pdf describes lead plaintiff Andrea Beckwith as a domestic-violence survivor who teaches firearms and self-defense to other survivors, and argues that a mandatory delay can leave someone who needs protection now unable to take home the gun they just bought.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 21:35
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/25-states-ask-supreme-court-end-maines-72-hour-gun-purchase-wait
25 States Ask Supreme Court To End Maine's 72-Hour Gun-Purchase Wait
A Montana-led coalition of 24 state attorneys general and the Arizona Legislature is urging the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to Maine's three-day waiting period for gun purchases.
Under https://legislature.maine.gov/legis/statutes/25/title25sec2016.html, a seller can't hand over a firearm until 72 hours after the buyer and seller agree to the sale. The wait runs even if the buyer's background check clears right away. A gun bought at noon Monday can't go home with its owner before noon Thursday.
The law exempts some buyers and sales, including law enforcement and security personnel, dealers, certain family transfers, antique firearms, and sales that don't require a background check. Sellers who break it face civil fines of $200 to $500 for a first violation and $500 to $1,000 after that.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen https://dojmt.gov/attorney-general-knudsen-leads-25-state-coalition-against-unconstitutional-waiting-period-law/ the coalition's friend-of-the-court brief Tuesday. It was filed September 28 in Beckwith v. Frey, a case brought by gun owners and businesses, and argues that the waiting period violates the Second Amendment even for buyers who have already passed a background check.
The challengers asked the Supreme Court to take the case on August 25. Maine has not defended the law there yet: Attorney General Aaron Frey's office filed a https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/425562/20260924144558579_2026.09.24%20_%20SCOTUS%20BIO%20Waiver%20_%20To%20FILE.pdf on September 24 saying it won't respond unless the Court asks it to - a routine step, not a concession.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64gKn3dL9gk's August report on the petition.
How Maine Won Round One
The law https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/420108/20260825161902465_132404-PRT-BECKWITH_Petition.pdf August 9, 2024, one of several gun measures Maine passed after the October 2023 Lewiston mass shooting. A federal judge blocked it in February 2025, but on April 3 of this year the First Circuit lifted that injunction, finding the law likely constitutional and sending the case back for further proceedings.
The appeals court's reasoning turned on the difference between buying a gun and keeping one. In its https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/413451/20260617110127232_2.%20CA1%20Opinion%20Vacating%20PI.pdf, the court held that restrictions on buying a gun fall outside the Second Amendment's text:
"laws regulating the purchase or acquisition of firearms do not target conduct covered by the Second Amendment's 'plain text.'"
The court didn't say every purchase restriction is immune from challenge. It treated the waiting period as a presumptively lawful condition on gun sales, similar to licensing systems that issue permits to anyone who meets objective criteria, and found the challengers hadn't shown the law was being applied abusively.
The States' Argument
That framing matters because of the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf. If the Second Amendment's text covers the conduct in question, the government has to justify its law by pointing to the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation. It can't simply weigh public-safety benefits against the burden on gun owners.
The coalition says Maine's law has to face that historical test. Its https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/425833/20260928142649208_26-258_Amicus%20Brief.pdf argues that keeping a qualified buyer from taking possession of a gun necessarily restricts the right to keep arms. Otherwise, the states warn, governments could regulate every step needed to exercise a right while dodging the scrutiny attached to the right itself.
The states also reject Maine's historical comparisons to licensing and intoxication laws. Those restrictions, they argue, targeted conditions a person could satisfy or avoid. Maine's wait applies even after a buyer has been cleared.
The https://www.nraila.org/articles/20260924/nra-files-amicus-brief-urging-scotus-to-hear-challenge-to-maine-s-72-hour-waiting-period-law and Second Amendment Foundation filed their own brief urging review, citing 18th- and 19th-century newspaper advertisements and other records they say show buyers could routinely take a gun home immediately.
A Split Between Circuits
The Tenth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion on New Mexico's seven-day waiting period, holding that acquiring a firearm is protected conduct and that the delay is likely unconstitutional. The coalition argues the conflict between the two appeals courts is reason enough for the Supreme Court to step in.
The New Mexico win has limits. According to an August 28 https://mslegal.org/press-releases/federal-court-rules-on-new-mexicos-seven-day-waiting-period/ from the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the challengers there, the final injunction protects only its two named clients, Samuel Ortega and Rebecca Scott. Every other buyer in the state is still subject to the wait.
The law's supporters say the point isn't paperwork. The https://www.mainegunsafety.org/72-hour-waiting-period argues that putting time between a purchase and access to the gun can prevent impulsive suicides and violence driven by short-lived anger or distress - risks a background check can't catch, because the buyer may be legally eligible.
The challengers point to the opposite risk. Their https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-258/420108/20260825161902465_132404-PRT-BECKWITH_Petition.pdf describes lead plaintiff Andrea Beckwith as a domestic-violence survivor who teaches firearms and self-defense to other survivors, and argues that a mandatory delay can leave someone who needs protection now unable to take home the gun they just bought.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 21:35
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/25-states-ask-supreme-court-end-maines-72-hour-gun-purchase-wait
US To Allow Online Applications For 1st-Time Passports: Rubio
US To Allow Online Applications For 1st-Time Passports: Rubio
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/us-to-allow-online-applications-for-1st-time-passports-rubio-6096652?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge,
Beginning next year, U.S. citizens can apply for their first passport fully online, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A woman applies for a U.S. passport online. Shutterstock"By the end of 2027, our goal is for the vast majority of Americans to be able to apply for a passport or a passport card on America.gov," Rubio said during a Sept. 29 remark at an event launching the America.gov platform.
The online application makes the process "more accessible and easier for Americans," he said.
"So, whether you live in the middle of a major city or you live in a rural town, you'll be able to apply from anywhere," Rubio said.
Currently, American adults seeking a first passport must apply in person at an authorized acceptance facility and fill out forms with their personal identification information and other related details.
According to Rubio, a major benefit of the online application system is that users can find existing personal details after signing in to the platform through their login.gov account and do not have to "type the same thing over and over and over again" during the application process.
The new system also makes the photo submission process easier.
Currently, people must submit one passport photo. It must meet certain conditions, such as being in color, being taken in the past six months, and using a plain white or off-white background free of objects or shadows.
But in the online application process, people would take a photo of themselves through their phones and upload it.
"No printing forms, no drugstore hostage photo, no appointment, no line, no middleman that you're paying to do something that should be available to you," Rubio said.
"You tell America.gov what you're trying to do, and it walks you through every single step and tells you exactly what comes next."
He said there was an entire industry built around cashing in on every stage of the passport application process, with some businesses even charging for forms and appointments that are free.
Rubio also said there was a risk of services keeping or misusing applicants' personal details.
The America.gov platform was https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/trump-launches-america-gov-website-simplifying-access-to-government-services-6096300?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge by President Donald Trump on Sept. 29.
Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to integrate their services with the platform.
The new web portal is aimed at making it easier for people to find government-related information, enabling people to ask questions and get guidance on how to procure various services.
The portal serves as a landing page that consolidates almost 30,000 federal government websites into one chatbot.
"The federal government no longer stands in your way, and it stands only at your service," Trump said. "We're simplifying it. ... We're making it what it should be."
Answers to questions about government services come directly from official government websites with links to sources, according to the platform.
Next year, the site is scheduled to offer assistance in finding Medicare coverage and enrollment.
The site will also make it easier for Americans to find a job in the federal government.
Citizens will submit their resumes, and the platform will match them with positions fitting their experience.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 21:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-allow-online-applications-1st-time-passports-rubio
US To Allow Online Applications For 1st-Time Passports: Rubio
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/us-to-allow-online-applications-for-1st-time-passports-rubio-6096652?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge,
Beginning next year, U.S. citizens can apply for their first passport fully online, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A woman applies for a U.S. passport online. Shutterstock"By the end of 2027, our goal is for the vast majority of Americans to be able to apply for a passport or a passport card on America.gov," Rubio said during a Sept. 29 remark at an event launching the America.gov platform.
The online application makes the process "more accessible and easier for Americans," he said.
"So, whether you live in the middle of a major city or you live in a rural town, you'll be able to apply from anywhere," Rubio said.
Currently, American adults seeking a first passport must apply in person at an authorized acceptance facility and fill out forms with their personal identification information and other related details.
According to Rubio, a major benefit of the online application system is that users can find existing personal details after signing in to the platform through their login.gov account and do not have to "type the same thing over and over and over again" during the application process.
The new system also makes the photo submission process easier.
Currently, people must submit one passport photo. It must meet certain conditions, such as being in color, being taken in the past six months, and using a plain white or off-white background free of objects or shadows.
But in the online application process, people would take a photo of themselves through their phones and upload it.
"No printing forms, no drugstore hostage photo, no appointment, no line, no middleman that you're paying to do something that should be available to you," Rubio said.
"You tell America.gov what you're trying to do, and it walks you through every single step and tells you exactly what comes next."
He said there was an entire industry built around cashing in on every stage of the passport application process, with some businesses even charging for forms and appointments that are free.
Rubio also said there was a risk of services keeping or misusing applicants' personal details.
The America.gov platform was https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/trump-launches-america-gov-website-simplifying-access-to-government-services-6096300?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge by President Donald Trump on Sept. 29.
Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to integrate their services with the platform.
The new web portal is aimed at making it easier for people to find government-related information, enabling people to ask questions and get guidance on how to procure various services.
The portal serves as a landing page that consolidates almost 30,000 federal government websites into one chatbot.
"The federal government no longer stands in your way, and it stands only at your service," Trump said. "We're simplifying it. ... We're making it what it should be."
Answers to questions about government services come directly from official government websites with links to sources, according to the platform.
Next year, the site is scheduled to offer assistance in finding Medicare coverage and enrollment.
The site will also make it easier for Americans to find a job in the federal government.
Citizens will submit their resumes, and the platform will match them with positions fitting their experience.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 21:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-allow-online-applications-1st-time-passports-rubio
Army Deploys To Rio Grande Valley After Cartel Gunmen Open Fire On Coast Guard Crew
Army Deploys To Rio Grande Valley After Cartel Gunmen Open Fire On Coast Guard Crew
Roughly 500 troops are being dropped onto islands in the Rio Grande by Chinook helicopters, days after suspected cartel gunmen opened fire on a US Coast Guard crew from the Mexican side of the river.
The deployment figure comes from sources who confirmed it to https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/troops-deployed-rio-grande-coast-guard/, which also obtained video of the Chinook drops. Officials have not put a number on it publicly. https://www.breitbart.com/border/2026/10/02/cartel-gunfire-coast-guard-forces-return-fire-after-attack-on-texas-border-u-s-army-to-deploy-in-response/ reports the size and duration are being withheld for operational security, with troops expected to stay staged in the sector for at least 30 days.
https://x.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Law enforcement sources confirm that roughly 500 troops are deploying this week to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley —Being dropped onto islands by chinook helicopters.
It comes after suspected cartel members shot at a USCG vessel near Roma over the weekend—The coast guard… https://t.co/xApDsX2RKw
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) https://x.com/AliBradleyTV/status/2106005034928316882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
According to the Coast Guard, personnel from Coast Guard Forces Rio Grande were running joint interdiction operations near Garceno, Texas, on Sept. 26, when they took gunfire from across the border. They returned fire. No one was hurt, no Coast Guard assets were damaged, and the incident remains under investigation.
The Coast Guard said it "works closely with U.S. Border Patrol, the Department of War and the Texas Military Division to secure the border, disrupt illicit activity and protect the American people," and that threats to its members are taken "extremely seriously."
Between August and September, officials told NewsNation, the military used a high-energy laser in the Rio Grande Valley to take down at least 11 cartel-linked drones that posed a physical threat to troops and CBP personnel. The Rio Grande Valley sector covers more than 320 river miles, 250 coastal miles and 19 counties, and the cartels working it are watching agents and troops, using drones to guide crossings, and moving drugs.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 20:25
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/army-deploys-rio-grande-valley-after-cartel-gunmen-open-fire-coast-guard-crew
Army Deploys To Rio Grande Valley After Cartel Gunmen Open Fire On Coast Guard Crew
Roughly 500 troops are being dropped onto islands in the Rio Grande by Chinook helicopters, days after suspected cartel gunmen opened fire on a US Coast Guard crew from the Mexican side of the river.
The deployment figure comes from sources who confirmed it to https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/troops-deployed-rio-grande-coast-guard/, which also obtained video of the Chinook drops. Officials have not put a number on it publicly. https://www.breitbart.com/border/2026/10/02/cartel-gunfire-coast-guard-forces-return-fire-after-attack-on-texas-border-u-s-army-to-deploy-in-response/ reports the size and duration are being withheld for operational security, with troops expected to stay staged in the sector for at least 30 days.
https://x.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Law enforcement sources confirm that roughly 500 troops are deploying this week to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley —Being dropped onto islands by chinook helicopters.
It comes after suspected cartel members shot at a USCG vessel near Roma over the weekend—The coast guard… https://t.co/xApDsX2RKw
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) https://x.com/AliBradleyTV/status/2106005034928316882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
According to the Coast Guard, personnel from Coast Guard Forces Rio Grande were running joint interdiction operations near Garceno, Texas, on Sept. 26, when they took gunfire from across the border. They returned fire. No one was hurt, no Coast Guard assets were damaged, and the incident remains under investigation.
The Coast Guard said it "works closely with U.S. Border Patrol, the Department of War and the Texas Military Division to secure the border, disrupt illicit activity and protect the American people," and that threats to its members are taken "extremely seriously."
Between August and September, officials told NewsNation, the military used a high-energy laser in the Rio Grande Valley to take down at least 11 cartel-linked drones that posed a physical threat to troops and CBP personnel. The Rio Grande Valley sector covers more than 320 river miles, 250 coastal miles and 19 counties, and the cartels working it are watching agents and troops, using drones to guide crossings, and moving drugs.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 20:25
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/army-deploys-rio-grande-valley-after-cartel-gunmen-open-fire-coast-guard-crew
Stockpiling Begins: Neros Awarded $100 Million Pentagon Contract For Kamikaze Drones
Stockpiling Begins: Neros Awarded $100 Million Pentagon Contract For Kamikaze Drones
US defense company Neros Technologies, which focuses on Category 1 one-way attack drones, was https://www.neros.tech/articles/neros-awarded-100-million-order-through-drone-dominance-gauntlet-ii a $100 million contract under the Department of War's Drone Dominance Program for 14,000 drones and explosive payloads.
The award, under the Drone Dominance Program's Gauntlet II, prioritizes Archer AI, the Category 1 FPV attack drone. Its automated kill chain lets the FPV fly to an operator-selected target, a huge advantage in battle zones where electronic warfare jammers, such as those targeting radio frequencies and GPS signals, dominate.
Neros CEO Soren Monroe-Anderson stated:
"We've developed our Archer FPV system to be highly modular and easily adapted to end user needs. Pairing real warfighter feedback with our deep engineering talent is the reason Neros is the only manufacturer to have placed in the top three across two fundamentally different mission sets, deep strike and close quarters battle, with the same drone platform.
Ultimately, Drone Dominance is a test of two things: can competitors build high-performance drones? And can they produce them in massive quantities with short notice? We're the only manufacturer to receive multiple bonus awards for Gauntlet I based on our delivery speed. We're ready to fulfill this next batch of 14,000 drones, and more whenever the Department of War signals need for them."
The announcement comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that Autonomous Warfare Command, dubbed "http://zerohedge.com/military/hegseth-reveals-autowarcom-74-billion-drone-splurge-may-ignite-stock," will become operational in the fall of next year and will accelerate the DoW's purchases across all drone categories.Â
What matters here is that the https://www.zerohedge.com/military/bernstein-puts-timeline-when-eu-rearmament-supercycle-order-goes-boom is set to kick off, if it hasn't already. It will provide massive tailwinds for drone companies as the military begins stockpiling all categories of drones and counter-UAS technology while fortifying military installations around the world.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 19:15
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/stockpiling-begins-neros-awarded-100-million-pentagon-contract-kamikaze-drones
Stockpiling Begins: Neros Awarded $100 Million Pentagon Contract For Kamikaze Drones
US defense company Neros Technologies, which focuses on Category 1 one-way attack drones, was https://www.neros.tech/articles/neros-awarded-100-million-order-through-drone-dominance-gauntlet-ii a $100 million contract under the Department of War's Drone Dominance Program for 14,000 drones and explosive payloads.
The award, under the Drone Dominance Program's Gauntlet II, prioritizes Archer AI, the Category 1 FPV attack drone. Its automated kill chain lets the FPV fly to an operator-selected target, a huge advantage in battle zones where electronic warfare jammers, such as those targeting radio frequencies and GPS signals, dominate.
Neros CEO Soren Monroe-Anderson stated:
"We've developed our Archer FPV system to be highly modular and easily adapted to end user needs. Pairing real warfighter feedback with our deep engineering talent is the reason Neros is the only manufacturer to have placed in the top three across two fundamentally different mission sets, deep strike and close quarters battle, with the same drone platform.
Ultimately, Drone Dominance is a test of two things: can competitors build high-performance drones? And can they produce them in massive quantities with short notice? We're the only manufacturer to receive multiple bonus awards for Gauntlet I based on our delivery speed. We're ready to fulfill this next batch of 14,000 drones, and more whenever the Department of War signals need for them."
The announcement comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that Autonomous Warfare Command, dubbed "http://zerohedge.com/military/hegseth-reveals-autowarcom-74-billion-drone-splurge-may-ignite-stock," will become operational in the fall of next year and will accelerate the DoW's purchases across all drone categories.Â
What matters here is that the https://www.zerohedge.com/military/bernstein-puts-timeline-when-eu-rearmament-supercycle-order-goes-boom is set to kick off, if it hasn't already. It will provide massive tailwinds for drone companies as the military begins stockpiling all categories of drones and counter-UAS technology while fortifying military installations around the world.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 19:15
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/stockpiling-begins-neros-awarded-100-million-pentagon-contract-kamikaze-drones
The Fed Created Zohran Mamdani
The Fed Created Zohran Mamdani
Submitted by https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-fed-created-zohran-mamdani
Usually, at least once a day, I come across something on the internet that almost causes me to lose my lunch. Yesterday, it was a photo of Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa holding hands and getting flu shots together.
As someone who observed the mayoral race in New York City closely, I found the spectacle disgusting on multiple levels. Not because political opponents can’t be civil to one another, but because it immediately brought me back to how Sliwa folded like a cheap shirt after an election in which, in my view, he couldn’t get over himself long enough to put his pride aside, step out of the race and give Mamdani’s main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, a clearer shot at winning.
Instead, Sliwa stayed in the race, presenting himself as some type of principled alternative while insisting that remaining in the race was somehow the honorable thing to do when, if he really gave a shit about New York, he should have just swallowed his pride, recognized the electoral reality in front of him and gotten out of the way. Just because you can stay in, doesn’t mean you have to.
But alas, Andrew Cuomo is no more and we are now stuck with this smiling communist buffoon, whose economic ideas make a 9 year old playing SimCity on an iPad in the back of a minivan look like Fiorello La Guardia.
For years, the United States has responded to financial crises with some combination of lower interest rates, enormous fiscal deficits and extraordinary amounts of liquidity. Whenever something breaks badly enough, policymakers rush in to stabilize the system. By now, I’m hoping people are starting to realize that when this happens, the benefits and costs of these “rescues” https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party?utm_source=publication-search.
In fact, they disproportionately brutalize the middle and lower class, the very same group of citizens that politicians are almost always claiming to help. And such rescues are almost always supported by both political parties. (Read:Â https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party)
In these situations, financial assets can respond almost immediately to easier money and abundant liquidity. Stocks rise. Bonds rise. Real estate rises. Private-company valuations rise. People who already own substantial assets watch their net worth recover and, eventually, soar.
The person living paycheck to paycheck experiences this very differently. He doesn’t own enough stocks for another bull market to change his life. Instead, he notices that his rent costs more. His groceries cost more. Insurance costs more. Restaurants cost more. A starter home that was already expensive becomes completely unattainable.
🔥 85% OFF FOREVER IF YOU SUBSCRIBE TODAY: I am again offering an 85% discount to anyone that wants to become a Fringe Finance annual subscriber today. It’s a discount you can keep and stays applied for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber: https://quoththeraven.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=ffb31980&utm_content=213689718
Back in the day, inflation would slow (but never reverse) and economists would announce that the problem was getting better. But the middle and lower class was still stuck with higher rent, groceries and home prices. Nowadays, inflation hasn’t even slowed. Prices are still skyrocketing higher. And the middle and lower class is getting torn to shreds by higher prices.
And that is the https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party?utm_source=publication-search that produces Zohran Mamdani…demonizing billionaires, proposing extremely regressive taxes, advocating for social revolution and just throwing around ideas of a state planned economy like he’s talking about the weather to a passerby in the park.
Which brings us to the great irony: the anger underlying his politics can be legitimate even if his proposed solutions make little sense on paper and https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/mamdani-begs-capitalists-at-the-adult?utm_source=publication-search.
As I’ve said innumerable times on this blog, a voter doesn’t need to understand the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party?utm_source=publication-search to achieve the basic milestones previous generations considered normal.
And when that voter hears that the stock market has hit another record high, he doesn’t feel richer. He feels cheated…and pissed off…and envious.
Then along comes Mamdani offering to freeze his rent, subsidize his childcare, make his bus free and use government to intervene in the cost of everyday life. Is that man going to stop and thumb through history books to try and carefully determine what the historical outcome of such policies have been throughout history? Hell no. He’s going to volunteer to sell “Hot Girls For Zohran” T-Shirts in Union Square Park.
You can argue about the economics of Mamdani’s policies, but politically, the sales pitch isn’t difficult to understand. And the response from people who believe in markets cannot simply be to call these voters communists and lecture them about economics.
Instead, they have to answer a much more uncomfortable question. Why does the supposedly capitalist system increasingly seem to work spectacularly well for people who already own assets while becoming progressively harder for people trying to acquire them?
That is the question Mamdani is trying to present himself as answering. And most of us know he’s giving people the wrong answer. But that doesn’t make the question disappear.
In fact, there is something deeply ironic about responding to the consequences of years of economic intervention with demands for even more economic intervention…and then when your bullshit plans fail to make economic or basic common sense, https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/mamdani-begs-capitalists-at-the-adult?utm_source=publication-search.
We risk trying to cure distortions created partly by government policy with another layer of government policy, and then wondering why the distortions keep multiplying.
Eventually somebody has to address the disease rather than the symptoms. That means taking seriously what persistent inflation does to people who own few assets. It means acknowledging the distributional consequences of monetary policy. It means recognizing that rising asset prices aren’t synonymous with widespread prosperity. And it means understanding that “inflation is falling” is cold comfort to someone whose cost of living already jumped 20%, 30% or more.
If capitalism’s defenders want fewer socialists, they might start by making capitalism look like it works for people who don’t already own everything.
--
QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer https://quoththeraven.substack.com/about.Â
Â
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 18:40
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fed-created-zohran-mamdani
The Fed Created Zohran Mamdani
Submitted by https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-fed-created-zohran-mamdani
Usually, at least once a day, I come across something on the internet that almost causes me to lose my lunch. Yesterday, it was a photo of Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa holding hands and getting flu shots together.
As someone who observed the mayoral race in New York City closely, I found the spectacle disgusting on multiple levels. Not because political opponents can’t be civil to one another, but because it immediately brought me back to how Sliwa folded like a cheap shirt after an election in which, in my view, he couldn’t get over himself long enough to put his pride aside, step out of the race and give Mamdani’s main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, a clearer shot at winning.
Instead, Sliwa stayed in the race, presenting himself as some type of principled alternative while insisting that remaining in the race was somehow the honorable thing to do when, if he really gave a shit about New York, he should have just swallowed his pride, recognized the electoral reality in front of him and gotten out of the way. Just because you can stay in, doesn’t mean you have to.
But alas, Andrew Cuomo is no more and we are now stuck with this smiling communist buffoon, whose economic ideas make a 9 year old playing SimCity on an iPad in the back of a minivan look like Fiorello La Guardia.
For years, the United States has responded to financial crises with some combination of lower interest rates, enormous fiscal deficits and extraordinary amounts of liquidity. Whenever something breaks badly enough, policymakers rush in to stabilize the system. By now, I’m hoping people are starting to realize that when this happens, the benefits and costs of these “rescues” https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party?utm_source=publication-search.
In fact, they disproportionately brutalize the middle and lower class, the very same group of citizens that politicians are almost always claiming to help. And such rescues are almost always supported by both political parties. (Read:Â https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party)
In these situations, financial assets can respond almost immediately to easier money and abundant liquidity. Stocks rise. Bonds rise. Real estate rises. Private-company valuations rise. People who already own substantial assets watch their net worth recover and, eventually, soar.
The person living paycheck to paycheck experiences this very differently. He doesn’t own enough stocks for another bull market to change his life. Instead, he notices that his rent costs more. His groceries cost more. Insurance costs more. Restaurants cost more. A starter home that was already expensive becomes completely unattainable.
🔥 85% OFF FOREVER IF YOU SUBSCRIBE TODAY: I am again offering an 85% discount to anyone that wants to become a Fringe Finance annual subscriber today. It’s a discount you can keep and stays applied for as long as you wish to remain a subscriber: https://quoththeraven.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=ffb31980&utm_content=213689718
Back in the day, inflation would slow (but never reverse) and economists would announce that the problem was getting better. But the middle and lower class was still stuck with higher rent, groceries and home prices. Nowadays, inflation hasn’t even slowed. Prices are still skyrocketing higher. And the middle and lower class is getting torn to shreds by higher prices.
And that is the https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party?utm_source=publication-search that produces Zohran Mamdani…demonizing billionaires, proposing extremely regressive taxes, advocating for social revolution and just throwing around ideas of a state planned economy like he’s talking about the weather to a passerby in the park.
Which brings us to the great irony: the anger underlying his politics can be legitimate even if his proposed solutions make little sense on paper and https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/mamdani-begs-capitalists-at-the-adult?utm_source=publication-search.
As I’ve said innumerable times on this blog, a voter doesn’t need to understand the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-devil-neither-political-party?utm_source=publication-search to achieve the basic milestones previous generations considered normal.
And when that voter hears that the stock market has hit another record high, he doesn’t feel richer. He feels cheated…and pissed off…and envious.
Then along comes Mamdani offering to freeze his rent, subsidize his childcare, make his bus free and use government to intervene in the cost of everyday life. Is that man going to stop and thumb through history books to try and carefully determine what the historical outcome of such policies have been throughout history? Hell no. He’s going to volunteer to sell “Hot Girls For Zohran” T-Shirts in Union Square Park.
You can argue about the economics of Mamdani’s policies, but politically, the sales pitch isn’t difficult to understand. And the response from people who believe in markets cannot simply be to call these voters communists and lecture them about economics.
Instead, they have to answer a much more uncomfortable question. Why does the supposedly capitalist system increasingly seem to work spectacularly well for people who already own assets while becoming progressively harder for people trying to acquire them?
That is the question Mamdani is trying to present himself as answering. And most of us know he’s giving people the wrong answer. But that doesn’t make the question disappear.
In fact, there is something deeply ironic about responding to the consequences of years of economic intervention with demands for even more economic intervention…and then when your bullshit plans fail to make economic or basic common sense, https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/mamdani-begs-capitalists-at-the-adult?utm_source=publication-search.
We risk trying to cure distortions created partly by government policy with another layer of government policy, and then wondering why the distortions keep multiplying.
Eventually somebody has to address the disease rather than the symptoms. That means taking seriously what persistent inflation does to people who own few assets. It means acknowledging the distributional consequences of monetary policy. It means recognizing that rising asset prices aren’t synonymous with widespread prosperity. And it means understanding that “inflation is falling” is cold comfort to someone whose cost of living already jumped 20%, 30% or more.
If capitalism’s defenders want fewer socialists, they might start by making capitalism look like it works for people who don’t already own everything.
--
QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer https://quoththeraven.substack.com/about.Â
Â
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 18:40
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fed-created-zohran-mamdani
Siberian Plague-Lab Death Draws FSB Escort For Ambulances
Siberian Plague-Lab Death Draws FSB Escort For Ambulances
A possible plague case in Siberia has triggered a major containment effort after the death of a 28-year-old employee of an anti-plague laboratory. A hospital wing is under quarantine, nearly 200 people are reportedly under observation, and Russia's chief sanitary official has flown in. Local outlets say FSB units have been escorting ambulances carrying the woman's contacts for examination.
The authorities are clearly taking the threat seriously - but getting a straight answer out of the feds is another matter. Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev is still calling it a "particularly dangerous infection," while assuring residents that every identified contact is symptom-free and testing negative.
The dead lab worker has been identified as Daria Shipilova, a laboratory assistant at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, according to https://baikal-journal.ru/2026/10/02/pogibshaya-ot-chumy-v-shelehove-rabotala-laborantkoj-i-razbila-probirku-s-vozbuditelem-infekczii/ and https://ren.tv/news/proisshestviia/1463536-umershaia-ot-chumy-devushka-rabotala-laborantom-i-kontaktirovala-s-bakteriiami. She was admitted to hospital in Shelekhov with severe pneumonia, placed on a ventilator, and died. Reports differ slightly on the timeline: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/02/nearly-200-people-under-observation-after-irkutsk-lab-worker-dies-from-plague-a93857 gives a September 29 admission and a Thursday death (48 hours), while Lyudi Baikala says she spent three days in hospital.Â
According to The Moscow Times, Shipilova told medical staff she had accidentally broken a tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples. Lyudi Baikala, citing journalist Pavel Stepanov and the Telegram channel Mash, placed the alleged accident on September 25 and linked it to plague bacteria. Those reports describe the illness as pneumonic plague, although neither that diagnosis nor the laboratory accident has been publicly confirmed by investigators. https://www.irk.ru/news/articles/20261002/pest/ reported that doctors initially suspected severe COVID and sent her to the hospital's COVID center.
By the evening of October 1, security and administrative officials were meeting in Irkutsk. Lyudi Baikala, citing a source close to law enforcement, reported that FSB units began accompanying ambulances transporting Shipilova's contacts for examination that day. https://theins.ru/news/297840 carried the same account, while residents reported seeing people in protective suits on the streets. The FSB has not confirmed the escorts.
“There is a possibility that the number of people the young woman [lab worker] came into contact with reached into the three digits,” Irkutsk journalist Pavel Stepanov said*, and that residents have already noticed people on the streets wearing protective suits, masks and gloves.…
— Annie Jacobsen (@AnnieJacobsen) https://x.com/AnnieJacobsen/status/2106127669817725022?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Shelekhov district head https://t.me/Maksim_Modin/6441 confirmed that the hospital's inpatient department was under quarantine; the outpatient clinic remained open. https://t.me/kobzevii/17919 said the sanitary-epidemiological commission had convened on October 2 over a suspected "particularly dangerous infection." Anna Popova, who heads Rospotrebnadzor, the federal agency that runs Russia's disease surveillance and owns the anti-plague institutes, traveled to attend. The governor told TASS it was premature to identify the disease and made no mention of a death. Irkutsk also postponed a city https://www.irk.ru/news/20261002/cancel/ scheduled for October 3.
The reported contact numbers suggest how widely authorities are casting the net. REN TV and Izvestia put the total at roughly 197, with 189 hospitalized for observation: 114 in one facility, 63 in another, and 12 at the anti-plague institute. Eight remained outside hospital, and some accounts said the list was still growing. No secondary infection has been confirmed. Kobzev's October 2 statement said the contacts had no symptoms and negative tests, although some media reports https://profile.ru/news/society/smert-sotrudnicy-protivochumnogo-instituta-v-irkutskoj-oblasti-chto-izvestno-k-etomu-chasu-1908609/ several people under observation had developed symptoms.
First Official Use Of 'Plague'Â
The leader of Buryatia (the next region over from the lab), https://vk.ru/alexey.tsydenov?w=wall421889602_40893, wrote that the woman who died of plague in Irkutsk region had not visited his republic. Citing Rospotrebnadzor and his government, he also said Buryatia had no plague foci, including along the Mongolian border. But even that acknowledgment became less definite: https://meduza.io/en/news/2026/10/02/hospital-in-russia-s-irkutsk-region-quarantined-amid-reports-that-a-patient-died-of-pneumonic-plague reported that he later edited the post to say she "may have died of plague." He did not identify the pneumonic form.
Meanwhile, competing accounts sent Shipilova to Thailand or Buryatia before she fell ill. Tsydenov denied the Buryatia visit. Gennady https://ircity.ru/text/incidents/2026/10/02/76675327/, who ran Rospotrebnadzor until 2013, questioned whether plague was involved at all, pointing to dormant rodents and fleas and snow already falling in Buryatia. That argument addresses a possible wildlife exposure; it does not resolve the allegation that she broke a tube of bacteria at work.
Izvestia and the Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti both report that investigators have opened a criminal case under Article 236, which covers sanitary violations that cause death by negligence. Nobody has confirmed it on the record. That charge only makes sense if somebody broke a rule at work.
By Saturday, some of the public information was disappearing. Baikalsk's administration posted a notice urging residents to limit travel to Shelekhov and nearby settlements, citing "https://t.me/Baikal_People/16641" about a plague case. Roughly two hours later, the notice was gone. REN TV also deleted https://www.currenttime.tv/a/plague-in-irkutsk/33869719.html about the Shelekhov hospitalization figures.
Kobzev's https://t.me/kobzevii/17934 concerned an inspection by Roszdravnadzor, the healthcare-quality regulator rather than the epidemiological service, and did not address the infection. Comments asking why there was still no official statement went unanswered. Meanwhile, Lyudi Baikala reported that pharmacies in Irkutsk and Shelekhov had sold out of https://t.me/Baikal_People/16643.
The institute where Shipilova worked was founded in https://irknipchi.ru/ to fight plague and still leads plague surveillance for the region, alongside cholera, anthrax and tularemia. It is one of five such institutes nationally and the only one covering Siberia and the Far East. Natural plague foci remain in parts of southern Siberia, including Tuva, Altai and Transbaikal. Russia's last widely reported human case involved a child in the Altai Republic in 2016 and was linked to marmots.
The negative tests are welcome news, and the reports so far do not establish a spreading outbreak. But a young laboratory worker is dead, a hospital wing is quarantined, and almost 200 contacts have reportedly been identified. "Particularly dangerous infection" is a description of the stakes. It still isn't an explanation of what happened.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 18:05
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/siberian-plague-lab-death-draws-fsb-escort-ambulances
Siberian Plague-Lab Death Draws FSB Escort For Ambulances
A possible plague case in Siberia has triggered a major containment effort after the death of a 28-year-old employee of an anti-plague laboratory. A hospital wing is under quarantine, nearly 200 people are reportedly under observation, and Russia's chief sanitary official has flown in. Local outlets say FSB units have been escorting ambulances carrying the woman's contacts for examination.
The authorities are clearly taking the threat seriously - but getting a straight answer out of the feds is another matter. Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev is still calling it a "particularly dangerous infection," while assuring residents that every identified contact is symptom-free and testing negative.
The dead lab worker has been identified as Daria Shipilova, a laboratory assistant at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, according to https://baikal-journal.ru/2026/10/02/pogibshaya-ot-chumy-v-shelehove-rabotala-laborantkoj-i-razbila-probirku-s-vozbuditelem-infekczii/ and https://ren.tv/news/proisshestviia/1463536-umershaia-ot-chumy-devushka-rabotala-laborantom-i-kontaktirovala-s-bakteriiami. She was admitted to hospital in Shelekhov with severe pneumonia, placed on a ventilator, and died. Reports differ slightly on the timeline: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/02/nearly-200-people-under-observation-after-irkutsk-lab-worker-dies-from-plague-a93857 gives a September 29 admission and a Thursday death (48 hours), while Lyudi Baikala says she spent three days in hospital.Â
According to The Moscow Times, Shipilova told medical staff she had accidentally broken a tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples. Lyudi Baikala, citing journalist Pavel Stepanov and the Telegram channel Mash, placed the alleged accident on September 25 and linked it to plague bacteria. Those reports describe the illness as pneumonic plague, although neither that diagnosis nor the laboratory accident has been publicly confirmed by investigators. https://www.irk.ru/news/articles/20261002/pest/ reported that doctors initially suspected severe COVID and sent her to the hospital's COVID center.
By the evening of October 1, security and administrative officials were meeting in Irkutsk. Lyudi Baikala, citing a source close to law enforcement, reported that FSB units began accompanying ambulances transporting Shipilova's contacts for examination that day. https://theins.ru/news/297840 carried the same account, while residents reported seeing people in protective suits on the streets. The FSB has not confirmed the escorts.
“There is a possibility that the number of people the young woman [lab worker] came into contact with reached into the three digits,” Irkutsk journalist Pavel Stepanov said*, and that residents have already noticed people on the streets wearing protective suits, masks and gloves.…
— Annie Jacobsen (@AnnieJacobsen) https://x.com/AnnieJacobsen/status/2106127669817725022?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Shelekhov district head https://t.me/Maksim_Modin/6441 confirmed that the hospital's inpatient department was under quarantine; the outpatient clinic remained open. https://t.me/kobzevii/17919 said the sanitary-epidemiological commission had convened on October 2 over a suspected "particularly dangerous infection." Anna Popova, who heads Rospotrebnadzor, the federal agency that runs Russia's disease surveillance and owns the anti-plague institutes, traveled to attend. The governor told TASS it was premature to identify the disease and made no mention of a death. Irkutsk also postponed a city https://www.irk.ru/news/20261002/cancel/ scheduled for October 3.
The reported contact numbers suggest how widely authorities are casting the net. REN TV and Izvestia put the total at roughly 197, with 189 hospitalized for observation: 114 in one facility, 63 in another, and 12 at the anti-plague institute. Eight remained outside hospital, and some accounts said the list was still growing. No secondary infection has been confirmed. Kobzev's October 2 statement said the contacts had no symptoms and negative tests, although some media reports https://profile.ru/news/society/smert-sotrudnicy-protivochumnogo-instituta-v-irkutskoj-oblasti-chto-izvestno-k-etomu-chasu-1908609/ several people under observation had developed symptoms.
First Official Use Of 'Plague'Â
The leader of Buryatia (the next region over from the lab), https://vk.ru/alexey.tsydenov?w=wall421889602_40893, wrote that the woman who died of plague in Irkutsk region had not visited his republic. Citing Rospotrebnadzor and his government, he also said Buryatia had no plague foci, including along the Mongolian border. But even that acknowledgment became less definite: https://meduza.io/en/news/2026/10/02/hospital-in-russia-s-irkutsk-region-quarantined-amid-reports-that-a-patient-died-of-pneumonic-plague reported that he later edited the post to say she "may have died of plague." He did not identify the pneumonic form.
Meanwhile, competing accounts sent Shipilova to Thailand or Buryatia before she fell ill. Tsydenov denied the Buryatia visit. Gennady https://ircity.ru/text/incidents/2026/10/02/76675327/, who ran Rospotrebnadzor until 2013, questioned whether plague was involved at all, pointing to dormant rodents and fleas and snow already falling in Buryatia. That argument addresses a possible wildlife exposure; it does not resolve the allegation that she broke a tube of bacteria at work.
Izvestia and the Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti both report that investigators have opened a criminal case under Article 236, which covers sanitary violations that cause death by negligence. Nobody has confirmed it on the record. That charge only makes sense if somebody broke a rule at work.
By Saturday, some of the public information was disappearing. Baikalsk's administration posted a notice urging residents to limit travel to Shelekhov and nearby settlements, citing "https://t.me/Baikal_People/16641" about a plague case. Roughly two hours later, the notice was gone. REN TV also deleted https://www.currenttime.tv/a/plague-in-irkutsk/33869719.html about the Shelekhov hospitalization figures.
Kobzev's https://t.me/kobzevii/17934 concerned an inspection by Roszdravnadzor, the healthcare-quality regulator rather than the epidemiological service, and did not address the infection. Comments asking why there was still no official statement went unanswered. Meanwhile, Lyudi Baikala reported that pharmacies in Irkutsk and Shelekhov had sold out of https://t.me/Baikal_People/16643.
The institute where Shipilova worked was founded in https://irknipchi.ru/ to fight plague and still leads plague surveillance for the region, alongside cholera, anthrax and tularemia. It is one of five such institutes nationally and the only one covering Siberia and the Far East. Natural plague foci remain in parts of southern Siberia, including Tuva, Altai and Transbaikal. Russia's last widely reported human case involved a child in the Altai Republic in 2016 and was linked to marmots.
The negative tests are welcome news, and the reports so far do not establish a spreading outbreak. But a young laboratory worker is dead, a hospital wing is quarantined, and almost 200 contacts have reportedly been identified. "Particularly dangerous infection" is a description of the stakes. It still isn't an explanation of what happened.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 18:05
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/siberian-plague-lab-death-draws-fsb-escort-ambulances
Quantum Isn't Coming For Your Bitcoin
Quantum Isn't Coming For Your Bitcoin
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/the-quantum-issue-quantum-isnt-coming-for-your-bitcoin,
For as long as Bitcoin has existed, new forms of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) have been used to predict its demise. Despite this, Bitcoin has grown into a multi-trillion dollar asset and begun to take its place in the global monetary order. In recent months, the specter of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) enabling an attacker to recreate secret keys from public keys and sign Bitcoin transactions moving other people's coins has returned as an evolved form of FUD.
Is this a realistic threat to Bitcoin's continued growth? In a word, no.
There is no evidence that a CRQC will be built within a decade, and it remains unknown whether such a machine will ever be built. The quantum threat remains FUD.
State of the Art
To date, no quantum computing machine has computed anything out of reach of a precocious 6-year-old (confirmed empirically). Quantum computers are remarkable technology and showcase the truly science fiction worthy capabilities of the modern world. These devices harness foundational technologies such as optical tweezers, laser cooling, superconducting flux qubits, electromagnetic traps, dilution refrigerators, and many more. Within these devices individual qubits are coerced into specific subatomic states (different for each candidate technology), entangled into superpositions, manipulated to represent computations, and then their subatomic properties are read and interpreted. The astounding truth is that these devices exist, and can be manipulated to produce meaningful computations across a handful of inputs. The cold reality check is that (for an example candidate tech.) to do a computation that a small child can do requires enough power to air condition a Texas high school, many hours of setup, and further hours of post-processing.
Reading the Future
I know what you're thinking, "but there's so much money flowing into quantum computing". Does money flowing into a field correlate with the rate of real-world technological progress in that field? Not really. In fact, it can be argued that until the correct underlying technology has been developed and the product-market fit confirmed, money flowing into an area has a negative correlation with the likelihood of applicable technology being developed. This can be clearly seen by comparing NASA's Space Shuttle program to SpaceX's Falcon 9. SpaceX took (mostly) known science and reduced it to practice to satisfy a demonstrable market need for reliable and lower cost access to space, at a program cost of less than $5 billion to first crewed mission. The Space Shuttle cost roughly $50 billion to reach its first crewed mission. Not only did Falcon 9 cost an order of magnitude less to develop, but it has a perfect crew safety record to date. There are many reasons for these differences, but it goes to show that no amount of money makes a technology that is not ready practicable. Translating this to quantum computing: we can see that with tons of money being thrown at the problem, technology demonstrations at massive cost are possible.
But this tells us nothing about whether more money will bring us the holy grail of stable, low-error qubits (like the reliability of the Falcon 9).
No amount of continued development on the Space Shuttle program would ever have produced the low cost, high reliability of Falcon 9, and it's entirely probable that no amount of continued development, at any cost, will ever make any of the current quantum computing technologies reliable enough to break a single key pair.
Now, you might be thinking, "but what about all the recent advancements?" There are two important things to keep in mind about recently published advancements.
First, many of these advancements have been advancements in pure mathematics only.
For example, the recent Google paper which had such an important result that they chose to redact the theoretical quantum circuit rather than risk it being used to break important cryptographic systems. This may seem like massive progress toward the future of CRQCs, but in fact it changed nothing. Unless (or until) the quantum hardware has its Falcon 9 moment, there simply is no device which comes anywhere near the stability and scale needed to run the redacted circuit. It's pure theater to hide a circuit designed for a device which may never exist.
Second, on the hardware side itself, we see many new results and bits of progress published in a given year, but how many of these relate to the same quantum computing candidate technology? How many represent merely a starting over after a prior result ended in a dead end? The reality is that these advancements do not represent some linear track toward eventual success. They represent the breadth-first search of an infinite possibility space within which quantum researchers are hoping to find a path along which they can proceed for even a modest distance without reaching yet another dead end.
When we look at the reality of the future of quantum computing, it's hazy at best. There are promising technological developments. Especially, to my eye, in the area of neutral atom devices. But it's far too early to tell if there's a path open toward an eventual CRQC along any of the currently known branches or if more restarts are in our future. If, at some point, we see many iterations of the same candidate technology implementing progressively more capable devices, and computing meaningful results that a precocious child cannot also compute, we can revisit this discussion with different evidence.
In Theory
There are two possible explanations for the repeated failure of quantum research to develop a CRQC over many decades. It's possible that it's just a hard problem and we're continuing to apply science and engineering to solve it and one day the ingenuity of the human species will prevail as it has in the development of the Internet, the smart phone, social media, and Bitcoin (left to the reader to decide which of these are positive developments). On the flip side, it may be that developing a CRQC is either impossible or will remain forever outside our grasp. Consider what it would mean for a CRQC to exist: the machine would have to represent within its superposition a field of possibilities the same size as the complexity of the cryptographic problem to be solved. I.e. to break the 128-bit security of the elliptic curve discrete log on Bitcoin's secp256k1 curve, the quantum superposition would have to represent all possible values of a 128-bit number. In classical computing, representing all such values would require more computer storage (by many orders of magnitude) than humans have ever produced. If there is even the slightest granularity to the quantum superposition (i.e. the quantum superposition is not perfectly continuous across all possible values) then the quantum computer cannot ever become cryptographically relevant. If the energy required to hold a superposition scales with the complexity of the field being represented then a quantum computer cannot ever be cryptographically relevant. The contemporary understanding of quantum physics does not rule out either of these possibilities.
Conclusion: Bitcoin Cannot Rest
Despite all of the preceding, Bitcoin development toward new cryptographic algorithms must continue. While a quantum attack on Bitcoin's cryptography is not imminent by any means, it's entirely possible that another flaw could be found through other means. We know that certain elliptic curves have been found to have weaknesses, and secp256k1 could be next. Bitcoin has survived as long as it has because attacks on the system have strengthened it and that will continue to be true as the quantum FUD attack plays out. The development of P2MR or P2TRv2, of SHRINCS, SPHINCS, IBC, ML-DSA, and more post-quantum signature schemes will eventually lead to improvements to Bitcoin's resilience in the face of future attacks even if an actual CRQC is never developed.
This piece is featured in the latest https://store.bitcoinmagazine.com/collections/magazines/products/bitcoin-magazine-annual-subscription?selling_plan=6050545901 edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Quantum Issue. We're sharing it here as an early look at the ideas explored throughout the full issue.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 17:30
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/quantum-isnt-coming-your-bitcoin
Quantum Isn't Coming For Your Bitcoin
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/the-quantum-issue-quantum-isnt-coming-for-your-bitcoin,
For as long as Bitcoin has existed, new forms of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) have been used to predict its demise. Despite this, Bitcoin has grown into a multi-trillion dollar asset and begun to take its place in the global monetary order. In recent months, the specter of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) enabling an attacker to recreate secret keys from public keys and sign Bitcoin transactions moving other people's coins has returned as an evolved form of FUD.
Is this a realistic threat to Bitcoin's continued growth? In a word, no.
There is no evidence that a CRQC will be built within a decade, and it remains unknown whether such a machine will ever be built. The quantum threat remains FUD.
State of the Art
To date, no quantum computing machine has computed anything out of reach of a precocious 6-year-old (confirmed empirically). Quantum computers are remarkable technology and showcase the truly science fiction worthy capabilities of the modern world. These devices harness foundational technologies such as optical tweezers, laser cooling, superconducting flux qubits, electromagnetic traps, dilution refrigerators, and many more. Within these devices individual qubits are coerced into specific subatomic states (different for each candidate technology), entangled into superpositions, manipulated to represent computations, and then their subatomic properties are read and interpreted. The astounding truth is that these devices exist, and can be manipulated to produce meaningful computations across a handful of inputs. The cold reality check is that (for an example candidate tech.) to do a computation that a small child can do requires enough power to air condition a Texas high school, many hours of setup, and further hours of post-processing.
Reading the Future
I know what you're thinking, "but there's so much money flowing into quantum computing". Does money flowing into a field correlate with the rate of real-world technological progress in that field? Not really. In fact, it can be argued that until the correct underlying technology has been developed and the product-market fit confirmed, money flowing into an area has a negative correlation with the likelihood of applicable technology being developed. This can be clearly seen by comparing NASA's Space Shuttle program to SpaceX's Falcon 9. SpaceX took (mostly) known science and reduced it to practice to satisfy a demonstrable market need for reliable and lower cost access to space, at a program cost of less than $5 billion to first crewed mission. The Space Shuttle cost roughly $50 billion to reach its first crewed mission. Not only did Falcon 9 cost an order of magnitude less to develop, but it has a perfect crew safety record to date. There are many reasons for these differences, but it goes to show that no amount of money makes a technology that is not ready practicable. Translating this to quantum computing: we can see that with tons of money being thrown at the problem, technology demonstrations at massive cost are possible.
But this tells us nothing about whether more money will bring us the holy grail of stable, low-error qubits (like the reliability of the Falcon 9).
No amount of continued development on the Space Shuttle program would ever have produced the low cost, high reliability of Falcon 9, and it's entirely probable that no amount of continued development, at any cost, will ever make any of the current quantum computing technologies reliable enough to break a single key pair.
Now, you might be thinking, "but what about all the recent advancements?" There are two important things to keep in mind about recently published advancements.
First, many of these advancements have been advancements in pure mathematics only.
For example, the recent Google paper which had such an important result that they chose to redact the theoretical quantum circuit rather than risk it being used to break important cryptographic systems. This may seem like massive progress toward the future of CRQCs, but in fact it changed nothing. Unless (or until) the quantum hardware has its Falcon 9 moment, there simply is no device which comes anywhere near the stability and scale needed to run the redacted circuit. It's pure theater to hide a circuit designed for a device which may never exist.
Second, on the hardware side itself, we see many new results and bits of progress published in a given year, but how many of these relate to the same quantum computing candidate technology? How many represent merely a starting over after a prior result ended in a dead end? The reality is that these advancements do not represent some linear track toward eventual success. They represent the breadth-first search of an infinite possibility space within which quantum researchers are hoping to find a path along which they can proceed for even a modest distance without reaching yet another dead end.
When we look at the reality of the future of quantum computing, it's hazy at best. There are promising technological developments. Especially, to my eye, in the area of neutral atom devices. But it's far too early to tell if there's a path open toward an eventual CRQC along any of the currently known branches or if more restarts are in our future. If, at some point, we see many iterations of the same candidate technology implementing progressively more capable devices, and computing meaningful results that a precocious child cannot also compute, we can revisit this discussion with different evidence.
In Theory
There are two possible explanations for the repeated failure of quantum research to develop a CRQC over many decades. It's possible that it's just a hard problem and we're continuing to apply science and engineering to solve it and one day the ingenuity of the human species will prevail as it has in the development of the Internet, the smart phone, social media, and Bitcoin (left to the reader to decide which of these are positive developments). On the flip side, it may be that developing a CRQC is either impossible or will remain forever outside our grasp. Consider what it would mean for a CRQC to exist: the machine would have to represent within its superposition a field of possibilities the same size as the complexity of the cryptographic problem to be solved. I.e. to break the 128-bit security of the elliptic curve discrete log on Bitcoin's secp256k1 curve, the quantum superposition would have to represent all possible values of a 128-bit number. In classical computing, representing all such values would require more computer storage (by many orders of magnitude) than humans have ever produced. If there is even the slightest granularity to the quantum superposition (i.e. the quantum superposition is not perfectly continuous across all possible values) then the quantum computer cannot ever become cryptographically relevant. If the energy required to hold a superposition scales with the complexity of the field being represented then a quantum computer cannot ever be cryptographically relevant. The contemporary understanding of quantum physics does not rule out either of these possibilities.
Conclusion: Bitcoin Cannot Rest
Despite all of the preceding, Bitcoin development toward new cryptographic algorithms must continue. While a quantum attack on Bitcoin's cryptography is not imminent by any means, it's entirely possible that another flaw could be found through other means. We know that certain elliptic curves have been found to have weaknesses, and secp256k1 could be next. Bitcoin has survived as long as it has because attacks on the system have strengthened it and that will continue to be true as the quantum FUD attack plays out. The development of P2MR or P2TRv2, of SHRINCS, SPHINCS, IBC, ML-DSA, and more post-quantum signature schemes will eventually lead to improvements to Bitcoin's resilience in the face of future attacks even if an actual CRQC is never developed.
This piece is featured in the latest https://store.bitcoinmagazine.com/collections/magazines/products/bitcoin-magazine-annual-subscription?selling_plan=6050545901 edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Quantum Issue. We're sharing it here as an early look at the ideas explored throughout the full issue.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 17:30
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/quantum-isnt-coming-your-bitcoin
Mushroom Cloud Over Alabama: Trump Just Pulled A Condoleezza Rice
Mushroom Cloud Over Alabama: Trump Just Pulled A Condoleezza Rice
President Trump just pulled a Condoleezza Rice.Â
George W. Bush's Secretary of State had (in)famously https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/why/said.html "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" in September 2002 while trying to fearmonger the public into getting on board with the Iraq invasion.
On Friday night, Trump rallied supporters in Mobile, Alabama amid a tour through deep-red states to bolster Republican turnout ahead of the November midterms.
On stage, he once again defended the decision to launch a war on Iran and repeated his line that voters should pretend that he is on the ballot. On higher oil as well as painful gas prices at the pump, he reiterated that it's a "small price" to pay to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. He also claimed the Iran war will "probably" end soon after the midterms. That's when Trump proclaimed:
"But remember about the oil: You're paying a price, but boy, is that a small price than what it would be if these lunatics were allowed to have a nuclear weapon and used it on Mobile, Alabama."
TRUMP SAYS HIGH OIL PRICES A SMALL PRICE TO PAY, IRAN WOULD HAVE NUKED ALABAMA *** https://t.co/MH17sEhNZp
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) https://x.com/The_Real_Fly/status/2106412314110955533?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
We should start by noting the obvious: There is nothing in Iran's missile arsenal capable of reaching the United States. Not a single report has even so much as ever claimed it,Â
According to the Arms Control Association, the Islamic Republic does not possess operational intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and certainly has never tested one. Iran's most advanced missiles have a long enough reach to perhaps hit central Europe, or else the remote US-UK base Diego Garcia deep in the Indian Ocean - but hitting Mobile, Alabama is absurd and an impossibility.Â
However, it's unlikely that your average Alabama voter knows this (though notably in the above clip the crowd's response is lackluster and the applause is very weak). Even the US intelligence community knows that the idea that the Iranians could send a projectile to reach the continental US is false https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2014-09-11/myths-realities-iranian-icbms:
There is no serious http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/strategic%20comments/sections/2013-a8b5/iranian-icbms--a-distant-prospect-b8df to back up all the claims that have been made about Iran developing long-range rockets to deliver nuclear warheads. The U.S. intelligence community http://armscontrolnow.org/2013/07/26/what-kind-of-glasses-do-you-need-to-see-iranian-icbms/ that Iran may be technically capable of developing an ICBM with sufficient foreign assistance, not that they are doing so. Iran has never tested any long-range rockets. Iran's http://armscontrol.org/files/Iran_Brief_Missile_Programs_P5+1%20Talks.pdf are medium-range ballistic missiles, not the intercontinental-range missiles as critics will have us believe.
As far as the evidence shows, Iran is assessed to have http://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R42849.pdf several dozen Shahab-3 and Ghadr-1 medium-range ballistic missiles with ranges up to 2,000 kilometers, as well as dozens of https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/missiles with ranges of 150 to 500 kilometers. Iran is testing a solid-fueled medium-range ballistic missile, the Sejjil-2, but that has not been tested since 2011 and the United States cannot confirm Iran's claims that this missile is deployed.
Likely Trump is himself fully aware of all this, but when the point is fearmongering the US public into supporting the next Middle East quagmire and half-baked 'forever war'.... well then logic, reason, and truth go out the window.
Vice President JD Vance pulled something similar not too long ago. Back in March in the opening weeks of Operation Epic Fury https://www.zerohedge.com/political/vance-claims-iran-could-make-nuclear-suicide-vest that Iran could potentially turn a nuclear bomb into a suicide vest - another absurd claim, just based on the logistics and technical requirements alone.
Vance suggests Iran could have used nuclear suicide vests: “You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed, and that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest is not… https://t.co/6HiCHhi4S9
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/2037185126015119540?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
"You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed, and that’s a terrible tragedy," Vance told a live briefing at the time. "What happens when what's on the vest is not something that can kill a couple of people, but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people?”
As we https://www.zerohedge.com/political/vance-claims-iran-could-make-nuclear-suicide-vest at the time, the simple reality is that a nuclear bomb could not be miniaturized to the point where it could be worn as a vest.
Dear Trump admin, at least come up with something better than old Bush NeoCon https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/why/said.html.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 16:55
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-just-pulled-condoleezza-rice-mushroom-cloud-over-alabama
Mushroom Cloud Over Alabama: Trump Just Pulled A Condoleezza Rice
President Trump just pulled a Condoleezza Rice.Â
George W. Bush's Secretary of State had (in)famously https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/why/said.html "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" in September 2002 while trying to fearmonger the public into getting on board with the Iraq invasion.
On Friday night, Trump rallied supporters in Mobile, Alabama amid a tour through deep-red states to bolster Republican turnout ahead of the November midterms.
On stage, he once again defended the decision to launch a war on Iran and repeated his line that voters should pretend that he is on the ballot. On higher oil as well as painful gas prices at the pump, he reiterated that it's a "small price" to pay to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. He also claimed the Iran war will "probably" end soon after the midterms. That's when Trump proclaimed:
"But remember about the oil: You're paying a price, but boy, is that a small price than what it would be if these lunatics were allowed to have a nuclear weapon and used it on Mobile, Alabama."
TRUMP SAYS HIGH OIL PRICES A SMALL PRICE TO PAY, IRAN WOULD HAVE NUKED ALABAMA *** https://t.co/MH17sEhNZp
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) https://x.com/The_Real_Fly/status/2106412314110955533?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
We should start by noting the obvious: There is nothing in Iran's missile arsenal capable of reaching the United States. Not a single report has even so much as ever claimed it,Â
According to the Arms Control Association, the Islamic Republic does not possess operational intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and certainly has never tested one. Iran's most advanced missiles have a long enough reach to perhaps hit central Europe, or else the remote US-UK base Diego Garcia deep in the Indian Ocean - but hitting Mobile, Alabama is absurd and an impossibility.Â
However, it's unlikely that your average Alabama voter knows this (though notably in the above clip the crowd's response is lackluster and the applause is very weak). Even the US intelligence community knows that the idea that the Iranians could send a projectile to reach the continental US is false https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2014-09-11/myths-realities-iranian-icbms:
There is no serious http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/strategic%20comments/sections/2013-a8b5/iranian-icbms--a-distant-prospect-b8df to back up all the claims that have been made about Iran developing long-range rockets to deliver nuclear warheads. The U.S. intelligence community http://armscontrolnow.org/2013/07/26/what-kind-of-glasses-do-you-need-to-see-iranian-icbms/ that Iran may be technically capable of developing an ICBM with sufficient foreign assistance, not that they are doing so. Iran has never tested any long-range rockets. Iran's http://armscontrol.org/files/Iran_Brief_Missile_Programs_P5+1%20Talks.pdf are medium-range ballistic missiles, not the intercontinental-range missiles as critics will have us believe.
As far as the evidence shows, Iran is assessed to have http://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R42849.pdf several dozen Shahab-3 and Ghadr-1 medium-range ballistic missiles with ranges up to 2,000 kilometers, as well as dozens of https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/missiles with ranges of 150 to 500 kilometers. Iran is testing a solid-fueled medium-range ballistic missile, the Sejjil-2, but that has not been tested since 2011 and the United States cannot confirm Iran's claims that this missile is deployed.
Likely Trump is himself fully aware of all this, but when the point is fearmongering the US public into supporting the next Middle East quagmire and half-baked 'forever war'.... well then logic, reason, and truth go out the window.
Vice President JD Vance pulled something similar not too long ago. Back in March in the opening weeks of Operation Epic Fury https://www.zerohedge.com/political/vance-claims-iran-could-make-nuclear-suicide-vest that Iran could potentially turn a nuclear bomb into a suicide vest - another absurd claim, just based on the logistics and technical requirements alone.
Vance suggests Iran could have used nuclear suicide vests: “You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed, and that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest is not… https://t.co/6HiCHhi4S9
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/2037185126015119540?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
"You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed, and that’s a terrible tragedy," Vance told a live briefing at the time. "What happens when what's on the vest is not something that can kill a couple of people, but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people?”
As we https://www.zerohedge.com/political/vance-claims-iran-could-make-nuclear-suicide-vest at the time, the simple reality is that a nuclear bomb could not be miniaturized to the point where it could be worn as a vest.
Dear Trump admin, at least come up with something better than old Bush NeoCon https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/why/said.html.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 16:55
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-just-pulled-condoleezza-rice-mushroom-cloud-over-alabama
Egypt Arrests, Disappears Entire Newsroom Over 'Fake News' Allegations
Egypt Arrests, Disappears Entire Newsroom Over 'Fake News' Allegations
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-detains-entire-newsroom-leading-fact-checking-platform-over-fake-news-allegations
Egyptian authorities have detained the entire newsroom of one of the country’s only independent media outlets in a move that rights groups have denounced as a "first" and an "alarming escalation" on free speech.
On September 28 and 29, security forces raided the homes of the six journalists - Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Abdallah Qadry, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Mahmoud and Mohamed Adel - who constitute the entire team working for Matsada2sh (Arabic for "Don’t believe"). The arrests bring the number of journalists detained in Egypt to 24.
via AFP"It is a first in Egypt: an entire newsroom behind bars," press freedom watchdog https://rsf.org/en/egypt-entire-newsroom-missing-rsf-demands-authorities-release-six-detained-matsada2sh-journalists) said, criticising the authorities for failing to reveal the journalists' whereabouts.
"It's a violation of the Egyptian Constitution, even though this is common practice. Journalists detained in Egypt are often forcibly disappeared for several days before being officially charged and brought before a court," the group added.
According to multiple accounts by rights groups, the officers confiscated the phones and laptops belonging to the journalists as well as those of their family members during the raids. They also did not present any arrest warrants and refused to disclose where the journalists would be held.
The interior ministry later published a statement confirming the arrests and accusing the journalists of running an unlicensed platform that is "run from abroad" and of spreading "fake news".
It also accused its journalists of being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition group that has been outlawed under the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi since 2014.
One of the platform’s editors was previously detained in 2023 over similar allegations but was released two days later.
Matsada2sh was founded in 2018 as a fact-checking outlet that corrects misleading or inaccurate information by various sources, including those by official government sources or opposition media.
"Independent journalism is critical in any free society and Egyptian authorities’ failure to allow free exercises of expression to thrive flies in the face of a purported commitment to dialogue, transparency, anti-corruption, and regional leadership," more than 80 rights groups and independent media outlets said in a statement.
"The crackdown on the Matsada2sh platform and these arrests are alarming escalations on independent media and freedom of expression that cannot be allowed to stand."
One of the founders of Matsada2sh, Abdelrahman Mansour, who is not based in Egypt, told the Associated Press on Thursday that the families do not know where the journalists are.
"Everyone on this team knew the risks when they went to work every day, but it’s unacceptable for the government to make false accusations and forcibly disappear journalists just because they’re afraid of a free press," AP quoted Mansour as saying. "Their families are worried, we’re worried, we just want them released unharmed."
/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 16:20
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/egypt-arrests-disappears-entire-newsroom-over-fake-news-allegations
Egypt Arrests, Disappears Entire Newsroom Over 'Fake News' Allegations
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-detains-entire-newsroom-leading-fact-checking-platform-over-fake-news-allegations
Egyptian authorities have detained the entire newsroom of one of the country’s only independent media outlets in a move that rights groups have denounced as a "first" and an "alarming escalation" on free speech.
On September 28 and 29, security forces raided the homes of the six journalists - Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Abdallah Qadry, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Mahmoud and Mohamed Adel - who constitute the entire team working for Matsada2sh (Arabic for "Don’t believe"). The arrests bring the number of journalists detained in Egypt to 24.
via AFP"It is a first in Egypt: an entire newsroom behind bars," press freedom watchdog https://rsf.org/en/egypt-entire-newsroom-missing-rsf-demands-authorities-release-six-detained-matsada2sh-journalists) said, criticising the authorities for failing to reveal the journalists' whereabouts.
"It's a violation of the Egyptian Constitution, even though this is common practice. Journalists detained in Egypt are often forcibly disappeared for several days before being officially charged and brought before a court," the group added.
According to multiple accounts by rights groups, the officers confiscated the phones and laptops belonging to the journalists as well as those of their family members during the raids. They also did not present any arrest warrants and refused to disclose where the journalists would be held.
The interior ministry later published a statement confirming the arrests and accusing the journalists of running an unlicensed platform that is "run from abroad" and of spreading "fake news".
It also accused its journalists of being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition group that has been outlawed under the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi since 2014.
One of the platform’s editors was previously detained in 2023 over similar allegations but was released two days later.
Matsada2sh was founded in 2018 as a fact-checking outlet that corrects misleading or inaccurate information by various sources, including those by official government sources or opposition media.
"Independent journalism is critical in any free society and Egyptian authorities’ failure to allow free exercises of expression to thrive flies in the face of a purported commitment to dialogue, transparency, anti-corruption, and regional leadership," more than 80 rights groups and independent media outlets said in a statement.
"The crackdown on the Matsada2sh platform and these arrests are alarming escalations on independent media and freedom of expression that cannot be allowed to stand."
One of the founders of Matsada2sh, Abdelrahman Mansour, who is not based in Egypt, told the Associated Press on Thursday that the families do not know where the journalists are.
"Everyone on this team knew the risks when they went to work every day, but it’s unacceptable for the government to make false accusations and forcibly disappear journalists just because they’re afraid of a free press," AP quoted Mansour as saying. "Their families are worried, we’re worried, we just want them released unharmed."
/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 16:20
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/egypt-arrests-disappears-entire-newsroom-over-fake-news-allegations
California Man Accused Of Routing More Than $300 Million In Restricted Servers To China
California Man Accused Of Routing More Than $300 Million In Restricted Servers To China
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/california-man-accused-of-routing-more-than-300-million-in-restricted-servers-to-china-6097872?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge,
A California man has been arrested on federal charges accusing him of helping route more than $300 million in export-controlled computer servers to China through Malaysia and Singapore.
Greg Lui, 38, who also uses the name “Yiu Kong Lui,” is arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles County on Oct. 1, 2026. FBIGreg Lui, 38, also known as Yiu Kong Lui, of San Gabriel, was arrested Oct. 1 after a federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment two days earlier.
Lui was the chief executive officer and owner of Earthmade Computer Inc., a company based in City of Industry, California, and established in November 2023. He was also the registered agent of another company, Coindigger, that did business as Earthmade.
Earthmade has not been charged in the case. The company did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.
Lui is charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. export-control laws, outbound smuggling, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege payments from Malaysia flowed into Earthmade's U.S. bank accounts and were then used to buy restricted servers from American manufacturers.
Prosecutors allege the conspiracy began no later than October 2023 and continued through at least Aug. 12, 2026. The indictment's detailed transaction examples are concentrated in 2024, when Lui and others allegedly bought high-end computer servers and graphics processing units, or GPUs, from U.S. manufacturers and routed them through Malaysia and Singapore before they ultimately reached China.
Malaysian Route
Between January and October 2024, Earthmade received more than $80 million from one Malaysian company and $96 million from another, according to the indictment. Prosecutors say Earthmade brokered nearly $300 million in sales of export-controlled Nvidia-powered servers from three U.S. manufacturers.
One of the Malaysian companies had been established in 1999 and primarily dealt in lumber, plywood, millwork, and wood panels. Prosecutors describe the second Malaysian entity as a front company.
In January 2024, Lui allegedly told a co-conspirator that the lumber company wanted 70 servers containing Nvidia H100 GPUs. Later that month, he placed an order for 27 H100-equipped servers worth about $7.6 million.
Those servers were shipped from Los Angeles County to Kuala Lumpur. Less than two months later, prosecutors say, a co-conspirator emailed a Malaysian government official stating that the 27 servers had been transshipped to a Chinese purchaser.
Another order was far larger. A U.S. manufacturer quoted Earthmade for 512 export-controlled servers in April 2024, and Lui placed the order the following day.
The indictment traces 92 of those servers. Although a manufacturer had said they were ready to ship to Earthmade in Los Angeles County, prosecutors allege Lui and a co-conspirator instead had them flown from San Francisco to Kuala Lumpur and then onward to Hong Kong. The Chinese purchaser was listed as the consignee.
The indictment identifies the purchaser as an unnamed industrial company based in Hangzhou, China.
US Front Company
Prosecutors describe another transaction involving 100 servers equipped with Nvidia H100 GPUs and worth more than $22 million.
Lui allegedly used an unnamed U.S. front company to place the order and claimed that another City of Industry company, Topmost, was the buyer. He then submitted false documents identifying "Jackie Lui" as Topmost's chief executive, according to the indictment.
Topmost was also not charged in the case. The company did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Prosecutors allege Lui had purchased another person's identifying documents in 2021 and later used that identity in business transactions connected to the export-evasion scheme.
The indictment also alleges that a person presented as chief technology officer of the Malaysian lumber company was actually an international broker of export-controlled servers who incorporated Topmost in California.
Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said the bureau's investigation found that Lui allegedly sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the technology to the Chinese government.
An Nvidia spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2, "This case shows yet again that smuggling is a losing proposition - legally, economically and technically. Our work with law enforcement has led to prosecutions, and we will continue to engage with law enforcement."
If convicted of all charges, Lui faces statutory maximum sentences of 20 years on the export-control conspiracy count, 20 years on the money-laundering conspiracy count, and 10 years on the smuggling count.
Lui was expected to make his initial appearance and be arraigned Oct. 2 in federal court in downtown Los Angeles.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 15:10
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-man-accused-routing-more-300-million-restricted-servers-china
California Man Accused Of Routing More Than $300 Million In Restricted Servers To China
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/california-man-accused-of-routing-more-than-300-million-in-restricted-servers-to-china-6097872?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge,
A California man has been arrested on federal charges accusing him of helping route more than $300 million in export-controlled computer servers to China through Malaysia and Singapore.
Greg Lui, 38, who also uses the name “Yiu Kong Lui,” is arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles County on Oct. 1, 2026. FBIGreg Lui, 38, also known as Yiu Kong Lui, of San Gabriel, was arrested Oct. 1 after a federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment two days earlier.
Lui was the chief executive officer and owner of Earthmade Computer Inc., a company based in City of Industry, California, and established in November 2023. He was also the registered agent of another company, Coindigger, that did business as Earthmade.
Earthmade has not been charged in the case. The company did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.
Lui is charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. export-control laws, outbound smuggling, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege payments from Malaysia flowed into Earthmade's U.S. bank accounts and were then used to buy restricted servers from American manufacturers.
Prosecutors allege the conspiracy began no later than October 2023 and continued through at least Aug. 12, 2026. The indictment's detailed transaction examples are concentrated in 2024, when Lui and others allegedly bought high-end computer servers and graphics processing units, or GPUs, from U.S. manufacturers and routed them through Malaysia and Singapore before they ultimately reached China.
Malaysian Route
Between January and October 2024, Earthmade received more than $80 million from one Malaysian company and $96 million from another, according to the indictment. Prosecutors say Earthmade brokered nearly $300 million in sales of export-controlled Nvidia-powered servers from three U.S. manufacturers.
One of the Malaysian companies had been established in 1999 and primarily dealt in lumber, plywood, millwork, and wood panels. Prosecutors describe the second Malaysian entity as a front company.
In January 2024, Lui allegedly told a co-conspirator that the lumber company wanted 70 servers containing Nvidia H100 GPUs. Later that month, he placed an order for 27 H100-equipped servers worth about $7.6 million.
Those servers were shipped from Los Angeles County to Kuala Lumpur. Less than two months later, prosecutors say, a co-conspirator emailed a Malaysian government official stating that the 27 servers had been transshipped to a Chinese purchaser.
Another order was far larger. A U.S. manufacturer quoted Earthmade for 512 export-controlled servers in April 2024, and Lui placed the order the following day.
The indictment traces 92 of those servers. Although a manufacturer had said they were ready to ship to Earthmade in Los Angeles County, prosecutors allege Lui and a co-conspirator instead had them flown from San Francisco to Kuala Lumpur and then onward to Hong Kong. The Chinese purchaser was listed as the consignee.
The indictment identifies the purchaser as an unnamed industrial company based in Hangzhou, China.
US Front Company
Prosecutors describe another transaction involving 100 servers equipped with Nvidia H100 GPUs and worth more than $22 million.
Lui allegedly used an unnamed U.S. front company to place the order and claimed that another City of Industry company, Topmost, was the buyer. He then submitted false documents identifying "Jackie Lui" as Topmost's chief executive, according to the indictment.
Topmost was also not charged in the case. The company did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Prosecutors allege Lui had purchased another person's identifying documents in 2021 and later used that identity in business transactions connected to the export-evasion scheme.
The indictment also alleges that a person presented as chief technology officer of the Malaysian lumber company was actually an international broker of export-controlled servers who incorporated Topmost in California.
Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said the bureau's investigation found that Lui allegedly sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the technology to the Chinese government.
An Nvidia spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2, "This case shows yet again that smuggling is a losing proposition - legally, economically and technically. Our work with law enforcement has led to prosecutions, and we will continue to engage with law enforcement."
If convicted of all charges, Lui faces statutory maximum sentences of 20 years on the export-control conspiracy count, 20 years on the money-laundering conspiracy count, and 10 years on the smuggling count.
Lui was expected to make his initial appearance and be arraigned Oct. 2 in federal court in downtown Los Angeles.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden
Sat, 10/03/2026 - 15:10
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-man-accused-routing-more-300-million-restricted-servers-china