Fun fact: Macau was the oldest and longest lived European colony in Asia, 1557-1999. It’s still a fun place to visit and mostly off the radar for Western tourists.
> It "involved an attempt to disrupt communication between generating installations and grid operators across a large area of Poland".
I doubt we will have all details, but I suspect this kind of communication occurred over the Internet (hopefully, at least a VPN).
Also, even completely airgapped networks are not 100% secure, if you can install a device or convince someone to do it by accident (social engineering).
Despite all the talk about military action, the fact is that Europe is one of the main trading partners of the US and holds a substantial share of US debt. Any invasion would be economic suicide, and I think even Trump realizes this.
Trump barely thinks about first order effects, much less second order. He probably doesn't know it's economic suicide. And when it happens he'll tell us both "nobody knows more than me" and "nobody knew global commerce was this complicated" and then he'll tell us he'll have a plan to fix it in two weeks
A mass selloff of US bonds will mean that the US can’t sell any more - because the market is suddenly flooded with bonds at a ‘discount’. This means that the US can’t take on any more debt (borrow money)
Why would you pay the US $10 when you can get the same thing from France for $8?
Or the US then has to issue bonds with massively inflated returns - i.e. pay a much higher interest rate.
On the other hand, China sold off most of theirs and nobody even noticed. I think you're exaggerating both how much EU holds and the potential effects of them selling it.
Sure but we were talking about just debt. Also the "rest of the world" is basically just China. I don't think it's a shocker that China isn't interested in betting on US companies.
This idea of waging financial war on the US seems very en vogue in Europe right now, but I think it's terribly shortsighted. Here's how I think it would go down:
1. EU countries coordinate a mass selloff of US debt, somehow even coercing private holders into a fire sale.
2. US bond prices consequently fall. EU holders lose tons of money on the sell side. US and Asian buyers rush to buy and get a sweetheart deal and massive risk-free returns, which starts crashing the stock market.
3. The Fed intervenes. They conjure up dollars from nothing and buy the bonds EU holders are selling at some discount, maybe 95 cents on the dollar. Those new dollars go into those countries' and banks' Master accounts at the Fed.
4a. EU countries' and banks' Master accounts are frozen. Maybe some portion of the funds are released every week in order to allow an orderly flow of value without too much market distortion. Or maybe given the act of financial war, those funds remain frozen indefinitely.
4b. Alternatively, their Master accounts are not frozen. Now, presumably EU didn't sell all their bonds just to hold non-yielding dollars. So they'll go to the forex markets and buy up Euros, massively strengthening the Euro and fucking up their export-based economies. Maybe they buy gold, or EU sovereign debt, or ECB steps in with mad QE. EU bond yields crater. EU holders lose more money on the buy side as whatever assets they purchase get more expensive. Inflation ensues.
5. US is furious and retaliates with financial warfare of their own. Or perhaps kinetic warfare. The ringleaders of the fire sale end up blindfolded and earmuffed on a US warship.
6. EU is in a much worse position than before, lost a ton of money on each leg, likely had tons more frozen, has pernicious inflation and/or diminished exports, cut off from the dollar system making currency reserve management and forex difficult and costly. The US is also now furious and looking to impose additional costs on EU however and wherever it can.
These are not hackers but Meta employees/contractors who make money on the side by using their access to internal support tooling/channels. It's a fireable offense (it's only intended for actual friends/family) but still happens a lot.
Sadly I can't find anyone to pay off at Google yet to fix my gmail (I have the username, password, and everything is forwarded to the recovery email I own, I just lost access to the phone number and they enabled 2FA without asking).
Reddit also, I can't find anyone there to unban my friend's account that got locked (due to a server outage), even after speaking directly to spez about it.
One tip: if your IG/FB account get suspended, then it's way cheaper to get it unbanned via black hat routes than if you roll the dice and try to appeal it. Appeals often end in perma-bans that are much harder for Meta employees to undo.
To be fair, he just said it's a fireable offense-- presumably (and according to the article he linked) to use the tools for people you don't know at all, not just to take money for it. (It's probably easier for Meta to prove an employee used the recovery tool than to prove they received money for it.) I do hope you get your account back, though.
Tbh, I'd be curious if it's even recoverable and what triggered the ban. I just got an email out of the blue asking me to fill out a captcha, reply to an SMS and send a selfie. I did all that and just got a reply I had violated "community guidelines" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Since it was a private account I never posted anything on, I was racking my brain what could have possibly got me flagged. All I did was reply to pics of ppl's pets (and sometimes cute girlies). Definitely nothing abusive.
From what I've read, the SMS was used just to automatically block any new account you make.
> "So, I stalked them on Instagram through my backup but still slutty account," she said. "I managed to find a couple (employees), not from that department but still people that worked at Instagram in LA."
> She said she allegedly met up "with a couple" employees in the L>os Angeles area, adding that they know about her podcast.
> "We met up and I f*ked a couple of them and I was able to get my account back two-three times," Kitty Lixo said, recommending others with locked accounts to continue reaching out to the platform for eventual ban reversal.
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