zenpundit.com

HARD TO IMAGINE THAT THERE IS ANYTHING LEFT TO CRACK DOWN ON

North Korea’s lunatic regime, which makes Iran look like a hedonistic disneyland in comparison, is engaged in a ” harsh crackdown” as cross-border connectivity with China is causing the mores within the hardline state to disintegrate, causing a rise in crime and even political dissent. Comparisons of Pyongyang with Bucharest in 1989 when Gorbachev withdrew Soviet support for Ceaucescu’s Stalinist regime are being drawn.

Kim Jong-Il still has his academic apologists in the West and has been reaching out to other, thuggish, anti-American regimes like Syria for support. South Korea’s left-wing ruling party is desperate to prop up the DPRK any way they can, fearing an implosion and costly reunification. Fingers in the dike. What really matters here though is the attitude of China.

East Germany collapsed because its neighbors no longer would help keep Germans locked behind Honecker’s bloody wall. Ceaucescu and his harpy wife met their end before a gleeful firing squad because Moscow renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine. If China’s leaders support Kim’s regime he will continue to muddle through as the Earth’s worst ruler. If Beijing should continue look with indulgence upon goods, information and even political dissent flowing across North Korea’s borders Kim Jong-Il will fall. If not at the hands of his people then by the machinations of his closest collaborators eager to save their own necks.

The question is – does Kim know it ?

SOME ( crypto)LOGICAL OUTCOMES FOR QUANTUM ENCRYPTION

Scientific American, recently had a fine article on the parameters of the quantum encryption field which is producing ” unbreakable” codes via the principles of Quantum mechanics. For those without a SciAm subscription, who want an explanation of QE, go here.

The big picture good news is that the assurance of security for financial and informational transactions provided by QE will make the establishment and spread of ” Connectivity” in the Gap relatively cheaper by leapfrogging over the problem of decayed or absent infrastructure that plagues most of these countries. “Connecting up ” to Core standards for the fledgling Gap entrepreneur will eventually ( though not today) require only a laptop, a wireless connection and some software but not the building of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of old fashioned telephone systems that many corrupt and dysfunctional regimes seem incapable of providing or maintaining.

The bad news of course, is that all the wrong people will also want to use ” unbreakable” encryption – transnational crime syndicates, rebel groups, narco-traffickers, rogue states and Islamist terrorists. That being the case I can only imagine that the world’s premier intelligence agencies have either tried to establish covert relationships with QE companies like id Quantiqe or MagiQ or to infiltrate them outright in order to have access to the proprietary key technology ( commentary on QE is notably absent from the NSA website).

Since this technology is not ” containable” the only acceptable strategy is to allow relatively cheap but not quite state of the art versions to be commercially available, thus yielding the longitudinal economic benefits but keeping the NSA type SIGINT agencies ahead of the bad guys and discouraging others from pursuing expensive R&D of QE on their own.

NOT BLOGGERIFIC

Having a terrible time with Blogger today…this is more or less a test before I invest precious time writing. If I lose another post I might throw the computer out the goddamned window.