Cheap Coincidences from Russia & China

Selected Timeline


January 11, 2007 - China concludes successful anti-satellite missile test:  China's Greatest Military Threat is no longer its Submarines 

Spring 2013 -  Infrastructure Analyst Edward Joseph Snowden, employee of NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton employee leaks related information to Glenn Greenwald of London's The Guardian.

June–July 2013 - The Guardian publishes exposés revealing US interception of domestic and European telephone metadata and internet surveillance programs. Snowden's leaks are said to rank among the most significant breaches in United States history.

June 14, 2013  - Federal prosecutors charge Snowden with espionage and theft of government property.

June 23, 2013 - Snowden leaves Hong Kong and travels to Moscow as Hong Kong authorities were deliberating the US government's request for his extradition.

June 25, 2013 -  Snowden remains in the transit area of Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, and Russian president VladimirPutin says Snowden has not committed any crime on Russian soil, is free to leave, and should do so.

July 10, 2013 - BEIJING — Armada of Chinese and Russian warships sail in ceremonial formation in the Sea of Japan, off the port of Vladivostok, Wednesday to celebrate joint naval exercises intended to show growing unity between the two countries. source NYT 

July 4 -13, 2013 -  The Federal Guard Service (FSO), responsible for protecting high-ranking Russian officials including President Putin, posts notice to buy a number of electric typewriters, according to the site of state procurement agency, zakupki.gov.ru. “This purchase has been planned for more than a year now,” a source at the service, known by its Russian acronymum FSO, told Agence France-Presse. The notice on the site was posted last week.

"From the point of view of security, any means of electronic communication is vulnerable. You can remove any information from a computer. There are means of defense, of course, but there's no 100 percent guarantee they will work," former Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Kovalev said. "So from the point of view of preserving secrets the most primitive methods are preferable: a person's hand and a pen, or a typewriter."

Unlike printers, every typewriter had its own individual typing pattern which made it possible to link every document to a particular machine, Izvestiya said. source

 Typewriters eliminate a lot of the risks inherent in electronic documentation and each has a unique "pattern of type," meanining specific documents can be traced back to specific machines. That can make life a lot easier for Russian security agencies trying to plug leaks and gives potential leakers something to think about, too. source

July 15, 2013 - Putin takes a dive in a submarine for latest supermacho stunt.

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UNTHINKABLE???:  Who's navy will be first to dock an aircraft carrier in Ensenada, Mexico (Baja California)?

Submarines are always silent and strange.