CYBERSECURITY: Why the Capital One breach is unlike any other major hack.

The incident involved theft of more than 100 million customer records, 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank details of Capital One customers, allegedly stolen by a single insider, according to court filings in Seattle.

The details set it apart from breaches of companies like Equifax and Marriott, which were attacked from the outside by criminals with a nation-state connection. It’s also different from the spate of ransomware attacks against major U.S. cities, which were likely committed by groups of individuals outside the U.S.

Instead, according to the indictment of Paige Thompson, she was able to exploit a loophole in a Capital One cloud server’s firewall to gain access to the information.

Thompson had several social media accounts listing experience as an engineer working for Amazon. Even if Thompson was employed at Amazon, it may not have been a factor in the incident.

Amazon Web Services “was not compromised in any way and functioned as designed,” Amazon said in a statement, adding that the reason for the breach was a misconfiguration of firewall settings managed on the cloud server by Capital One, not a vulnerability in the cloud server itself.

Every one of these financial firms ought to have white-hat hackers work full-time on their IT staffs, with generous bonuses for each vulnerability found.

GRADUALLY, THEN SUDDENLY: How China Lost Hong Kong. “Compromise or crackdown are the only options left for Beijing.”

MAYBE, BUT I’M WARY OF ANY PLAN HOPING FOR BETTER BEHAVIOR FROM OTHER GOVERNMENTS: It’s Time To Pressure Corrupt Central American Elites To End The Border Crisis.

NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED: Donald Trump Didn’t Lie About Where He Was after the 9/11 Attacks, But Hillary Clinton Did.

AND HE’S THE “MODERATE”: Joe Biden Calls for Jail Time for Insurance Execs ‘Who Totally Oppose My Plan.’

KRUISER: Harris Wilts, Biden Survives, Gabbard’s Pantsuit Wins.

OOPS: A vlogger who fans hailed as a ‘cute goddess’ accidentally revealed she was much older than people thought after a livestream technical glitch.

COLD WAR II: Heidi Heitkamp: Countering the China threat will take much more than tariffs.

Chief among these threats is Chinese state-coordinated theft of intellectual property and the use of such property to assert technological dominance over other counties. In 2017, the Commission on Theft of American Intellectual Property estimated that the U.S. economy loses $225 billion to $600 billion annually because of Chinese theft of IP from U.S. agricultural research firms, pharmaceutical companies, and electronics manufacturers. Though the Department of Justice has been able to prosecute select cases of theft, their current efforts have had a limited impact on the growing problem.

While economic espionage accounts for significant domestic financial losses, Chinese requirements for foreign investment also contribute to the problem. The Chinese government often requires foreign businesses hoping to operate within China to join with a local partner, effectively forcing international firms, including American businesses, to share technology in exchange for market access. Businesses who choose not to operate with a local partner often face tariffs on exports to China. As a result, companies eager to gain access to the Chinese market make a devil’s bargain that trades short-term access for the long-term loss of their IP and trade secrets.

China’s assault on our economy does not stop at economic espionage and IP theft. Their military capabilities extend well into the cyber realm, where they have hacked into university networks to steal military technologies and taken down the network of U.S. Naval contractors.

President Xi has ample opportunity to expand his offensive.

If you can get past the obligatory Orange Man Bad stuff, Heitkamp does make a couple of good points about the full spectrum of threats China poses. But the Orange Man Bad stuff isn’t easy to get past, given that Trump is the only US president in decades to take China seriously at all.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Candidates Sell Socialist-Flavored Kool-Aid at Debate. “The main targets were Biden and Harris. There’s a bunch of rando white guys that need to get cut from the line up and a bunch of other bottom crawlers that tried to get in some zingers to improve their lot who also need to get lost. Biden did okay and that’s all he needed to do. Kamala managed to maintain too but didn’t seem to stand out like the first debate when she told her busing yarn. “That girl was me!” Harris tried to go after Biden and Biden was prepared to fend off the attacks. The internet was all abuzz because a mic caught Biden calling Harris “kid” when the two walked on stage. Is there any limit to how petty and self-hating these lefties are? Biden said ‘Go easy on me, kid’ and all the grievance mongers were off the races.”

I thought it was a nice moment.

YES: Defense Against Hypersonic Attack Is Becoming The Biggest Military Challenge Of The Trump Era.

CHANGE: Despite Federal Return, Capital Punishment Dying Out.

Twenty-one U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia, have totally abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Seven of those states abolished the practice in my lifetime. New Hampshire just officially abolished it in 2019.

In many U.S. states where executions are still legal, none have been carried out for years and the law is mainly symbolic. Kansas, for example, has not executed any prisoners in over forty years. The U.S. federal government, similarly, never officially abolished the death penalty but has had a moratorium on the practice since 2004 – a moratorium ended by the new policy ordered by Attorney General William Barr.

Harvard University’s Steven Pinker has chronicled the decline of capital punishment in his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. He estimated that the execution rate in the United States has been falling for four centuries, from nearly 3.5 executions per 100,000 people in the 17th century.

Despite more “headline”-style shootings and terrorist acts, violent crime has been on a longterm decline in this country for a quarter century. If the return of the death penalty had anything much to do with that, I guess we’ll find out as more states outlaw or abandon the practice.

HMM: New Immigration Pact Likely to Spur More Single Migrants to U.S. Border. “Individuals from Honduras and El Salvador, especially men, are increasingly expected to try to enter undetected following the U.S.-Guatemala deal.”

More:

Under the “safe third country” agreement, Hondurans and Salvadorans would be required to apply for asylum in Guatemala instead of in the U.S. Asylum seekers from those countries apprehended at the U.S. southern border, mostly families, would be returned to Guatemala, U.S. and Guatemalan officials say.

The agreement faces legal and political hurdles in Guatemala, where it is widely unpopular and the subject of protests this past weekend. The country’s top court is expected to soon rule on two injunctions filed against the deal. It will clarify if the pact must be approved by Congress—where it faces opposition—and whether it was signed legally by the Interior Minister.

If the accord is implemented, it would likely deter migrant families from Honduras and El Salvador, said the manager of a migrant shelter in Guatemala City. Instead, it would revive old patterns in which migrants are predominantly single adults, mainly men, as the journey becomes more perilous and costly.

Well, then build the damn wall.

VICTORY GIRLS: In Case You Were Wondering, Terrorism is Still a Thing.

WAIT… WHAT? Ann Arbor Could Fine Conservatives $500 Per Day for Not Parroting Left-Wing Talking Points.

THERE HE GOES AGAIN: Drunkblogging the Second Democratic Debate – Night Two.

AMELIA HAMILTON’S ‘GROWING PATRIOTS’ PODCAST: The Boston Massacre.

Mark Linehan from the Boston Freedom Trail sits down with Amelia, fielding questions from Number One VodkaSon.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? Drinking Game for the Second Dem Debate.

I’ll be back at my desk, with a full ice bucket on the beverage cart, in time for Debate 2, Round 2 at about 7:45pm Eastern.

JOHN STOSSEL: Free Stuff! “While Trump’s $267 billion is bad, the Democrats’ plans are worse. We counted $297 billion proposed by Biden, $690 billion from Buttigieg, $3.8 trillion from Warren, $4 trillion from Sanders and $4.3 trillion from Harris. That would double what the entire federal government spends now.”

NEW YORK TIMES SHOCKED TO DISCOVER THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: When Lawmakers Try to Ban Assault Weapons, Gunmakers Adapt.

Here’s the lede: “Even though military-style weapons are used in few shootings, they have proven to be the deadliest, and the most visible targets for legislation.”

How are they the deadliest if they’re rarely used to kill?

THAT’S A LOT: Dem Candidates Call For More Than $200 Trillion in Spending.

UGH: Their case collapsed in court but 4 Navy prosecutors still netted NAMs.

More than nine months after he was charged with murder and a string of other war crimes allegedly committed in Iraq in 2017 — Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher strolled out of a Naval Base San Diego courtroom a free man, guilty only of appearing in an inappropriate photograph.

Despite the collapse of their case against him, four military attorneys netted Navy Achievement Medals eight days later for their roles in his prosecution, according to records released to Navy Times following a Freedom of Information Act request.

Presented at the Navy Region Southwest Legal Service Office in San Diego on July 10 by Capt. Gary E. Sharp — the chief of staff of Naval Legal Services Command in Washington — the decorations included NAMs for three lieutenants, George O. Hageman, Brian P. John and Scott I. McDonald, plus a female officer whose name and rank were redacted by the Navy.

That’s no way to run a Navy, or anything else.

HMM: John Delaney, Marianne Williamson Dominate Debate Google Search Traffic.

SHARYL ATTKISSON: When polls shape opinion rather than measure it.

While looking into this phenomenon in 2016, I contacted a number of polling groups. I knew that they “weight” and adjust their samples to make them reflect certain demographics of the U.S. population. In simple terms, if their sample ends up with too many young people, they assign greater weight to responses from older people. The methods they use to do so vary and are arcane, to say the least. For example, ABC states that it “adopted iterative weighting, also known as raking or rim weighting, in which the sample is weighted sequentially to Census targets one variable at a time, continuing until the optimum distribution is achieved.”

But one of the most interesting things I learned had to do with one big factor for which they typically don’t “weight” or adjust. It’s one that I think is arguably among the most important when it comes to polls measuring political issues: political affiliation. In other words, the national pollsters I spoke with told me that if they end up interviewing significantly more Democrats than Republicans — which is often the case — they don’t necessarily adjust the results to try to make the sample reflective of the U.S. voting population.

“I wonder why that is?” he asked rhetorically.

BUT THAT’S WHAT I LIKE MOST ABOUT HER: Marianne Williamson: I am not a ‘wacky new-age nutcase.’

COLD WAR II: Taiwan is firing off more than 100 missiles as the Chinese military holds drills nearby.