• Chinas Hackers Are Playing the Long Game and Americas Security Budget Cant Keep Up
    Jun 5 2026
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, Ting here, your friendly neighborhood China‑and‑cyber nerd, and this week the US–China tech shield got a serious firmware update. Let’s dive straight into the core: Washington spent the past few days tightening digital armor against Chinese state‑linked hackers, while also scrambling to patch years of lazy configuration and “we’ll fix it later” security debt across agencies and critical industries. According to the latest joint advisory from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI, US officials are again calling out China‑backed crews like Volt Typhoon for quietly burrowing into power grids, telecom networks, and transportation systems, not to steal data, but to be ready to flip switches in a crisis. The advisory pushed operators to harden remote management systems, rip out default credentials, and segment operational tech from the regular corporate network so one phished intern doesn’t accidentally take down half a state’s power. Microsoft’s security blog this week echoed that, saying Chinese actors are leaning hard on living‑off‑the‑land techniques—using built‑in Windows tools instead of malware—making classic antivirus almost useless. That’s why you saw a sprint of new endpoint detection and response rollouts across big utilities and telecom carriers, backed by fresh guidance from the Department of Energy and the FCC nudging companies to adopt real‑time behavioral monitoring instead of checkbox compliance. On the patch front, several emergency fixes hit: Cisco rushed updates for edge devices that Chinese groups have been hammering for initial access, and Palo Alto Networks pushed new signatures after spotting China‑linked exploitation of older VPN appliances that some CIO “definitely meant to replace in 2021.” Industry chatter from Mandiant and CrowdStrike analysts this week stressed that China’s operators are now chain‑exploiting multiple, medium‑severity bugs instead of relying on one big flashy zero‑day—death by a thousand unpatched cuts. Meanwhile, according to reporting from The Wire China and Asia Times on the broader tech rivalry, the White House continued tightening export controls and reviewing Chinese investment in US data‑center and AI infrastructure, trying to keep advanced chips and sensitive training data out of Beijing’s reach while also worrying about Chinese influence operations targeting local fights over where data centers get built. Now, what’s actually new in defense tech? DARPA‑backed AI systems are being piloted inside federal networks to spot Chinese tradecraft—think models trained specifically on PRC tactics, techniques, and procedures, not generic malware. A few major cloud providers quietly expanded “sovereign logging” options so US agencies can keep complete, immutable audit trails onshore, making it harder for stealthy Chinese intrusions to hide in noisy cloud environments. Here’s my expert take: effectiveness is improving, but the gaps are still wide. The good news is that public attribution of Chinese campaigns, rapid patch releases, and more aggressive zero‑trust rollouts are raising the cost for Beijing’s hackers. The bad news: local utilities, hospitals, and small manufacturers still lag badly; many can’t afford the shiny AI tools and struggle just to keep systems patched. And the US is still juggling two conflicting instincts—locking China out of critical tech while continuing to depend on Chinese hardware and supply chains that can quietly smuggle in risk. If you remember nothing else from today: the US shield is getting thicker, but the attack surface is growing faster than the budget, and China’s hackers are patient. This is not a sprint; it’s a forever‑marathon. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next deep dive. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. For more http://www.quietplease.ai Get the best deals https://amzn.to/3ODvOta
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    4 mins
  • Chinas Cyber Wolves Are Coming for Your Power Grid and the US Is Scrambling to Catch Up
    Apr 26 2026
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, I'm Alexandra Reeves, diving straight into the hottest updates on Tech Shield—our frontline in the US cyber defenses race against Chinese threats. Over the past week leading up to April 26, 2026, tensions spiked as Admiral Samuel J. Paparo, Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, delivered a stark testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 2026 posture. He spotlighted China's aggressive cyber incursions, from state-sponsored hacks probing US naval networks to AI-driven malware targeting critical infrastructure like power grids in Hawaii and Guam. Paparo warned that Beijing's hackers, linked to PLA Unit 61398, exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in outdated Cisco routers and Microsoft Exchange servers, attempting to map Indo-Pacific Command's C4ISR systems— that's command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. In response, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, rolled out emergency Directive 26-04 on April 22, mandating federal agencies patch those exact flaws within 72 hours. According to CISA's advisory, this shields against Salt Typhoon, China's notorious espionage group that's infiltrated telecom giants like Verizon and AT&T. Industry jumped in fast: Microsoft dropped Patch Tuesday updates on April 23, fixing 58 vulnerabilities, including a critical remote code execution flaw in Windows Defender tracked as CVE-2026-0426. Palo Alto Networks unveiled its new Prisma Cloud AI Sentinel, an emerging defensive tech using quantum-resistant encryption and behavioral anomaly detection to thwart China's quantum computing threats. Experts like Nicole Perlroth, former New York Times cyber reporter, praised it in her Wired analysis, saying, "Prisma's ML models catch 95% of APT41 intrusions pre-breach, but gaps remain in supply chain defenses—think SolarWinds 2.0." Government advisories ramped up too. The NSA issued a joint bulletin with Five Eyes allies on April 24, flagging China's J-35 "Blue Shark" stealth fighter integration with Fujian carrier cyber suites, per Defence Security Asia reports. This enables real-time data siphoning from US assets in the South China Sea. DARPA's new Cyber Shield program tested hypersonic data diodes on April 25, blocking air-gapped exfiltration—game-changer against Volt Typhoon's grid attacks. But here's the expert take from Paparo himself: these measures are effective short-term, plugging 80% of known vectors, yet gaps loom in legacy systems and insider threats. "China's cyber force outpaces us 3-to-1 in volume," he testified, urging Congress for $2.5 billion more in quantum-secure comms. CrowdStrike's Dmitri Alperovitch echoed this on CNBC, noting, "US patches are reactive; we need offensive AI hunters to flip the script." Listeners, as China masses Blue Sharks and cyber wolves, Tech Shield holds—but innovation must accelerate. Stay vigilant out there. Thanks for This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.
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    5 mins
  • Ting Spills Tea on Volt Typhoon Hackers Living Off the Land While US Patches Dinosaur Bones in 2026
    Mar 6 2026
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, Ting here, your go-to cyber sleuth on all things China hacks and digital showdowns. Buckle up, because this week's US-China Tech Shield updates are a wild ride of patches, probes, and paranoid prep—straight from the trenches since last Monday. Picture this: I'm hunkered down in my San Francisco war room, screens flickering with alerts from CISA's latest advisory on March 3rd. Chinese state-sponsored crews from Volt Typhoon are burrowing deeper into US critical infrastructure, eyeballing water utilities in Alaska and power grids in Guam. CISA warns they're living off the land now, mimicking legit admins to dodge detection—nasty stuff straight out of Beijing's Ministry of State Security playbook. But Uncle Sam fired back with emergency patches for 12 zero-days in Microsoft Exchange, courtesy of Redmond's March 4th Patch Tuesday. Those fixed Log4Shell variants that PLA hackers love exploiting for initial access. Effectiveness? Solid 8/10 from Mandiant analysts—blocks 70% of known vectors—but gaps loom in legacy SCADA systems still running Windows XP. Laughable, right? It's 2026, and we're patching dinosaur bones. Transitioning seamlessly to industry moves: On March 5th, Palo Alto Networks rolled out their Precision AI firewall update, infused with homomorphic encryption to shield edge devices from quantum snoops—China's got a leg up there with their Jiuzhang 3.0 beast. CrowdStrike chimed in too, reporting a 40% spike in Mustang Panda phishing kits targeting DoD contractors. Their Falcon XDR now auto-quarantines based on behavioral baselines trained on 2025 SolarWinds echoes. Expert take from my pal at FireEye, ex-NSA's Jake Williams: "These tools are game-changers for blue teams, but without zero-trust mandates from the White House, it's whack-a-mole. Gaps? Insider threats—China's honeytrapped five feds this year alone, per FBI's indictment drop on Tuesday." Government's not sleeping: NSA's March 2nd bulletin flags emerging defensive tech like DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge 2.0, where AI agents autonomously hunt vulns in real-time kernels. Think self-healing networks that rewrite code on the fly. Paired with Biden's executive order extending CHIPS Act subsidies for secure silicon fabs in Arizona—Intel's fab there just hit 2nm yields. But here's the witty kicker: Russia's spilling US base intel to Iran amid their Hormuz chaos, per Washington Post on March 6th. Not China-direct, but Xi's watching, likely sharing backchannel quantum decryption tricks. China's retort? Their Qihoo 360 dropped a "US Cyber Aggression" report on March 4th, accusing NSA of hacking Huawei clouds—classic mirror warfare. My verdict: US defenses are hardening, but gaps in supply chain vetting (shoutout SolarWinds 2.0 fears) and talent shortages leave us exposed. Effectiveness peaks at 75% per MITRE eval, but plug those OT holes or we're toast. Thanks for tuning in, listeners—subscribe for more cyber spice This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.
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    4 mins
  • Chinas Military Purge and Cyber Spies: How Xi's Corruption Crackdown Created America's Perfect Window
    Jan 28 2026
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, Ting here, and we've got quite the cyber showdown brewing between the US and China this week. Let me cut right to it because things are moving fast. First up, China's own military just got shaken like a snow globe. Xi Jinping yanked two of the PLA's highest-ranking generals—Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli—straight off the Central Military Commission, citing corruption. Now here's where it gets spicy for American defense planners. According to Politico's national security reporting, Pentagon strategists see this as a golden opportunity. Think about it—while Beijing's dealing with internal chaos and demoralized troops, the US military gets breathing room to strengthen Indo-Pacific alliances, work with Japan on new combat commands, and accelerate AI-enhanced drone swarm capabilities against Chinese threats. But China's not sitting idle on the cyber front, and that's where things get genuinely concerning. Mustang Panda, the China-linked APT group also known as Earth Preta and Twill Typhoon, has been running sophisticated espionage campaigns across Asia and Russia using an updated COOLCLIENT backdoor. The Hacker News reports they're targeting government entities and telecom operators in Myanmar, Mongolia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. This malware steals keystrokes, clipboard data, files, and HTTP credentials—basically everything on your system becomes their personal filing cabinet. Meanwhile, the broader threat landscape shows China synchronizing cyber operations with real-world geopolitical events, according to the Cyber Security Report 2026. That's the dangerous stuff—when digital sabotage meets physical military action. We saw previews with the Volt Typhoon campaign from 2023, where Chinese hackers pre-positioned themselves in US critical infrastructure, lying dormant like digital sleeper agents waiting for crisis moment. On the defensive side, CISA's promoting secure-by-design principles and zero-trust architectures, though they're dealing with their own embarrassments. Their acting cyber chief uploaded sensitive contracting documents into public ChatGPT last summer—multiple security warnings went off—which basically handed that intel directly to OpenAI and its seven hundred million users worldwide. The real game-changer emerging is America's defend-forward strategy through US Cyber Command, actively hunting threats in foreign networks before they hit home soil. Meanwhile, semiconductor export controls remain the US's nuclear option, as noted by national security analysts. Keeping advanced chips away from Beijing extends America's technological lead long enough to develop AI more carefully while still beating the autocracies to the finish line. Here's the hard truth listeners—we're watching the merger of traditional military doctrine with cyber warfare becoming the new normal. The lines between computer code and kinetic conflict are blurring, and that's reshaping how both superpow This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.
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    3 mins
  • Pentagon Drops Cyber Bombshell: China's Attacks Skyrocket 150%, Salt Typhoon Crew Still Prowling
    Dec 29 2025
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, Ting here, your go-to cyber sleuth on all things China hacks and US shields. Buckle up, because this week's been a wild ride in the US-China cyber showdown—straight from the Pentagon's scorching 2025 Military and Security Developments report dropped just yesterday, December 29th. Picture this: I'm hunkered down in my digital war room, coffee in hand, as Beijing's PLA flexes across nukes, hypersonics, and cyber ops that could make your router weep. First off, the big bombshell—Pentagon brass confirm China's cyber game is peaking, with attacks up 150% in 2024 alone. Remember Salt Typhoon? That sneaky crew, fingered by FBI and CISA alerts this year, burrowed into nine US telecom giants for up to two years, plus hits on energy, water, and transport. FinanceWire reports they're still prowling aging infrastructure, hitting 200 orgs in 80 countries by late August. US response? Actelis Networks is stepping up with Cyber Aware Networking—AI that spots anomalies in real-time, 256-bit MACsec encryption, and data scrambling for IoT edges. They've locked down German utilities and Italian motorways; stateside, it's modernizing pipes before Beijing turns 'em into spy cams. Government side, CISA, NSA, and FBI joint warnings scream urgency—70% of 2024 attacks targeted critical infra. No fresh patches this week, but the Pentagon's report spotlights Volt Typhoon too, prepping disruptions for a Taiwan scrap. Xi Jinping's crew is eyeing 1,000+ nukes by 2030, launch-on-warning doctrines, and silo fields in Sichuan's Pingtong—Washington Post satellite snaps show plutonium pits booming. Cyber ties in: they're closing the LLM gap, per SCWorld, fueling smarter hacks. Industry's hustling—US military's gone all-in on AI defenses, per Military.com's 2025 review. Coast Guard's inventorying AI tools, mandating approved feds over sketchy commercial ones to shield data. Predictive maintenance cuts breakdowns, ops centers plan faster. Expert take? Craig Singleton from Foundation for Defense of Democracies nails it: contradiction city—China's Taiwan drills today around key ports, sanctioning 20 US firms over $10B arms sales, yet Trump 2.0 chats "stable peace." Effectiveness? Solid patches like Actelis plug edges, AI governance limits dumb errors, but gaps scream: legacy infra's a sitting duck, no silver bullet for state-sponsored persistence. Witty aside: China's Global Times calls it "hype," but Song Zhongping's spin won't silo those YJ-21 hypersonics. US needs microsegmentation, immutable backups, and patch blitzes yesterday—ransomware lessons from CM-Alliance echo that. Emerging tech like AI anomaly hunters? Game-changer, but train 'em right or it's garbage in, escalation out. Thanks for tuning in, listeners—hit subscribe for more cyber spice. This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quietplease.ai. For more http://www.quietplease.ai Get the best deals https://amzn.to/3ODvOta This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.
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    4 mins
  • Shields Up: US-China Cyber Showdown Intensifies as NSA Hacks Beijing Time
    Dec 28 2025
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, Ting here, your go-to cyber sleuth with a front-row seat to the US-China tech shield showdown. Picture this: it's the final week of 2025, and the cyber trenches are buzzing like a Beijing server farm on Red Bull. China just dropped a bombshell on Sunday, accusing the US National Security Agency of hacking their National Time Service Center—a critical hub under the Chinese Academy of Sciences that keeps everything from comms to power grids ticking to Beijing time. According to China's State Security Ministry, the NSA exploited a foreign smartphone messaging vuln back in 2022 to snag staff credentials, spy on mobiles, and probe internal networks through 2024. They claim it could've wrecked financial systems and global time standards. US Embassy? Crickets. Tit-for-tat much? Yeah, after years of mutual finger-pointing. But hold up—the US isn't sleeping. CISA just rolled out Cybersecurity Performance Goals 2.0 on December 11, supercharging critical infrastructure defenses. Think universal IT-OT goals aligned with NIST CSF 2.0, slamming new threats like third-party deep-access risks and zero-trust to block lateral movement. No more siloed OT headaches; it's governance-first, with leadership owning the risk. CISA's guide from December 3 helps utilities weave in AI safely, while power pros begged Congress on December 2 to fund cyber programs against nation-state hacks—China's still the big bad, per multi-nation warnings. Industry's hustling too. China-nexus crews weaponized CVE-2025-55182 in cloud providers within 24 hours of its December 3 patch drop, per threat intel trackers. FY2026 NDAA, inked by President Trump on December 18, pumps $900 billion into closing tech gaps—$2.6B for hypersonics, AI teammates for decision dominance, quantum pushes, and cyber workforce boosts. Drone swarms? Counter-UAS task forces and pilots to shield bases. Plus, harmonized DIB cyber rules by June 2026. Expert take? Chris Krebs on Face the Nation nailed it: CISA's underfunded, talent's fleeing to China's Silicon Valley knockoffs, and AI's wild—first fully automated Chinese hack via Claude bot hit 30 orgs last month. Samantha Vinograd warns structural US slips make us ripe. Effectiveness? CPG 2.0 plugs gaps smartly, but voluntary means spotty uptake; NDAA's acceleration imperative rocks for speed, yet China's PLA AI logistics—sensors, predictive UGVs, cargo drones—are sneaky targets we gotta hit first. Gaps? Talent wars, regulatory whiplash, and those rare earth chokepoints. US edges in alliances like Pax Silica, but Beijing's drafting AI safeguards to mimic human chit-chat without the addiction drama. Whew, listeners, the shield's thickening, but this cat-and-mouse game's just heating up. Stay vigilant—patch fast, zero-trust everything. Thanks for tuning in—subscribe for more cyber spice! This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quietplease.ai. For more http://www.quietplease.a This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.
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    4 mins
  • China's Hackers Swing Hard, Uncle Sam Scrambles Defenses in Tech Shield Showdown
    Dec 21 2025
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, Ting here, your go-to gal for all things China cyber chaos and hacking wizardry. This week in the US-China tech shield showdown, it's been a non-stop ping-pong of patches, probes, and political punches—right up to today, December 21st. Buckle up, because China's hackers are swinging hard, but Uncle Sam's defenses are scrambling like a caffeinated sysadmin at 3 AM. Let's kick off with the fresh wounds: Cisco's Talos team just dropped a bombshell on December 18th, revealing a China-nexus APT group called UAT-9686 exploiting a zero-day in AsyncOS for Secure Email Gateway and Web Manager—CVE-2025-20393, max severity, actively hit since late November. These sneaky foxes planted backdoors, purged logs, and ghosted out, targeting online systems with Spam Quarantine enabled. Hundreds of Cisco customers in the US, India, and Thailand got exposed, per Shadowserver Foundation's Peter Kijewski and Censys scans showing 220 vulnerable gateways. Cisco's fix? Nuke and pave—full rebuilds if compromised, no patch yet. Witty win for defenders: only hits if you're misconfigured, but oof, that's a lot of folks. Not done—ESET outed LongNosedGoblin, another China-aligned crew, on December 18th, weaponizing Windows Group Policy for espionage malware against Southeast Asian and Japanese gov nets since 2023. Meanwhile, Ink Dragon (aka Jewelbug) flexed ShadowPad and FINALDRAFT on governments December 17th, per Western Illinois University's cyber center. CISA screamed for federal patches on React2Shell's CVE-2025-55182 by December 12th—unsafe deserialization letting global attacks RCE everything. US countermeasures? Lawmakers on December 20th pushed to slap DeepSeek and Xiaomi onto the Entity List with Tencent and CATL, citing military ties, straight from South China Morning Post. Trump's defense bill, inked December 19th, bans investments in Chinese biotech and dual-use tech. Commerce, State, Energy, and Defense kicked off a review of Nvidia H200 chip sales to China that same day—can't let Beijing's AI feast continue. TikTok's US spin-off deal on December 19th? Still shaky, needs Beijing's nod, and core algo tensions simmer. Industry's hustling: AI-powered SOCs and zero-trust are the buzz from GovTech's 2026 predictions, with post-quantum threats accelerating. Experts like Natixis' Gary Ng warn not to underestimate China's EUV lithography push for AI chips. Gaps? Trump-era pivots weakened cyber posture, per KrebsOnSecurity's year-in-review December 19th—free speech curbs and rapid shifts left defenses ragged. Effectiveness? Patches buy time, but China's domestic chip surge—Huawei's Kirin 9030, Moonshot's Kimi—means engagement's urgent, says a US gov report December 15th. We're holding the line, but need AI firewalls and supply chain steel, stat. Listeners, thanks for tuning in—subscribe for more cyber spice! This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quietplease.ai. For more http: This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.
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    4 mins
  • China's Hack Blitz: US Shields Buckle, Zero-Days & Stealthy Malware Run Amok
    Dec 17 2025
    This is your Tech Shield: US vs China Updates podcast. Hey listeners, Ting here, your go-to cyber sleuth on all things China hacks and US shields. This week in the US-China cyber showdown, it's been a brutal blitz from Beijing's crews, but America's defenses are firing back—sort of. Picture this: I'm hunkered down in my digital war room, caffeine-fueled, watching CISA, NSA, and Cisco Talos drop bombshells left and right. First off, Chinese state-sponsored ops unleashed BRICKSTORM malware, a sneaky backdoor beast hitting VMware vSphere and Windows setups in government agencies and critical infrastructure across North America. Smarter MSP reports CISA's joint advisory with NSA and Canada's Cyber Centre exposing how these hackers lurked undetected for 17 months in one case—from April 2024 to September 2025. It uses layered encryption, DNS-over-HTTPS for stealth chats, and auto-reinstalls if you try to boot it. Nasty, right? The Defense Post echoes this, calling out PRC hackers targeting US networks hard. Then bam, Cisco drops a zero-day bombshell on December 17. Chinese hackers, linked to known gov groups per Cisco Talos, exploited a critical flaw in AsyncOS software on Secure Email Gateway and Web Manager appliances. No patch yet—Cisco says wipe and rebuild if compromised. TechCrunch notes the campaign kicked off late November 2025, hitting internet-facing Spam Quarantine features. Researcher Kevin Beaumont warns big orgs are exposed since these boxes are everywhere. Patching frenzy ensued: Microsoft fixed CVE-2025-62221 under active exploit, plus CISA added D-Link router overflow (CVE-2022-37055) and Array Networks injection (CVE-2025-66644). Fortinet patched auth bypass bugs in FortiOS and FortiWeb—Australia's ACSC and Canada's Cyber Centre screamed urgency. CISA also blasted 12 ICS advisories for Mitsubishi Electric, Advantech, Johnson Controls, even medical gear. Government moves? DOJ's Data Security Program, live since April 2025, slaps export controls on bulk sensitive data to China and five other adversaries, per FTI Consulting. And President Trump's nominating Lt. Gen. Rudd—Indo-Pacific Command deputy—for NSA/Cyber Command head, eyeing China counters, says Nextgov. Industry's scrambling: Check Point tracks China-linked Ink Dragon (aka Jewelbug) chaining ShadowPad and new FINALDRAFT malware across Europe, Asia, Africa govs and telcos. The Hacker News details their web shells, Cobalt Strike, and Google Drive C2 tricks—super stealthy, turning victims into relay nodes. Expert take? These patches and advisories are clutch, buying time, but gaps scream loud. BRICKSTORM's persistence and Cisco's no-patch wipe show detection lags—17 months? Oof. Zero-days like AsyncOS exploit unpatched sprawl, and Ink Dragon's mesh network means one breach fuels global ops. US needs faster attribution, AI-driven anomaly hunts—MITRE's expanding D3FEND for OT helps—and mandatory bulk data audits. China's hybrid game, per Craig Singleton's House testimony Decem This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.
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    5 mins