The risk is climbing that both Russia and China may look to bring an escalation in major cyberattacks against the U.S. and Western Europe, following Russian losses in Ukraine and the U.S. chip blockade against China, according to cybersecurity and geopolitics expert Dmitri Alperovitch.

---

"What I do think we're about to enter is probably one of the most dangerous times that we've had in the history of the cyber domain, when it comes to our infrastructure here in the West — both because of what Russia may be doing against us, as well as China," said Alperovitch, the co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike, on Wednesday during a livestream Q&A with The Washington Post.

When it comes to Russia, an increase in major cyberattacks against the West is looking a lot more likely as "we are entering a new phase of the conflict" over Ukraine, he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is "starting to realize that the war is not going well for him," Alperovitch said. "He's steadily losing territory, including territory that he has recently tried to annex. And that may mean that he's going to be much more willing to confront not just Ukraine, but also the West."

In terms of targeting the West, "Cyber probably is going to be his first weapon of choice," said Alperovitch, who is currently the co-founder and executive chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington think tank. The U.S. and Western European nations have provided substantial support to Ukraine, including weaponry, following Russia's invasion of the country in late February, which Alperovitch had predicted two months before it occurred.

Meanwhile, China may be jumping into the fray, too, in response to the recent U.S. move to block Chinese access to advanced chip technology, according to Alperovitch.

The U.S. chip blockade, he said, is "a declaration of economic war," and "I doubt that they will take it sitting down."

China’s leadership is currently preoccupied with this week's Communist Party congress, Alperovitch noted.

"But once they get past the Congress and the changes that Xi Jinping is implementing within the party, I think you will see retaliation both against American companies in China as well as potentially through cyber operations, to try to compensate for the loss of access to technology with IP theft," he said.

Update: The first sentence of this article was reworded to better describe the type of cyberattacks involved.

Ye could own Parler before the end of the year, according to Parler COO Josh Levine.

“This transaction will get closed very quickly,” Levine told Protocol on Wednesday. “There’s nothing to stand in the way of that except that, you know, we just [have] to go through the process of assuring it’s done correctly.”

---

Levine declined to provide information on the acquisition price or which banks are working on the transaction. He did, however, describe it as “the best possible outcome we could have had.” This acquisition deal is unlike the Musk-Twitter saga because it involves two friendly parties, and Parler is a private company, Levine said.

On Monday, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, agreed to purchase Parler, the social media platform popular among conservatives and which launched in 2018. He had been attending fashion shows in Paris with conservative pundit Candace Owens, whose husband, George Farmer, is the CEO of Parler.

In an interview later that day, Ye said the Parler acquisition was motivated by his experience being “kicked off” Instagram and Twitter. Ye made anti-Semitic remarks on both platforms, prompting Twitter to lock his account and Instagram to delete his post and place other restrictions on his platform activity.

Ye has only doubled down on his anti-Semitic rhetoric in recent days. When asked whether any of Ye’s statements would or could lead to Parler backing out of the deal, Levine said he wouldn’t comment on anything Ye said in his personal life.

In the two days since the news of the acquisition broke, Parler has seen four times as many new users sign up as it did in the preceding month, Levine told Protocol. He also said the company wants to expand beyond politics by recruiting new users who are musicians, athletes, and comedians. Parler currently has around 70 employees, he said.

“That alignment with his brand and his brilliance in promotion and the people he can attract to this site are the perfect fit for us moving forward,” Levine said. Parler is working through the details of how the acquisition will affect its leadership team, according to Levine.

Ye had communicated with Elon Musk last week, prior to making the Parler acquisition offer, according to Bloomberg. Once the deal went public on Monday, Ye spoke to former President Donald Trump over the phone — they reportedly made dinner plans, and Ye said he invited Trump to join Parler, a move that Ye would reciprocate by joining Truth Social.

Major ISPs have consistently offered poor neighborhoods and communities of color slower base internet speeds than more affluent, white neighborhoods, despite charging all of these communities the same price for service, according to a new investigation by The Markup and The Associated Press.

The news organizations studied 800,000 internet offers from AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, and Earthlink across 38 cities and found that the worst deals — factoring in speed and price — were offered in poorer and less white neighborhoods. "Residents of neighborhoods offered the worst deals aren’t just being ripped off; they’re denied the ability to participate in remote learning, well-paying remote jobs, and even family connection and recreation—ubiquitous elements of modern life," the report reads.

---

The investigation sheds light on the fact that worse broadband service in poor communities doesn't necessarily equate to lower costs. In one instance, the investigation found that AT&T customers in a middle-class community of color in New Orleans were provided with just 1Mbps of download speed, even though the FCC defines broadband as having a minimum of 25Mbps. In a mostly white, wealthier neighborhood in the same city, internet speeds were “almost 400 times faster,” the report found. But residents of both neighborhoods paid the same $55 a month for service.

The ISPs mentioned in the report didn't deny offering different speed rates for the same price, but said it's not because they're intentionally discriminating. “Any suggestion that we discriminate in providing internet access is blatantly wrong,” AT&T spokesperson Jim Greer told The Markup. An executive for the industry group USTelecom, which represents Verizon, attributed the speed and price discrepancies to the fact that “legacy technologies can be more expensive."

The disparities in service provision were found to be especially felt in formerly redlined neighborhoods. The investigation also found that CenturyLink's service produced some of the biggest price disparities, with residents of the same city being offered pricing as different as 25 cents per Mbps and $100 per Mbps, depending on where they lived.

“It isn’t just about the provision of a better service. It’s about access to the tools people need to fully participate in our democratic system,” Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU to the AP/Markup. “That is a far bigger deal and that’s what really worries me about what you’re finding.”

Major ISPs have consistently offered poor neighborhoods and communities of color slower base internet speeds than more affluent, white neighborhoods, despite charging all of these communities the same price for service, according to a new investigation by The Markup and The Associated Press.

The news organizations studied 800,000 internet offers from AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, and Earthlink across 38 cities and found that the worst deals — factoring in speed and price — were offered in poorer and less white neighborhoods. "Residents of neighborhoods offered the worst deals aren’t just being ripped off; they’re denied the ability to participate in remote learning, well-paying remote jobs, and even family connection and recreation—ubiquitous elements of modern life," the report reads.

---

The investigation sheds light on the fact that worse broadband service in poor communities doesn't necessarily equate to lower costs. In one instance, the investigation found that AT&T customers in a middle-class community of color in New Orleans were provided with just 1Mbps of download speed, even though the FCC defines broadband as having a minimum of 25Mbps. In a mostly white, wealthier neighborhood in the same city, internet speeds were “almost 400 times faster,” the report found. But residents of both neighborhoods paid the same $55 a month for service.

The ISPs mentioned in the report didn't deny offering different speed rates for the same price, but said it's not because they're intentionally discriminating. “Any suggestion that we discriminate in providing internet access is blatantly wrong,” AT&T spokesperson Jim Greer told The Markup. An executive for the industry group USTelecom, which represents Verizon, attributed the speed and price discrepancies to the fact that “legacy technologies can be more expensive."

The disparities in service provision were found to be especially felt in formerly redlined neighborhoods. The investigation also found that CenturyLink's service produced some of the biggest price disparities, with residents of the same city being offered pricing as different as 25 cents per Mbps and $100 per Mbps depending on where they lived.

“It isn’t just about the provision of a better service. It’s about access to the tools people need to fully participate in our democratic system,” Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU told the AP and Markup. “That is a far bigger deal and that’s what really worries me about what you’re finding.”

Running a monopoly chip business has its advantages, especially as the rest of the industry is pushed into turmoil — the result of a rapid, significant reversal in demand for consumer chips and U.S. efforts to block semiconductor tech sales to China.

---

For Dutch semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker ASML, things are not so bad. The company is the exclusive manufacturer of tools that use extreme ultraviolet lithography tech, which is necessary to print-cutting edge chips.

ASML said early Wednesday when it held an earnings conference call with investors that some of its customers — Intel, Samsung, and TSMC, for example — had delayed equipment delivery dates. But, according to CEO Peter Wennink, customers “never cancel,” even amid a recession.

“What we've always seen in recession or downturn — that I've seen in the last 25 years — customers never cancel,” Wennink said on the earnings call, according to a Sentieo transcript. “They ask for a rescheduling of the shipment. And that's basically depending on their capex plans and on the depth of the recession, about the ability to finance it depends whether it's a few months out or a few quarters out.”

What does tend to happen, Wennink said, is that customers ask ASML to delay the delivery of the tools, pushing them out a certain period of time to more favorably suit whatever adjustments the chip manufacturers have had to make to their expansion plans.

Reading between the lines, it appears Wennink is talking about the fact TSMC recently downgraded its factory and tool spending plans to $36 billion from $40 billion to $44 billion earlier this year; Micron made cuts to its capital spending plans, as did Intel.

ASML is in an enviable position compared with some of the other tool makers. Located in the Netherlands, it can operate outside of the increasingly hawkish U.S. view of China and its ability to buy American chip technology.

Sales of the advanced EUV machines are blocked to Chinese customers, but only because one of the crucial submodules is manufactured by a San Diego subsidiary of ASML, and without that submodule the EUV machines would be unable to operate. The U.S. muscled the Dutch into themselves blocking the exports of the EUV systems to China as a result.

Other chip equipment makers are not likely to fare as well as ASML. At the same time as some consumer end markets for chips have dropped off sharply, the U.S. has introduced sweeping new restrictions on chip tech exports, ranging from blocking chips with specific computational throughput to preventing U.S. citizens and companies from servicing or supporting chip equipment machines already in China.

The fresh export restrictions caused Applied Materials to issue a revenue warning last week, cautioning investors that the damage would extend into the next quarter too. For American chip equipment makers, China represents roughly a third of their sales, though some of that revenue is tied to equipment or services that aren’t covered by the new restrictions.

But a lot of tools are subject to the new rules and — perhaps more importantly — so are the personnel needed to service and support existing equipment. The expensive, complex machines needed to perform the various aspects of chip manufacturing require consistent monitoring and upkeep, which has morphed into a lucrative business for the equipment makers.

To put a fine point on it, according to The Economist, Goldman Sachs now estimates that overall the new U.S. export restrictions could cost Applied, Lam Research, and KLA $6 billion this year, or nearly 10% of their projected sales.