I am sorry, but the damage is already done. It cannot be repaired. NEVER!

With a little bread and circus, the voters and "the allies" will forget everything. Happenes all the time.

> I am sorry, but the damage is already done. It cannot be repaired. NEVER!

I hate to invoke Godwin's law, but Germany was once the most reviled country in the world and is now, arguably, the most influential country in the European Union. Clearly, damage much worse than what the US has done over Trump's two terms can be repaired over time.

Unfortunately, that path back for Germany required holding those responsible accountable, in some cases fatally so. I don't see that happening here. Nothing will prevent or dissuade Trump's political allies from continuing his movement. Yes they may lose an election here or there, but I don't see any indication that MAGA is anywhere close to becoming politically toxic. Until a post-WWII style reckoning can be had, I am not optimistic that reputational repair can happen.

> Yes they may lose an election here or there, but I don't see any indication that MAGA is anywhere close to becoming politically toxic.

I think we're on the cusp of it right now. The ICE murders make it more and more untenable and indefensible for the average American to defend without sounding crazy. But even if this doesn't do it, or an invasion of Greenland somehow doesn't do it, the big question will be: can MAGA even survive as a movement without Trump?

> Until a post-WWII style reckoning can be had, I am not optimistic that reputational repair can happen.

I fully agree. A third Reconstruction is needed in this country.

> A third Reconstruction is needed in this country.

Arguably the first two didn't go far enough.

Germany didn't really do a lot of that though.

Some people love money more than they love you

Americans cant have their cake and eat it too. The allies are quietly leaving the room and forming alliances without Americans.

I'll bite. What are those new alliances of significance? I mean real significance in military means, or trade, or industry?

They should but they're not. They are also controlled by the interests that control the US.

Europe could be relevant again if it only embraced China and gave NATO the finger.

Any specific examples you can speak to? Which countries? Who are they allying with?

Not sure what 23434dsf means but America's traditional allies like Canada, Europe and maybe post WW2 Japan are forming an alliance against Russia's invasion into Europe, while Trump's position seems to be it's ok for Russia to take land by force as long as he/the US get a cut of the plunder.

Are you suggesting that Canada, Europe (I take it you mean the EU and UK), and perhaps Japan are forming a separate alliance without the United States because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

Can you link to anything specific? Have there been alliance talks? What are the new alliances being formed called? I know there have been some arms purchases and agreements but that wouldn't have anything to do with forming an alliance separate from what already exists today.

Approximately this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing_(Russ...

The wikipedia has "Building upon these bilateral discussions aiming at creating a hard core of allies in Europe focused on Ukraine and wider European security..."

I guess it depends how you define things.

Allies isn't being used in terms of Alliance here. I don't know the full list but most of the countries on that list, and perhaps all, are already allies. There's nothing to further ally about.

What this is, is a cooperation framework toward a shared purpose. None of those countries are abandoning or being abandoned by the United States as an ally, nor are any of those countries creating new alliances with each other.

I know there's this gut reaction on the Internet to act like the rest of the world is banding together and leaving the United States because of President Trump or something, but it's just not the case. At the end of the day, the only country in the world that has military and industrial power to defend against Russia or China today is the United States. That's not a slight at Japan, or France, or anything like that, but an acknowledgment of reality.

President Trump's administration has been, in my view, haphazard and stupid in how it has treated out allies and partners in many ways. In some ways they've been correct though too, and it's important to not overreact to news headlines.

Nothing of note, yet. Like most US corporations, they're holding off on implementing real changes to see if we the people choose to continue on this self-destructive course after He leaves office.

In some ways self-destructive, in other ways not. President Biden restricted early use of long range weapons to strike Russia - that was self-destructive too.

Really, what exactly are folks asking the United States to do here? Give more money or weapons? Sure we could give even more, I support that. I'm quite hawkish on both Russia and China.

But I don't think that giving more money and arms tips the scales enough for Ukraine to force Russia out. So where does that leave us? The EU isn't going to do anything militarily about the situation. As the PM of Poland said, 600+ million Europeans are asking 300+ million Americans to defend them from 180+ million Russians. Something doesn't seem right. That doesn't mean the Trump Administration has handled this well. I'll give them to the extent that it is genuine that pursuing peace, if possible, is what we should do. But it also doesn't mean that all of the political grandstanding and TRUMP MAN BAD is getting us anywhere either. Has he handled our alliances poorly, yea I think so. Are our allies leaving and forming new alliances? No, not in any material sense. Does Europe need to step up and spend to defend itself, absolutely. It also doesn't mean President Trump needs to be an asshat either. Some ways self-destructive, other ways not.

I would have prefered the US to be a bit firmer about Russia not invading in 2022 like don't do it or we'll send jets.

Still here we are and like you say 600m+ of us wanting 300m+ Americans to defend against Russia is a bit odd although you can see how it got that way - after WW1 and WW2 it seemed quite a good idea not to rearm Europe and the US was quite keen to confront the Soviets. It's changing now due to Trump being a bit useless and Europe not wanting to be next on the list after Ukraine.

Tim I’m even more hawkish. I think we should have done what you suggest in 2022, but even today I think we should basically give Russia an ultimatum and then use air power to neuter their military (along with TBD ground forces from Europeans). The ideal time to do that was when we bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

I am happy that Europeans are taking their security more seriously, and I don’t fault them for not pursuing US levels of military spending. Both world wars were so catastrophic, how could someone imagine starting another war in Europe?! But then along comes Russia, aided and abetted by China and North Korea and Iran.

I’m not sure if President Trump has been useless. He’s certainly useful to someone but I for the life of me can’t tell who. One day he’s ready to force Ukraine to accept Ukraine’s demands, the next the administration says it’s open season on Russian shadow fleet tankers. He’s tired of paying, and I think we are giving away less, but then they are happy to sell weapons and provide loans. Loans which will be useless if Ukraine is conquered.

Though I do want to point out that post-WW2 European militaries were staffed to be ready to fight the Soviets too.

HN is struggling to understand

Enlighten us.

So if I strolled through the airport with a high power NFC reader/writer, I could ruin a lot of peoples trips?

In addition to the mechanisms people are describing here - passports have a metal mesh in them to disrupt NFC signals. It's not a full faraday cage but it works on similar principles. The passport has to be _open_ to be read from, and then only after you transmit the MRZ will you get anything.

> passports have a metal mesh in them to disrupt NFC signals

I don't think that is universally true. At least I can read my closed 2 years old passport with my phone.

Hmm the American passports have the mesh afaik - I _thought_ it was part of the ICAO docs (not that that means people do it but still...)

Just tested on my American passport - it will not read while closed, either from the front or the back. Opening it up - no issues reading. Seems like there is in fact a faraday mesh or something

No.

NFC chips can be locked. That means the data can't be overwritten. No matter the writer, nor its strength, you can't overwrite a passport's chip.

I suppose you could use an EMP - but that would ruin a lot more than just some trips.

"The NFC chip in a passport is protected by a password. The password is printed on the inside of the physical passport. As well as needing to be physically close to the passport for NFC to work0, you also need to be able to see the password."

Even that password only gives you read access.

I don't think ICAO passports can ever be rewritten post-issuance. Some national IDs can, e.g. to change the holder's residential address, but for passports, I don't think any part of the on-chip data can be changed post-issuance, since it would also require re-printing data on the photo page usually under protective plastic.

Yes but. In Europe this tech is also in our id cards whether said passport is printed on the outside (considering it's just a credit card format). You still have to see it but it doesn't have to be opened to the right page like a passport.

Both sides even have the info printed. One side in human format, the owner side in machine readable.

Yes, but this still means a attacker needs to have physical access to the passport?

They need to know the information which functions as key. Because many people don't trust government secrets, the information used for this purpose on a passport is actually just facts about you which were already printed in your passport, plus the passport number. The machine summarises these in a "Machine readable zone" but they're nothing you didn't know.

For a random traveller you can probably guess roughly how old they are, which is a few bits for the date-of-birth, and maybe you could strike up conversation and discover their name (or maybe it's printed on baggage, called out by fellow travellers etc.) but yeah it'll be very hard

For a very well known person you can likely discover everything except the passport number and you might get a decent guess at that from knowing roughly when it would be issued.

"For a very well known person you can likely discover everything except the passport number and you might get a decent guess at that from knowing roughly when it would be issued."

From a very well known person you could probably also steal everything you need directly, if your purpose is to create damage.

Kinda the same as with the NFC.

You can read from a small distance, probably further than you can read an NFC tag with your phone. And you can automate both on a phone (OCR and NFC)

Expectation of punishment