Slashdot Mirror
Taiwan Under Cyber Attack from China
An anonymous reader writes: "O'Reilly Developer News is reporting this morning that Taipei is under cyber attack by a Chinese 'army of hackers'. The Taipei government is saying that the attacks are trojan-horses against windows machines that are being staged to break in to government databases."
This is extremely interesting. In his book "The Bear and the Dragon" this is exactly what happened, only it was China and Russia.
COULD THINGS GO NUCLEAR!?!?
It's pronounced nu-cu-lar.
WHATEVER!
Maybe they're just trying to undermine Windows by attacking it.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Cabinet says computers under attack
INFORMATION WARFARE: A Cabinet spokesman said Beijing is waging a campaign designed to access databases in Taiwan through the use of Trojan-horse computer programs
By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Sep 04, 2003,Page 1
China has launched a systematic information warfare campaign against Taiwan, spreading Trojan-horse programs into private companies' computers as a means to break into government databases, the Cabinet said yesterday.
"National intelligence has indicated that an army of hackers based in China's Hubei and Fujian provinces has successfully spread 23 different Trojan horse programs to the networks 10 private high-tech companies here to use them as a springboard to break into at least 30 different government agencies and 50 private companies," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung () said yesterday.
The government agencies invaded by the Trojan-horse programs include the National Police Administration, the Ministry of National Defense, the Central Election Commission and the Central Bank of China.
To minimize the damage, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday instructed all central government agencies to scrutinize their computer systems and report to the authorities within two days. Those failing or refusing to comply with the order may face punishment.
Yu made the remark yesterday morning during the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting, in which Minister without Portfolio Tsai Ching-yen () briefed Yu on the matter.
"Trojan-horse attacks are one of the most serious threats to computer security," Tsai said. "A computer user may have not only been attacked but may also be attacking others unknowingly."
Because of the vast popularity and many weaknesses of the Windows operating system, most of the damage is done to Windows users, Tsai said.
Although the National Information Task Force has warned government agencies to be on alert, Tsai said, some agencies have failed to take the warning seriously.
"They either delayed reporting to authorities or tried to solve the problem themselves. It not only stalled our response efforts but also made the situation worse," Tsai said.
Since it appears no government information has been stolen, Tsai said, the deployment of the program is likely aimed at paralyzing the nation's computer systems.
"Of course there are other possibilities such as stealing sensitive government information in vast sums or preparing computers for future information warfare," he said.
To help government agencies invaded by the program clean up the mess, Tsai said the National Information Security Committee plans to complete the programming of the anti-Trojan-horse software today.
"We'll also post the solution manual on the Internet for the convenience of other countries facing the same problem," Tsai said, adding that Taiwan is the first country to have detected the program.
Lee Hsiang-chen (), captain of the National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau, said the situation has been monitored 24 hours a day over the past two months.
"We're glad that it has been detected before any damage was done," Lee said.
"If there's any lesson from this experience, it is not to use software developed in China or hire Chinese computer programmers, because you're running the risk of having the software you use implanted with the Trojan-horse program," he said.
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
Show your hate for SCO
Now please, don't flame me as a fan of mainland China's repressive regime. But the Taiwanese government doesn't exactly have the world's best track record, as I recall. I hear occasional notes about "problems" with civil rights, and then there's the whole pirated anime problem.
So when I read this line:
"National intelligence has indicated that an army of hackers based in China..."
my BS-o-Meter starts clicking. Though the article is non-technical, it includes other notes that make the meter tick faster:
"...has successfully spread 23 different Trojan horse programs... 10 private high-tech companies... break into at least 30 different government agencies and 50 private companies," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung said yesterday.
We have a lot of big, scary numbers... but no hard information about the programs, the companies, or the government agencies.
In fact, the "23 different Trojans" makes me think that the government cabinet member is talking out of his butt. More likely, nobody's been running virus protection, and those 24 Trojans are simply members of F-Secure's wildlist.
Then, there's this "helpful" suggestion:
"If there's any lesson from this experience, it is not to use software developed in China or hire Chinese computer programmers, because you're running the risk of having the software you use implanted with the Trojan-horse program," he said.
That sounds like nothing more than the usual tit-for-tat barbs that Taiwan and China have been throwing across the strait for decades. In fact, I suspect that's what this whole Trojan Horse issue is -- all bluster, no substance.
And finally, off the actual topic: let's watch the Slashdot effect in action! When I first hit the Taipei Times article, it included this text at the bottom:
This story has been viewed 1128 times.
By the time I typed this comment, the number had not changed, so I'm probably getting a cached copy. What did it show when you hit it?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Wang logs into his workstation after lunch, and thinks to himself, "Funny, I don't remember this icon on my desktop. I wonder what will happen if I double click on it."
He double clicks on it, and a dialog window pops up titled "haxx0r3d", with a message saying, "You have been hacked by chinese. Have a nice day."
After pondering the message, he clicks ok and thinks, "Hmm. I better do a checkdsk and report this to NISC."
Moral: Don't be a Wang.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
for the international HACK CHINA outing ?
Isn't about time that everyone else gave China a taste of the Rat Crap they've been feeding the world. I'd say 2 billion people hacking at your firewall would send a message, not hat they would understand mind you...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Sounds like a conspiracy to me! (*Cough cough* bullshit.)
Why not just walk in and take the computers... these guys need to learn from the Ausie hackers
How about a spell checker for slashdot, or even more impressive, a spell checker for strings in C-Code? Use lint! -DG
how do your say 'Did you install the latest service packs?' in taiwanese?
Yu made the remark yesterday morning during the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting, in which Minister without Portfolio Tsai Ching-yen briefed Yu on the matter.
I hadn't realized that I talked with China or Tiawan latley.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
They're under another kind of cyber attack now. Can't get through to the linked website.
Is there any relations between theses attacks from China and connections attempts from chineese computers I see so often in my firewall logs ? Anyone else is getting scanned so often from China ?
I fully expect this on the big screen in a few years.
~
~
:wq
It's only with the advent of the Internet that the two are suddenly in contact in meaningful ways. In a strange twist, and in many cases the Chinese government is in a position where they have to defend Taiwan against these kinds of attacks from their own citizens!
It's a strange, strange world. And as we grow more connected, it's getting more so every day. So buy SCOX stock.
It's interesting that this is happening now, after china has acquired windows' source code. Could they have found newer vulnarabilities that no one knows about yet?
Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and do not, in any way, reflect the opinions of my employer or university.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But then, even if life were a Tom Clancy novel it _still_ wouldn't be written by Tom Clancy.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
when did /. start hosting the intrusive, drop-down Dell ads?
have I been lucky enough to not get them? has this been annoying people for awhile now?
can we at least ask that the banner ads stay in the banner area?
(I know and apologize for off topic [maybe I'll submit a story?], but at least I didn't go anonymous!)
Blaster strikes again...
there is no blood shed... Bang Bang, oh those cyber bullets really hurt....lol
...couldn't they just impersonate techs, walk in and grab the government mainframes? :-)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
all your (data)base are belong to us!
there i said it, i know its japanese but it had to be said.
Especially the last part of the article:
1 52525 2
"If there's any lesson from this experience, it is not to use software developed in China or hire Chinese computer programmers, because you're running the risk of having the software you use implanted with the Trojan-horse program"
on the heels of this report, regarding China's intentions of developing their own OS:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/31/
How do you say "I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords" in Taiwanese?
... constantly sending the request:
HTTP/1.1 All your base are belong to us
Considering Taiwan's high software piracy rate (~43%) - the Microsoft Taiwanese technical support line should be relatively free.
I did not make it to the article, so I am basing this comment upon the posted text.
"China has launched a systematic information warfare campaign against Taiwan"
That would be propoganda. Hackers, or more technically, computers, in China have launched an attack. Not the Chinese government, not the nation of China, a group of individuals using computers in China.
"'National intelligence has indicated that an army of hackers based...'"
Again, a little over the top with the "army of hackers" reference. This makes it seem like the hackers have some official link or even political cause.
"'If there's any lesson from this experience, it is not to use software developed in China or hire Chinese computer programmers,'"
Propoganda. Incredibly, this sort of logic would mean that living or working within a country means that you are a malicious agent of that country. Ludicrous.
Oh, and please do observe the editor who approved this article.
Because of the vast popularity and many weaknesses of the Windows operating system, most of the damage is done to Windows users, Tsai said.
Department of Hoeland Security, take note.
For how long has this kind of attack been promised? Now that it seems to be happening, what kind of reprocussions can we expect? Will the US or UN intervene, since (at least from my POV) this is an act of war? Then again, are these government-sponsored script kiddies, or are they doing it of their own volition? IANA diplomat, but this is obviously a serious violation of something, and if it's not, then there might be an agreement regulating such warfare, an electronic Geneva Convention.
/. is "Do they see that Windows sux0rs now?"
Of course, forget all of those important questions: the one true question to ask on
(Score:1, Redundant) Don't connect critical systems to the Internet.
Either the parent post has extremely fast typing skills...
Well, 50wpm or so -- tell your kids to take that easy-A "Keyboarding" class first chance they get, or else the only words they'll be able to type without looking at the keyboard will be "brb", "asl?", and "wtf?"
or it was a canned comment that happened to fit just right..."
No... although sometimes I think I've developed a "Slashdot" section of my brain that pops out fully-formed stories when triggered by the proper stimulus.
or I am crazy. Story posted 12:01, comment posted 12:03.
That's it! You're crazy! I'll share my prescription with you, I keep forgetting to take my meds anyway.
No, I'm just a subscriber *and* a fast typer with too many ideas and a boss that doesn't prowl around enough. I think Pavlov would be proud of the way I click when I see a red bar on the Slashdot home page!
Wow, I am impressed.
Don't be... just click the "Subscribe" link, pony up five bucks, and Instant Karma's gonna get you before you can say "Frist Post!"
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The software hacks you...
Ask you parents who Jimmy Carter was before he did Habitat for Humanity,
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
...a level of animosity that China has toward Taiwan.
Let's just pray that all of the fighting stays in the cyber world.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Only on slashdot are Civil rights violations mentioned in the same sentence as pirated anime of all things.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Hey, at least they know to refer to it as a "trojan horse". Unlike the head of IT here at work who sends out emails to everyone warning them of the "internet virus worm".
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Windows 2003: $1,000 .NET: $3,400
Visual Studio
Being owned by a script kiddie: Priceless
For somethings, there's security. For everything else, there's Microsoft.
me chinese me play trick me ping -f'in on your nick
MoFscker
Well, this is the first I've learned of it. My ultra cheap standard issue 1.5Mbps DSL connection seems to be going just fine. Got a few connections to the WayBack machine going and I just finished the rounds at a dozen web sites, EETimes, DisplaySearch, BioTech East, Digitimes, Google News and on and on. None of them had any problems, nice snappy connections. A few of those are in Taiwan so locally and internationally the network itself seems fine.
The only thing I couldn't get to was the feakin' story at the notoriously paranoid Taipei Times because apparently the greater threat to the local net than the mainland is slashdotting!
Remember that story last year about them demoing a version of Windows in the W.C.-- I think it was in the UK? Your "scenario" is not too far from the truth. Instead of reading a book on the pot, you can be online. Just be sure you wash good before you touch the pointing device... um, whatever it is.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
Please help me decide who to cheer for.
Here is the cause. Taiwan recently conducted military exercises simulating a Chinese invasion despite Chinese protests. I would imagine that this is China's response.
Or it could be preparation for an all out invasion by China. Now that would be a fun war to watch.
extradition is out of the question
Taiwan should ditch their Windows boxes for something more secure. Like, say, Red Flag Linux?
How do they know "China" (as in the Chinese government) is attacking Taipei, instead of just a group of people? I mean, if Joe Hacker from the USA attacks the Belgium government servers do you call it an attack by Joe Hacker or an attack by the USA?
s/army of hackers/script kiddy in US with a bunch of hax0r3d puters from china/
I think that would be more accurate.
One of my friends of the asian persuasion has taught me the true Chinese way of attacking.
First, no not all Chinese people know kung-fu.
This is a common misconception bred from kung-fu movies. They actually get to choose their martial art. So some know karate instead.
Secondly, the Chinese use giant chopstick catapults to throw themselves to Taiwan, and then they use these martial arts to attack.
Third, the Chinese NEVER use technology to attack! It is simply not honourable. You must commit "harry-karry" (which is, yes, japanese and spelled american). The honourable way to attack is with martial arts. Possibly using weapons, if the other agrees to it in the duel, and their sensai throws them the same weapon you have.
Because a numchuck vs. sword fight simply isnt fair, or lengthly enough to make a good film.
I must get a glass of water...this is a little dry.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Here is the cause. Taiwan recently conducted military exercises simulating a Chinese invasion despite Chinese protests. I would imagine that this is China's response.
I've never understood this backassward logic.
It really must take a lot of brainwashing in Poly Sci class, a lot of New York Times reading, or just a lot of good old fashioned Communist sympathizing, to wrap your head around that.
and the CMS made the formally dynamic page static to save the server.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
So after they do nuke, the computers that survive won't be running Windows.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Regardless of the implications of this:
1) This is, to put it concisely, goddamn cool. We've been hearing for years about how countries might wage some kind of hax0r-cyber-warfare on each other, but aside from a few isolated instances (e.g., the U.S. disabling Iraqi computers in 1992 by introducing a hardcore virus via, of all things, printer driver software), we've dismissed it as futurist hogwash. But it may be happening now. If so, it's an historic moment in computer science.
2) This is better for people than having any country invade or bomb another. This type of invasion may be a precursor to that one - but if, in the future, a country can be brought to its knees with minimal loss of life by just wrecking its computer infrastructure, then that is a good development of history.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
This is the US Seccession War all over, one hundred fifty years later.
Those Taiwan bastards! They dared secede from the Mothernand!
You ratjack, this was humor. Grow a fucking brain.
This just in...
The Taipei Times is under attack from a group of computer experts in the United States. The group, calling themselves Slashdot, have bombarded the Taipei website with so many hits, that it cannot distribute web pages anymore.
More on this story at eleven.
I remember after 9/11 alot was said about information warfare being the new medium. It was made into a big deal by the media, but I also remember Wired writing an excellant article on how physical attacks would be much easier, much more destructive, and much less expensive to implament. Since all that, I have been very skeptical about if digital warfare is ever going to be in our future. Assuming this is a true claim, des this now prove that we are in that age? Its one thing to claim a few kids are doing it, its a whole different ball park if you say military trained personell are carrying out the attack...
That'll teach 'em to use Windows!
Wasn't China one of the countries that Microsoft opened up its Windows source code to? Perhaps China is putting that to good use now...
Or it could be just the Blaster worm making its way through to Asia. Obviously the closest enemy will be blamed, if the cold war was still in effect we would have blamed the Russians for it.
and now the tapei times has been attacked by slashdoters
Right, where are their priorities? We need to focus on the underpriveleged anime.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Those nice folks in mainland China are just trying to accelerate the transition to Linux in the Asia-Pacific region by exposing the folly of using Windows for anything other than games.
No doubt. Do you recall back around 1998 or 1999 when every dumbass bozo threw the catch phrase "Information Superhighway" out there? Really trendy stuff. Very bleeding edge.
So Tiawan decides to use a weak OS, and its China's fault for attacking it? Ok, not defending China, but this is like blaming a shark for eating a kid who's bleeding off a rubber life-raft.
If Tiawan makes itself an easy victim, it shouldn't be suprised if it gets attacked. This is like a bank choosing to store all of its cash on the public sidewalk, unguarded at night, then complianing when someone steals. I'm sorry they stole it, but you were being stupid.
Windows has been insecure since the very day it was released (15 years ago, 'round about?), and everyone knows that. If they choose to use it anyway, they deserve to get hacked. Get a mission-critical-grade OS for mission-critical uses.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
sneak peak of world war 3
The two main Taiwanese routers are presently showing a 192ms and a 203 ms response time with a 0% packet loss. China, OTOH, has four main routers with two of them showing a 0ms response time coupled with a 100% packet loss.
Smells a bit like propaganda to me...
Me play joke
Me put trojan horse
In your insecure Windows machines
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
erm no. USA is a bigger threat then any other country at the moment.
Although US and China do share the same human rights, or lack there of.
At this moment there is heavy loading on parts of the US network. Is this related or just a coincidence?
Is it just me, or this remind anyone of C&C Generals' China?
When you don't have a leg to stand on, don't even get up.
"We're glad that it has been detected before any damage was done," Lee said" /me thinks its a lie... at least it sounds like one :P
well,
aka, the walking dead.
that's right. they just want everything you have/know, & are willing to tell any # of lies to get it/you.
some mug shots of the use-you-all suspected payper liesense stock markup FraUD guise.
how do we defend you/US from such whoreabull softwar gangster aggressions?
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. vote with yOUR wallet. that's the spirit.
the daze of the georgewellian fuddite corepirate execrable cesspool is WANing into coolapps.
the lights are continuing to come up now.
congratulations are in order. the planet/population rescue initiative is working. there's still much to be done. see you there.
say what you will about windows and linux, but there's one lesson military and government IT workers will take away from this. Move off windows ASAP. Just by the fact that China is launching a cyber attack on Taiwan makes it a huge risk to their livelihood. I know a few IT guys who work for the navy and this kind of stuff doesn't go over well. Regardless of who is getting hit, this isn't an issue they will ignore. What does this mean for microsoft? No one knows, but something will change. Be it microsoft or government systems.
I swear man, the Chinese government is like the Borg. I would not be surprised if conflict goes up to and beyond full scale thermonuclear war between the US and China in the next hundred years or so.
As far as I'm concerned, they are actively trying to destroy democracy and acting in hostile manners to all sorts of countries, peoples, and policies. The human rights issues are heinous. Opression of their peoples and information. Remembering back to the American plane that was buzzed by a Chinese fighter jet, that incident was not too cool either. Let alone all the spam they send the US.
They're not a very far step above Saddam during his occupation of Kuwait. I recognize that the government is NOT the people of China. There will be a revolution, or a war. Mark my words.
To reiterate: "Frickin' Commie Pinko Bastards!"
I'm not trying to troll here but come on fishy fishy fishy...
These kinds of "attacks" have become commonplace. They happened after the election of the new Taiwanese president as well.
It's widely believed that these hackers do in fact have an official link with the Chinese government as part of the People's Liberation Army in their efforts to prepare for what they term "asymetrical warfare."
This would involve using systematic computer attacks to take down the Taiwanese technological infrastructure and communications in the moments before or following a massive short-range missile attack across the Taiwan Strait.
The goal would be to spur massive confusion and allow the substandard Chinese naval and amphibious forces to seize the island before the United States could mobilize to its defense and making any attack by American forces that much more difficult.
The Taiwanese position isn't "propaganda." It's information based on what they know is happening in China. And yes, China does have a goal of reunifying the island with the mainland and refuses to rule out the use of military force or any other method necessary.
Do you think the hackers just happened to attack Taiwan because they were in the neighborhood?
Wow, guess the targetted Windows boxes really are "Hacked by Chinese" this time.
It rebooted. China 0wns
me. Blue screen now red.
Sig Applied For
Now that is funny
And me with out mode points...
Spears says mom approved of Madonna kiss.
Maybe the Chinese hackers are trying to download Brittany/Madonna pics?
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
No you idiot. It's like this analogy: The South wins the civil war. The people from the North flee to Hawaii. They build up a new country and is economically successful. Then the South, which has said all along that Hawaii was a rogue state, decides to invade the islands 50+ years later.
You say: Those Taiwan bastards! They dared secede from the Mothernand!
Is the same as saying: Those Yankee bastards! They dared secede from the Confederacy!
Agreed. China is a threat to American security. However, Taiwan is also a threat. The Taiwanese actually support all the geopolitical objectives of China. Please read "Understanding Taiwan: Security Threat to USA"
Still don't get any content, but I do get a connection. :)
Taipei is under cyber attack.
Am I the only one thinking that this can only be GOOD for Taipei?
They will end up with much better systems in a few years if this carries on.
Cyber attacks are the first line of offense. Next, it'll be Won Long Dong, who, while dancing, will mesmerize all of the women. In turn, they (the women) will deprive the men of any pleasure because they (the men) cannot measure up. The men will then give themselves up as POWs, hoping to end the war and get their lives back to normal.
In other news, China has posted stories to Slashdot about Taiwan's major internet sites. These sites have been effecively shut down due to the "slashdot effect." Film at 11.
Taiwan is officially the Republic of China.
Officially they are the minority side in the Chinese Civil War, which has been going on since 1945.
Both China and Taiwan agree that Taiwan is a part of China, as is Tibet.
The debate officially is not over what China is doing with the rest of the world, but over who rules China.
Andrej Gromyko (former Soviet Union Sect. of State) wrote in his autobiography about Mao Tse Tung's plan to destroy the capitalist forces sometime in the 60's or 70's. It went something like this: first, China would invade Taiwan. This would make US/Nato respond by taking back Taiwan, and move onto the Chinese mainland, where the Chinese forces would fall back to the Gobi desert. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union would be passive, and even a little pro-American. Then, when least expected, the Soviet Union would launch a nuclear attack on the Nato forces in the Gobi desert, destroying them. Mao estimated about 200 million dead chinese, which was an acceptable price to pay...
Hello, my name is Robert Lerner, and I pronounce Lernux as "99% cpu"
is that b/c they'd be running the new cockroach version of linux that's been EMP-hardened? :D
ed
Does anyone know if this is the first large scale cyber attack (ie one nation verses another)? I imagine USA, GBR, RUS, PRC have all tried small scale attacks on one another in the past, but this is the first I've heard of such a large scale use of cyber attacks. Second question, what would China have to gain by this attack? The only purpose I can think of is either a) they are preparing for an immenant land invasion, b) this is a probing attack, setting the stage for a larger one, or c) they are just playing political "games" with Taiwon.
That's not the point. The point is not to use closed-source software anymore. If their software was supplied with source code, they could have scanned it thoroughly for trojans before implementing it.
You are correct. The Taiwanese government is manipulating the Western media in order to garner support from Western audiences. Please read "Understanding Taiwan: Security Threat to USA".
Umm... I believe the phrase is "he's coming right *for* us". Sheesh. ;)
Mainland China is the legitimate heir of 5000+ thousand years of Chinese history. Mainland China is a giant, the main future superpower of the 21th Century while Taiwan is a tiny island with no future as an independent state.
Capitalism versus Communism, Dictatorship versus Democracy, are meaningless Western notions; it makes no sense to apply them to Chima, which is older than the Roman Empire and it was a superpower before Columbus discovered America
From the article:
If there's any lesson from this experience, it is not to use software developed in China or hire Chinese computer programmers
... and ESPECIALLY don't use the City Firewall software written by the City Wok guy.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
"In a attempt to supress our coverage, chinese hacked commenced a massive DDOS attack against us using spoofed american IP adresses."
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Ummm.. hello? Slashdot, will you please sit down and shut up until we get to the end of the discussion?
In case no one else has bothered to notice, there's absolutely NO evidence that this is actually happening. Maybe the gov't of Tawain is just as technically incompotent as the U.S. gubment and they're just being bowled over by shitty administration of their systems. Maybe nothing's happening. Maybe outer space aliens have hidden data signals in their computers that are blocking traffic, who knows?
If I write my name in the paper under the lottery results and put $1,000,000,000,000 next to it, it doesn't really mean I won anything. Sheesh... show a little composure and demand to see at least a tiny bit of evidence before you piss your pants over this...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
If you find your computers full of trojan horses and the boss comes looking just tell him that your under attack by the Chinese! Yep, boss, I didn't put em there...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
It doesn't work without other effort to keep it secure, but OpenBSD is the only OS I really trust to have a chance at standing against a determind attacker. You still have to harden your databases, and a seperate firewall is still a good idea, and good passwords and such are still required. Other OSs may or may not be good, but only OpenBSD has a track record to brag of: Only one remove hole in the default install, in more than 7 years. (Note that overtime the wording has changed as holes were discovered, this is the one they use now, and it is true)
Remember if you install bad software on top of it, you are insecure. However it is a good starting point, and careful thought can minimize other problems. (If you go through the effort, security is not easy)
Fear is the path to the dark side.....fear leads to anger.....anger leads to hate.....hate leads to suffering
And the Jedi were the greatest warriors of all time!
Furthermore, I heard recently on CNN that the only restriction on defense weapons is that 50% be developed by US companies. Only 50%!!!
IMHO, one of the primary reasons USA is so strong in defense is because all the brains from overseas came to our country to profit from their work and flee from religious persecution. Now we're shipping opportunities overseas and the judge in Alabama is giving people the impression that Christianity is favored over all other religions here. Smooth move (imagine the next Einstein staying overseas and deveoping the next great weapon for some other country instead of us).
What will happen to our national security when we offshore 90%+ of all of our high-tech jobs and what will happen to the national security in countries (like India & China) where most of the high-tech jobs will be based?
And workers of US companies overseas don't have to pay taxes on the first $75,000 so think of all the lost taxes (billions in income taxes alone) that our government loses--not to mention that those workers if based in the US would have spent their earnings here.
Does anyone in Washington give a damn about our future or is it all about returning favors to those who contribute to campaigns while sacrificing our government budgets and national security?
Isn't it retarded to offshore development of critical products like anti-virus software to other countries? If this story about China attacking Taiwan (which I thought was part of China) is true, then we should stop all security-related software from being offshored--or simply requiring the use of only those developed 100% by companies AND individuals with security clearances.
Numerous military officials retired from Taiwan's armed forces have gone to Beijing to give secrets about American weapons sold to Taiwan. In fact, Beijing now knows the performance characteristics of the F-16 fighter.
What a bunch of BS. Taiwanese people don't like being called chinese, they don't speak chinese either, but Taiyu, or Hokkien.
from the US State Department Human RIghts report
Taiwan is a multiparty democracy. The 2000 victory of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian followed more than 50 years of rule by the Kuomintang (KMT) and marked the first transition from one political party to another in Taiwan's history. The president appoints the premier, who heads the Executive Yuan (EY), or Cabinet. Constitutional amendments adopted in 1997 provided the Legislative Yuan (LY) with the authority to dismiss the Cabinet with a no-confidence vote. In 2001 the DPP won a plurality of seats in the LY in free and fair elections. In the 2002 Taipei and Kaohsiung municipal elections, an incumbent KMT mayor in Taipei and an incumbent DPP mayor in Kaohsiung were reelected in free and fair elections. In addition to the DPP, the KMT, the People First Party, and the Taiwan Solidarity Union played significant roles in the LY. The Judicial Yuan (JY) is constitutionally independent of the other branches of the political system, and the Government respected the judiciary's independence in practice.
The National Police Administration (NPA) of the Ministry of Interior (MOI), the NPA's Criminal Investigation Bureau, and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) Investigation Bureau are responsible for law enforcement relating to internal security. The police and security agencies are under effective civilian control. The police occasionally committed human rights abuses.
Taiwan has a dynamic, export-oriented, free market economy. Liberalization of the economy has diminished the dominant role that state-owned and party-run enterprises previously played in such major sectors as finance, transportation, utilities, shipbuilding, steel, telecommunications, and petrochemicals. Services and capital- and technology-intensive industries were the most important sectors. Major exports included computers, electronic equipment, machinery, and textiles. Taiwan's more than 22 million citizens generally enjoyed a high standard of living and an equitable income distribution.
The authorities generally respected the human rights of citizens; however, there were problems in some areas. Principal problems included police abuse of detainees; allegations of judicial corruption; violence and discrimination against women; child prostitution and abuse; societal discrimination against Aborigines; restrictions on workers' freedom of association and on their ability to strike; and some instances of trafficking in women and children.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were no reports of the arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life committed by the Government or its agents.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that no violence, threat, inducement, fraud, or other improper means shall be used against accused persons; however, there were credible reports that police occasionally physically abused persons in their custody.
The law allows suspects to have attorneys present during interrogations, primarily to ensure that abuse does not take place (see Section 1.d.). The MOJ claimed that each interrogation is audiotaped or videotaped and that any allegation of mistreatment is investigated. Nonetheless lawyers and legal scholars noted that abuses most often occurred in local police stations where interrogations were not recorded and when attorneys often were not present. Police emphasized confessions by suspects as the principal investigative tool, and the judicial system sometimes accepted confessions even when they contr
Carter had education & training as an engineer (including nuclear) which is why he was able to go to Three Mile Island and not put in just a token appearance. This was a bit of a shock to the idiots who wanted to talk down to him.
Carter was absolutely, undeniably, one of the worst presidents this country has ever seen. He attempted to micromanage the entire US Government single-handedly. Track down pictures of him before and after he was in office. He aged about thirty years during that time. When he left office, inflation was 14%; mortgage rates were 22%. Compare that to the previous ten years (now): 2%-3% inflation and 5%-8% (max) mortgage rates.
That said (I'm sure pro-Carter folks have stopped reading because they've made their minds made up by now as to what I'm saying (or not)), Carter has been probably our best ex-president this country has ever seen and will will ever see, bar none. It's unfortunate he didn't handle his time in office better so it makes it difficult to weigh whether what he's done since leaving outweighs what he did in office.
For those who weren't around then:
"On today's menu: A Jimmy Carter sandwich (Peanut Butter and balonga sandwich)"
Popular Slogan: "Fritz and Gritz"
And last, but not least, his brother Billy, who had a brand of beer named after him (Billy Beer) and had the practice of unzipping and relieving himself in some of the most unusual places (e.g., the side of an airport building, in plain view to anyone who wanted to watch).
Is that these attacks are being committed by provocateurs who are purposely trying to cause a war between the two.
Ni shi tao chi.
When you consider the rate at which the chinese population es expanding, and the fact that there culure is more important then the type of government, they will be the world power. barring some catastrophic event, mandarin will probably be a 'common' language in 100 years.
All China has to do is wait, and there culture will dominate the world.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Anyone else see the problem with this?
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
"If this story about China attacking Taiwan (which I thought was part of China) is true"
My bad, I confused Hong Kong and Taiwan in my haste.
It is actually worse than I thought--if a country does this to another, isn't it essentially an act of war???
They'll never take Taichung!
China was never a superpower. China was a series of empires based out of similar areas. While China has five thousand years of history, the West was writing well before many Chinese were farming. When China was at its height, the empire lasted for less time than the Roman Empire. It was less well controlled than the Roman Empire as well. China never had the capability or the will to extend beyond its geographical borders.
Almost no innovation has come out of China for the past one thousand years. Pure Chinese culture is, basically, its worthless. It does not teach anything applicable to modern times. It only teaches cowardice and bullying. It teaches that the old ways are best, and anyone trying to change them should be severely punished.
Western ideas are not meaningless notions. They simply mean nothing to corrupt communist officials. Western ideals have been adopted by South Koreans, Japanese and Taiwanese. If these ideas were meaningless, all of these countries would remain dictatorships.
I encourage you to look beyond the lies you have been told by your Red Cadre peers and your drone teachers. Here is a hint: Read Bo Yang, if you aren't afraid of what you might discover.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Here's a link to that article. Why didn't you just link it in the first place?
Can a mite war be that far behind?
Glad I got that skull gun set up with cripplers and Hellfires.
Carter was an officer for several years on a submarine. He helped establish a nuclear propulsion training program for enlisted personal. He was a fine officer and served for over seven years.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Primarily because every good grand strategy game allows you to continue trading with the enemy even while you are at war with them.
Laws are for people with no friends.
You can't really take a pee in China without government sanction. If you think that rebellious feeling Chinese can just spontaneously gather and cary out a non-approved actiivty, then I have a nice prison cell filled with falun gong practicers to sell you. Get real.
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
Fight the man!
Even back then we predicted this type of thing, now China is doing it. What about the bigger, more dangerous predictions? How long until someone hacks cooling control systems and makes a nuclear plant go critical? What about causing planes to crash by hacking the ATC? Someday...
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
1st, Taiwan staged its largest-ever war games a few days back. It's trying to take an even-more-solid defensive posture because it knows that the US is too bogged down in Iraq to come fully to its defense if China invades soon.
2nd, when I worked in Taiwan in the late 80s, there was a single pipe into the country which the government heavily monitored. The pipe's much fatter now. Anyone know how heavy the monitoring is these days?
3rd, the mainland would be totally stupid not to try to break into Taiwanese databases. Any professional intelligence agency anywhere in the world has people assigned to breaking into friends' and neighbors' databases.
4th, the government on Taiwan is the only legitimate government of China. We may be making a terrible mistake not to back it, and not to demand the dissolution of the illegitimate government on the mainland. But hey, the mainland will sell us cheap goods made with slave and prison labor - good enough for us....
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Yes. The Taiwanese support the concept of voting for their president. However, the Taiwanese also support the geopolitical objectives of Beijing. The Taiwanese have told both Japan and the Philippines to back off from the Senkaku Islands and the Spratly Islands, repectively, because they are Chinese territory.
Please read "Reality of Taiwan".
Furhermore, mid-ranking officers retired from Taiwan's military have gone to Beijing to obtain lucrative jobs in exchange for revealing the performance characteristics of American weapons sold to Beijing. The report by the U. S. Department of State does not mention this fact because the purpose of that report is only to describe the state of human rights in Taiwan. The Taiwanese do indeed support integrating Tibet into mainland China. The Taiwanese education system teaches Taiwanese children that Tibet is part of China. It is hypocritical, and it is disgusting.
Finally, the report by the U. S. Department of State does not mention the fact that the Justice Department has placed Taiwan on a list of nations that are hostile intelligence threats. That list includes Syria and Libya.
This is yet another case where Windows is not the solution, it's the problem. Any chance of Taiwam switching to a different OS for its servers?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
...and during those 5000+ years, most of what is *now* China hasn't been a part of China. If you want to get a hard-on about the ageless motherland, you're limiting yourself to the Yellow River Basin. Don't bother to poke at the relative youth of the USA. We're not the ones trying to drag the unwilling into our Union. Anyway, the Revolution was supposed to wash away the bad old days, eh? A fresh start. Or, are we finally admitting that 1949 was just the start of a new dynasty for the Middle Country?
Putting Chinese history into an American context, Taiwan is their Puerto Rico, if not their Canal Zone.
As for superpower of the future, maybe. Possible stumbles along the way include:
- the (post?) Party apparatus dragging down the economy with endemic graft.
- the one-child policy, while a success in throttling the population explosion, is causing a massive geriatric surge. A (still) primarily agricultural nation is headed for the gray demographics of Japan.
Luke, help me take this mask off
The small minority that are descended from the original Formosans do, but most people speak Mandarin.
I call BS.
And we should just allow this kind of proliferation of WMDs in Asia? Why isn't the US already bombing the shit out of them?
I think it is TIME FOR A CHINESE FIRE(wall) DRILL!
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
>> Yu made the remark yesterday morning during the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting.
No I didn't. And learn to spell "you"!
My other car is first.
the Chinese are actually trying to HELP the Taiwanese... their plan is to take over all the Windows machines and install Linux on them!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Yes, I would say there are a lot of turncoats in Taiwan, but most of them belong to the former ruling party, the KMT. These people were ethnic chinese who moved over after they lost the civil war. They have little affinity for President Chen, or Taiwan. These people support the one china policy. But most people in Taiwan, do not. Most support independence now or later. A vast majority (95%) do not want anything to do with communist china. In 1994, Taiwan renounced all claims to the Mainland. In 1994, Taiwan renounced all claims to the Mainland. But you keep on acting as if most Taiwanese (daiwanlang) are keen on China dominating the world. They're not. THey support the US against China.
As for spies, we spy against allies and vice versa. And yes, the Chinese do target disgruntled Taiwanese, just like they and the soviets targeted disgruntled americans. I think taiwan is the only country to have a movement to make it the 51st state. have you even been to taiwan, bro? At anyrate, you really need to modify some of the erroneous information in your little geocities article, eg the ethnic makeup of taiwan.
Actually a lot of the air traffic control systems are still running on antiquated equipment. We're talking about vacuum tubes. Perhaps someone with a high pitched falsetto making a prank call could send thousands of airplanes spinning out of control with just the right frequency.
Newer?
What..there isnt enough out there that we know have to imagine them finding more?
C'mon people...Im disappointed, I was expecting at least one 'This would happen with linux" comment by now...
zack
The Taipei government is saying that the attacks are trojan-horses against windows machines that are being staged to break in to government databases
This is a no-brainer... should have used Linux instead !!
Mmm, what makes you say this? Oh, I know. A war in Iraq, right? Saddams and miloshevitches of the world are the only people to feel less secure because of it. Not much less secure, unfortunately -- thanks to you and your kind.
Confucionism or not, China maintains huge army and is known to have used it for highly illegal purposes. Your heart, I'm sure, bleeds, because of the questionable legal grounds for attacking Iraq, but you don't seem to care for China's annexation of Tibet and parts of India's northeast -- for which there are no legal grounds at all.
Criticizing US' and praising China's foreign (and domestic) policies in one breath is sheer stupidity.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I assume that China is after one of two things:
1) To retreive confidential Taiwanese info
2) To alter/manipulate confidential Taiwanese info
Since Taiwan is aware of the issue, why not get a couple of the local white-hats to put up honeypots to fool (2), and start feeding back false info to screw up (1)?
Most do speak mandarin, but most 1st language is Taiwanese. Look at President Chen. My mandarin (at least the pronounciation) is better than his, and I'm a whitey.
Again, most people 80% are Taiwanese origin
I just called your bluff, dogg
Where have you been? It's called a laptop with wireless network. :-)
Besides, Windows has always been in the crapper.
What's really interesting is that Microsoft allowed China access to the source code from Windows. Could the Chinese have used this information to aid in attacking Taiwan?
Well, overall, I disagree with your simplistic, racist rhetoric, and take exception to it. But, I don't feel like engaging in a flame war, and I'm willing to learn. A google search for Bo Yang turns up a lot of garbage.... can you refer me to some material that may enlighten me?
----
Not to be confused with Col.
Just gimme a sec!
There's always a way in.
Need a credit transfer?
"Chinese Army of Hackers" = 13 year old looking for Anna Kournikova pictures.
Bo Yang is a Taiwanese liberal who says that most of Chinese culture should be gutted. He wrote a book call "The Ugly Chinaman" and wound up in jail for eight years for his troubles. He writes about aspects of Chinese culture that must change, if China is to improve itself.
First, China must give up it's unwillingness to examine its own culture in a self critical light. The Chinese have a very bad habit of this. What is learned from the master must be taught to the student, and the student may make no alterations to what he has learned.
Second, China must give up it's intolerance. Chinese are, for the most part, far more racist than Europeans or even modern Japanese.
Chinese must also remove the idea that everyone is an enemy. Although Chinese work together very well, there is a cultural paranioa about being taken advantage of. To this end, most Chinese work to screw the other guy before he can screw you.
Chinese must develop more independent thoughts and not be afraid to take risks. Only the person who stands out can accomplish new things. Group think leadership leads, almost inevitably, to destruction. Furthermore, this leads to a destruction of human rights. If it is a Chinese tradition to castrate a boy, no one will ever say no, and if they do, they'll be killed. China was the only culture to use eunichs so extensively and for so long.
Finally, Chinese must question themselves as to why they do things. It's easy not to do this, but the rewards for introspection are greater. This would also involve moving to a phoenician script (romanji).
BTW. I'm not racist. I am however, in favor of Western culture as the most benevolent culture. I'm engaged to a very beautiful girl from a town on the Yellow River. I won't, for obvious reason, say which one. We'll be married in December. I love her and my future family very much, but I will have relatives who were killed by the Chinese communists. I'm not a fan.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Hellooo! Did you forget who is the main hero here? Should I remind everyone that it is possible only because Microsoft made it possible?
I hope Taiwan goverment will finally recognize the source of the problem and outlaw it on the territory of the iseland.
Less is more !
(I'd appreciate your not prejudging what I write below based on my nick)
I'm Chinese, I don't hate Taiwan. I sure bet the Chinese in Taiwan don't hate Taiwan.
What is true though, is that many (perhaps most) mainland chinese are against any notion of Taiwan as an independent sovereigh state. You may say they are all brainwashed by communist propaganda, but the Chinese (at least the Han nationality) have firmly believed in the unity of the people as a whole for THOUSANDS of years. Much of Chinese history has been centered around unifying the country. As of now, I myself don't see how an independent (bona-fide UN member) Taiwan is necessarily a contradiction to this unity, but many Chinese do. In any case, "hate" is really not the right word to use here. "Angry" is more appropriate.
Officially boxer's rebellion was localized riots against foreigners. Unofficially it was condoned if not encouraged by the emperial court.
Officially the crack attacks were by "script kiddies" in China against "a rogue Chinese province." Unofficially...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
The most distributed attack ever. Every person in China tried pinging the Taiwan sites at the same time.
Why blaming the massive attacks to mainland China programmers? Last time I check, it only attacks Redmond's own Windoze machine! If the government can't even treat people from the same race equally, how else can I expect it to treat foreigners fairly? If this independent-minded government want to solve the problem, it should just switch to Linux instead of brawling in the congress and discriminating people from the other side of the coast.
mod this guy up- he's not trolling, he's right! Clancy has some technical knowledge, but often he uses more fiction than fact, and it's disturbing how often he and others of his ilk are treated as authorities on subjects merely because they wrote a book no more accurate than Jurassic Park or Congo
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_be long_to_us
I find it odd that these claims of "cracker attacks from China" are being made... At the same time that Blaster has been spreading like wildfire and stressing backbone routers worldwide with the obscene amount of traffic it generates? Oh, and there's a new worm going around too, Welchia. The second worm since I started work deemed important enough to send an email to employees asking them to run a special scan tool rather than relying on Nortan Antivirus Corporate Edition to catch it.
Any other time and I might believe them, but now, I can only say to Taiwan: Don't think you're special. You aren't.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Come on, this kind of stuff happens so often all over the world, it isn't even worth joking anymore. Besides, it's always M$ loses the fight.
Why not escalate this to the next level and have one country flood the other with cheap copies of cheap copies of pirated software to destroy that piece of the economy?
"Now copy of pirate copy of Wnidows [sic] NT 4.0... only $.10!"
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Sino culture is different. There are no individuals in China. Nobody thinks of themselves as individuals and this hive mind mentality makes propaganda spread easily. Those that think of themselves as individuals tend to be visiting Western professors under state surveillance or Chinese citizens in prison.
Americans have their behavior rooted in a mythology of distant settlers fucking over a detached empire. If you want to call that mythology overrated, maybe you have a case. If you want to call that mythology false, just try to push the citizen next to you and hope he doesn't have a gun.
Any individuality that China had either ran like Hell or was ruthlessly slaughtered during Mao's Cultural Revolution.
Laws are for people with no friends.
http://cryptome.org/cuw01.htm
There ya go - 12:39pm PST
I'm engaged to a very beautiful girl from a town on the Yellow River.
I bet you remind her of the yellow river every night.
The Taipei Times is a pro-independence, separationist news organization. Their articles on Mainland China should be taken with a grain of salt.
What? Those dinosaurs weren't real??
The government on Taiwan is not the legitimate government of China. The majority of Chinese expelled the Taiwanese government out of China in 1949. The Taiwanese government ransacked China and stole all the national treasures of China during the flight to Taiwan.
However, the government of Taiwan does support nearly all the geopolitical objectives of mainland China. While the Taiwanese demand that the Americans sell weapons to them, the Taiwanese insist that Tibet is part of China. Meanwhile, the Chinese soldiers are beating and killing Tibetan nuns. Taiwanese hypocrisy is disgusting. (The Taiwanese constitution states explicitly that Tibet is part of China.)
Instead of supporting the Taiwanese government, the Americans should terminate their relationship with Taiwan. The American government should end the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and require all Taiwanese nationals to produce a Beijing passport if they wish to apply for a visa to the USA.
Why?
~Idarubicin
require all Taiwanese nationals to produce a Beijing passport if they wish to apply for a visa to the USA.
Don't forget to make them have a stop in the PRC's slave labor camps, the laogai(reform/reeducation through labor camps), for full compliance!
the Taiwan gov has held free elections, I think that gives them legitimacy over the island. et china?
A-kz"I'-c.
Remember the incident at Tienanmen Square in 1989. After it happened, the Americans and other Westerners froze or curtailed investments into mainland China. Even the Japanese followed suit, and for the first time after 1945, the Japanese condemned China. Western nations like Japan and the USA immediately slapped economic sanctions against China.
What did the Chinese in Taiwan and Hong Kong do? The Taiwanese immediately seized this window of opportunity and accelerated financial and technological investments into China. The Taiwanese provided any money or technology that the Westerners refused to provide . Since 1989, Taiwanese investment into mainland China has grown at double-digit rates. As of 2003, the Taiwanese have invested more than $50 billion into more than 50,000 businesses into mainland China.
Furthermore, the Taiwanese request and receive preferential treatment when they invest in China. By contrast, American companies do not receive preferential treatment. The Chinese government occasionally punishes American companies because the American government sells weapons to Taiwan. While the Taiwanese demand that Americans sell them weapons, the Taiwanese insist that Tibet is part of China: the Taiwanese constitution says that Tibet is part of China.
The time has come to stop this nonsense. The Americans should cancel the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and stop selling weapons to Taiwan. The Taiwanese have exploited American generosity and naiveness. Americans should not allow Taiwanese hypocrisy to hurt American business opportunities in China.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/unres w1.htm
stargoat:
now that i've read your clarification, i see that you're informed on the topic and not some wacky bigot, although i would honestly have been hard pressed to recognize that just on the parent.
anyway, there's really 2 things you're talking about here, though, i think:
1. chinese government, which i think we can all agree needs to die and right quick. yes?
2. chinese culture. you're right that chinese culture is inherently introspective and xenophobic, as is the case in much of asia. you're also right that there is (generally speaking) greater weight accorded to tradition.
that being said: i don't agree w/ your assertion that western culture is necessarily more benevolent. certainly it's better at promoting those ideals we in the west hold dear, but then again, that's true of any culture. as to more benevolent, without qualifier? how would you define "benevolent"?
i should also point out that feudal china would have been hard-pressed to extend beyond its borders more than they already did (e.g., korean peninsula): the land was vast and largely homogenous. this is in significant contrast to the mediterranean and most of western euruope through which the roman empire spread. as a result, an apples: apples comparison to the roman empire is fraught w/ qualifiers that make such comparison problematic.
and, as the son of south korean immigrants to the US, i should point out that while certain western ideals are being adopted, it's overstating the case to say that's true across the board.
and i'm curious to know the basis behind your statement that pure chinese culture is worthless. you appear to base that on its lack of applicability to modern times (although the art of war springs to mind as a notable exception), that it "only teaches cowardice and bullying" and a generally higher regard for tradition than found in most western cultures. and i'm very curious how you define "pure chinese culture", for that matter.
ed
China is actually quite pacifist
:-)
Sure...just ask any Tibetan Buddhist....
Ask anyone in Iraq whether it's safer over there right now or before the war (and yes, anyone includes the americans over there). No statement made about Saddam being a threat to world peace has been proven as of yet, months after the war. Several of those statements have been proven to be at least inaccurate. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and billions and billions of damage have been done; apparently for no good reason at all.
Confucionism or not, China maintains huge army and is known to have used it for highly illegal purposes.
Let's get some things straight about the US military. No one in the f*cking world is going to try and invade US territory because of its nukes. If the US military power was purely defensive, it could be very much smaller than it is today. Hell, it's been calculated the US could spend half of what it's spending on its military right now and still remain the only superpower. The US publicly states it is forming two separate expeditionary forces capable of fighting (and winning) a war on their own. Expeditionary forces aren't exactly defensive, you know.
Maybe this gives you an impression of how the rest of the world is starting to think about the US.
Oh JEEZUS!!!!! Tibet was a protectorate under imperial China for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Everybody wants to 'save' Tibet, but do you have any idea of the kinds of anal rape that little child 'priests' must undergo? Tibet isn't all smiles and prayer wheels, there's a serious, rape-oriented, pedophillic culture there that's actually quite sickening.
there's a serious, rape-oriented, pedophillic culture there that's actually quite sickening.
Much like catholicism (/flame)
Holy shit. Maybe your sig should say "click here to feed the harmless trolls". Damn.
Anyway, here I go, dinner is served:
" First, China must give up it's unwillingness to examine its own culture in a self critical light. The Chinese have a very bad habit of this. What is learned from the master must be taught to the student, and the student may make no alterations to what he has learned."
This is partially true - Chinese do tend to hold their own culture in a very high light, but that's only because they have had an incredible history of cultural, scientific, and economic achievement. Nowadays, many Chinese will tell you that China is "lou hou" which means backwards - they realize they have catching up to do. Their educational system does not promote free thinking, that's true, but you really can't argue that the US system bows down to the altar of originality either. Both are repressive in different areas.
" Second, China must give up it's intolerance. Chinese are, for the most part, far more racist than Europeans or even modern Japanese."
That's mostly true, but again - racism is racism, and just because we're more politically incorrect in the West doesn't mean that people don't harbor racist feelings - they just don't speak of them.
" Chinese must also remove the idea that everyone is an enemy. Although Chinese work together very well, there is a cultural paranioa about being taken advantage of. To this end, most Chinese work to screw the other guy before he can screw you."
Oops, you fucked up. Study some history - China has repeatedly been raped by foreigners and foreign powers, with it all culiminating with the West seriously abusing China during the early 1900's. Great Britain, Germany, the US, and many other foreign countries took over parts of major Chinese cities and forced China to trade with the west, often at miserable prices. In addition, Great Britain sucessfully hooked the entire nation on opium so that China would have something they wanted to trade for. This paranoia of the West is founded, and not illogical. Remember pal, the world was around before you existed, and some of us take the time to study history.
You obviously need to spend some more time in China - your reaction to Chinese culture is typical of a foreigner who has had only limited exposure with China and her people. Live in the country for more than 15 years, and you'll be more adept at separating genuine Chinese culture from the Communist disaster.
And please, your blowing Western culture without "examining it in a critical light" reeks of hypocrisy. Remember - "It's easy not to do this, but the rewards for introspection are greater."
$45 per U Colocation Special
What terrorists? No link has been made between Iraq and any terrorists yet. Nuclear-toting bufoons? I thought Bush was an American, not an Iraqi.
Like who? Sure they give billions of dollars worth of WOMD to Israel. And they sometimes give away their surplus genetically modified food to countries who don't want it. The problem with US 'aid' is that it comes with a dick rammed up the arse - ie the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The US doesn't 'give' anything away when you consider the aims of these 2 organisations.
So, sir, what exactly were you talking about?
Hmmm. From last to first.
Pure Chinese culture is just something I'm tossing out there as an idea that Taiwan and Mainland China have now two seperate cultures. But, at the same time, they also come from the same culture and they have that in common. It's that initial culture to which I refer. I would also point out that the actions of those mainland China is more influenced by the older Chinese ideology. (But, I maintain a glimmer of hope for the 4th generation. Even if it is dying quickly.)
I'm not really concerned with Chinese Communism. I think of it really as an extension of Imperial Chinese behavior. The differences between Jiang Zemin and a Han emperor are less than the differences between Jiang Zemin and Chen Shui-bian.
The idea of Western culture as being more benevolent is one that is so taken for granted, that it is hard to see how it is so. The Chinese in 1867 would never have acknowledged that a person has the right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Remember, they are still castrating little boys at a time when all white Americans (heck, all male Americans over 21, in theory) are voting. Entire families are punished routinely by the government for the transgressions of one.
The Chinese mainland government still does not acknowledge these are basic human rights. People are routinely locked up for talking to the wrong person. People are disappeared for saying the wrong things. The Taiwanese government used to be the same way. But, the Taiwanese government has really improved in the past 20 years. It's better than some Western countries now.
The individual has the right to freedom and life in Western culture. This is benevolence of man to government and government to man. This is something that Chinese culture simply doesn't acknowledge. Confucius may have said that some sort of noblese oblige was necessary, but no one cared. All they cared for was filiopiety at best; endless sacrifice of self and family was the norm.
Furthermore, when you look at how Chinese view their religion as compared to Westerners, you'll quickly discover that Westerners take their religion and their "self-rightesousness" much more seriously. Now, that's not to say that there are not some spiritual Chinese. But by and large, the Chinese culture is one that is unconcerned with spirituality. This also means (once again, not always) that they tend to take a less active role in the welfare of their fellow man than someone from a Abrahamic (Western) religion (culture).
The bit about Chinese Imperial size is just in there because people seem to have this impression that China was monolithic. It wasn't. It only controlled Taiwan and Tibet for a few decades. Now, the Communists impose their will on those people as a result of a false historical claim. Heck, they provoked a war in Vietnam and India for the same reason. (I think they've been at war at some point with most of their neighbors in the past 50 years). I want to point out that the Chinese empire is not Roman in length and strength.
As for Chinese culture teaching only cowardice and bullying, this is true. Look at how many Chinese conduct themselves in debates. It's not unusual to see a fight break out in legislative assemblies in China. Furthermore, Chinese leaders have, for more than a millenia, taught their peasants to always back down. There is no human drive for satisifaction of self happiness, or in extreme cases, self preservation. It's better to follow authority. One extreme example is of the Japanese Massacre at Nanking. Try and image a Westerner (especially an American) tolerate what happened. A Westerner would sooner die that wait slowly while 30 people before him were decapiated.
Chinese culture has almost nothing to redeem it. (Although I am fond of some of the artwork of countrysides and the minimalists, I will admit.) It simply isn't as good as Western culture.
This is NOT to say that Chinese are bad people. This has nothing to do wit
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Resume: George W Bush
Past work experience:
Ran for congress and lost.
Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments: Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money. Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.
Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my fathers appointments to the Supreme Court.
Accomplishments as president:
Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.
Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history.
Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. (http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/)
Dissolv ed more international treaties than any president in US history.
My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice has an Chevron oil tanker named after her).
First president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
Rendered the entire Unite
If no one wants US aid, then they should stop offering it I suppose.
Q.
I am not speaking about the way that the Chinese treat foreigners. I am speaking of the way Chinese treat each other. I am not talking about Chinese paranoia of the west, I am talking about Chinese paranoia of Chinese.
It's time to quit spouting the multicultural BS and start thinking about the way things really are. If you've spent 15 years in China, then you would know of what it is I speak.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
...is a security threat to the United States of America (USA).
Ohhh so that's what USA stands for.
Regan is a old man with "alzheimers". Again, he did a lot of good, but sill managed to willfully break the law--better keeping quiet. As well as his lacky (responsible for pulling off the whole Iran-Contra thing) Bush Sr. who also needs to keep quiet to avoid jail time for the incident.. and like republicans, spend their time and wealth on themselves! Clinton left the position with all sorts of personal problems (whitewater, Paula, Monica, etc) that again, he's better off shutting up to stay out of jail.
So realize that Carter can spout off all he wants. He's the only living american president not to have any reason to go to jail..that would seem to be pretty impressive. Also, the contacts that a president makes have huge weight in the rest of the world. Carter seems to be the only President to make anything of them. (OK, Nixon did help out in China. That had to take guts.)
He inherited a disgraced position after years of presidents that started wars and trampled on rights. He was the first president since FDR that didn't throw the country INTO a war and tried to end some of them.
Mots of today's US land DID not belong to US 200 years ago.
So what is your point? Borders change, this is part of history. Maybe 100-200 years from now most of US land will belong to China. Who cares anyway? Tibet, Nepal, USA, Germany they are all the same!
It's not really that either. In fact, it's not really an analog to the U.S. experience at all. Because Nationalist China, though recognized as the government of China in the 1930's and 40's, never had full legitimate control over the country. It was a period of unrest in which the old regime crumbled, several new regimes vied for power, foreign nations assumed various levels of control over parts of the country, and eventually three main rivals emerged. The Communists, the Nationalists and the Japanese. After the Japanese were defeated, with Soviet help the Communists took over, but the Nationalists managed to hold onto a few islands with the treat of intervention by the U.S. I'm not sure of Taiwan's claims at this point, but China, having the bulk of the population of the former area of China, claims that it is theirs. It's much more analogus to Turkey claiming Egypt because of the former Ottoman rule, but only if they had maintained that claim since they lost it.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
With the dubious nature of the 'proof' offered so far for Iraq's WOMD, I am highly suspicious of 'proof' of any other country's WOMD 'stockpiles'.
The US only has itself to blame over Afghanistan. The CIA have been in there for 40 years, pushing their own political agenda, and growing MJ for conversion to hash and Opium for conversion to heroin so they can sell it on the black market and donate the funds to US-friendly military dictatorships. Note the target of the Taliban attack: the WTC building and the Pentagon. I think they were making a statement; they certainly weren't random targets. You reap what you sow.
As for North Korea, I still assert that there is far more proof of US and Israeli stockpiles of WOMD than North Korea could ever hope to have. Want to rid the world of Nuclear-toting bufoons? Disarm the US first. We don't have to destroy every WOMD they have - just 99% of them, so their stockpiles are more in-line with the rest of the world. Then you may resume bitching about North Korea.
This story has been viewed 15627 times.
Carter is NOT an elected official anymore (see my post above)... he just acts like one, and worse, he's one with NO accountability. He's not president now, and he needs to start acting like the regular citizen he is, instead of screwing with things he's uninformed on.
Whenever he places himself in the midst of a negotiation or international crisis, he runs the risk of sending mixed messages to the parties involved. If you get terrorist/thug/dictator/third-world-strongman listening to Carter instead of Bush, one might get the idea that the US isn't serious about backing up their positions... that's a BAD, BAD thing, especially for the parties that will actually have to answer to the voters. Carter only has to answer to Rosalyn.
Carter needs to stay out of situations where he doesn't have the intel, hasn't heard the briefings, has no clout, and isn't accountable.
There's plenty of good reasons why ex-presidents are encouraged to be cautious about what they say. I get the impression that some people think ex-presidents are circumspect about their remarks just to be nice...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
> This is the US Seccession War all over, one hundred fifty years later.
IANAExpertOnThis, but as far as I can tell from my historical atlases and articles like this, the ethnic and historical connection between Taiwan and China are actually somewhat weak and mostly recent.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
That's not the point. The point is not to use closed-source software anymore. If their software was supplied with source code, they could have scanned it thoroughly for trojans before implementing it.
With a cleverly designed trojan, you'd have to really work hard to find it. At the very least, you would want to have an international team where such code would be questioned. I find it very unlikely that e.g. Linus would accept a trojan patch, but who's to say about a Chinese-dominated or Chinese-led project? OSS is still no magic bullet, even if in theory you *could* find all trojans...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Seriously.
Does anyone remember the PROMIS debacle?
Far from outrageous, I think this should be a basic principle for all national security/mission critical projects.
I am not opposed to out sourcing per se, but not to the exclusion of basic common sense and self preservation.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Foo: Who let the hax0rs out?
leet, 133t, 1337!
Bar: Now that is funny
And me with out mode points...
Yeah, it's funny, in an -1, Offtopic kind of way.
On the other hand, if the title of the article were "Barbados Under Cyber Attack from Jamaica" -- well that would be 5, Funny.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
This story has been viewed 16586 times.
Either it's not static, or it is static and some gremlin has changed it to accomodate for the expectations of having been slashdotted.
I can feel my sanity, beyond my reach and slipping...
China will grow strong... I'm sure those hackers are now getting promotions and might even be earning $14 a turn. Remember your swarm bonus.
That should read: "Taiwan Uses Windows to Host Government Databases"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Taiwan is not a nation; rather, it is a province of China. About 15% of the people in Taiwan are descended from the folks who went to the island after 1949. The remaining 85% of the people in Taiwan are descended from the folks who resided on the island before 1949. Historians label the first group "Chinese" and label the latter group "Taiwanese".
However, in terms self-identification, 85% of the people in Taiwan consider themselves "Chinese". They support (eventual or immediate) unification with China. 15% of the people in Taiwan reject calling themselves "Chinese"; they consider themselves strictly "Taiwanese" and support (eventual or immediate) independence.
The key issue here is that the future of Taiwan is determined by the majority: i.e. the 85% who support the notion of "One China". Hence, the constitution of Taiwan clearly states that both Taiwan and Tibet are part of China. The Taiwanese support nearly all the geopolitical objectives of China.
What we have here is that there are 2 governments claiming to be the true government of "One China". One government is in Taipei. The other government is in Beijing. Without question, the joke is the government in Taipei. The majority of the Chinese people in China (which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan) expelled the Taiwanese government in 1949.
Shortly after the Korean government became democratic in the early 1990s, the Korean people recognized the joke in Taipei and immediately terminated relations with Taiwan and recognized the government in Beijing as the proper government of China.
The Taiwanese have made a mockery of Americans by manipulating them for more than 40 years. Please read the "Reality of Taiwan". While the Chinese army beats and kills Tibetan nuns, the Taiwanese insist that Tibet is part of "One China". The Taiwanese constitution states so, and the Taiwanese education system teaches children so. At the same time, the Taiwanese government demands that the United States of America (USA) sell weapons to it. Meanwhile mid-ranking officers retired from the Taiwanese military travel to Beijing to secure lucrative jobs in exchange for revealing the secrets of American weapons sold to Taiwan.
Enough is enough.
The time has come to end the nonsense. Let us follow the lead of the South Koreans and terminate relations with Taiwan immediately . Cancel the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and stop selling weapons to Taiwan. Require all Taiwanese nationals to present a Beijing passport.
The fact is that some aspects of Chinese culture suck, and some aspects of Western culture suck.
You seem to be shifting your focus around quite a bit - first it's the West sucks, now it's Chinese that suck, but only towards each other.
Sure, there's lots of corruption and dirty business in China, but there's just as much in the West, and as someone who's done business extensively in both cultures, this isn't just my fuzzy dream of how things should be.
Your hatred of the communist government is definitely justified, but your blanket statements regarding Chinese culture, a culture which is roughly 1/5 of the world's population, is stupid and naive.
$45 per U Colocation Special
I just want to quickly say that, this is the point where the UN should be getting involved in this dispute. Why does everyone always wait until there is massive death and destruction before they try to resolve a conflict?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
85% of the Taiwanese consider themselves "Chinese" and also support the idea that Taiwan is part of China. They also support the idea that Tibet is part of China.
Remember Tibet? That place is where the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) have tortured and killed Tibetan nuns and priests. Please visit the websites for Amnesty International and Tibet Online.
While the Chinese PLA is committing gross violations of human rights in Tibet, the Taiwanese support a Taiwanese constitution that insists on integrating Tibet into China. Furthermore, the Taiwanese education system teaches Taiwanese children that Tibet is part of China.
In the United States of America (USA), the majority of spies who steal American technology to give to Beijing were born or grew up in Taiwan. Another unusual aspect of these spies is that the majority help Beijing for no financial gain whatsoever. They help Beijing simply because they consider themselves Chinese and because, according to the spies, China is the motherland.
Please read "Understanding Taiwan: Security Threat to the USA".
The time has come to end the hypocrisy and the nonsense from Taiwan. Americans should cancel the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and should stop selling weapons to Taiwan.
However, there is something that very few people know. Namely, the Taiwanese constitution, the highest law of the land in Taiwan, supports the geopolitical objectives of mainland China. Specifically, the constitution states that Tibet is part of China. The Taiwanese education system teaches children that Tibet is part of China.
While the Chinese army regularly beats, tortures, and kills Tibetan nuns, the Taiwanese insist that Tibet should be integrated into China. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese demand that the United States of America (USA) sells weapons to them. This hypocrisy is disgusting.
Furthermore, after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, the USA and other Western countries immediately curtailed or froze investments into mainland China. The intent of these economic sanctions were thwarted by Taiwanese duplicity. How? The Taiwanese seized this window of opportunity and provided any money or technology that the Americans refused to provide. Starting from 1989, the Taiwanese circumvented the sanctions and poured investments into China. Taiwanese investments in China have grown at double digit rates and have reached the level of $50 billion in more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China.
Please read "Understanding Taiwan: Security Threat to the USA".
The USA must immediately terminate the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and stop selling weapons to Taiwan. The time has come to end the relationship of hypocrisy with Taiwan.
German culture allowed for the murder of 12 million. We forced it to change. Japan murdered 6 million or more. We forced it to change. Russia murdered 12 million. We forced a change. Chinese culture allowed for the murder of 60 million or more. We trade with them.
Surely you'll admit that something here is wrong.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Taiwan is the real China, the Beijing regime is just a wannabe.
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
ALL YOUR COUNTRIES ARE BELONG TO US!
Yes, I typed all in caps, and I am yelling... Post Allowed! Woohoo.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
Do you nerds feel install trojan into computers of LOW TECH companies is a easier job?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Before everybody starts up with Chinese government conspiracy theories, keep in mind that the Chinese themselves absolutely hate Taiwan
They must hate me too. My logs show Chinese IPs "attacking" my "business looking" ports (https etc.) as well.
Forget nukes. Even in convetional weaponry, we are so far ahead of everyone else that it's laughable. No one even bothers to try and compete with our naval power: We have NINE supercarrier groups. No one else even has ONE, since Russias only one fell apart. Our subs are virtually invincible: they are very hard to detect and target, are superior in almost all respects to other subs (basically, the Hunt for Red October sub made real), and a single one can sink an entire enemy fleet without any danger to itself. In air power, again, no one even bothers to seriously compete. Enemy jets aren't even likely to get off the ground, but if they do, they are ridicously outmatched in terms of radar visibility, speed, and weaponry (it wasn't long ago that China didn't even have many jets with radar, period). We can shut down the communications networks of any nation on earth almost instantly, them track them with our own network of satelites, which no one has any similar ability to take out. We can lauch pinpoint missle strikes anywhere we want, or commence massive bombardment. Since WWII (in which they proved mostly ineffective at anything but fighting each other), the only victories China's army has won are against innocent civilians. They were CREAMED by Vietnam in THREE DAYS of conflict (China invaded). Their army is huge, but archaic and extremely poorly organized: they are skilled mostly at fighting unarmed people, having never seen combat on any major scale. By contrast, the U.S. fields tons of commanders and soliders with plenty of field experience. China, in short, is a joke in terms of conventional power, and they know it. Any exchange between the U.S. is going to either be diplomatic or nuclear. There is just no contest if it comes to "conventional" war.
I lived in Taiwan for 5 years. Hacker wars between the two countries occured several times over the course of those five years. They were mainly nationalistic college kids defacing opposing gov't web sites.
The difference here is one that many have been anticipating for some time. If you read any of the retoric coming out of the communist gov't in regards to Taiwan it is plain as day: They intend to make Taiwan a part of China by WHATEVER MEANS they can. Since they don't have the military means (look it up on FAS.ORG) they've okayed the project to cooridinate a "Cyber" attack on Taiwan.
As far as Taiwanese Government officials talking out their ass's- When have Gov't officials NOT talked out their butts?
It's quite simple. Of the population, 98% is Han Chinese. Of those Han, 85% have ancestors who lived on the islands prior to 1949. This group is most often referred to as the Taiwanese. The other 15% (Mainlanders) consists of persons who emigrated after 1949 and their descendants. To a certain extent, separation of the ethnic groups was encouraged and enforced by KMT policies, but if one feels the need to categorize children of Taiwanese-Mainlander unions, self-identification might be a good place to start.
(For that matter, self determination would be a better solution to the Taiwan "question" than all this sabre-rattling and quoting of self-serving rhetoric.)
WTF are you talking about? We "forced" them to change their culture? Every culture is susceptible to backing a leader who promises the moon and looks like they'll deliver. If you were student of history, which you clearly are not, you'd know that Mao Zedong was castly more palatable to the majority of Chinese and he advocated much more freedom than Chiang Kai Shek. By the way, you seem to want to have Taiwan's baby, and they were under martial law until the mid nineties - that's almost 50 years of continuous political lockdown. What a role model. Please, just be informed. I know it's tempting to choose the easiest answer which conforms to the US Cold War way of thinking, but we've all grown up since then. Cmon little Stargoat, it's time to play ball with the big boys.
$45 per U Colocation Special
You are dead right. To avoid further troubles, it is safer to springboard from a rival territory when launching attacks.
Say, Joe Hacker is based in Japan. He is interested in some important servers in Taiwan. If he attacked directly from Japan, the victim and the law enforcement agent in Taiwan can just talk to the Japan ISP later on... You are 100% if you do that via a compromised XP in mainland China first. The mainland China ISP sysadmin might just say "screw you" and get a promotion if he got a call from the Ministry of Whatever in Taiwan demanding cooperation.
Carter is concerned about North Korea and we all should be. The are out of economic resources. Their former families and countrymen to the south are "occupied" by the enemy and are full of resources enough for all of Korea. The North Koreans are approaching the point where they must fight or die! They have a million man [infantry not techies] army and all the food is on the other side of the boarder. Their leaders are dying for Bush to throw the first punch to spark a war...and he is cocky and arrogant enough to be goaded into giving it to them. Unlike Saddam, they want to start a fight, because they can make it really, really messy for us and maybe even win it. We need a committed peacemaker overthere, not someone worried about looking good for the next election!
The Taiwanese people support the "murderers in Beijing". The Taiwanese constitution states explicitly that Tibet belongs to China. Even though the Chinese People's Liberation Army have beaten, tortured, and killed scores of Tibetan women and children, the Taiwanese still insist that Tibet is an integral part of China.
Look back at the Tienanmen Square incident in 1989. Americans were shocked at the bloodshed and immediately curtailed or froze investments into mainland China in an attempt to punish the Beijing government. The Taiwanese people exploited this situation and rapidly provided, to the Beijing government, any money or technology that the Americans refused to provide. From 1989, Taiwanese investment into mainland China skyrocketed to the present level of $50 billion in more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. In short, the Taiwanese completely thwarted the Western economic sanctions against China.
Please read "Reality of Taiwan".
The Chinese have been grateful to the Taiwanese and give them preferential treatment when they conduct business in China. Americans do not enjoy such preferential treatment. Indeed, the Chinese government punishes American business and destroys thousands of potential American jobs whenever the American government sells weapons to Taiwan. While the Taiwanese demand that the American government sell weapons to them, those same Taiwanese (1) thwart American economic sanctions promoting human rights in China and (2) support the integration of Tibet into China. This behavior is absolutely disgusting.
Let us call an end to this nonsense known as Taiwan. The American government should immediately terminate the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and stop selling weapons to Taiwan. Every Taiwanese should be required to produce a Beijing passport when they are applying for a visa to the United States of America.
Please read "Understanding Taiwan: Security Threat to the USA".
This suggestion is so creative that I start wondering what's wrong with a country like Taiwan (ROC) that allows its people to protest against its own name, and what's right about a country like China (PRC) that made its people do something like this
Isn't it possible to critise both? That's after all where this discussion originated. I fail to realize how US's questionable behaviour can be justified by referring to other countries questionable behaviour. I for one would say that any country with an army with nuclear weapons are threats to world security.
While it is possible that all of China, or even the Chinese government (fractionated as it is), is sponsoring or willfully allowing these attacks, I honestly doubt it.
While it is also possible that these attacks are being perpetrated to kill MS Windows in order to improve dissemination of the Red (as in Army) Linuxes, I honestly doubt it.
Is it honestly surprising that a group of pissed-off geeks could rally together, perhaps using some sort of Internet Forum of BBS, to give a big "f*** you" to Taiwan and whoever else is being hit (just because Taipei is reporting this doesn't mean China (As in "we didn't mention SARS for a little while; is that all right?" China) or other countries aren't being hit.)?
Personally, I hate the Chinese government, but I wouldn't go so far as "'If there's any lesson from this experience, it is not to use software developed in China or hire Chinese computer programmers, because you're running the risk of having the software you use implanted with the Trojan-horse program,' he said.". Especially since the most famous recent Blaster epidemic came from a geek in the US. Does that mean that "'If there's any lesson from this experience, it is not to use software developed in US or hire American computer programmers, because you're running the risk of having the software you use implanted with the Blaster Worm.'"?
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
You see, governments tell lies. They tell lies to support themselves.
:
:
When Tony Blair said to the British people
"We are going to attack Iraq because they have WMD, are you with us?"
1 million people took to the London streets to say "no".
They next day he says
"Well, actually we are going to attack Iraq because Saddam is a bad man, are you with us?"
So how can you can't trust what they say?
It is vital that we, the people, keep asking tough questions. Of everybody.
Power corrupts. We must keep asking and demanding scrutiny with public appearance if we are to be able to judge the people we choose to place into power.
They don't know any better than us.
Passive observation is collusion.
The IRA hasn't renounced terrorism. The IRA bombed it's way to the negotiating table.
It's terror campaign was a success.
In India, South Africa and US the movements all used violence to achieve their aims.
All goverments are based on authority through violence.
When you attack people they will reprise.
Oh, by the way, I think you should go and research what an agnostic is before declaring yourself as one.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Please read "Reality of Taiwan".
As for a specific example, the Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai, according to "Sons of prominent Chinese team up on chip venture".
Taiwanese support for China does not merely stop there. The Taiwanese support all the geopolitical objectives of mainland China. Specifically, the Taiwanese constitution says that Tibet is an integral part of China. While the Taiwanese demand that Americans sell them weapons, the Taiwanese insist on integrating Tibet into China. This hypocrisy is disgusting.
In conclusion, boycott products made anywhere in China. Specifically, boycott products made in Taiwan. Let us in the Slashdot community petition the American government to terminate the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and to stop sales of all weapons to Taiwan. In exchange for the termination of the TRA, Beijing should reciprocate by granting autonomy to Tibet.
Please read "Understanding Taiwan: Security Threat to the USA".
To the moderators who chose 'troll' for this post, google for pandanka. Read up a bit on how acolytes are used as nothing but 'cock socks' and slaves...
That's funny. I see no list of inaccuracies from Clancy's books posted anywhere nearby. Did I miss it?
Everybody wants to 'save' Tibet, but do you have any idea of the kinds of anal rape that little child 'priests' must undergo? Tibet isn't all smiles and prayer wheels, there's a serious, rape-oriented, pedophillic culture there that's actually quite sickening.
And they practiced slavery, from what I understand -- one's priest was also one's owner? Something like that?
The modding of the parent message as "Troll" was completely unfair, in my opinion.
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
stargoat:
:D btw: thanks for the clarification re: "pure" chinese culture. that's what i thought you meant but wanted to be sure so i didn't proceed w/ an incorrect assumption.
jeez, where to start...i think i'll take a cue from you and invert points. besides, it appeals to my sense of anal-retentiveness to follow suit.
firstly: when people start dismissing an entire culture, for whatever reason, i get really anxious b/c i often feel that's a precursor to some very hazardous slippery slopes. when you dismiss a culture, you lay the groundwork for dismissing its inhabitants. when you dismiss its inhabitants, well, examine any genocidal atrocity of human existence, whether it be deliberate (e.g., cultural revolution) or incidental (spanish conquistadors inadvertently conducting bio warfare against native south americans). people are products of their culture.
let me hasten to add that i am not saying you are in fact doing this, but your logic appears constructed in such a way as to make that conclusion significantly less difficult.
as to chinese culture teaching cowardice and bullying: sorry, but to me, this is silly. i can go into any culture and w/ sufficient research, find similar examples that could support such an assertion. the columbine shootings, the treatment by the catholic church of child-abuse accusers and accused priests up until the past few years, heck, even fraternity/sorority initiations: these all could serve as examples in US culture.
now, you and i both look at these counter-examples and laugh: that's clearly not the case here. but i submit that it's similarly inaccurate to say this of an entire culture.
chinese views of religion vs. "western" views of religion: this is a judgment call, b/c this requires that we assume that the western treatment of religion is somehow superior, and as theists and atheists have been debating this one for centuries, you'll excuse me if i think the matter is settled? besides, if you're talking western culture, you're really talking christianity and then we need to talk about which sect of christianity, although since we're talking historically, i'd argue the roman catholic church is probably the best candidate.
individual rights vs. group (family, community, etc). the west places a much higher value on the individual than the east and personally, i think there's a lot about the western approach that's way way off: leads to self-absorption and a preoccupation w/ self and hence selfishness. if a group is more than the sum of its parts, then some moderation b/n the emphasis on either group or individual is more reasonable.
overall, though, why are you comparing a single culture (chinese) against a compound culture (western)? that's a false comparison b/c w/ western culture, you can pick & choose national cultures as needed. IMV, this is absolutely not apples to apples. it's more like apple to cornucopia.
ed
Hmmmm. I think I'll go inverted again.
As you've probably guessed, I'm not opposed to all aspects of Chinese culture. But, I'm not going to remain silent either. Other cultures find it easy to critize US culture. Well, I'm going to fire back. Chinese culture has a lot it can learn from Western Culture, and I'm going to point out what it can learn.
When I say Western Culture, I should be specific and say Western Enlightment Culture (American and modern more or less), although that's kind of the point in history when it ceases to be a culture, and more of a way of thought. Kind of. Hmmmm. Better definitions are needed. But that's my bench mark and I'll stick to it.
Now, why am I picking on Chinese culture? First, because it's so damn big. As a world citizen, I think it would be recalcatrent of me not to critically appraise a culture that composes 20% of the world's population. Also, the more time I spend with Chinese, the more I feel like some of this culture is beginning to be my own. And I don't like some of what I see.
I do the same for US culture. It just doesn't earn me as many foes or as much notice, as more people are use to it. :)
Chinese culture is admirably focused off the individual, but it does so in an incorrect manner, which leads to poor results. I believe that you and I would both agree with it is an individual actions that deservce notice or emphasis. Chinese culture de-emphasises the individual without placing emphasis on (or often even recognizition of) individual accomplishments or actions. This isn't good. By doing this, it robs the individual of basic (in the West) humanitarian rights. I think (and I believe most would agree), that this is not a good thing.
The problem is that this leads to the sort of group-think that Chinese have been historically more likely to follow than Europeans and especially Americans. (This is not to say that Europeans and Americans do not do this. It's just that less of them tend to.)
There are other problems as well with the lack of emphasis placed on the individual. Too much group think leads to a loss of individuality. Without a degree of individuality, Chinese tend to do dumb things. Like the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward. Or building a massive dam across the Yangtze that already has many cracks in it. (Good bye Nanjing and Shanghai? I hope not.) Or to allowing Japanese to line you up and begin cutting off heads.
I counted athiesm as a religion. (Though it's really not, it's more of an offshoot of science, but we don't need to get into that, as I think we're probably in agreement again.) Regardless, most Chinese are less religious than their Western Counterparts. Really, there is less conviction in their worship. If you want to do a little personal test, think of the amount of Western Buddhists you know, and the amount of Chinese Buddhists. Now which have you seen eat meat? (My Chinese fiance pointed that one out to me.)
I don't dismiss the Chinese people. Nor should others dismiss Western. That is the kind of thinking that leads to things like Nanjing, Palestinian Occupation and September 11. But, the Chinese culture is, well, kind of dangerous. Group think leads to the sort of attacks I just mentioned. In this case (the root), a group of PRC generals who think that the ROC might change its name to Taiwan and decide to nuke it.
I won't retract my accusation of Chinese culture teaching bullying and cowardice. First, this is because I quote that straight from Bo Yang. But, it is true. The same thing used to happen in Western armies (still does, but to a lesser extent). That is, with the removal of individual rights, those in power tend to take control. In order to avoid wrath of superiors (bullying), it's best to back down (cowardice). Do this enough, and it becomes ingrained, as in Chinese culture. This leads to straification and a whole mess of other bad things.
But perhaps this problem wi
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I wish, China was really so weak militarily. And you may well be right -- I just don't know.
But your response has only limited relevance -- the size of their army (and the amount of weaponry pointed at Taiwan in particular) is the sign of how threatening they are -- even if, come actual shooting, the threat turns out to be hollow.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
For one, I'm sure, you did not ask. Noone did. Such poll would be rather biased too, you know, because who really disliked Saddam's rule were routinely killed.
Imagine a driver loosing control of her/his car. The car spins and hits the guardrail, which badly injures everyone inside, but prevents it from going onto the other side of the road, which would not only have killed everyone inside, but also injured/killed others in head-on collision(s).
Will the occupants of the unfortunate car -- and some other witnesses -- blame the guardrail? You bet some will! They will also be quick to point out, that the car's suspension was made by a subsidiary of the same company, which made the railing. And yet despite all the compassion I may have for their sufferings, I can not blame the railing -- it did the right thing, prevening more injuries and destruction.
As Economist put it recently, after 12 years of wrangling it was right to call Saddam's bluff, even if bluff is all it turned out to be.
Then "the world" is stupid and/or ignorant. The US has maintained this policy since the WWII. As long as "the world" was scared of the Soviets, nobody minded (except for the Warsaw Pact). Now, that the US is, actually, considering a reduction of its military capabilities to winning one while merely sustaining another major campaign (as opposite from winning both, as you describe) you come out and claim we are agressive... If it was not for our "agression" you'd likely be speaking Russian by now and had to get in line in the dairy store at 6 in the morning to get milk.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
stargoat quoth:
"chinese culture is admirably focused off the individual, but it does so in an incorrect manner, which leads to poor results. i believe that you and i would both agree with it is an individual actions that deservce notice or emphasis."
you're correct in that we do agree, but as products of the one culture and not the other, i think it's a tad silly to extrapoliate meaning out of this particular convergence of opinion.
in both western and eastern cultures, i think hierarchies and groups play equally significant, if different, roles WRT the individual. however,
"the problem is that this leads to the sort of group-think that chinese have been historically more likely to follow than europeans and especially americans."
um...i'm sorry, perhaps this is simply my ignorance WRT what's going on in chinese culture and history, but what about mccarthy's red scare in the 50s, domino theory in the majority of the cold war, the preponderance of those accursed and godawfully ugly PT cruisers--oops, wrong rant topic--the current US tendency to excuse all government encroachments on civil liberties so long as it supports this nebulous "war on terrorism" which, as a war against an idea, is inherently doomed to failure...i won't go on, but i think that more or less gets the idea across.
now, what i was really challenging was in this block:
"i won't retract my accusation of chinese culture teaching bullying and cowardice. first, this is because i quote that straight from bo yang. but, it is true. the same thing used to happen in western armies (still does, but to a lesser extent). that is, with the removal of individual rights, those in power tend to take control. in order to avoid wrath of superiors (bullying), it's best to back down (cowardice). do this enough, and it becomes ingrained, as in chinese culture. this leads to stratification and a whole mess of other bad things."
clearly, you've studied chinese history and culture. i have not. you presumably have a basis from which you formed this conclusion. i have no illusions that in the course of 5000 years, humanity's great ignominies and triumphs would shine any any more or less brightly than in any other group's history of similar scope.
however, can you please give me an example or 2 of when this occurs/occurred in chinese history and then some evidence that this pattern repeated itself through the ensuing 5k years? perhaps i'm wrong: this could be and i always entertain that possibility. but on the off-chance you're in error, i think it's worth examining the facts of the matter.
ed