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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."
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.
Especially the last part of the article:
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"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/
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.
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...
Yeah, critical computer equipment in nuclear power plants, training track switching computers and etc. isn't gonna kill anyone...
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
1) It would be cool in a movie, but in real life these things are true weapons. You can bring down electrical systems, stall trains, release sewage into the water supply. Real people can die real deaths because of these.
2) I think the possibility of low-level warfare is more dangerous than bombs. The cold war shows this: if you only have maximum response, then you will hesitate to use it. If you have lots of low-level responses (car bombs, plane hijackings, etc ) than it is easier to assault your enemy short of war. This is a totalitarian regime attacking their enemy without anybody raising their DEFCON levels. That is scary.
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.
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.
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
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.
Anything to stem the flood of SPAM from those two countries.
China would argue that they're not two countries...
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
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.