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."

Comments

Trojan, or propaganda?

[RobertB-DC]

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?

Re:Trojan, or propaganda?

[BWJones]

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.

However, we should not be complacent about China. I am certainly not one for warmongering but given the U.S. financial involvement in Taiwan (odds are the computer you are typing on was made there), if China ever does do anything more than little experimental probes then we will inexorably be drawn in to a conflict. China has long been a serious threat to world security, but desperately wants to be seen as a principal power in the world. (who knows, perhaps they are even pulling strings in N. Korea to make China look like the good guys that can keep things in check on the peninsula).

So, guided missile exercises in the Sea of Japan or in the Taiwanese straights are seen as a little provocative, but what about a little cyber warfare. Or would that be Warefare :-). If this is the case, it would be unprecedented.

Propoganda and FUD

[globalar]

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.

Re:Tom Clancy

[stratjakt]

Does Taiwan have nukes?

Tom Clancy makes me insane. Whenever theres some sort of political or military conflict, all the CNNs and FOX News stations scramble to get Clancy to come on and comment. And he has no military or political experience, just a vivid imagination. They ask him all kinds of technical questions, like in Afghanistan they're asking him about the range of shoulder fired missiles and how many the Taliban have, and he's giving answers like "42" matter-of-factly.

It's ridiculous. What's next, getting Dennis Miller to be color man on Monday Night Football? Oh wait

Reporting live from northern Taiwan. . .

[ahfoo]

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!

Where's the proof?

[FooBarWidget]

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?

Re:Before you forecast the Chinese invasion...

[tehanu]

Personally a lot of the Chinese I know think of the Taiwanese as people who can't speak proper Mandarin...They also believe that Taiwan should be part of China again. I'm not sure how much this can really be blamed on government brainwashing though. Chinese (well Han Chinese anyway) have always believed very strongly in the concept of China as one people and one culture. Periods of time when there have been two or more "Chinas" have always resulted in much effort expended in reuniting the country. There is no celebration of disunity or having independent Chinese "countries". One wonders how the Taiwanese actually reconcile this cultural history with their desire to remain separate from China. In the Chinese mode of thinking, the desire to NOT be Chinese, is very strange.

In Chinese folklore, literature and popular history all divisions in China (a very popular topic), whether through civil war or barbarian invasion always end up with the country reunited by some glorious hero (or occassionally talented despot who is then deposed by a glorious hero). Having Chinese accept two Chinas is like asking Westerners to accept that yes, the villain really should win the war and beat the good guys. In the books, China always gets reunited by the good guys and everyone rejoices and lives happily ever after.

Windoew Source Code

[grendel's mom]

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?