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The Invasion of The Chinese Cyberspies
HorsesAss writes "Time Magazine has an article up entitled 'The Invasion Of The Chinese Cyberspies and the Man Who Tried to Stop Them', which outlines how Chinese PRC is cracking DOD networks and downloading massive sets of files detailing every aspect of military planning and practice." From the article: "The hackers he was stalking, part of a cyberespionage ring that federal investigators code-named Titan Rain, first caught Carpenter's eye a year earlier when he helped investigate a network break-in at Lockheed Martin in September 2003. A strikingly similar attack hit Sandia several months later, but it wasn't until Carpenter compared notes with a counterpart in Army cyberintelligence that he suspected the scope of the threat. Methodical and voracious, these hackers wanted all the files they could find, and they were getting them by penetrating secure computer networks at the country's most sensitive military bases, defense contractors and aerospace companies."
If the DoD systems are so easy to crack, what is stopping others to attack them?
Wow. And it isn't an article written by John Markov? I'm shocked!
I guess the government and corporate world should have been paying more attention to what breeches by harmlessly curious teenagers signaled rather than harassing and fining and jailing them for embarrassing them for their own incompetence while letting actual national threats from foreign nations occur.
It's a good thing they turned those 13 little kids from that one school into felons for typing in a password that was obvious and widely available to install stuff on the laptops they were given to use. Today, installing iChat. Tomorrow? - secret highly paid communist spies haxoring into the super elite United States government. OH NOES!
To me the whole thing sounds a bit... Dramatized. It sounds like it came from a movie. It wouldn't surprise me if the truth was exaggerated just a tiny bit.
The computers that are directly attacking the DoD are not necessarily outside of the US.
Oh, and this guy is a moron. Part of the counter-intelligence game is to make sure the enemy doesn't know he's been caught. This guy is such a bull in the china shop he's destroyed any chance we'll be able to learn "means and methods" information from this ring.
While the article was written to be dramatic and exciting, this scenario is assuredly based on truth.
Does anyone seriously doubt that China, India, Russia, and Israel have teams of computer scientists probing U.S. government and corporate networks?
Does anyone doubt the U.S. has many, many teams (NSA, CIA, DIA - especially AirForce Intelligence) probing foreign networks and eavesdropping on practically ALL digital communication?
Would you be surprised if a CIA field op were found in China? Digital espionage is the future. Expect it.
When the Bush administration's poll numbers fall, or they want to draw our attention away from what the administation is doing, then there will be a "security alert" of some kind. The media plays along with these obvious ploys. This is just one of the "security alerts" from the current "bad guy". Of course, if you point this out, then you are an un-American, un-patriotic terrorist loving scumbag that have no gratitude for what the Great Uncle Sam has done for you.
China's going to "win" BTW. They're the next superpower, already competeing for resources.
D &to=CNY&amt=1&t=5d
Look at your clothes, computer, TV, video, car labels. You can bet most or all of it's from China. That's going to continue till the exchange rate sorts itself out. It's a good thing that they recently "floated" their currency and that it's rising in value.
http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=US
Deleted
It feels like someone is trying to find an excuse to go on war with China.
Not until it's hyped up a LOT more.
But that's not going to happen. Next on the list is Iran, unless they manage to get the bomb first (which is exactly the reason why they want it). Attacking China itself would be suicide, it's way too big and powerful, and already has the bomb. The only way the USA and China could end up in a war is if China starts it by attacking Taiwan, and that would be a limited scenario.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Who the hell do they think they are.
It's called "intelligence gathering", and if you think there aren't a lot of CIA guys trying to do exactly the same thing with any Chinese military server they can find, you probably also still believe in the easter bunny.
I think everybody should start blocking everything with origin out of china.
Makes it kinda hard to do business with them, which is way too profitable to give up over some silly little incident like this.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Act of war, my ass. That's day-to-day business as far as military intelligence is concerned.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
As someone who uses the many networks available, if the day comes that our classified systems are compromised we are all severely screwed. The article is misleading as the sites being exploited are one the internet. Available to anyone with an internet connection. There is a huge jump from the open internet (NIPR) to the SECRET(SIPR) and TOP SECRET(JWICS) networks.
Look at your clothes, computer, TV, video, car labels.
Well, 20 years ago, you'd have said the exact same thing about Japan. They themselves were banking on their demonstrably superior manufacturing ingenuity, efficiencies, and focus to make them dominant. They then totally overextended themselves, and their economy has been more or less in the tank ever since.
Now, the difference between them and the Chinese situation (also sitting on top of an economic bubble they won't be able to sustain) is that the Chinese, having not been aggressors in WWII, don't have any of the politically correct inhibitions about using force to prop up the weak spots in their system. Taiwan would certainly be their first target, and that will cause a wretched mess. But the whole southeast Asia area will feel their influence as they look, themselves, for more resources.
I'd like to say that the currency float you mentioned was a good thing, but there isn't a single economist who sees it as anything other than an empty political gesture. All they did was let it "float" within very narrow bounds, defined by them, with essentially no impact whatsoever on the real underlying exchange mechanics.
The real issue here is going to be energy. Probably the most alarming development is the Chinese coziness with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. They're taking a lot of their cash surplus (um, that would be the cash we're spending on their inexpensive products) and pumping a lot of it into investments in that oil producing country. That's fine with Chavez, because China is the nearest thing to an idealogical opposite to the US he can find (well, one that isn't clearly a broken-down mess, like Cuba).
My guess is that Venezuela will become, is essence, a Chinese outpost. And a huge foothold, economically, in Central/South America. Just in time for the economies in Brazil and Argentina to start looking ripe for more investment.
So, we may see Wal-Mart eventually filling up with "Made in Brazil" goods, but made by firms operated by Chinese interests.
I'd not, though, call them the next "superpower" any more than one could refer to the Soviets in that sense. They were, in that they had the military and the nukes to be hugely influential, but it was a house of cards. That won't be as true of the Chinese, in that their businesses are tilting capitalist despite the (now mostly smoke) communist creed of their heavy-handed government. But as long as they are to a large degree centrally managed, they're going to make a lot of the tone-deaf mistakes that the Soviets did. And this time, a whole lot of Chinese citizens are going to be a whole lot quicker to step up and try to prevent the economic flushing that happened in Russia after the USSR tanked. It's going to be fascinating. In the meantime, I'd vote for policies that encourage more US investment in central and south America, and policies that ask the same thing of China that the US must do to do business in their country.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"Invasion", hackers (with a sense of purpose no less!), "new breed of enemy". Typical Time insight.
The reason to release information on this is almost purely a Pentagon press game. They have their own little war going on with China already. It's mostly been bearucratic (arguing over how much money is being spent on military budgets, saying one side is a threat, etc.) Occassionaly they move major pieces of the Pacific fleet, just to stir up speculation (in the U.S. press mostly). The Pentagon does have some necons nesting there, so taking a coarse line is in vogue.
Practically speaking, the Pentagon has also long been aware of the "soft-power" threats, especially IT. They have invested in computer networks for decades. Over the last decade work has gone into networking everything (in terms of information) and finding ways to control their resources electronically. The technocrats are keen on the U.S. military's weaknesses. This is translated by the more politically-minded managment into a counter-statement: The U.S. is vulnerable to an information war, but the better way to say this is to play up the threat of China in terms of cyber*buzzword*.
The Pentagon can argue for more funding this way and field little/no criticism. Same with the PLA in China (who has a growing budget). Both militaries are getting what they want without a huge payout in budget (i.e. a traditional war). And I definitely wouldn't rule out ego on both sides of the Pacific.
Look at your clothes, computer, TV, video, car labels. You can bet most or all of it's from China. That's going to continue till the exchange rate sorts itself out. It's a good thing that they recently "floated" their currency and that it's rising in value.
Unlike the USA which has no enemy country in striking distance, China has more than 2 countries capable of a long term war. They have Japan which is the economic superpower of the region. When people want quality and not cheap rip off products, they buy japanesse, not chinese. Then you have Tiwan, which will be the war to ruin China. The people of Tiwan don't want anything to do with China, and they have a military power that can fight back. How many f-16's did the USA sell Tiwan? And doesn't the USA have an aircraft carrier sitting right there? I can't even start to wonder how many nuclear subs are there too. And then there is Russia. At one time they were partners because of their shared political beliefs. But now, China and Russia act more like annoyed neighbors than partners.
Then there is Mayamar, or Burma, or whatever the hell the country is calling itself this week. They are the #1 producer of heroin and drugs in the region. And they are very unstable. If Chinese people start making any money, Burma will be ready to supply an endless stream of drugs. Unlike the USA, where we must deal with Cambodia, Burma shares a border with China.
And then there is North Korea right next to China. North Koera has weapons, and nothing else. Their people live in poverty, and they don't have enough food. That is a powderkeg waiting to explode.
And China also shares borders with India and Pakistan, two countries that have been in a pissing contest of hate for my entire lifetime. A nuclear war could break out there any time. The two countries have already had fights, with muslims murdering hindu's and hindu's trying to defend themselves.
And here is the bottom line. 20 years ago China could not grow enough food to feed all their people. The USA is the #1 exporter of food to China. If the USA stopped supplying exports of food, China would have one of the worst epidemics of famine the world has ever seen. The USA was smart, we got them to breed so many people, that if the USA withdrew food exports, millions of Chinese people would die.
How has China made money? By ripping off USA patents and copywrites. They might take a car, reverse engineer it, and then build it with low quality parts. They don't include the saftey standards. They pirate playstation games and computer games. China does not innovate, they don't produce anything the world demands.
No, China will not win. They can't feed themselves.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
This is state-sponsored industrial espionage. Why spend five years developing the flight software for a helicopter when you can just steal it?
The article talks of one guy who got a bit too grey for the FBI's liking, and that of his employers. Basically he was having too much fun chasing his bad guys and bugging routers in Guandong, China.
Stupid really. This should have gone to the NSA to become a disinformation campaign. Let them think they got the software, but with subtle deliberate bugs.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Desert Storm 1 and 2.
If you think the Soviets crapped thier pants reading after action reports of the speed and leathality 12 M-1 Tanks taking out 38 T-72's and stealth bombers and fighters penetrating Iraqi air space and bombing targets of interest. The Chinese are even more frightened.
Buying Soviet manufactured technology and hardware may be robust but when a single squadron of stealth figters is able to take out your signal and command structure you need to do anything that gives you an edge.
Why invent anything while you can steal it.
I think China might qualify. China has been the hungry dragon for a long, long time. The U.S. will inevitably block some of its goals, and war within the next 50 years is likely.
- Issue 1: Taiwan. The U.S. has supported the rights of Taiwan to de facto order its affairs. PRC has insisted on a one-China policy. When the time is right, the PRC will try to back its policy with force.
- Energy. China's self-interest includes becoming a developing nation. Its citizens are just as interested in driving cars over there as soccer moms are interested in driving SUVs over here. The oil has to come from somewhere, and demand will surely
... no, has already ... driven the price of gas up; almost doubled it, in fact. - Korea. China has an uneasy relationship with North Korea, but it appears to be treating it as a kind of buffer state. If NK actually gets deliverable nukes (which is only a decade out or less), it will force a crisis.
- Southeast Asia. That part of the world has cooled considerably in the last 30 years, but China still has trading interests there. In fact, it appears to be regrouping its strategy towards diplomatic influence.
- South and Central America. For reasons that are unclear, China has made significant inroads into South and Central America: the purchase of the Panama Canal, and sweetheart deals with Venezuela.
Where does it all lead? To much more significant conflict than the U.S. had with Iraq.Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
First, I will agree that China is over-rated as the next great powerhouse economically and militarily. Personally, I think that they are clearly a "World Power" but not on the level that either the US or EU are. China would like to be there, but they have a lot of obstacles to overcome.
The most serious is that China is not, and will probably never be, a pluralist society. The Chinese have almost always seen China as the center of the world in a way that even the US has not done. So while they go back and forth between isolationism and expansionism, the isolationism always wins out because of the huge force that ethnocentricity plays in their culture. I am not saying that this is good or bad. It just places limits on what China can achieve in a pluralist world. To a large extent, this is what crippled the Japanese expansion as well.
Currently the world has two superpowers: The US and the EU. The US is a military superpower and is largely able to dictate its will militarily, and the EU is an economic superpower which is largely able to dominate international and internationist institutions as well as dictate terms on a purely economic basis. Assuming that an EU constitution is forthcoming at some point and that the EU countries agree to have a single foreign policy, they will be in a position to actively challenge the US on any foreign policy area simply by virtue of their economic clout. Note the growing diplomatic war between the US and EU (usually referred to as "Old Europe").
I don't think it will be too long before EU-as-borg metaphores start becoming commonplace... Imagine if at some point after Iraq becomes democratic that Turkey, Russia, and Iraq end up member states of the EU. The oil reserves alone would then mean that the EU would have the largest oil reserves in the world...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Actually nothing you've said indicates that China is an "enemy" of the US.
Everything you've said is related to China increasing its economic development and exerting influence over its historical area of influence to assist that development and the large Chinese populations in those areas.
The problem with your concept is that the US believes it and it ALONE can hold ANY influence ANYWHERE in the world. This was EXPLICITLY stated in the PNAC documents that formed the foreign policy of the neocons and Bush. It is a pure implementation of imperialism.
Therefore it stimulates conflict with states attempting to build their own influence. Iraq, for example, had NO conflict with the US in its sphere of influence. It DID, however, have a conflict with ISRAEL, which used its control over US foreign policy to force a war with Iraq which could cost the US up a trillion dollars.
The bottom line: the state is the problem, not the populations of those states. The Chinese have no quarrel with Americans, and vice versa. It's our "glorious leaders" and their rich backers who have the problem.
You want to stop war, get rid of the state.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This is like the second "evil yellow little men are trying to haxxor our WOPRs"-story on ./ in mere 3 days. Somehow this is like the WMD discussion just before the Iraq war.
Governments and nations spy on each other. The Chinese spy on the US and vice versa, the US spies on practically everyone, the Russians spy on China, and Germany spies on the US. That's the way international politics work when information is essential.
Really, if information retrieval from government webservers and "hacking" are your [US citizens] only problems, you may feel lucky, as there is one great solution: Do not connect mission-critical systems to a network or a subnet virtually everyone has access to.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
Let them think they got the software, but with subtle deliberate bugs.
Yes, this is exactly what the US did with Soviet spying during the cold war but times have changed. This is a global economy and it is entirely possible for something you have deliberately bugged to make its way into something that is then sold back to you.
I wonder when European countries will finally stop taking part in this...
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
My guess is that, should the scenario you've outlinned be implemented, Uncle Sam will dust off the Monroe Doctrine and, as Teddy Rosevelt put it, walk softly up to China carrying a very big stick.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Usually only fools think in terms of white in black, because their not bright enough to understand the true complexity of life. Will we at some level be at odds with China, most definitely. Will China be our largest trading partner, most definitely.
Therefore there will be a great deal of ambivalence in our relations, with China trying to wield its new found power and America trying to maintain a unipolar world order, but at the same time both sides not wanting to disrupt many of the delicate threads that hold their delicate economies together. Outright war is not going to happen,
America has a huge foriegn debt, trade deficit, and budget deficit that are endangering its long term economic growth while China's very booming economic expansion is at the same gathering support for the government while fostering a great deal of corruption within it. Outright war would wreck both countries.
However, on the espinage front, we really have to get on the ball and be very agressive with china and realize that we have to go after them harshly, perhaps using anti terrorism law. If this escalates things that is what must happen. There may be some saber rattling in beijing when we execute or imprison a few spies but that is what must happen, we have to use any means possible to root out chinese spies since the chinese are using any means possible to get our agents.
Its no secret that during the cold war the that the russians had a much better intelligence agency than us, thats why it was called the IRON CURTAIN, we had no idea what was going on behind the iron curtain. When they hack us, we hack back, we disable their systems, we play their game, we play harder. Our infrastructure may be fragile, but theirs is much worse and we can take advantage of that fact.
Unless the United states is for some reason willing to world war three over a Chinese annexation of Taiwan, I doubt we will see a war with China any time soon. I doubt they have any aspirations to annex a huge empire since they already have an empire and really dont like people who arent chinese, so why would they want them as part of their country?
I need to be more clear, then: China is a likely *future enemy* of the U.S. The morality of it, and blame for it, is neither here nor there -- in this thread. I'm simply observing and predicting.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
You will always have war as long as one group of people can define themselves as "us" and define different people as "them".
Which gives you the state wars, religious wars, ethnic wars, class wars (French Revolution), etc.
It's all about control of resources.
1. Issue 1: Taiwan. The U.S. has supported the rights of Taiwan to de facto order its affairs. PRC has insisted on a one-China policy. When the time is right, the PRC will try to back its policy with force.
And get away with it. See Tibet.
Energy is irrelevant - the US can't force 1.2B Chinese to gulp less oil than 280M Americans.
North Korea, admitting it survives that long, may start a war, but not one that would involve China. If Kim Jong Il decides to nuke Seoul, the Chinese won't raise a finger to protect him.
4. Southeast Asia. That part of the world has cooled considerably in the last 30 years, but China still has trading interests there. In fact, it appears to be regrouping its strategy towards diplomatic influence.
Duh. 30 years ? China has dominated the social, cultural and political landscape in the whole far east for two fscking millenia. They are the big powerful neighbours that you don't want to piss off. Relationships may be uneasy at times, but when it comes to China vs USA, well, one is "the local", the other is "the foreigner". No points for guessing who is who.
5. South and Central America. For reasons that are unclear, China has made significant inroads into South and Central America: the purchase of the Panama Canal, and sweetheart deals with Venezuela.
About as unclear as the reason why the US essentially purchased Saudi Arabia in the 40s. Re-Duh !
Thomas
The same website also carries overtly anti-Semitic statements, like where he refers to "Jew Greenspan." I'll bet this guy also thinks the Protocols of the Elders of Zion wasn't a forgery. Given his apparent politics, it's no wonder he'd post a story warning of the Yellow Peril. Until I see this story somewhere else, I'll assume he pulled it out of his ass.
While you are mostly right about this, you have limited the temporal scope of the point, I think, in order to focus on the US. Fact is, many (most?) world power nations have had this same problem - they require external enemies in order to thrive. This is 19th Century politics, I think (I hope), but that remains to be seen...
Your statement here represents a fond dream for some, and an overwhelming fear for others. However, it is simply not the case. The US has adopted some capitalist principles, but so have most other nations that have progressed beyond basic agricultural economies. Capitalism is not a form of government - it might be considered a sociological phenomenon, but it definitely economics, and while Economics and Politics are related, they are not precisely the same thing. The US is hybrid of a number of things - it has some Capitalist genetic heritage, but it is hardly synonymous with Capitalism. An obvious support of this idea is the dominance of monopolistic and trans-national corporations in the US economy. There is almost no economic competition within the US - there is a great deal of price fixing and monopolistic practice. That doesn't support your assertion of a "need for competition".
I will give you that in order for the monopolies to appear capitalist there must be a perception of competition, but that's an entirely different matter than Capitalism in a true sense.
Well, I hope you're wrong - I happen to be one American who believes that America can and will exist without endless hot or cold wars and manufactured threats against its security. In fact, I believe that it must take that path into the future or it will cease to exist.
I view this principle you are outlining as something I call "The Myth of the Perpetually Expanding Market". It is the (fallacious) idea that Capitalism is a short term proposition that involves nothing more than market growth.
As you say: The US has ever had a threat to deal with. From the very beginning. That's true, as far as it goes, but remember that the US is an infant in terms of national political and ideological maturity. Well, maybe an adolescent - I'm not really enough of a Historian to say - but the fact is that the US is a young nation. If we go to other nations in history and examine their growth (and in some cases, decline) we find that many nations have survived this particular phase of national development not by seeking out new, better, bigger, or more winnable wars, but by re-examining this concept of unlimited growth - the "Myth of Perpetually Expanding Markets".
The Europeans have done it. The Chinese have, as well (I think - I'm not an expert on China). For China, it the reason they have continued to survive for longer than most Americans can even imagine, let alone plan for.
Fair enough, if you assume that we must fight in order to either survive or progress. You should realize, though, that that assumption can only lead (ultimately) to the annihilation of one of the warring parties - the US has got by so far by being a very efficient killing machine. But then, there are examples throughout history of societies (nations) that tried to hold on to that "fastest gun in the west" status against the rest of the world. They have all failed. If you examine it dispassionately, it becomes evident that any nation that tries to hold onto that "best fighters
"The Internet is made of cats."