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Cyber Attacks on US Linked to Chinese Military?
wiredog writes "Security expert Bruce Schneier is reporting on a continuing effort to penetrate US government and industry computer systems that most likely stems from the Chinese military." From the Terranet article: "The attacks have been traced to the Chinese province of Guangdong, and the techniques used make it appear unlikely to come from any other source than the military, said Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, an education and research organization focusing on cybersecurity."
I just toured the Hoover dam a few weeks ago. One of the guides was quite the dry wit. As we rode the elevator down he made note that the government never spent a dime to build or operate the dam, and that all debts were recently retired. He then deadpanned, "It was a great idea. That's why it's never been done again."
-Peter
I was really surprised by the whole energy of the place. When I went to McDonalds and they didn't have my food immediately, they said no problem we will find you and bring it to you when its ready. 2 min latter I had my fries. This particular McDonald's had around 30 registers all open. They said that they served 6000 lunches everyday -- just nuts. You won't find any fast food resturant in the US that can manage that volume and provide good service too.
The only downside was all the street vendors, which annoyed our tour guide. She said that they all had day jobs, but would often call in sick to go run side businesses to make extra money.
In closing, the US needs to sell $3,000,000,000 in bonds everyday to China just to keep running. If they really wished us harm they could just stop buying our debt. Once China no longer relies on exports we will be at their mercy. That will happen in around 10 - 20 years just when the US needs money to fund SS payments to baby-boomers.
If I remember the details on the prior Slashdot article on this topic (from back, last year, before this was becoming publically acknowledged), I think the packets were nat'd in intermediary countries, so doing a blanket block on China wasn't going to be very effective.
Back then there were many people on Slashdot suggesting that they block all foreign traffic, but that becomes problematic given the size and scope of the US Armed Forces.
So the short answer is "no" there is no easy way to block these on the firewall.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
China would generally refuse to import goods from the west during the 19th and 20th centuries. This infuriated Britain, the world super power at the time, who also controlled the most populous country at the time (India) because trade imbalances create imbalances of wealth. Britain in turn sold Indian grown Opium to Chinese trade dealers at the ports (this seemed to be the one thing chinese DID want, refer to the Opium Wars). Once this became a problem to the chinese society, they halted all trade at their ports. Britain (the force of the west at the time) invoked gunboat diplomacy, demanded China to trade, took land (Hong Kong), and money, in return China didn't get attacked anymore. Somewhere between then an now a civil war broke out and a political teething process began, which has given us modern-day China.
The Christian crusades during the 19th century also influenced Chinese religion to the tune of 20 million deaths. This was called the Taiping Rebellion. Basically, a convert (Hong Xiuquan) believed himself to be the next Jesus, and brainwashed a huge following into a cause over the course of just over a decade which ultimately cost millions their lives.
To be fair, China couldn't and didn't manage their society well at all through strife (after Confucianism), which allowed the west to bully them through those centuries.
Now give yourself "A Time to Kill" moment and imagine the U.S. going through those same growing pains. Do you find it easier or more difficult to argue the American Way of Life against China? Why do I sound like a public school textbook? To spell it out in public education fashion, because the tables are starting to turn.
Lastly, we cannot say Napoleon didn't warn us/the west: "Let China sleep, for when she awakes, the world will tremble."
Truth is realized, not told...
There is no democracy in Venezuela. All that is left is a hollow national assembly that is directly controlled by the president, who is a common thief with aspirations to become the next Saddam Hussein.
Well duh... the only problem that people fail to realize effectively is that we are at a serious disadvatage (not so much in the cyber realm) but in the actual espionage realm. China is free to sponsor students to come to the US (and they do regularly). Chinese embassies hold yearly meetings and invite the sponsored students to the embassies and they don't talk about the weather. This is actually fairly commmon in academic fields (even in my field of microbiology). It barely even rates as espionage in most cases because the data will get published in public journals. Now you try running that with a white guy in China who doesn't speak any Chinese language well. Its not going to be easy. Whereas you see someone in science here who is Chinese with good to poor English speaking skill you don't think twice. So in a certain sense it is a ONE WAY street. They are mining a lot of useful intelligence from us and all we can do is supply it.
What do you mean? Japan has a lot of manufacturing capability in the US! It's also worth noting that during the peiod from 1995-2002 (if I remember the news story correctly), the US lost 2 million manufacturing jobs to China, but China lost 15 million manfacturing jobs to automation. Much of that automation is here in the US. Just because there aren't manufacturing jobs here doesnt mean there isn't manufacturing capacity here. Eventually, everything is built by robots and there are *no* manufacuting jobs - but more manufacturing capacity than ever.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
>It would be a naive point of view to think that it hasn't already started. It would be equally naive to assume that the U.S. is not at the forefront of such a war.
We already lost the war.
America spent over $1 trillion in the 70's, 80's, and 90's creating the information economy.
Then shipped it to China and India in a matter of a few years.
They couldn't have taken $1 trillion in advantage from us in a shooting war, but they got it anyway.
The war is over, and this activity by the Chinese is to protect them from our attempt to take it back.
"No, I'm saying that in the past 40 years we've found a new way to accomplish it much more slowly- by destroying the foundation of a nation's economy so that the cities fall apart and anybody who isn't independantly wealthy starves to death trying to pay for fuel and supplies that are reserved for the rich."
That's not war. It doesn't even approach the destruction (economic or otherwise) of war. At worst, economic depression. You cannot change the meaning of the word "war" to suit your whims.
"I call it the revenge of Tojo- since it was McArthur's Japan that started the trend."
Funny, that. Looked at the Japanese banking industry lately? Or their economy in general?
"If we keep going down this path, try finding any buildings that aren't shacks or slums in America that aren't in Bentonville, Alabama where the Chinese are installing their new government in 20 years."
Since the Japanese obviously had a head start, why aren't we all speaking Japanese?
"Actually, during the 30's it was still possible to forage for food- go hunting without a $500 permit or a $20,000 fine."
Wha? In the 1930's you could get a car for $500 and a house for $20,000, and damned nice ones at that.
Of course, it's kinda tough to forage for food in the middle of the Dustbowl.
"Rational is just making up stories to lie about what is really going on."
No, rational is not playing games with terms and accusations as seirous as "war." That's like calling all diseases "cancer."
Of course I think they should have been involved but they should have been involved in 1939. If they had then Hitler would have been stopped before overrunning Europe and Japan wouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbour.
/. Doesn't matter if it is Iraq or World War II, America can do no right.
Europe had all the time in the world to deal with Germany before it became a threat. The fact that Germany had been rebuilding its military for the better part of the 1930's was no big secret. Neither is the fact that Hitler was becoming increasingly more hostile to his neighbors during that time period also. And even after all this, Europe continued to have a policy of appeasement towards Germany all the way up through the invasion of Poland. Why should the United States have sent Americans to die to fight a war that Europe wouldnt at the time?
It bugs me when people praise the Americans for "winning" WWII when many countries were there from the beginning and didn't have to wait to get attacked before they stood up to Germany and their allies.
Most of the countries that entered the war in "the beginning" did so because of mutual defense pacts. Germany invades Poland, France and Britain declare war on Germany because of a pact with Poland, then the Soviet Union invades Poland because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Most of the other European nations remained neutral until they were invaded. And as for the victory of the Allies, it would have been almost impossible without the help of the United States.
It's a coward that runs away when your friends are being attacked.
That never happened considering programs like Lend-Lease and the fact that American pilots were fighting in the Battle of Britain well before the official entry of the United States into the war.
I suspect that if Japan hadn't attacked the U.S. the government would have let the rest of the world fall to Hitler. If that's what it took to get the U.S. to care about what was happening all around them then I'm glad Japan attacked the U.S.
Doubtful. Franklin D. Roosevelt was looking for any excuse he could find to enter the war. With the Germans increasingly preying on American shipping in and out of American waters, he would have eventually gotten his way. And if the United States had not cared about what was happening in Europe at the time, it would not have loaned Britain $1 billion. Accounting for inflation, that is the equivalent of almost $13 billion today.
These comments are about the U.S. government at the time and are not meant to diminish the sacrifices made by millions of Americans after 1941. Since then the U.S. has done a lot of good and should be respected for it but that doesn't mean that in 1939 they didn't make a number of bad choices.
The United States is just fucked no matter what on
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