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."

Comments

Two way street

[janneH]

And the Americans are not doing the same to the Chinese?

I would have been shocked if this was not going on in both directions - in dozens of directions for that matter.

Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world?

[spellraiser]

Is a war already starting in the virtual realm?

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.

Seriously, it makes no sense to think that the U.S. government is not involved in digital warfare and espionage. The U.S. is the greatest military power in the world, especially when it comes to technology. The Internet was created there - by the military orginally.

If the U.S. government didn't take digital warfare seriously, this will without a doubt at least have changed after 9/11. The current administration is extremely militant, party with cause, and party without cause. Their ideology is based on 'first strike' principles - on elimiting potential threads as they surface. It is only logical to assume that this ideology extends to all possible fronts.

Now, who wants to bet big bucks that the United States military is not deeply involved in aggressive digital warfare at this very moment?

Re:Politically Incorrect

[suitepotato]

For those who think that China is a big teddy bear full of love for the world, freedom, and independence of the people we have two words to remember: Tiananmen Square.

I will never forget the images of those young people being shot at, arrested, stampeded out of the square by the Chinese military.

Their government is not warm and fuzzy and has nothing to do with basic human rights. They are fellow humans, the people of China. They deserve better than that gang of thugs in power. I wish them luck in outlasting their predecessors' mistake in choosing to empower those creeps.

Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world?

[winkydink]

I think you fail to understand how intertwined global supply chains really are. If you blacklist all China tyraffic at the backbones, you'll essentially cripple a large part of the US economy as a result. Then there is the question of all that US debt China is holding.

As of today, the two countries econmonies are too intertwined for either to seriously screw with the other. Kind of an economic vversion of MAD.

Re:Politically Incorrect

[GodfatherofSoul]

And, in the aftermath you get to see how hypocritical our government (U.S.) is when it comes to authoritarian regimes. We're more than happy to open up the gates for business with China, yet we crack down on democracies (Venezuela, Haiti) who don't fit in with our Project for the New American Century.

Forget all that "Freedom is on the march" propaganda and start looking at our REAL foreign policy.

Re:And the third front of WWIII opens

[Guppy06]

"I've been saying all along that China is a threat- and this is really the third front of WWIII."

"World war..." I do not think it means what you think it means.

See, when cities start getting wiped off of the face of the planet and an entire generation of young men gets decimated and then decimated again, then you get to call it a "World War III." Ask Europeans or even Chinese of the proper age group to tell you what a real world war looks like.

Very, very few people in North America have seen what a war actually looks like since the freakin' 1860's (and they had to travel to see it), which is probably why people like tossing around the word "war" without having any fucking clue what it entails ("War on Poverty," "War on Drugs," "War on Terrorism," "War on Christmas," and the silliness of calling the whole Red State vs. Blue State thing the "Second American Civil War).

Sherman said "War is Hell" and went on to aptly demonstrate that fact. This, this isn't even a hissy fit. If you have the liesure time to piss away posting on a website, it ain't war.

I don't think so

[einhverfr]

I have been following this for some time.

This is not the first time this story has appeared on Slashdot. The last time it did (last year, I think), it covered a person who had traced the attacks back as far as China and gave some basic information about the methods and types of attacks. Also there is some reason to think that some military systems have indeed been penetrated and such items as flight control software stolen.

My own suspicion is that you have some sort of DMZ from which these attacks are occurring. You have a number of people stationed in shifts around the clock logging into these systems (possibly remotely) and using them for the attacks. There is plenty of reason to suspect the Chinese military here. These are not defacement attempts but are pretty surgical attempts at military data theft. This means organized crime (terrorist or not) and military are your only major suspects. The military is more likely the purpetrators given not only the specific type of data being targetted but also the Chinese Gov't's general unwillingness to cooperate with an investigation.

I don't understand the US/China relationship

[Clockwurk]

In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, thousands of American soldiers died in an effort to stop the threat of Chinese communism. Today, China is one of our top trading "partners". What has changed? China is still one of the worst human rights violators, and routinely abuses its neighbors (Taiwan and Tibet). In trading terms, China is probably our most abusive partner. Any project done in China must also have any related side projects completed there. China also devalues their currency, further imbalancing trade.

The China situation probably pisses me off more than any single other issue. Its an issue where both parties are on the same side; the side of profit-whoring multinationals that have no problem selling out American workers and small business and buddying up to the rights-abusing monster that is the Chinese govt.

Re:I don't understand the US/China relationship

[PureCreditor]

I agree. Trade gaps are bi-directional. Without the help of greedy multinationals based on USA desperate for cutting costs and outsourcing everything, China's trade gap won't be rising to record highs every year.

Stop blaming China, and start blaming Walmart.

Re:I don't understand the US/China relationship

[Stonehand]

Shared strategic interests, money, and nuclear weapons.

To the first point -- the Nixon adminstration saw benefits to detente with Beijing. Better China talking with the US than China talking with the USSR, anyway.

In the present day, they still share an interest in keeping the Korean peninsula from going -completely- bonkers, because if it did, they'd be flooded with vast numbers of Korean refugees. And in this case, they have a huge potential to be helpful because North Korea is heavily dependent on Chinese economic assistance; should they turn off their energy aid, for instance, Pyongyang would definitely notice.

There are other potential avenues for cooperation, such as a mutual opposition to Islamic militants. The Chinese have a slight issue with Islamic separatists in Xinjiang, if memory serves. If they were in communication with a broader movement, then the two governments might be able to help each other here.

To the second point, China's lower cost of labor and potentially huge market makes it an interesting place for investments, reduced somewhat by the higher corruption. Cheaper manufacturing means that the US dollar can essentially go further. And as has been noted by assorted pundits -- we send dollars and receive actual goods or services. It's not in China's interest to cut off trade, either; they've got enough potential problems with labor unrest and so forth to do so.

And as for nuclear weapons, China -is- a nuclear power, estimated to have at least twenty nuclear-capable land-based ICBMs with sufficient range to hit parts of the United States, if memory serves. The US does not have a feasible way of stopping them; nor does China have a feasible way of stopping a theoretical US nuclear strike (whether it be first or retalliatory). Pragmatists on both sides might suggest that it's a bit late for a full-up military confrontation. Instead, we can push for trade liberalization and hope that their government is gradually undermined by their population's increasing desire for a higher standard of living, including perhaps political liberalization.

Also helpful, their leadership appears to be more pragmatic and self-serving than ideological or insane. It's easier to find room for agreement with leaders who aren't convinced of their own perfection or a need for extreme isolation or what-have-you.

Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world?

[winkydink]

OK, and then China takes all those T-Bills it's holding and says, "hello Uncle Sam, I'd like to cash these in please". See you on the soup line. The US says, "fuck you China, we won't pay". Faith in the US dollar plunges to an all-time low. See you on bread line.

This is a non-event...

[FellowConspirator]

First, the argument that an attack is disciplined thus it must be the national military is just plain stupid -- and I frequently agree with Bruce S.

Even then, how is this not anticipated? Governments spy on each other (and their own citizens) prolificly, even their allies. We do it, they do it. European countries and the US are constantly one-upping each other in government sponsored corporate espionage. The Internet's done nothing but created a new medium. We steal corporate and military secrets from them, and they from us. Big deal.

The fact is that this means nothing. We know how to prevent this from being a problem, we do it, and we even disseminate disinformation this way.

The Iraq boondoggle aside, countries are actually very good about researching each other. There's a level of transparency between nations that is completely hidden to the average citizen. I think that everyone understands that at some level. The problem is, of course, that the public understanding of geopolitics is quite different than that of world leaders and the intelligence community. China could be an invasion threat, or on the verge of a dramatic shift to democracy and becoming our (USA) 51st state -- but, honestly, how many people are privileged enough to have access to sufficient information to make that call? Almost certainly not you.

By avoiding transparency, governments can avoid accountability to their citizens and other nations. That lack of accountability makes people easy to assuage, makes governments appear artificially effective, etc. In the US we demand little transparency because making information available puts us at risk (so the logic goes). Thus, by simply augmenting the perception of risk (nwes about terrorists, spies, etc.), people will lower their accountability demands, enabling more flexibility for things probably not in the public interest.

Of the top 100 economic powers in the word, 52 are corporations, and 48 are countries. About 1/3rd of goods transferred over a national border are goods that don't transfer ownership because they stay within a multinational corporation that is internally transferring those goods). It seems that some good geopolitical FUD can make you richer than Croesus if you're an inside player in the game.

Villianizing China... why???

[Savage-Rabbit]

While I don't approve of this method of cutting corners on R&D the Chinese are doing nothing that the US hasn't done in the past and still is doing today, and not just to nations that could be a potential threat either. The USA also spies on it's own allies and that includes abusing base rights and surveillance assets, supposedly there to be used for the benefit of NATO defense, to conduct industrial espionage on other NATO nations. The US has even used these assets to commit occasional acts of economic sabotage, a famous example would be the Saudi Arab airliner deal that Boeing managed to snatch away from Airbus with Uncle Sam's help. Not that I'm complaning mind you, we Europeans are not exactly angels either and the whole Airbus mess did have two positive results. Firstly we now know that we can't even trust our friends in the USA as far as we can throw them (a lesson they are now slowly learning them selves, in reverse, so to speak) and secondly many corporations here now take communications security more seriously than the military. Judging from the way it has been chewing away at Boeing's market share Airbus certainly seems to have learned it's lesson.

The price of peace is eternal vigilance.... even your friend will stab you in the back to butter his own slice of bread.... learn the lesson, go on and get over it.

Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world?

[dillon_rinker]

This (entwined economies) was the reason why the major world powers in the 1910s thought that war was impossible. Didn't work then, didn't work now. Economic arguments assume rational decision makers, and no human being is entirely rational all the time.

Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've probably figured this out by now, but in case you haven't gotten there yet, a vast majority of the systems and/or components of systems that make up the electronic infrastructure are made in China. If you think they are just a bunch of dummies blindly manufacturing things designed by the vastly superior minds of the west, you're kidding yourself. If anyone has outfitted the grid with backdoors to aid in future espionage efforts, its the Chinese.

Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world?

[winkydink]

Who are these US manufacturers of which you speak? They are gone.

War on $foo

[onkelonkel]

I thought "War on ......" was a American euphemism for "an unsolvable problem we will futilely waste vast resources on in an ongoing and unsuccesful attempt to solve using means and methods long ago shown not to work." (Sounds like a corporate mission statement, doesn't it)

"War on Poverty," "War on Drugs," and "War on Terrorism" are perfect examples.