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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."
Take, for example this story which includes the quote:
Let's not forget how important our information infrastructures are and how dependent we have been on computers for quite sometime. Let's also not forget common rules of war one of which is cutting off an enemy's supply line ASAP to reduce their cone of influence. A pre-emptive move to "test the waters" of U.S. security by China would not surprise me.
My work here is dung.
Does this sound like another blame game when something bad happens in USA? If they have already traced the source and still couldn't fend it off, I don't know what they would do next, calling President Hu?
These attacks come from someone with intense discipline. No other organization could do this if they were not a military organization
Does this rhyme with "Space exploration is both demanding and dangerous. No other nations could do this if they did not have a space shuttle".
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
This was brought up on my local SAGE mailing list earlier. Someone brought up the good point: Aren't there an awful lot of news stories recently (heck, there've been three on /. in the past few days) villianizing China? Almost as if some large government- or media-induced program is going on to remind us how Evil they are and influence the collective consciousness to be in favor of breaking off relations with the most populous nation on Earth? (Or, to some extreme, treating them like our last Axis of Evil?)
so does this mean in the coming information war they are going to use that commie OS, what is it...
Linux, I think it's called?
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
Nice try, China! Your silly attempts to raise yourself to the level of the U.S. will never succeed. The U.S. is the dominant super power and always will be!
Just ask Britain and France! If anyone understands that national standing on the international scene, once established, is permanent... it's them!
I'm a big tall mofo.
Does this, combined with the Air Force's new mission statement, constitute an Act of War?
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.
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.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Just ask anyone involved in the free Tibet movement or any of the ISP's that host websites with the words free Tibet, they used to get massive attacks from DOS right through to serious and well planned attempts to hack these sites. Spent an entire week assisting the fending off of one of these and having to rebuild a server after the attack got through with it.
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.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
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.
"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 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.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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.
I have been worried for a long time about the apparent naivete of the U.S. government and military regarding the Chinese.
The Chinese government and military are extremely savvy so long as they are not blinded by their communist dogma. When it comes to trade, information, spying, and weapons technology, they understand the reality that those who play fair lose.
If you are a businessman, have no illusions that your papers and files are safe in your hotel room in China. There have been documented cases of government-sponsored spies following businessmen and bugging or entering their hotel rooms to scour their belongings for useful trade secrets and intellectual property.
We can see clearly that they are pursuing a strategy of mercantilism in trade, to our great disadvantage, thanks to the cluelessness of free-traders in Congress and the White House.
Who can doubt that the same issues exist with regard to sensitive military information? The Chinese sponsor students to come to the U.S. with the express goal sometimes of infiltrating research staffs and supplying tech info back to China. The same surely occurs with U.S. government and military employees, although the screening is more thorough.
In my opinion, the CHinese government would see hacking U.S. government or military sites as a requirement for successful international competition. Hopefully, the NSA and others like them are on top of the problem. I don't doubt, though, that they have gained access to lots of systems on the lower end of the confidentiality spectrum.
It needs to be impressed on people in government, military, and intelligence work, that the Chinese are playing one mean game of chess in everything they do vis-a-vis the U.S. Their sense of time spans centuries and millennia rather than decades. Any suspicious activity on their part needs to be treated with the greatest skepticism by our guys, rather than with apathy or giving them the benefit of the doubt...
STEEE-RIKE!!!
sarcasm -------->
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you
From your second paragraph (the first one quoted above), it appears we've already figured out what to do to cause harm to them.