Chinese "Cyber-Attack" US Department of Commerce

Kranfer writes "The register has an article about how the Chinese have recently launched an attack against the US Department of Commerce. From the article: '...attacks originating from computer crackers largely located in China's Guangdong province are aimed at extracting sensitive information from targets such as the Commerce Department's technology export office. Security consultants and US government officials reckon the assaults have at least the tacit support of the Chinese government...' This is not the first time Chinese hackers have attempted to gain access to US Government systems."

Comments

Block China From the Firewall

[organgtool]

I was going to suggest blocking all traffic coming from the IP range of addresses from China, but they could easily circumvent that by using a proxy outside of China. Maybe the U.S. Department of Commerce could create a welcome message that promotes democrary and condemns the inhumane treatment of the Chinese government and have that message appear before prompting for the username. That traffic would probably get blocked by the Great Firewall of China. When your weapons fail to work, turn your enemy's weapons against them.

Re:Block China From the Firewall

[smilindog2000]

That would really PO the Chinese. They hate it when we point at their miserable human-rights record in public. A better way IMO to deal with the Chinese is to work behind the scenes to get them to improve while publicly praising their efforts. IMO, Chinese culture cares much about 'face', a concept of honor that requires the appearance of respect, even if we bicker shamelessly behind closed doors. Bush routinely shows his ignorance of the Chinese by publicly lashing them, and then he gets bent out of shape when the Chinese retaliate with substance rather than words.

When the Chinese accidentally rammed one of our surveillance planes was a great example. Bush immediately publicly blamed the Chinese overly-hostile pilots (who were, of course, at fault), and demanded back our plane and it's crew. The correct course would have been to call the Chinese first, and negotiate terms for getting our plane and crew back secretly. IMO, the Chinese can be far more reasonable if we agree to put on a face showing friendship, cooperation, and respect for each other. We could have agreed to publicly call it a freak accident, with no one to blame. That probably would have gotten our guys and maybe even the plane back far quicker.

So, I think changing the web site to shame the Chinese government would be a bad idea. Instead, we should work with the Chinese behind close doors to solve the problem. Of course, that wont end Chinese spying on the US, nor will it end our spying on them. In general, I feel that it is good for world stability when we know the truth about each other. Fear of the unknown can cause major problems (like WMD in Iraq).