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China Taking on U.S. in Cyber Arms Race
Pabugs writes with a CNN story about an uncomfortable development in world politics and information technology. According to General Robert Elder, an Air Force military man setting up a 'cyber command' in Louisiana's Barksdale Air Force Base, the nation of China is already in the process of developing their own 'cyber warfare' techniques. While Elder described the bulk of China's operations as focusing on espionage, they and others around the world have more serious goals in mind. "The Defense Department said in its annual report on China's military power last month that China regarded computer network operations -- attacks, defense and exploitation -- as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. China's People's Liberation Army has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, the Pentagon said. China also was investing in electronic countermeasures and defenses against electronic attack, including infrared decoys, angle reflectors and false-target generators, it said."
China can be expected to increase strategic intelligence operations with respect to the United States and its other adversaries, especially as it continues its campaign for "multi-polarity". China employs a wide range of intelligence efforts with respect to the United States, many of which can be traced directly to intelligence capabilities within China's military and government establishment. Because China believes that the United States is a primary adversary, even as the US provides a good deal of the facilitation of China's growth, China can still be expected to continue and increase its strategic intelligence operations with respect to the US.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, China in some ways became the de facto ideological leader of the worldwide Communist movement. China found that it could use international Communist groups and networks, just as the Soviets did, to find persons sympathetic to the causes of Communism and socialism. Indeed, China has actively interacted with and supported international Communists, even persons or organizations known to be involved in criminal activities such a counterfeiting and money laundering. Chinese government officials have been known to meet with those in Communist organizations and student groups abroad, and there are indications such resources are leveraged in a similar fashion as with Russian intelligence.
As something of a flag bearer for world Communism, Beijing has become a "second Rome for Marxism-Leninism". China's Communists, much like the former Soviet Union's, believe world socialism is inevitable and that the Americans are a symbol of what is standing in their way. With the Soviets, the watchword was American "imperialism"; with the Chinese, American "hegemony". However, the Chinese also understand that many in the United States and the West in general view Communism negatively. As such, resources are also devoted to putting forth the images of Capitalism and quasi-democratic ideals, even as the vast populace of China enjoys no such benefit therefrom.
Part of China's strategic campaign is aided by its own system of government. As a system of government with control over much its own press, and even considerable influence over foreign press, China is executing an internal propaganda campaign against the United States with China's own people. At any opportunity, US intentions are painted as at best questionable and at worst aggressive and malicious. This environment, over time, will continue to enhance any support among the general populace for anti-US policy, or actions that must be taken against the United States, possibly with respect to quasi-autonomous disputed areas, such as Taiwan. Without access to multiple viewpoints on a situation, the Chinese people are fed a picture of the world as the Communist leadership wants it seen. Today, that includes mass censorship of the internet, and any sites associated with resistance movements, reformist groups, human rights organizations, and so on.
The propaganda does not stop at China's borders. The effort extends internationally, as China labors to appear clothed in the ideals of Capitalism and free markets - which it, in turn, knows will be seen by many experts as indicative of the decline of Communism. Some propaganda operations are not so subtle, with international news organizations living under the threat of losing their Beijing presence if information that is perceived too negative is published about China.
The continuing enhancement of these ideas lead to easing of trade restrictions, which in turn increases the transfer of high technology into China, and, especially, the finances so critically needed for the silent buildup of China's strength, military and otherwise. China is diligently working to continue to build its conventional army and navy, while also growing its strategic and high technology military capabilities. Chinese military theorists have envisioned new battlefields, where conflict does not happen in open warfare but also on the Internet, via the worl
The American people are paying for it all too. Isn't that nice of them.
Deleted
I gotta say that it feels like that particular war's started already, and it's just that nobody actually told us.
Whether intentional or just a result of all those pirated copies of Winderz, the sheer number of bot-net/zombie attacks coming from China is staggering.
Too bad the "Great Firewall of China" is so concerned about information going IN to the country... I guess its perfectly fine if a citizen's computer sends thousands of emails for v1@gr@ or posts a zillion commercial messages into someone's threaded discussions... Just as long as it doesn't inform the user of how they've got very little freedom and a horrible standard of living, or say anything bad about the Chinese gub'ment!
The Digital Sorceress
but at least people won't be killed by these weapons.. perhaps
of a new Cold War? This time not with nukes, but cyber warfare?
I'm fairly sure I saw almost that exact quote on Slashdot about a month ago. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/28/183 5250
Eh?
The article doesn't seem to explain what the hell these are supposed to be - can someone enlighten me? It seems as though, by branding ICT warfare as "electromagnetic warfare", they've confused the issue somewhat. What does infrared have to do with internet tubes and a bunch of ones and zeros?
If they mean "Chaff and Mirrors", well... what the hell? Whom did they get this info from, and were they trying not to giggle when they said it? Or did I just not grasp the article properly?
Meta will eat itself
China's going to defeat the US with pirated copies of it's own OS. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
does that come as a surprise to you? ;)
They got more Holywood computer science fictions movies as their reference while China has more kungfu movies.
-- tinyhack.com
I'm more concerned how much of the US debt china owns. Imagine china dumping all the debt and buying Euros. Pretty much most articles I have read said it would crush the dollar. That alone would probably be enough to start and end a war all at once.
The US has been to war with so many countries that have posed even the slightest economical threat that who is really surprised that the US is in the beginning stages of building a case of going to war against China. I'm not saying this definitely is CIA misinformation... but there is a CIA propaganda department, I would certainly be releasing all of the negative news about China, real or not. We all know by now how our government can put a twist on wars, going back to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_W ar
It makes perfect sense to start out with small bits of propaganda to slowly win the publics opinion, that way we (the public) wont even realize it has happened.
I'm also not saying that China is perfect, neither was Iraq. But Iraq was much better off 7 years ago.
I feel sorry for Iraq, I don't want to have to feel sorry for China in a few years.
Take one down, pass it around, 0 bottles of beer on the wall :/
They stole/bought all their technology in the 1990's from the Clinton Administration (remember the Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers?) in trade for campaign contributions to the Democrats. Since sanity has returned to the White House under Bush, they have nothing new. Just keep Hillary out of WH and we will be OK.
Britain's new warships run -- you've guessed it -- Microsoft Windows 2000. So in the event of a war between Britain and China, this could bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".
I wonder what imaginary land the US military and political leaders live in that makes them think they could tool up in space and land defense systems and have no-one else respond...
If China had started first, the US would be responding, and it would be 'Right' and 'Good' that they do so.
China is doing exactly the same thing, and it's bad? Hello? Reality calling, this is not a surprise....
access list 110 deny ip any any
Victory.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
It'll be interesting to see what China (and Asia in general) does in the next 50 years. On one hand, they publicly denounce the US and treat us like an enemy. On the other, we've pretty much lost all of our manufacturing capability to them. No US producer can ignore their vast quantities of cheap labor and hospitable business climate. Now that the Communists have no real power there, what's going to fill in the void?
What will be even more interesting is a conflict that forces us to begin manufacturing domestically again. I wonder how long it'll take to ramp up all the factories that closed up during the last 30 years or so?
Any country on Earth with enough technological resources to protect would be stupid not to start thinking about ways to defend it in a conflict. China's no exception.
squash this bug and NORAD will be back up in no time. Where's that shelter again?
.. there's always a way in ..
Ok, could somebody please explain to me what classifies as a cyber-attack? It seems all these are applicable only to public Internet, not private networks. What's all the fuss?
Targeted, distributed DDos against goverment websites? Ok. I can see that (see what happened in Estonia). Lots of mitigating technologies including but not limited to stuff like BGP blackholing and so on and the most obvious attack vector. However, is there really anything else?
Breaking into systems? Ok, but do you really have anything critical on a public webservers and other Internet-facing systems? This isn't the 80's when things like Cuckoo's Egg happened easily and some systems didn't even have passwords. Of course admins in several organizations are incompetent, but it's not like you could play Wargames (ie. launch nukes or similar), since those systems are not connected to Internet.
Mostly I'm thinking what exactly is the impact of all this? A temporarily blocked access to public websites? What else is there? "Cyber-attack" just seems a buzzword. What do they mean?
Or do they really have attacks going against private, supposedly secure networks (perhaps intercepting satellite communications or undersea fibers?)
Stupid Amerikuns paying China Billions a year in trade. Stupid, stupid. Made by Chinese is cheap but stupid amerikuns like cheap.
Doesn't help that China feels as if it is being excluded and threatened by a potential alliance between Japan, Australia, the US and India. More on this if I can work out where I put my newspaper...
THUD~*
A lot of US companies are outsourcing software development to China. Hardware vendors are moving the bulk of their manufacturing to China. At the same time, the US military is relying more and more on off the shelf software and hardware. Seems to me that there's ample opportunity for mischief (hidden trojans, etc.). Curious, that no one seems to be concerned about this.
[Insert pithy quote here]
If so, they have the right.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"Cyber Arms Race"
I read cyber arms race and thought of USA vs CHINA with two whole teams of campers with AWPs.
I am an american studying in China, and can say that I have not seen a single legal copy of xp, music cds, dvds, software, or in fact, any electronic media. Even Chinese movies are nearly completely ripped off even though they cost about $1.5 USD. My friend bought a laptop here and it came with complimentary copies of photoshop, xp, office, and more. The environment here is nothing like you would picture communism to be. In fact, it isn't communism at all. Chinese communism means something entirely different than Soviet communism meant, just as democracy means something different to every country. The people here don't dislike the US. They are not brainwashed to do so. Most people simply do not care about big issues. There are definitely important international issues though. The Taiwan situation is a significant example. Taiwan is a hot issue here, but most people just want to make enough money to be able to buy more. True capitalists. Furthermore, the laws are completely different than the actual situation. Enforcement is selective, and many laws are not enforced at all. As to provide insight into the actual story: every major country has information security and warfare as a priority. Why would China not want to? Also, as far as China is concerned, Taiwan is a rogue state... why should security not be important in that context as well? China and the US are MAJOR trading partners. The US and the Soviet Union were not so much. The list goes on...
This is a race to see who can be the most expensive, adversarial, angry, destructive, and lacking in social sophistication. I've had Chinese friends and acquaintances in 5 countries, and I'm betting on the U.S. government being more mentally ill than the Chinese government.
Frankly, that's what it is, a kind of socially contagious mental illness.
I work for the day when the U.S. government is able to live in the world without killing other people. The mental illness of the U.S. government encourages unstable government leaders everywhere to be more unstable.
The U.S. government's killing is motivated by the desire of a few rich people to make more money. For example, see: Coups Arranged or Backed by the USA.
I love the United States. Do you? If you do, show it by resisting the craziness.
they don't represent an ideological threat they represent a power center threat. that's a big, fundamental difference, and a crucial one in how to view china
ideologically, the chinese are severely compromised: a communist system only in name. in actuality the chinese are more capitalist than the worst excesses of the gilded age under the robber barons. witness the latest scandals just today: disgusting child labor and fake and deadly products
this hypercapitalism is resulting in gated communities of ultrarich next to a countryside of desperate and teeming poor. communist my ass. china is orders of magnitude more capitalist than any society on this planet. and ruled by a "Communist Party". ha!
ideologically bankrupt, china is therefore just a power center. the only real threats to the united states and the west are ideological ones. centers of power without an ideological center cannot grow and spread, but merely sit there. in actually the reverse holds true: power centers without ideology fall under the sway of other foreign ideologies, and the chinese in that respect are ripe to fall under the influence of a new ideology. the only real model close to anything china coudl become being a western democratic one
i actually hold no illusions that democracy will cheerfully and without resistance spread across china any time soon. china is historically bureaucratic and authoritarian, and will in fact take generations to go truly democratic, if ever. but if china is on course anywhere, however slow, it is towards that kind of enlightenment. it's either that or the continuation of the longstanding chinese historical tradition of stifling authoritarianism and layers of indolent bureaucracy. which would be a shame, as it would doom china to the long term decay and inwardness and lack of progress that it faced centuries before. china in fact has a chance to democratize now, with difficulty, and with every passing decade the chance of that becomes less, and the certainty of its historical bureaucratic inertia reasserting itself becomes more
there is only one other real ideological threat in this world, something china is not in danger of coming under, and something that is a real threat to the usa: militant islamic fundamentalism. i fear and worry about a theocracy in tehran with an atomic bomb way way more than i worry about the chinese. the chinese are ideologically dead in the water. tehran meanwhile is ideologically muscular and virulent
the west did in fact defeat/ witness the collapse of communism. don't fool yourself into thinking communism is still a threat. the only real threat today to the west is militant islamic fundamentalism. the chinese meanwhile are ideologically toothless, and therefore no real threat. they just want to make money
i say to the chinese: remember and listen to the plan sun yat sen laid out a century before for china. sun yat sen, the hero to both the nationalists and the chinese:
1. expel foreigners. done
2. centralize power. done
3. democratize. not done. yet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Forget the Chinese, we Canucks already have all your contractors pegged with our Supr-Dupr Spy Coins! All your base are belong to us!
Why does anyone believe anything that comes out of the Pentagon any more?
Virtually all potential U.S. foes also were scanning U.S. networks for trade and defense secrets, he added.
"Everyone but North Korea," he said. "We've concluded that there must be only one laptop in all of North Korea -- and that guy's not allowed to scan overseas networks," Elder said.
It was my understanding that the US government has basically decided they also want to do this so that they could do the same thing in similar circumstances.
Why on Earth would they be surprised that someone else would do this?
I mean, the US continues to build up its missile defense and loads of other things and saying other countries shouldn't worry about it. But, it's not really realistic to assume that everyone else will just sit by while the US ramps up their capabilities.
I don't imagine any of the super-powers (or budding ones) want to fall behind on such things.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
China will strike first by freezing all World of Warcraft gold farming accounts thereby causing chaos online.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks"
Why don't they make a 'computer system' that don't get viruses. And anyone who uses a computer on a military network that is suseptable to 'viruses' needs their collective heads examined. Besides which the real US military network is isolated from the Internet. Besides which winSEC was diluted so that the security services could monitor the real enemy, their own people.
davecb5620@gmail.com
...to fly and fight in air, space, and cyberspace Also, Barksdale AFB was the first place the president was flown after 9/11, so as you can tell it's a major base.The US's critical defense systems are completely isolated from the internet. I fully expect the same of our Chinese counterparts. That leaves only civilian targets. The only goals that either side could have in mind involve the total crippling of the opposing countries economy and infrastructure. Imagine not a nuclear wasteland, but rather an economic one. No food shipments, no way to buy food with no income, etc. Imagine the chaos that would ensue as everyone tried to get by and the country's own government would be forced to intercede by way of martial law (with still no food for the general population). Thousands to millions of civilians would die.
On one hand, from a military perspective - great idea. On the other hand, from a war crimes perspective, these people fucking suck and should be tried as war criminals should they ever give the order to execute these plans.
The last couple decades have shown just the opposite: How devistating a small, but well trained and equipped military can be. Some nations have moved away form conscription because of it (like France). What we are seeing is the inability of a small military to deal with guerrillas, which is an entirely different thing.
The question with China isn't if they could build a lot, but could they do anything with it. The first challenge they'd face is getting all that stuff across the ocean. This would not be a quick voyage, the US would notice immediately, and the ocean is full of US subs. Even supposing they did, they'd face the same problem the US does now in Iraq: A local populace that hates your guts, is armed, and can tell you apart because you look different.
A 10 million man army doesn't get you anything if it gets sunk on the way over, and it would take only a few dozen good hunter-killer subs to do that, which the US has.
If your goal is to decimate your enemy then enough well placed bombs would destroy their infrastructure in no time. We could do most of it from our own soil. We have been involved in some rather unconventional wars in the last couple of decades. With the advent of precision weapons and stealth bombers it wouldn't be too hard. That said, I hope it never comes to that.
( You stated: "The propaganda does not stop at China's borders." )
The propaganda starts with the world's biggest gunrunner .
Sincerely,
K. Trout, C.E.O.
General: I need a new laptop for my shiny presentations!!!
Lieutenant: Let's scare the hell out everybody saying that the China is going to pwnz0r our a$$e$.
General: lolz! sweet man!
The Politburo asks Chairman Mao for a statement. He says "We run out of Americans first".
Now look at the world map, preferably centred on the North Pole, think about global warming, and think _where_ an invading Chinese army would be heading.
Pining for the fjords
The article continues:
"On the positive side, US corporations are supplying the hacking tools for both sides, as encouraged by the US State Department..."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Why should you be discomforted, unless you are currently enjoying uncontested military strength, i.e. are the US or one of its close political allies? Yahoo might give up a journalist to the Chinese, but the Chinese won't give up a BitTorrent user to the RIAA. There is no such thing as Freedom or Oppression. Only kinds of freedom, and kinds of oppression. The US has one set and China has another, and the fact that more nations are building tools against imperialism and global hegemony (i.e. nukes that can be aimed at the US or local projections of the US) is a good thing, so long as the US still possesses them.
"The US's critical defense systems are completely isolated from the internet. "
What about people who have passwords to the military system on their person device?
People who are in the military but use voip for there non-military time conversations?
I could go on.
Yes, there are civilian targets. Radio stations, power grids, etc.
This is an expected development and should surprise no one.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
& the U.S. doesn't do any of this?
No, it doesn't. It does a bit here and there but it has no effective overall strategy.
I swear, we as Americans are so freaking self-righteous!
You misspelled either 'complacent' or 'doomed' but I don't know which; either would make sense.
You speak of "the spread of propaganda" & the use of "deception, disinformation & influence" by the Chinese yet we, as Americans, have been doing it for MUCH longer!
No, you haven't. You want to think you have, but you haven't. There has never been an American propaganda initiative that was 5% as effective as the Chinese PR machine for their attack on India. You wish you could do it (and then you'd have fun feeling all guilty about it) but you can't. Do you think the Iraq strategy would be in such a mess if you could do what the Chinese did in 1962?
I know of what I speak. So can you, if you read Xinhua every day. Just read it. After a few months, you will start to believe. It is a whole other history, a whole other way of looking at the world. America has nothing like it. That is why America is losing; that is why America is cast as the bad guy when they invade one lousy country for oil or whatever, and China gets to flatten the whole of central Asia, northeast Asia, and half Africa as far as I can see by this point, and yet remain Teh Cool.
You lost already. Going "oh but we are so bad for employing these elite evil technologies and techniques, teehee, oh wicked wicked us for being so kickass" does not help. Watch Fox, watch CNN, watch Al-Jazeera, even watch the BBC if you have to, and you will see different spins, different biases, different points of view. Watch Xinhua even in English and you will see a different reality. "Tibetan People Bask In Glow Of Rosy Future". When you can come up with a headline like that and have 1/3 of the world take it as truth, THEN you will be making progess.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
...is to write it in the whitespace on $100 bills. They're quite happy to accept the free flow of our money, but not the free flow of information. I'll hereby dub this IP over TD, or "IP over Trade Deficit". Working on the RFC now.
First off, everyone step back and take a good look at what is at stake here. Neither China nor the U.S. of A. will destroy the other country's economy or infrastructure. Nor will these governments destroy their new toy - the internet.
So what WILL they do? Stand side by side and have a pissing contest to see which country can get the other one to spend the most on "defense".
Nothing to see now - or for the next thirty years. But this is a sign of where techs should look for new jobs.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
"US Tries to take on China in Cyber Warfare Tech"
This is what that headline should read.
By population; if the United States has 10,000
people with math and electrical engineering degrees
working on electronic-warfare technology. China by scale
would have 100,000 people with similar accreditation
working on the same stuff. The Chinese also import
technologies from many other nations as well.
Statistically speaking, who do you think would win
this type of arms race?
If electronic warfare is such a threat,
why not try using a pencil and paper?
Bring it on. The first time a minor military skirmish takes out 90% of the desktops wired to the internet, the Microsoft's and wantabee's of the world will take the brunt of the criticism. We have warned them for 20 years about security issues. There is no excuse.
"Gen. Elder isn't just "some guy" starting a 'cyber command' in Louisiana (The secretary of the Air Force, along with some other military personel are in the process of creating it, and it should be ready this Summer); he is going to be the head of the Air Force Cyberspace Command [wikipedia.org], the new MAJCOM (major division of the Air Force, now there are 10), which is headquarted in Louisiana. This MAJCOM was specifically set up for this kind of thing, fulfilling the last line of the mission of the Air Force: ...to fly and fight in air, space, and cyberspace"
How may American jobs depend on there being a Chinese Cyber Threat (CCT)(whatever that is?)
100? 1000? More?
So there had better BE a CCT, hadn't there?
We now know without a doubt that a large part of the intel community were willing to make up stories about WMD in order to keep their jobs, and to satisfy a political directive. How much easier is it to make up cyber threats, which can be conjured out of thin air, or 'mistaken' local spam?
When you are looking at all this don't believe Hollywood. Look at the bottom line.
Look at these poor motherfuckers!
t m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6757609.s
"China's a pussy. I'm gonna burying that *bleepin* country"
Just as long as it doesn't inform the user of how they've got very little freedom and a horrible standard of living, or say anything bad about the Chinese gub'ment!
Aha!
1) Develop one's own virus/bot package to attack vulnerable computers
2) Deploy bot net
3) Program all computers on bot net to begin spamming the world (including the Chinese Secret Police) about China's lousy human rights record, Tiananmen Square, and Falun Gong.
4) All such computers in China are taken out and shot, along with their owners
5) Spam levels reduce
6) Email becomes useful again for respectable commerce
7) Deploy e-commerce site
8) PROFIT!!!!
Patent pending, of course...
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
While China is clearly a growing world power, nearly all of this power is derived from pure manpower and numbers.
Actually, their natural resources aren't too miserable. Not great, but not miserable.
Really though, stopping them shouldn't be hard, if someone is willing to be ruthless enough. Their prime blind spot is a near-complete lack of concern for environmental safety. Ergo, Evil Geniuses for a Better Tommorrow (Inc.) should set up a few shell companies to start manufacturing products for within the Chinese that are legal but not safe, and which maximize toxic releases during manufacture. Ideally, this should be done as close as possible to major population clusters of high Communist Party leadership, and prefer stable bioaccumulative toxins. ("Plutonium may give you grief for thousands of years, but arsenic is forever." Good Omens) A toxin leading to widespread male sterility as well would be perfect. And the companies might even be profitable, which would help the cash flow problems implict from the trade balance. The ideal covert operation: one that not only pays for itself, but turns a profit.
No, I am NOT a nice person. I'm a cautious sociopath with an inclination to long-term planning. Get over it.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
apparently it isn't a scene anymore.
Just remember, we saved China's ASS in WWII Too ! Otherwise they'd all be speaking, or turning, Japanense. I really think so !
As the gp stated, China is primarily authoritarian these days. Their communist ideology has been greatly softened, to the point where the official hero is not the little worker bee anymore, whose path to glory consisted of sowing his comrades' shoes at night and in anonymity. Instead, party propaganda is trying to leverage old sages like Lao Tse to cement their authority.
Communism is nothing but a tool for political control in the hands of the Chinese Central Authority. They realized that the consistent pursuit of communism won't turn them into an economic super power, even if it provided the easiest way to justify and cement their claim as the supreme political authority in the land. Instead, their rediscovered love of mercantilism needs a different type of political justification - hence their shift away from strict communism and towards historical/legendary chinese philosophers.
I'm not sure what to make of your rabid attachment to the idea that China is a communist country. All I can say is that you're completely missing the picture, and have absolutely no understanding about what drives China, where it wants to be and how it intends to get there. For a quick and dirty primer on China today, read this: http://www.economist.com/countries/China/. You might claim that everyone around you has been successfully brain washed by China, but I contend that you're obsession with communists has prevented you from seeing China's evolution from its hard-core communism in the 60s towards an economic, political and military super power whose preferred ideology is the one that gets them there.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Simply because one doesn't subscribe to the principles of moral relativism, in the negative sense of the term, does not make one a moral absolutist, in the similarly negative connotation.
Rather, some people are realistic: some differences are the result of legitimate cultural and philosophical differences, as opposed to "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil"; but at the same time, there are intrinsically better ways of doing things if you believe that freedom is a universally valuable principle.
When you distill everything down to being nothing but several equally valid positions, you diminish the principles that those who typically promote such ideas benefit from tremendously (i.e., the very freedoms that allow them to pontificate from the comfortable chair).
I've been wondering how long it would take to get Slashdot banned by the great Firewall of China after this disucssion. I guess it hasn't happened yet...
Ick - you're studying military intelligence, and this is the best they can teach you? Scary. Looks like there's at least another Iraq-style intelligence fiasco in our future. In case you're wondering, that fiasco was one of analysis and conclusion, not of data.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
How is the Chinese leadership Communist? Please describe specific ideologies, approaches and goals that show their communist tendencies. I'm just wondering how you're going to manage that without resorting to the American definition of Communism: "authoritarian government with populist crowd control methods that doesn't like the US".
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I seem to remember this old post re: China and their internet attack techniques and the dangers of assuming any sort of traditional warfare tactics. China, as well as any other connected country, can build mobile computation networks that would consist of hardcore hackers-- the typo who happen to also be tough-as-nails, rip phonebooks with their bare hands, and have the classic "scruffy looking" persona about them, in transit from one location to the next. Just small towns, nothing really spectacular. Satellite-tracking of these groups would be reduced since they are travelling separately in various cars, trucks, planes, basically it would look like a group of guys on a road trip. Furthermore, they could have entire botnets installed in their targets. Lots of possible tactics, and they all sound fun yet dangerously easy with the right brains behind the operation.
The idiocy of our government crying about the growing threat from China is that WE gave it the resources. It was our idiotic "free" market economics that opened up China to most favored nation status. It was our idiotic international trade policies (like the WTO which doesn't base tariffs on traditional foundations like human and worker rights and diplomatic relationships) that force our workers to compete with indentured servants and near-slave labor. It's our greed that is sending manufacturing plants overseas. Is anyone surprised that the trade secrets within them is being stolen by the host countries? Hell, even the bourgeois financial analysts on cable news are saying "invest overseas" without a clue about the sad irony in their advice.
Now, someone explain to me again how free market or libertarian policies are making this country stronger? We've tried all this BS before and it failed just as hard and fast the LAST time!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Someone must have forgetten the fact that every computer in China hosts either Intel or AMD processors. Those two brands are owned by U.S. of A., if I'm not wrong.. If we goes to 'cyber-war', we will be soon running out of CPUs of messive destruction!
China, in fact, is very fragile.
Whether intentional or just a result of all those pirated copies of Winderz, the sheer number of bot-net/zombie attacks coming from China is staggering. You think the botnets are the start of the war? China has pegged their economy to the US's for 30 years using their currency as an economic weapon, and the US is only now waking to the fact. It's brilliant! Where are the US factories? Where all the US knowledge going? China.
Read Sun Tsu... "Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
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But surely they've repaid that 'debt' in Korea and Vietnam.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
I'm not exactly a virus expert, but I've always thought that countries might try to attack each others economies with targeted viruses. For example, the virus checks something simple like the regional settings and can see that it is a US computer and therefore delivers its nasty payload. It may be difficult to determine exactly where it came from and even if you could, you could never really prove such a thing was a government sponsored action at all. China could just arrest and shoot one of the usual suspects if they are put under any pressure.
I know DOD, NSA, and CIA are not surprised.
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Politicians and news folks Fox/CNN/... only want to
surprise the USA Citizens/public for rating purposes.
Yes, some GOs/FAs are great politicians with agendas.
Look up some stuff about "Titan Rain" and even that was old news for some folks.
Time Magazine:
The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies (And the Man Who Tried to Stop Them)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,
Remember the recent persecution and jailing of "Two" US Border Patrol folks
(by US) for doing their job and trying to stop drug smugglers?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ART
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhRWRbqIvtU
This type of stuff goes back many years even before
the present gang of politicians; So, "NO CHANGE"!
Don't worry, be happy, !HAVEFUN!
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I honestly believe in Open source and the free software movement.
But I have to wonder if as long as we have countries that are separate, sovereign entities if open source allows an enemy nation to create weapons by exploiting from flaws in code on a scale much more dangerous than a single evil hacker or group of organized criminals.
You can be sure of one thing. The Chinese military (or other Military in other countries) will probably not release back into the general community flaws or fixes for vulnerabilities and exploits they find.
I've read the same article a dozen times in the past year.
"China is the enemy"
"China is a threat"
"China is growing too powerful to be interested in peace."
Yada, yada.
It's ALL bullshit.
The US government, like all governments, NEEDS "enemies" to justify its existence. If it doesn't have a significant enemy, it will create one. Ergo, Iraq, Iran, North Korea - and China - and now even Russia AGAIN.
Of course, the Chinese government is doing the same thing to ITS people. Just substitute "the USA" for the above statements about being a threat.
Meanwhile the citizenry of every country continues to pay through the nose in taxes and regulations to people whose sole function in life is to order everybody else around and start wars to justify their existence.
Suckers.
You want peace?
Kill your "leaders".
Then pay attention to your own business and leave everybody else alone to deal with theirs.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I think such costly operations should be outsourced. American taxpayer money should not be spent on such costly projects. For once American government should follow the advice it gives to private sector.
I always wonder about the 'Us vs. Them' kind of angle
in stories.
Is it really a problem if the United States isn't the
defacto world leader in everything.
The world isn't going to end if China is able to
defend itself against some completely theoretical threat.
When it comes to economic prowess the U.S. is slowly sliding
into economic obscurity. With that change, the U.S. ability
to fund a huge military will also dry up. It's completely
predictable when the unrecoverable level of U.S. debit
is taken into account. Technology comes from both necessity
and ingenuity. The need for spending money to make new
weapons systems will be superceded by the most basic needs
of the U.S. population.
This is likely a good thing. Less pressure to compete with
the U.S. level of per capita military spending will allow
other nations to also make reductions. This will include
China.
With the U.S. no longer a big economic and military
force in the world it will become less of a focus for
psychotic pseudo-religious morons like Al Queda, etc..
The thing that has historically caused the most problems
for the U.S. is the periodically insular eruption of
the 'Us Vs. Them' mentality.
It's NOT us vs. them. It's all of us in the same boat
and we need to find ways to fix it up and keep it afloat.
Otherwise, all the electronic warfare technology in the
universe won't mean anything. There won't be any power to
plug it into.
I would build a billion cheap PCs meant to run the operating system with the weakest security and try to get them used in as many places as possible. I would build and export inexpensive network infrastructure devices that were cheap enough to be located in every home and business. Then I would sit back and wait for the viruses to take it all apart. This would most likely happen if one particular insecure (closed source) operating system was to be used almost everywhere so that a targeted virus would do the most damage. Meanwhile the company selling the insecure operting system would gleefully sit there making money and feel superior. IMHO.