Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Military Hacked Into Pentagon
iFrated informs us of a successful penetration of US Defense Department computers by the Chinese military last June. From the article: "The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defense secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the [Chinese] People's Liberation Army. One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a 'very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty' that the PLA was responsible." The PLA is also accused of breaking into German government computers, including a network in the office of the Chancellor.
Here's the deal.... While I acknowledge that there is a potential risk of engagement (and the big Navy folks desperately want this possibility to be the case), I have a tough time thinking that China will allow the PLA to escalate this much given the financial commitments that Chinese industry is trying to maintain and expand with the West..... especially prior to the Olympics. That said, I expect more "defense" related activity in the guise of IT based attacks and probes from the PLA rather than traditional military actions in the future.
It will be interesting to see just what form the response to these sorts of attacks will take. Hard-liners will want old school military war games and confrontation, but I suspect steps like US and EU invalidation of Chinese purchased US and EU debt and economic sanctions will be far more effective.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
What is the US going to do?
Nothing. Quite frankly China has tested the limits of both the US and UN for years, and neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations were willing or capable of doing anything. With problems in Iran, Syria, North Korea, oh and those two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US does not have the capability to swat a fly elsewhere, let alone threaten the military might of China.
China knows they can get away with such actions, so they will. If you don't believe me, look up recent actions regarding Taiwan, Tibet and East Timor, amongst other things. China also does nothing to combat the millions of dollars in lost US revenue from stolen IP, yet we give them favored trading partner status, making our trade deficit worse.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Pentagon hack into you.
I know this is gonna sound like a troll to some, but it isn't, imo. But with Microsoft's shared source program with governments (China's included) what if they found an exploit and and simply didn't tell Microsoft, but instead used it to their advantage. Could shared source create problems such as this? I know the military uses Windows for most of its computers (at least when I got out last year). Not sure about the ones attacked, however. Just some musings from me.
DoD unclass networks aren't any more secure than your standard corporate ones. Obviously, it's not good if the Chinese (or anyone) gain unauthorized access to them. But hacking something like JWICS or even SIPRnet would be much more disturbing.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
Gates was probably just playing WoW and got his account hacked.
NIPRNet? SIPRNet? Or higher?
If it was just the NIPRNet, then if the Office of the Secretary of Defense was following the correct computer security rules only unclassified information was compromised.
Questions:
* were they secured computers? You know, the ones networked via fiber in concrete-filled conduits so that the physical layer can't be compromised?
* is this even a new thing?
Assumptions:
Is everyone so sure that the US hasn't ALREADY hacked the Chinese computers?
Before everyone gets their panties in an uproar, some context would be nice.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Rereading the GP, I think he may have been trying to make the same point I was going for; I didn't realize that Microsoft's revealing of the Windows source code to governments was part of the "Shared Source" program (I thought "Shared Source" was just the code name for their quasi-OSS stuff, available to anyone).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You know, America has tested Chinas resolve for years by sending hackers into its systems, yet China isn't willing or capable to do anything. With hundreds of American military bases around the world and a mass of troops in Japan, Taiwan and the rest of the Pacific, they do not have the capability to move an inch outside their borders, let alone threaten the military might of America.
This won't escalate into anything. While its true it could be seen as an act of war, we in the U.S. are not going to do anything that might jeopardize our supply of Happy Meal toys.
This space available.
Why does the world seem to turn a blind eye to China's crap? If a terrorist group did this, we'd be at war. But since it's China, somehow we'll work around it. It just seems like a pattern of behavior from China. Their government is 100x worse than any middle eastern country, constantly imprisoning their own people and doing horrible horrible things (including murder). And because we can get cheap toys we turn a blind eye? That's the ultimate hypocrisy.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Having an IDS hooked up to some missile launchers is starting to look good around now. I don't see any real difference between online war and physical war, and this was an act of war.
I thought you were going to say it was because they hacked into Mr. Gates' computer...
Look, America has shifted a lot of manufacturing to China. They have a trillion dollars of ours. But so what? At this time, the chinese leadership can easily attack us, and simply bit the bullet WRT to the deficit. If they were really concerned about the deficit, they would be spending a lot of that money on cleaners for coal plants, bigger nuclear plants, equipment for cleaning up their pollution. But they are not spending 1 penny on it. Instead, they are trying to get us to GIVE them the know-how. They are not concerned with the lose of the money. It would simply be considered a minor lose, if they are able to take America (and perhaps EU) on and defeat them. If they can do it with out a war, all the better for them. BTW, you should look in at CIA.gov and check out the deficit. They take a lot of good from Japan, but not from America. My guess is that they are trying to draw Japan into being dependent on them, and separate them from us.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is anyone else nervous that these clowns are armed to the teeth, with enough firepower to destroy the world and make the rubble bounce several times?
They're not just too incompetent to defend their systems (I'm sure the US penetrates the Chinese, too). But they're too dumb to refrain from penetrating each other, or just not get caught.
These are the kinds of "brinksmanships" that keep us all close to the edge of destroying each other ("ourselves"). The kinds of stupid, complicated slap-happiness that gets out of hand. And gets into killing.
--
make install -not war
As Gary McKinnon showed, its not really hacking, more just connecting to default MS junk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I'm no fan of politicians but if the citizens of a democratic nation don't stand up for anything, they are more despicable than the politicians.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Ah, but they DO! The only difference is the way that they get there. The ruling class in the US play the 2-party-politics game, and swamp the population in propaganda to fool people into thinking they're in a democracy. In China, they've simply done away with this formality. The end effect is the same: complete lack of democracy, eroding workers' rights, real wages declining, and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
If you want to see the US ruling class' real stance on democracy, suggest to them that we get rid of politicians, and instead vote directly for POLICIES. Then they turn purple, and rage about the tyranny of the majority
Linux? Bsd? Billsoft?
Come on....the Chinese military is capable of hacking Robert Gates' office, yet is completely incapable of obscuring their tracks? You really believe that? This is another set up situation - an insider trying to scuttle a deal, or to embarrass someone, or to effect policy in some minor way, or just to get you going. I have no doubt the office was hacked - why admit something that makes you look so incompetent, but are we really to believe that they tracked down the ACTUAL culprits? Let's ask to see the evidence, for once - they never seem to have any of that these days.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Everyone knows the password is "Joshua"... Just stick to the Chess simulation when you get inside the DoD servers or you could be absconded by the FBI in an unmarked panel van.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
- Making an advanced US capability seem flaky or ineffective
- Making a flaky or undeveloped US capability seem advanced and devastating
- Sending the Chinese into fruitless directions in R&D, costing them billions
- Trick the Cninese into types of action that could yield up some useful intel for the US
The opportunities are endless.-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Lets make a couple of assumptions..
(1) That the Pentagon doesn't have a Windows box connected to the Internet with a public IP address.
(2) That the 'hackers' are smart-enough to actually hack into the Pentagon (ergo they are not script-kiddies).
Wouldn't these hackers be smart enough to originate these attacks from some-other hacked network via an anonymous proxy? (And then delete any logs that still might point to their activities.)
At the very least I would expect a simple IP spoofing to have taken place.
This was too easy, something is up.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Says who? A billion Chinese don't scare me. Just a handful of our brightest American hackers in prison do though. Hell, I lived in China. I walked the football fields of sidewalks in Tiannamen square. I love China, and the Chinese, but quite frankly, they don't have a clue about the power of Capitalism. Seriously. If they did, you and me would be posting in Mandarin right about now.
It's not arrogance, but prudence, that we knocked down Soviet satellite after satellite during the 70s and 80s, hidden from the hordes of Swanson chomping Phil Donohue pacifists at the time. Ronny, we need you now.
Free our brightest in prison, put them on the payroll, and watch their Great Firewall sizzle like a candle and two wet fingers. To quote the Gipper, "détente is what a farmer has with his turkey before Thanksgiving." I guess in the end, it really boils down to how much you're willing to spend on your next pair of Nikes.
74 posts and no jokes yet about the Pentagon having a chink in their armor? I'm impressed. Honestly, I'm not sure what's scarier, this or all the cheap crap on the shelves at Wal-Mart.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The troll marking simply means that you have one following you. I have at least two following me. S*&t happens.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The Chinese spy on us. We spy on them. While it's inane, expensive, and annoying, it will go on for a long time yet. Heck, the CIA spies on various European countries too...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
This has been the case since the first man beat up his neighbor and forced him to become his slave. This rich will ALWAYS be richer, but the poor increase their standard of living. Today being "poor" in the West means having a small tv, and a second hand car, a used fridge and electricity, and a menial job. 200 years ago it meant starvation, and it still does in some places. Your point is?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Anybody on the black hat side (or in countries that don't care about IP) who wants the Windows source already has it. The Vista source will eventually leak, too. Microsoft doesn't really care, because it's pretty hard for anyone to actually use the leaked code to compete with them in their core markets. No competitor would want to touch it, because it would open them up to lawsuits and death-by-code-audits. No OSS project wants it, for the same reasons. People don't even want to work with developers who've seen leaked MS code; the stuff's like poison. And users don't care about access to a hunk of source code -- all they want is binaries, and anyone who wants to can just get a pirated copy of Windows.
So the Chinese could do that, but it wouldn't do anything to harm Microsoft. The Windows code is out there for the taking already.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The secret military networks are not connected to the public internet at all. I'd like to see a hacker cross an air gap.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I really don't know what to do with that news, obviously, it's a slow news day. But this kind of things just keep on popping up every month or so. So, here's my take, before going out for a bite.
.mil or .gov domains (those might be zombies, or they might be some stupid hacking apprentices from those agencies).
.... Is that news to anyone at all?
/. submitter, stupid this and stupid that, ... exist all over the place. So, move over, nothing to see here.
1) Everyone is scanning or hacking everyone else, big deal, get over it. And even my lowly servers get hit by port scanning and hack attempts every minute from US-based IPs, and believe it or not, some IPs are traced back to some
2) The US government even has spy satellite scanning every corner of the globe, sending spy and reconnaissance planes to the border of almost every nation on this planet, has spy subs to the public water zones just an inch beside the territory of every sea-bordered nations. Every country which has the capabilities is doing the same, including Russia, UK, France, Japan (Yes, Japan too, even with their constitution and commitment after WWII not to get into military shit), China, India, Canada,
3) With the huge budget and the amount of human resources that the US DoD has, and if their system is that easy to hack by an outsider, well, too bad. They might as well consider outsourcing system management work to some other countries which might do a better job, such as India or China (doh...)
4) If your system is hacked by an outside without any physical access, shouldn't you first review your security policies first, instead of sending knee-jerk reaction to blame others? Unless this is just a setup for political games.
5) Political games, scapegoating, knee-jerk reactions, stupid employees, stupid politicians, stupid network admins, stupid journalists looking to stir up a storm in a glass of water, stupid
And why did I bother to post at all? Stupid me!
I've worked with military networks. No, not everything that ends in .mil is classified. Yes, they also run windows boxes. No, it doesn't require special skill to hack into that kind of network. It's very similar to breaching any ol' corporate network. Granted, the people I worked with were fairly paranoid and quite up to speed on proper security procedures. But this crack isn't the same as getting access to classified hardware.
Call me again when that happens. In the meantime - congrats, they probably found out who went to lunch with whom last Friday, or read the Navy newsletter.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I know the parent post is meant to be funny, but this is Slashdot. The vast majority of readers here simply assume that the computers that were "hacked" were nothing more than honey-pots. There have been reports of China and U.S. hackers trying to break into each other's systems for YEARS. Unless a report comes out saying that some new weapon design or covert plans to invade Iran was stolen by one of these hackers, this is old news.
Many (but not most) of the US's "poor" own a home. Being poor in a third world nation is hugely different than in an industrialized nation.
Here in the US the middle class (who also do most of the voting) also pay proportionally the largest taxes and have the most difficulty in paying for college. Generally the middle class has to live on debt, the poor do not need to borrow thousands of dollars to go to college, and neither does the rich.
As popular as attacks on the rich have become in the 20th century, perhaps it is time to look forward and realize that the rich are not the root of all of society's ills. The idea of a worker's paradise is utterly obsolete here in the 21st century. It's time to cling to a new ideal, perhaps one that is actually attainable and less corruptable. or at least one where corruption can be self-correcting.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I'd be interested in whether this machine was connected to the public Internet, or part of the unconnected military network that people keep talking about. If the former, it is probably not a particularly critical breach.
I doubt that the US has not achieved similar penetrations against China - But you'll never hear of it from the Chinese.
Do you truly believe the US has not done the reverse a hundred times already? No wonder China wants to move away from M$ "operating systems."
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
How many Americans are in prison for cracking in to the pentagon? The only difference here is that rather than a group of crackers with no political affiliation, this group of crackers is part of a foreign military. Who honestly believes that the US (ala CIA and NSA) isn't doing the same to some other country (e.g. Russia, North Korea, China) right now?
There really isn't any penalty against countries for spying. The individual spys are in a world of shit if they get caught, but countries don't tend to do anything about it. It is more or less an accepted part of doing business. Read up on the recent history of Aldrich Ames, a spy for Russia nailed in the 90s. You'll notice that there's nothing about any threats to Russia, any sanctions, or anything like that. It's just the way the game is played.
Hell if the US started yelling at other countries trying to spy on them, man would they have an earful. The NSA gets hold of any and every foreign signal (and it seems some domestic now too) it can get its hands on. Tapping international cables, listening in on satellites, whatever you like. They are a big signals hoover of the highest order.
Today being "poor" in the West means having a small tv, and a second hand car, a used fridge and electricity, and a menial job. 200 years ago it meant starvation, and it still does in some places. Your point is?
HUZZAH! Wish I had mod points, I'd bump you that last step towards +5. People in the west don't know what it means to be poor. In the United States, you can dig through garbage on the street and still make a global living at about the 90% level! (meaning, 90% of the world is doing WORSE off than you)
Techical definitions of poverty aside, true poverty isn't when you have to steal to live. It's when you can't even steal enough to live. It's a state of hunger, apathy and deprivation that is actually hard to imagine.
I've done charity work for an orphanage in Haiti and the experience has left me with newfound appreciation for the wealth we have here in the States. You can quite literally fund the education of an entire family (several kids) with just $0.50 per day, a single Starbucks Latte per week! Simple skills, like the ability to read, write, basic chemistry (acid/alkali knowledge comes in very handy when trying to find out why your food crops won't grow) all make a huge difference in the quality of life...
Overall, the poor *ARE* getting richer, in every continent and nearly every country, but there's still plenty of work to be done, and of course, global warming threatens to undo the gains we've made so far.
So pitch in! When you are dealing with the 3rd world, your $20 makes more difference than you can possibly realize!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Why? What at all do they want from us that only war will give them?
China's military is a force to be reckoned with... if you're invading. Besides that, China can't mobilize that many people to attack anything off their continent. Regardless, screw the military... if they really wanted to screw over the US, they control our economy. If they decide to make it illegal to stop trading with us, our economy would instantly go into a recession. They have so much US currency that if they let it all go, the value of the dollar would depreciate like it did for Mexico not long ago. In this world and age, military might only scares the small fry that can't fight back. With countries like China, its the financial power that they have that is far more scary.
Why can we only trade with people who think exactly as we do?
The poor will always increase their standard of living? No.
h e_United_States#Over_time_-_by_Race_.26_Sex
Consider average personal income in the US in 2005 dollars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_t
From 1950-1970 it went up quite a bit.
From 1970-1990 is basically flatlined.
From 1990-2000 it went up a little.
From 2000-2004 it went back down.
So no, it does always increase. We have to be vigilant and smart as a society to make sure we maintain or increase prosperity. Magical faith will not suffice.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
How did we find out we were hacked into? Is it because we have already hacked into their network and found our own data? This would be an interesting story if that were true. I'm also sure we'd never know that we found out this way either, it would be someone that just 'happened' to read about 100,000 pages of logs and realized that 1 single line that had an IP that was clearly not supposed to be there.
---
The 'other side' is always evil when they hack, but it's always acceptable when 'your side' does it.
There is a difference between trade and allowing influence of government policies.
:)
As long as a country respects basic human rights, or at least is making serious attempts to correct the problems I think it's fine to trade with them. The US trades with Europeans despite them thinking health care is some kind of right.
But allowing extreme trade deficit at the expense of the working class and structuring of government policy because of the economic ties to such a degree that China has an unfair advantage over "friendly" countries when dealing with the US. They are allowed much more leeway than other nations when dealing with the US, and in my opinion too much leeway.
Maybe the US shouldn't participate in the UN or start wars until they can stand up to China?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yes yes.. some of them are noble, and work, and are honest...yes yes I know. But as a whole, they spit out kids they can't take care of and/or raise badly and create more poverty. Then their messed up kids do the same thing. And we, middle America, feel sorry for them. Fuck poor people, especially if you're poor and you have kids you can't take care of them or raise them poorly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_based_monetary_s ystem
Deleted
Iraq however is a different case. The big mistake in Iraq was the Rumsfeld/Bush position that US forces "dont do nation- building". What did they expect? That they would invade Iraq, everybody would dance in the streets, be really grateful and that reconstruction would happen by it self while they watched? The USA already sucessfully handled such a situation once before, the reconstruction of Germany after WWII, many of the lessons of that effort were forgotten in Iraq. Starting with the fact that disbanding the national army and police is just about the worst single thing you can do closely followed on the dumb ideas scale by failing to (rapidly) reconstruct even basic facilities like water supply, sewage disposal and electricity. All this was handled in Germany post 1945 in a pretty no-nonsense manner. De nazified soldiers and police officers were recruited for the re-organized police force, the Infrastructure was rebuilt with the help of US engineers and local people which often involved rebuilding local industries and experienced civilian administrators that passed de-nazification were quickly put to work running much of this effort under US supervision. As it was the de-Baathification of Iraq was far to stringent and it kept important professionals like teachers, doctors, engineers and experienced military officers out of circulation until the whole process was finally rationalized in 2004 which was far to late.
That classified networks are not Internet connected. That's not to say that some dumbass didn't store classified materials on teh NIPR (unlcass, Internet connected DoD network) but the real paydirt that China's looking for isn't going to be found on a publically connected system. Let me know when they splice some fiber, crack some HAIPE crypto and get some good stuff. Not gonna happen.
The point was apparently completely missed by you.
The line wasn't "the rich are richer," as you implied but rather "get richer" as in "increase wealth relative to the rest of society." It is well known that of the destabilizing influence large economic gaps have on societies. The creation of a permanent underclass is not conductive to democracies, nor productive economies. For instance, it's well known that the wealthy have better access to the legal system through being able to afford more and better lawyers, while the poor often have no access to legal council in civil settings, and inadequate council in criminal settings.
It's relative wealth, not absolute wealth that matters to the fabric of a society. Attempting to place emphasis on absolute wealth, while ignoring the very real effects of large relative wealth disparity is a well known trick of the wealthy to attempt distract the majority poor into supporting that are not in their economic self-interest.
You really should learn some socioeconomics.
I prefer the term MiKKKro$hit myself. Not only does replacing soft with shit indicate my opinion of their software, along with the dollar sign indicating how greedy they are, I believe replacing the 'c' with KKK will portray them as the oppressive organization that they are, along with completely destroying any semblance of respect my post might have commanded up until that point.
First, we used it PRIOR to knowing what would happen. To hold us accountable when NOBODY knew the full consequences is silly. I mean, do you hold France responsible as well (curie, roentgen)?
But since you brought it up, then I will point out that after the first weapon, Japan was offered the opportunity to call it quits. The emperor said no. He could have realized that they had no chance and given it up. But since he was worried about HIS skin going into prison, he allowed his ppl to be subjected to another bomb before he realized the futility of it all. Sadly, this shows what happens when a nation's gov. is allowed to run without being held responsible. That is the problem with China.
BTW, that is also part of the issues with America right now. Our leaders are voted out of office, but W., like Nixon, reagan, and Clinton, has been able to lie without being held accountable. He will almost certainly hang on until after the election. Once that occurs, the dems will look the other way because they are afraid of being held accountable for their transgressions. In spite of that, I know that our leaders will not be using nukes first.
Finally, China is suspected of having a large and quickly growing stockpile of neutron bombs. They have the advantage of killing LARGE amounts of ppl via radiation, and relatively little blast. It will leave the least amount of radioactive product. It is the PERFECT first strike weapon. The H2 bombs will leave radiation that will exists for several years. IOW, it means that we can not use the area either. It is NOT a good first strike weapon.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Whatever next? I bet the copy of PC Anywhere they used with default passwords was pirated too.
The BBC reports that China has denied reports that its military hacked into the computer network of the US Department of Defense in Washington.
The APEC summit is going on at the moment in Sidney. This 'revelation' is for Bush to have something to talk about with Hu Jintao. I suppose the purpose of the american military is to create global talking points and conversation starters. I wish I could employ such an organization for my dates.
Of the people who can't use computers, I'd sort them into three categories: Those who actually have mental/psychological problems, those who are inexperienced but willing to learn, and those who have an attitude problem. And combinations of these.
The ones who have mental/psychological problems are pretty rare, outside of a nursing home. These are the people who either lack the mental capacity to learn -- and with respect, the truly elderly, intelligent and wise though they may be, are not good at learning new things. I have a... 90-year-old (I think) grandmother who uses email, but can't learn things like selecting something to delete, or even holding down the backspace key, versus just pressing backspace -- one character at a time -- until she's deleted whatever she needs.
Like I said, there are people outside of a nursing home with these limitations, and I know at least one of them, but they're rare.
The ones who are inexperienced, but willing to learn, are actually often easier to support than the smart ones. They're willing to do what you tell them, without arguing with you about it, and it may take a couple of tries, but they will remember the next time. Over time, they get more and more self-sufficient. They may never approach your own skill, but they'll at least get to where they can get their job done without calling you every two seconds. The really smart ones will also know when they should call you, even if they can do it on their own -- they manage to be smart enough to be dangerous, without actually being dangerous.
The third group is basically identical to the second group in skills, education, intelligence, sometimes even social skills, but for some reason or other, they refuse to learn. For example, at first glance, a teenager may seem like they can't actually grasp new (to them) concepts, like using email instead of Myspace to communicate. The truth is, they just don't give a fuck.
The absolutely #1 most common reason here is the businessperson who has an attitude of "It's not my problem." They do 90% of their work on a computer, and yet, they somehow think that it's not their job to be computer-literate. These are generally the people who are just smart enough to be dangerous -- they have big, important things to do, so they don't have time to actually read a single fucking dialog, they'll just click "OK" or "Accept" or "Allow" or whatever makes it go away. Then, when this causes problems, even if there's some very simple instructions on their screen at the moment, they'll call someone else in to fix it.
These people are the most difficult to work with, because I know of no actual solution other than, say, a dialog box that says "Click OK to receive a painful electric shock," wired to an electrode in their mouse.
I say this because the actually incapable people can at least be trained and/or restricted to areas where they can't hurt themselves -- they generally don't know enough to be dangerous, or to be picky about their environment, so many of them would probably be fine with a Linux kiosk, in the worst-case-scenario. The independent ones will learn on their own, and while they'll make mistakes, those mistakes will at least be interesting, entertaining, and less frequent than the "My computer won't turn on" when they just forgot to turn on their monitor.
It's only when they have an attitude problem that they really start to be a problem, especially when combined with one or both of the above. The classic example is Jerry Taylor -- normally, I don't go after individual people, but this fucker deserved it. After being repeatedly corrected, in simple terms which he obviously could understand (considering he eventually did), the problem is entirely an attitude problem, as evidenced by the fact that he still hasn't apologized for it.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
When now every single product in your home is made in china, from lcds to batteries to adsl to wifi modems.
If its not China is Taiwan, which is why China wants it.
How ironic that the west depends on a communist nation for its own society to function.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
we might see some kind of subconscious magical thinking whereby he thinks that defending the ultra-rich will somehow make him ultra-rich.
No I'm just a realist. Even under a "socialist" economy, where you steal from the rich and give to the poor, the political elite - those who actually control who get what, will be FAR richer than you. Remember the Soviet Union? The place where shortages existed in everything from bread to clothing? Ahh, but if you were a high ranking party member, there was a SPECIAL store you could go to, where they had everything in stock. No politburo member ever had to wait in line for anything.
There will always be rich, and there will always be poor in ANY society. Also my financial situation is none of your business, but you are WAY off...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I agree with your sentiments, but I think you're off on this statement:
"EVERYONE wants democracy, apart from the small group of people who currently have control, of course. But the majority of the population will ALWAYS support democracy AND self-determination."
Democracy, to me, is a mob and a bunch of corrupt politicians telling me how to live my life and how much of my own money I get to keep. Majoritarianism sucks. I'll take freedom over mob-rule any day.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Wow. A computer today got hacked... shock story follows. Not.
The fact that these computers are on the internet and not the DOD secure networks means they're not supposed to have anything sensitive on them... I would suspect probably nothing above restricted if that.
For day to day computing the DoD/MoD/etc are like other corporations... vulnerable and frequently probed/attacked - the real effort goes in securing the really sensitive stuff which won't have a point of access that any script kiddie can get to... dedicated fibre or other links.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
How exactly is the trade deficit a bad thing? It means that they are giving us actual goods, and we are giving them nothing but green slips of paper. They devalue their currency in order to boost trade numbers for propaganda purposes, and we get a lot of free stuff. It seems like a win-win. The "working class"(a rather ephemeral phrase, since even rich people work, and this country does not have much factory labor any more) is getting cheaper goods, and more jobs. Yes, more jobs, Unemployment very low, and if you adjust for education, median wages are going up too.
"Maybe the US shouldn't participate in the UN or start wars until they can stand up to China?"
I would love for the US to stop starting wars, but I fail to see what the UN has to do with this.
"As long as a country respects basic human rights, or at least is making serious attempts to correct the problems I think its fine to trade with them. The US trades with Europeans despite them thinking health care is some kind of right. :)"
When the US was first founded, we were the only democracy. Would it have made sense to cut off trade with the rest of the world? And isn't the definition of democracy somewhat iffy? Iran has free and fair elections, coupled simultaneously with an autocratic police state, Ethiopia has such elections, and Thailand is an absolute monarchy where the king is actually worshiped by the people. In fact, it is rather likely that Hu Jintao (president of China), has a higher domestic approval rating then George W. Bush.
It is not really our business to judge other peoples way of life. If we really want to save people in autocracies, we should let in as refugees, not cripple their homeland with sanctions and bombs.
where you steal from the rich and give to the poor
Your bias is showing. Somebody else might say the rich are currently stealing from the poor. Rich/poor wealth ratios appear to be growing. Pure capitalism is just warlordism, might makes right.
Successful real world societies have both competitive, non-sharing elements and cooperative, sharing elements. What is the best trade off between the two is still very much an open question.
---
You communist! Breathing shared air!
- Jack Bower - CTU
or- The A-Team !
Simple.What are those games?
"The military is building up at a rate seen only by countries that are going to war (such as America or Germany prior to WW II)."
No, it has not. Those nations had a dramatic increase in defense spending relative to the size of their economy. China has not done such; their economy has grown at an average of 10% per year. Defense spending as a percentage of GDP has decreased, and is much lower than the United States.
"That they are not spending their surplus in a sane fashion (with trillion dollar surpluses, they are not buying things to help their country."
How can you say that? China is building brand-new cities every day; they are building highways, subway systems, electrical systems, etc. While I detest their government, they have certainly spent their surplus "sanely".
"Their leaders are not held accountable via a vote."
So? If they fuck up too badly, the people, or a general will rebel. It's not like that has not happened before in Chinese history.
"We are most likely headed for a cold war, if not a hot war."
No, I don't think we are. China does not seem to have an appetite for conquest of foreign territories; they learned their lesson from Islamic extremists in Xingjian. And unlike the USSR, they don't really seem to be building up a system of influence or client states.
They have no ideology to export; the only long term strategic goal of the government is to stay in power, by any means necessary. Detestable to be sure, but I don't see how they are a threat.
Go away, PLA!
(People who don't know what I'm referring to are going to bury this in moderation)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
They are building SEVERAL each week. Like America, they have loads of coal and are planning to use it. As to pebble beds, they still strike me as overhyped. Since I am not a nuclear engineer or physicists, I hope that I am wrong.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Their population growth is slowing down, in a couple years it will start shrinking. Why exactly can't they just buy the food? It would most likely be cheaper than attempting to conquer us. Not only that, but if they were to invade a nation for Food, Uzbekistan would be a more natural choice then America.
Somebody else might say the rich are currently stealing from the poor.
No, the rich EXPLOIT the poor. Because they set the terms for the labor force and if the workers don't like it, we'll just find more workers elsewhere. Yes sometimes this exploitation is even abusive - when the labor force (or the envronment, etc) is harmed. Then it can be considered "theft". This is where governments have to regualte, to prevent abuse by the wealthy. But if the labor force wants a full share in the profits, then they should be forced to swallow the RISKS of the investment/business as well. After all it's only fair, no?
However nationalizing corporations (a la Hugo Chavez), banks (Britain under Labour?) and the private holdings of wealthy families (a la Soviet Union, China and any other communist country you care to mention: this is outright theft.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Well your idea of trade deficit would be fine and dandy if it were true, but the way it actually works is clearly different than you describe. Inflation growing at a higher rate than it has in decades(note it's not high yet, I just said the rate was high), and to me "adjust for eduction" means that people really can't find jobs. The midwest is currently experience massive unemployment.
It's hard for us to compete against China's prices, even when we build robots to automate manufacturing they are still more expensive than teenage girls working 12 hour days for a few dollars.
The US and the UN have turned a blind eye to China for years, which is also a member of the UN. You realize that the UN has many programs, right? Programs that the US funds, that only seems to target the weaker nations and has no teeth against the superpowers.
In the early years the US did very little trade with other nations, adjusting for GDP, so I don't see your point. But it is no longer the 19th century. And I never said a country has to be a democracy for us to trade with them. I just think we should favor trade with countries that think the way we do, rather than doing the exact opposite. Why can't we trade more with India, Brazil, South Africa(which seems to be going in a positive direction), etc. If we only invest in China, then they will continue to be the industrial juggernaut and which will only make it more difficult for our democratic allies to compete.
And to be sure, China is not the worse offender out there, just the biggest and most powerful.
Yes, it is our business to judge other people's way of life. We don't live in a vacuum or a cave. The original idea is we should not judge other cultures too harshly, that is to remain flexible in our assessment of others. Somewhere along the way people forgot the full idea, but often people go from one inflexible viewpoint to the opposite inflexible viewpoint and think it is progress.
We should not prop up unfair autocracies with our financial support or prop up indirectly via our apathy towards their imperialism and unjust behavior.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You really should learn some socioeconomics.
And perhaps you should look at history, because what I am saying is that this is NOTHING NEW. 99% of the wealth has ALWAYS been in the hands of less than 1% of the population. Be it the emperor or the King and his friends, or the heads of large corporations. Or the small group of elite politicians in the so called "communist" states. You are just kidding yourself if you think it was ever any other way.
As production increases, the rich benefit most. Yeah, so the rich get richer. The poor are still slaves - if not whipped to death nowadays, they are simply enslaved by credit, mortgages, fees, etc. But the poor today have public transport (and even vehicles). The poor today are allowed to "own" their property. They are allowed to travel, and they are allowed to do anything that the rich can do, provided they can afford it. Now if they can't manage the little money they have and try to live beyond their means, then it's their own damned fault if they end up in a huge mess. A fool and his money are soon parted - be he RICH or POOR alike.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
They already are. Piracy of Windows is so rampant over there, MS acualy endorses it in China, just so they can be the main OS that is used in China. Reference link and related clip from article below.
c hive/2007/07/23/100134488/
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_ar
'Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs. "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," Gates says. "Are you kidding? You can get the real thing, and you get the same price." Indeed, in China's back alleys, Linux often costs more than Windows because it requires more disks. And Microsoft's own prices have dropped so low it now sells a $3 package of Windows and Office to students.'
This is factually incorrect. The Gini coefficient is a measure of wealth disparity and in agrarian populations there tended to be significantly less wealth disparity than there is now. In fact, since the 50s as the US and China have both been becoming more and more industrialized, wealth disparity has been increasing in both countries, whereas in more progressive parts of Europe the rates have been declining. From a historical perspective, wealth disparity in the US hasn't been this bad since before the new deal.
Be it the emperor or the King and his friends, or the heads of large corporations. Or the small group of elite politicians in the so called "communist" states. You are just kidding yourself if you think it was ever any other way.There has never been zero wealth disparity, nor will their ever be. So what? Wealth disparity is the most probable causative factor for increasing violent crime and for a violent overthrow of the existing government. Ignoring it is foolish. Looking to decrease it in order to make society better makes a lot of sense, especially when you target the unfair mechanisms of increasing wealth disparity, namely the wealth condensation effect from interest.
As production increases, the rich benefit most.The amount the rich benefit is not really related to production levels. If the stock market crashes, the wealthy are in the best position to use their wealth to take advantage of other's misfortune and buy real estate and commodities. If the economy is strong and so is the stock market, the wealthiest collect the most interest by loaning money to those who want to do real work growing production levels.
Yeah, so the rich get richer. The poor are still slaves...The rich get richer, compared to the median. Wealth is power. The more wealth disparity, the less power and more like slaves the rest of the people are.
But the poor today have public transport (and even vehicles).They did back in the day too. It was called public roads and your feet. Some owned donkeys or camels or whatever. The interesting thing is, public transportation is government subsidized. In effect, it is socialism. Real socialism, not authoritarianism by the socialist party somewhere. Public transport is owned by "the people" and counts against wealth disparity. Every person owns a little bit of it.
The poor today are allowed to "own" their property.I disagree with this. Most can't afford to own property and for those that can, eminent domain and property taxes mean they can never truly own it. You pay regularly or they take it from you.
They are allowed to travel, and they are allowed to do anything that the rich can do, provided they can afford it.What a joke. The amount of money you have has a lot do do with what happens in the courtroom. See the drunken rich bimbo who crashed their car into someone this week and notice how much jail time they serve.
Now if they can't manage the little money they have and try to live beyond their means, then it's their own damned fault if they end up in a huge mess. A fool and his money are soon parted - be he RICH or POOR alike.This is quite simply not true. You're trying to equate the system with a meritocracy, where the foolish will soon be poor. The problem is, it just isn't true. Wealthy or poor, the most likely deciding factor is not your wisdom, intelligence, work ethic, or genetics, it is who your parents were an how much money they give you. That is why wealth disparity is going out of control.
Espionage has been around for thousands of years before computers. Every country in the world participates in espionage.
So we are supposed to be shocked that people are using modern technology to commit acts of espionage?
Geez, if it was an actual act of sabatoge, if the "hackers" destroyed data or disrupted operations, thas would be significant. Otherwise, China is pretty much doing what every other country in the world is doing, collecting information on its potential enemies.
I would be much more worried if there was no evidence of Chinese hacking... because that would mean that they were doing a really, really good hacking job.
The U.S. government is probably doing the same thing right back (and they have a duty to be doing the same thing right back)... it is just that in the U.S., security failures are more likely to get reported to the media.
Please understand the government of China is totalitarian not democratic. ... do what they want with
... will take military action when it is ....
The economy and social system of China is communist not capitalist.
Governments of China, Russia, US, EU India
the expendable and spendable property/population of the state.
So, the governments of China, US
suspected to be adventitious to the puppet-masters of humanity
China has a long history based on (in their psyche) achieving peace by enemy elimination.
China is preparing for war with a long-large vision of survival and peace, by basic SunTzu rules.
China is safe to others when they close their doors and build great walls.
When the doors of China appear open, and that the great walls are symbolic
and easily breached, China is preparing for their future of peace and
prosperity without problems from US, EU or others.
Final Point: The Government of China does not rule the PLA/military;
anymore than the USA Congress rules the President or Supreme Court.
HISTORY has a large bag of forgotten lessons.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I'm simply afraid that other nations will take a different response to this activity from China. Older military officials might not be willing to adapt to the new cyberdefense battlefield, and may simply decide that it's easier to totally isolate China from the Internet. China has already demonstrated their willingness to isolate themselves through censorship, so how long before "Western" civilization cuts the leech off their back by reciprocating China's isolationist behavior by completely disconnecting them from the net?
Granted, there will be a stink from those that would have us poison their socialist society with the subtle hints of free market that can leak in through their censorship, but honestly, who's sig is it that says "In Russia, the government controls the commerce?" If Chinese government controls their press, and can censor the net, how can we infiltrate their society and spread the great and infectious disease that we imagine Freedom to be? Yet we keep these ties open and they're raping us through them! Does anyone remember when the Chinese raped our networks at Los Alamos National Laboratories? This kind of espionage is the thing we execute people for. Yet we can't execute the Chinese hackers 'cause they're still in China. This kind of a breach of sovereign territory should be dealt with as such: the personnel involved in the attack should be delivered to the wronged nation to be tried and executed as foreign operatives.
It's how the world worked for generations beyond count. Why not today? Are we now supposed to turn the other cheek and get screwed by people who wouldn't mind seeing us die just for the amusement of watching it happen, all because they've been deluded by a all-powerful state? That's one of the reasons why Rome fell, because they got too soft. Should we repeat history, just like a good little nation should?
Consider yourself spoken to.
No, it meant that inflation adjusted median wages are going up for people with college degrees, while they are stagnant for those without. But really, there is no shortage of jobs. Unemployment is very low right now (no educational adjustment or anything, it is currently in the low 4 percent range). Ironically, this inflation you mention is most likely because of our low unemployment. You have to love the dual mandate.
"It's hard for us to compete against China's prices, even when we build robots to automate manufacturing they are still more expensive than teenage girls working 12 hour days for a few dollars."
Were you paying attention in Intro to Microeconomics when they proved that even if one country has an absolute advantage in every single good over another, both nations would be better off then if they had not traded? If not, I'll gladly pull it out and post it.
And believe me, we are not anywhere near that point. There are many goods that we possess an absolute advantage in, and many goods that we never will. This is the point of trade in the first place.
"The US and the UN have turned a blind eye to China for years, which is also a member of the UN. You realize that the UN has many programs, right? Programs that the US funds, that only seems to target the weaker nations and has no teeth against the superpowers."
That has more to do with the structure of the UN; China is given permanent veto power, on the same level as America. There is nothing we can really do about that.
"And I never said a country has to be a democracy for us to trade with them."
Actually, this seems to be exactly what you are saying. China thinks very much like the US, in every way except our political system.
"We should not prop up unfair autocracies with our financial support or prop up indirectly via our apathy towards their imperialism and unjust behavior."
Show me one example of a nation brought down by economic sanctions. If all it took was to cut off trade, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar, and countless other nations would have been democracies.
You can not force democracy on a people, and the truth is that at the moment, the Chinese do not want democracy. Some of them do, and these people are either in Taiwan, the west, or jail. But the others have been brainwashed by government propaganda, history, and an entirely different value system. If you don't believe me, find a friend who can read Chinese and ask him to read some of the posts on a Chinese forum. After decades of propaganda, the Chinese are some of the most nationalistic people alive, and as the anti-Japanese riots a couple of years ago showed, the government is rather powerless to stop it. If the Communist part of China was swept out of power, it is rather terrifying thought to consider what would replace it.
China is a powder keg of hundreds of ethnicities and religions, historic hatred and distrust between them, and billions of dollars worth of weapons (some of them nuclear). Do you really want to destabilize them?
Thanks for chiming in there, AC.
Ron Paul would support your continued right to privacy on the internet, but I don't know about the rest of the GOP gang or the Democrats.
This zealot votes, BTW. Do you?
Google for windows shared source. First result is this page, which seems to suggest that, while you need to be a certain type of entity to qualify, at least this type of entity can be bought outright by having 1500 Windows licenses.
Or something like that; point is, they're not going to refuse the Chinese government just because they're the Chinese government; in fact, they have a program specifically for governments, as well.
More information can be found here.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Your argument is so full of holes! Whether you believe it or not, the PLA is constantly undermining the Free World -- even their "trade partners." Just as our military is trying to find out their secrets, so, too, the Chinese are doing the same thing to us, and pretty much everyone else of "interest" to them. The irony is, as you inferred, that we are financing their operations and military buildup with our trade agreements. Does God love irony or what?