Slashdot Mirror
China's Cyber-Militia
D. J. Keenan notes that the cover story of the current issue of National Journal reports in depth on China's cyber-aggression against US targets in the government, military, and business. We have discussed China's actions on numerous occasions over the years. The news in this report is the suggestion that Chinese cyber-attackers may have been involved in major power outages in the US. "Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of US companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to US government officials and computer-security experts..."
Are vital parts of power plants connected to The Internet? Why?
The computers which control the plant should be physically separated from the computers which are needed/wanted for connection with the internet. Otherwise you are begging for disasters.
The article mentions large scale government, military and industry intrusions. They also mention criminal gangs and others besides China as those responsible.
Why not? If Scientology has managed to infiltrate US institutions then why can't China do it with their forged Cisco equipment at every gateway?It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The submitter quotes the most frightening parts of the article and our current "trade partner" China is well positioned to spy. We trust them to make equipment and non free software like Cisco routere has proved itself impossible to check.
Still, most of the hacks are common and anyone could do it. Time and time again we read about autopropagating botnets for Windows and how they cover large parts of the internet. When that system is used on corporate and government desktops, anyone can exploit it.
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...China gets rid of their nuclear weapons.
Till then, they get to do as they please, same as any nuclear-armed country.
The submitter writes as if these things were solid facts written in stone, whereas the fact is that nobody really knows. Sadly, building on what "intelligence" comes out of CIA just isn't feasible, as the arguments for the war in Iraq amply demonstrate. SO, the power outages "may have been caused by hackers" or something; or they may have been caused by something else. We rely heavily on advanced technology, which is a bit like balancing on a knifes edge - it is bound to go wrong from time to time, sometimes massively so, especially when stiff competition makes funding for maintenance less abundant.
Apart from that, it isn't exactly difficult to break in to this kind of system - in the past we have seen hackers walk all over the place where they aren't supposed to have been. If script kiddies can do it, is isn't surprising if higly trained miltary personnel can do it too.
But I sincerely doubt that they would leave lots of traces and clues lying around for the more paranoid factions on slashdot to play with. Script-kiddies, yes, but if you are professional, whether criminal or some foreign government, you don't just blunder stupidly in and trigger alarms, or leave your droppings all over the place.
I can see how this kind of nonsense is politically useful. Hasn't the American public caught on to this yet?