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China Says It Lacks Skills To Hack US Systems
ScentCone writes "A spokesman for China's foreign ministry says that — China being the 'developing nation' that it is — he doubts that his country has the sophistication to hack foreign systems. This in response to statements by two congressmen regarding apparent probing by China-based crackers into congressional systems for information about communication between US officials and activists in China."
Lacks the skills to lie convincingly to anybody it doesn't have the power of life or death over, more like.
China has the money and skills to build the Great Firewall. They are clearly capable.
No the Network Gnomes and Fairies did it....you know, the ones that make backups go bad, servers tip over in the middle of the night, when they get really drunk, they make your data magically find ways into the hands of the evil Chinese hackers.....
Apparentely this foreign minister needs to go back to Marketing 101 - he missed the week where "how to lie convincingly" was taught.
Just like in Bug's Life. If we let the ants know how powerful they are, they will crush us!
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
then how did one of their submarines pop up in the middle of one of our Navy carrier groups undetected?
Why would they need to have any skill at it at all? They have no independent news sources. It's all state propaganda machines. After 50 years of that nonsense the average Chinese citizen has no real ability to question authority, thus the ability of people in authority to convincingly lie is lower.
I'll warm myself with these flames, thank you.
I think your point (intentional or not) is in fact quite valid. In a country of billions how could there not be at least a few with the innate talent needed to accomplish this?
Given, skill and talent are seperate but related things - talent you have or don't, skill you use or lose - yet with the right amount of inherent ability and the drive to learn, what isn't possible?
Read my Very Short "Stories"
You forgot one:
Are the target systems largely running stock versions of Windows?
*check*
------
For those that consider this Microsoft bashing substitute the following:
Are the target systems running large, complex, "user friendly" operating systems with more permutations of options than you can shake a stick at and lots of known vulnerabilities that can only be fixed by downloading updates from a commercial source who is picky about who is allowed to download those updates?
*check*
China loves using this "developing nation" bullshit whenever it wants to try to elicit sympathy or otherwise justify their actions. Want to pollute as much as you want? "We are a developing nation!" Want to not have to play by WTO rules? Again, "Developing nation"
If China actually WERE a developing nation, that stuff wouldn't be so bad. But China has 0 problem throwing its weight around places like Sudan where it uses its ginormous reserves of foreign currency and military know-how to help the Sudanese slaughter their own citizens in exchange for oil.
China, if you want the benefits of being one of the big boys, you are going to have to pay the costs as well. This whole "we are a developing nation when it suits us" bullshit has got to stop, but unfortunately anyone who is actually in a position to make them play by the rules is either a cheater themselves or just so hypnotized by the theoretical promise of China that they refuse to do anything about it.
Monstar L
You mean dumb Americans who can't spell "lead" or "debt" and can't construct a logical paragraph? Why would they think that?
"then how did one of their submarines pop up in the middle of one of our Navy carrier groups undetected?"
It didn't, that's what the Navy said to convince people like you to give them more money.
And you fell for it.
Hah, I just saw some unique pictures on television. In the vicinity of the last earthquakes, people lost their kids in school. A Belgian reporter was with some parents, and those people are mad at the Chinese government, and there are accusations of corruption. A local official and a policeman tried to remove those people from around the school, got scolded by their citizens and left with their tails between their legs.
Sorry, the Developing nation excuse is lame. Developing nations dont produce and design electronics devices, design and build ICBMs, submarines, warships, launch GPS satellites, etc.
And using thier logic, the USA is also a developing nation. Maybe we are a little more developed, but we still have a way to go and are making progress.
Racism and culturalism is bad.... for OCCIDENT. Chinesse have NO PROBLEM with being chauvinistic, ultranationalists, kind of like the japaneese.
China is the longest living civilization/culture of earth. I would say that they are the most succesfull example of a civilization that the eyes of the world has ever seen.
In 5k years of empire, they got to fuck arround with most of asia, all the way down to indochina, and all the way to the east till japan.
What they are answering now, comes from a culture that is very, very, very smart. Old. Intelligent.
This only is "plausible deniability" at its best. And kudos to the chinesse,they did it very well.
NO SIG
The obvious question I haven't heard anybody ask: why did these congressmen have sensitive information on machines connected to the Internet?
In spy stories you commit things to memory because they're too dangerous to write down. Have we degenerated to the point where you not only write things down but you put them on the Internet with a big sign saying "steal me?"
I believe you mean WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), but I'll forgive you ;)
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I agree.
The only way to win is not to play.
Exactly.. as it says later,
"The chinese will say they cannot do something even when they can."
They are just being modest.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
It's been my experience that small minded idiots are the one's who think that South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy and other such shows are for small minded idiots, and don't understand the depth of intelligence and humor hidden inside of them.
It's not just small minded idiots, of course. Other, more intelligent people also mistakenly think this way for some reason.
China was not an Empire for 5000 years. In fact China held most of China for maybe 1000 years in total, but in that time are many epics of fragmentation, and then there is the total Mongol conquest of the country.
If you measure success as length of existance, you could say they are the most successful I guess. I think most folks add many more requirements for 'success' however.
So what are they just practicing on my Pix?
Get up!
...
China wants to supplant the US as the biggest boy.
...
Why so riled up? Because every indication is that China's rules will be worse for the world?
What part of textbook mcarthism did you get this from?
UNderestimating an enemy is stupid. Underestimating the eldest civilization on earth, borders on the insane.
NO SIG
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I said nothing of the USA's military action. I merely refuted one of your false statements.
You have another false statement now, too. China is currently attempting an occupation--Tibet.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
And the last time I checked, more people believed US is a bigger threat to world peace.
And what has that got to do with reality? More people believe in God than don't, but that doesn't make God any more factual. Get off your anti-U.S. pulpit for a moment, and grasp that the United States has been far more of a stabilizing factor in world affairs than otherwise. That's because any would-be Hitlers out there know very well what would happen if they tried anything nasty on a significant scale. Nobody but the Russians really tried to match us militarily, and they failed. However, that's in the process of changing.
Face it, China has the same aspirations towards world domination as Russia does, and I can pretty much guarantee that at some point within the next decade even people practicing hard-core denial like you will sit up and take notice. Unlike Russia, there's a damned good chance that China will be able to pull it off: they're not making the same mistakes as their Soviet neighbors. We won't be able to outdo them on military spending because a. they're gradually taking over supplying our military and b. have successfully decimated large portions of our manufacturing sector. Once China finally turns on us and stops providing us with critical manufactured goods we're as good as dead. We may very well see a repeat of the collapse of the Soviet Union, only this time it will be us. It doesn't have to be that way, but it will because they've found our weak spots and are exploiting them viciously.
That may not be a good thing for the rest of the world, no matter how much they may hate the U.S. at the moment. When China finally goes on the warpath, you'd better hope that the United States is still capable of taking them on. I don't think we will be: if nothing else China's government is almost preternaturally patient, and they'll bide their time until we're too weak to stop them.
The European Union had better take note: the United States' days are numbered. Start looking to your own defense because sooner or later, you're going to need it. Bigtime. We never went on an empire-building spree in spite of having the most powerful military force ever assembled by a single nation, but I do not believe that China will exercise the same level of restraint.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm sure I'm not getting it quite right, but Dennis Miller once pointed out that Eskimos eat blubber not because it's delicious but because it's the only thing on the Arctic buffet. Obviously this is a bit of an exaggeration (they can eat fish on occasion, too) but close enough to the truth for our purposes here today.
If you think the big swinging dicks (figuratively in this case, obviously) running China are eating rice gruel for breakfast, you have another fucking think coming. On the other hand, they're probably not having Eggs Over My Hammy, either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Idiot! You think a country cannot be a developing nation because it simply has a larger population than other countries? Even though most people in this country still live in very poor condition?!
Eh, the Eurocrats and Brits'll get there well before us.
Honestly there are a lot of us- not just Chinese, but all Asians that get pissed off a lot because it's not okay to use the 'n' word or make black jokes or use derogatory terms for Jews or Hispanics- but I hear Gook and Chink and Slant eyed or and every other term in the book thrown around (my favorite was being called "indian nigger" when I was in the midwest) not to mention the lame assed white guy Chinese accent and it's just fine according to society. Honestly as much as I am not a fan of china (my dad escaped after the revolution) I honestly think it's funny that they are kicking our ass economically and love the fact that Japan and South Korea put our tech to shame because we are so afraid to get our heads out of our asses in this country and take anyone seriously who isn't white.
I couldn't believe the other day I was flipping channels and "mind of mencia" was on and he had some rant about how stupid and dirty chinese people were and seriously, I was really offended. I mean if you were to put any other race in that rant of his most people would be angry, but chinese people *pfft* who cares right? they won't complain, they are a "model minority" because they don't say anything and are good at math (which I am not, really- I work in legal tech but have a degree in fine arts and have taught post graduate studies in design and audio composition and engineering).
I guess you might be kidding, but have you tried "dim sum" for breakfast?
And well China is a geographically vast place. Different places have different preferences for breakfast, I'm just talking about the local tradition here.
Don't quote me on this.
Of course, that being said, I have no idea what the GP is trying to say in general... (sounds like a rant by a drunken troll on crack) But the precise sentence you quoted is spot on. The point is it seems that people assume that China, when it gets "strong", would involve itself in stupid wars on intangible "ideologies", like "depriving other people of freedom", "anti-democracy", "evil oppression", etc. That's just bullsht.
If China was really that war-mongering, it'd have invaded Taiwan already. Instead, it's going through negotiations to improve cross strait relationships (as long as the Taiwanese government isn't pressing for outright "independence", whatever that means)
Please enlighten me.
Don't quote me on this.