Vast Electronic Spying Operation Discovered

homesalad writes "Researchers in Toronto have discovered a huge international electronic spying operation that they are calling 'GhostNet.' So far it has infiltrated government and corporate offices in 103 countries, including the office of the Dalai Lama (who originally went to the researchers for help analyzing a suspected infiltration). The operation appears to be based in China, and the information gained has been used to interfere with the actions of the Dalai Lama and to thwart individuals seeking to help Tibetan exiles. The researchers found no evidence of infiltration of US government computers, although machines at the Indian embassy were compromised. Here is the researchers' summary; a full report, 'Tracking "GhostNet": Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network' will be issued this weekend." A separate academic group in the UK that helped with the research is issuing its own report, expected to be available on March 29. Here is the abstract. They seem to be putting more stress on the "social malware" nature of the attack and ways to mitigate such techniques.

Comments

gnaa

[incesticide]

gay nigger association of america

spy on this:

[Anonymous Coward]

eat my asshole you dirty chinks

Re:spy on this:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese: really little dicks, really BIG botnets!

In Soviet China, little dick laughs at American woman!

Chinese women have 3 tight slits - two on the face, one 'tween the legs.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. and other governments have been doing things like this for years...

Re:Really?

[morgan_greywolf]

This doesn't sound like Echelon or Carnivore, but more like spyware being installed on computers.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Re:Really?

[MrMista_B]

Does that make it good, just, or laudable?

Evil is evil, no matter who does it.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the US government doesn't need to infect so many computers - instead they just listen in on all traffic that goes through the US.

And for traffic that doesn't go through the US, well, isn't it strange how often undersea lines "accidentally" get broken when there are US ships in the area?

Re:Really?

[Haeleth]

"Evil"? That's putting it a bit strongly. If you describe espionage as "evil", what words are left for things like torture, child abuse, or terrorism?

Spying violates people's privacy, and I can't say I'd particularly like the idea of having a foreign government snooping around my computer -- but it's hardly on the same level as acts that directly violate people's minds and bodies.

Re:Really?

[garaged]

I got one !

Evil

Evil is evil, we shouldn't have to need a classification for it

From TFA

[TheCybernator]

the abstract mentions that the attack was done using malwares. Firstly, I expected Chinese hackers (read govt.) smarter than this. Secondly, almost every government that allows internet reach its people have some some kind of surveillance and spy network in place. And its getting pretty obvious from the new laws that we are seeing popping up in various countries these days.

Re:From TFA

[chill]

the abstract mentions that the attack was done using malwares. Firstly, I expected Chinese hackers (read govt.) smarter than this.

Considering how effective it was, why use a different technique? I mean if they get something really super-hot, they would save it for more critical times. Until every copy of Windows is patched, firewalled, run thru Tor, buried in peat and recycled as firelighters, why bother?

Re:From TFA

[TheCybernator]

Why exactly you think they will leave the non-windows untouched?

Re:From TFA

[gobbo]

the abstract mentions that the attack was done using malwares. Firstly, I expected Chinese hackers (read govt.) smarter than this.

The bulk of Chinese intel is heavily distributed. The world's largest families don't need to rely on 007 agents; they can aggregate huge quantities of data by getting observant volunteers from the chinese diaspora to send bits of info back home through regular channels, like aunt Ping or even uncle James. It's so distributed it doesn't look like spying, and it isn't really, in the traditional sense.

This has driven counterintelligence agencies in 'western' democracies and republics to distraction. There are hardly any spooks to catch, mainly just a giant global gossamer net of informers, and enormous compiling and analysis operations in China. The 'agents', who are barely agents if at all, have strong deniability and can always fall back on complaints of harassment due to ethnic targeting. (Google the issue, it's amusing.)

I think it's brilliant, even if wholly dependent on the chinese sense of family ties. A malware attack is a similar approach: it doesn't look like the work of spies, at first, and it's broadly distributed. So, it's plausible that it could be a chinese intel operation, just from the M.O.

Re:From TFA

[chill]

Windows is much more prevalent and the low hanging fruit. I don't think Mac and Linux will be totally ignored, but the bulk of the effort will go where the bulk of the target are, and in a normal office environment that means Microsoft Windows, Office and Internet Explorer.

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The bulk of Chinese intel is heavily distributed. The world's largest families don't need to rely on 007 agents; they can aggregate huge quantities of data by getting observant volunteers from the chinese diaspora to send bits of info back home through regular channels, like aunt Ping or even uncle James. It's so distributed it doesn't look like spying, and it isn't really, in the traditional sense.

This has driven counterintelligence agencies in 'western' democracies and republics to distraction. There are hardly any spooks to catch, mainly just a giant global gossamer net of informers, and enormous compiling and analysis operations in China. The 'agents', who are barely agents if at all, have strong deniability and can always fall back on complaints of harassment due to ethnic targeting. (Google the issue, it's amusing.)

I think it's brilliant, even if wholly dependent on the chinese sense of family ties.

You understand that you are pulling this out of your ass, do you?

Re:From TFA

[lgw]

The most secure US government network I've seen (datacenter for a Three Letter Agency) used a mix of NetWare servers and a mainframe. While client machines can be compromised, I suspect someone was thinking along these lines when it came to the servers. Linux and Mac aren't particularly obscure or uncommon, but the US governemtn probably has the address of every programmer who ever worked on the NetWare kernel. I don't know what OS the mainframe was running, but there are several where, like NetWare, the total number of humans worldwide with kernel hacking knowledge is "dozens".

Re:From TFA

[Jessified]

If Chinese people do it, it's spying. If westerners do it (such as via twitter, or even wikileaks) it's just social media.

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

"Social" -- yes, I like the sound of that word. "Social malware," "social media," "social drug use," "social drinking" -- see, it sounds a little illegitimate, but it's really nothing of which to be afraid!

Re:From TFA

[TerranFury]

If Chinese people do it, it's spying. If westerners do it (such as via twitter, or even wikileaks) it's just social media.

Nah, it's more than twitter; GP made it sound like the "informers" are more innocent than they actually are. It sounds like he's talking about cases like that of Chi Mak (which is sort of an archetypal case). Yes, he wasn't particularly professional, but he did know damn well that he was passing along secrets he wasn't supposed to:

At one point, Chiu said to her husband that the "things" his brother was asking him to take "are certainly against the law," states an FBI affidavit.

Re:From TFA

[Jessified]

Okay, fair enough. But it is important to be aware of biases. People tend to downplay aspects of their own society that they criticize in others. In this case, I don't know enough to say what your example falls under.

Thanks

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually why we had to upgrade our destruction procedures for crypto tapes?

Before, we were running them through a 1/64" cross-cut shredder, mixing up the shred and calling it done. Then we caught a few "people of Chinese descent" in the local landfill, picking out bags of shred.

When we investigated their homes, we found LOTS of bags of shred, light tables and stereo microscopes.

Now we shred, then run the shred through the hammermill.

Hmmmmm. On second thought, I think I'll post this as an Anonymous Coward...

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

That is accurate in premise, but not in follow-through. This leaves innumerable sources of error, contamination of information, etc. Eventually, the best of those sources rises to the top and becomes visible. Like it or not, specialized HUMINT operators are a requirement. And it's fun.

Re:From TFA

[AHuxley]

What are your spying options?
You want step F in a series of steps or a product? You find the company or agency or individual with as much contact with the product, device or research.
What can you do, bribe, seduce, steal, or blackmail?
All the above are risky needing great skill and exposing your trained spies for a product that is going to be useless in 5 years?
Nothing around the production system or background it. So you target John or Sally.
They might have gambling debts, like children, enjoy the rush of playing Bond or just be pissed off.
You get the one part.
Install it and everybody is happy.
The West get a unit out and pulls it apart.
It has a John or Sally feel all over it, directly or indirectly.
John or Sally are then promoted sideways, have a crash, get fast acting cancer or suffer some other permanent life changing event.
Everybody around John or Sally knows what happened in some way.
They will never talk to strangers.
The costly spy ring is exposed and you now need product G.
China got smart to this waste. Why not learn all about production A-E. Get as many students into universities and just wait it out.
Over time they collect everything China needs. Returning to start own firms or invite western firms.
But what China has done best is to get young, happy, gifted students around John or Sally, working with them.
There is no need to open the safe or steal or get caught.
China is building the future with John or Sally in real time.
Years later everything learned is connected back in China or just passed on in meetings, publications or more directly.

Re:From TFA

[gobbo]

And yes, I did say 'google the issue' because there are simply too many cases to cite in a discussion forum. I don't write things like that just to typecast, or flamebait. That massive distributed intel gathering is a method mostly particular to the Chinese, due to their fairly unique cultural and political situation in the world.

If you actually read my post, you'd see praise and amusement rather than criticism.

Re:From TFA

[RocketRabbit]

Because it's exponentially more difficult to infect non-Windows computers?

After all, Macs are what, 5% of the computing world at this point? And yet, not 0.005% of the virus infections are on Macs.

The old saw of Macs or Linux or whatever not being worth targeting doesn't sing.

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

In my country, we have a very proactive security and intelligence force because for the terrorism that we suffer, also theres a lot of NGO's doing work that the government would not like to see the light. These NGO's runs Linux I know it from first hand, custom build or handed by other international NGO's that trains them to use secure communications PGP Tor etc. For them thats the difference between an alive NGO worker and a positive

Yes, security forces are aware of Linux and it's a target too.

Re:From TFA

[Latinhypercube]

because macs are for house wives and no body cares what linux users are up to.

Re:From TFA

[Latinhypercube]

what about the global spy net of caucasians. They all constantly talk to each other all the time, passing information back and forth. Constantly sending emails and facebook updates to their secret western intelligence agents who are disguised as friends and relatives. (if you are any doubt ~ I am joking ~ the above post is a borderline racist nutjob)

Re:From TFA

[Pictish Prince]

the abstract mentions that the attack was done using malwares. Firstly, I expected Chinese hackers (read govt.) smarter than this.

The bulk of Chinese intel is heavily distributed. The world's largest families don't need to rely on 007 agents; they can aggregate huge quantities of data by getting observant volunteers from the chinese diaspora to send bits of info back home through regular channels, like aunt Ping or even uncle James. It's so distributed it doesn't look like spying, and it isn't really, in the traditional sense.

This has driven counterintelligence agencies in 'western' democracies and republics to distraction. There are hardly any spooks to catch, mainly just a giant global gossamer net of informers, and enormous compiling and analysis operations in China. The 'agents', who are barely agents if at all, have strong deniability and can always fall back on complaints of harassment due to ethnic targeting. (Google the issue, it's amusing.)

I think it's brilliant, even if wholly dependent on the chinese sense of family ties. A malware attack is a similar approach: it doesn't look like the work of spies, at first, and it's broadly distributed. So, it's plausible that it could be a chinese intel operation, just from the M.O.

Indeed! The worlds most effective intelligence organization, the Mossad, uses an informal network of "sayanim" located everywhere on the globe who will do anything to help Israel.

Re:From TFA

[guruevi]

I believe that security through obscurity doesn't work. The fact that there are only a handful of hackers for a platform also means that the platform is not scrutinized enough. Whatever entity wants to crack into those systems only need one of them on the 'dark side' to be successful. In those small niche groups (I belong to one of them), certain issues are very well known to exist and shared. Either there is a workaround or it's not important enough to fix right away but some of them have existed for years.

Every piece of software has issues whether it be open source or closed. I believe that open source because of it's nature has less bugs in it while closed source software is more rushed in the development phase as long as a new product is sold every few months/years.

Re:From TFA

[HiThere]

In that case there are other options. BeOS might be a good choice. They could fork the open version of that and have a "nearly working" system instantly, with some software already available. They'd need to train all their developers and maintenance people, but this would guarantee that the knowledge remained restricted.

And while Netware was rather secure, it was also rather limited in capability. BeOS would be a better place to start. And since it's only "a place to start", there would be NO collection of knowledge outside of the agency (and it's ex-employees).

I think they're better off, though, with Linux. The one that the NSA made secure modifications to. (The ones that are so complex that nobody else uses them properly.)

Re:From TFA

[Fluffeh]

Considering how effective it was, why use a different technique?

In a recent security exercise, a group was asked to breach a company's IT defenses. They did so within a single day. It wasn't fancy sneaking past firewalls, it wasn't sending funny emails, it wasn't poisoned web pages. It was leaving a few USB keys in the carpark of a morning which people walking into the office picked up and then curiosity did the rest of the work.

It comes down to "do what works". This was simple, cost effective and no-one had thought of stopping this simple breach in company policy. I believe that recently the US Army had problems with USB keys sending around a worm as well didn't they?

Re:From TFA

[AmonEzhno]

But it's also harder to spread worms and such to less popular systems , it's one of those things where a mac would have to be connected to at least one other mac, which would have to be connected to another mac. I mean that could account for a least a portion of the ratio.

Re:From TFA

[xouumalperxe]

I believe that security through obscurity doesn't work.

Me neither, usually. But this is security through obscurity reversed: you're not minimizing exposure to attacks so much as you're limiting the amount of attackers available. If the platform is obscure enough, there's only a handful of doors to knock at 'til you find the attacker, or the person who gave information to the attacker (perhaps unwittingly).

Re:From TFA

[lgw]

If the pool of attackers is small enough, the government can arrest every single possible atacker in the case of a serious attack. I'm not sure the the pool of NetWare kernel hackers is quite that small, but the current pool of malicious hackers feeding the botnets and the Chinese spy network has no experience at all with it. You may only need one black hat to invade a system, but you do need one - and my experience has taught me that when the pool is small enough it's damn hard to hire even one competant guy!

All OSs have serious weakneses. Ask the guys who do the "map the internet" project, who had BSD servers hacked when the only open ports were those needed for SSH and ping (and apparently the datcenter routers as well, to hide the backtrail, though the number of Cisco routers with default passwords is high enough that maybe that isn't so impressive). The weakness of security through obscurity is the danger that something might stop being obscure, which here is a relatively small risk compared the the huge security holes in every major OS.

Re:From TFA

[lgw]

NetWare is a very stable file and print server. Arguably, it's the most solid file and print server ever written, excluding mainframe stuff. Security is only one consideration.

Re:From TFA

[HiThere]

Yes, it was a great print server. It was also a decent file server. And it had a few other nice capabilities. But it was basically limited. And it tended to develop problems that were quite difficult to diagnose.

If all you want is a print server, then Netware might be a good choice. Perhaps. (Which version?) But it wasn't very flexible. I suspect the basic design was designed to fit on an 8-bit computer, and then retrofitted for 16-bit machines. This would mean lots of ad hoc patches, even going from an 8088 to an 8086.

Target operating system?

[transporter_ii]

Infection happens two ways. In one method, a userâ(TM)s clicking on a document attached to an e-mail message lets the system covertly install software deep in the target operating system. Alternatively, a user clicks on a Web link in an e-mail message and is taken directly to a âoepoisonedâ Web site.

Unless I missed it, I don't see Windows mentioned...but I'm going to go out on a limb here and figure the targeted OS is Windows.

Transporter_ii

Re:Target operating system?

[interstellar_donkey]

I don't know. It surprised me that the Dalai Lama even used computers. But if he did, they'd probably are Macs. He just seems like that kind of guy

Re:Target operating system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs? I'd think he'd be a Linux type of guy.

Re:Target operating system?

[Kjella]

Unless I missed it, I don't see Windows mentioned...but I'm going to go out on a limb here and figure the targeted OS is Windows.

If it's a targeted attack you'd target whatever the target is using. Even if what you said was true, it's not proof of anything except that the Dalai Lama doesn't use Mac or Linux.

Re:Target operating system?

[Logic Worshiper]

Mac? I thought material goods were impure...

Re:Target operating system?

[sakdoctor]

There's Ballmer saying that Linux is Communism, when it turns out that in fact Windows is Communism (actually Socialism with Chinese characteristics).

On Monday, tell your boss that if you don't switch to Linux ASAP then the pseudo-communists have won.

Re:Target operating system?

[heritage727]

His real problem is that none of his emails have attachments.

Re:Target operating system?

[srussia]

Macs? I'd think he'd be a Linux type of guy.

Mac, for sure. If someone knows the sound of one mouse button clicking, the DL is it!

Re:Target operating system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. Billy still gives chinese gov. the source code to Windows, and there is DOUBT about it being Windows? Even without the source code, it would be easy, but much easier with it.

Re:Target operating system?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL come on, stop playing with words, and admit it s not as easy, or even not feasible in certain cases, to hack some educated target running Linux, *BSD, or another OS which is not a toy, via email.

Re:Target operating system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs? I'd think he'd be a Linux type of guy.

And I suppose you are thinking of the Enlightenment window manager?

Re:Target operating system?

[gilgongo]

It surprised me that the Dalai Lama even used computers.

Dude - the Dali Llama is on Twitter. He's also one of the most wired religious leaders in the world, and appears to have a Blackberry (if his Twitter updates and anecdotal reports of emails are to be believed).

Re:Target operating system?

[shadowbearer]

  The Mac OS and Linux/BSD are much harder malware targets, for many reasons. Lack of an easy way to insert and run an executable file being one.

  This has been discussed on this site MANY MANY times.

SB

Re:Target operating system?

[maxume]

From that page:

"# Bio Visit the official site www.dalailama.com for more information. Not affiliated with the Office of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama."

Take special note of the 'not affiliated' bit. The official story is far less exciting:

http://www.dalailama.com/page.67.htm

Re:Target operating system?

[m6ack]

"These were packaged as either .doc or .pdf files that installed rootkits on the machines of monks who clicked on them."

Yes... doubtless it was at least Microsoft software that was to blame, if not the OS itself. The attachments were DOC and PDF, and installing rootkits would have probably required "root" or "admin" access -- the default config. of most private Windows users.

Re:Target operating system?

[ColdWetDog]

Oh, really?

Re:Target operating system?

[muckracer]

> The Mac OS and Linux/BSD are much harder malware targets, for many reasons.
> Lack of an easy way to insert and run an executable file being one.

Actually running something on a Linux system is easy, just perhaps not as root. But if you browse the poisoned site from your account and got your 'secret' stuff in ~/documents I'd imagine, that it can be gotten to from just the normal user context.
So the question the researchers bring up on how to defend against such attacks is a very valid one, and while Mac and Linux may make it a bit harder for now, it doesn't make the attacks impossible. I can only imagine, that a severely SELinux'ed environment and/or actual sandboxing of Internet-exposed apps (browser, e-mail etc.) in virtual machines will be part of any solution (even though a virtual machine with just your e-mail is probably still vulnerable to having *all* your mail exposed therein). Suggestions anyone?

Re:Target operating system?

[nashv]

The Dalai Lama is way too cool to be a Mac person.

Re:Target operating system?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know. It surprised me that the Dalai Lama even used computers. But if he did, they'd probably are Macs. He just seems like that kind of guy

Hey - Tibetans are very tech-savvy ..... try walking down McCloud Gang/Dharamsala & see how mant mobile phones are in use.

Try checking first. the West is being overtaken fast by the East in the tech arenea & Tibet (in exile or otherwise) is no exception.

Re:Target operating system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that any government in the world would use the Windows Platform (the worst for security)? Why not Macs, Linux or proprietary? They are dumb dumb dumb!

Re:Target operating system?

[muckracer]

Another thing I am wondering about: will the discovered malware and rootkits now be included in popular anti-virus/-spyware programs?

Re:Target operating system?

[muckracer]

The write-up is here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13731776/Tracking-GhostNet-Investigating-a-Cyber-Espionage-Network Apparently only 11 out of 34 Anti-Virus programs on virustotal detected the initial dropper from the e-mail attachments.

Laugh now, the next century belongs

[Anonymous Coward]

*in Japanese* The fact that you didn't make me Sulu shows remarkable racial sensitivity.
*holding eyes at a slant* I'm Sulu!
*in Japanese* Laugh now, the next century belongs to us.

Re:Laugh now, the next century belongs

[actionbastard]

"Sweet Clyde, laugh derisively in his direction." - 'Bubblegum' Tate
"You lack the will of the warrior! A Ha! Ha Ha!" - Master Thnog

Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems pretty obvious that we're going to end up in an economic war with China. Some little official is going to do something stupid and then we're going to have to bitch-slap them.

If you freeze Chinese assets in US banks, deny them access to telecom links, port and air landing rights, etc., China would be bankrupted in about a year. And whoever replaced the Communist party would have better manners.

Re:Bankrupt them

[migla]

You can't bitch slap China. China owns the USA to a large extent. They could bankrupt the USA.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have an "Anonymous Idiot" ID to post under? If so, please use it next time. China OWNS the US. Get that through your head: OWNS or if you prefer pwns.

The US bankrupting China is a hell of a laugh - and it isn't even April Fools yet.

Re:Bankrupt them

[johnsonav]

China owns the USA to a large extent.

I would like to see how they intend to come over here and get it.

Re:Bankrupt them

[artor3]

It would destroy their economy to do so... Reminds me of a quote about the definition of allies being two nations with hands so deep in each other's pockets that they cannot fight.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they call it electronic bank transfer.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

Common misconception.

China does not have to get anything it owns to pwn you. They just have to stop buying your treasury bonds and you'll go down in a blink.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Computershack]

China owns the USA to a large extent.

I would like to see how they intend to come over here and get it.

With their 3 million troops, 860 warships, 60 submarines, 400 nuclear missiles and 1400 fighter aircraft.

Re:Bankrupt them

[kheldan]

Technically true, but it would actually go down like this:

1. China calls in all of the USA's debt
2. USA says "Go get fucked"
3. World War III begins
4. Money becomes irrelevant shortly before Homo Sapiens are rendered such

Re:Bankrupt them

[johnsonav]

China does not have to get anything it owns to pwn you. They just have to stop buying your treasury bonds and you'll go down in a blink.

If China stops buying our treasury bonds, they won't be able to support their export economy. Sure, they could destroy us economically, but they would fare no better. It's economic MAD.

Re:Bankrupt them

[johnsonav]

With their 3 million troops, 860 warships [...]

So they're going to pile ~3,500 troops per warship, cross the entire Pacific Ocean, and launch some kind of amphibious assault against the continental US? We had a hard enough time crossing the English Channel.

[...] 60 submarines, 400 nuclear missiles and 1400 fighter aircraft.

A submarine isn't capable of taking territory. Fighter jets can't make the 10,000 mile round trip. And nuclear missiles are a death sentence for us both.

Re:Bankrupt them

[ssintercept]

hilarious!

PS-i burned myself when the cigarette fell into my lap from laughing!

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

China does not have to get anything it owns to pwn you. They just have to stop buying your treasury bonds and you'll go down in a blink.

I take it you haven't seen the latest South Park episode.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Runaway1956]

Uhhhh - the Chinese are smarter than that. They know they can't come over here and take what they want using military power. That is the very reason they are attacking us asymmetrically. Google around for Assasin's Mace. China has been at war with the US for years already, and the US is to stupid to know it, let alone defend itself. But, Sun Tzu was more akin to the Communist Chinese than to any Americans, so they understand him better than we do.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so tired of hearing this... China does not OWN the U.S. China is a third world country, with a less than one percent of it's population counting as first world. Additionally, China OWNS a little over 1.5 trillion in U.S. bonds; most of those bonds are not "callable" at the moment. And even if they were, the bonds are held in dollars, meaning â" not recommending â" the U.S. could print a trillion dollars and say: "here you go." That is why a weaken dollar scares the Chinese (and the rest of the world). The dollar is still the world's reserve currency, and for good reason, longevity, political stability, and the passiviness of the U.S. population (we will not take to the street with pitch-folks, even when we can SEE WE ARE BEING SCREWED, can anyone say Election 2000). This is important, because investors NEED to know they will be made whole if anything goes wrong, such as FRAUD and THEFT. And this is in my humble opinion what has occured in the last ten years on a massive scale. Could you see any other country taking the actions the U.S. has? Well empirical evidence says NO! That is why people invest in the U.S. and will continue to do so.

And again - not a recommending - but if I am not mistaken, the U.S. did print a trillion dollars out of thin air last week. So paying China is the least of our problems. China will always be a second-rate player, until they can 1, take raise the lifestyle of of the majority of the population to at least middle-class standards (rapidly shrinking in this country) and project military power around the world to protect their assets and allies. We all like having a big friend when necessary. And people need to know that when the going gets tough, someone has your back. The U.S. has proven, that it is prohibitively expensive to be a Big Friend. And, remember, for the vast period of these years of huge military cost and buildup has been to "show the flag". No other country has been able to successful sustain it. The U.S. will as long as its population is content with doing without the things that those resources could buy. And nothing seems to be changing on that front.

The one true lesson from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is that the U.S. can do really stupid things and stay relatively in tack.

And for those of you who are cheerleading the end of the U.S. century, well most of the world does not join you, as this economic crisis has illustrated, as goes the U.S. goes the rest of the world . And, of course, nature hates a vacuum. Who would you like to step up: Russia, China, the French, English? Don't think so. The overwhelming benefit the U.S. has is that we have so many of the world's population in our shores. And, more importantly, we can change drastically without tearing ourselves to pieces, as Election 2008 has shown. That is why people invest in us. And China owns 1.5 trillion in our debt.

So turn off the TV or at least turn the channel. The Revolution Might Be Televised, but not on that channel.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

not even that... they just have to say they are going to stop buying them.

Re:Bankrupt them

[madcat2c]

No, things like gold would be required to do business...since Fort Knox holds 147.399 million troy ounces, and the fed reserve bank in New York holds 160 million+ troy ounces of gold, for a total of 307.399 million troy ounces, and at today's prices that's a minimum of $283 Billion in hard gold. You can bet that the government would seize all gold (like it did in the 30's).

It would go like this...China and Americas economy would collapse...china has billions of people to feed, and would move to seize any farmland it could...Americas money value would deflate to its holdings in gold and commodities (silver, copper, etc), it would be rough but we would be ok. There would be a scramble to open manufacturing in America as Manufacturing in Asia would not be possible. Countries that have little or no commodities reserves would wither and die...massive immigration would happen. It would be unpleasant to say the least.

Re:Bankrupt them

[eggnoglatte]

To completely and utterly destroy the US economy, all they need to do is not buy NEW government bonds. How do you think the US deficit is financed, exactly?

Re:Bankrupt them

[johnsonav]

To completely and utterly destroy the US economy, all they need to do is not buy NEW government bonds.

If they aren't buying new government bonds, what are they going to do with all the dollars we pay them for their exports? Without exports, China's economy becomes just as destroyed as the US's. It's economic Mutually Assured Destruction.

Re:Bankrupt them

[PolygamousRanchKid]

John Maynard Keynes quipped:

"If I owe the bank 100 pounds, I have a problem. If I owe the bank, 100,000 pounds, the bank has a problem."

Re:Bankrupt them

[The Master Control P]

Woa woa woa, hang on, you're saying... they won't invade?. I won't be able to run up into the mountains with a small group of friends and fight the communist occupiers? There goes any hope for excitement after school starts in the fall.

Disclaimer: I know the movie is a fantasy, but if you're an American and don't connect with those kids at least a little you're probably a commie yourself.

Re:Bankrupt them

[shadowbearer]

Reminds me of a quote about the definition of allies being two nations with hands so deep in each other's pants that they cannot fight.

  Fixed that fer ya ;)

SB

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with 'Massive immigration' to US soil is that the US is, except where Canada, Mexico, and Cuba are concerned, an island. To get here you must either boat or fly, and then someone in the US has to decide to let you in.

Re:Bankrupt them

[eggnoglatte]

You are right about MAD at some level, but not for the reason you think.

The reason why the Chinese have to be careful is that, by wiping out the US economy, they would pretty much ensure that their biggest market collapses, so their own economic growth would be severely affected.

By comparison, spending excess money is easy. They could invest it in other economies, or just ramp up their own R&D or military development, thus boosting their own job market & economy.

The Chinese economy is not self-sustaining at the moment - they are very much dependent on an export market (primarily the US, but also Europe to some degree). However, they are taking huge steps towards economic independence, and in a decade or two, the situation will have changed drastically. That is the day the US should dread.

Re:Bankrupt them

[WindBourne]

amazing what a number of new neutron bombs on new nuclear subs (2-4 EACH YEAR for the last 4 years; and more are being built) can do if launched from the gulf of mexico. Oddly, W and the neo-cons moved many of our nuclear assets to TEXAS! That would leave us with 1-2 minutes to figure out what the f*** to do.

Re:Bankrupt them

[adamchou]

actually, if they really wanted to destroy the us economy, all they would need to do is sell all their existing bonds. the dollar would crash.

Re:Bankrupt them

[adamchou]

you realize china is the biggest single owner of us bonds right? approximately 1 trillion in us bonds. if they decide to sell all of that, it will cause the dollar to crash and the us economy would be wiped out.

Re:Bankrupt them

[adamchou]

you have obviously never been in south western united states. people have no problem sneaking across the border. they just land in mexico first.

Re:Bankrupt them

[enrevanche]

China cannot "call in" all US debt. The debt is primarily in treasury bonds. To "call in" the debt they would have to dump (i.e. sell) them on the market. The price would drop some, but since China only holds about 700 billion (6.3%) of a total of 11 trillion, it can probably be handled by the market. It would probably take them at least a year to liquidate their position. As they would have an interest in preserving their foreign reserves, they would have to move them slowly into another strong currency, i.e. yen or euros.
Since the US seems to have no problem writing 700 billion dollar checks these days, I suppose it could handle one more if it wanted to actually buy them back directly and immediately.
Hardly anything would happen (except a small rise in yields which are absurdly low anyways) if China decided to sell its US securities quickly. In fact a good percentage of them are of less than a year in duration and have to be renewed regularly, otherwise they would be payed back.
Furthermore, a quick dumping of U.S. treasuries would probably cause the stock market to go down again, causing a flight to quality, i.e. moving other money into treasuries, stabilizing treasury prices.

Re:Bankrupt them

[johnsonav]

if they decide to sell all of that, it will cause the dollar to crash and the us economy would be wiped out.

Yes, I do realize that. And, I also realize that course of action would devastate China's economy as surely as it would ours.

Re:Bankrupt them

[johnsonav]

amazing what a number of new neutron bombs on new nuclear subs (2-4 EACH YEAR for the last 4 years; and more are being built) can do if launched from the gulf of mexico.

And how, exactly, does any of that help China? Our nuclear retaliation would be overwhelming. China would be just as gone as us.

Re:Bankrupt them

[SquirrelsUnite]

With their 3 million troops, 860 warships, 60 submarines, 400 nuclear missiles and 1400 fighter aircraft.

Who's going to keep an eye on the 1.3 billion people left behind then?

Re:Bankrupt them

[adamchou]

well... thats what the parent meant by china owning the us. not saying that china can be independent of the us though

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not worth it and too obvious and risky to China to attack directly. However, there's nothing that says they can exert some influence in the right places and attack us via proxies from a mix of Central American countries. Being that the area is unstable due to our own bungling, and that the backdoor is unlocked and currently left wide open. (Ok there's a fence in some areas, but that may as well be a rickety screen door with holes in the way it's currently deployed.) So that would be a "Duuuh!" type option if militaristic strategy were deployed. Just a few shipments of certain goods or putting money in the right place is all that it would take. (Which makes me wonder, WTF is wrong with congress? If they're actually serious about the drug war, human trafficing, drug money, and arms running, you'd think that securing our borders and particularly the southern one would be somewhat of a priority. A few national guard divisions with legal grounds to make arrest and backed by armed helicopter support would soon make sure border traffic goes through the proper channels.)

But I agree that following the Sun Tzu method would actually desire to maintain the status quo between The West and China. It's better to have an adversary on an economic leash and paying tribute in some way, than destroying them military and along with it their economic capacity. Even back then, Sun Tzu saw that a military win is likely a lose-lose effort that wastes resources all around. There is little point in garnering territory via war if you're actually winning economically. Smart guy, even by today's standards.

Re:Bankrupt them

[indi0144]

lolwut? Can I haz your herb?

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you want to believe it but no, actually real life is not like in your mind. Other undeveloped 3dr class country pwned you in the past.. huhhh Vietnam, multiply that by several foldings but in you backyard.

Re:Bankrupt them

[smoker2]

The Chinese are investing heavily in African states, so those dollars are being spread around, despite US indifference to third world issues. In fact there seems to be more non-western investment in the third world than ever. Only to be expected, really. Then in 20 or 30 years, the west will be wondering where it all went wrong.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

MAD always counted on knowing WHO has struck you. When you launch from subs, you do not know who. More importantly, our capability will be severely gone if our space system is compromised. China is moving from planes and rockets to the majority of their nukes being on subs.
Ever wonder why China is spending so much effort at militarizing space, while pushing treaties about not wanting to militarize space? Heck, they will be the ONLY nation that will have a military only space station in orbit come 2010. Worse, they appear to be wanting to put up MULTIPLES of these. That on-top of their practicing blowing up sats, as well as a strong effort on spaced-based lasers. So what does taking out sats give them? Ability to have first strike COMBINED with killing our ability to retaliate. Heck, Russia is nervous about our ability to take out 6 of their 5000 warheads with out anti-missle system (which is not intended for russia or even Iran). As to overwhelming response, we have greatly lowered our count of delivery system. A well placed set of NEUTRON BOMBS would take out nearly all our missile and planes; Subs would be stopped by taking out our space communications.

Re:Bankrupt them

[jonaskoelker]

So when you go out on the town, you're really there to forge new alliances?

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

primarily the US, but also Europe to some degree

Actually it's primarily China's neighbor states, after that Europe, and after that the U.S.

The US is still a very important trading partner, and your point still stands.

Re:Bankrupt them

[ScrewMaster]

The Chinese are investing heavily in African states, so those dollars are being spread around, despite US indifference to third world issues. In fact there seems to be more non-western investment in the third world than ever. Only to be expected, really. Then in 20 or 30 years, the west will be wondering where it all went wrong.

I'm not necessarily sure that investment is the proper term. My girlfriend is Nigerian, for example, and the Chinese have set up a huge operation there to market goods to wealthy Nigerians. The goal seems to be the same as it is here in the U.S.: extract the maximum wealth out of the foreign population while giving very little in return. Matter of fact, by providing mass quantities of cheap manufactured goods, they're eliminating any incentive the local economies might have for developing such capabilities themselves. One might wonder what China's ultimate intentions are, by effectively limiting the economic development of other nations. Brazil, at least, seems to have some ability to keep the Chinese (and the U.S., for that matter) at bay: say what you want about protectionism, but they're keeping key industries alive.

Also, I'm not quite sure what you mean by U.S. "indifference to third world issues" given that the United States gives more away in foreign aid than any nation in history. Whether we're doing any better for those countries' long term outlook than China is a matter of debate. But "indifference" isn't really accurate.

Re:Bankrupt them

[ScrewMaster]

It would destroy their economy to do so... Reminds me of a quote about the definition of allies being two nations with hands so deep in each other's pockets that they cannot fight.

Ah ... when, exactly, did China become an ally??? We are beholden to a hostile wannabe superpower who most definitely is not an "ally". Unless some dramatic changes to their governmental system occur (as in, a revolution) they never will be either.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

never read much about neutron bombs, interesting stuff. Part of their component is Tritium, and with the help of wikipedia i was able to find where it's produced in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Generating_Station

ahh internets never cease to amaze me.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

China's already saber rattling about doing just that. Observe their recent calls for a new currency so they can stop buying our increasingly bad debt.

Re:Bankrupt them

[bheading]

Dread ? Why ?

Does the USA dread Europe which, as a combined economy, is larger ?

Or do you just not like the Chinese

Re:Bankrupt them

[aka-ed]

"Google around for Assasin's Mace" -- and if you find anything besides paranoiac speculation, do alert the media.

And, while on the topic of paranoiac speculation, why does the U of Cambridge doc provide a narrative of a successful, highly-targeted security breech of the global Tibetan movement, while the Times article raises alarms about a seemingly omnipresent worldwide spy operation?

The tone of Infowar Monitor's report is nowhere near the alarmist squeals of the Times:

"Recent allegations of Chinese cyber espionage largely rely on anecdotal evidence. The most common proof provided by victims of these attacks consists of log fles or malware that shows connections being made by infected computers to IP addresses assigned to the Peopleâ(TM)s Republic of China.This kind of evidence is circumstantial at best. Internet usage statistics suggest that focusing on Chinese instances of information warfare is misleading.

"With 41% of the worldâ(TM)s Internet users located in Asia, China alone accounts for the largest national population of Internet usersâ"some 300 million, nearly one-ffth of the global number of users. Coupled with the rapid growth in Chinese use of the Internetâ"a 1,200% increase in the period 2000-2008â"this would more than account for the rise in instances of Chinese-oriented malware.

"At the same time, however, allegations of Chinese hacking and exploitation of private and government computer systems are persistent enough to warrant an evidence-based investigation.This report provides such an investigation."

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

Tritium is used in all hydrogen bombs (hence hydrogen). Neutron is simply a regular hydrogen bomb, but with the blast de-empahsised and radiation enhanced. It was developed by USA as a way to stop the USSR military. Thing is that the west gave it up 15 years ago, while China has been busy building and stockpiling them. Blow them above silos and you destroy the electronics as well as the ppl without destroying much else.

Other nation's haven't been afflicted by the U.S. blindness regarding neutron bombs. According to Cohen: Evidence exists that China has neutron bombs stockpiled, and that the United States gave the Chinese the technology to build them.
Russia has a large quantity of such weapons, as well as the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Israel has hundreds of neutron weapons. The neutron bombs would allow Israel to stop advancing Arab armies and tank columns - even one on Israeli soil - without permanently contaminating the land.

Re:Bankrupt them

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you think Election 2008 was actually a "drastic change" destroys any credibility you may have had.

Re:Bankrupt them

[johnsonav]

well... thats what the parent meant by china owning the us. not saying that china can be independent of the us though

And what I'm saying is, we "own" China just as much as they "own" us. Either government has the power to destroy the other's economy, but at the price of their own being destroyed too.

Re:Bankrupt them

[mjwx]

A submarine isn't capable of taking territory. Fighter jets can't make the 10,000 mile round trip.

Invading the US would be difficult from China, but they don't have to move 3 million people, only enough to make trouble. Besides, they will likely just target the source of the US's strength, its allies. How do you propose to defend Japan and Taiwan?. Then we move on to our more ambiguous allies like Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. China will not attack the US directly, it will do it by proxy in their own back yard, the US, NATO and Allies will be tasked with defending other nations which cannot hope to defend themselves against China.

But the real decider on that war will be which side the Russians wade in on. China has a huge border to the north and the Russians have a large army (still) and an absolute crap load of mothballed war material from the cold war just waiting to be re-activated. Russia also has a border to the West with all of Europe on the other side. Entering into war with either side is bad for Russia but worse for the other side as neither the Allies or China can afford to fight such a war on two fronts.

Re:Bankrupt them

[eggnoglatte]

Why do you assume I blame the Chinese for any of this? In fact I think they have a right to strive for a world-political influence proportional to their size and population, which they had centuries ago, but haven't had recently.

The reason I singled out the US is that China owns a fair percentage of the US, but not nearly as much of any other G8 country. Countries like Canada had a balance budget until very recently. Other countries like France, Germany, Japan, and Italy, export more than they import, so the mutual ownership of resources is balanced or even skewed in their favor. Russia has its oil and doesn't need anybody. In the G8, that leaves the US and possibly the UK as countries that are most likely to be in trouble.

Commenters ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Im wondering how many posts here are submitted on behalf of the Chinese Government?
They can join and influence our conversations but we can never join theirs..

Re:Commenters ?

[sakdoctor]

I'm not afraid of the Chinese Government. I just got mod points.

Re:Commenters ?

[Anaerin]

And yet, you burned them posting in the very thread they'll be needed most. You fool. You damn crazy fool.

Re:Commenters ?

[Steve Franklin]

Look at the comments under any YouTube video on Chinese suppression of Tibet and you'll see the Chinese government in action: especially lies about Tibet always having been part of China. The funny thing is, the Chinese aren't physically adapted to living under diminished oxygen conditions, so they can only stay there for a few years and then have to be replaced by other Chinese. In the long run they can't win.

Re:Commenters ?

[psnyder]

If you type "I am extremely" into Google, the bottom suggestion from their auto-complete will be: "I am extremely terrified of chinese people" with 303,000 results.

Slashdot may need to give out more mod points.

Re:Commenters ?

[MichaelSmith]

Look at the comments under any YouTube video on Chinese suppression of Tibet and you'll see the Chinese government in action: especially lies about Tibet always having been part of China. The funny thing is, the Chinese aren't physically adapted to living under diminished oxygen conditions, so they can only stay there for a few years and then have to be replaced by other Chinese. In the long run they can't win.

If I got sent to Tibet for some reason I would want to go home eventually too, but it wouldn't be because of the altitude.

Re:Commenters ?

[maxume]

Yeah, that's what I think when I look at China -- "they are going to run out of people sometime soon".

Re:Commenters ?

[dangitman]

Look at the comments under any YouTube video...

My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!

Re:Commenters ?

[Clarious]

No, I don't think it was Chinese government, it is the normal Chinese people who commented like that. They have alway think that Tibet is a part of their country, thank to the Chinese education.

Re:Commenters ?

[Steve Franklin]

True. But then who controls the educational system? The reactions are so strident, though, that I have to think that there's at least some major cheerleading going on from government circles. And there is a quite hard-headed need to get in the last word among the posters that I have rarely seen in YouTube comments, with the exception of the comments to a video denying that the Csango of Rumania are descended from Hungarians. Again, an ethnic debate with political overtones.

Interesting thing is, Tibet controlled an empire that ran down the Ganges to the Indian Ocean, possibly explaining the parallels between the Andes and Tibet.

Re:Commenters ?

[Anonymous Coward]

lies about Tibet always having been part of China. The funny thing is, the Chinese aren't physically adapted to living under diminished oxygen conditions

You are, I suppose, referring to the Han Chinese, who are only one of many ethnic groups in China. The fact that you appear not to be aware that the Chinese are not ethnically homogeneous does not say much for your level of qualification to speak on the subject.

Re:Commenters ?

[daniel23]

ok, I checked it. No mention of Chinese for me, instead I got:
"i am extremely bored" with 3.730.000 results.

Re:Commenters ?

[psnyder]

It seems to have changed in the last 2 days! (@_@)

It was working 2 days ago (I checked before posting) but now it's not. And it was reported back in early Febuary here, here and here.

Or you can google: "google I am extremely terrified of chinese people" and find many sites talking about it.

Sanctions overdue

[clang_jangle]

Sanctions against China are way overdue. Our gov't and big businesses are just feeding that monster.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[jlarocco]

Yeah, it's definitely the government and big business. It couldn't possibly be hundreds of millions of Americans spending hundreds of billions of dollars, demanding cheap products made in China.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ScrewMaster]

Sanctions against China are way overdue. Our gov't and big businesses are just feeding that monster.

That won't happen until (and if) we get our own manufacturing base back on track and can wean ourselves off the Chinese tit of cheap imports. That, or grow some balls and raise the tariff structure to prevent the destruction of our remaining domestic industries. I don't see that happening in the near future: the Feds are too corrupt at this point and don't really care about our future (or even, I'm convinced, understand why a dependent cannot ever be a truly free nation.)

Right now, any noises we make towards sanctions are just that: noise. All they have to do is threaten to send fifty or sixty million "refugees" here and that's that.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anaerin]

Congratulations. You've just bankrupted the US.

Perhaps, next time, you might not want to impose sanctions on the government that holds by far the largest share of the US debt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Foreign_Holders_of_United_States_Treasury_Securities-percent_share.gif

You impose sanctions, they call in that debt. And who else do you really think is going to loan you the money to pay that back?

Re:Sanctions overdue

[inviolet]

That won't happen until (and if) we get our own manufacturing base back on track and can wean ourselves off the Chinese tit of cheap imports.

Why should Americans, or the citizens of any modernized educated enlightened society, perform repetitive labor?

That's a job for robots... and a teething phase for wanna-be-modern societies.

That, or grow some balls and raise the tariff structure to prevent the destruction of our remaining domestic industries.

Tariffs opearte by raising the final costs to the consumer. By your cavalier attitude I assume you are willing to accept that (how thrilling it is to be grandiose with other peoples' money!). The much larger downside that you should not accept, is the reestablishment of repetitive-labor jobs currently performed in China. Keeping that work in China keeps the pollution in China (a fact which they accept). And keeping that work in China signals to all Americans that "you will not be able to earn a living doing mindless work".

Presently, a lot of Americans are laboring under the delusion that they should somehow get a house, car, TV, medicine, and internet in exchange for installing wingnuts all day on an assembly line.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

That is only happening because america's excessively strong intellectual "property" dogmatic bullshit prevents real manufacturing taking place on american soil (because you get immediately sued into the ground by vampiric lawyers). The best way to compete with china is to break the WIPO propaganda machine (the chinese sure as hell aren't stupid enough to pay more than lip service to western intellecutal monopoly laws), and reestablish independent american manufacturing - which you do by weakening patent recognition. The perennial solution offered by already-rich-and-wanting-to-stay-that-way "captains of industry" of strengthening the patent system is exactly the wrong thing to do, a "beatings will continue until morale improves" solution.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, when you look at things on an objective level, the Chinese Govt. are on the same level of evil as pre-1945 Germany, pre-1943 Italy and the USSR...
Tibet *should* be given a vote on their future, the international community should signal that it is completely unacceptable to support or assist a facist state such as China, and should bring extremely harsh an unremitting sanctions against china until free and fair elections are held.

Ain't gonna happen though because a) they have nukes and b) they own the american government's debt, or a fairly large amount of it at any rate. So the US and other "free" nations will continue to do what China says whilst they have all that debt.
I say just refuse to recognise any debts China may hold and let them know in no uncertain terms that we have missile defences all around you, nukes ready to go in seconds and your time is up.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[u38cg]

Hi. This is reality calling, ding-dong. If you increase tariffs against China, you will (a) immediately increase the prices of all goods, (b) you will seriously increase your tax rates, because your government will no longer be able to fund its debt by selling its Treasuries to China (because China will have no more greenbacks coming in). You won't have a domestic industry to take up the slack, because you will have destroyed domestic demand. Seriously, buy a copy of the Wealth of Nations, for the love of God. Oh, not to mention the risk of provoking a war with China; and if you think that's going to be an easy fight, I have more bad news for you.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Runaway1956]

Errrr, you're about half right. Stupid people do demand and buy the cheapest thing they can find, even if it's melanine laced. So, yes, they are at fault for not recognizing or demanding quality. On the other hand, government and big business has been actively exporting American jobs for quite a long time now, along with American technology, American money, and American education. Yeah, the idiot "consumer" takes his share of the blame, but the coordination comes from higher up. Who was it, exactly, that gave China it's "most favored trading partner" status? Oh yeah, that same traitor who sold missile technology to China, later sold to N. Korea, then exported to the mideast for use against Israel. Hmmmmmmm.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Runaway1956]

Uhhh, Utopia is just a dream. In the year 25,000 SOMEONE is going to have to dig ditches. And, wipe baby's asses. And, cook dinners. And, manually move stuff around. What's more, if we ever DO develop robots to the point that we rely on them to do everything for us, we will be joining the Elves and the Atlanteans in the list of by-gone races. Maybe the Monkeys will learn from our mistakes? Unless, of course, the robots just take over for themselves.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Consumers may prefer cheaper products but I haven't met a single person in the whole world that has ever demanded a "made in China" product. Ever.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody "demands" it. They just want whatever is cheapest. If China were sanctioned and therefore no longer the cheap answer then nobody would think twice about having to pay more to get stuff from somewhere else. They might buying less or whatever based on the amount of money they have available but I seriously doubt anyone would care that they could no longer get cheap low-quality crap from China.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ScrewMaster]

And keeping that work in China signals to all Americans that "you will not be able to earn a living doing mindless work".

Presently, a lot of Americans are laboring under the delusion that they should somehow get a house, car, TV, medicine, and internet in exchange for installing wingnuts all day on an assembly line.

High-sounding but irrelevant verbiage having no bearing on the facts. I mean, how grandiose you are in dismissing one simple fact: working our manufacturing economy was how Americans managed to have a standard of living envied by most of the world. How do you think wealth is created? By magic? Hardly: it's by building and selling things to other countries, it's called trade. The fact is, we've been doing a lousy job of that for the past thirty-odd years and that's why our standard of living is dropping and unemployment is increasing. Suppose we took your idea to its logical conclusion, and ended up with an entirely automated production system with no need for people at all. We'd all be unemployed at that point. No thanks. Fact is, there are millions upon millions of people that are perfectly happy installing wingnuts for a living, and there's not a goddamn thing wrong with that. Sure, in your idealized world we'd all live up to our "full potential" (whatever that is) but the reality is, most people are all they're ever going to be.

Open your eyes, and dispense with the notion, nay, the fiction, that a nation can be an industrial superpower without the industry. People with blinders on call that a "service economy" but it's really a synonym for "third world hellhole." Now, it may be that you're willing to live in some socioeconomic armpit (my girlfriend came from one: I could let her tell you what that means) but I'm not. Let me tell you, I've spent thirty years as an engineer working in our industrial sector, and we need it.

China may be willing to accept pollution (for now) but that doesn't mean that you must accept pollution in order to have an industrial base. We cleaned up our act and still managed to become a superpower. So can they, and eventually the cost of Chinese-made products will increase to reflect that. So the question is: will we still be around, or will we be just another third-world country ripe for the plucking?

You decide. But at this point in history, there's only one way to create wealth, and you don't do it by not working. Robots may be more efficient at manufacturing some products than human beings, but keep firmly in mind that civilization does not solely revolve around manufacturing trade goods efficiently. People have to figure in there somewhere. That's China's biggest problem right now: their people are little better than organic robots. In any event, if you look at efficiency as the only reason for industry, then you're no better than the typical American CEO slimeball that sold his own people down the river for a quick buck.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ScrewMaster]

Oh, not to mention the risk of provoking a war with China; and if you think that's going to be an easy fight, I have more bad news for you.

Right, which is why I said, "I don't see that happening in the near future."

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Beve Jates]

Uh... Think about what you just said. The debt the US owes could be exactly the sanction used against them. Fix your fucking government or we don't pay.

The debt doesn't hurt the US at all. They still have the money. It's China that's in a bad position.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should Americans, or the citizens of any modernized educated enlightened society, perform repetitive labor?

Because there are many people who can't do anything else useful.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[u38cg]

But apart from that you're happy with wiping out your country's economy and permanenty damaging its economic prospects? Look, protectionism on the face of it seems like a good idea. In practice it's the worst idea possible.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[clang_jangle]

Yeah, it's definitely the government and big business. It couldn't possibly be hundreds of millions of Americans spending hundreds of billions of dollars, demanding cheap products made in China.

Okay, so you believe supply and demand is the sole determining factor. Then please explain the "war on drugs", the bailouts, the DMCA, and the PATRIOT act. It clearly isn't the people that decide.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[jlarocco]

That's not typically how imporovements in technology work, though. The jobs don't go away or become fully automatic, they just become less labor intensive.

Take ditch digging, for example. 200 years ago digging a 100 meter long ditch, a meter deep could probably take a few dozen men with shovels a few days. Now, one guy with an excavator can dig the same ditch in a day or two all by himself.

There will always be a need for humans to decide what gets done. Technology helps with actually doing it.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Gr8Apes]

The simple reality is that we have to start increasing the price of imported goods to reflects the realities of producing goods in this country. That is, of course, if you'd like to keep some manufacturing in the country.

Note that it's not labor costs that make up most of the difference, but rather pollution countermeasures. For example, China dumps water untreated back into rivers. Here it needs to be filtered and cleaned. That costs a lot more money than whatever the labor difference is.

If this thought process still doesn't convince you, start thinking about how rubber kickballs can be manufactured in China and shipped, inflated, across the Pacific, be unpacked from their shipping containers here and repacked into trucks at least once before getting to stores and still be cheaper than domestically made kickballs. (Go to any nationwide toy store and you won't see a single US made rubber/plastic anything anymore)

Re:Sanctions overdue

[johnsonav]

Fact is, there are millions upon millions of people that are perfectly happy installing wingnuts for a living, and there's not a goddamn thing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with that. But, I don't understand why it's my responsibility to subsidize those millions of Americans who dream of becoming wingnut installers.

My lifelong dream is to play in the NBA. Who do I have to slap a tariff on to make my dreams come true?

Re:Sanctions overdue

[MichaelSmith]

China and India have both made a career out of using their population as robots. Both have legal and cultural systems in place to keep the status quo. India have been doing this for five hundred years. The population bomb is the wildcard here. With India the lack of control over population growth may lead to starvation within a generation. With China central population controls are tied to controls over population movement.

Both of these things could break down. In fact, looking at the population issue, it is hard to see it not breaking down.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[jlarocco]

Okay, so you believe supply and demand is the sole determining factor.

I didn't say it was the sole determining factor. I'm just saying it's not entirely the fault of government and big business.

Then please explain the "war on drugs", the bailouts, the DMCA, and the PATRIOT act. It clearly isn't the people that decide.

No, it IS the people who decide. The majority of people voted for, and continue to vote for politicians who support those things. Politicians and big businesses are whores. They support whatever keeps them in power and keeps their wallet full, and you can't do either of those things without the support of the voters and the consumers - a.k.a. "the people".

Re:Sanctions overdue

[voisine]

Haha... The *US* impose sanctions against *China*? I think the other way around is more likely. We're going to have to start jumping to their tune, or they might impose sanctions against us. We're the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world and who do you think our banker is? They could destroy us in a second by simply deciding not buy any more of our government bonds. Say so long to the dollar. They have positioning themselves to take over as the economic center of the world for decades, and those plans are moving right along nicely.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[shadowbearer]

  Even the Cylons had their slave class ;-)

SB

Re:Sanctions overdue

[DarkOx]

I am with you mostly but have you tried looking for this Chinease goods demanding consumer in um China? I susupect given how nationalistic that societ is you will find them there at least.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[inviolet]

High-sounding but irrelevant verbiage having no bearing on the facts. I mean, how grandiose you are in dismissing one simple fact: working our manufacturing economy was how Americans managed to have a standard of living envied by most of the world. How do you think wealth is created? By magic? Hardly: it's by building and selling things to other countries, it's called trade. The fact is, we've been doing a lousy job of that for the past thirty-odd years and that's why our standard of living is dropping and unemployment is increasing. Suppose we took your idea to its logical conclusion, and ended up with an entirely automated production system with no need for people at all. We'd all be unemployed at that point. No thanks.

You have not thought this through. Who provides raw materials, who designs/maintains/fixes the system, who designs new products, who handles sales and distribution? (Each of those topics represents an entire organization, or several.) The only part of that which presently does not involve many humans, and should not involve any at all, is the mindlessly repetitive steps.

Fact is, there are millions upon millions of people that are perfectly happy installing wingnuts for a living, and there's not a goddamn thing wrong with that.

What is the value of the placement of a wingnut on a threaded shaft? How much food or gold or oil would you trade for someone to screw fifty wingnuts on for you? A very small bite of your bread? Maybe now you see what kind of standard of living a repetitive manual labor job objectively justifies.

You decide. But at this point in history, there's only one way to create wealth, and you don't do it by not working. Robots may be more efficient at manufacturing some products than human beings, but keep firmly in mind that civilization does not solely revolve around manufacturing trade goods efficiently. People have to figure in there somewhere. That's China's biggest problem right now: their people are little better than organic robots. In any event, if you look at efficiency as the only reason for industry, then you're no better than the typical American CEO slimeball that sold his own people down the river for a quick buck.

If you don't look at efficiency as the only reason for industry, you wannabe Philosopher King, then you are proposing that humans benefit by receiving less value per manhour. It feels virtuous to come in here and shout about vague "higher purposes" for the faceless crowd, but to any actual individual, time is precious and so you are full of s***.

You can tell you are full of s*** because you think that quickness itself makes a buck somehow illegitimate. Go join the Amish, they love people who talk like you.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[GleeBot]

How do you think wealth is created? By magic? Hardly: it's by building and selling things to other countries, it's called trade.

This is categorically incorrect. You can create wealth without ever trading with another country on the entire planet. The idea that wealth only comes from a positive current account is a discredited idea that dates back to mercantilism.

You know how you really create wealth? By growing your GDP faster than your population, resulting in a growth in disposable income per capita. It doesn't matter if we're digging holes and filling them again, as long as at least one party in the economy finds this valuable to them.

Let's say I write a book and sell it to you for $10. Then let's say I pocket $2 of that as profit, then turn around and pay someone else $8 to print the book. That person turns around and pays someone else $6 for paper and ink. Etc., etc.

In exchange for your $10, you've made a whole series of people $2 richer, and you now own a book presumably worth $10 to you. That $10 just became $20 of national wealth, by the "magic" of economics. And no other countries were involved, no mining of gold or printing of money, just an input of domestic labor, capital, and resources to provide a product you value.

Economics is ultimately about everyone providing goods and services to everyone else. Money is just a mechanism for keeping score of who owes who what.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it IS the people who decide. The majority of people voted for, and continue to vote for politicians who support those things.

O RLY?
So which candidate would have made a real difference -- Ron Paul (LOL)?

Politicians and big businesses are whores. They support whatever keeps them in power and keeps their wallet full, and you can't do either of those things without the support of the voters and the consumers - a.k.a. "the people".

This completely overlooks the fact that demand tends to be manufactured and belief systems manipulated by the media. Most people want what they are told they want.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah BC was pretty good on domestic policy but foreign policy, he didn't get it, to the point of doing us real damage.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Dreadneck]

Consumers have always demanded cheap products. I've never met anyone who willingly pays more than necessary unless there is a huge gap in product quality between the cheaper and the more expensive.

So-called 'free trade' is the reason American manufacturing has moved overseas. American government knowingly colluded with multinational corporations to lower trade barriers that formerly protected American workers from having to compete with slave labor in the third world.

Knowing that Americans would catch on to the scam, the corporate media has propagated the myth that the loss of jobs is due to organized labor. That myth is exposed as soon as one recognizes that even non-union labor is incapable of competing against laborers being paid pennies on the dollar w/o benefits for comparable work.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You won't see any buggy whips either.

The solution is not to raise tariffs because that has all kinds of long term problems for us.
The solution is to raise the standard of living in china because that has all kinds of long term benefits for us.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[DaveGod]

and c) everybody who imports your goods and services retaliates with tariffs.

I recall when Bush applied import tariffs to steel in 2002. The EU responded with tariffs designed to be equal in value, but applied them to a selection of goods very carefully picked to do him as much political damage as possible.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[blahplusplus]

"You decide. But at this point in history, there's only one way to create wealth, and you don't do it by not working. Robots may be more efficient at manufacturing some products than human beings, but keep firmly in mind that civilization does not solely revolve around manufacturing trade goods efficiently."

You're ignoring the fact that machines have created an enormous amounts of unnecessary jobs just to keep people employed, the whole point of technological advancement is doing more with less.

Lets not forget the fact that the end goal with engineering is ARTIFICIAL intelligence orders of magnitude beyond human powers of reasoning, we're already getting on the path there with google with their massive amounts of data, most science these days gets better as the result of more computational power to grok enormous data sets and less emphasis on the human being.

Consider that people have designed automated investment trading schemes that outperform human minds because human minds simply cannot think or react fast enough, they are not perfect by any measure but the point being is, we create tools to offload and download work off of ourselves. But the perverse side effect is that it increases misery and increases competition for wealth, those who own control those who don't.

Human minds are slowly being superseded by their own technology, sure there will always be jobs but the fact is they are necessary because people have NO OTHER CHOICE, for most people in a capitalist society its work or face homelessness and starvation.

We are still remarkably primitive and antagonistic in this regard.

The whole 'service sector' economy is a testament to the fact disruptive technologies can tank entire industries and thats where most people who've fallen out of the system end up.

"People have to figure in there somewhere. That's China's biggest problem right now: their people are little better than organic robots."

But you're forgetting we're we'll eventually design robots that can compete with the human brain, and at that point the collision coarse of our current economic model vs the "superfluous" white collar and blue collar people population that "can't compete", we will have to find solutions.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ThatsNotPudding]

You mean the guys that could totally kill what's left of our economy just by calling their stock brokers? And don't give me the theory of 'oh, they need us as much as we need them' If they'll roll tanks over student demonstrators, they won't be too threatened by some unemployed factory workers - especially if they buy them off with good unemployment wages from their overflowing coffers.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[maxume]

Defaulting on the Chinese debt would put all of the rest of the U.S. debt into question; this could make if difficult to receive oil in exchange for paper (at the very least, Saudi Arabia and other petroleum funded societies would want to continue to trade with the U.S., but they almost certainly wouldn't do it in dollars anymore).

Re:Sanctions overdue

[zeke2.0]

I agree, as long as the world buys their products we finance tyranny. Free Tibet. Free Tibet. Free Tibet.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[DaveGod]

The post reminds me of the parable of the broken window. $20 of wealth is not created. If one book is created and sold for $10 then $10 value is created. The various items purchased along the way merely effects distribution of that $10 value, in the form of currency. To put it another way, you add the value of the book to the $10 currency spent, but forget to subtract that $10 currency which already existed.

It's an easy mistake, evidenced by the need for the parable. But I'll labour the point since it's something of a bugbear of mine, especially since politicians and the media seem to follow the same error.

True, $20 of movement is recorded in the economy, but it's merely a case of cash flowing from one pocket into another. Consider what happens if you paid the $8 to one guy who not only prints, but produces the paper and ink too. Or, how about just passing money to and fro between two companies? Similarly, if once the book is bought the buyer decides the book is only worth $5, the increase in wealth is $5! The other $5 is merely an exchange of wealth from one person to another.

It also shouldn't change GDP, which is "It is the total value of all final goods and services produced in a particular economy". It probably would, but that's a problem of measuring GDP.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. The problem is all the exporting of our jobs, our technology, and everything else that made the US middle class develop has lead to a decline in real income
for the last 25 years or more. Thus, you pretty much have no choice but to buy cheap goods. "Race to the bottom" accurately describes this situation. Funny how all
the free trade idiots do anything they can to keep that phrase and anything like it off the news.

The rest of you, just go on hating workers, be jealous of anyone who has a union job with benefits, keep on talking about how they don't deserve anything, and
by all means keep admiring millionaires and billionaires whose source of income is dynastic family wealth and whose business consists of pushing paper and
outsourcing work. Our economy depends on you. Idiots.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly: it's by building and selling things to other countries, it's called trade

Indeed. And the USA was always a huge exporter of stuff - THAT is how you become rich.

Nowadays, you're on the receiving end, importing things from China instead, and suddenly you're not happy anymore.

Can I understand that? Absolutely. Am I sympathetic? Not really. You can't be in favour of free trade when it benefits you but in favour of protectionism when free trade doesn't benefit you - that'd be hypocritical.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Suppose we took your idea to its logical conclusion, and ended up with an entirely automated production system with no need for people at all. We'd all be unemployed at that point. No thanks.

Sounds good to me. Employment is a means to an end; if we can be fed and clothed and kept in sufficient comfort to permit the pursuits of our choice (productive or not) without employment, then employment would rightly disappear.

Double-check your arrangement of "live" and "work" in your internal "I ____ to ____".

Re:Sanctions overdue

[keeboo]

and reestablish independent american manufacturing - which you do by weakening patent recognition

I'm not from the U.S. but, hey, competition is good.
But how exactly do you plan to offer competitively priced products?

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Miseph]

So... we make wealth by building and selling things to others?

Wow, you sure refuted him.

Before you repeat yourself... adding additional steps and third parties doesn't change that basic mechanic, merely obfuscates it. If I pay you $10 for a book, of which you pay $x to 3rd parties a, b and c for having provided you with a physical book to sell me, it doesn't change the fact that wealth was generated by the creation and sale of goods; all that changes is how that wealth is distributed.

International trade is merely the extension of this mechanic across borders, a trivial development from the original concept.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Rich0]

No doubt a trade war with china would be messy. However, if the US targeted tarrifs mainly to achieve parity on basic workers rights issues and environmental issues, chances are they'd get support from the rest of the first world and it would go OK. This would be a fairly moderate level of tarrifs - not a pure buy-american spree.

This would never come to blows in an actual war. China wouldn't provoke it - at least not now. The Chinese lack any serious ability to project power right now. They have a huge army, so if the US tried to invade it would be VERY messy. However, if the US just bombed away at buildings and bridges there wouldn't be much the Chinese could do about it. They might shoot down a few planes here and there, but the war would be entirely over Chinese territory and the damage to the Chinese economy would be incredible and far greater than the damage to the US. Just look in history at any war fought exclusively in one's own territory - you're just looking to lose. You can win a few battles tactically, but strategically every battle you win just prolongs the war, and every battle you lose degrades your ability to sustain the war. In a US-China war the US infrastructure would be almost entirely free from risk - and in the long term it is bridges and factories that win wars - not bombs. The Chinese do have a nuclear deterrant, but they're not going to use that unless their sovereignty is at risk, and the US would have no need or desire to seriously invade.

However, this would never come down to a shooting war. The US wouldn't start one - once the tarrifs are in place they already have achieved their objectives so there is nothing to gain from bombs. The Chinese wouldn't start a war - they're still on a fairly level playing field even with the tarrifs and aside from attacking some US ships at sea or some overseas base, they'd be hard pressed to actually launch any kind of a serious attack in the first place.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

please know and understand the facts, before this rescission unemployment was below 5%, that's considered _full employment_, and that's with 12 mil plus elegals in the us. I don't know about where you live but i don't see any legal Americans working for the McDonald's here in dallas!

but before you flame me i do believe America needs to do better about keeping manufacturing jobs in America and buying American made goods.

I'm in IT and there shipping lots of jobs out of the usa..ugg

Re:Sanctions overdue

[hackingbear]

This proves nothing but your ignorance about Chinese society. The fact is that Chinese consumers have preferred foreign products even though they are not made in China and a lot more expensive. The order of preferences are

1. Foreign imports, especially Japanese ones even though Chinese generally dislike Japan for historical reasons;
2. Products made locally by subsidiaries of foreign companies (with imported parts) -- by the way cars made by the China subsidiary of our highly incompetent GM are best selling autos over there.
3. Products made by Chinese companies for the purpose of exporting. they even have a term for these -- "exports turned domestic."
4. If they can't afford above, they then buy products makde by local companies for local market.

Prices of imports are much higher because of the high tariff, but there are thriving smugglers to the rescue.

These have been the cases for almost all categories since China opened up in the 1980's. These preferences are weaker nowaday for some electronic products like TV and computers, but not cell phone, because Chinese made ones are good enough.

With the recent scandal of baby milk powders, that market is now completed taken over by foreign brand.

And in general Chinese are much less nationalistic until recently, probably because China has become much stronger (and richer.)

Most people complaining about quality of Chinese product should instead wish it stay the same, because if there is no quality problem, we would have completely lost our competitiveness.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[hackingbear]

That's only your perspective. If you read online forums in Chinese website, you should see a lot of complain recently about "trading all those Chinese products with junk US government debts". Junk products exchange for junk debts -- hmm... sounds like fair trade to me.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Gr8Apes]

This isn't raising tariffs. Tariffs are a tax. This is inspecting goods imported to be certain that they meet our standards.

You know, like no lead in kids toys, little things like that that have been outlawed in this country for a couple of decades or more.

But you can keep the buggy whip analogy, because it really exemplifies your point.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Runaway1956]

I think that change is coming - and I don't mean the political "change" promised by today's ruling party. I think that the current economic crisis is going to force a lot of deadbeat layabouts to pull their heads out of their butts, and go to work for a subsistence wage, or maybe slightly better than subsistence. All those people suddenly willing to work for less than $50/hr will entice some startup businesses, and help to reverse the export of jobs. Of course, this is just my opinion. I base that opinion on the fact that things simply cannot continue as they have for the last 20 years. Citizens laying around, contributing nothing but babies and bills. Kids who should be in college, or the military, or at work have been mooching off of soft hearted dummies will begin to disappear, when the soft hearted dummies realize they no longer have the retirement funds and next eggs that they THOUGHT hey had last year. A hungry twenty year old can dig a lot of ditch for $5.00/hr!

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ScrewMaster]

You won't see any buggy whips either.

The solution is not to raise tariffs because that has all kinds of long term problems for us. The solution is to raise the standard of living in china because that has all kinds of long term benefits for us.

Maybe ... but it's the short term consequences that are the current problem. It's all fine and dandy for you to talk about how wonderful the U.S. will be once China deals with it's own pollution and wealth-disparity issues (which, by the way, they show no sign of doing.) And perhaps you'll be proven right. History is not on your side, though ... quite the opposite. Your belief (for that's all it is) is driven by the same sort of pained hopefulness that typifies those who believe that a "service economy" is a viable substitute for an "industrial economy." It's not, never will be, and it's time we as a nation woke up to that fact and got back to work.

Furthermore, I guarantee that if you had seen the devastation that Japan and China have wrought in our manufacturing sector (aided and abetted by our own shortsighted, greedy, corrupt leaders to be sure) that I have in the past thirty years ... well, you'd feel very differently. We were the nation that made everything for everyone, and we enjoyed the fruits of that status. Then we let a few political and corporate thugs throw all that away ... and for what? I'll ask that again: for what?

Even if you're right, don't forget that China is grabbing an exponentially-increasing share of global resources, and worse yet, is going to be competing with the remaining industrialized nations for what's left. Ultimately, there's going to be very little good coming out of China's rapid advance to a high-tech, heavily-militarized nuclear-capable superpower for anyone but China.

Regardless, we have some serious near-term consequences to deal with ... like surviving long enough for China to become the kind of civilized high-technology Utopia that you seem to think they want to be. Personally, I think you're giving them way too much credit, but whatever.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ScrewMaster]

But apart from that you're happy with wiping out your country's economy and permanenty damaging its economic prospects? Look, protectionism on the face of it seems like a good idea. In practice it's the worst idea possible.

No. I see you're one of those people who sees protectionism in black and white: free trade good!, protectionism bad! As always, it's not that simple and I think you probably know that. There is a difference between a limited degree of protectionism whose only purpose is to keep domestic manufacturing from disappearing entirely, and punitive tariffs.

Suppose we have a foreign nation who is deliberately subsidizing their manufacturing in order to sell goods at below our domestic manufacturer's costs. In addition, they're doing this with the express purpose of wiping out our own manufacturing base. Let's further suppose that our government failed to enforce the laws already on the books designed to prevent this very activity ... would you consider that a reasonable example of "free trade"? Good business? Or would you consider that a hostile, destructive action? No, I'm not talking about China, I'm talking about Japan. They went after our domestic suppliers of basic electronic components, rapidly put them out of business, and then walked the supply chain until they'd wiped out manufacturers of virtually all commercial electronics. Fortunately, Japan is a small nation, but at that they did substantial damage.

Moving forward a couple decades, we see that China has taken a page from Japan's book, but is going after everything at the same time. All of it, from Christmas tree bulbs to avionics. Everything that we used to make they now make for us, and here's the danger in all this: we can't make it for ourselves anymore. It's an incredible onslaught, unprecedented in the history of Mankind, and the reality is that unless our government does something, we will become so dependent upon China that they'll be able to walk in and take us over without firing a shot. Do you realize that Americans no longer even make their own clothing? No? I have news for you: the giant textile mills back east are lying fallow, huge empty buildings with broken windows, the machines that used to put the shirts on our backs sold off to China for pennies on the dollar. And that's only one of many industries that were deliberately destroyed by China, which (in case you've forgotten) is a hostile totalitarian state. Maybe you think that's a good thing ... I don't. The Founders didn't either: they wanted us to be free and independent. The two are inextricably interlinked. If you believe otherwise you're ignoring history.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

See and that just doesn't work at all.

I give you $10. But where did I get them? Someone has to give them to me first. If you pocket $2 and someone else gets $8 that he gives $6 of to someone else, then that still only adds up to the original $10 I gave you ($8+$2 OR $2 + $2 + $6 ...). You are just splitting the $10, no money gets created at all in the process. IFF the $10 really became $20, then someone has to put another $10 into the system from the outside.

Where did I get the $10 anyway? There is only so much money to begin with and in order for ANYBODY to become richer, some other person must become poorer. Otherwise we could all just keep our money and everyone has his $10 of wealth. And because it doesn't help if you just shuffle money around in your own country, you have to export.

Of course, you could just shuffle around the money in your own country, if all of your goods can be created in your own country and everyone paid the exact fair price, thus making money just a great way of trading stuff for other stuff. That's a wonderful idea because my lettuce might already be brown and inedible when you can finally butcher that lamb you grew for me.

But unfortunately that is not how things work and we have things like inflation, people that bunker money, people that want interest on money they lend to someone else etc. but still, money can not be created by the magic of economics.

It all boils down to someone exploiting someone else to get more money. See Blood Diamonds for example. Someone pays next to nothing for African kids to get them out of the earth, making millions by selling them in Europe and America. Still, the money he gets comes from rich people, meaning from people that exploited their own workers for becoming that rich.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

This isn't raising tariffs. Tariffs are a tax. This is inspecting goods imported to be certain that they meet our standards.

Isitnow?

Note that it's not labor costs that make up most of the difference, but rather pollution countermeasures. For example, China dumps water untreated back into rivers. Here it needs to be filtered and cleaned. That costs a lot more money than whatever the labor difference is.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

but it's the short term consequences that are the current problem.

So.... the "devastation in the past thirty years" is short term, eh?

It took less than 30 years for the US to become that country that "made everything" to begin with.

Even if you're right, don't forget that China is grabbing an exponentially-increasing share of global resources, and worse yet, is going to be competing with the remaining industrialized nations for what's left.

Yeah so? That's their right as a nation. If their manufacturing and quality of life standards are brought up to a level equal as us, then we've got no right to complain. It isn't like global economics is a zero sum game either.

Regardless, we have some serious near-term consequences to deal with ... like surviving long enough for China to become the kind of civilized high-technology Utopia that you seem to think they want to be. Personally, I think you're giving them way too much credit, but whatever.

Right, the end of the USA is here, seems like we've got about 3.7 more years until the economic timebomb blows.

I believe that China is like any other enormous group of people, some bad, some good and most interested in just doing better for themselves. Nothing utopian about it. Personally, I think you want to demonize them so as to justify policies that ignore the basic humanity of the citizens there, but whatever, it wouldn't be the first the USA has done that and it always works out great for us in the end.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ion.simon.c]

Suppose we took your idea to its logical conclusion, and ended up with an entirely automated production system with no need for people at all. We'd all be unemployed at that point.

This is the logical conclusion of all modern societies. Imagine a world where every menial task is performed by a robot... robot farmers, robot chefs, robot maintenance men. Would all men in this world be required to starve to death 'cause there was no "honest work" for them to do? To flip this around; why should a man be required to do something that is easily achieved by a machine? Shouldn't there be a greater task for a man's mind than its direct application to menial, repetitive labour?

A perpetual, sustainable, all-encompassing leisure class is the greatest thing that humanity can ever strive for. What better life could there be for a man than to do as he pleases for the rest of his life? Note that this *does* *not* mean that no man-driven "real work" ever gets done. There are people in this world who have great ideas and will set their mind to working on them without provocation. For people like these, the pursuit of their passion is leisure.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[smoker2]

Take ditch digging, for example. 200 years ago digging a 100 meter long ditch, a meter deep could probably take a few dozen men with shovels a few days. Now, one guy with an excavator can dig the same ditch in a day or two all by himself.

And what exactly do those few dozen men do now ? Work in an office ? This is the hidden threat of mechanisation, and automation. People still need jobs, still need money, but there is no Utopia on the horizon where we all live lives of leisure. And strongly capitalist societies see little need to pay for people to do nothing, but are quite interested in paying out less in overhead. Where does that leave the working public ?

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you export tools to China, they won't let them leave the country. There should be a very high tax on used tooling that gets shipped overseas.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Petrushka]

I haven't met a single person in the whole world that has ever demanded a "made in China" product. Ever.

How many products are there where any customer will ever demand a "made in [COUNTRY X]" product as opposed to "made in [COUNTRY Y]"? I can think of only a few. Coffee-making equipment made in Italy, maybe; kitchen utensils made in France; certain types of farming equipment made in the US; cars not made in the US; but precious little else.

In general, pretty much the only reason for anyone ever to insist on a "made in [COUNTRY X]" product is if they're loyal to [COUNTRY X] and/or living there. If that is true, which I believe to be the case, then the only information that your post contains is that you have never been to China. ... Ever.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel. Hmmmmmmm

Which is the only nation can get away with killing Americans? Americans first! Remember the Liberty!

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice bit of economic theory. All you need to do now is write and sell enough books to run an economy keeping 250 million people fed, watered, educated, medicated, entertained and defended.

Good luck.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[nathan.fulton]

It isn't always as simple as protectionists often try to make it.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[u38cg]

I think you seriously misread China's vision of itself. They would have no concerns about lashing out if they were to be subjected to an all-out trade war. This is a country that has sustained more than one massive civil war in the last few hundred years; a war against another superpower is not something they would necessarily back down from, despite the consequences. Countries with foolish governments and supercharged nationalist populations very often fail to act in their own best interests. You can come up with your own examples. Don't mistake China for a country with a leadership that calculates things in the same way as we might.

Lastly, the Chinese military makes no distinction between nuclear weapons and conventional shooting matches; they see them as part of the same strategic-tactical continuum.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[eht]

I can show you millions of people who pay more than necessary, just look at the cars on the roads.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[ScrewMaster]

Oh yeah, that same traitor who sold missile technology to China, later sold to N. Korea, then exported to the mideast for use against Israel. Hmmmmmmm.

Not to mention gave our entire patent library to the Chinese. As a patent holder myself, that really pissed me off.

Of course, the pattern of giving away our candy store to Red China goes way further back than that. Given how widespread this form of treason has become, since at least Nixon's time, one wonders what, exactly, China offered in exchange. What did they do that so many of our elected, unelected and corporate officials so easily sold us out. People, please read for yourselves about the how the transfer of commercial and military technology to China began, where it's going, and who was responsible for it.

I guarantee that a. the hairs on the nape of your neck will stand up and b. the pedestals you've put some of your political heroes upon won't seem so high anymore.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but if you left out "other countries," your example is exactly the same thing as the O.P.

The point he was making is that wealth is created by the transformation of raw natural resources into something that's more useful.

Let me ask you this about your example. Let's say we print a book for $8. If you sell it for $10, not only are you making yourself $2 richer, but you are making the person who bought it $2 poorer. Instead of you investing that $2 in more production or using it to buy other vendor's goods, the purchaser who payed $2 more could have used the $2 to do exactly the same thing.

What actually creates the wealth is the real increase in value that comes from the turning of paper and ink into a printed book, that contains information that teaches people how to build buildings, program computers, or create their own books (or is entertaining enough that it will make them be more productive at their current job in order to buy it). Obviously material and production costs alone are not the only part of the end price of the book. The seller also has to take into account interest payments on his capital investments and the risk that he is taking.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[dscruggs]

George Bush I?

Re:Sanctions overdue

[dogeatery]

One look at the US (and many third-world "beneficiaries" of IMF/WorldBank) shows that a high GDP number has little bearing on the economic fortunes of an entire population; all the money can be hoarded by a few people.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[dogeatery]

On the plus side, local stores and the few American producers left would be able to compete with Wal-Mart again (file this under "Biting off one's nose")

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Latinhypercube]

Yeah I bet there is a huge domestic demand for sweatshop jobs and live-in factories.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[jlarocco]

They found other ways to get paid.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[TheLink]

There was a time when the "Made in China" 2500mAh Energizer AA NiMH rechargeable batteries were better than the "Made in Japan" ones. They had a much lower self discharge.

Go look it up: energizer china japan 2500mah

Re:Sanctions overdue

[lennier]

"You know how you really create wealth? By growing your GDP faster than your population, resulting in a growth in disposable income per capita."

No, that's how you create *money*, which is just a mostly meaningless number measuring raw activity and relative value. But not all valued activity is wealth-producing: some is parasitical, some (like crime and warfare) actively destroys wealth.

You create *wealth* by doing things that objectively promote life, health, science and aesthetics: by planting trees, growing food, raising animals, marrying, raising children, researching, travelling, writing, producing artwork, voting for honest politicians, making wise decisions, installing sewerage systems, and so on.

You can do all of these completely without money, and to a large extent without international trade. What you do need though is a community that trusts its members enough to let specialist occupations arise, and shares its resources.

To accumulate money, you need cunning and sociopathy; to create wealth, you need wisdom and generosity. They're not at all the same.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

If you increase tariffs against China, you will (a) immediately increase the prices of all goods, (b) you will seriously increase your tax rates, because your government will no longer be able to fund its debt by selling its Treasuries to China (because China will have no more greenbacks coming in).

I'd support slight tariffs (maybe 5%) to raise taxes and wean the government off of progressive taxation (somewhat). Having only one source of income, your rich citizenry, really sucks when the rich start dwindling both in number and portfolio size. It is too many eggs in one basket. Widen the tax base and lower the rates.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Gr8Apes]

That's what comes from writing too late at night.

There's 2 separate things. One's to inspect the goods from less regulated countries that may find it acceptable, for instance, to use lead paint.

The second part is to remove the "benefit" of moving manufacturing to a less regulated country. The regulations were originally put here to make sure we didn't pollute. Allowing domestic manufacturing to be moved away to some place where they can continue to pollute while providing our goods seems counter to the original intent.

While the second may seem like a tariff, it's true purpose is to ensure those products are not contaminated with the pollutants not allowed in this country.

There is also a third aspect to this, and that is to provide like paying jobs for those moved out of the country. If they aren't being paid to manufacture the goods, they'll get paid to inspect them coming in.

The net result will be to encourage more production domestically while also encouraging environmentally sound manufacturing practices outside the US. This benefits everyone. After all, who has not seen the hordes of mask wearing Beijing citizens moving about doing their daily activities? A lot of that pollution is directly related to factories producing goods for the US that used to be produced domestically.

I'm also aware this will increase prices of goods somewhat, and in some cases significantly. To that, all I can say is: there is no free ride. We will have to do with less. Higher prices will arrive one way or the other. I'd prefer to do it while keeping the country stronger.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[u38cg]

But those tariffs would again be trade distorting. I see where you're coming from, but actually the rich contribute very little, relatively speaking, of your government's revenue. The bulk of revenues come from low to middle income households. Personally I think the best approach to taxation is a flat 10% on all income, no exceptions, no breaks. But who the hell listens to me? ;)

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's say I write a book and sell it to you for $10. Then..."
Don't take it too personally, but you're a moron. Take an Economics class or something before blabbering about things you obviously have no idea about.
PS. I hope you don't just get all offended, but really do take heed and improve your knowledge.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you smoking crack? I have never seen a stat to suggest more is contributed by the lower half as you suggest.

To quote, "This proves that it was not the tax cut that caused revenues from the rich to fall, but the recession and the stock market crash. In other words, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If you are going to benefit from the rich paying more taxes, due to progressivity, on the upside, you are going to lose more revenue from these people on the downside. This is a good argument for reducing progressivity."

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're missing in all this is the creation of the $10 book. Unlike the broken window fallacy, the person who buys the $10 book is getting something of actual value to them, rather than simply having property destroyed and requiring replacement. The purchaser buys the $10 book because he/she feels that is the optimum use of their $10, for whatever reason.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

So... we make wealth by building and selling things to others?

Wow, you sure refuted him.

The point was that none of this has to take place with other countries. The assumption there being the only way to make "us" richer is to make "them" poorer, by taking their money/resources/whatever.

Of course, most economists (well, at least the free market kind) agree that international free trade is a great idea. That's a whole 'nother economic principle though, not the basic creation of value through economic activity.

Before you repeat yourself... adding additional steps and third parties doesn't change that basic mechanic, merely obfuscates it. If I pay you $10 for a book, of which you pay $x to 3rd parties a, b and c for having provided you with a physical book to sell me, it doesn't change the fact that wealth was generated by the creation and sale of goods; all that changes is how that wealth is distributed.

Like most of the other responses to this post, you've missed the key point that the purchaser got something of equal value to him/her. Economically speaking, they've made a transaction with $0 economic profit, not -$10 economic profit--that is, they didn't just give someone $10 and get nothing in return.

Think of it this way: The steady state is that you have $10 of currency in your pocket, and no books ever get created at all. In that situation, the $10 is worthless and you have $0 actual wealth. Money only exists so you can do something with it; it has no use as an abstract number in your bank account, only in what it represents you can buy.

If you don't think this works, consider this mind-bender: Say someone buys $100 of books from me. I now have $10, and so do 4 other people. Let's say all those people decide to buy the book. Now there are 15 books instead of 10 books.

Naively, you would think $100 would buy precisely 10 $10 books, but it turns out that it bought 15. Money is just a fungible value store--accumulating it isn't a measure of wealth.

Re:Sanctions overdue

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: That should have been $50 buying 5 $10 books, and actually buying 10 $10 books. Or alternately, 5 people making $20 in profit instead of $10, and in aggregate, buying 10 $10 books, for 20 total. Didn't want bad math to get in the way of the point. :-)

Incidentally, you can keep going with that. Let's say all those people bought their books from me. Well, I've just made $10 in profit again from selling 5 more books, and the process can repeat itself infinitely as long as all we want to do is buy the same book...

(Of course, in reality, there's only so much demand before you're satiated, and the price of resources will go up as they're consumed, and it takes time to make each book, which is why we don't have infinite numbers of books. But take a good like food. We do have a theoretically nearly infinite amount of that, we just don't have it all at the same time... but you could certainly base on economy on nothing more than growing and consuming food. And for millenia, have.)

You see, what's happening here is that people are performing labor, mining resources, buying equipment, etc., etc., producing goods and services with value. What's important here is that the goods and services get produced (more books in the world), not how you account for it (money changing hands).

What fuzzes it up for people is that they don't think of how an economic unit with only two people would operate. Yet it would. They try to think about economics in terms of our complicated real world, and think money is something that comes from somewhere else.

Let's say you work a job that pays $50,000 a year. Do you think that's charity, or do you think that maybe your employer is getting at least $50,000 of work out of you? If spending (some) money didn't make you richer (in economic terms, not purely monetary ones), why spend the money? Why not just sit on it? Because money is less valuable than stuff you buy with it.

Russian Crooks are already there

[PineHall]

"What Chinese spooks did in 2008, Russian crooks will do in 2010 and even low-budget criminals from less developed countries will follow in due course," the Cambridge researchers, Shishir Nagaraja and Ross Anderson, wrote in their report, "The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement."

I would guess that the Russian crooks are doing it today with very targeted attacks. We just have not discovered it, or if discovered the financial institutions attacked have covered it up.

Isn't China big on the (pirated) Microsoft..

[JoshDmetro]

products. Why try and trick someone into installing malware when Microsoft sells the latest version of Windows with built in backdoors for our governments to spy on us.

China Is A Nice Distraction: +1, Helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely the operation is run out of the office of the world's most dangerous person.

I hope this helps the Chinese authorities.

Yours In Communism,
Kilgore Trout

Sorry bad link here it is...

[JoshDmetro]

zdnet
neowin

Infrastructure

[Renraku]

Is infrastructure in place to punish those responsible for such invasions?

What could the affected countries do against China to discourage them from doing this again? I don't think its act-of-war level but I think its at least sue-for-billions-and-billions-and-billions worthy.

Re:Infrastructure

[pxlmusic]

are you kidding me? the only "punishment" that might occur is through military action.

and that would be a bad idea.

Re:Infrastructure

[obarthelemy]

laws allowing to retaliate against China would, I think, be unfair in the same laws do not apply vs other governements including our own... warantless illegal wiretapping anyone ?

China is simply following on the US's footsteps.

Re:China Is A Nice Distraction: +1, Helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

Very, very niave.

Obi-Wan steps in...

[fahrbot-bot]

• Researcher: Let me see your network.
• Obi-Wan: [with a small wave of his hand] You don't need to see his network.
• Researcher: We don't need to see his network.
• Obi-Wan: These aren't the systems you're looking for.
• Researcher: These aren't the systems we're looking for.
• Obi-Wan: He can go about his business.
• Researcher: You can go about your business.
• Obi-Wan: Move along.
• Researcher: Move along... move along.

"GhostNet" What a wacky idea.
ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD!

US not infiltrated? *wink* *wink*

[Anonymous Coward]

"They said they had found no evidence that United States government offices had been infiltrated."

That kind of tells you something, doesn't it. It's made to look like it's from China but it's really from the US. :)

Re:US not infiltrated? *wink* *wink*

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod Parent Up

In other news:

[kheldan]

The Dalai Lama has (or needs) an office? WTF?

Re:In other news:

[HatofPig]

Do you assume he arranges all of his international trips and conferences sitting cross-legged on the side of a mountain?

Re:In other news:

[maxume]

The Pope has a whole country.

There is no "call in debt"

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't how treasury bonds work. There is no "call in debt" they are Bonds that are not instantly redeemable. Ten Year Bonds gets paid off in Ten years etc.

All they can do is attempt to sell all their bonds on the open market and destroy their value. In that case they cut off their onw nose to spite themselves.

Skype Monitoring

[Anonymous Coward]

It is definitely not only China that employs some monitoring techniques on its citizens' Skype accounts. Last year during Myanmar's Saffron Revolution, my Burmese roommate organized information sessions and candle light vigils on our small, liberal arts school's campus, taking care to remain anonymous or using my name as a proxy for his actions. The only Burmese contact he had at the time was Skyping with his ex-girlfriend, a student at a nearby liberal arts school who organized protests of greater scope on her campus. After about 3 days he mysteriously received a call from his mother who sounded scared (remember, most non-satellite phone lines were all but taken down during the protests) assuring him that she was OK but he needed to stop everything he was planning on campus. My roommate had no choice but to stop his involvement in the protests.

We Need Chuck Bartowski

[guyminuslife]

In case they try to compromise the Intersect.

Re:We Need Chuck Bartowski

[LuxMaker]

Too late, Chuck already got clipped by Windows.

Re:We Need Chuck Bartowski

[LuxMaker]

And I forgot to add that it is as pathetic as it sounds.

Re:We Need Chuck Bartowski

[dexotaku]

Chuck has a Mac, though..

Re:We Need Chuck Bartowski

[Anonymous Coward]

:D

Re:China Is A Nice Distraction: +1, Helpful

[Anonymous Coward]

You made sure your tinfoil hat is shiny-side out, right? That's the only way to make it effective.

What, the USA holds some sort of patent

[munch117]

on spying on the rest of the world? Does "ECHELON" ring a bell?

Re: feeding the monster

[macraig]

You're not the least bit worried about the monster closer to home, thrashing around in your own back yard? I'd say "sanctions" against our own monster(s) is way overdue....

US Debt...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Perhaps, next time, you might not want to impose sanctions on the government that holds by far the largest share of the US debt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Foreign_Holders_of_United_States_Treasury_Securities-percent_share.gif

You impose sanctions, they call in that debt. And who else do you really think is going to loan you the money to pay that back?

The US/China relationship is not as much of a black-and-white situation as nationalistic extremists both in the USA and China would like it to be. If the Chinese 'call in' all of that debt at once in some way, shape or form, there is no way the USA could pay up. Effectively the US would have to default, i.e. welch on the debt. That would wipe out an awful lot of hard earned Chinese wealth. Some of the noises coming out of Beijing lately only confirm that the Chinese are getting nervous even at the mere suggestion of the possibility of a US default. Another thing to consider is that the Chinese are very dependent on exports to the USA and it's NATO allies who are likely to eventually follow the USA's lead, however grudgingly, in any major conflict of any kind with China. If the Chinese were to 'call in' this debt it would be self defeating exercise, as likely to harm the Chinese them selves as much as it would harm the USA. The economies of these countries are very intertwined.

Where is link?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have a backup for http://www.infowar-monitor.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2176&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 in TFA?

Why is IT so messed up?

[1s44c]

Why is it that companies allow the bad guys to p0wn their computers? Sure windows is a pile of horse-crap but it's possible to implement good firewalls and application proxies and to run the proper applications on proper OS's.

Perhaps if we get rid of all the 'professional manager' types and fake idiots types in IT things will improve.

Re:Why is IT so messed up?

[h00manist]

You could argue It's acually a bit more organized than the rest of society around --- just look around a bit at the worlds of politics, economics, transportation, urban planning, medicine... problems everywhere else too.

Target the OS with the back door?

[transporter_ii]

I wonder how much Microsoft's Malicious Software reporting tool would be to help in targeting specific systems?

Botnet fighters have another tool in their arsenal, thanks to Microsoft. The software vendor is giving law enforcers access to a special tool that keeps tabs on botnets, using data compiled from the 450 million computer users who have installed the Malicious Software Removal tool that ships with Windows.

See: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/29/Microsoft-botnet-hunting-tool-helps-bust-hackers_1.html

Microsoft had not previously talked about its botnet tool, but it turns out that it was used by police in Canada to make a high-profile bust earlier this year.

Someone care to expand on the above??? I've googled some but came up with nothing so far.

 

This is not news

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Titan Rain, unlike some previous posters statement to search Assassins Mace or something similar that only shows mostly tinfoil hat type sites, TR is/was a real known threat, that may or may not have effected US gov systems and Commercial entities.... that is all I will say as that information is already known publicly....

Vast Spy System

[Anonymous Coward]

:...has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries"

That doesn't seem really vast...to be honest I've seen small botnets that are bigger.

Re:Vast Spy System

[WindBourne]

Botnets infect ANY old windows computer. Infecting 1200 highly targeted systems is impressive. It means that they know who and what they are looking for. Otherwise, if they infected 12000 computers, somebody probably would catch on quickly.

that's some craptastic propaganda there

[circletimessquare]

i especially like the reference to the cuban mariel boatlift at the end there. emphasis: CUBAN. china's going to send 60 million refugees to the usa? really? on what? airplanes? rafts? pffffffffft

all the indignation about "buy american" and chinese labor conditions is exactly that: empty indignation. when it comes down to actually buying the crap you need, you go to walmart, and buy the cheapest stuff. end of story

oh sure, there's people with enough disposable income and reams of time to actually go out of their way to buy harder to find, more expensive stuff. i salute all 10 of you. as for the other 300 million of you who will give lipservice to a "cause" while you go on buying you crap at walmart, i see only one thing: reality

and you talk about tariffs. even more retarded efforts on your part. lets make lots of stuff more expensive for vague geopolitical goals of doubtful impact. yeah, you have a lot of support from the average joe who now has to spend much more of his scant income in order to do that. protectionism just makes us poorer, and the chinese poorer. and speaking of tits and weaning, the chinese atuocracy was weaned on the tit of poverty and suffering. so by making eveyrone poorer, you've just tightened the autocrats grasp in china, and also moved US closer to autocracy. you're a fucking genius

china makes the cheapest stuff. therefore we will buy it. therefore, we need ANOTHER WAY TO CHANGE CHINA. understand? you're feeble graps of pulling the strings on international trade is not the way

the big problem here is not that i don't share the noble goals of those who wish to defeat chinese autocracy, chinese autocracy is evil and needs to be defeated. my problem is with the cottonheaded idotic ways people think you go about doing this. buying more expensive stuff IS NOT THE WAY

so, how do you defeat the autocrats? you continue buying their cheap stuff, they get rich, then they clamor for change in their own country. how does chinese autocracy end? with a rich china. furthermore, with a rich china, guess what? the price differential for making stuff in the usa versus china simply disappears, putting american manufacturing back into competitiveness, especially since you don't have to put it on a supertanker to get it here

the whole philosopphical schizm between you and i is that you think you change someone else by denying them something. meanwhile, i change them by giving them something. my way is superior, your way gets nowhere

Re:that's some craptastic propaganda there

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "your."

hilarious

[circletimessquare]

i just love the way people poopoo american foreign policy and big business

as they gas up their SUVs

and go shop at walmart

the problem is not big business

the problem is not the american government

nothing but empty cruft compared to the real problem: the behavior of the american consumer

you convince them to spend $10 a gallon on gas, you convince them to buiy their crap at 2x the price. go for it

stop blaming esoteric entities when the real problem is sitting right there, in front your computer, reading this post

YOU AND YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR

Re:hilarious

[Easy2RememberNick]

> as they gas up their SUVs

  That's another problem, people are so fixated on the SUV they fail to see the 1980 Cadillac with the 400 cu in gas guzzler motor, or the 2007 Honda that burns as much fuel as the SUV. It's the amount of energy used that's the problem, not what the vehicle looks like, people get hysterical when they see something they believe is the cause of a problem and are blind to anything else which may be just as bad or worse.

holy schizophrenic xenophobia batman

[circletimessquare]

look! a chinese american! part of the "gossamer net" of unwitting spies!

and you got modded up?

well then we have now identified one potent weapon against the "gossamer net": the american flypaper of xenophobic retards

or maybe i'm being unfair, maybe you were modded up for your eloquent, flowery language

strangely reminescent of a qing dynasty poem!

hmmmm

Re:holy schizophrenic xenophobia batman

[Anonymous Coward]

The kind of spying described Gobbo has and is happening. The above knee-jerk reaction by CircleTimes and others is also as he described.

Actual truth has to win out in the end?
Doesn't it? Or is it always muddied and clouded by the kinds of responses we see here?

Re:holy schizophrenic xenophobia batman

[gobbo]

What a load of hooey, I wasn't trying to finger a group and make people paranoid. Yes I know there are a host of virulent racists reading /. who might take stories like this as 'yellow horde' justification, but is american rhetoric so hopeless that anti-racists have to tiptoe around the idiots all the time? Or did you just want to find someone to flame? You misread my post, anyway.

It doesn't change the fact that N.A. and european intel agencies are confused by running up against a very distributed information flow that relies on the diaspora. And that it's cool and rather funny!

Re:holy schizophrenic xenophobia batman

[Anonymous Coward]

The family comment was out of line.

But the technique is known as "beach combing." Chinese citizens are interviewed on their return to the PRC. It doesn't mean that *every* citizen of the PRC is an informant. It does mean, however, that it's remarkably difficult to prevent the leaking of information, since there are so much data being gathered and correlated.

For what it's worth, the CIA does the same thing to a lesser extent with US citizens. The effort is more targeted, but only because the agency has other, less expensive/intrusive means of gathering the same data that the PRC's MSS (and other agencies that lack the large resources of something like the FSB or CIA) is looking for.

Nothing racist about applying the technique. Though when a bonafide agent is caught, you can expect him / her to play every card the prosecuting system gives them (the Pollard case is one example). US agents do the same thing.

The intelligence game is long and bloody but never seems to resolve anything. It could be much more. Ironically, history shows that, absent armed conflict, people want the material prosperity that democratic societies (appear to) have and, in end, have so far been willing to get over their issues of personal insecurity in exchange for that...The point is that "special operations" and much of espionage (absent a "hot" war) is worthless, in the end...Well, perhaps it's a credible "back channel" in times of increased tensions.

As a final observation, the obsession the PRC seems to have with internal security and the fits they seem to have over any mention of Tibetian independence (or more than one party) seem to be reflective of a very fragile society. What was the reasoning behind the invasion of Tibet, anyway? Has it been worth the hit the PRC takes every time it gets mentioned?
   

Re:holy schizophrenic xenophobia batman

[Anonymous Coward]

you're a chink aren't ya, ya motherfuckin yellow fag

futile attempt..

[Anonymous Coward]

eh eh, this is so small. this is so small. tiny. really can't blame the chinese for anything, we should actually give them a helping hand instead. americans have their spyware in some 90% of worlds desktop computers, NSAKEYs awaiting.

Canadian Version

[Anonymous Coward]

run thru Tor

In Canada, if a message is secret and urgent, Tor is used to get it close to the destination. Then it is printed in code and sent on its final leg strapped to a Husky.

In other words (ahem): Canadians send secret Rush messages By Tor and The Snow Dog .

Re:Canadian Version

[Ihmhi]

That one was such a stretch that it would give Dhalsim a leg cramp.

Haha! Windows for Chumps.

[Drone69]

Isn't the hub parked at Bill Gates' house?

um, or he got sold out?

[SuperBanana]

The only Burmese contact he had at the time was Skyping with his ex-girlfriend, a student at a nearby liberal arts school who organized protests of greater scope on her campus

Did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, your roommate was sold out by his "burmese contact"? Skype sniffers can't tell the Burmese government that the other person was the ex-girlfriend of a...I don't know what the fuck is going on in that set of connections, but dude, it's far more likely the guy in Burma is on the take...or someone in his apartment is.

Or maybe you all wildly misinterpreted his mother's "don't make waves" urgings.

Re:um, or he got sold out?

[Renraku]

Why go on a wild goose chase?

China has been known to threaten entire families to keep one person from causing a ruckus.

China has been known to execute entire families to make an example out of one person that caused a ruckus.

Re:um, or he got sold out?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am going to say no. She was in far deeper than he was, organizing protests in a nearby city and rallying about 1200 students at her 1800 student school.

I was right!

[zonker]

It turns out there really is a vast global conspiracy.

Protip: Don't be a sucker like your neighbors. Sure they look great but it is unnecessary to wear fancy headgear to avoid the reds mindcontrol beams. Tinfoil works just fine!

Hmmm... I smell...

[Datamonstar]

A lie!

the researchers found no evidence of infiltration of US government computers...

Whatever.

Re:Hmmm... I smell...

[DragonTHC]

there are a few things we don't yet know.

It might be us who ran that spy net. It could also be the chinese, the russians or even the pakistanis.

Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[h00manist]

How can you be sure your computer is 100% secure, and not infiltrated? Even in a fresh-installed, never-connected OS (any OS), how to be sure all executables on the CD don't have some hidden code in them, even when first released, that was somehow slipped in? What OS do they use in embassies, military, etc? What security measures, products, procedures?

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Snospar]

This might earn me a "whoosh" but I trust those Debian guys to check the code before they build it into securely signed binary packages for me and other joes to consume. Before it reaches me the software has already had "many eyes" looking at it.

For which I am extremely grateful!

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Anzhr]

Just to add: as am I. As Ballmer put it: "Developers, developers, developers!!" But also, "Maintainers, maintainers, maintainrs!!"

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[r1d3r]

Yeah, like the NSAKEY in windows?

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[grcumb]

...I trust those Debian guys to check the code before they build it into securely signed binary packages for me and other joes to consume. Before it reaches me the software has already had "many eyes" looking at it.

The funny thing is that even when 'many eyes' fail (for example, the recent Debian SSL debacle), people still assume that the process works, including the bad guys.

I wrote more about this issue in an article titled 'Trust Works All Ways'.

I'm no security professional, so I could be wrong here, but I've seen no indication that there was any systematic exploitation of that gaping security hole during the 18 months it was present. Yes, the reason is laxity, and that's a flaw in the process. But the fascinating part is that it appears everyone - white hat to black - has faith in the process.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Snospar]

I take some comfort from the fact that the "SSL debacle" was such big news, that problems that serious don't happen very often. I agree that it's bad that they did happen at all but they were spotted and fixed real fast. I don't think closed and/or proprietary code stands up so well, look at the recent adobe problems,

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

This might earn me a "whoosh" but I trust those Debian guys to check the code before they build it into securely signed binary packages for me and other joes to consume. Before it reaches me the software has already had "many eyes" looking at it.

Okay, but what does that have to do with making sure your computer isn't compromised?

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[h00manist]

Me, defending linux, once made that argument to a windows defending colleague at work. He asked me if I could be sure that ALL of linux, every single piece of every project, could be reviewed before inclusion on an install CD. Well, I can't review all source to every program running on my linux box. Who's to say some spy agengy hasn't managed to penetrate a project with a 'volunteer', and insert some bit of obfuscated code into some project, which nobody has yet reviewed and caught?

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Snospar]

Fair point, but with Debian you have a longer review period than many other distros. Part of the ethos that makes Debian "Stable" stable is the fact that it has been looked at by several developers, not just one agent. One guy may package the code but several others have to review it before acceptance.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Clarious]

A lot of computers in the world are made in China you know? They have plenty of chance to slip something in that is very hard to detect.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[h00manist]

The US spy agencies I would say have the most opportunities, and many motives, to infiltrate products. Cisco, Solaris, HP, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Sprint, ATT... any company could be easily persuaded or forced to comply with lots of spook-friendly practices, and there are lots of cases of it already known to the public.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[rtb61]

Largely used open source code is great, in fact those same countries that are infiltrating and spying on others use it to try to keep their machines safe. However I seem to remember the US government inserting chips in printers that well, were used to break the law in other countries. So those cheap computers chips coming out of China, good luck trying to run secure software on basically unsecured by design hardware.

The thing to keep in mind is how many of those ghostnet machines came out of the factory already compromised. In this case global trade can be used to punish miscreant countries. If a countries network is causing damage to another countries network resulting in damages in the billions under existing international laws that country is liable for that negligence and should be forced to pay the other countries costs via civil suit in the International courts and the WTO. It after all represents the theft of digital data and the purposeful exportation of corrupt and destructive digital transmissions.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Zancarius]

It's possible that part of this may be related to the same phenomenon responsible for the old adage: The best place to hide something is in plain sight. Except that I would imagine it could be rephrased to suggest that plain sight simply renders a possible exploit so obvious that "surely no one would be this stupid..."

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[mpe]

Fair point, but with Debian you have a longer review period than many other distros. Part of the ethos that makes Debian "Stable" stable is the fact that it has been looked at by several developers, not just one agent. One guy may package the code but several others have to review it before acceptance.

The compare that with the review process for proprietary software. Especially considering that OSS can be reviewed by "outsiders".

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many eyes" is not proof against mistakes. There will always be mistakes.

The point is to try and minimize them.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Pictish Prince]

How can you be sure your computer is 100% secure, and not infiltrated? Even in a fresh-installed, never-connected OS (any OS), how to be sure all executables on the CD don't have some hidden code in them, even when first released, that was somehow slipped in? What OS do they use in embassies, military, etc? What security measures, products, procedures?

I feel far, far more secure running an OS that I downloaded with a MD5 checksum, whose code is open for all to see, rather than black box software produced by a corporation whose disregard for human rights is at least as great as its slavering subservience to government.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[HiThere]

But do remember, even Debian can make mistakes. Think ssh.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[HiThere]

ssh? Sorry. Maybe it should have been ssl.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[jknapka]

1. Write a simple Forth runtime system in x86 assembly. That's a simple enough task for an undergrad semester project, and Forth is enough of a high-level language to make the next steps less hellish than they would be using raw machine code. At this stage you can assemble your Forth using, say, Nasm, for testing, but you want to keep it as simple as possible because of the next step:

2. Assemble your Forth, by hand, on paper, into x86 machine code. Use the hex editor of your choice, under any OS, to write that raw hex data to /dev/fd0 -- a blank, raw floppy. Boot from that floppy. Now you should be in a secure environment. A flaw here is that if your hex editor has been hacked to recognize an OS being written in raw hex and patch it with some exploit, you're still screwed. You could double-check by opening the file with a different editor or viewer (one a different machine and OS, preferably) and confirm the contents are as you expect. Unless the Adversary has patched all conceivable editing/viewing tools (including cat) to insert (and recognize) identical exploits -- in which case we're all screwed -- you can be reasonably confident that your new OS is exploit-free. (Unless, y'know, you fucked up somewhere.)

3. Write a simple line editor in Forth. Maybe use that to implement a vi analog, if you're ambitious. Save your editor back to the floppy, then write-protect the floppy. Now you have a safe OS and editor with which to work on the next step.

4. Write a C compiler in Forth. Don't get complicated -- compile full standard C, but don't worry too much about optimization, since this is just a bootstrap compiler.

5. Get the source for GCC -- preferably an early, simple release. Examine it carefully for exploits and exploit-insertion code. Once you're confident it's clean, port it to your Forth-based OS and compile it with your bootstrap compiler.

6. Now you have a clean GCC with which to compile an OS and utilities. Build a stripped-down Linux kernel and BusyBox -- again, after thoroughly examining the source thereof for exploits. Write to a new blank floppy, then write-protect the floppy. Voila, an exploit-free and fairly mainstream OS from which to bootstrap an actually-useful system.

Epilogue: Of course, there could still be exploits present in the BIOS or hardware of your machine -- keyloggers for example. So this exercise might not be worth the trouble. Also I may be overlooking some other flaws.

Re:Is anyone's computer 100% secured?

[Anonymous Coward]

even microsoft had a bug in the hypervisor for the xbox360.

the truth?

[circletimessquare]

so solly! please to be folgiving, i not know insclutable asian palt of mindless botnet!

"The bulk of Chinese intel is heavily distributed. The world's largest families don't need to rely on 007 agents; they can aggregate huge quantities of data by getting observant volunteers from the chinese diaspora to send bits of info back home through regular channels, like aunt Ping or even uncle James. It's so distributed it doesn't look like spying, and it isn't really, in the traditional sense."

please, educate little knee jerk foolish me. describe how this works exactly

this is what it sounds like right now: so we have chinese americans. and they are doing what exactly? they hear bits and pieces. a guy walks by them on the street and they overhear a bit of conversation? then the next chinese person, he sees parts of a file on a disk drive. and these peopple "unwittingly" do this through... family gatherings? what are they, robots? oh right, they ARE: "I think it's brilliant, even if wholly dependent on the chinese sense of family ties. A malware attack is a similar approach: it doesn't look like the work of spies, at first, and it's broadly distributed."

so chinese americans, you know, they go the laundromat or the chinese restaurant, as they all do, right? and there they consort and whisper all their gems of intel, and through "aunt ping", pass the info back to the mothership, i mean, er, the chinese communist party, since all asian people are obedient ant-like slaves to the old country, right? do i understand your genius grasp on the secret truth of the world i deny out of my liberal bleeding heart yet?

please! tell me where i am wrong in that description, i await my enlightenment

Re:the truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

We await your enlightenment too, maybe it will finally be enough to get you to use bloody capitals!

You complaining about racism, given your anti arab paranoia is to say the least amusing.

Re:the truth?

[xouumalperxe]

You needn't have "obedient ant-like slaves to the old country". You needn't have some overarching conspiracy in place either. All you need is plain old social ties. Wherever you have large numbers of immigrants, you also get communities, because you need the feeling you belong. Bonus points for cultures that tend to be gregarious (dunno if it's actually the case with the Chinese). People tend to be interested in the things that influence themselves or their kin, and will pick that information up. People gossip, it's a fact of life. Once you have a largish "spy network" of immigrants in place, who might actually get to moderately seyou just have to have a comparatively small number of plants in the community, who gather, filter, and report all that gossip back to "the mothership".

Re:the truth?

[xouumalperxe]

who might actually get to moderately seyou just

"who might actually get to moderately sensitive places on account of not actually having anything negative in their backgrounds, you just" (...). Reviewing and editing your post, and then forgetting about it midway through royally sucks.

Let the Chinese compromise it

[thewils]

Then set up another more secure network, but keep using the compromised version to disseminate false notices, making the Chinese Gov't respond to false information...

I have wondered about that.

[WindBourne]

China not only has their money fixed against the dollar, but they also have trade barriers against imports. Now, they are fighting to continue to pollute at will, while the west is cracked down. It seems to me that if the west is smart, they will skip the cap/trade and instead do a VAT on ALL GOODS (local made for local sell and imported for local sell ) BASED ON POLLUTION esp CO2.

I could say "no windows" but not really...

[erroneus]

Governments need to WAKE THE HELL UP and start enforcing policies against certain kinds of uses of government computer systems. And yes, it would be nice if the systems were loaded with "dedicated functions" without the ability to do anything more than that which is needed to do their jobs. But that's not how Windows works is it?

Some serious actions against China should be taken, but then again, those same actions should be taken against the U.S. as you can bet the U.S. is guilty of the same if not worse behavior with all the crap the NSA and CIA have been doing.

Easy 2 part solution

[joeszilagyi]

This is all easily remedied. 1. No government system with anything even vaguely sensitive let alone classified is allowed anything but heavily secured access routed through random proxies (so you can't see .gov whatever for source IP), no-admin/no-root systems, and heavily micro-managed/monitored systems. 2. All VOIP or communications systems come with high-level encryption on only open-source systems, with no government backdoors.

Re:Easy 2 part solution

[AMuse]

That's a remarkably simple solution!

I'm interested but please elaborate a bit.

1) Define "even vaguely sensitive" data. At which point does information universally become sensitive?
1a) Of particular interest, at which point does NONsensitive information that is meant to be public become, in aggregate, sensitive?
2) Define how the access is to be secured. By protocol would be helpful.
3) Explain how the network of random proxies would be set up so as to obfuscate their government nature while thousands of government employees do their jobs via those links
4) Define how government scientists and engineers, robotics specialists, munitions developers, etc would get their jobs done with no root access to their systems.
5) Describe the code assurance program by which you would ensure that all code running on those systems had no backdoors

Once you've got those details sufficiently mapped out, you can put together a white paper and begin proposing it to the NSA.

What the hell are you rambling about?

[Xenographic]

> High-sounding but irrelevant verbiage having no bearing on the facts. I mean, how grandiose you are in dismissing one simple fact: working our manufacturing economy was how Americans managed to have a standard of living envied by most of the world. How do you think wealth is created? By magic? Hardly: it's by building and selling things to other countries, it's called trade.

So, let me get this straight. We have a huge trade deficit. This means that we're exporting American dollars and importing lots of foreign products. You're telling me we're screwed because those dollars aren't really worth anything, not being real wealth.

But we're getting rid of those and getting real, physical goods for that money.

Please explain to me one more time how we're getting the short end of the stick in that arrangement? If things go belly-up, we still have all those goods that we bought. What makes you say that an industrial superpower is the only kind?

> Suppose we took your idea to its logical conclusion, and ended up with an entirely automated production system with no need for people at all. We'd all be unemployed at that point. No thanks.

Would anyone NEED to be employed at that point, if robots could take care of everything?

chinese govt opposed to cybercrime

[schamarty]

from tfa: the spokesman, Wenqi Gao, said. "The Chinese government is opposed to and strictly forbids any cybercrime."

yup -- just like the Pakistan government is opposed to and strictly forbids terrorism...

take your marketting elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

do you get a paycheck for everytime you mention that lamoid website?

so solly!

[circletimessquare]

please to be folgiving, i not know insclutable asian palt of mindless botnet!

your post is racist nonsense, regardless of your intent

It's 2009 fgs !

[freaker_TuC]

In what kind of age do you live ? It's 2009, where AI is still in it's babysteps...

By then we don't have robots to deal with, but grey goo ;)

You are a murderer bastard

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess you are. We only didn't find out so far. And if so, you would have bribed the discoverer.

See where your "logic" leads? Totally worthless.

Phishing appears to be good enough

[Get Behind the Mule]

As near as I can tell from the Markoff article, the infiltration was made possible by run-of-the-mill phishing attacks. (Markoff says it's called "whaling" when it's directed at specific high-level targets. I've never heard of that, and don't really see any substantive difference.)

If so, then technically speaking there's probably nothing really new here. What seems interesting to me is:

- Obviously, the vast scale, the sensitivity of the targets, and the potential political impact.

- The operation has not been publicly revealed by government agencies (FBI sez "no comment"), but rather by Nart Villeneuve et al. at the University of Toronto.

- Phishing is evidently effective enough to make widespread infiltration like this possible. Sure, there are more sophisticated things that attackers could do, and of course most users should know better than to blindly click links in their email. But here we are, phished to death all over the world. Why should an attacker go to any more trouble?

I wonder how much security improvement would be gained if Thunderbird & Outlook disabled the automatic opening of a browser when you click on a link in email, and made us go back to the old days of copying & pasting links. Would users be more careful if they could more easily see what they're doing?

Re: Phishing appears to be good enough

[schwaang]

I wonder how much security improvement would be gained if Thunderbird & Outlook disabled the automatic opening of a browser when you click on a link in email, and made us go back to the old days of copying & pasting links. Would users be more careful if they could more easily see what they're doing?

That wouldn't have helped here.

According to the report, at least some of the phishing was carefully devised with obvious effort made to trick (socially engineer) its specific target into opening an infected Word document.

An example given was an email sent to the office of the Dalai Lama, which was crafted to appear legitimate and relevant, and included an infected attachment whose trojan was detected by only 11 out of 30-odd commercial virus checkers.

As you say, phishing is not new technically speaking, but the researchers conclude that this is clearly a narrow-cast spying effort as opposed to the run-of-the-mill wide-cast steal-your-bank-account operation.

Re: Phishing appears to be good enough

[Get Behind the Mule]

According to the report, at least some of the phishing was carefully devised with obvious effort made to trick (socially engineer) its specific target into opening an infected Word document.

An example given was an email sent to the office of the Dalai Lama, which was crafted to appear legitimate and relevant, and included an infected attachment whose trojan was detected by only 11 out of 30-odd commercial virus checkers.

Touché. So in addition to the narrowly-targeted phishing, they took advantage of a slight lead in the "arms race" between virus checkers and attackers. And that was enough to get a helluva job done.

Is there any realistic way to prevent something like this in the future? I'm afraid I don't see anything obvious.

Re: Phishing appears to be good enough

[schwaang]

Is there any realistic way to prevent something like this in the future? I'm afraid I don't see anything obvious.

Me neither. The Cambridge tech report has some thoughts about what organizations with sensitive data should be doing by way of countermeasures, but to sum it up:

Prevention will be hard. The traditional defence against social malware in government agencies involves expensive and intrusive measures that range from mandatory access controls to tiresome operational security procedures. These will not be sustainable in the economy as a whole. Evolving practical low-cost defences against social-malware attacks will be a real challenge.

In their conclusion they say:

In short, we predict that the criminals who adapt social malware to fraud will enjoy many years of rich pickings.

your math is screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

In exchange for your $10, you've made a whole series of people $2 richer, and you now own a book presumably worth $10 to you. That $10 just became $20 of national wealth, by the "magic" of economics.

Thinking like this is what has gotten this country is such a mess. Your math is screwed.

For one thing your book is worth $10 not because you think it is worth $10 but the people buying think it is worth $10.

OK you sell it for 10 but do you make 10? No. You have overhead. Your book on your P&L statement is only worth the $2 profit you made. To the printer you book is only worth the $2 profit he makes and so forth. There is no magic here. 6+2+2=10

Just because someone sent you $10 for your book doesn't mean you can spend the whole $10 as profit. You have fucking bills to pay. You are right in the sense that this is banking and business today yes this is why things are sooo fucked up. Banks got your $10 in the coffers and loaned out $20 on it to other people that put down $10 profit on their P&L statement when it fact they only made $2. So now comes the time you must pay back the 10 but you only have 2 to pay to the bank because the 8 was only a fantasy you had to pay it out for overhead. So you default on the $10 loan. Lets say you paid the $2 the bank is still out $8. Now what about the other phantom $10 made by magic? Well the bank loaned it to another person that doctored his P&L statement and he defaults so now the bank is down $16 when in the beginning it only had $10 to start with.

You get $10.. you shell out $8 to print.. 10-8=2

Sorry there is no magic. There is no goose that lays golden eggs.

close but not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

I found the general analysis of the attack to be accurate however there were a few issues:

- They tried to coin a new phrase of "social phishing". The phrase "spear phishing" is already in use in the security world for these kinds of attacks.

- Their recommendations on how to mitigate these attacks fall FAR short of what it actually takes to defend. These attacks are very difficult to defend against using commercial products with commercial signatures. They are all custom crafted to avoid detection. You have to develop custom detection schemes today to catch most of it.

Re:China Is A Nice Distraction: +1, Helpful

[macdaddy]

If I'm not mistaken his President 'boss' hit his two-term limit and the both of them left office on January 20th. Of course Mr Cheney is still on TV touting who knows what BS. Perhaps he can be the next Sham-Wow pitch man.

excuse me

[circletimessquare]

what information is gleaned?

i overhear a bit of a conversation? i see a file? what the hell can be gleaned from random exposure to bits of detritus?

either you are a spy with a target and a purpose, or you are what, exactly?

i'd like to be more diplomatic, but i have to be honest: you are of low intelligence and highly xenophobic. i have not yet been described a coherent threat to american national security from random chinese people doing random things. nor do i see how there could be

i mean, you couldn't even describe to me an entertaining b-grade hollywood movie from this fantasy life of yours. how does it work, you read them a robert frost poem?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telefon

jesus christ, people believe the most severely retarded things

Government agents breaking local laws?

[Dan B.]

Would the Chinese agents be covered by diplomatic immunity for breaking US Laws? I think not, and last time I checked, it was illegal to gain unwarranted access to a communications device (email in this case) under US Federal Law without a US issued court order. As the server is based in California, it does indeed fall under US law. The good thing about it being a Federal offence is that it gets looked after by the Feds who can actually do something about international suspects.

So how do you go about putting members of a foreign government department in to INTERPOL?

i don't have any antiarab paranoia

[circletimessquare]

although i can see how in a demented mind that can only view it through the lens of racism, that if i argue against religious extremism, whether christian, jewish, or muslim, that this makes me somehow anti-arab

you're a simple idiot. you can only see the world in simple stupid ways. you can only process my words according to your retarded proclivities

CIA propaganda is so transparent

[BoredSillyNZ]

Obviously a story planted by the CIA to further demonize the Chinese government. Why, you ask ... here are a few obvious reasons that come screaming out of the page. 1. Of all the thousands of offices and business's affected by the "worm" it was the good ole CIA's number one buddy the Dali lama and his office employees that alert the security firm to a possible incursion happening ... Total nonsense. 2. With such a sophisticated worm being created the Chinese didn't have the where with all to hide the fact that it was all originating from Chinese servers ... Total nonsense. 3. No American servers were affected. The Chinese apparently are foiled when it comes to infiltrating any American servers ... Total nonsense.