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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.
The U.S. and other governments have been doing things like this for years...
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.
Eclipse PDE and Me
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
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
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..
Sanctions against China are way overdue. Our gov't and big businesses are just feeding that monster.
Caveat Utilitor
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.
You can't bitch slap China. China owns the USA to a large extent. They could bankrupt the USA.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
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
China owns the USA to a large extent.
I would like to see how they intend to come over here and get it.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
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.
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.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
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.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
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.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Very, very niave.
"GhostNet" What a wacky idea.
ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD!
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"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. :)
The Dalai Lama has (or needs) an office? WTF?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
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.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
hilarious!
PS-i burned myself when the cigarette fell into my lap from laughing!
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
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.
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.
In case they try to compromise the Intersect.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
on spying on the rest of the world? Does "ECHELON" ring a bell?
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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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....
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.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
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.
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.
I wonder how much Microsoft's Malicious Software reporting tool would be to help in targeting specific systems?
See: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/29/Microsoft-botnet-hunting-tool-helps-bust-hackers_1.html
Someone care to expand on the above??? I've googled some but came up with nothing so far.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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?
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
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."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
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
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
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 .
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.
Isn't the hub parked at Bill Gates' house?
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.
Please help metamoderate.
Whatever.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
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.
They're using their grammar skills there.
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?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
"Sweet Clyde, laugh derisively in his direction." - 'Bubblegum' Tate
"You lack the will of the warrior! A Ha! Ha Ha!" - Master Thnog
Sig this!
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...
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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 prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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.
Dude, where's my packet?
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.
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.
you have obviously never been in south western united states. people have no problem sneaking across the border. they just land in mexico first.
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.
> 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?
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.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
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.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
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...
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?
well... thats what the parent meant by china owning the us. not saying that china can be independent of the us though
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!
Damn those pesky terrorists
lolwut? Can I haz your herb?
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 ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
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.
So when you go out on the town, you're really there to forge new alliances?
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?
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
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.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Dread ? Why ?
Does the USA dread Europe which, as a combined economy, is larger ?
Or do you just not like the Chinese
"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."
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
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.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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?
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
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.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
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.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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.
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".
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.