Slashdot Mirror
Hundreds of Thousands of Chinese Black-Hats
An anonymous reader sends us to Popular Science for a long article on the loose, uncoordinated bands of patriotic Chinese hackers that seem to be responsible for much of the cyber-trouble emerging from that nation. Quoting: "For years, the U.S. intelligence community worried that China's government was attacking our cyber-infrastructure. Now one man has discovered it's more than that: it's hundreds of thousands of everyday Chinese civilians. ... Jack Linchuan Qiu, a communications professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong [says:] 'Chinese hackerism is not the American "hacktivism" that wants social change. It's actually very close to the state. The Chinese distinction between the private and public domains is very small.' ... According to [James Andrew Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies], 'The government at a minimum tolerates them. Sometimes it encourages them. And sometimes it tasks them and controls them.' In the end, he says, 'it's easy for the government to turn on and hard to turn off.'"
The chinese are just as nationalistic as any other group. Do they like how their gov operates? I doubt it. BUT, do they love their country? Sure. Of course, telling the crackers that if they crack local systems, they will get the death penality, but if they crack Foreign systems (namely the west) and share with the gov, they will get money, has a LOT to do with this. Basically, we are still in a cold war with one side KNOWING that it is, while the other side hopes that it is not.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What's up with all these "chinese menace" news? There are two in the front page right now, and more or less a dozen this year. Stirring up the herd with this "us vs. them" mentality is something that I'm not be surprised to see on the mainstream media, but here on Slashdot?
When it is not about the Chinese it is about Venezuela. Or Cuba. Brazil and Iran. Good old (ex)Soviet Russia. The french and the european in general.
Echoing Homeland Security FUD the way Slashdot is doing is only to generate buzz, flamebaiting the pro- and the anti-american, creating nothing but more endless threads of mutual accusations and jingoistic regurgitation, overgeneralizing statements and outright racist/xenophobic ones.
Fuck that, if there is nothing better to fill the main index, please, post less, not worse.
We only take action when our bean counters say we've sustained enough damage to cover the cost of change. Just look at flight safety regulations, or car safety regulations, or food safety regulations, or environmental regulations...
mmmm...forbidden donut
I'm not real worried about insurgents altering the geopolitical balance of power. I am worried about China doing the same.
Simple test. Get two oil tankers. Put a Chinese flag on one, put a US flag on the other. Sail them along the Somali coast. See which one gets fired upon and which one does not.
How much of this is just loose, uncoordinated hackers, using proxies in china?
nationalism and organized religion are forces in this world which must be defeated if we are all to live in peace
I think that contains a subset of the real problem. The real problem is people thinking that, because they belong to a certain group (country, religion, secret club), they are somehow better than people not in the same group. Nations and religions are not the problem, it's the idea that "I'm better than you" because of some group.
i read about it in a blog once
Ok, over the last couple weeks, several stories have made their way into the news about cybersecurity.
These stories overstate the threat, and, in particular, only serve to loudly announce things which are already well known. For example, the fact that DoD systems are probed continuously by the Chinese. But! That's always been true. Where were all the alarming sounding news reports last year? Two years ago? Ten years ago? Where was Jay Rockefeller's Senate bill, S. 773, which aims to restrict Internet freedom in the United States in previous years? We can all expect the media heat to increase even more as the public is whipped into a frenzy of fear, and then comes to accept that we need the Federal Government to restrict our Internet freedom--for our own safety, of course!
As these stories come through Slashdot, we all bicker amongst ourselves as to how grave the threat is. Or where it's coming from. Or how we might combat it. It's so predictable. And while we're distracted with these irrelevant (although admittedly interesting in some cases) discussions, Senate and House bills are moving through our Congress right now which I consider to be "Patriot Acts" for the Internet. Nobody is talking about those, though.
We get what we deserve when we demand nothing at all.
I Want To Believe
nationalism and organized religion are forces in this world which must be defeated if we are all to live in peace
I disagree with your blanket statement about organized religion, and with blanket statements in general. It is this kind of closed minded thinking that causes problems in the first place. There are a number of organized religions that work towards peace and the civil treatment of all human beings, I point you to the Catholic Church's pope as an example.
Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with being proud of where you come from, as long as you are willing to accept that others will also be proud of where they come from, and have value to offer.
SSBN's are not necessarily the trump card everyone makes them up to be. They are effective against other nuclear submarines such as the Alpha which is renowned for generating large amounts of self-noise.
They are not however overly effective against diesel-electric submarines that can move through the water with a lot less noise generation. I would assume that the Chinese has a fleet of Kilo-like class of diesel-electrics that would prevent or threaten naval operation close to their shores.
In the end, deterrence is one of the biggest factors. If stories from the Royal Australian Navy and their ilk is true and that they have been able to stalk and shadow carriers in their 'outdated' submarine technology, then the Americans would think twice before getting too close.
My first reaction was that the most amazing thing about this was that with the internet at their fingertips, those people still believe in the oppressive system. But as already pointed out, it isn't that amazing, altough hard to understand for the American Mind[tm]. Then again, at least the Europeans will forcibly learn to love oppression that with 'net-cencorship in full rising swing over there.
The really scary thing is that the danger of Chinese World Domination[tm] is not that much because the effects are diminishingly distinguishable from American World Domination[tm] or European World Domination[tm] or even Muslim World Domination[tm]. To us, that is. To the people at the various tops it matters a great deal, but not to Joe Average or even Jack Slashdotter. Think about it. The only difference is which freedoms you're losing first, not how many.
Don't believe me? Blackmailers and tyrants never stop at their first success, ask any criminologist.
Oh, and maybe you'll have to learn Chinese. Big deal. Otherwise all the Chinese would have to learn English. At least their literature has a bit of history behind it.
Why do people not just drop the traffic from these harbors of hostile activity? Even if a cracker was located outside of China and using TOR or something similar to route through China, drop them at the last mile. This will provide at least a small amount of relief. I am sure somebody will respond to that idea with "well they would just use local zombies then". Yes, but dealing with hostile intent on your own soil is much easier to deal with than trying to shut down a connection on foreign soil. Can anyone come up with a reason that doing this on and government network/resource shouldn't be a standard practice? Does anyone in China have a legitimate reason for going to a DoD/FBI/NSA/Military network presence? Nope, not really. Should anyone care if somebody in Hong Kong cannot get to the NYPD website? Nope, not really. Sorry if this sounds a bit extreme but come on, when somebody is able to siphon off terabytes of stolen data on one of the most expensive military projects ever, measures need to be taken.
Maybe our government should start sponsoring patriotic groups of our own in the same way that China does. Instead of treating misguided young hackers as hardened criminals, give them a free pass to operate outside of our borders. Send them a case of Red Bull and a job offer in a few years. Sounds fair to me.
that what is motivating some people in china is exactly the kind of "us vs them" mentality you denounce in the west?
yes, such blind nationalist rabble rousing exists in the west
but what good does it do to pretend it doesn't exist in china?
at best, you are intellectually dishonest, at worst, you are exactly like those who are blindly nationalistic: criticism is something that you can only point at yourself. you are exactly like a blind nationalist because you think only in terms of western actions, as if there are no other actors in the world. in your world view, all we can do is criticize the west, that, for example, if china does some horrible crime, who are we to judge?
well, yes, we CAN judge. as a nonchinese, i am 100% free to criticize china. as long as i do it with intellectual honesty, that openly admits western crimes as well
in fact, to NOT criticize china at all, and only the west, is to serve only some sort of defeatist attitude. not nationally defeatist, but defeatist in terms of the idea that we need to move beyond nationalism, and think critically in terms of world problems free of nationalistic prejudice. you still have a nationalistic prejudice, you just apply it backwards than most. this is an intellectually inferior approach than the idea that you freely criticizing all parties in the world, free of nationalistic prejudice, basing your observations on principles, and principles alone
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow. I rant quite a bit about the threat that China represents, but you certainly take the paranoid cake.
A few issues with your post:
1. China is not an existential threat. That would indeed be the Muslim extremists. You're simply confusing the intent of terrorists with the capability of China.
2. Nuclear boomers are not the solution, and a volley of missiles from them will not terminate the Chinese leadership. Not to mention that it will also mean the end of the US. Remember MAD? Apparently not.
3. Panama owns the Panama Canal. You're referring to the two ports on the exits/entries of the Canal which have been leased to Hutchinson Whampoa. There's a slight, but significant difference there, especially since the US retains the official right to intervene militarily to protect its access to the channel.
4. The treasuries currently bought by the Chinese are their Achilles hill as much as it is ours. How does it go? If you owe a bank 20k, the bank owns you. If you owe a bank 20 million, you own the bank. The comment by the ministry was the sound of a concerned investor: "Please don't fuck with my money."
I find mostly two types of misconceptions about China: either it's a monolithic group of "Reds", with the best of the Cold War rhetoric attached to it. Or it has a master plan to gain world domination, and is deploying it relentlessly.
Both are wrong. China has as many internal issues as any other country, and is subject to all the economic pressures that affect others. The two things that are true are:
1 China thinks longterm. I'm talking decades, centuries.
2 Land and respect is everything.
China can be an issue, and is aggressively pursuing a strategy that will make it the superpower of the world. But that doesn't mean that the only interaction with them will be through nuclear volleys.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Welcome to 2002.
of course violence will never end for bullshit reasons
do you believe we can minimize it, or not?
or are we doomed to hellish deaths by the millions for stupid reason forever?
if you don't believe in progress, you are part of the problem. you have complicitly accepted the evil that will happen in this world. this is not intelligence, this is mindless cynicism
i believe we can do better. do you believe that or not?
are you intellgient? or are you an empty pointless negative cynic?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It is a little disappointing to see /. add to the Chinaphobia media feeding frenzy.
I mean, there are many internal problems with China, and this hacking issue is clearly a potential cause for concern but is there and evidence that there are more hacks coming from China per capita than anywhere else in the world? I would like to see that sort of evidence first before pointing fingers.